Chapter 1: Sally
Newington, Edinburgh
October 17, 2025
The mould had personality, Sally decided. Not in a good way, but still more than her boss.
She sat at her kitchen table, really just a fold-out thing screwed to the wall between the ancient Belling cooker and the sash window that would neither shut or open properly. She stared up at the beautiful Victorian plasterwork, the water stains, the ornate ceiling rose, that flaking paint. All specially protected architectural features of course that make listed building living such a privilege.
Also: black mould creeping from every corner where damp got in.
The landlord's last email had been clear: "Period features require period expectations. Dealing with condensation is the tenants responsibility and you have been very generously provided with a JVL Chillimax Air Cooler and Dehum"
The dehumidifier that broke after three weeks and hadn't been replaced.
Sally refreshed her banking app. Rent due in two weeks. £1,100 for a one-bed flat with mould, drafts, and a shower that worked three days out of seven. Forty five percent of her monthly salary. Every month. For the privilege of being within walking distance of the city centre and a short bus ride to KB campus.
2:1 in Philosophy and an MSc in Linguistics. Four generations since anyone in her family had been to university. And here she was, living in mouldy conditions reminiscent of the Haunting of Hill House, while her landlord collected rent on four other flats in the same building. She wondered if the other flats had similar issues but asking her transient neighbours was out of the question.
The radio chattered from the other room, as it did all day, every day. Sal's very own Cosmic Microwave Background, providing beautifully rich and complex rhythms intertwined with half-hourly reminders of state-supported genocide, growing fascism, and updates on who's the biggest backstabber on The Traitors.
"Chernobyl exclusion zone, where scientists have recently report unprecedented activity seen in the radiation-resistant fungal species found in the former reactor plant."
Sally's attention snagged. She grabbed her tea, stone cold now, typical, and moved closer to the doorway.
The news reader's voice continued over what sounded like atmospheric electronica, some producer's idea of "science music."
"Cladosporium sphaerospermum, the radiation-resistant spherical mould found at Chernobyl, has exhibited synchronised acceleration across monitoring sites worldwide. Scientists are calling the coordinated growth patterns 'unprecedented' and 'unexplained'."
Black mould.
Sally looked back toward her kitchen ceiling.
Is that?
She went back, stood on one of the wobbly chairs, stepped onto the undersized kitchen table, pulled out her phone and started photographing.
The mould on her ceiling, around where a now redundant heat sensor had recently fell off, wasn't just spreading randomly. There was a pattern. Dark concentric spherical shells radiating outward. What the factual feck! She would know organised growth when she saw it after three years studying natural systems, however the disbelief at what was right in front of her was just as real.
But mould didn't grow in perfect concentric spheres. Not in Edinburgh tenements. Not from condensation and landlord neglect.
Her phone was already in her hand, searching for answers before she'd even consciously decided.
Black mould spiral pattern October 2025
Reddit thread, top result: "Is anyone else's mould doing this?"
She clicked, eager to read the post, rejecting the optional cookies with the same gusto she'd applied to her boss's online submission request not an hour before.
The screen loaded and bam! Hundreds of comments. Thousands of upvotes. People posting photos from rental properties all across Scotland and Northern Europe. All black mould. All the same spiral pattern.
All starting October 15th.
From the other room, the radio shifted from Don't Sweat The Technique, back to news.
"And in other developments, Sir Keir Starmer's Government have refused to comment and condemn the apparent ceasefire breach in Gaza, claiming that there is insufficient data to correlate such claims."
Sally's mind began race. Correlation. Causation. Data points.
She scrolled through comments:
"Council won't fix my damp and now this"
"Will I catch covid if I scrape it off and don't use gloves?"
"Landlord says it's nothing to worry about, just condensation and will come off with vinegar"
"Mine looks like its done by Banksy"
"Same pattern in my bathroom, wtf"
"Anyone else seeing this in Barnton?"
"Will I catch covid if I scrape if off?"
Not just private rentals, social housing too. Student accommodation. Houses, bedsits, anywhere the damp got ignored, along with tenants rights.
Someone had posted a link randomly entitled Comms. In a split second she clicked, unsure if it had been instinct or by mistake.
Radiotrophic fungi. Chernobyl. Growth patterns correlated with... what? Electromagnetic fields? Cosmic radiation?
She kept scrolling, scanning through the paper's data like it was something she had already read. But no, this was new to her and something that her default mode network and central executive were firing back and forth without any need for provocation.
October 29th kept appearing. Some kind of astronomical event. An interstellar object passing the sun. Perihelion.
The radio ran on: "And on Celebrity Traitors on tonight, as contestants gather to witness who among them is the biggest....."
Sally stared at her ceiling again. The spiral was definitely bigger than yesterday. She'd been co-habiting with that bloody mould for six months and knew every inch of it.
It was expanding.
Fast.
Her phone buzzed. Email from her landlord: "Regarding your continued concerns about dampness, I must remind you that adequate ventilation is tenant responsibility per your lease agreement..."
She deleted it without reading the rest. Gobshite.
Then she opened her camera and started recording.
"Right. My name's Sally Bell. It's October 17th, 2025. I'm in Newington, Edinburgh, and I'm documenting black mould growth in my flat."
She panned to the ceiling, the spiral in frame and zoomed just enough so the patternation was clear.
"This pattern has appeared in the last week. Same pattern that's being reported at Chernobyl. Same pattern people are posting about from here to bloody Tallinn."
The radio continued with its cosmic background radiation: the usual propaganda, collapse-porn, class war theatre, and the banality of apocalypse as entertainment.
She steadied the phone.
"I know pattern recognition. I know how language structures and I know this isn't normal! This shite is coordinated, synchronised FFS."
She lowered the phone, checked the footage. Clear. Timestamped. Documented.
For the first time in six months of fighting her landlord about the damp, being told she was exaggerating, that she wasn't ventilating properly, that period properties "just have these types of things," she had evidence of something undeniable.
Something was happening with this mould.
The same mould was growing in every neglected corner where people with no power lived, the forgotten places, the rental properties. The damp flats that property owners ignored because tenants couldn't afford to leave.
The oldest network on Earth had always grown in the cracks of human civilisation, but now something was activating it.
Sally uploaded the video to Reddit.
Then X.
Then TikTok for good measure.
She captioned it: "Black mould in my Newington flat showing same pattern as Chernobyl fungus. Started Oct 15th. Radio just mentioned it. Anyone else?
#BlackMould #Chernobyl #SpiralMould #Edinburgh #Fungus"
She hit post on all three and went back to staring at her ceiling and her uninvited flat mate.
Twelve days until perihelion.
Something was coming.
And the network that grew in the margins, the one nobody important ever looked at, the one that thrived in the neglected spaces, that network knew first.