Paper Bridges

"There's something particularly cruel about receiving a cry for help from someone you love when you're trapped in a place that won't even let you write back."

The darkness didn't want to let me go.

It wrapped around my consciousness like waterlogged fabric, heavy and clinging, pulling me down into depths where thought dissolved and time ceased to have meaning. Somewhere in that void, a voice called my name—distant, muffled, as though filtering through layers of earth and stone.

"Jamie!"

The sound reached me like light at the bottom of a well. I knew I should respond, should fight my way toward that voice, but my body had become a foreign country—territory I no longer controlled. My eyelids felt weighted with lead, refusing the simplest command to open.

"Jamie!"

Again. Closer now, or perhaps I was rising toward it. The pull between consciousness and oblivion created a strange vertigo, my awareness seesawing between the two like a drunk trying to find level ground.

"Here," I managed to croak, the word scraping out of my throat like gravel being dragged across sandpaper. My voice barely registered in my own ears—a whisper where a shout was needed. My eyelids twitched, granting me the briefest glimpse of burnt orange sky before falling shut again under their own impossible weight.

Paul's voice—because it was Paul, I realised now, that familiar cadence cutting through the fog—receded into the distance. I heard him calling, the sound moving away, and with it went any hope of rescue. My resolve crumbled. My eyes stayed closed. The darkness welcomed me back like an old friend.

But then my world began to sway.

A gentle rocking motion stirred something in my chest—not quite alarm, not quite recognition. Through the sliver of vision my stubborn eyelids afforded, shapes blurred past. Brown. Orange. The colour palette of Clivilius rendered impressionistic by my compromised state.

"Paul?" The question emerged as an unintelligible mumble, vowels and consonants colliding without proper formation.

And then—garlic.

The scent cut through the confusion with the sharpness of a blade parting silk. Unmistakable. Familiar in a way that triggered memory before conscious thought could follow. Luke always smelled faintly of garlic. He chewed raw cloves for what he claimed were health benefits, and the aroma seeped through his pores, becoming as much a part of him as his fingerprints.

"Luke," I whispered, recognition sparking despite the fog.

The sensation of movement became more pronounced as I pieced together what was happening. I was draped over Luke's shoulders—my arms dangling down his back, my torso folded across the ridge of his spine. Each of his determined strides jostled me like cargo on a particularly unreliable transport, dust rising around us with each footfall.

He's carrying me.

The thought arrived with strange detachment. The man I'd accused of sentencing us to death was now hauling my useless body through the Clivilius dust like a sack of cement mix. The irony would have been amusing if I'd had the energy for humour. Instead, I simply registered the fact—filed it away in whatever corner of my brain was still processing information—and let the motion carry me forward.

There was comfort in it, despite everything. A tangible sign that I wasn't alone out here. That despite the poison that had passed between us—the accusations, the shove that had ruptured my wound, the declaration that he'd killed us all—there were still hands willing to catch me when I fell.

Duke's yips reached me before anything else.

The sharp, insistent bark pierced the heavy silence that had settled around my consciousness, carried on air that grew warmer as we neared what I assumed was camp. The sound should have brought relief—evidence of life, of familiarity, of something other than endless dust and pain. Instead, it triggered a surge of anger that burned hot despite my weakened state.

The fucking dogs.

Luke had brought them here. Had condemned them to the same exile that trapped the rest of us. Duke and Henri, who'd done nothing to deserve imprisonment, who couldn't understand why their world had suddenly contracted to this barren landscape with its strange water and stranger rules. Every bark felt like an accusation—a reminder of Luke's thoughtless cruelty, his inability to consider consequences beyond his immediate impulses.

If I could have spoken, I would have told him. Would have let loose the torrent of frustration and fear that churned in my gut. But my physical state rendered me mute—my voice as incapacitated as my limbs, reduced to passenger in my own body while Luke carried me toward whatever passed for safety in this place.

The tent's interior appeared in fragments as Luke manoeuvred through the entrance. Henri scampered beneath my limited field of vision—a blur of brown and white fur that sparked something other than anger for the first time since I'd heard Duke's bark. The familiar shape of him, that chubby compact body I'd stroked a thousand times on the sofa at home, created an ache that had nothing to do with my physical injuries.

