Fallen Fruit

"Grief doesn't care about your schedule. It just hands you a shovel and waits."

"Luke?" A soft voice pierced the shroud of darkness that had enveloped me, but I couldn't muster the energy to respond. I didn't know how long I'd been sitting here—minutes, hours, some indeterminate stretch of time that had lost all meaning. The grief was so tangible it felt like a physical weight pressing down on my chest, making each breath an effort. I continued to sniff loudly, the undignified act of sucking back snot a desperate attempt to prevent further soiling Duke's fur. As if that mattered now. As if anything mattered.

The figure of Beatrix appeared in the doorway, her silhouette backlit by the hallway light. A reminder that the world beyond this room still existed, still demanded attention, still refused to stop turning just because my dog was dead.

"Luke?" she called out again, her voice laced with concern. Her hand found the light switch before I could protest, and she slapped it on.

My swollen eyes blinked rapidly against the sudden burst of brightness. The light felt almost violent after so long in the dark—an intrusion, an accusation. You can't hide in here forever. You can't pretend the world has stopped.

"Oh, Luke," Beatrix said, her voice soft as she took in the scene before her. Me, slumped against the headboard with my dead dog in my arms. Eyes red and swollen. Face streaked with tears I hadn't bothered to wipe away. She took several tentative steps toward the bed, as if approaching a wounded animal that might lash out, and slowly seated herself on the edge of the mattress.

"I could have done more," I sniffled, my voice barely a whisper. The words scraped against my dry throat, rough and painful. The guilt had been building, and now it spilled out without permission. "I should have... I don't know. Done something different."

Reaching out, Beatrix placed a soft hand on my shoulder. The warmth of human contact felt foreign after so long alone in the dark. "I know you did everything you could, Luke. You're a great dog dad, and Duke was lucky to have you."

The kindness in her words almost made it worse. I didn't deserve kindness. Didn't deserve comfort. Duke was dead because of choices I'd made—because I'd tried to build a settlement in a dangerous dimension, because I'd brought people there without fully understanding the threats, because I'd been so focused on the big picture that I'd failed to protect what mattered most.

Finally lifting my eyes to meet Beatrix's, I found a well of emotions reflected back at me. Concern. Sympathy. Her own grief, perhaps, though she'd known Duke far less time than I had.

"I just wish I could have done more," I admitted softly, the words a confession I hadn't meant to make. "I feel like I let him down."

In that moment, sharing my sorrow with someone who understood at least part of what I was going through, I felt the first fragile threads of connection weaving through the isolation that had consumed me. It wasn't enough to heal anything. But it was something.

Beatrix wrapped her arms around us—around me and Duke both—creating something like shelter in the midst of everything falling apart. "You did everything you could. Duke knew how much you loved him, and he was grateful to have you and Jamie as his family."

Jamie. The name sent a fresh spike of pain through my chest. Jamie, who had held Duke as he died. Jamie, who blamed me. Jamie, who was somewhere out there right now, alone with his grief and his hatred, and I couldn't reach him. Couldn't fix it. Couldn't fix anything.

I knew Beatrix meant every word she said. And deep down, a part of me clung to the truth in her assurances. Duke had been a well-loved dog. His life had been full of joy and companionship and the kind of unconditional devotion that dogs gave so freely and humans struggled to deserve. But the harsh reality remained: this wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to die like this—torn apart by shadow panthers in another dimension, far from the home where he should have grown old.

Several minutes of silence enveloped us. Beatrix didn't try to fill it with more words, didn't offer platitudes or false comfort. She just sat with me in the grief, her presence a quiet acknowledgment that some pain couldn't be talked away.

It was Beatrix who finally broke the silence, her voice gentle but carrying the weight of practical concerns that couldn't be avoided forever. "What are you going to do with him?"

The question pulled me back from the edge of the abyss I'd been staring into. The immediate reality. The logistics of death that didn't pause for mourning.

"I don't know," I replied, the admission slipping from me. I'd been so consumed by the grief that I hadn't thought beyond this moment—hadn't considered what came next. The path forward was obscured, every thought of the future tinged with the ache of Duke's absence.

Beatrix hesitated before continuing, as if weighing whether to share what she knew. "That Charity woman said it's too dangerous to bury Duke in Clivilius." She paused, letting the words settle. "His body will attract creatures worse than shadow panthers."

Worse than shadow panthers.

The information landed like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward through my understanding of the world I'd been trying to build. I'd known Clivilius was dangerous—had seen that danger firsthand, had lost Duke to it. But the idea that there were things out there worse than the creatures that had killed my dog... that there were predators who would be drawn to his grave, who would desecrate his resting place...

