Felt-Tip Warning

"The most unsettling thing about being watched isn't knowing someone's there—it's discovering they were there all along, and you never noticed."

The leather couch squelched beneath me as I stirred from sleep I hadn't intended to take, the sound obscene in the quiet room—wet and organic in a way that made my sleep-addled brain think for one disorienting moment that I was still in Clivilius, still standing in river water, still holding Joel's impossible body.

I wasn't.

I was in my living room, sprawled across furniture that bore the indent of my weight, having apparently collapsed into unconsciousness the moment my body found a horizontal surface. My eyes protested as I forced them open, heavy and gritty, the lids scraping against eyeballs that felt like they'd been rolled in sand. I rubbed at them with my knuckles, trying to dispel the sticky residue of exhaustion that seemed determined to pull me back under.

The nap had been accidental—my body's mutiny against the impossible demands I'd been placing on it. I'd sat down for just a moment, I'd told myself. Just long enough to gather my thoughts before searching for Cody. Instead, I'd dropped into unconsciousness with the particular totality of someone whose reserves had been completely depleted.

My mouth tasted like something had died in it. The Clivilius dust I'd swallowed during my tumble down the hillside had combined with hours of dry sleep-breathing to create a paste that coated my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I worked my jaw, trying to generate enough saliva to swallow, and felt every muscle in my neck and shoulders protest the movement.

The phone lay dormant on the kitchen bench where I'd abandoned it, its dark screen a temporary reprieve from the world's demands. The silence emanating from it felt almost physical—a presence rather than an absence. I knew it couldn't last. The moment I turned that device back on, reality would come flooding back in all its insistent, buzzing urgency.

I'm going to have to turn my phone back on.

The thought arrived with the particular weight of obligation I couldn't avoid. Despite my dramatic exit from professional life, there were still people who might have legitimate reasons to contact me—family, Jamie's family, the complicated web of relationships that didn't simply dissolve because I'd quit my job via text message.

Heaving myself off the couch felt like lifting someone else's body, every muscle filing formal complaints about the abuse they'd endured. My back had stiffened during my unconscious sprawl, the particular ache of having slept in an awkward position compounding the damage from carrying Joel and tumbling down hillsides. My feet found the floor with reluctance, and when I stood, my knees popped with sounds that seemed too loud for the silent room.

I shuffled toward the bench, the sound of my socked feet against carpet the only accompaniment to my movement. My shirt—the same one I'd been wearing through all of it, from Portal transit to river rescue to confrontation with Jamie—had twisted during my sleep, the fabric bunched uncomfortably beneath my arms and riding up to expose a strip of stomach that felt cold against the kitchen's ambient temperature.

With a hesitant touch, I brought the phone back to life. The screen illuminated, and I watched the time resolve itself from blur to clarity.

"Two-eleven exactly," I murmured to myself, the words rough against a throat that felt like I'd been swallowing gravel. I'd been asleep for less than an hour, but it felt like both more and less—the disorientation of interrupted rest leaving me uncertain whether time had contracted or expanded.

The phone whirred and buzzed as it reconnected to the network, catching up with everything that had accumulated during my digital absence. Notifications cascaded down the screen with the particular rhythm of a device that had been trying and failing to reach its owner.

Predictably, Jen dominated the list. Missed calls stacked atop missed calls, text messages forming a one-sided conversation that progressed from confusion to concern to something approaching exasperation. The digital evidence of her attempts to process my impulsive resignation lay there in neat chronological order, each notification a small indictment of my handling of the situation.

Guilt tugged at something in my chest—a recognition that she deserved better than the chaos I'd delivered. But I couldn't deal with her now. Not while Joel lay in a tent in another dimension, breathing despite a slashed throat. Not while Jamie's accusations still echoed in my memory. Not while somewhere out there, Cody had answers I desperately needed.

The silence between Jen and me would have to hold a little longer.

My fingers scrolled through the contact list with the particular clumsiness of someone whose fine motor control hadn't fully returned from sleep. I found Gladys's name and tapped the green phone icon, lifting the device to my ear with a hand that trembled slightly—residual exhaustion rather than nerves, I told myself.

The ringing filled my ear, each electronic tone a bridge to another piece of the puzzle. Gladys had been seeing Cody. Gladys would have his number. This was the logical path to the answers I needed, the obvious solution to the problem of locating a man who seemed to exist in the spaces between normal life.

"Hi, Luke," Gladys's voice came through, her tone carrying a weariness that resonated with my own bone-deep exhaustion.

"You too, hey?" I responded, a half-hearted attempt at connection through shared fatigue. My shoulder found the cool edge of the kitchen counter, and I leaned into it, letting the solid surface take some of my weight.

"Huh?"

"Oh, you sound tired," I clarified, adjusting my grip on the phone.

"Um... yeah. It's been a big day," Gladys confessed. The words carried weight I couldn't quite parse—her own story lurking beneath the surface, events and concerns I wasn't privy to despite our recent connection through Clivilius matters.

"Hmph, tell me about it," I muttered, a wry smile flickering across my face despite everything. Big day felt like calling the ocean damp. Inadequate didn't begin to cover it.

"Mmm," Gladys hummed, the sound offering nothing—no foothold into her experience, no invitation to share burdens. We were both too exhausted for the kind of conversation that required actual emotional labour.

"So, um, actually… I was wondering if I could get Cody's number from you? I really need to talk to him about what happened earlier." The request emerged in a rush, urgency and hesitation tangling together. I needed this. Needed Cody's expertise, his understanding of Guardian matters, his knowledge of whoever might have targeted Joel—and by extension, possibly me.

The line went silent.

The pause stretched and swelled, filling the space with something that felt increasingly uncomfortable. I could hear Gladys breathing on the other end, could sense the gears turning as she processed my request, but no words emerged to fill the growing void.

