4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
Clicking Confirm
Grief doesn't wait for permission to transform. Seated at the kitchen table, laptop glow casting blue light across their exhausted faces, Beatrix and Luke searched for something—anything—that might keep the Bixbus settlers alive. The temporary fencing wasn't a solution. It was a wager. A click of a button against creatures already circling in the dark. Sometimes hope looks like next-day delivery.
The burial was done. The earth had settled. And still, the night demanded more.
Beatrix led Luke inside with a fragile idea forming—something practical, something actionable, something to push back against the helplessness threatening to swallow them both. The laptop hummed to life on the kitchen table, its screen a cold beacon in the darkness of the house.
They searched. Forums, supplier sites, outdated listings that looked abandoned since dial-up. Most options were too slow, too expensive, too far removed from the crisis quietly escalating in Clivilius. The settlers were vulnerable. The shadow panthers had already proven what they could do. And there was no permanent solution in sight.
Then—temporary fencing. Modular panels. Next-day delivery.
It wasn't enough. They both knew it. But it was something. A boundary, however fragile. A gesture toward protection, however incomplete.
Beatrix keyed in the Owens' property address. Split the shipment into staggered batches. Clicked confirm.
The order processed. The screen blinked. And somewhere beyond the walls, the creatures that had killed Duke continued their patient circling.
Time had been purchased. The cost remained to be seen.
