Fists and Dust

"There's the person you think you are, and the person you become when someone takes everything from you. I met mine in a field that shouldn't exist."

I don't know how long I stood there. Could have been thirty seconds, could have been five minutes. Time had stopped meaning much the moment I'd fallen through that wall of light and landed in a place that shouldn't exist.

The ground around me was dry and dusty, reddish-brown like the soil you'd find in the Midlands, except there was no grass. No trees. No buildings or roads or anything that suggested people had ever been here before. Just flat, open country stretching out in every direction, broken only by low ridges in the distance and a sky that was blue but somehow off — too bright, maybe, or the wrong shade. I couldn't put my finger on it.

I pushed myself to my feet, my legs unsteady, my heart still hammering from the fall. The sun was warm on my face, which made no sense because it had been a grey winter morning in Berriedale ten seconds ago. The air smelled clean, almost empty, like it had never been breathed before.

"What the heck is Clivilius?"

The question came out as a mutter, half to myself. That voice in my head — the one that had said my name, welcomed me to this place — had called it Clivilius. Like that was supposed to mean something. Like I should know what the hell that was.

I turned in a slow circle, trying to get my bearings, trying to find anything familiar to latch onto. Behind me, where I'd come from, the swirling colours still hung in the air — a shimmering patch of light that pulsed and shifted, completely wrong against the empty landscape. It looked like someone had torn a hole in the world and forgotten to patch it up.

"Where the hell am I?"

No answer. Just the silence of a place with nothing in it.

I stared at the colours for a long moment, wondering if I could go back through. Step into that light and end up in Luke's kitchen again, like none of this had happened. But something in my gut told me it wouldn't work that way. If it was that easy, why would Luke have pushed me? Why would he have looked so desperate, so scared?

A voice came from behind me — female, accented, sharp with concern.

I spun around, fists coming up instinctively, and found myself face to face with a woman I'd never seen before.

She was tall, maybe five-ten, with blonde hair that fell past her shoulders and caught the light in a way that made it look almost white. Older than me — forties, probably — with the kind of face that suggested she'd seen things and wasn't easily rattled. She was dressed practically, plain clothes that looked like they'd been worn for a few days, and she was watching me with an expression that mixed wariness with something that might have been sympathy.

"Did Luke push you too?"

The words came out harder than I'd intended, accusation and confusion all tangled together.

The woman shook her head. "No." Her accent was European — Swiss, maybe, or German. Hard to place exactly. "I'm guessing he pushed you, though?"

"Yes." I swallowed, trying to get my breathing under control. "At least, I think he did."

Before either of us could say anything else, Luke's voice cut across the space between us.

"I see you've met Glenda already."

I whipped around. He was standing a few metres away, near the edge of that shimmering light — must have come through right after me. Same pants, same rumpled t-shirt, same face I'd been looking at in his kitchen before he'd stabbed me in the back and shoved me into whatever this place was.

Something snapped inside me.

All the confusion, all the fear, all the desperate need to understand what was happening — it all compressed into a single point of white-hot rage that started in my chest and spread outward until I couldn't see anything except Luke's face and the knowledge that he'd done this to me. Taken me away from Brianne, from our baby, from everything I'd been building towards.

"You're a fucking arsehole, Luke!"

I was moving before I'd consciously decided to, closing the distance between us in three strides and shoving him hard in the chest. He stumbled backward, eyes going wide, and for a second I felt a savage satisfaction at the fear that crossed his features.

"I'm sorry, Kain." His voice was barely above a whisper, his hands coming up in a gesture that was half surrender, half self-defence. "But Jamie needs you."

The words landed like a punch to the gut.

"What? Uncle Jamie is here?"

All this time, I'd been thinking Uncle Jamie was off with Gladys. That Luke had been covering for him, making excuses, and I'd walked into... what? A trap? Some kind of elaborate setup that ended with me being pushed through a hole in reality?

But Uncle Jamie was here. In this place. This empty, impossible place.

"Yeah," Luke said, and there was something in his voice — guilt, maybe, or resignation — that made me want to hit him even more.

"Take me home, Luke." I stepped closer, getting in his face, close enough to see the sweat beading at his hairline and the way his eyes kept darting away from mine. "And I'll be taking Uncle Jamie with me."

He swallowed. Looked at the ground. "I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?"

The rage was building again, pressure behind my eyes and in my throat, making it hard to think straight. Images of Brianne flashed through my mind — her smile, her belly, the way she'd looked at me this morning before everything went wrong. The baby. Our baby. I was supposed to be there when it was born. I was supposed to be a father.

"I'm sorry, Kain," Luke whispered, still not meeting my eyes.

"Sorry?" The word came out like a sneer, dripping with all the contempt I could muster. "You're sorry! Sorry for what?"

The blonde woman — Glenda — moved into my peripheral vision, her hand reaching out to rest on my shoulder. The touch was gentle but firm, grounding in a way I didn't want to be grounded.

"It's impossible for us to return," she said, her voice calm and measured, the kind of tone you'd use on someone who was about to do something stupid.

I didn't want calm. I didn't want measured. I wanted answers, and I wanted to hurt Luke the way he'd hurt me, and I wanted to wake up from this nightmare and find myself back in bed with Brianne, the whole thing nothing but a fever dream brought on by cold toast and bad decisions.

I lunged at Luke.

We went down in a tangle of limbs and dust, the impact jarring through my shoulder as we hit the ground. Somewhere behind me, Glenda's voice cut through the chaos — "Kain, stop!" — but it barely registered. I was operating on pure instinct now, animal rage that had taken over from rational thought.

