Dust and Silence

“You can get used to silence, but that doesn’t mean it’s empty—it just means it’s waiting.”

The sun had crept high enough now that its light spilled through the broken doorway like an unblinking eye — clear and cold, casting everything inside in a hard, white glare that made familiar shapes look foreign. It didn’t warm the space. It just lit it up in that brittle way winter light does — like it was trying to show you too much.

Everything it touched looked dry and sharp. Like things could snap with the wrong kind of look. Even the shadows had gone thin and jagged, stretched across the floor like cracks in old glass.

It was the kind of dryness that stung your nose and made your throat scratchy. My skin felt tight, like the cold had pulled it too close around my bones. My lips were cracked. I ran my tongue over them and tasted dust and something faintly bitter, like metal left in the sun.

Even my eyes felt sore when I blinked — not from heat, but from the brightness. From the way the light didn’t let you hide.

Mack said we should get some air.

I didn’t want to. Not really.

The thought of stepping out into all that space made my chest feel weird—like someone was holding it in their fist, gently squeezing. But the inside of the building had started to feel wrong too. The air in there was thick and stale, and the walls… the walls felt like they were leaning closer somehow. Like they were listening.

The metal sheets creaked—sharp, impatient little groans.
It was like the building was tired of us. Like it wanted us out.

Mack stepped into the doorway first. He didn’t move straight away, just stood there, the sunlight cutting a line across his shoulders. His whole body was coiled, like he was deciding between fight or flight. He looked smaller in the light—thin and upright like a post, the bones in his arms making angles against his skin.

Then he stepped out onto the dirt. His boots crunched on the dry ground. He didn’t look back at me at first, just raised one hand behind him—flat palm, fingers spread wide like a stop sign.

“Only just here,” he said, quiet but firm. His voice had a hush to it, like he thought the air might carry it to the wrong ears. “No wandering.”

I nodded and stepped out after him. The sun hit me like a wall.

I squinted, lifting my hand to shield my face. My arm made a patch of shade across my eyes—just enough to stop the worst of the stabbing light. It felt like walking into a world made of mirrors, all glare and no comfort.

The ground stretched in every direction, a cracked, dry skin peeling back under the heat. The dirt was pale in places, crusted with a salty film that made white veins across the earth—like Grandma’s hands, the ones with the blue lines that looked like rivers.

The air smelled strange. Warming metal. Dry dust.

Near the edges of the building, scraggly little clumps of grass poked out of the soil. They weren’t soft, green tufts—these were wiry, yellow things, spiky like bristles. They looked like they’d scratch you if you got too close. Like they wanted to.

Then—caw. A single crow, sharp and scratchy, called out above us. Its voice echoed, bouncing off the emptiness like it was the only sound in the world. I looked up.

The crow flew alone, black wings slicing through the blue like scissors through wrapping paper. It moved with purpose, like it had somewhere better to be. I watched it until it shrank to a dot and then disappeared.

We walked slowly. Carefully.

The ground crunched underfoot—gravel, grit, and little shards of something glassy that sparkled when the light hit them. Like stars that had fallen and broken when they landed. Every step left a mark. Every mark felt loud.

Dust rose in tiny clouds with each footfall, coating my shoes until they didn’t look like mine anymore. The canvas turned rusty red, the laces grey with grit. I kept my steps light, like the earth might not notice I was there.

The edges of the building were messier than I remembered. Rusty sheets of tin leaned against each other like old bones. Some had curled at the corners, like they were trying to fold in on themselves. Wire fencing lay in tangled heaps—loops of metal that looked like they might spring to life and strike if you stepped too close.

I saw bricks, too—half-buried, broken, faded red with little flecks of cement still clinging to their sides. Like pieces of a story someone had tried to erase but hadn’t finished.

Bits of the past poked out of the ground everywhere I looked. A shard of blue ceramic with a painted edge. A bolt with deep orange rust, flakes falling off like old skin. The cracked sole of a boot, curled at the edges, like it had been waiting years for someone to come back and fill it.

Mack kept scanning the horizon, eyes narrowed against the glare. He looked and looked, never letting his gaze rest for too long in any one place. He used his hand to block the sun, just like I had, turning his head this way and that. Looking for... something.

A car? A person? The man with empty eyes?

