The air hung thick and heavy, pregnant with the earthy scent of decay and burgeoning life. The sickly sweet smell of the fungal pathogen clung to everything, a constant reminder of the network war tearing through the Myriad and, by extension, the town. Ethan felt it in his bones, the slow, creeping rot that mirrored the disquiet in the eyes of his neighbors, the unnatural stillness of the fields that had once pulsed with vibrant growth.