Luke's movements were gentler than I expected as he laid me down on the mattress. The contrast between his care now and the violent shove that had ruptured my wound earlier created cognitive dissonance I was too exhausted to resolve. Perhaps that was simply Luke—a creature of contradictions, capable of both cruelty and tenderness depending on which wind was blowing through his unpredictable head.

Duke wasted no time claiming his moment. The little Shih Tzu rushed to my side with the enthusiasm that defined his every action, bestowing several licks on my cheek with the unbridled joy that dogs seemed to carry as their birthright. His tongue was warm and wet against my skin, leaving trails of affection I hadn't asked for.

Almost reflexively, I pushed him away.

The action wasn't rejection—not really. It was more the manifestation of everything tangled inside me: the anger at Luke, the fear of my deteriorating condition, the confusion about what any of this meant. Duke simply happened to be within reach when the impulse struck.

"Shit, you really scared me there, Jamie." Luke's voice was tinged with relief that couldn't quite mask the worry underneath.

"I'm fine," I retorted, the words emerging automatically—more reflex than truth. My response was brusque, designed to ward off his concern and perhaps shield myself from the vulnerability of the moment. I pushed at Luke, both physically and metaphorically, creating distance that I mistakenly thought would fortify whatever remained of my resolve.

"What the hell were you doing out there?" Luke pressed, frustration threading through his tone. "We thought you had stormed off to the lagoon."

I closed my eyes, trying to sift through the fragments of memory that remained. The walk. The heat. The anger that had propelled me away from camp after... what exactly? After Luke's shove? After the wound had ruptured? The sequence of events had become jumbled, pieces of a puzzle scattered by the fall that had claimed my consciousness.

"And you've got no shirt on to protect your chest!" The accusation came suddenly, Luke's gaze apparently having found the angry wound between my pecs.

I strained against the fog clouding my recall, searching for any explanation that might make sense of my actions. But the search returned empty. A black void had settled over the events leading to my collapse, erasing any trace of rational thought. I didn't know why I'd walked upstream instead of toward the river. Didn't know what I'd been thinking—if I'd been thinking at all. The realisation left me grasping at straws.

"I went to bathe in the river," I ventured finally, the words hollow even as they left my lips. "I guess I got a bit too hot. I'm probably just a bit dehydrated."

It was a makeshift explanation—flimsy, full of holes—but it was all I had to offer. The truth was more complicated and less accessible: I'd been running from something. From Luke's betrayal with the dogs, from the wound that might be killing me, from the promise I'd made to Clivilius in the lagoon. Running without destination because staying still had become unbearable.

"I'll get you some water," Luke responded swiftly, his immediate acceptance of my explanation either born of concern or willingness to overlook the obvious gaps. Without another word, he rushed from the tent, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the unsettling void where memory should have been.

Duke's energy was a stark counterpoint to the lethargy weighing down every cell in my body.

I watched him scamper toward one of the small dog beds that had been arranged along the tent's back wall—beds that hadn't existed this morning, beds that Luke must have brought through the Portal along with the dogs themselves. Duke returned triumphantly, a long, skinny brown toy horse clamped in his jaws with the pride of a hunter presenting his kill.

Despite everything—the pain, the anger, the fear, the exhaustion that pressed on my chest like a physical weight—a genuine smile found its way to my face.

Horsey.

The toy was ancient by dog standards, its fabric worn thin in places where Duke's teeth had claimed it thousands of times. The stuffing had been redistributed by years of enthusiastic play, leaving the horse's head oversized and its body oddly deflated. But to Duke, it was treasure beyond measure. He'd had the thing since he was a puppy, and his attachment to it bordered on the religious.

I reached out, taking Horsey's head in my hand, and gave it several playful squeaks. The sound—comically high-pitched, the toy's voice long since warped by moisture and use—sparked a light chuckle from somewhere in my chest. The laughter hurt, pulling at the wound between my pecs, but I didn't care. For one brief moment, the simple act of playing with my dog felt like the most normal thing in the world.

Duke growled playfully, his teeth securing around Horsey's soft, fluffy foot while his entire body vibrated with anticipation. His eyes locked on mine with that particular intensity he brought to play—every muscle tensed, waiting for the signal that would transform static tension into chaotic motion.

Henri, ever the observer, apparently decided this was the perfect moment for his own ritual. He spun in several tight circles at the corner of the mattress—that strange bedtime behaviour he'd exhibited since puppyhood—before collapsing into a fluffy heap. His final snort of contentment punctuated the moment, a reminder that some things remained constant even when the world had tilted entirely off its axis.

