Dust and Stillness

"People tell you to hold it together. Nobody mentions what happens when there's nothing left to hold."

Glenda's hand found my shoulder again, gentler this time.

"Are you okay?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but the words wouldn't come. What was I supposed to say? That I was fine? That everything was brilliant, actually, thanks for asking? I'd just watched two blokes try to fish a murdered man out of a river — a river so clear and blue it looked like something from a travel brochure, which somehow made the whole thing worse — and then had a panic attack while the body floated away downstream.

"What the fuck is going on?"

My voice came out cracked and raw, nothing like how I normally sounded. Tears were streaming down my face — I hadn't even noticed them starting — cutting tracks through the dust that had settled on my skin. There was dust everywhere. In my hair, my clothes, the creases of my knuckles. This whole place was nothing but the stuff, fine and dirty and relentless.

Glenda studied me for a moment, her expression clinical despite the bruise darkening on her jaw. Whatever she saw must have confirmed something, because she nodded once and took my elbow.

"Come. I think you're in shock. Let's get you inside the tent."

I didn't argue. Couldn't have even if I'd wanted to. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else, moving only because Glenda was steering me, her grip firm enough to keep me upright. The sandy ground shifted beneath my feet with every step, threatening to send me sprawling.

The tent she led me to was the largest of the three — a massive canvas structure that looked like something you'd see at a music festival, the kind of thing that cost a fortune and took half a day to set up. The entrance flap was tied back, revealing a dim interior.

I made it three steps beneath the front canopy before my legs gave out completely.

The ground here was softer— the dust had accumulated into a thick layer that cushioned my fall, almost like landing on a mattress made of talcum powder. I lay there on my back, staring up at the canvas ceiling, watching the fabric shift slightly in the breeze.

My chest hurt. My knuckles hurt. My ankle throbbed where I'd twisted it scrambling over the dunes. Everything hurt, actually, now that I was lying still long enough to take inventory. The adrenaline that had been carrying me since Luke's kitchen was finally draining away, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion that made even breathing feel like effort.

Glenda crouched beside me, pressing something cold into my hand. A bottle — plastic, unopened, condensation beading on its surface.

"Here, drink this. You probably need all of it."

I managed to sit up enough to crack the seal and take a few gulps. The water was cool and clean, and it soothed my throat in a way that made me realise how parched I'd been. I hadn't had anything to drink since that last glass of water at the manor, and that felt like it had happened in another lifetime.

"Thanks."

The word came out as a croak. Glenda just nodded and moved away, giving me space while still keeping me in her line of sight. Professional. Competent. The kind of person you'd want around in a crisis, assuming you had any choice in the matter.

I drained half the bottle and then stopped, some practical instinct kicking in. Water might be scarce here. The river outside looked clean enough — impossibly clean, actually, that vivid blue cutting through all the brown and rust like someone had photoshopped it in — but I didn't know if it was safe to drink. No point wasting what I had until I knew where the next drink was coming from.

Closing my eyes, I rested my head in my hands and tried to get my thoughts in order.

The facts, such as they were: I was in a place called Clivilius. Luke had pushed me through some kind of portal, and now that portal had closed — or at least the colours had vanished, leaving behind that strange translucent screen. Uncle Jamie was here too, somewhere, along with his dogs Henri and Duke, and at least two other people. There was a river, some tents pitched in the dunes, and a dead man with his throat cut who had somehow disappeared downstream.

Oh, and apparently I couldn't go home.

It's impossible for us to return, Glenda had said. Not difficult. Not complicated. Impossible.

I wanted to argue with that. Wanted to believe she was wrong, that there had to be a way back, that Luke was lying or mistaken or just hadn't tried hard enough. But the look on her face when she'd said it — that calm, matter-of-fact certainty — made it hard to hold onto hope.

The tent was quiet around me. I could hear distant sounds — the soft hiss of wind moving sand, maybe a voice carried from far away — but here it was still. The canvas filtered the harsh sunlight into something softer, easier on the eyes. Dust had settled on everything, a fine coating that made the whole space look slightly faded, like a photograph left too long in the sun.

I thought about the dead man in the river. Tried not to, but the image kept surfacing anyway — that grey face against the crystal blue water, the contrast almost beautiful in a sick sort of way. Those empty eyes. The ragged mess of his throat, dark red against pale skin.

