Blood from Nothing

"Family used to mean blood relations—now it means whoever's standing beside you when the impossible becomes routine."

In Kain's absence, Glenda and I had managed to complete the third tent and made significant progress on the fourth, despite the complication of missing pegs. The work had been good for me—physical, demanding, requiring just enough concentration to keep my mind from wandering to darker thoughts. There was something almost meditative about the repetition of it: stretching canvas, securing poles, pulling guy ropes taut. My hands had found a rhythm that my mind could follow, grateful for the distraction.

My arm throbbed beneath its wet bandage, a constant reminder of my own brush with whatever strangeness had touched Joel. The wound pulsed with my heartbeat, a dull ache that flared whenever I stretched or lifted. But the grey hadn't returned, and that was something. I had checked twice during the afternoon, unwrapping the bandage just enough to glimpse the flesh beneath. Pink. Healthy. Human. Small victories. That was how we measured progress now.

I paused in my efforts, straightening my back with a groan that spoke to hours of bending and lifting. Glancing up at the sky, I watched where the sun hung low, casting long shadows and bathing the landscape in a warm, golden hue. The light here was different from Earth's—softer somehow, with undertones of colour that didn't quite match what I remembered from Broken Hill sunsets. More amber than orange. More rose than red. The mountains in the far distance seemed to cradle the light, holding onto the day for as long as possible, as if they too feared what came after dark.

"There can't be more than an hour or so left of daylight," I called out to Glenda, my voice carrying a note of urgency.

The approaching darkness brought its own anxieties—the night terrors, the unknown threats, the simple vulnerability of not being able to see what was coming. I had learned quickly that darkness in Clivilius was different from darkness on Earth. It was more absolute. More alive. More willing to fill with things that shouldn't exist.

"I'm going to check on Jamie and Joel," I announced, feeling a need to ensure their well-being.

They had been at the lagoon for hours now, and while Jamie's earlier announcement that Joel was breathing had been cause for celebration, the silence since then had grown increasingly unsettling. No updates. No calls for help. No word at all. In a place where miracles and horrors walked hand in hand, silence was rarely comforting.

"Alright," Glenda replied, her voice steady and focused. "I'll get the fire started."

The fire. Our beacon against the darkness. Our one reliable weapon against the terrors that the night brought. I nodded my thanks and began the walk toward the lagoon.

Taking the gentle hills with steady strides, I approached the top of the highest peak before the lagoon. The terrain was becoming familiar now—the red dust that clung to everything, the scattered stones that threatened to turn ankles, the way the ground rose and fell in waves that reminded me of frozen ocean swells. My anticipation grew with each step, a mix of concern and curiosity driving me forward. What would I find? Joel still in the water? Joel dead—properly dead this time? Joel changed into something even stranger than he had been?

As I neared the first crest, my breath caught in my throat, a sudden constriction that forced me to cough lightly several times as I struggled to regain my composure. My eyes scanned the scene below, and for a moment, I was certain I was hallucinating.

Are my eyes deceiving me?

The sight that greeted me was both unexpected and heartening. Two figures were making their way up the hill with slow and steady steps. Not in the lagoon. Not lying on the shore. Walking. Joel was walking.

Joel—the man who had been floating face-down in a river this morning, his throat cut from ear to ear, his blood drained, his life ended—was walking up a hill under his own power. His movements were awkward, shuffling, supported heavily by Jamie at his side. But he was upright. He was moving. He was impossibly, undeniably alive.

"Jamie!" I called out, my voice tinged with surprise and relief. "Is that Joel?"

The question, rhetorical as it might have been, was driven by a need for confirmation, for reassurance that what I was seeing was indeed real. The world had stopped making sense days ago, but this felt like a new threshold of impossibility. A threshold I wasn't sure I was prepared to cross.

"Come and help us," Jamie called back, his free arm beckoning me.

His tone, a mix of exhaustion and determination, spurred me into action. Whatever questions I had could wait. Right now, they needed help. Right now, there was practical work to be done.

Carefully, I jogged down the dusty incline, my steps cautious as I approached. The dust kicked up around my feet, coating my trousers in a fine layer of red-brown powder that had become the constant companion of everything we owned. I could feel it working into my socks, settling between my toes, claiming every surface it could reach.

The sight of Joel, up and moving, was a welcome one, yet I couldn't help but feel a sense of apprehension. The last time I had been this close to him, his hand had shot up and grabbed my arm with impossible strength, his fingernails carving into my flesh, the grey spreading from his touch like frost across a window. My arm throbbed at the memory, as if the wound itself remembered what had caused it.

