Page 72 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Stars

Kanzex

The rumors started slowly at first. Casual glances were exchanged behind my back, hushed conversations when I entered the room. I pretended not to notice, but I did. Of course I did. I was trained to observe, to notice the smallest changes. The shift in tone, the narrowing of eyes, the sudden drop in the usual noise of the ship when I entered. I didn’t mind. I couldn’t afford to.

But the whispers grew louder, sharper. "He’s obsessed with her," I overheard once, in the hallway outside the lab. "It’s not normal. That kind of fixation—it’s unhealthy."

I pressed my palm against the cold steel of the wall and forced myself to walk past, ignoring the growing pit of unease in my stomach. They didn’t understand. They couldn’t.

I wasn’t mad. No, I wasn’t mad. Not yet. But something inside me was changing, shifting, and I couldn’t stop it.

A few days later, Dr. Helix—an Ax’al from Durn 76—approached me as I stood over the observation terminal, watching her through the reinforced glass. Her form was still, but there was something about her that I couldn’t quite place. The melody she carried with her was fading in and out, like a faint signal just out of reach.

Helix cleared his throat as he came up beside me, but I didn’t acknowledge him. I couldn’t. Not when my thoughts were so entwined with her, not when I was trying to decipher the unspoken rhythms of the universe that echoed around her.

"She's not responding to any of the tests," Helix said, his voice blunt and clinical. "She’s too passive, too withdrawn. It's as if she’s shutting down, hiding from us."

I didn’t look at him, but I heard the underlying judgment in his words. He thought I was foolish. He thought I was losing my grip on reality. And maybe he was right. Maybe I was.

But I couldn’t stop. I wouldn’t stop.

"She's not shutting down," I said quietly, my voice low enough that only he could hear. "She’s listening. She’s waiting. You don’t understand what’s happening here."

Helix didn’t say anything for a long moment. I could feel the weight of his gaze on me, like a shadow hanging over my shoulders. But I was beyond caring. The only thing I cared about now was her. Only her.

"I don’t think this is healthy," he said finally, his voice a little softer but still laced with concern. "You’ve been spending too much time in there, alone with her. We’ve all noticed it. You’re starting to... change."

My tail swished. I glanced at him then, and for the first time, I let my anger show.

"Change? You think I’m changing because of her?" I spat, my eyes narrowing. "You’re wrong. I’m becoming something more because of her. Something... understood ."

Helix flinched at the intensity in my voice, but I didn’t care. I turned back to the observation terminal, my eyes locking on the woman in the cell. She was staring at me now, her gaze unblinking, as if she knew exactly what was happening, as if she could see into the depths of my soul and know every dark thought, every flicker of desire that burned inside me.

I felt the heat rise in my chest, a pulse of something ancient, something dangerous. The air between us seemed to crackle with tension. I was too far gone to care about the others. The rumors, the questions—they didn’t matter. I couldn’t let them matter.

"What’s your theory, then?" I asked, trying to steady my voice. "Tell me, Helix. What’s happening to me?"

He hesitated, looking uncomfortable, as if he knew the answer but was too afraid to say it. He leaned closer, lowering his voice.

"You’re obsessed with her. And that’s not just curiosity or scientific interest. It’s... it’s something else. You’ve been isolated too long, Kanzex. She’s getting to you. She’s pulling you in. I don’t know how Ghekets react to…"

I wanted to rage. I wanted to shout at him, tell him that he was wrong, that he didn’t understand. But I held myself back. I didn’t need his confirmation of my madness. I already knew.

The air was thick with the unspoken words, the unsaid things. But I didn’t care. I had crossed a line, and there was no going back. I turned to Helix, my voice low and clipped.

"Leave me alone."

In my periphery, his upper shoulders and gills twitched imperceptibly as he hesitated for a second longer before walking away. I didn’t watch him go. My eyes were fixed on the woman who had become both my obsession and my salvation. I couldn’t breathe without her. I couldn’t think without her. And I couldn’t stop myself from unraveling every time she stared into my soul.

That night, I stayed longer than usual, watching her through the glass, watching the way she moved, how she seemed to flow in the silence of her cell. She was still, yes, but the way she held herself was an eerie grace.

I felt it before I heard it—the hum. The faint pulse of music, like a song that had been lost to the cosmos, reaching through the ship's hull and into my mind.

Her song.

I closed my eyes, letting it envelop me, letting it fill the emptiness inside of me. When I opened them again, she was watching me.

And then she spoke, her voice a breath of wind that carried something unreachable .

"Are you listening now?" she asked, her voice soft, but the weight of her words was undeniable.

I nodded, heart racing. "I hear it."

She didn’t answer, but the silence that followed felt... different. It felt charged, like the very air had transformed. It was her doing. It was always her doing.

I knew then that I wasn’t the only one changing. She was too.

And when I looked away, I saw the others watching me from the far side of the corridor—eyes wide, whispers lingering in the air like smoke.

They thought I was losing my mind.

Maybe I was.

But I didn’t care. I was already lost. And I wasn’t looking for a way out.