I remained silent, nodding slowly as the weight of her words settled over me.

Guardians. Shadow panthers. Portal Pirates. The list of threats and mysteries of Clivilius grew longer every day. Every time I thought I understood the scope of what we were dealing with, something new emerged to remind me how little I actually knew. How unprepared we were. How much danger I'd led people into without fully comprehending the risks.

What other secrets does this strange world hold?

The question echoed through me, unanswerable and unsettling. The challenges I faced, the losses I mourned, the secrets I kept—all of it intertwined into something so complex I could barely see the shape of it anymore. And at the centre of it all was Duke, cold and still in my arms, a casualty of my ambition.

Cradling him closer, I felt the burden of reality pressing down with renewed force. I couldn't bury him in Clivilius. Couldn't give him a resting place in the world he'd helped us explore, the world he'd died protecting. But I couldn't leave him here in my bedroom forever either, wrapped in bloody sheets, growing stiff and cold.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I brought myself to my feet, the physical act of standing feeling like more effort than it should have been. My legs had gone numb from sitting so long, and Duke's weight in my arms was awkward, unwieldy in a way it had never been when he was alive.

You know what must be done, Luke.

The internal voice was my own, tired and resigned. A command and an encouragement wrapped into one.

"Beatrix, I don't want to go back yet," I said, my voice strained but beginning to regain some semblance of strength. "Can you get me a shovel or something from the Drop Zone?"

I couldn't face Clivilius right now. Couldn't face Paul and his accusations, or the settlement and its endless demands, or the weight of everything I was supposed to be doing to keep people safe. I needed to bury my dog first. Needed to give him at least that much.

"Sure," Beatrix replied, hesitation evident in her voice. The pause spoke of the unspoken understanding between us—the shared grief, the heavy task ahead, the knowledge that this was only the beginning of a very long night.

While Beatrix vanished through her Portal to retrieve what I'd asked for, Duke and I headed outside into the embrace of the early evening. The outdoor lights sensed our movement and sprang to life, banishing the darkness that had swallowed the backyard. Old wooden slats groaned beneath my feet as we crossed the back decking, each creak a reminder of countless times Duke and I had walked this path together. Coming out to check on the garden. Sitting at the outdoor table while he explored the yard. Watching him chase birds he never had any hope of catching.

We made our way carefully down the cement blocks that served as rustic steps, and I stopped at the bottom, lowering myself onto the cold concrete with Duke still in my arms. The chill seeped through my jeans, grounding me in the physical reality of the moment.

Before us stood the apricot tree.

It had been here when we'd moved in—an established tree, already bearing fruit, already providing shade to this corner of the yard. Over the years, it had become something more. A landmark. A gathering point. The centre of some of my happiest memories in this house.

Fond memories of Duke and Henri playing in this garden flooded through me, a welcome respite from the relentless pain. Duke had always been so full of energy, so fearless. He'd been the first one to discover the over-ripe apricots falling from the tree, the first to realise that the soft, sweet fruit made excellent treats if you got to them before the humans did.

And he'd used that discovery to coax Henri off the decking.

I'd never figured out whether it was fear or laziness that had initially stopped Henri from attempting the concrete slab steps. For weeks after we’d first laid those slabs into the sloping ground, he'd stood at the top of the deck and whined, unwilling to navigate the descent to the yard below. But Duke had known. Duke had always known how to reach his brother. He'd carried apricots up to the deck, dropped them at Henri's feet, then carried more down to the grass, leaving a trail of treats that led Henri step by careful step down into the garden.

Henri would do anything for food. Duke had understood that, had exploited it with the particular genius that dogs possessed for understanding each other.

The memory brought a light chuckle to my lips—a brief flicker of warmth in the cold shadow of loss. They'd played under this tree for hours, Duke and Henri, chasing each other through the fallen fruit, emerging with sticky muzzles and wagging tails.

This was where Duke belonged. Not in Clivilius, where predators would desecrate his grave. Here, in the garden he'd loved, beneath the tree that had witnessed so many moments of joy.

Beatrix and I worked in mostly silence as we dug the hole beneath the apricot tree.

The earth yielded to the rhythmic bite of our shovels, each scoop a weighted acknowledgment of Duke's lifeless form resting beside us on the grass. The soil was harder than I'd expected—compacted from years of foot traffic and root growth—and my shoulders burned with the effort of breaking through it. But I welcomed the pain. Welcomed the distraction of physical labour, the simplicity of a task that required nothing more than repetitive motion.

With every shovelful of earth, the reality of what we were doing sank deeper. The clinking of metal against stone, the soft thud of dirt hitting the growing pile beside the hole, the occasional grunt of exertion—these sounds formed a sombre melody that underscored the finality of our actions.

