Dust & Distance

“Some places don’t echo because they’re empty. They echo because something else is already listening.”

The moment I stepped through, the world shifted around me like a dropped curtain.

There was no whirring sound, no visual tunnel of motion like in the films—just an instant, disorienting flip from one reality to another. One heartbeat I was in a McDonald’s toilet stall, under flickering fluorescent lights, and in the next, I was… elsewhere.

Saint Phillis greeted me with the kind of silence that felt ancient.

I stood there for a moment, just breathing it in. The air tasted different here—cleaner but somehow heavier, like each molecule carried more weight. It filled my lungs with a coolness that seemed to spread through my veins, washing away the lingering traces of Elizabeth's heat. The abrupt temperature change raised goosebumps along my arms beneath my shirt sleeves.

The portal behind me was already fading. From this side, the surface of the Portal Screen had dulled to a faint mirror sheen—dormant now, waiting. It reflected a ghosted version of the landscape: the jagged rock formations enclosing this section of the bluff, the empty sky, and me—standing small against it all.

There was no sign of life. No sound beyond the occasional grit shifting underfoot. Nothing but the landscape and the pressure of stillness. The sky above stretched vast and cloudless.

The silence here had a texture.

It pressed at your ears, filled the cracks in your thoughts. It wasn't just the absence of sound but something more tangible—a presence in itself that seemed to absorb even the noise of my own breathing. I found myself swallowing hard, just to create some sound, to remind myself that I still existed in a world where noise was possible.

I turned slowly, half-expecting to see someone—Mason, Ella, even Diesel—waiting nearby. But there was only the land. The cliffs to the south, their edges sharp enough to cut the eye, rising like sentinels against the blue sky. The endless dust plains to the north, stretching toward a horizon that seemed both closer and impossibly far away. And the stillness that had made this place feel uninhabited even when I'd first visited. The dust beneath my feet was fine and rust-coloured, shifting with each step like powdered cinnamon.

The portal flared again behind me with a sudden burst of light. I turned just in time to see Josh step through.

He stumbled slightly, catching himself with a curse under his breath. His body seemed to waver for a millisecond, as though reality needed a moment to accept him fully.

"Bloody hell," he muttered, blinking rapidly as he looked around. "Still not used to that." He raised a hand to his temple, pressing against it as though trying to hold his thoughts inside his skull.

He steadied himself, brushing at his jeans instinctively, then slowly took it all in. His eyes scanned the ridge, then the dust flats. I watched him carefully, searching for signs of the wonder I'd felt on my first crossing, but his expression remained guarded, wary. He looked more like someone returning to a battlefield than exploring a miracle.

He didn’t say anything for a moment.

Then: "It looks... emptier than I remember." The words came out flat, weighted with something I couldn't quite identify. Disappointment? Fear? The subtle tremor in his voice revealed more than his carefully controlled expression.

I didn't reply. There was nothing to say. The emptiness of Saint Phillis spoke for itself—a vast canvas of nothingness that somehow felt more significant than any crowded city street.

Together, we began walking. The crunch of our shoes echoed sharply against the silence, like intrusions. We curved slightly as the ground sloped downward between two high ridges of jagged black stone, eventually widening into a small open basin near the cliff's edge.

And that’s when I saw it.

A crude, half-collapsed shelter—just a low, makeshift wall of stacked stones, perhaps waist-high, designed to block the wind. Bits of tarp flapped faintly in the gentle breeze, one corner pinned beneath a rock, the rest torn and twisted like it had been abandoned mid-use. The blue plastic looked jarringly out of place in this empty landscape, a discordant note of Earth intruding on Saint Phillis's timeless composition.

Josh stopped walking. His shoulders stiffened, the muscles in his neck visibly tensing. The change was subtle but unmistakable—like watching someone brace for impact.

"This was it," he said. "This is where I left them." His voice had dropped to barely above a whisper, as though speaking too loudly might disturb the ghosts of whoever had been here.

I moved forward, eyes scanning the ground. Dust had crept into every crevice. The shelter was coated in a fine layer of grit. No fresh footprints. No signs of recent movement. Just the wind-swept quiet of time passing, uninterrupted.

"Are you sure?" I asked, though I knew the question was unnecessary. Josh's reaction had already confirmed it.

He nodded slowly. "They were here. Last night."

I crouched beside what might have been a fire pit—just a ring of stones, now cold and long dead. My fingers brushed against the ashes, expecting warmth but finding only the cool touch of time's passage. Not even a residual hint of heat remained.

"They didn't wait," I said softly. The evidence was clear enough—whoever had been here was long gone. The abandonment felt recent but complete, like a story cut off mid-sentence.

Josh didn't answer. He turned slowly in place, eyes searching the horizon. The bright light of Saint Phillis cast harsh shadows across his face, deepening the lines around his mouth. His voice, when it came, was taut, stretched thin like a wire about to snap.

"There was nowhere to go. We agreed they'd stay put." The frustration in his voice was edged with something else—fear, perhaps, or guilt. The muscles in his jaw worked as he scanned the camp again, as if expecting to find something he'd missed.