Someone had done that to him. Someone in this place, this supposedly empty world that Luke had dragged me into, had taken a blade and—

I cut the thought off before it could go any further. No point dwelling on it. Couldn't change what had happened, couldn't bring the poor bastard back. All I could do was try to figure out what came next.

Construction expert, Luke had called me. Like that was supposed to mean something. Like I was here to help build whatever half-arsed settlement they were trying to establish in this wasteland.

The thought sparked a flicker of something that might have been dark humour. Three years of apprenticeship, learning how to frame walls and pour concrete and read blueprints, and this was where it got me. Stranded in another dimension with a bunch of strangers, surrounded by nothing but sand dunes and a pretty river, expected to put my skills to use building... what, exactly? Sandcastles?

Fuck that. I wasn't staying here long enough to build anything. I was going to find Uncle Jamie, figure out what the hell was actually going on, and find a way home. The portal might have closed, but that didn't mean it couldn't open again. Luke had come through after me — there had to be a way to make it work in reverse.

I just had to figure out how.

The silence stretched on. Minutes, maybe. Hard to tell without a phone or a watch or any other way to mark the time. Glenda had drifted toward the tent entrance, her attention focused on something. Waiting for Luke and the other bloke to come back, probably. Waiting to see if they'd caught up with the body before it reached wherever the lagoon was.

I took another sip of water, smaller this time, and let my eyes close again. The darkness behind my eyelids was soothing, a brief escape from the relentless strangeness of everything around me. I could feel my heartbeat slowing, my breathing evening out. The panic was receding, leaving behind a dull, heavy numbness that wasn't exactly pleasant but was better than the alternative.

Just rest for a minute, I told myself. Get your head together. Then figure out your next move.

The scream shattered everything.

High and raw and terrified, it ripped through the quiet like a knife through paper, echoing off the dunes outside and sending my heart rate spiking right back to where it had been before. I jerked upright, water sloshing in the bottle I'd forgotten I was holding, my eyes snapping open.

"Did you hear that?"

The question was stupid — of course she'd heard it, the whole bloody camp must have heard it — but my brain wasn't exactly operating at full capacity. I looked around for Glenda, expecting her to say something reassuring, to tell me it was nothing, just someone stubbing their toe or seeing a spider or whatever passed for emergencies in this place.

But she was already gone, her footsteps kicking up puffs of dust as she ran toward the source of the scream.

And I was alone.

The camp felt bigger suddenly, emptier. I should get up. Should follow Glenda. Should do something other than sit here like a useless lump while people screamed and bodies floated down rivers and everything went to shit.

But I couldn't make myself move.

The numbness that had been settling over me shifted into something else — something heavier, darker. I rolled onto my side, drawing my knees up toward my chest, curling into the same position I'd slept in as a kid when I was scared of the dark. The dust beneath me was soft against my cheek, fine enough to coat my skin, to work its way into my clothes and hair.

Tears came again, hot and bitter, spilling down my face and mixing with the dust to form pale smears. I didn't try to stop them this time. What was the point? There was no one here to see, no one to judge, no one to tell me to man up or get a grip or any of the other things blokes were supposed to say to each other when emotions got too big to contain.

I was alone in an impossible place, surrounded by sand and silence, and I had no idea if I'd ever see home again.

The thoughts came unbidden now, impossible to push away. Mum waiting for a phone call about Uncle Jamie that would never come. The apprenticeship I'd been so close to finishing. The look on Brianne's face this morning when I'd left, that mixture of frustration and resignation that I'd promised myself I'd make up for. All the small, ordinary things I'd taken for granted — a proper shower, a decent feed, knowing where I was and how to get where I needed to go.

Gone. Replaced by dust and fear and a dead man's empty eyes staring up at a blue sky that wasn't the blue sky I'd known my whole life.

How did I end up here?

The question echoed through my mind, unanswerable. One minute I'd been in Luke's kitchen, agreeing to help move a TV cabinet like an idiot. The next I was falling through light and colour and landing in a world that shouldn't exist.

Will I ever find my way back?

I didn't know. Couldn't know. And that uncertainty was the worst part — worse than the fear, worse than the grief, worse than anything else.