The physical exertion of digging was normally a task I might have approached with detachment, my mind wandering to other concerns while my body went through the motions. But not tonight. Tonight, every movement was imbued with ceremony and mourning. The hole we created—a final resting place for Duke beneath the branches he'd played under so many times—felt like both an ending and a testament. A physical manifestation of the love we held for him, carved into the earth itself.

As the depth of the hole grew, so too did the silence between Beatrix and me. Words had become superfluous. Inadequate. What could either of us say that would matter? What comfort could language offer in the face of this?

We dug until the hole was deep enough. Until my arms ached and my back screamed and sweat had soaked through my shirt despite the cold evening air. Then we stopped, leaning on our shovels, staring down at the dark rectangle we'd carved into the earth.

I knelt beside Duke's body and lifted him one final time. He was fully stiff now, and the awkwardness of his limbs made the task more difficult than it should have been. But I managed. Carried him to the edge of the hole. Lowered him as gently as I could into the earth that would hold him forever.

"Goodbye, Duke," I said, the words barely audible. "You were the best boy. The very best."

It wasn't enough. Nothing I could say would be enough. But I said it anyway, because silence felt like abandonment.

Beatrix murmured her own farewell—something soft and kind that I didn't fully hear over the roaring in my ears.

Then we filled the hole.

Each shovelful of dirt landing on Duke's body felt like a physical blow. The first one was the worst—seeing the earth cover his fur, obscuring him from view piece by piece. By the time the grave was half-filled, I could no longer see him at all. By the time we finished, there was nothing but a mound of disturbed soil beneath the apricot tree, indistinguishable from any other patch of garden if you didn't know what lay beneath.

The finality of it crashed over me like a wave.

Duke was gone. Really, truly gone. Buried in the ground, out of reach, never coming back.

The emotional reserves I'd been drawing on—the fragile composure that had held me together through the digging—shattered completely. Sobs wracked my shoulders, violent and uncontrollable. I collapsed at the base of the apricot tree, head buried in my hands, completely overwhelmed by grief.

I cried until I couldn't breathe. Until my throat was raw and my eyes burned and there was nothing left inside me but hollow emptiness.

When the initial torrent finally began to ebb, leaving me drained and hollow, I slowly lifted my head. My face felt swollen, my vision blurred. I stared at the freshly disturbed earth that now served as Duke's final resting place, and the grief transformed into something else. Something harder.

"We have no resources," I muttered, the words heavy with anxiety. "Almost no money. No security." The litany of failures spilled out, each one adding to the weight pressing down on my chest. "What are we going to do? Do we really have any hope of helping Bixbus survive?"

The questions were rhetorical, but they voiced the fears that had been gnawing at me. The settlement was vulnerable. The people I'd brought there were counting on me to protect them, and I couldn't even protect my own dog. How was I supposed to build something sustainable when I didn't have the resources, the knowledge, or apparently the competence to keep anyone safe?

Beatrix knelt beside me, wrapping her arm around my shoulder. "We'll figure something out," she said, her voice steady despite the uncertainty that must have been plaguing her too.

Leaning my head against hers, I let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know, Beatrix. It feels like everything is falling apart." The words were barely a whisper, a confession of the fear I'd been trying to suppress. The foundations of both my worlds—Earth and Clivilius—felt like they were crumbling beneath me, and I didn't know how to stop it.

She hugged me tighter, murmuring reassurances that somehow we would navigate this storm. I wanted to believe her. Wanted to trust that there was a path forward through the chaos. But the feeling of drowning, of being overwhelmed by challenges beyond my ability to solve, refused to be silenced.

We sat there in the gathering darkness, two figures huddled at the base of an apricot tree, a fresh grave between us and the house. The weight of everything pressed down—Duke's death, Jamie's absence, the settlement's precarious future, the secrets piling up around us like walls closing in.

Then Beatrix stirred, pulling back slightly. "Hey," she said, something shifting in her voice. "Why don't you grab your laptop? I have an idea."

I looked at her, skepticism warring with the desperate need to believe that someone had answers I didn't. "An idea?"

"Just trust me. Get the laptop."

Slowly, painfully, I brought myself to my feet. My body ached from the digging, from the crying, from the accumulated exhaustion of the worst day of my life. But Beatrix's words had pierced the fog of despair, offering something I hadn't felt since Duke had died.

Hope. Fragile and uncertain, but present nonetheless.

Casting a final glance at the small mound beneath the apricot tree, I whispered a silent farewell to Duke. Then I turned and followed Beatrix inside, leaving my dog to rest in the garden he'd loved, beneath the tree that had witnessed so many moments of joy.

Whatever came next, at least he was home.