Duke released his grip on Horsey and sat back, tail wagging expectantly. His eyes tracked mine with that pure, uncomplicated hope that dogs somehow maintained regardless of circumstances. He didn't know we were trapped in another dimension. Didn't understand that the world he'd known had been replaced by this dust-coloured prison. He just knew that Dad was here, and there was a toy, and surely play would follow.

"I can't throw Horsey in here, Duke. Your claws will rip holes in the floor," I explained, my voice gentler than it had been all day. The practical concern felt almost absurd given everything else—what did tent floor damage matter when we might all be dying?—but the habit of care persisted. "Later, okay? When I'm feeling better."

The promise tasted like hope. Whether I believed it or not, I couldn't say.

Luke's return was marked by purpose that filled the tent's small space.

"Here," he announced, thrusting a water bottle under my nose with the authority of someone who'd brook no argument. "Drink all of it."

My body welcomed the command before my mind could process it. I took the bottle with shaking hands, raised it to cracked lips, and drank deeply. The water was cool—impossibly so, given the Clivilius heat—and it slid down my parched throat like redemption given liquid form. I drank until the bottle was empty, until my stomach protested the sudden influx, until the fog in my head began to thin around the edges.

From the corner of my eye, I watched Luke rummaging through Duke's toy box. The action seemed strange—why would he be digging through dog toys when I was potentially dying?—until he retrieved what appeared to be an envelope. Plain. Unmarked. The kind of thing that belonged in a different world entirely.

I handed Luke the empty bottle, exchanging it for the envelope he offered. "What's this?" Curiosity laced my voice despite my attempts to sound indifferent.

"It's a letter from Gladys," Luke disclosed, something unreadable flickering across his features.

"A letter?" The word felt anachronistic in my mouth. "Why did she write me a letter?"

The concept seemed absurd. In a world of texts and emails and instant communication, who sent letters? And how had it arrived here, in this tent, in this dimension that existed beyond the reach of any postal service?

"Well," Luke began, his tone suggesting bemusement mixed with resignation, "that's what I first said. But she's got a point. She can't talk to you, so she decided a letter was the next best option."

The explanation touched something I hadn't expected. Gladys, sitting somewhere in Tasmania with a pen and paper, trying to bridge the impossible distance between us through the oldest form of long-distance communication humanity had devised. The image was both heartbreaking and oddly comforting.

"So, she believed my message then?" The question emerged before I could stop it, the implications racing ahead of my words. The message I'd scrawled on an empty water bottle—desperate, barely legible, explaining where I was and what had happened. "Does she believe where I am?"

"Yeah," Luke replied, his shoulder shrug embodying casual acceptance of the unbelievable. "They're sitting on the couch at home now, waiting for me to return without the dog's beds and toys."

"They?" My eyebrows arched at the mention of another waiting.

"Beatrix," Luke clarified, resignation colouring his tone. "Gladys didn't exactly leave me with much choice."

I scoffed loudly, unsurprised. That was Gladys all over—finding herself entangled in precarious situations through no one's fault but her own, and inevitably dragging her sister along for the chaos. The dynamic between those two had always teetered on the edge of mischief and mayhem. It seemed dimensional imprisonment hadn't changed anything.

Did Gladys show Beatrix my message? Was that what prompted this letter?

"Have you read it?" I held up the sealed envelope, studying Luke's face for any sign of knowledge withheld.

"No," Luke responded simply. "It's for you."

I slid the envelope beneath the pillow, a temporary reprieve from whatever questions lurked inside. "I'll read it later."

The truth was, the prospect of Gladys's words filled me with equal parts anticipation and dread. Why would she write when Luke could just as easily relay information? What couldn't be spoken aloud that required the permanence of ink on paper?

"Sure." Luke's response was brief. "I think Paul's out looking for you."

Guilt flickered through me—Paul, searching the landscape for a body that might or might not still be breathing. "I know," I shot back, defensive despite myself.

"He should be back soon," Luke continued, his voice softening. "I have to go. Don't go doing anything stupid again. Stay in bed for the rest of the day."

The instruction carried a note of what might have been love, buried beneath the admonition. Before I could respond, Luke exited the tent, leaving me with the dogs and the envelope and the weight of everything that remained unspoken between us.

