Let the River Take It

“There are moments when survival doesn’t feel like winning—just breathing through what breaks you.”

Jamie's desperate cry for help tore through the uneasy stillness, a jagged blade cutting the night. "Help me!" His voice, raw with panic, sent icy fingers crawling down my spine as he staggered into the anaemic light of our campfire, Duke cradled in his arms like a broken doll, his face a twisted portrait of anguish and dread.

"Jamie! What's happened?" My words clawed their way out, sharp-edged with worry, straining to be heard over the greedy crackling of the flames. Chris and I lunged forward to meet him, our steps urgent, kicking up phantoms of dust that swirled and eddied in the firelight like restless spectres.

The sight of an unfamiliar woman at Jamie's side hit me like a sucker punch—sudden and disorienting. She moved with a quiet confidence, her silhouette stark against the firelight. A warrior born of shadow and substance, she seemed carved from myth: her long limbs cloaked in weatherworn leather, a bow gripped in one hand with effortless familiarity, a quiver of arrows slung across her back as though it were part of her spine. Her gaze, cold and calculating, swept the camp in an instant, taking everything in, as if already measuring threats and weaknesses.

As Jamie crumpled, his strength devoured by the horrors he'd witnessed, Chris's arms shot out, catching him in a steadying embrace just as his knees gave way. "I've got you," Chris murmured, his voice a solid anchor in the whirlpool of panic that threatened to consume us.

I turned to the woman, my gaze dissecting her with the intensity of a blade, trying to unravel the mystery of her intentions. Friend or foe? The question hung in the air like a guillotine blade suspended by a single fraying thread. Every instinct I had screamed for answers, but she gave nothing away—not in her posture, not in her eyes. She stood poised and unflinching, like something carved from the very bones of this world.

As I gathered Duke from Jamie's trembling arms, the warm slick of blood oozed down my forearms, seeping into the fabric of my shirt with a slow, saturating dread. The scent of iron hit the back of my throat. The dog’s body felt impossibly light, as if the life had already drained from him, leaving behind only a husk. My stomach clenched. The wrongness of it gripped me like a vice.

"The creature's wounds are serious. He has lost a lot of blood," the warrior woman declared, her voice even, almost clinical, but there was a tremor of sympathy buried somewhere deep within the measured cadence. Firelight flickered across her features, catching her eyes in sudden bursts, as if the flames themselves were toying with her expression—sometimes shadow, sometimes steel.

A strangled gasp escaped my throat, unbidden. The terrible truth sank its claws into my chest and anchored there, dragging me into stillness. The kind of despair that numbs more than it wounds.

The woman turned to Jamie, who stood paralysed in a silent tempest of grief, his arms limp by his sides. His face was a portrait of shattering – lines taut, eyes vacant. "There's nothing you can do for him now," she said, her tone laced with something too clear-eyed to be called cruelty, yet too unflinching to offer comfort. The sentence dropped like a coffin lid being closed, the finality resounding in the pit of my stomach.

Jamie's anguish erupted—raw, volcanic. "Duke," he sobbed, his voice hoarse and breaking apart as he tore himself from Chris’s hold and snatched Duke from my grasp. The sudden loss of the small weight in my arms made me stumble backward, emptiness blooming in its place. Jamie clutched Duke to his chest with a ferocity only grief can conjure. "The lagoon," he rasped, like a dying ember flaring back to life, wild and irrational, but burning all the same.

"It's too dangerous," the warrior cautioned, her words low and urgent, honed to precision. She took a step forward, her silhouette tense. "Whatever is out there will smell the blood and most certainly attack again. I can't protect you out there."

Her warning didn’t come as a threat—it was a solemn truth, cold and clear, forged in hard survival. Her gaze didn’t waver, but I sensed she already knew she might not be able to stop him.

The whole camp felt perched on the edge of a blade, ready to tip into chaos. Duke’s laboured breaths, Jamie’s unravelling, the unknown horrors circling just out of sight—and now this woman, this sudden warrior from the dark—it was all spinning faster than any of us could control. And in the centre of it, the awful, helpless realisation: we were no longer in a place where reason could save us.

Suddenly, a bone-chilling scream ripped through the night like a banshee’s wail, the kind that cleaves through marrow and sanity alike. It came from the direction of the Portal, distant yet piercing, as though reality itself had just been torn open. The sound froze me in place. For a heartbeat, I couldn’t breathe. It was pure, unfiltered terror—raw as open nerve endings—and it turned my blood to ice in my veins. A dreadful certainty settled over me like a shroud: the jaws of peril were closing in, poised to devour us all.