As I slid underneath his free arm to support his weight, I tried not to stare. But the rough stitching that held his neck together was hard to ignore. Glenda's handiwork—dark thread against pale skin, a brutal line of medical necessity that looked more like something from a horror film than a healing wound. The sutures were crude but effective, holding together flesh that had been sliced open to the spine. The flesh around the stitches was pink and raw, but it was flesh. Living flesh. Not the grey of death that had coloured his skin when we'd first pulled him from the river.

Joel's weight settled against my shoulder, heavy and warm. Alive. Undeniably, impossibly alive. I could feel his body heat through my shirt. Could feel the slight movement of his breathing. Could feel the reality of him pressing against me, demanding that I accept what my mind still struggled to comprehend.

"Thought I'd better get him back to camp before dark."

Jamie's voice broke through my contemplation, urging us into motion with a sense of urgency that was palpable in the dimming light. The golden hour was fading, shadows lengthening across the hills, and none of us wanted to be caught out here when full darkness fell. Whatever Joel had become, whatever the lagoon had made of him, we needed to be near the fire when night came.

"Good idea," I echoed, agreeing without hesitation.

The practicality of his suggestion was undeniable; navigating the uneven terrain with Joel in his current state would only grow more challenging as night fell. And besides, there were things in the darkness here. Things we didn't understand. Things that screamed in the night and left terror in their wake.

The journey back was arduous. Joel moved his feet, but barely—more shuffling than walking, more leaning than stepping. His legs seemed to work, but the coordination was off, as if his body was relearning how to move. The grunts and strained breaths that accompanied our efforts blurred, making it hard to distinguish who was struggling more with the burden. My shoulders ached with the weight of him. My arm throbbed beneath its bandage, the wound protesting the strain. Sweat trickled down my spine despite the cooling air, and my legs burned with the effort of climbing while supporting someone who could barely support himself.

Back home, I would have called for an ambulance. Would have waited for professionals with stretchers and training. Would have watched from the sidelines while competent people handled the emergency. Here, I was the professional. I was the one who had to carry a resurrected man across hills of red dust while the sun set and the darkness crept closer.

Curiosity, however, got the better of me.

"Hurt your foot?" I couldn't help but inquire, noting the particular heaviness in Jamie's steps. He was favouring his right side, wincing with each footfall on the left. His gait was uneven, limping in a way that added to our already difficult progress.

"Yeah," Jamie grunted, his voice strained with the effort of moving forward. "The hill where you found us was a bit rough."

I nodded, though he couldn't see it. The terrain here was treacherous—stones hidden beneath dust, sudden dips and rises, surfaces that looked solid but gave way underfoot. It was a miracle none of us had broken an ankle yet.

"Has he spoken yet?"

The question lingered in the air, my curiosity for Joel's condition growing with every laboured step we took. Walking was one thing. Speaking was another. Consciousness, awareness, the return of the person who had existed before the throat was cut—that was what truly mattered. Was Joel still in there? The real Joel, with his memories and personality and soul? Or was this just a body, animated by the lagoon's strange power, walking without understanding?

"Not really," came Jamie's reply, his words painting a picture of the uncertainty that still clouded Joel's recovery.

Not really. Which meant perhaps a sound, perhaps a murmur, but nothing coherent. Nothing that confirmed Joel was truly back. Nothing that proved the mind had returned along with the body.

Turning my attention to Joel, I sought to offer a gesture of comfort, a connection in the midst of the turmoil that surrounded us. His head turned slightly toward me—the first intentional movement I had seen him make—and his wide, beautiful eyes met mine. A silent communication that transcended words passed between us. They were remarkable eyes—deep and searching, carrying an intelligence that seemed at odds with his current state of near-catatonia. There was someone in there. I was suddenly certain of it. Someone looking out through those eyes, trying to make sense of what had happened to him.

"You've got your father's eyes," I told him tenderly, hoping to ground him in the familiarity of family, of belonging.

It was true—I could see Jamie in those eyes, the same intensity, the same depth. The same stubbornness, if I was being honest. Whatever else Joel was, he was Jamie's son. That connection was undeniable. Blood of his blood, even if that blood had been drained and somehow replaced.

"Let's get you home."

Jamie's quiet scoff at my words was almost lost in the shuffle of our movement, but its significance wasn't lost on me. Home. As if this place could ever be home. As if a few tents and a campfire could replace whatever life Joel had known before his throat was slit and he found himself waking up in a lagoon in another dimension. I knew all too well the scepticism, the underlying tension that Jamie's scoff represented. He had every right to scoff. This wasn't home. This was survival. This was making do.

Yet, I was in no mood to argue, not now. The priority was getting Joel safely back to camp, to the semblance of security and care that awaited him there. We could debate semantics later, when we weren't carrying a resurrected man up a hill while the sun died behind us.

