Shadow of The Cordyceps is a story about corruption and possession, my second experience with the paranormal, and hopefully my last.

A close friend used to take me to secluded locations where we would explore abandoned sites, sometimes connected to a very dark and bloody history. 

Over the years, I could feel something inside of me being altered, my temper gradually changing with random, unexplained bursts of raw anger. The reason for those sudden mood changes were not justified for the hatred in my voice, during times when I should be expressing joy and love. 

To shorten a long story, I met with a Filipino lady that could see wandering spirits, and more importantly, sever the connection between a spirit’s hold and its living host. Upon meeting her, she confirmed that a spirit latched onto me, for no less than 3 years and with the sole purpose to take over. “Do you feel him when you laugh?” She asked me, and to this I replied: “I do.” Times when alone I’d let escape a forced cackle, worthy of the most insane soul. It was that or the feeling that I would burst if I held it in. 

After a ritual that lasts several minutes, I was free, free and smiling without apparent reasons. I was then told to wash my face as soon as I got home and avoid staring in mirrors, or the spirit would find me once again. The evening ended with a box of a dozen doughnuts, which strangely I gobbled up, not being especially attracted to sweets. The morning later, I belched twice, with an aftertaste of what I would assume to be Mortein (based on the smell), as if a poison suddenly left my body. 

The story of Shadow of The Cordyceps is about a being, infected with a foreign influence, tormenting him until he was fully consumed. Fortunately, this did not happen to me and was able to be salvaged, but this being my second experience with forces I still cannot comprehend to this day, it changed my view of the world. 

What is folklore and what is real, and what lies in the shadows, waiting for an unsuspecting little bug to slowly consume?