4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Loyal Without Language
Paul has failed at concrete. Failed at first aid. Failed at keeping anyone safe. Now Jamie is missing and Paul's voice echoes off empty water, unanswered. He climbs higher, searching, and nearly walks off a cliff he didn't see. When he finally staggers back to camp — sunburned, gasping, certain he's lost the only other person in this world — he discovers that rescue doesn't always require opposable thumbs. Sometimes it just requires knowing who to fetch.
The tent is empty. The river whispers to no one. Paul's shouts disappear into the indifferent vastness of Clivilius without echo or answer, and with every passing second of silence, the scenarios multiply: Jamie collapsed in a gully, Jamie face-down in the water, Jamie dying alone whilst Paul searches in all the wrong places.
Desperation drives him up a hill that leaves him gasping, bent double, stars exploding behind his eyes. When he finally lifts his head, he finds himself one step from oblivion — cliffs dropping away into nothing, invisible from below, patient as death. The landscape unfolds in terrible beauty: river cutting through hostile terrain, distant mountains watching with ancient indifference.
He returns defeated to find Jamie exactly where he didn't think to look. The wound bleeds with every movement. Jamie had heard Paul calling but couldn't respond, couldn't stand, couldn't do anything but lie there and listen to his own name disappearing into empty air.
Duke found him. Duke fetched Luke. A creature without language or opposable thumbs accomplished what Paul — with all his determination and panic and love — could not.