I sighed softly as Luke's footsteps faded, the sound absorbed by the tent's fabric walls. The weight of the day's events settled over me like a physical thing—heavy, suffocating, demanding acknowledgment.

Duke stood at attention beside the mattress, Horsey still clutched in his jaws, waiting with the eternal patience of a dog who believed absolutely in the game's resumption. His tail wagged slowly, hopefully—a metronome of optimism that seemed almost obscene given our circumstances.

"Well, Duke," I said, reaching out to wave Horsey under his eager nose. "And Henri," I added, leaning over to stroke the soft fur where he'd curled into his corner. "Looks like you're both stuck with me now."

The words came out lighter than I felt. An attempt at normalcy in a situation that defied it completely. But there was truth beneath the casual tone—these two ridiculous, beloved creatures were now bound to the same fate as the rest of us. Prisoners of Clivilius, dependent on Luke's whims for food and water and whatever comforts he deigned to provide.

Duke seized the moment—and Horsey—with youthful exuberance, snatching the toy from my weakened grip and carrying his prize to the opposite corner of the mattress. He settled there, claiming his territory, and stared up at me with eyes that seemed to hold understanding beyond their canine capacity.

They don't know, I reminded myself. They can't know. They just know we're here, and they're happy to be with us.

The simplicity of it was almost painful. Duke and Henri didn't understand portals or exile or the infected wound that might be killing me. They understood presence. Proximity. The pack being together, regardless of where that togetherness occurred.

Maybe there was wisdom in that. Or maybe I was just too exhausted to think clearly.

Groaning softly, I allowed myself to sink back into the mattress. The simple interaction with the dogs had drained what little energy Luke's rescue had restored. My eyelids felt impossibly heavy again, the darkness reaching for me with familiar insistence.

But the envelope under my pillow pressed against the back of my skull like a question demanding an answer.

With resignation—or perhaps simply to distract myself from the pain radiating through my chest—I retrieved the envelope from beneath the pillow.

"May as well see what Gladys has to say."

My fingers, clumsy with exhaustion and whatever else was wrong with my body, slipped under the seal and tore it open with less finesse than the moment probably deserved. I extracted the single sheet of paper, unfolding it carelessly, and let my eyes focus on the words that waited there.

Jamie,

I really hope you get this!

Luke tells me that you have gone through a Portal into a new world. He is calling it Clivilius. I wasn't sure whether to believe him, but then he pulled out an odd-looking device and showed the Portal to me. Its colours are simply stunning! Unless I choose to believe that I have finally gone mad, which we knew was always a possibility, I have no choice but to believe what he tells me.

As you know, Cody and I have been seeing each other for over three months now. I think I really like him. And I am pretty sure he likes me too. I know you said you thought he was trustworthy, but things have been getting just a little strange.

He snuck into my room last night. It was after midnight! I have no idea how he got into my house. I was terrified! But he told me to trust Luke. To help him. To do whatever he asks me to do. I didn't even know he knew Luke. This is all getting too weird for me.

And that message of yours on the bottle. Is that really true? Was Brody really murdered? Why didn't you tell me?

I wish you were here. I really miss talking to you already. You're my best friend.

I drank too much last night. I liked it. It's the only thing that keeps my head from spinning out of control. Brody's face haunts me. Almost. Every. Night.

I haven't told anyone else yet, but work fired me last week. I didn't mean for it to happen. They made me give a urine sample for a random alcohol test and I failed.

Jamie, I don't know what to do. Please just come home.

I need you.

Gladys

I read the letter again. And then a third time.

Each pass through Gladys's words stirred the murky waters of my confusion further, turning up sediment I'd thought settled and revealing new depths of complication I hadn't anticipated.

Cody.

The name conjured a vague image—dark hair, broad shoulders, the kind of solid dependability that Gladys had always claimed to want in a partner. I'd met him once, maybe twice, at gatherings where my attention had been elsewhere. He'd seemed... fine. Pleasant enough. The sort of person who faded into the background unless you were specifically looking for them.

But breaking into Gladys's house at midnight? Telling her to trust Luke? Knowing Luke at all?

How the hell do Cody and Luke know each other?

The question spiralled through my exhausted brain, spawning theories I lacked the energy to pursue. The most obvious explanation—that Luke was involved in something secret, something that connected him to people and places I knew nothing about—wasn't exactly surprising. Luke had always kept parts of himself hidden. I'd learned early in our relationship not to press too hard on the locked doors in his psyche, accepting his mysteries as the price of his company.