"Well, they didn't," I said. Not accusingly—just stating fact. The emptiness of the camp spoke volumes. "Look."

I pointed to a faint line of disturbance in the dust just beyond the shelter. Tracks. Imperfect, scattered, half-erased—but there. The sight sent a small chill down my spine. Whoever had made them had walked away from safety, from the agreed meeting point, into the vast unknown of Saint Phillis.

Josh was beside me in a moment, his breath catching audibly as he spotted the trail. We followed them carefully, stepping between the marks so as not to disturb them further. Our own footprints created new history beside the old, deeper and more defined against the powdery surface.

The trail was hesitant. The footprints weren't deep or hurried. No sign of panic. Just... movement. Meandering. Directional, but uncertain. Like they didn't know where they were going, only that they had to go somewhere. Some prints were larger—a man's, perhaps—while others were smaller, more delicate. In places, they overlapped or circled back, as if the makers had been discussing which way to go.

We walked in silence, following the line of barely-there impressions as they arced gently away from the shelter, toward the cliffs and the endless flatness beyond. The silence between us grew heavier with each step, filled with unasked questions and unvoiced fears.

Then, about fifty metres on, they disappeared.

Wiped clean.

The wind here wasn't strong. Just persistent. Enough to erase history grain by grain. The sudden end of the trail felt symbolic somehow, a metaphor for the fragility of human presence in this ancient place. I found myself staring at the blank expanse of dust, trying to will the footprints back into existence.

Josh stood still, eyes fixed on the blank space ahead, like willing it to return would somehow draw the tracks back into the dust. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides, the only outward sign of the turmoil I could sense building within him.

"I told them I'd be back," he said, voice brittle. "Told them not to go anywhere." The words sounded hollow in the vast silence, an echo of a promise now broken—though through no fault of his own.

"You couldn't have known," I said gently, though the words felt inadequate even as I spoke them. What couldn't he have known? That they would leave? That something might happen to them? The ambiguity hung between us, unresolved.

His jaw clenched. "I should've." The two words carried the weight of responsibility, of guilt—emotions I knew all too well. His shoulders sagged slightly, the burden of whatever was happening here settling more firmly upon them.

We stood there for a long moment. The silence pressed in again, thicker now. Heavier. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

I glanced around, unease prickling at the back of my neck. Something felt... wrong.

Not dangerous. Not yet.

But off.

Different.

A shift in the atmosphere that hadn't been there before. It was like the air had thickened, become more attentive somehow. The feeling wasn't entirely unfamiliar—I'd experienced it briefly during my previous visit—but now it seemed more pronounced, more deliberate.

I turned, scanning the rocks. No sign of anyone. The jagged formations remained still and silent, casting long shadows across the dust. Nothing moved except the occasional flutter of the abandoned tarp back at the shelter. Yet the sensation persisted—that crawling awareness of being observed, assessed.

"Josh," I said quietly, not wanting to disturb the silence more than necessary. "Do you feel that?"

He looked at me sharply, his expression shifting from frustration to alert wariness in an instant. "Feel what?" But even as he asked, I could see recognition dawning in his eyes. He felt it too—that subtle wrongness in the air.

Finally, I persuaded Josh to come back with me towards the portal, to the place where I had hidden the backpack. The journey back felt longer somehow, as though Saint Phillis was stretching the distance between points, playing with space just as it seemed to play with time. Each step sent up small puffs of rust-coloured dust that hung unnaturally in the air. Josh walked slightly ahead, his shoulders tense, gaze constantly scanning the horizon. The silence between us felt charged, electric with unspoken fears.

As we approached, my eyes fell on the narrow crevice near the base of one of the taller formations—the place I'd hidden the backpack. Even from a distance, something looked different. The shadows didn't fall quite right, didn't fill the space as they should. The formation itself—a column of black stone that twisted skyward like a frozen flame—seemed to loom larger than I remembered, casting a longer shadow across the dusty ground.

My stomach turned slightly, a cold weight settling in my gut.

I walked quickly, heart ticking up a notch. Each footfall seemed unnaturally loud in the pressing silence, like I was announcing our presence to whatever might be listening. The fine dust coated my shoes, working its way into the laces and seams as though the very substance of this place wanted to mark me, claim me.

The space where I’d wedged it was empty.

Gone.

The absence hit me like a physical force, sending a wave of cold dread washing through my veins. I had hidden it carefully, wedged it far enough into the crevice that wind alone couldn't have dislodged it. Someone—or something—had taken it deliberately. The implications of that fact crawled across my skin like insects.

But something else had been left in its place.

A notebook.

The sight of it made my blood run cold. The object looked jarring against the unfamiliar landscape—a human artefact arranged with deliberate intent. It hadn't fallen there by accident; it had been placed, positioned carefully where the backpack had been, as though in exchange. As though whatever had taken the backpack understood the concept of trade.

