Exploring Titan

~26~

It's been 3 days of radio silence.

No calls. No messages. No super chats in the comments.

Nothing.

I waited like an affection-starved puppy, or hungry cat, for a knock on my door to sound their arrival.

But nothing came.

And what's worse is that my sickness persisted.

It was the worst fever I'd ever endured, as what had started as a light cold morphed into something hideous.

I couldn't see straight, my ears rang constantly, and I was in a constant state of never-ending hunger while being unable to eat anything.

And the constant pounding in my head made me want to end it all.

"You still alive?" Carol's voice sounded from my speaker.

"Eeeeerrrrhhhhh!" The groan sounded worse than that of a Hollywood zombie trying to go for the Best Actor award.

"Better than hearing silence." She grumbles as she scribbles away on her notepad.

I wondered if I'd probably caught a space virus, but I quickly waved the notion off as I've had similar rare moments of extreme sickness like this back on Earth.

But Carol would hear none of it.

"You DEFINITELY caught some sort of deadly disease from those walking gelatins. That's why they ran away so fast. Before you'd be able to catch them and beat the shit out of them."

The energy to argue or even entertain Carol's mad ramblings just wasn't present, so I tried to drift off to sleep (or blatantly pass out) to escape her tirade.

But the sweet escape of unconsciousness refused to come to me right now.

Oh, the betrayal.

I huff out a defeated groan in a frail attempt to get her to shut up.

My throat hurt like a bitch and my heart rate was going mental.

Maybe I did catch something from them?

No. Impossible.

Wouldn't I have gotten infected the first time we interacted? Maybe the virus needs time to attach to its host or incubate in its newfound body??

White hot terror licked through my exhausted body as the idea of an alien space worm festering inside of me and bursting out of my stomach overtook my tired mind entirely.

I was in closer proximity to Leo and Dion than I'd ever been before. We even spent the whole night in each other's company as opposed to just the few minutes to an hour we usually spend.

Then images of Leo holding me tight came to mind, and the gut-wrenching feeling of fear quickly got chased out and replaced with butterflies.

He wouldn't do that to me. They wouldn't do that to me!!

Images of the both of them holding me tight while I had a breakdown, while we were swimming underwater, Leo leaning on me, Dion getting close and mustering up the courage to touch me.

If I'd gotten infected by them from close proximity, it would've happened MUCH sooner. There's just no way.

Also, I know and trust they wouldn't willingly infect me with anything.

Unless they didn't know they could infect me...

That was a whole nother topic of debate I literally didn't have the mental capacity to dissect.