4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Paper and Dust
A letter is such a fragile thing. Paper and ink, easily torn, easily lost. Gladys hands it over like it weighs more than it should, and maybe it does—maybe words you can't say aloud become heavier once you write them down. The Portal swallows it along with the dog beds, delivering both to a world that breaks everything eventually. Luke follows. What he finds in the dust isn't a letter. It's the man he was ready to hate this morning, collapsed and barely breathing. Suddenly paper seems like the strongest thing left.
Fresh clothes can't wash away the morning. Blood-soaked evidence still lies twisted in the bathtub. Gladys drinks on the sofa. Beatrix wants to see the Portal.
Luke obliges—not from generosity, but strategy. Better they gawk at marvels than fixate on the body cooling in the truck. The living room wall tears open into kaleidoscope light, and Beatrix tosses a cushion through like a child testing water depth. It's so pretty, she murmurs, while Luke sees something else entirely: a solution, a burial ground, a place where inconvenient truths disappear.
But first, the dogs need their beds. And Gladys has a letter—words she can't speak aloud, sealed in an envelope, pressed into Luke's hands with quiet desperation.
Clivilius receives him with silence. The Drop Zone is deserted. Duke's barking leads Luke through the dust to Jamie's collapsed form—shirtless, wound festering, breathing shallow. The carry back to camp is a battle against gravity and grief. Jamie wakes long enough to refuse the letter, to scoff at Beatrix knowing, to pretend he's fine.
He isn't fine. None of them are.
But the letter slides beneath his pillow anyway. And Luke returns to Earth with something dangerous forming in his mind.
