I Really Don't Want to Do This

"Dawn should bring hope—instead, it just illuminates everything you lost in the darkness and shows you exactly how much worse things have become."

"Did ye sleep at all?" Charity asked as I approached her.

We stood together, observers of dawn's early light, the firesticks casting a warm glow that battled the cool shadows of the night. The sky was lightening in the east—or what passed for east in this place—painting the dust in shades of grey and gold that felt almost hopeful after the terrors of darkness.

"I think I dozed a couple of times, but nothing substantial," I said, turning towards her, seeking some common ground in our shared vigil. My eyes felt like sandpaper, my body a collection of aches and exhaustions that no amount of dozing could repair. "Did you?"

"Nae. A Chewbathian Hunter sleeps verra little."

Her statement was matter-of-fact, yet it opened a door to a world I knew nothing about. She said it as if it were the most natural thing—as if sleeping only a few hours was simply how her kind operated.

"Chewbathian Hunter?" I echoed, my curiosity piqued. The fatigue that clung to my bones momentarily forgotten in the wake of her revelation.

"That's what I am," Charity affirmed, her tone devoid of any pretence. "I'm a Hunter and I hail frae Chewbathia."

Her accent wrapped around the word with a familiarity that spoke of home, of belonging, of a place that existed somewhere in this impossible world. I searched my mind for any reference to Chewbathia—any atlas, any history book, any documentary I had ever encountered—and found none.

"I'm guessing that's not a place on Earth?"

The question felt naïve the moment it left my lips.

"Nae. I was born in Clivilius. I've ne'er known Earth."

Her words landed like a revelation. Never known Earth. Born here, in this dust-choked wilderness with its shadow panthers and its endless nights. She wasn't a stranded traveller like us. She was native. Indigenous to a world that had felt, until this moment, utterly hostile to human life. The realisation shifted something in my understanding—if people could be born here, could grow up here, could build lives here, then perhaps survival wasn't as impossible as it seemed.

"But you speak English?" I probed further, intrigued by the fluency with which she navigated the language—Scottish-inflected though it was, it was still recognisably English.

"Aye. Chewbathia's founding Guardians hailed frae a place they called Scotland. Four o' the five Guardians were sisters."

Her explanation offered a glimpse into a history that was as fascinating as it was foreign. Scotland. The accent made sense now—not just preserved, but cultivated across generations, passed down like an heirloom from those original settlers. A piece of Earth carried into an alien world and kept alive through centuries of isolation.

"And the fifth Guardian?" I asked, my curiosity unabated.

Charity's narrative unfolded like pages from a history book that had never been written—at least not on Earth. Each word painted a picture of a world both fascinating and foreboding.

"His name was William Brodie. He was an Edinburgh city councillor but also had a secret life as a housebreaker," she explained, her voice steady, recounting the tale with a reverence that hinted at the depth of its importance to her people. "The eldest o' the sisters, Elspeth Stewart, only nineteen at the time, had been in love wi' him. She was the first Guardian, and it was she that enlisted the help o' Brodie and his small band o' double-life thieves tae provide New Edinburgh wi' supplies."

William Brodie. The name triggered something—a fragment from some half-remembered documentary or book. An Edinburgh figure, wasn't he? A respectable man by day, a criminal by night. The inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde, some said. And here was this woman, speaking of him as if he were a founding father. The collision of Earth history and Clivilius legend was dizzying, as if two realities were bleeding into each other in ways I couldn't quite grasp.

"How long ago was this?" I asked, the historian in me—or what passed for one in a businessman who read too many Wikipedia articles—fascinated by the intertwining of Earth's past with the lore of another world.

"Elspeth became a Guardian in the year ye would call seventeen-sixty-two."

The precision of the date took me aback. Seventeen-sixty-two. Over two hundred and fifty years ago. A civilisation had been building here, growing, thriving, for over two and a half centuries—while Earth remained utterly ignorant of its existence. Generations of people had lived and died in this place. Wars had been fought. Cities had risen. And we had known nothing.

The acknowledgment of our shared history, albeit from vastly different perspectives, stirred a complex blend of emotions within me. It was a revelation that humans had not only survived but thrived in this harsh landscape, albeit with challenges that seemed to transcend the ordinary.

"And how does Chewbathia fit into it?" I asked, eager to understand more about the world Charity called home.

"New Edinburgh quickly flourished and the sisters set oot on an ambitious campaign tae conquer the vast desert lands. Chewbathia is the military hub o' the main city. I belong tae an elite branch and was trained frae a young age in the arts o' war."

Her explanation offered a glimpse into a society structured around survival and conflict. Military hub. Elite branch. Trained from a young age. She wasn't just a warrior by circumstance—she had been forged for this purpose, shaped from childhood into the weapon that stood before me now. I looked at her with new eyes, trying to imagine the training, the discipline, the years of preparation that had created this woman who could kill shadow panthers with bow and blade.

"War?" I echoed, the word catching in my throat.