"Your friends need help," the warrior declared, her voice taut with urgency but remarkably composed—an anchor in the rising storm. She didn’t hesitate. In one fluid motion, she vanished into the darkness, an arrow already nocked, her silhouette dissolving into the void like smoke on a breeze. She moved not like a person but like a force—swift, unerring, terrifying in her grace.

Jamie didn’t wait. Driven by the singular, blinding need to save what little remained of his world, he turned and staggered toward the river, clutching Duke with trembling arms. His steps were erratic, drunken with grief, every footfall a struggle between hope and despair. I followed, not out of strategy but instinct, the kind born of shared humanity. I couldn’t let him face whatever lay ahead alone—not in this darkness, not like this.

“Jamie,” I called out, reaching for him, my fingers curling around the slope of his shoulder, trying to root him to the earth. “There’s no time.” My voice cracked, pulled between the threads of urgency and compassion, trying desperately to make him see sense without tearing his last hope to pieces.

“The river has healed before. It can heal again,” Jamie choked out, his words strangled with emotion, his face pale and shining with desperation. He pulled away with a sudden strength, cradling Duke like a talisman, his eyes glazed with the glint of blind conviction. It wasn’t logic driving him now—it was love, pure and reckless.

Chris was suddenly at his side, appearing as though conjured by the force of the moment, a makeshift torch alight in his grip. The flame crackled defiantly, casting long, grotesque shadows that skittered across the sand like restless spirits. “Then I’m coming with you,” he said firmly, no trace of doubt in his tone. It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a vow.

I blinked, surprised—but only for a second. The surprise quickly gave way to steely resolve. I nodded, my throat too tight for words. There was no room for debate anymore. We were doing this. Together.

Chris led the way with the fire held aloft, the torchlight stretching and twisting in unnatural ways, throwing our shadows like spectres across the ground. Yet, we moved forward, step by step, driven by hope, fear, and something even stronger—our refusal to abandon one another to the night.

It was madness. But it was our madness.

The riverbank unfolded before us like a mirage in the darkness, an unlikely haven of quiet amid the night’s mayhem. The gentle susurration of water meeting earth felt oddly detached from the frayed world behind us, as though Clivilius itself had drawn a boundary between what was and what still might be. The hush here was sacred, not peaceful—too still, too watchful—like something unseen was holding its breath.

Jamie moved ahead his arms cradling Duke with a tenderness that made my throat tighten. I lingered at the edge, my boots sinking slightly into the damp silt, heart hammering with dread. Each step Jamie took into the shallows sent ripples racing outward, widening and widening, as if the river were alive and responding—questioning, perhaps warning.

"It's okay, Duke," Jamie whispered, his voice cracked and hollow as he crouched deeper into the water. He held the dog as if afraid that even the act of letting go might shatter what little hope he had left. "You'll be okay." The words stumbled out in a rhythm that sounded almost rehearsed—like a mantra he'd clung to all the way here. I knew he wasn’t speaking just to Duke. He was begging the universe to bend, just this once, in mercy.

The flickering torchlight painted our faces in harsh strokes—too much light, too much shadow. Chris stood beside me in solemn silence, and I could feel the weight of it all pressing down on our shoulders. The warmth of the flame offered no comfort. It only made the grief shine brighter—each tear on Jamie’s face catching the glow like molten silver, each trembling breath caught between prayer and panic.

Jamie lowered Duke with infinite care into the river’s embrace. The limp body floated for a moment, and the water around them shimmered with reflected light—then deepened into a swirl of red. The colour spread with awful grace, blooming like a poisoned flower, petals opening in the current with silent menace.

"I'm so sorry I couldn't protect you, Duke," Jamie wept, the words wrenching loose from a soul unravelled by guilt. I could barely breathe through the force of it, as if his sorrow had expanded to fill the entire air, leaving no space for anything else. It settled on my skin, heavy and cloying, pulling at the corners of my own sorrow until my hands began to tremble.

I wanted to look away, but couldn’t. I felt like an intruder on something too sacred to witness, and yet I knew I had to stay—to be a witness, because Jamie couldn’t do this alone.

The river moved around them with eerie serenity, indifferent to our grief. It accepted Duke, accepted the blood, but offered no answer in return. Only silence. Only the night.

"No, Duke! No!" Jamie's anguished cry tore through the night like a jagged blade, raw and bloodied by grief. The sound cut deep, reverberating through the trees, through my bones, through the stillness of the river that had offered no miracle. He clutched Duke’s lifeless body to his chest, his voice a cracked vessel spilling despair. It wasn’t just a cry—it was a soul’s rupture, a plea to undo the irreversible.

