Hello again, Story Club members.

I'm Ivy, your ghostly host with the most and keeper of the strangest,

spookiest tales on earth.

Today is another Ivy's chilling tale.

This tale story club members goes out to my beloved eight-year-old listener, Jacob, who has come up with an awesome, terrifying story for all of us today about fungus.

Ew, gross and gruesome.

Let's do this. Today's tale is one that Jacob and I call

fungal apocalypse. In the town of Greendale, there was a building that everyone knew, the

Greendale Science Institute. A beacon of innovation, the Institute was the pride of the town, and people came from all

over the world to study and experiment there.

That's why Dr. Evelyn Hartman and her team had relocated to Greendale, to work at the

prestigious Greendale Science Institute as they embarked on their most ambitious project yet to tackle an environmental crisis.

Their goal was to create a new species of fungus, to decompose waste more efficiently than anything that had ever existed before.

Their first trial was coming up, and Evelyn's entire team buzzed with anticipation.

Evelyn, a brilliant but sometimes overly ambitious scientist, unveiled her creation to her

eager team.

This, she declared, holding up a petri dish with a glowing greenish substance, is our future.

The team, including young interns Tommy and Lila, looked on in awe.

They had dreamed about participating in a trial for Dr. Evelyn Hartman when they were students,

and now it was really happening.

The fungus, named Verdantium, shimmered under the lab

lights, its spores swirling hypnotically. As the days passed, Verdantium's growth exceeded all

...