Dark Grey

"There's a difference between something being impossible and something you just wish wasn't true—I was learning that distinction the hard way."

"Shit, Luke! Who the fuck is that?"

Jamie's voice, thick with panic and disbelief, reached my ears as I gasped for air, breaking the surface of the lagoon. The chilling episode with the dead body's hand still echoed in my mind, leaving a trail of fear that seemed to grip my very soul. My arm throbbed where the fingernails had carved into it, each pulse a reminder that what had happened was real, was actually real, was not some fever dream conjured by exhaustion and stress.

I scrambled towards the water's edge, the urgency of Jamie's shout propelling me forward despite the numbing terror that threatened to paralyse me. On hands and knees, I clawed my way across the soft dust on the bank of the mouth of the lagoon, every muscle in my body tensed, my heart pounding against my ribcage like a caged animal desperate for escape. The proximity to the dead body, sent another jolt of fear through me, freezing me in place.

"Holy fuck!" Jamie's scream pierced the heavy air again. "What the fuck is Joel doing here?"

His words sent a shockwave through my already reeling senses. Joel. A name that transformed the previously anonymous tragedy into a personal nightmare. Not just "Jamie's son" — Joel. A person with a name that Jamie was screaming, a name that carried weight and history and love.

The ground beneath me seemed to shift, our situation taking on a new, horrifying dimension. My mind recoiled at the implication, refusing to accept the truth that was unfolding before us. The thought that it wasn't just a random dead guy, but Joel, someone intimately connected to Jamie washed up at our camp, was a reality too gruesome to comprehend.

My body shuddered uncontrollably. The sheer brutality of the situation, the recognition of Joel's body, it all became overwhelmingly real in that moment. If my stomach hadn't been wracked by the events of the day, leaving it pitifully empty, I was sure a volcano of vomit would have erupted from me. Instead, only a vile dribble of acidic bile managed to escape, running down my chin to drip into the dust below.

The taste of bile in my mouth, the stench of death that lingered in the air, and Jamie's anguished cries created a sensory maelstrom that I struggled to navigate. My hands, now planted firmly in the soft dust, trembled under the weight of our grim discovery. The realisation that our quiet campsite had become the scene of a chilling mystery was a pill too bitter to swallow. The implications were terrifying, the questions numerous, and the fear of what this meant for all of us hung heavily in the air.

"He's still breathing!"

Jamie's call, laden with a mixture of disbelief and urgency, cut through the dense air, shattering the morbid silence. Terror surged within me, my eyes widening in shock as I fought to suppress another onslaught of acid threatening to escape my throat. I rolled onto my bum, my movements awkward and heavy, as I stared across the lagoon at the body I had presumed dead, now a source of bewildering horror.

Still breathing. The man whose hand had grabbed me, whose eyes had opened and stared into mine, whose throat had been cut from ear to ear — he was still breathing. The impossibility of it crashed over me in waves. How? How could anyone survive a wound like that? How could anyone move, grab, look, after losing that much blood?

Jamie, oblivious to the chilling encounter I had just experienced with the body, stood behind the man's head, embodying a mixture of determination and concern. He bent down, his hands reaching for the man's shoulders in a gesture of aid. Panic gripped me; I wanted to scream, to warn Jamie of the macabre twist this situation had taken. But my voice betrayed me, offering nothing but another dribble of burning acid that seared my throat and spilled onto the dust.

Don't touch him. Don't let him touch you. His hand grabbed me and it was cold, so cold, and strong, too strong —

Luke, with a decisiveness that seemed to cut through the chaos, grabbed hold of Jamie's shoulders and yanked him back with a firmness that spoke volumes. Jamie's reaction was immediate and visceral, a swipe at Luke born of confusion and adrenaline.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" He yelled, spitting saliva into the air as if to punctuate his frustration.

"Take a look at his throat," Luke yelled back.

Jamie turned back to the body, crouching over it.

"What the fuck?"