I don’t think he knew what he was looking for. Just that something might appear.

He didn’t let go of the phone. Not once. It sat in his hand, clutched so tightly that his knuckles had turned pale. His fingers curled around it like it might disappear if he let go. Like it was a rope tethering us to something real. To before.

To Mum. To Grandma. To the parts of the world that hadn’t come undone yet.

Then I saw it.

A flicker near a boulder—just the tiniest dart of movement—and I froze, heart stuttering in my chest. For a moment, the world seemed to pause with me. Even the breeze held still.

“Mack!” I whispered, grabbing his arm. “Look!”

He turned sharply, frowning, every muscle suddenly tight and ready. His body shifted between me and whatever I’d seen, his hand half-raised as if to shield or fight. That protective instinct kicked in so fast it almost startled me.

“It’s a lizard!”

And it was. A little skink, no longer than my finger, stood perched on top of the sun-baked rock like it owned the land for miles. Its tiny body shimmered in the light, all iridescent blues and greens and flashes of gold. Its head lifted proudly, and its chest puffed out like it was giving a speech to invisible lizard citizens.

It flicked its tail once, confidently, as though to underline some important point in its imaginary speech.

“I’m naming him Captain Fizzlebottom,” I declared, lifting my chin. A strange, bright feeling bloomed in my chest—joy, maybe. Or something close to it. It felt new and weird and fragile, like a flower growing out of the middle of a burned log.

Mack snorted, the sound short and surprised, caught somewhere between a laugh and a scoff.

“That’s a stupid name,” he said, but the corners of his mouth twitched. The tightness in his shoulders softened just a little.

“No it’s not,” I said, full of indignation. I planted my hands on my hips. “He’s the mayor of all the rocks. He holds very serious lizard meetings. Look at his face—he’s thinking about lizard taxes and tiny roadworks and stuff.”

Mack let out a proper laugh then. Not loud, but real. Just a breath of sound, but it was the first genuine one in what felt like a hundred years. It was like seeing a crack of sunlight break through a sky that had been grey for days.

The skink blinked, slowly, its eyelids sliding sideways. It looked exactly like a wink. A little secret shared just between us.

Then it zipped away under the boulder, vanishing with a flick of its tail and kicking up a puff of dust in its wake. Gone, just like that. A tiny piece of magic slipping back into the rocks.

I giggled, surprised by the sound of it. It felt strange in my mouth, like I’d forgotten how to make it. When had I last laughed? Properly laughed? Not a fake one to make someone feel better. A real, bubbling-up kind of laugh?

But the moment cracked.

My stomach let out a growl—loud, deep, echoing against the rock like it was answering the lizard’s speech with a protest of its own. The joy crumpled under the weight of that sound, folding in on itself.

The giggle caught in my throat and twisted into something else. A hiccup. Then a sob.

It came so suddenly, I didn’t have time to stop it. One second I was smiling, and the next I was falling apart.

My face twisted against my will, and I clenched my fists so tight my nails pressed little half-moons into my palms. I didn’t want to cry. Not here. Not in front of Mack. Not when I’d finally made him laugh again. Big girls don’t cry, Dad used to say. Be tough. Be smart.

But Dad wasn’t here, was he?

And I remembered how Mack had cried yesterday. When he thought I was asleep. I’d heard the sounds—tiny, careful sobs buried in his pillow.

It was too late to stop it now.

The tears spilled over, hot and sharp, carving streaks through the dust on my cheeks. They made my skin sting, like my face was cracked glass and the water was slipping through.

“I’m hungry,” I said. The words came out broken, cracked in the middle. “I’m so hungry, Mack.”

He didn’t hesitate. Just stepped in and wrapped one arm around my shoulders, pulling me close. His other hand still clutched the phone. Always holding on. Always ready.

His body was warm and solid and familiar. He smelled of sweat and metal and that sweet-sharp something that was just him. The smell of safety. The smell of home.

“I know,” he said softly, his voice thick. “I know.”

I pressed my face into his shirt. The fabric was warm from the sun and gritty with dust, but I didn’t care. I could feel his heartbeat through it—steady and real, even though I knew he was just as scared as I was. Maybe more. But he never let it show for long. Not with me.