The truth, stark and unrelenting, settled over me like a sodden cloak—Duke was gone. The finality of it thudded against my chest, stealing my breath. I turned toward Chris, who met my gaze with eyes that glistened in the firelight. In that moment, we shared a silence louder than any scream—a hollow, painful understanding of what had been lost.

Without a word, Chris passed me the torch and waded towards Jamie, his movement purposeful, the water parting reluctantly around him. He reached out, his hands settling on Jamie’s shoulders with a gentleness that belied the strength in his grip.

"I'm sorry, Jamie. Duke's gone," I whispered, the words catching in my throat like thorns. They sounded brittle, useless—a pale shadow of comfort.

Jamie collapsed as if the words had finally severed the last thread holding him upright. His body folded forward, crumpling into the water, the ripples swallowing him in an instant. For a breathless second, he vanished beneath the surface, and time itself seemed to hold still, the world narrowing to that one, horrifying instant.

Then everything erupted into motion.

Chris lunged, sending up a violent spray of water, his arms plunging beneath the surface. My own panic ignited, spurring my body into action. I tossed the torch onto the riverbank—its orange flame tumbling end over end—before diving into the freezing water. The cold hit like a thousand knives, slicing through muscle and breath, but I didn't hesitate.

My hands fumbled through the current, finding fur—waterlogged and lifeless. Duke. I clenched my jaw and pulled him close, ignoring the tears that mingled with the river on my face. Every movement back to the shore felt like dragging grief itself, heavy and merciless. I laid him gently on the bank, brushing back sodden tufts of fur, whispering empty words under my breath.

Behind me, Chris was fighting his own battle, dragging Jamie’s slack frame through the water like a man hauling back someone already halfway gone. He moved with a terrible determination, knees sinking into the wet earth as he laid Jamie flat and began chest compressions. The sound of his palms striking water-slick skin echoed in the dark, rhythmic and desperate.

And then—Jamie’s body jerked. A guttural cough tore from his lips as his eyes snapped open, wild and wide with confusion. He choked, spewing out river water in great sputtering bursts, his lungs heaving as he clung back to consciousness.

I sagged with relief, my breath coming in ragged bursts. Jamie was alive. But Duke… Duke was still. And the night had become a tomb for what we had lost.

Jamie, fuelled by a volatile mix of grief and desperation—less man, more ghost in pursuit of what he could not save—stumbled toward me with a kind of wild, frenzied momentum. His movements were uncoordinated, shaking with raw, unspent panic. Without ceremony, he nearly tore Duke from my arms, his hands trembling as they clutched at the limp body.

"Leave me!" he demanded, his voice fractured and low, as though dredged from the very marrow of his being. It wasn't a request—it was a primal, guttural decree, and I felt its resonance in my chest like the toll of a bell.

I wanted to protest, to tell him he shouldn’t be alone right now, that someone should hold him upright while he collapsed inside. But one look at him—his bloodshot eyes, the tight lines of agony etched deep into his face—made it clear that no comfort could reach him in this moment. His grief was a fortress, and he was its only occupant.

He dropped to the river’s edge with Duke held close, his legs dipping into the slow, cold current. The torchlight nearby cast long shadows across his back, making him appear more statue than man, a silhouette carved by sorrow. He looked utterly alone—just a broken figure set adrift on the shores of his own heartache.

Chris planted the fire torch upright near the waterline, its flickering light casting eerie glows across the rippling surface. We stepped back quietly, instinctively, giving Jamie the space he needed while ensuring he didn’t disappear into the river again. I lingered at the edge of the tents, my eyes never straying far from his silhouette. I knew, as surely as I knew my own name, that he wouldn’t move from that spot. Not tonight. Perhaps not even by morning.

"There's nothing more we can do for him," Chris whispered beside me. His words were gentle, the way one speaks in a place of mourning, and I could hear the sorrow stitched into every syllable. "We need to get out of these wet clothes."

"You go," I replied softly but firmly, the decision already carved into my bones. "I'm going to stay close and keep an eye on Jamie."

Chris gave a slow, understanding nod, no argument, no attempt to sway me. "I'll bring you some dry clothes," he said, and with that, he disappeared into the shadows, the torchlight briefly outlining his frame before he melted into the night.

Left alone, I remained at my post, a silent sentry keeping vigil. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself, the cold beginning to settle into my bones now that the adrenaline had begun to wane. My eyes stayed fixed on Jamie’s form by the river, unmoving. And behind them, thoughts swirled like a storm—thoughts of loss, of what we were really facing here in Clivilius, and the fragile line that held us all from falling over the edge.

Jamie sat alone, but not unseen. And I, too, bore witness to this quiet grief, this heartbreak beneath the starless sky.