The disbelief in his voice mirrored the shock that rippled through me, a shared horror at the unfolding scene. He was seeing it now — the wound, the impossibility, the same nightmare I had confronted moments ago.

"Jamie, stop!"

Luke's insistence was a desperate plea, a command laced with an understanding of the danger that lay in ignorance. Yet, Jamie, driven by a need to help — a father's need to help his son — reached underneath the body's shoulders, beginning to drag him from the lagoon with a resolve that bordered on reckless.

A loud gasp diverted my attention from the grim tableau before me. Glenda and the new stranger, now part of this nightmare, had arrived at the scene. Glenda, without hesitation, broke into a jog around the perimeter of the lagoon, her actions guided by a sense of urgency as she made her way to Luke and Jamie. Even now, even in the midst of horror, her professional calm was a beacon.

"Uncle Jamie!" The stranger called out, his voice carrying across the water.

So, the stranger knows Jamie.

A realisation that dawned on me amidst the turmoil. Questions began to swirl through my mind, each one a thread in the tangled web of confusion and fear that this day had woven. Who was this person? How many more people were going to emerge from nowhere, connected to secrets I knew nothing about? Yet, the intensity of the moment, the sheer incredulity of the situation, rendered me mute, unable to articulate the whirlwind of thoughts racing through my mind.

"What the fuck have you done, Luke?"

Jamie's voice, raw and teeming with accusation, tore through the tense air as he lost his balance and tumbled to the ground alongside the body. It was a sight that would remain etched in my memory, the embodiment of chaos and despair. Tears, a rare sight, broke through Jamie's normally impenetrable facade, revealing a vulnerability that was as shocking as it was heart-wrenching. The hard man, the critic, the person who had sneered at Glenda's help and bitten his words at everyone who came near — he was crying. Actually crying. For his son.

"Help me take him back to camp," he pleaded, his voice quivering with emotion.

"Wait," Glenda interjected, as she insisted on assessing the situation before acting.

With the bleeding of my arm nearly halted, I dragged myself to the edge of the lagoon, my heart pounding against my ribcage, loud and insistent, as if trying to drown out the noise around me.

What would Glenda find?

The question cascaded through my mind, each imagined answer a hammer blow to my already fragile state of being. The possibility of danger, of infection, of death itself, loomed over me like dark clouds on the horizon.

Glenda crouched beside the body that had been the source of so much dread.

"He's breathing," she announced, her voice cutting through the thick tension.

Gasps, mine included, punctuated the moment.

How is that even possible? The thought echoed in my head, a refrain of disbelief in the face of the inexplicable. This is fucking insane!

"But barely," Glenda continued, her clinical assessment painting a picture that was both hopeful and horrifying.

"I think he may actually be alive. But I don't understand how that is possible. His colour suggests he has lost so much blood that his circulatory system has collapsed."

Her analysis, so precise and unflinching, was a cold splash of reality. A man with a cut throat, breathing. A man who should have been dead hours ago, still clinging to some impossible thread of life. Her gaze then met Jamie's, a silent exchange of resolve and determination.

"You're right. I agree we should bring him back to camp."

"What? Seriously?"

Luke's disbelief mirrored my own, a reflection of the surreal turn the unfolding drama had taken. Bring him back to camp. The man whose hand had grabbed me with supernatural strength. The man who shouldn't be alive. Bring him back to where we slept, where we ate, where we had built our fragile refuge.

I took a deep breath, trying to ground myself amidst the whirlwind of emotions and physical discomfort. My palms sank into the dust as I pushed myself up, a futile attempt to regain some semblance of control. But within seconds, my head began to spin, a dizzying carousel that refused to slow. Sinking back to my knees, my breathing became laboured, a struggle for air that felt as if I were trying to breathe through a cloth. My wounded arm, a reminder of the nightmare we had stumbled into, shook uncontrollably. I clasped both hands tightly, a vain effort to quell the trembling that seemed to have taken root deep within me.

"You coming, Paul?"

Glenda's voice, clear and steady, reached out to me across the distance.

