4338.205 · July 24, 2018 AD
Come With Me
Paul flew across the country for an emergency that doesn't exist. Jamie spent his morning collecting a brother-in-law he didn't want, only to discover he's been lied to. And Luke stands in the kitchen in boardshorts, grinning like a man about to detonate his own life. When words fail—when the truth is too impossible to speak aloud—Luke does the only thing left. He opens a door. And steps through a wall.
Some truths can't be spoken into existence. They have to be shown.
Luke Smith has spent months hiding in his study, guarding a secret that defies every law of physics Jamie has ever trusted. Now his brother has flown interstate on a lie, his partner's patience has worn to threads, and the moment of revelation can't be postponed any longer. The problem is language. How do you tell the people you love that you've discovered a door to another world? You don't. You show them.
Jamie watches his partner produce a device no larger than a USB stick and press a button. What erupts from it shouldn't exist—a sphere of living light that consumes the study wall and transforms it into something vast and humming and utterly wrong. Before Jamie can process what he's seeing, Luke steps forward. Into the light. And vanishes.
Paul has spent thirty-four years trusting his brother's chaos. When Luke disappears through impossible colour, Paul does what he's always done: follows. Because standing still has never been an option when Luke is involved.
Jamie remains. Frozen. Watching the space where his partner used to be.
The study hums. The light waits.
