Page 81 of Protected by the Alien Warrior Triad

There’s a small hole from where the deer was looking for food. I stare into it and see a black mushroom. There’s something about it that suddenly makes me pause.

“Darok, come here,” I shout up. He dives into the water, his body lean and sleek as he slides through the icy water below without even a splash. Eventually, his head breaks the water and he swims over to me. He makes a striking sight as he emerges from the water, the drops sliding down his gorgeous abs and muscles. It’s enough to make me lose my train of thought for a moment.

I shake my head to get my lustful thoughts from my head. I can remember every precious second of last night, and don’t want to imagine that those might be the last memories we ever make together.

“Darok, have you seen these before?”

He shakes his head, looking at the mushroom. I reach forward and pick it up. Suddenly, it bursts into spores – like a balloon filled with powder popping.

The black spores fill my lungs and I start hacking and coughing. Darok grabs me, picking me up and rushing me away from the spewing mushroom.

I cough so hard that my vision starts going black. I wretch and hack and cough, and see blood and blackness covering my hand as I pull it from my mouth. My stomach feels horrible – like daggers have been plunged inside of it.

I suddenly realize something. The deer was eating that mushroom!

My mind clears as I breathe in fresh air. Suddenly, it all makes sense. The fish-eating triad never got sick because they never ate tainted meat. I didn’t get sick because I was eating beef jerky ever since I came to the jungle planet. It is not a contagion – not a virus or bacteria. It’s a toxin that’s causing this illness.

The Scorp-Blood tribe needs to move to where the game is healthy, change their diet, or eradicate the mushrooms.

I smile. I’m going to be able to show the Scorp-Blood tribe that I can help them. I’ll save them, and prove that it was fate that brought me here. Then I suddenly cough hard again, and feel dizzy. The blackness in my eyes increases, and I struggle to stay awake and conscious.

If I pass out, I can’t show the tribe what happened. Even if Darok tells them the cause of the illness, what if they say it was… It was him that found it… Oh, Gods...

I feel so dizzy. Darok holds me to his chest as my mind goes blank. I can’t think anymore. I cough harder and harder, gasping for air. I need to stay awake long enough to warn the tribe not to eat the tainted meat, to…

Darok lays me on my back as I cough harder and harder, and I look up in horror. The sun is nearly at its peak. It blinds my eyes, but I can’t stop staring. The cough wracks me as I spit up blood and blackness from my lungs. Suddenly, I don’t know if I’m dying, or just falling into a deep coma… I suddenly remember the weakest of the Scorp-Blood tribe in the cavern, with their eyes already closed...

Darkness takes me – and no matter how hard I try to cling to reality, I can’t help but slip away into the blackness.

No, no, no…

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