I looked up, my gaze lifting from the dust and disorder at my feet to the scene unfolding before me. Luke, Jamie, and the young man, whose name still remained a mystery to me, were already making their way up the first hill, the body cradled between them in a sombre procession. The sight was jarring, an eerie contrast to the serene landscape that surrounded us. Each step they took seemed to mark the rhythm of a silent, mournful march.

I swallowed hard, fighting back another surge of bile that threatened to rise. The acidic taste lingered in my throat, a bitter reminder of the day's harrowing events.

"I'll meet you there soon," I called out in reply, my voice barely masking the unease that lay beneath.

Without another word, the group continued on their way, their figures gradually diminishing in the distance.

Turning back to my throbbing arm, the sight that greeted me was one of subtle horror.

The skin immediately surrounding the three distinct fingernail cuts had transformed into a dark grey, an unnatural shade that seemed to pulse with a life of its own under my gaze. Grey. Not the red of fresh wounds, not the pink of healing tissue. Grey. The colour of old meat. The colour of things that had stopped receiving blood. The colour of death.

The urge to touch, to somehow understand the change through tactile sensation, surged within me. Yet, as my hand hovered over the discoloured skin, a primal instinct of self-preservation kicked in, and my hand recoiled as if repelled by an invisible force. Whatever this was — infection, contamination, something worse — touching it seemed like the worst possible idea.

The potentially contaminated waters of the lagoon loomed in my mind as a warning, urging me to seek a cleaner source for what I hoped could be a form of relief, or even healing. The lagoon had done strange things to my body already — that inappropriate pleasure, that supernatural cold of Joel's grip. I didn't trust it anymore. I didn't trust anything about this place anymore.

Thus, I crawled over to the edge of the river, each movement deliberate, fuelled by a mix of hope and desperation. The river was different. The river was just water — or at least, it seemed to be just water. It flowed and gurgled like Earth rivers did. It didn't fill you with unwanted sensations or harbour corpses that grabbed at you.

The cool water appeared almost inviting. Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for what was to come and thrust my arm into the flowing liquid. The sting that followed was both immediate and intense, a sharp sensation that seemed to penetrate deep into the very fibres of my being. I hissed through my teeth, fighting the urge to yank my arm back out. Small trails of blood, escaping from the fingernail cuts, mingled with the water, creating ephemeral tendrils that danced away with the current, as if carrying a piece of my fear with them.

My heart raced, pounding against my chest with a ferocity that mirrored the turmoil of my thoughts. I watched, mesmerised, as the dark grey skin around each cut gradually lightened, returning to its normal flesh colour. The transformation, though slow, was a spectacle of nature's resilience, a small victory in the face of the unknown. The grey receded like a tide going out, replaced by the familiar pink of my own skin.

Soaking my arm in the refreshing embrace of the river for almost ten minutes, I clung to the hope that this natural remedy could somehow reverse the damage, heal the wounds completely. The water was cold but not unpleasant, a far cry from the uncanny chill of Joel's dead-not-dead grip. I watched the cuts, willing them to close, willing the flesh to knit itself back together.

Yet, as the minutes passed, it became evident that the water's healing touch had its limits. The wounds remained, a visual reminder of the ordeal, unchanged despite the passage of time. The grey was gone, but the damage beneath persisted. Three parallel lines across my forearm, each one a testament to fingernails that should have been still and powerless.

Is this as much as the water can heal me?

The question echoed in my mind, a whisper of doubt amidst the crashing waves of fear and uncertainty.

Could I still get infected? Or… am I already infected?

The word "infected" carried weight it hadn't before. Infected with what? Something from the lagoon? Something from Joel's body? Something from this alien world that had no name and no cure? The possibilities spiralled outward in terrifying directions, each one worse than the last.

In the silence that followed, a resignation settled over me, soft as the fall of dusk.

"It doesn't matter now," I whispered softly to myself, a surrender to the inevitable. Lifting my arm from the river, I watched as the small droplets of clear water fell from my skin, each one returning to its source with a purity that seemed to mock my current state.

What is done is done.