After what felt like an eternity of torturous silence, punctuated only by the sound of our steady breathing and the uneven thud of our footsteps, the camp finally came into view. The tents stood in their small cluster—the medical tent, the supply tent, and the new ones Glenda and I had erected. A fire crackled in the central pit, sending sparks up into the darkening sky. The sight of it was beautiful in that moment, more beautiful than any campfire had any right to be. It meant safety. It meant rest. It meant we had made it.

A wave of relief washed over me, so intense it was almost tangible. Supporting most of Joel's weight had drained me more than I had realised. My legs trembled with the strain, my shoulders burned with the effort, and I wanted nothing more than to set down this burden and collapse beside the fire. My body screamed for rest, for food, for water, for anything other than this endless struggle against gravity and circumstance.

"Glenda!" I called out, my voice cracking slightly with the effort.

Jamie let out a heavy sigh beside me, a sound that seemed to carry the weight of the world. It was a mirror of my own relief but tinged with an underlying exhaustion that went beyond physical strain. This was his son. His burden was heavier than mine could ever be. His stake in Joel's recovery was absolute in a way mine could never match.

Glenda and Luke hurried over as we approached, their faces etched with concern. Luke. He was back. I hadn't even registered his absence consciously, but seeing him here—returned from wherever he'd gone to find this Cody person—sent a complicated mix of emotions through me. Relief that he was safe, that my brother had come back from whatever mysterious errand had called him away. Anger at his secrets, at the walls he kept between us, at the information he hoarded while the rest of us stumbled blind through this world. Gratitude that he was here to help, another pair of hands, another body to share the burden. Resentment that he had left in the first place, that he could come and go while the rest of us were trapped.

The emotions tangled together, impossible to separate, and I pushed them aside. There would be time for complicated feelings later.

"He's bleeding!"

Glenda's cry cut through the air. I looked at Joel, confused—we had been carrying him for what felt like hours, and I hadn't noticed any blood—and then I saw it. A dark trickle running from his nose, catching the firelight as it dripped toward his chin. The blood looked almost black in the failing light, a thin line tracing down his upper lip.

"Luke, get me some tissue from the medical tent," she directed, her tone brooking no argument. The doctor had emerged, all business, all competence.

Luke, however, stood frozen, as if momentarily overwhelmed by the situation. His eyes were fixed on Joel's face—on the stitched throat, on the blood dripping from his nose—and something in his expression suggested he was seeing more than the rest of us. Guilt, perhaps. Or recognition of something we couldn't understand. He looked haunted, I realised. Haunted in a way that had nothing to do with the present moment and everything to do with secrets he wasn't sharing.

"I got it!"

Kain's voice, strong and sure, broke through the hesitation. He emerged from the medical tent with a sense of purpose, rushing over to hand the tissues to Glenda. Good man. While Luke stood paralysed by whatever thoughts haunted him, Kain acted. I filed that observation away for later consideration.

"Ta," she replied, a simple acknowledgment as she took the tissues and immediately pressed a wad of them up to Joel's dripping nose. Her movements were efficient, practised—the movements of someone who had dealt with a thousand nosebleeds and wouldn't be flustered by this one.

"Let's get him sitting," she instructed, her focus entirely on Joel's well-being.

Together, Jamie and I guided Joel to sit on a large log by the campfire, the warmth of the flames a stark contrast to the chill of the evening air. The fire crackled and popped, sending shadows dancing across our faces, and Joel's eyes tracked the flames with something approaching awareness. He was watching. He was present. Whatever else was happening in that resurrected brain of his, he was taking in the world around him. Kain followed close behind, silently ready to assist further if needed.

"Not too close," Glenda insisted, her attention divided between treating Joel and ensuring his safety from the campfire's heat. "Is it just his nose?"

"I think so," Jamie responded, his voice low and filled with an unspoken concern that mirrored my own.

A nosebleed seemed trivial compared to everything else Joel had endured—the slit throat, the death, the resurrection—but in his condition, anything could be significant. Anything could be a sign of something going wrong inside that impossibly restored body.

"I didn't even notice it was bleeding," I admitted, guilt mingling with surprise at my oversight.

In the midst of everything—the weight of him, the struggle up the hills, the effort of keeping all three of us upright—I had missed something as obvious as blood running down his face. It was easy to miss the small details when you were drowning in large ones. Easy to focus on keeping someone alive and forget to notice they were bleeding.

Glenda knelt in front of the drooping Joel, who was still being supported on either side by Jamie and me. Her voice carried a mix of concern and bafflement as she examined him more closely, her hands moving with professional confidence.