I pulled my fist back, ready to drive it into Luke's face, to wipe that scared, guilty expression off his features once and for all. But he was faster than I'd expected — rolling sideways, scrambling out from under me, leaving my fist to connect with nothing but barren earth.

Pain exploded through my knuckles, sharp and immediate. I felt skin split, felt the hot wetness of blood, but I was already reaching for Luke's ankle, trying to drag him back within range.

"Both of you. Stop it, now!"

Glenda's voice had changed — no longer calm, but commanding in a way that cut through the red haze clouding my vision. I hesitated, my hand still wrapped around Luke's foot, my breath coming in ragged gasps.

That's when I saw her face.

She was cradling her jaw, wincing, her expression a mixture of pain and disappointment. And I realised, with a sick lurch of my stomach, that somewhere in the chaos of the fight I must have caught her with an elbow or a wild swing. I'd hit her. This woman I'd known for all of two minutes, who'd done nothing except try to help, and I'd hurt her.

The rage drained out of me like water from a cracked bucket, leaving behind something cold and hollow.

Luke took advantage of my distraction. He launched himself at me, tackling me backward, and suddenly I was the one on the ground with the air knocked out of my lungs and a knee pressing into my chest. His face loomed above me, features twisted into something that might have been triumph or might have been desperation — it was hard to tell with the dust in my eyes and my heart pounding so loud I could barely hear anything else.

"Luke, don't."

Glenda again, her hand outstretched, the other still pressed against her bruised jaw. The authority in her voice was enough to make Luke hesitate, his weight shifting slightly, the pressure on my chest easing.

For a long moment, nobody moved. I lay there in the dirt, staring up at the too-blue sky, trying to remember how to breathe. The adrenaline was fading now, leaving behind aching muscles and bleeding knuckles and the growing awareness that I'd just made everything worse.

Luke stood up. Extended a hand toward me.

I stared at it, not sure if I wanted to take it or spit on it. This was the bloke who'd pushed me through a hole in reality, who'd ripped me away from my pregnant fiancée and dumped me in this empty wasteland. Shaking his hand felt like surrender, like admitting that whatever he'd done was somehow forgivable.

But what was the alternative? Lying in the dirt until I figured out a better plan?

I reached up and let him pull me to my feet.

Glenda let out a breath, her shoulders dropping. "I suppose we don't have any ice either," she said, the words wry despite the circumstances, one hand still gingerly touching her jaw.

"No, we don't," Luke replied, his voice subdued.

I looked at the swelling already forming on Glenda's face, the purple tinge that would become a proper bruise by tomorrow. She'd stepped in to stop the fight, and I'd repaid her by catching her with a stray fist. It wasn't who I was. I'd never been a violent bloke — the worst I'd ever done before today was get into a bit of push-and-shove after a footy match, and even that had made me feel sick afterward.

But the fear of losing Brianne, of never seeing our baby, of being trapped in this place forever — it had overwhelmed everything else. Turned me into someone I didn't recognise.

I'm only twenty-three, I thought, the words rattling around in my skull like loose change. Our lives together are far from over. They can't be.

"I'm sorry, Glenda. I didn't mean to hit you."

She tried to smile, but it twisted into a wince, the movement clearly pulling at her injured jaw. Still, she extended her hand toward me, offering it without hesitation.

I took it. Her grip was firm and dry, the handshake of someone who meant business.

"I'm the camp's doctor," she said, releasing my hand. There was a flicker of something in her eyes — pride, maybe, or determination. Like being a doctor in a place with no ice and no medicine and no anything was still something worth holding onto.

"And I'm—" I started, then stopped. What was I, exactly? A construction apprentice from Tasmania? A bloke who'd been having a decent Thursday morning until his uncle's partner pushed him through a magic doorway? Brianne's fiancé? A father-to-be who might never get to meet his kid?

Luke cut in before I could finish the thought, a grin spreading across his face that seemed wildly inappropriate given everything that had just happened.

"And you're our new construction expert."

I closed my eyes, the words landing like another blow. Construction expert. Like this was a job interview, like I'd applied for a position in whatever messed-up operation Luke was running out here. Like I had any intention of staying long enough to build anything.

Is any of this even real? The question surfaced unbidden, a desperate hope that I'd hit my head in the fall and all of this was just my brain misfiring while I lay unconscious on Luke's kitchen floor. Any second now, I'd wake up. Brianne would be there, worried but relieved, and we'd laugh about what a strange dream I'd had, and everything would go back to normal.

But the dirt under my fingernails felt real. The ache in my knuckles felt real. The sun on my face and the emptiness stretching out in every direction — all of it felt solid and present and inescapably true.

Then, cutting through the stillness, a sound I recognised.

A bark. Small and sharp and familiar — the yap of a Shih Tzu who'd spotted something interesting.

Duke or Henri?

I knew those dogs. Knew the particular pitch of their voices from all the visits to Uncle Jamie's place, from afternoons spent on the couch while they climbed all over me demanding attention.

No, that's Henri, I realised, the certainty settling in my chest. Duke's bark was deeper, more of a proper woof. Henri's was higher, more insistent.

Henri was here. Which meant Uncle Jamie really was here. Which meant—

I exhaled, closing my eyes again, clinging to this one small thread of familiarity in a world that had stopped making sense.

But when I opened them, nothing had changed. The too-bright sun still hung overhead. The barren landscape still stretched out in every direction. And the swirling colours that had brought me here were still pulsing at the edge of my vision, a reminder of everything I'd lost.

I was still in Clivilius.

And I had no idea how to get home.