I crouched slowly, hand reaching out before I even realised it was moving. My fingers trembled slightly as they closed around the worn cover. The notebook felt warm, as though it had been lying in the sun for hours, though the crevice was deep in shadow. The cover was soft and battered, edges curled with age and use. I recognised it instantly, the memory flashing with perfect clarity—the woman on the plane.

But not all of the handwriting inside was hers.

The realisation slammed into me with physical force. Mason's handwriting—distinctive, with those sharp angles and heavy pressure that often tore the paper. My heartbeat thundered in my ears, a rushing sound like waves crashing against cliffs.

I stood up straight, spine stiffening, and turned to Josh. "Josh." My voice sounded strange, tight with a tension that squeezed my throat. In that single syllable hung a world of questions.

He was already moving. "What is it?" His expression shifted from wary to alert, reading the shock on my face instantly.

I held the notebook up. "It's his. Mason left this." The words felt inadequate, unable to convey the magnitude of what this meant. Mason had been here—recently enough to leave this message. He'd found the backpack I'd hidden.

Josh's face tightened, the colour draining from his cheeks. He stepped in close as I opened to the first page, close enough that I could feel the nervous energy radiating from him, hear the slight catch in his breathing. His presence beside me felt both reassuring and heightening my alarm—Josh wasn't easily rattled, but he was rattled now.

It wasn't neat. The writing was jagged, rushed, slanting unevenly across the paper like he'd scribbled it while glancing over his shoulder. Some letters were pressed so hard they'd torn through the paper, creating small constellations of punctures that felt symbolic somehow—small violations of reality, just like the portals themselves. Dark smudges marked the corners of the pages—dirt or blood, I couldn't tell. I didn't want to know.

Something’s out here. Watching.

It started after sunset—complete darkness. No stars, no moon. Just black.

Then the lights came. Flickering—far off at first, then closer. Diesel went wild. Wouldn’t stop barking. Ella’s terrified. I’m not far off myself.

We didn’t see anything, but we heard it. Footsteps maybe. Breathing? It’s hard to say.

I felt a chill creep up my spine at that. Breathing. The word conjured images of something lurking just out of sight, something alive and hunting. I found myself listening more intently to the silence around us, straining to hear anything beyond our own carefully controlled breathing.

I don’t know if we’re being followed or if this place is playing tricks on us. We waited until daylight, but things aren’t right here.

Diesel’s been pacing since morning—ears up, low growling. He’s not himself.

Animals always know, I thought distantly. The old adage floated through my mind—how pets could sense earthquakes before they happened, how they grew restless before storms. What had Diesel sensed here, in this place that wasn't meant for any living creature from Earth?

I think the lights are coming back. We saw reflections—just barely—near the cliffs.

Same place we thought we heard movement last night.

My eyes lifted involuntarily toward the cliffs Mason had mentioned. They rose like jagged teeth against the strange sky, dark and forbidding. Was something watching us from there even now? The thought made my skin crawl, a thousand tiny needles of fear pricking along my arms and neck.

It’s not safe. Not here.

We’ve taken the pack and gone inland. I left this in case you came back. We’ll leave markers if we can.

Josh's breath hitched slightly at that. I glanced sideways, catching the flash of guilt and horror that crossed his features. He'd promised to return quickly. He'd told them to stay put. But something had forced them to flee—something frightening enough that they'd risked the unknown rather than wait any longer.

Don’t follow unless you know where you’re going.

If we’re wrong and something finds us…

Well. Better one of us knows where we disappeared.

M.

The last line hit like a blow. Not "where we are" or "how to find us"—but "where we disappeared." Mason had written this believing they might not survive, might simply vanish into the vastness of Saint Phillis, leaving nothing but this notebook as testimony to their existence.

I read it aloud, quietly. My voice sounded strange in the oppressive silence, too human, too fragile.

Josh didn't speak for several seconds. When he finally did, his voice was almost a whisper, rough with tension.

"I don't like this."

"No," I agreed. "Neither do I." The understatement felt necessary somehow, as though naming the full extent of our dread might summon whatever had caused it.

He stared at the surrounding rocks, as if expecting something to shift, to emerge. His gaze was hyper-vigilant, darting from shadow to shadow like a prey animal sensing a predator's presence. The muscles in his jaw worked silently, teeth clenched against words or emotions he wasn't ready to voice.

Nothing moved.

And yet… it felt like something had.

The sensation was subtle—a shift in the quality of silence, perhaps. A weight to the air that hadn't been there before. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, a primal response to a threat I couldn't see but could somehow feel. It was the sensation of being in a room when someone enters quietly behind you—that pressure change, that awareness of another presence.

I closed the notebook carefully and looked out toward the horizon. The dust shimmered faintly in the afternoon light, dancing with particles that caught the strange illumination of this place. Too quiet. Too still. The landscape seemed to be holding its breath, waiting.

Josh exhaled, long and slow. The sound seemed unnaturally loud, a disturbance in the perfect silence.

"What the hell is watching them?" The question emerged half-strangled, as though he'd tried to stop himself from asking it but failed.

I didn’t answer.

Because the truth was—I had no idea.

But whatever it was, it had found them first.

And now, it might be watching us too.