Asher woke the next morning to a cold chill. He opened his eyes to notice almost all the blankets on the bed were wrapped tightly around Orion.

“Hey Orion?” Asher tried to tug the blanket back.

“I don’t feel good.” Orion said stealing the remaining bit of blanket from Asher.

“Oh. I think you have a fever.” Asher said putting his hand to Orion's forehead. “I’ll make you some soup.”

“You can’t talk to soup.” He murmured in response.

“What?” Asher asked as he took to his feet.

“You can't talk to soup...” He continued in a feverish haze.

“Well, you're not wrong.” Asher let out a little laugh. “I’ll be right back.”

While waiting for the pot to boil in the kitchen Asher decided to sit down and do some research. “I know a little bit about shadows but honestly, it’s not much…”

He searched shadows, but as expected none of the results had anything to do with shadows as a species. He continued to clarify his search with different phrases, but it mostly turned up the same.

“Gah this is useless!” Asher pinched the bridge of his nose. “What's the scientific term for them again?”

He continued messing around in the search until he came upon the genus ‘Umbra’.

“Orion would be Umbra sidus right? Since it has something to do with stars.” He thought on it for a moment before continuing, but there was very limited information about them online. Shadows have always been fairly disconnected from the rest of society as far as Asher knew.

He came upon a number of books written in shadow language, they all appeared to be vintage, and some were nearly illegible from age.

“This might be the only way I can get my hands on that has any information about them.” He said scrolling through the listings.

He scrolled through and bookmarked a few of them before realizing most of them appeared to be from the same seller. He checked out their store page, it appeared to be ran by a Dr. Winchester.

The book at the top of their page seemed to be the newest, “A brief Summary of non-human entities Edition 3 by Dr. Winchester” which seems to have been published within the past year. Dr. Winchester herself was a shadow according to her introduction and there was a significant amount of detail about shadows in the book based on the overview.

“Why isn't there an online option?” He sighed clicking the buy now button, “I guess I have to wait for it to get delivered.”

Asher unbundled Orion and sat him up. He was still shivering quite a bit.

“I should have convinced you to come back inside sooner last night.” Asher sighed, “You'll feel better if you eat something. It’s nice and warm.”

Orion ate the soup cautiously, glaring at Asher the whole time. He only managed to eat about half the bowl before he set it down, rolled himself back up into the blankets and fell back to sleep.

After a few minutes Asher heard a knock at the door. He checked the camera but whoever was out there had already left. He opened the door slightly to find a package.

“Well, it did say same-day delivery, but it usually takes longer than that.” Asher shrugged opening the package, “Whatever works.”

The book was in decent condition. Signed by the author on the inside cover. Asher sat down by Orion and started reading out loud in a quiet voice:

“Umbra sidus, ‘umbra’ meaning shadow and ‘sidus’ meaning constellation. It's often referred to as such since the light source is frequently star clusters rather than individual stars.”

“Why did you bother buying that? I can tell you whatever.” Orion said glancing at the cover of the book. He seemed a lot more coherent now.

“Yeah, but it’s not like you can remember what you have and haven't told me, so I’d rather have a starting point to go off of.” Asher explained.

“That's fair. Human shadows are rare, even the author of that book is an animal rather than human. So, I would take it with a grain of salt.” Orion informed him.

“Do you know this Dr. Winchester? How does an animal write a book?” Asher asked curiously.

“A cat can write a book if it's dedicated enough. We were acquainted in my life before this one. They took on an anthropomorphic form for convenience at some point. I didn't think they were still writing though.” Orion explained.

“The life before this one?” Asher narrowed his eyes.

“I may be a shadow of Freyaa now but at some point, before that I was technically someone else.” Orion said.

“Wait, doesn't that technically make you older than me?” Asher pursed his lips.

“I guess, it's more that I was reborn. I didn't remember a whole lot about it even before all of my issues started. You're still older than me on paper anyway.” Orion explained.

“So which star is your light source? Do you remember?” Asher asked.

“I mean it's hard to forget since I was named after it. It’s Orionis Zeta.” Orion said.

“You've forgotten your name before Orion.” Asher laughed.

“Irrelevant.” Orion huffed, “Specifically it’s the one called Orionis Zeta B and before that it was Ab.”

“Why did it change?” Asher asked.

“Ab was consumed by the distortion before I could instate a new light source. So, I became feral and essentially died because I hadn't matured enough to survive it. B was the light source when I was reborn.” Orion continued.

“On the topic of Feral shadow’s…” Asher flipped a few pages and started reading again:

“Feral Shadows lose form and structure over time, with varying degrees of symptoms such as insatiable appetite, destructive behavior, loss of cognition, and high susceptibility to infection or disease. Oftentimes feral shadows will exhibit cannibalistic behavior. As with most subspecies of Shadow, Human-bodied shadows are not exempt from this tendency.

The mechanisms that cause this are poorly understood but it is thought that consuming creatures of similar form helps to stabilize the cast shadows form. If a shadow cannot find an adequate food source or one that is similar enough in structure it will consume anything it sees.”

“Cannibalism? Am I close enough to human for that to be a problem?” Asher asked then squinted jokingly, “Do I need to stock up on garlic or something to ward you off like a vampire if that happens?”

“No, I’m not a vampire and I like garlic too much for that to work anyway.” Orion laughed, “Shadows that have animal cast forms are more likely to be cannibalistic, but human shadows are more likely to eat the shadows on the ground before another person.”

“Like literal shadows?” Asher waved his hand looking at the shadow beneath it.

“Yeah, couldn't tell you how that works to be honest. Physics and shadows have never really seen eye to eye.” Orion explained, “Under normal circumstances you'd see the signs before it would ever become a problem.”

“Orion, you said you've experienced going feral before what was that like?” Asher asked.

“Last time I tried to eat a bug.” Orion said flatly.

“That's not quite what I meant.” Asher shook his head.

‘Radiation or not. I’m honestly worried you might already be on track to become feral given how frequently you get sick. Is there anything else I can do to help?’ He thought before he started to read the book again.

“Physical contact with similar forms also helps to maintain stability in shadows. As evidenced by increased rates of stabilization in newborn shadows given skin-to-skin contact. A major factor for this increased stability is due to the fact that most living creatures emit several forms of light.”

“Physical contact?” Asher laughed, “I think I’ve been managing that quite well.”

“What are you going on about?” Orion mumbled sleepily.

“You should get some more rest.” Asher said tucking him back into the blankets.

“Hm.” Orion replied.

Asher left Orion to sleep. But as he continued his daily routine, he couldn’t quite get the one line from the book out of his head, ‘high susceptibility to infection or disease.’ Asher left Orion to sleep. But as he continued his daily routine, he couldn’t quite get the one line from the book out of his head, ‘high susceptibility to infection or disease.’ Orion said the day before he would only go dormant if something happened, but Asher couldn't help but feel concerned about it.