My sobs came in waves, rising from deep inside like bubbles that had been trapped there too long. Each one hurt. Each one left me a little more hollow, like something was being scooped out of me and carried away on the wind.

I cried for the hunger, and for Grandma, who hadn’t come back. For the man with empty eyes. For the girl he took. For the house that wasn’t a house. For Mum, wherever she was. For the version of the world that made sense yesterday and didn’t anymore.

Mack just held me, stroking my hair gently, his fingers catching in the tangles. The phone stayed in his other hand, silent and useless.

But he didn’t put it down.

He never put it down.

When I finally pulled away, rubbing my nose on my sleeve, the sun had shifted again. It sat high in the sky now, directly above, casting short, dark shadows that huddled close beneath everything like frightened creatures.

My head felt floaty and light, emptied out by the crying. Like I was made of hollow glass. Like I might drift away if Mack let go.

But he didn’t.

The ground in the distance seemed to waver — not with heat, but with something else. A thin distortion, like looking through cold glass or rippling water. The horizon bent and quivered, like the world was holding its breath, trying not to break.

Everything far off looked soft around the edges, drawn in chalk and half-erased by wind or light. Things didn’t sit still. They shimmered, but not warmly — more like the flicker of air when something cold moves across it.

It felt like looking through water. Dreamlike. Untrustworthy.

That was when Mack saw it.

“Look,” he said, sharp and sudden, pointing just past the last leaning fence post.

His voice had changed. It wasn’t tired now—it had a spark in it. Something awake. I followed his finger, squinting against the glare.

At first, I thought he meant a cloud—a single puff of white in all that blue. But it wasn’t moving. Clouds drift and change and stretch themselves out like lazy cats. This didn’t. It stayed where it was, still and steady, like it had been planted there.

Then I saw it properly.

A thread of smoke.

Faint and grey, way off near the edge of the ridge where the land dipped down like the world just stopped. Not wide like a bushfire. Not thick or angry. It rose in a narrow line, soft at the edges, like someone had drawn it in pencil.

Like chimney smoke.

Like in kids’ drawings, where the house has four windows and a smiling sun, and the smoke curls up in a squiggle like a question mark.

“Is that a house?” I asked. My voice came out too fast, too hopeful. I could feel something fluttering in my chest, sharp and alive. People meant water. People meant food. People meant help.

“Dunno,” Mack said, eyes locked on the distant smoke. He stared like he was trying to read something written in the sky. Like if he looked hard enough, he could know. “Could be. Could be a mirage.”

“What’s a mirage?”

He didn’t take his eyes off it. “A pretend thing your brain shows you. When it’s too hot. Or when you're too thirsty. Like when the road looks shiny and wet but it’s not.”

I stared at the smoke. It didn’t shimmer or dance like the rest of the world. It held its shape. It just was.

A line of grey, connecting the ground to the sky, like a thread between here and somewhere else. Somewhere better.

“Are we going there?” I asked.

Mack shook his head. Slow. A tight line formed in his jaw, the muscle near his ear jumping like it always did when he was trying not to say something.

“Not yet,” he said, careful and slow. “We’ll wait a bit longer. Grandma might call back. Maybe she’s already on her way.”

I nodded, because that’s what I was supposed to do. That’s what good little sisters do. They believe their big brothers, even when they know they’re pretending. Even when they feel the lie thrum beneath the words like a second heartbeat.

But something inside me didn’t believe him.

Something cold. Something quiet and small and sharp. It lived below the hunger, below the fear. A little voice that had stopped waiting for magic. One that whispered: She’s not coming back. No one is.

We’re on our own now.

We turned back toward the building.

The shadows had shrunk, curling under the rusted edges and broken junk like they were hiding. Even the light looked tired now, too bright, too white. Like the sun was scouring the land clean.

As we stepped back inside, the change hit me like walking underwater.

The dark closed around us all at once. The air felt thick and stale, like it had been exhaled a hundred times and never breathed in again. I blinked, eyes adjusting. The world inside looked dim and quiet, like it had fallen asleep while we were gone.

Mack looked down at the phone in his hand. Again.

He checked it the way you check a wound, or a watch when you know you’re out of time but keep hoping anyway.

One bar.

The little battery symbol blinked on the small green screen. A thin, red sliver at the bottom—barely a heartbeat. Just one flicker.