"I don't understand how," she murmured, her gaze fixed on Joel, searching for an explanation that seemed to elude her.

Jamie shook his head, a gesture of disbelief or perhaps resignation. His face was grey with exhaustion, his eyes hollow with the strain of hope and fear and love all tangled together.

"I didn't give him any, but he seems to have plenty of blood now."

The words hung in the air between us, their implications slowly sinking in.

"Yes," Glenda agreed, her attention never wavering from Joel.

I watched, fascinated and a little apprehensive, as she poked Joel's arms and legs in several places. Her fingers pressed against his wrists, his inner elbows, his ankles—the places where veins ran close to the surface, where a doctor could check circulation and flow. She was testing a hypothesis that had formed in her medically trained mind, checking something that shouldn't need checking because it shouldn't be possible.

"There is definitely blood in his veins now," she announced, her tone suggesting that this was both unexpected and significant.

I released my breath, the pieces of the conversation finally clicking into place in my mind.

Blood. Joel had lost his blood—had bled out through that horrible wound in his throat, had lain in the river drained and empty—and now, somehow, his veins were full again. The realisation that Joel's recovery, or at least part of it, involved his blood, something so fundamentally essential yet so bafflingly restored, was a moment of clarity amidst the confusion. The lagoon hadn't just brought him back to life. It had rebuilt him. Refilled him. Created blood from nothing, or from the water itself, or from some process we couldn't begin to understand.

New blood. Blood that had never existed before. Blood that had been manufactured by a pool of water in an alien dimension.

The thought was staggering. The implications were too vast to contemplate.

"It's a medical anomaly!" Glenda declared, her voice carrying a mix of excitement and wonder as she rose to her feet, accepting the whiskey bottle Luke offered to her.

The diagnosis—if you could call it that—was both accurate and hopelessly inadequate. Medical anomaly. As if a textbook term could capture what we were witnessing. As if language designed for the ordinary could accommodate the extraordinary. Joel wasn't a medical anomaly. Joel was a miracle. Joel was an impossibility made flesh and blood—blood that shouldn't exist, blood that had appeared from nowhere.

"You had better lie him down again once the bleeding stops," she advised, her professional opinion mingled with the practical steps that followed such a discovery.

Then, without hesitation, she took a long swig from the bottle, perhaps seeking solace in its contents from the day's surreal developments. I couldn't blame her. If anyone had earned a drink, it was the woman who had stitched together a slit throat and then watched her patient regenerate his entire blood supply from nothing. The whiskey had to taste better than the questions that had no answers.

I glanced up at the dimming sky, noting the encroaching darkness that signalled the end of another day. The fire cast its warm light against the gathering gloom, a small circle of safety in an unsafe world.

"Nightfall can't be too far away now," I observed aloud, already turning my thoughts towards the practical needs of our group.

We had survived another day. We had witnessed another miracle. Now we needed to eat, to rest, to prepare for whatever tomorrow would bring. The list of things to worry about was endless, but the immediate needs were simple: food, fire, sleep. Everything else could wait until morning.

"I'll prepare us some food," I announced, ensuring that Joel was sufficiently supported by Jamie before I moved away, ready to contribute in the way I knew best.

Cooking wasn't my greatest skill—Claire had always handled the kitchen, and my contributions had been limited to barbecues and the occasional breakfast. But I could manage basic meals. Sandwiches. Simple things. And right now, basic meals were all we had.

"I'll help you," Kain quickly chimed in, falling into step beside me.

His eagerness was welcome. His presence was grounding. Here was someone who acted instead of standing frozen. Here was someone who saw what needed doing and did it.

As we moved toward the supplies, leaving Jamie and Glenda to tend to Joel, I caught myself looking back at the strange tableau by the fire. A father holding his resurrected son, his hands gentle despite the calluses, his eyes filled with a love that transcended death itself. A doctor taking swigs from a whiskey bottle, her medical training stretched to breaking point by the impossible patient before her. A man I no longer fully trusted—my brother, my blood—standing in the shadows, watching with eyes that held secrets I couldn't fathom.

This was my family now. These strangers, these broken people, these survivors of impossible circumstances. We were bound together by nothing more than shared catastrophe and the desperate will to live. Not by blood—or at least, not by blood that had existed before we came here. Not by choice—most of us hadn't chosen this. But by circumstance, by proximity, by the simple fact that there was no one else.

Family used to mean something different. Used to mean Claire and Mack and Rose. Used to mean Sunday dinners and school pickups and arguments about homework. Now it meant whoever was standing beside me when the darkness fell. Now it meant the people who would help me carry a resurrected man up a hill while the sun set behind us.

I turned away from the fire and began preparing the food, trying not to think too hard about what any of it meant.