"Aye. Clivilius has been at war fer millennia."

The weight of her words settled heavily upon me, the scope of their struggle stretching beyond the confines of my imagination. Millennia. Not years, not decades, not even centuries. Millennia of conflict, of bloodshed, of survival against threats I was only beginning to understand. Whatever we were facing here—shadow panthers, Portal pirates—was merely a glimpse into something far larger and far more ancient than I could comprehend.

Before Charity could illuminate more of those dark corners, Luke's sudden arrival shifted everything.

He appeared beside me, his breaths heavy and his stance defensive. He looked exhausted, wild-eyed, his clothes dishevelled and his hair matted with dust. Wherever he had been all night, it had not been restful. The brother I had known—composed, easy-going, floating through life on some current I'd never understood—was gone. In his place was someone raw, exposed, operating on fumes and fear.

"Who the fuck are you?" Luke demanded, his glare fixed on Charity with an intensity that matched his physical exertion. His hand gripped my shoulder for support, but there was nothing casual about the contact—it was protective, territorial, the stance of someone preparing for a fight.

"Luke!" I rebuked him instinctively, a futile attempt to inject some decorum into the rapidly escalating situation. Despite the shock of Charity's revelations, Luke's blunt approach felt like an unnecessary jab. She had saved us. She had killed a shadow panther to protect us. She deserved better than this.

"I'm Charity," she responded, her voice a calm counter to Luke's brusqueness. She didn't flinch, didn't bristle, didn't reach for the weapons I knew she carried. She simply stood there, steady as stone, waiting for the storm to pass. Her patience seemed almost inhuman under the circumstances—but then, I was beginning to understand that Chewbathian Hunters were not quite like the rest of us.

"What... where did..." Luke's confusion was palpable, his words tripping over each other as he struggled to process this new presence in our camp.

"I was born here, in Clivilius," Charity added.

I watched Luke's face cycle through disbelief, confusion, and something approaching wonder. The same journey I had taken, compressed into a few seconds of visible processing.

"That explains the Warrior Princess outfit then," Luke quipped, his attempt at humour a thin veil over his bewilderment. "But... how...?"

Despite Luke's lack of finesse, I remained silent, a spectator to the unfolding exchange. His directness, abrasive though it may have been, cut through the haze of my own hesitation, demanding answers to questions that hung heavily in my own mind. Sometimes Luke's bluntness served a purpose, even when it made me wince.

"I've been tracking the pack o' shadow panthers fer a few days noo," Charity explained, her focus shifting to the immediate threat that had brought her into our lives. "They're experts at finding new settlements."

Her words confirmed what I had feared—that we had been watched, stalked, assessed as prey long before the attack came. We had thought ourselves alone in this wilderness. We had been wrong.

"So, they really were here last night, then?" Luke asked, seeking confirmation.

"Aye," Charity confirmed.

"Charity killed one of them," I added, pointing towards the shadow panther's corpse that lay as silent testimony to her claim.

The body was different in the daylight—somehow both less terrifying and more disturbing. The supernatural menace of the night had given way to something more viscerally real: a dead animal, massive and strange, but undeniably mortal.

As we approached the fallen creature, the dawn revealed its true form. Its fur, which had seemed to absorb all light in the darkness, now appeared merely black—though a black so deep it still seemed to swallow the early morning glow. Those terrible eyes, fully black without iris or white, stared at nothing.

Luke nudged its cold, stiff head with his foot, a casual interaction that belied the gravity of what lay before us. "It looks so different during the day," he remarked, a note of detachment in his voice that I couldn't quite fathom. As if he were examining a curiosity rather than a creature that had nearly killed us all.

My heart raced as I processed his familiarity with the creature. "You've seen one?"

The question sprang from me, a mixture of surprise and burgeoning fear colouring my tone. When had Luke seen a shadow panther? Where?

"Yeah," Luke admitted, his voice tight, betraying a tension that hadn't been apparent a moment ago.

"Whit happened?" Charity asked, quick on the draw with the question burning through my own mind.

"I think it followed Beatrix back through the Portal last night."

Luke's admission sent a chill down my spine. A shadow panther had gone through the Portal. To Earth. To a world that had no idea such creatures existed, no defences against them, no Hunters trained from childhood to fight them.

"Shit," I breathed, the curse slipping from me involuntarily.

"Fuck!" Charity's expletive cut through the air, sharper than any I'd heard from her. She began pacing, her composure cracking for the first time since I'd met her. It was the first sign that even a Chewbathian Hunter could be rattled—and that terrified me more than the shadow panther's corpse at our feet.

"So, that was Beatrix who screamed last night?" I asked, the pieces of the puzzle slowly aligning. The scream in the darkness. The Portal activation. It had been someone arriving, not someone being attacked here.

"Yeah," Luke confirmed. "Beatrix is a Guardian now."