Then it stopped.

The stillness that followed felt louder than the blink.

Like a warning that had already given up.

My throat tightened, and I didn’t know if it was from thirst or something worse. That red light was more than a battery. It was a thread. A thread connecting us to Grandma. To Mum. To anyone.

Now it was going out. And when it did—really did—there’d be no one left at the other end.

Just us. Just this place. Just the sun and the dust and the waiting.

I watched Mack’s face as he stared at the screen, unmoving. His eyes didn’t blink, just stayed fixed on that single, flickering red sliver. Then something shifted behind them—like a thought had clicked into place, solid and irreversible. A decision. He looked at me, then out through the doorway at the distant thread of smoke curling against the bright blue sky, then back at me.

“We should save the battery,” he said, finally. His voice was quiet, careful. “Turn it off for now.”

I nodded, but my stomach gave a small twist. I didn’t want to admit how much the idea scared me. What if Grandma called while it was off? What if that little buzz came through and we didn’t hear it? What if that was the call—the one that changed everything—and we missed it?

But Mack was right. We had to be careful. To plan. To make what little we had last.

He held the button down with his thumb. The screen went dark after a few seconds, then made a soft, descending chirp as it shut down—three fading notes, like a lullaby dying mid-song. It felt like a goodbye.

The silence that followed wasn’t ordinary silence. It was heavy. Thick. Like a blanket pulled over our heads.

“What now?” I asked.

Mack’s eyes swept the building, as if looking at it properly for the first time. The torn walls. The half-collapsed beams. The floor coated in dust that stuck to our skin. The rectangles of light falling in strange angles through broken panels.

“Now we wait,” he said simply. “And we think.”

“Think about what?”

He didn’t answer straight away. He looked out through the door again, then said, “About what we’re going to do if—” He caught himself. “When Grandma comes back. About what we saw last night. What it means.”

I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.

The dark-eyed man came back into my mind like a bad smell. Too tall. Too still. His face smooth in a way that didn’t look human. Like a mannequin left too long in the sun.

“Do you think he lives there?” I asked, nodding toward the smoke in the distance.

Mack turned sharply. “Who?”

“The scary man. Do you think that’s where he took her? The girl?”

For a second, I saw something flicker in Mack’s face. A shadow.
Something he didn’t want me to see. A realisation, maybe. Or just a fear that had been hiding under the surface and was now clawing its way out.

“No,” he said quickly. Too quickly. “No, that’s just… someone’s house. A farmer, maybe. Or a mine worker.”

“But what if it is?” I pressed. The idea had taken hold, lodged in my mind like a splinter under the skin. “What if he’s out there right now? What if he comes back?”

Mack crouched in front of me, bringing his eyes level with mine. His hands settled gently on my shoulders. I could feel the weight of them—steady, grounding.

“Listen to me, Rose.” His voice was calm, but serious. The way grown-ups sound when they want you to really listen. “If he comes back, we hide. We stay quiet. We don’t let him see us. But I don’t think he will. I think he’s gone now.”

“But how do you know?” I whispered.

“I don’t,” he said, and there was something about the way he said it—honest, plain—that made it better than if he’d lied. “But I promise, I won’t let anything happen to you. Not ever. Okay?”

I nodded. Because I needed to. Because I wanted to believe him, more than anything.

“Do you think the girl’s okay?” I asked. The question that had been digging its claws into the back of my mind since the moment the wall lit up.

Mack’s eyes changed. Darkened. I knew he was seeing it again, just like I was—the colours that weren’t colours, the way the metal moved like water, the girl’s blank face as she was dragged through.

“I don’t know,” he said at last.

“I hope so.”

But he didn’t say it like someone who believed it. And neither did I.

We settled back onto the mattress, sitting side by side with our backs against the wall. The phone lay between us like a dead thing, its screen dark and silent.

Outside, the sun carried on like it didn’t care about us at all. It climbed slowly, steadily, dragging the shadows with it, stretching and shrinking them like taffy. The world kept moving.

But I felt still. Heavy and still.

And far away, that thin, pale column of smoke still rose against the sky, a soft line drawn by a hand we couldn’t see.

It looked like it was calling to us. Like a finger, slowly beckoning.

Come and see, it seemed to whisper. Come and find out.