Before the Message Hit

“Purpose is a luxury. Panic doesn’t ask if you’re ready—it just sends a message and waits to watch you bleed.”

As Jarod and I delved deeper into the intricacies of Clivilius and the life of a Guardian, something stirred in me—a flame I hadn’t felt flicker in what felt like lifetimes. But it wasn’t the usual fire. Not adrenaline, not the reckless buzz of danger or the thrill of pulling off something improbable. No. This was quieter. Steadier. Purpose. Real, grounding, and clean—like the first deep breath after a storm, or the moment your feet find bedrock after drifting too long through murky waters.

It anchored me in a way I hadn’t known I needed.

It reminded me of the days after Brody’s death—those hollowed-out hours where everything felt both too loud and too quiet at once. Time had gone watery, days bleeding into each other without shape, and I’d wandered through it like a ghost among my own life. Back then, meaning had been a foreign tongue, and even my own skin felt borrowed. But now—this? This felt like translation. Like something inside me had finally remembered how to speak again.

This wasn’t just a conversation about Portal logistics or Guardian duties. It wasn’t strategy for strategy’s sake. It was something else—more intimate. A reunion steeped in old trust, familiar cadences, and those unspoken understandings that only come from walking through fire together. With every glance, every half-smile, every clipped sentence that didn’t need explaining, Jarod and I were rediscovering the rhythm that had once made us a force to be reckoned with. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t healed. But the cracks between us weren’t jagged anymore—they were softening, mending where they could. That was enough for now. That was real.

The basement hummed with quiet life—low mechanical whirs, the shifting of unseen creatures behind glass, the occasional thump or scrape of something adjusting in its enclosure. It was a strange kind of lullaby, but it gave my mind just enough room to wander.

And it wandered straight to Maggie.

She’d always been more than a pet. That word never quite fit her—not really. Maggie was presence. Stillness. Truth. There were long stretches of my life, especially after Brody, when I couldn’t bear the noise of people, their questions and clumsy comfort. But Maggie? She never asked. She never prodded. She just was. With her draped over my shoulders or curled at my feet, the silence didn’t ache so much. She didn’t fill the space—she made it breathable.

I could still picture her in the antique shop with vivid clarity: coiled beneath the front counter, watching the world go by with her calm, unblinking gaze; slithering up my arm while I polished the glass cabinets, anchoring me when my thoughts slipped too far into the past. She’d never been a distraction. She was a tether.

Leaving her behind when I moved back in with my parents had felt like tearing out a piece of myself. I told myself it was temporary. That I’d come back for her when the dust settled. But the dust hadn’t settled. It had only thickened. Life had spiralled, and the distance had stretched far longer than I’d intended. Even now, that guilt still lived just beneath the surface, pricking at the edges of every thought.

But as I scanned the room—this odd, patchwork sanctuary Jarod had carved out beneath the mundane world—something clicked.

A thought. Tentative, but insistent. What if Clivilius wasn’t just a place for humans escaping the impossible? What if it could be more? What if creatures like Maggie, so often dismissed or misunderstood, had a place in Clivilius too?

A sanctuary.

Not just for us—but for them.

The idea wasn’t fully formed yet. But it glowed, stubborn and golden at the edges of my mind.

And once it sparked, I couldn’t quite let it go.

With Jarod’s help—and perhaps Johnny’s involvement—we could begin something new. Not just survival strategies or resistance cells, but a sanctuary. A carved-out sliver of Clivilius dedicated not to warfare or glory, but to refuge. To the overlooked and the loyal. A space where creatures like Maggie weren’t just tolerated, but welcomed. Valued. Protected. The idea felt raw and unfinished, but it pulsed in my chest like a living thing, stubborn and hopeful.

My hand rose instinctively, brushing across Maggie’s cool scales. She adjusted herself with a languid shift, the smooth arc of her body pressing lightly against my cheek. Her presence was grounding—intuitive, somehow, as if she could sense my mind racing down paths I hadn’t dared walk before. She didn’t question. Didn’t demand. She just leaned into me, a silent agreement to the possibility I’d only just started to believe in.

Maybe the world we were helping to shape didn’t have to be split into neat binaries of good and evil, of Guardian and threat. Maybe it could hold room for nuance. For creatures with no allegiance beyond loyalty and instinct. For moments of stillness between the chaos. For grace.

And then, like a stone through glass, the vibration of my phone shattered everything.

The spell snapped. The hum of the basement dimmed to a blur, colours dulled, Maggie’s weight suddenly a reminder rather than a comfort. I stared at the phone, light glaring against my palm. My stomach dropped.

Mum.

She’d been calling—buzzing at the edge of my consciousness like a distant alarm I’d been too stubborn to shut off. But this wasn’t a call. It was a message. One sentence. One demand.

Mum: Why the hell is there a dead dog wrapped in a blanket in your bathroom!?

The room reeled sideways.

Dead dog. Blanket. Bathroom.

The words rearranged themselves in my head like puzzle pieces I didn’t want to fit together. My brain refused to fully process them, but my body moved on instinct. A sharp intake of breath, sudden heat blooming beneath my skin. The phone slick in my grip. The thud of my heartbeat loud and sickening in my ears.

“Shit,” I breathed. The word fell from my lips, hoarse and fractured.

Jarod blurred in my peripheral vision, his voice just sound—low, shaped by concern—but I couldn’t make out the meaning. The entire basement seemed to recede around me, sound and motion reduced to a thick, echoing blur. I was no longer here. I was already halfway through the Portal, back in Claremont, back in the house, the bathroom, the tile floor.

Back with Duke.

“I need to go,” I almost whispered.

Jarod rose, concern tightening the edges of his features. “Is everything okay?”

“I don’t know.” My voice wavered. I wasn’t sure if it was fear or shame or both. The image of Duke’s lifeless body struck with new, horrible force—his silence, his stillness—and now my mother, stumbling upon it with no warning, no preparation. “I need to go home and find out what’s going on. I’ll see you soon.”

I turned to leave, feet already moving, a thousand thoughts snapping at my heels like wild dogs.

“Wait, Beatrix.”

His voice stopped me, hand extended, not to grab but to steady.

“I’ll come with you. If you really want me to become a… Guardian… then you need to be able to trust me too.”

He meant it. Earnest, level, no bravado—just Jarod, showing up in the way that mattered.

I turned slightly, torn between gratitude and the sheer absurdity of him entering the maelstrom that was my family home. I could already hear it—Mum unleashing every sharp, flailing word she had, demanding answers, threatening police, hurling suspicion like cutlery.

She wasn’t built for subtlety. And she definitely wasn’t built for Portals and shadow panthers and dead dogs in bathrooms.

“No, Jarod. I have to do this alone. You know how Mum gets when she’s stressed.”

He let out a soft chuckle. “Yeah, I’ve experienced the wrath of her stress firsthand, remember?”

“How could I forget?” I offered a thin smile—just a twitch of something real—but it didn’t last. It couldn’t. Not with what was waiting on the other side.

There was no time left for reminiscing.

Just Duke. And the fallout.

I turned toward the cabinet. The Portal flared, its light rising like a silent scream, wrapping around me as I stepped forward—into the unknown, into the mess, into whatever version of damage control I could still salvage.

And I braced. Because sometimes you don’t leap with hope.

Sometimes… you brace for impact.