The simplicity of his statement did little to ease the knot of worry forming in my stomach. Another Guardian. Another person bound to this place, to Luke's strange brotherhood of Portal-walkers.

"Like you... and Cody?" I asked.

"Yes."

Charity's silent stare at Luke spoke volumes, her earlier nervous energy giving way to a focused attention that demanded answers. I recognised that look—the look of someone calculating threat levels, assessing tactical implications.

"How?" The word was barely a whisper from my lips, a plea for understanding. How did someone become a Guardian? What had happened to Beatrix to transform her?

"I'm not completely sure how she became a Guardian," Luke admitted, frustration evident in his voice. "She's still in shock."

"Shock?" I repeated, struggling to comprehend the full scope of what had transpired.

Luke's foot nudged the shadow panther again, harder this time, his words emerging with barely contained anger. "Because the bloody beast fucking attacked her, that's why."

The violence in his voice, the rage barely contained—this was personal for him. Beatrix wasn't just another Guardian. She was someone who mattered.

"Back on Earth?" Charity asked, having regained her composure.

"Yes!" Luke's exclamation was sharp, a confirmation of our worst fears. A shadow panther on Earth. Attacking someone. The worlds weren't just connected—they were bleeding into each other.

"Are ye certain it was a shadow panther that attacked her?" Charity pressed.

"Yes. I'm certain."

Luke's affirmation was final, a closing of the circle that left us standing on the precipice of a new and daunting reality.

The tension between Luke and Charity was palpable, a thick cloud of unresolved emotions and unspoken implications that seemed to suffocate the air around us. I looked at my brother—really looked at him—and saw someone being pulled apart by forces I couldn't see. He was holding something back. Waiting for something. Dreading something.

I couldn't bear it any longer.

There's too much tension. Too much loss. I don't want to do it.

The thought echoed through my mind, a silent plea for reprieve from the relentless tide of sorrow. But I knew what was coming. I knew what I had to tell him. And there was no escaping it.

"What have you not told me yet?"

Luke's question, vulnerable and laden with a sense of impending heartache, cut through me like a knife. His voice faltered under the weight of unshed tears, demanding my attention, compelling me to face the unbearable truth that lay between us. He knew. Some part of him already knew that something else had happened—something I was holding back.

I bit my lower lip, fighting against the tremble that sought to betray the turmoil churning within.

No, I really don't want to do this.

Yet as I met Luke's gaze, seeing the raw emotion that shimmered in his eyes, I knew there was no escaping the cruel reality that had to be acknowledged. He was my brother. He deserved the truth, no matter how much it would destroy him to hear it.

With a resolve born of necessity rather than strength, I took his trembling hands in mine. His fingers were cold, dust-caked, shaking with exhaustion or fear or both. I could feel his pulse racing beneath my grip, could see the way he braced himself for whatever was coming.

"Duke's dead."

I stated the words as gently as I could, but there was no gentle way to deliver such news. Two words. A lifetime of pain compressed into a single breath. The finality of it hung between us, a grim testament to the loss that would forever mark this moment.

Luke's reaction was a mirror to the pain that enveloped my own heart. His face crumpled, reformed, crumpled again—as if his features couldn't decide which expression matched the devastation inside. A sound escaped him, something between a gasp and a sob, quickly swallowed.

"Where is he?" he murmured, the words barely a whisper. Not denial. Not disbelief. Just the simple need to see, to know, to be with what remained.

"Jamie is with him. They're behind the tents," I replied, my voice soft, my grip on his arm an attempt to offer solace in the face of an insurmountable loss.

The moment Luke pulled away, a surge of helplessness washed over me as I watched him storm through the camp. His steps were heavy with grief and denial, each footfall kicking up small clouds of dust that hung in the morning air like ghosts. He paused at the end of the last tent, a figure poised on the brink of despair—and then he was gone, disappearing around the corner toward whatever awaited him.

My heart ached for my brother as I envisioned the scene awaiting his discovery—Jamie, a silent sentinel of sorrow by the riverbank, Duke's body lying still and cold, the finality of absence a cruel reality we would all have to confront. I could only watch Luke for a moment before the sight became too much to bear, the echo of our shared loss a wound too fresh to face.

"I need tae do another perimeter sweep," Charity announced, her voice pulling me back from the edge of my grief.

Her departure, though necessary, left me feeling even more isolated in my sorrow. Even she, this warrior woman who slept little and feared less, seemed to understand that some moments required privacy. Some grief could not be witnessed by strangers.

With no direction left but forward, I found my feet leading me towards the Portal, a path tread not out of purpose but out of a need to distance myself from the immediate pain. I couldn't go to Luke. Couldn't face Jamie. Couldn't stand beside Duke's body and pretend I had any words that would matter.

Duke was dead. A shadow panther had crossed to Earth. Beatrix had become a Guardian through violence and terror. And somewhere out there, a Portal pirate was still watching. Still waiting.

The dawn should have brought hope. Instead, it had only illuminated how much we had lost in the darkness.