4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Brothers on the Mattress
Two brothers sit shoulder to shoulder, the silence between them thick with everything unsaid. One fears losing his last ally. The other chooses a side he cannot openly declare. When Luke races back through the Portal, Paul is left alone with dogs, tents, and a wounded man who's vanished into the landscape. Allegiances form in quiet moments. So do fractures. The mattress holds both.
The conversation happens on a mattress in a canvas tent, Duke circling endlessly, Henri snoring in the corner. Luke braces for Paul to side with Jamie—to agree that Clivilius is a death sentence, that bringing more people is madness, that this whole venture is doomed.
What he receives instead is unexpected: Paul's quiet confession. We need someone with decent handyman skills. Jamie and I suck. We can't even lay a concrete slab. The admission comes with a condition: don't tell Jamie. The allegiance is real, but it must remain invisible.
For Paul, the choice is made in silence. He watches Luke leave, watches the Portal swallow him, then turns to find Jamie missing. The search takes him through landscape he's never seen—cliffs dropping sharply, a river cutting through barren plains, mountains rising in the distance. Panic builds with every unanswered call.
Duke finds what Paul cannot. Luke carries Jamie back. And through it all, Paul works alone—dragging tent boxes through thick dust, receiving shelving he didn't ask for, folding concrete instructions into his pocket like a prayer.
Please bring us a handyman soon.
