Page 34 of Bonded to the Star-Beast

I see him then. His beast form, stalking the edge of my camp. Twelve feet of horned, scaled fury. His golden eyes are fixed on me, burning with a possessive fire. He is here. He has come for me.

No. It's a hallucination. The fever is affecting my visual cortex.

I shake my head, trying to clear the image, but it remains, a terrifyingly solid presence in the wavering, overly-bright landscape.

A storm is rolling in from the mountains. The sky darkens, the wind picks up, whipping through the trees with a mournful howl that mirrors the storm inside my own head.

I need to get back to my shelter. I need my medkit. I need my datapad. I need my data. The data will save me. The data always saves me.

I take a step, and my legs buckle. I fall to my knees in the damp moss, my body wracked with violent shivers. The first drops of rain begin to fall, cold against my burning skin.

The beast in the trees takes a step toward me.

Not real. Not real.

I try to crawl, to drag myself back to the flimsy illusion of safety I have built. But my muscles refuse to obey. My scientific mind, my last line of defense, is dissolving into a chaotic soup of fragmented data and raw, primal fear.

The world tilts, the screaming colors and sounds swirling into a vortex. The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is a pair of glowing golden eyes, filled with an anguish that feels like my own.

My last coherent thought is not a scientific formula. It is not a survival protocol.

It is a name, whispered on a feverish, broken breath.

Jaro.

Chapter 17: FEVER DREAMS

My world is a screaming, over-saturated lie. The light from Xylos's twin suns is no longer just light; it is a physical assault, a blade of searing white that pierces my eyelids and makes my optic nerve ache. The gentle hum of insect life I once documented has become a deafening roar, a dissonant chorus that grinds against my skull. Every scent is a chemical weapon, every gust of wind a rasp of sandpaper against my raw skin.

Systemic failure. Complete sensory overload.

I try to anchor myself with clinical terminology, a final, desperate act of intellectual defiance against my own biological collapse. The atmospheric compounds, the very air I breathe, have become a poison. Without the stabilizing buffer of the bond, my body is losing its war with this planet.

My limbs feel like lead, my movements clumsy and uncoordinated. I stumble from my shelter, a flimsy construction of salvaged metal and woven vines that now seems laughablyinadequate. I need my medkit. I need my datapad. I need data. The data will save me. The data has always been my salvation.

A wave of nausea and vertigo sends me to my knees. The world tilts, the screaming colors and sounds swirling into a vortex. Through the chaos, a shape resolves itself at the edge of the clearing. A hallucination. It must be.

Subject: Jaro. Form: Beast. Observation: Twelve feet of horned, scaled fury. His golden eyes are fixed on me, burning with a possessive fire that feels more real than the ground beneath my hands.

Hypothesis: The fever is affecting my visual cortex, projecting an image of my primary source of psychological stress.

I shake my head, trying to dislodge the image, but it remains, a terrifyingly solid presence in the wavering, overly-bright landscape. The storm I'd seen gathering in the mountains has arrived, the sky turning a bruised purple. The wind howls, a mournful sound that echoes the storm raging inside my own head.

I try to crawl, to drag myself back to the illusion of safety I have built. But my muscles refuse my commands. My scientific mind, my last line of view, is dissolving into a chaotic soup of fragmented data and raw, primal fear.

The last thing I see before the darkness swallows me is a pair of glowing golden eyes, filled with an anguish that feels like my own. My last coherent thought is not a scientific formula. It is not a survival protocol.

It is a name, whispered on a feverish, broken breath.

Jaro.

* * *

Consciousness returns in fragments, like corrupted data files. I am floating in a sea of heat and cold, my body an unreliable vessel.

Observation: I am lying on my bedroll. The shelter wall, previously damaged, has been reinforced with interwoven branches. A new, tightly stretched tarp from my emergency kit covers the opening, keeping the driving rain out. My skin is cool. Someone has been bathing my face with a damp cloth.

I drift.

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