"Gladys? You there?" My voice broke the stillness with a note of concern that wasn't entirely feigned. The silence had lasted too long for simple consideration.

"Uh… yeah… sorry, Luke. I don't actually have his number," Gladys replied, her voice carrying a hesitance that immediately triggered my suspicion.

My face scrunched with disbelief, eyebrows drawing together in a frown I could feel forming. Does Gladys think I'm stupid? The question formed with the particular sharpness of someone who'd spent too much of the day amongst deception and wasn't in the mood for more.

"But haven't you two been seeing each other for a few months now?" I pressed, my curiosity overriding social niceties. I didn't have solid ground on the timeline of their relationship—it had been conducted with a secrecy that now felt less romantic and more suspicious—but months seemed like enough time to exchange basic contact information.

"Well, yeah… sort of. But he hasn't actually given me his number." Gladys's admission floated through the speaker with a casualness that didn't quite mask something underneath. Embarrassment, maybe. Or resignation. Or the particular tone of someone who'd accepted conditions that didn't make sense to anyone outside the arrangement.

"Address then?" I prodded further, unable to conceal my bafflement at this increasingly strange picture.

"No. Nothing." The words were succinct and final, closing the door on that line of inquiry with the soft click of someone who'd said all they intended to say.

I rubbed my temple with my free hand, the gesture equal parts confusion and frustration. What an odd relationship. The pieces refused to assemble into anything coherent. Months of seeing someone, yet no phone number, no address, no way to reach him outside of whatever scheduling Cody controlled.

But then, Cody was a Guardian. He'd been one for decades longer than I had, navigating the impossible territory between Earth and Clivilius, maintaining secrets that would destroy normal relationships. He'd likely learned lessons about caution that I was only beginning to understand—keeping himself untraceable, maintaining control over when and how he could be contacted, ensuring that if something went wrong, the threads couldn't be followed back to him.

Given what had happened to Joel—possibly a case of mistaken identity, possibly a targeted attack on someone connected to Guardians—Cody's paranoia seemed less like eccentricity and more like survival strategy. A lesson I could probably benefit from myself, considering how spectacularly my own attempts at secrecy had unravelled over the past days.

"No worries. Thanks, Gladys," I said, layering politeness over the disappointment churning beneath. Another dead end. Another obstacle between me and the answers I needed.

I ended the call with the particular finality of someone who'd run out of options, the disconnect echoing slightly in the quiet kitchen. Without pausing to consider whether it was wise, I switched the phone off again, watching the screen fade to black with something approaching relief.

I don't need any more distractions today, especially not from my old work.

The thought settled over me with weary resignation. Jen's messages could wait. Everything could wait. I needed to think, needed to figure out another way to reach Cody, needed to—

"Oh, what's this?"

My voice cut through the silence as my eyes caught something at the far end of the kitchen bench. A brochure, glossy and colourful, sitting in a spot that had definitely been empty when I'd fallen asleep. The incongruity of it registered before conscious thought could catch up—a piece of paper that hadn't been there, now very much present.

"Where did you come from?"

I reached for it with fingers that had suddenly gone cold, the glossy paper smooth against skin that had begun to prickle with unease. The brochure unfolded to reveal vibrant images of camping equipment—tents in various configurations, sleeping bags rated for different temperatures, portable stoves promising wilderness convenience. The kind of catalogue that outdoor retailers sent to mailing lists, the kind of thing I'd normally toss without a second glance.

But I hadn't received this in the mail. I hadn't brought it in from anywhere. It had simply appeared on my bench while I slept, like something delivered by hands that had no business being in my home.

My fingers glided over the pages, the smooth paper contrasting sickeningly with the growing unease coiling in my gut. Then I stopped, my attention snapping to the front cover where something had been written.

A message, scrawled in thick black felt-tip pen, stood out against the colourful background of happy families assembling tents in picturesque settings. Five words that sent a sharp tingle racing down my spine:

Thought this might be useful...

No signature. No explanation. Just a message that presupposed I would understand its meaning, left by someone who had been inside my house while I lay unconscious on the leather couch.

I turned on the spot, a full rotation that took in every corner of the kitchen, every potential hiding place, every shadow that suddenly seemed darker than it should be. The hairs on my arms stood at attention, and my skin crawled with the particular sensation of being watched—or having been watched—by eyes I hadn't known were there.

Somebody's been here… in my house while I slept!

The thought hammered through my skull with the force of alarm bells I couldn't silence. My shoulders tensed, muscles that had been complaining about exhaustion suddenly flooding with adrenaline, the primal response to territorial violation overriding every other concern.

But who?

The question hung in the kitchen's suddenly hostile air, weighted with implications I couldn't fully process. Someone had entered my home. Someone had moved through spaces where I lived, where Jamie and I had built our life together, where I should have been safe. Someone had stood close enough to leave a brochure on my bench—close enough to have done anything else they wanted while I lay defenceless on the couch.

Every shadow in the room seemed to lean toward me now, every creak of the house's settling frame transformed into potential footsteps. The refrigerator's hum became ominous background noise. The brochure in my hands—once innocuous paper—had become evidence of my vulnerability, proof that the walls I'd built around my life weren't nearly as solid as I'd believed.

Camping equipment. Thought this might be useful.

Was it a threat? A helpful suggestion? A message from Cody, delivered in a way that demonstrated exactly how easily he could reach me when he chose to? Or was it from someone else entirely—whoever had attacked Joel, perhaps, letting me know that I wasn't as hidden as I thought I was?

My grip on the brochure tightened, the glossy paper crinkling under pressure from fingers that refused to stop trembling.

I was no longer alone in my own home. The sanctuary I'd returned to had been breached.

And whoever had done the breaching knew exactly where I slept.