But this felt different. Cody's midnight visit, his insistence that Gladys help Luke—it suggested a conspiracy I couldn't begin to fathom. Were they involved somehow? Not romantically—the idea was absurd—but connected through something larger than either of them?

There is definitely a different explanation, I thought, though what that explanation might be remained stubbornly opaque.

The rest of Gladys's letter carved different wounds.

Brody. The message I'd scrawled on that bottle had included the truth about his death—that he'd been murdered, not simply found dead as Gladys had been led to believe. I'd written it without thinking, desperate to convey something real, something that might prove my message wasn't the raving of a madman. But I hadn't considered how it would land. Hadn't thought about Gladys reading those words and processing the revelation that her sister’s partner’s death—the death she'd discovered, the body she'd found—had been something worse than she'd known.

Why didn't you tell me?

Her question echoed through my guilt. Why hadn't I told her? Fear, probably. Fear of making real something I could barely acknowledge to myself. Fear of shattering whatever fragile stability she'd constructed in the years since that discovery.

And now she was drinking. Drinking enough to fail a workplace test. Drinking enough to get fired from a job she'd held for over a decade.

Brody's face haunts me. Almost. Every. Night.

The words struck with the force of personal accusation. I wasn't there. Couldn't be there. Had been dragged into another dimension while my best friend unravelled, leaving her with nothing but a letter she might never be able to reply to and the ghost of a dead man who wouldn't stay buried.

The paper crinkled under my grip as I refolded it, the physical manifestation of frustration I couldn't otherwise express. I slipped the envelope into the pillowcase, burying it alongside my unanswerable questions.

"So many ridiculous thoughts," I muttered, a scolding directed at my overwrought mind. "Must be the heat stroke."

The attempt at humour fell flat even to my own ears. But what else could I do? The mysteries of Cody and Luke, the slow-motion tragedy of Gladys's collapse, the impossible distance between where I lay and where she suffered—none of it could be addressed from this mattress in this tent in this dimension.

Please just come home.

If only it were that simple.

Movement at the tent's entrance jolted my weary eyes open.

Paul stood silhouetted against the Clivilius light, his outline ragged with exhaustion. Dust coated every visible surface of him—his clothes, his skin, even his hair had taken on the ochre tinge that seemed to be this place's signature colour. He looked like he'd been dragged backwards through the entire landscape.

"You look worse than I do," I managed, my voice still rasping from dryness despite Luke's water.

Paul's head snapped up at the sound, surprise and concern chasing each other across his features. "Where the hell did you go? I've been searching for you."

"I know." Guilt threaded through my words. "I could hear you calling out, but every time I try to move, it starts to bleed again."

I gestured vaguely toward my chest, where the wound sat hidden beneath the fabric of nothing—I still wasn't wearing a shirt, I realised. The burn was exposed to Paul's view, and from the way his gaze dropped and lingered, I could tell it wasn't a pretty sight.

"The water didn't help then?" he asked, the question loaded with concern.

I shook my head slowly, the motion laboured and painful. "I didn't make it to the river." The admission tasted like failure. "I went too far upstream and then I collapsed before I had the chance to get in the water."

The memories were returning in fragments now—the angry march away from camp, the heat beating down, my legs giving out beneath me. The details remained hazy, but the broad strokes had reappeared like a photograph slowly developing.

"Probably just as well," Paul mused, a grim smile touching his lips. "Or you could have collapsed in the water."

The unspoken implication hung between us—I could have drowned. Could have died alone in that strange river with no one to find me until it was too late. The possibility hadn't occurred to me in the moment, but now it settled into my bones with uncomfortable weight.

"I know," I agreed. "Thankfully Duke found me."

The mention of Duke brought a small measure of warmth to the words. Whatever anger I'd felt about the dogs being brought here, it was Duke who'd raised the alarm. Duke who'd somehow led Luke to my unconscious body in the middle of nowhere. The little shit might have saved my life.

"And how did you make it back here?" Paul asked, reaching down to scratch behind Duke's ear in the automatic gesture of someone comfortable with dogs.

"Luke," I answered simply. "Duke fetched Luke, and he carried me back here."

"Luke was here?" Paul's surprise was evident.

"Yeah." I gestured toward the dog beds and toy box that now occupied the tent's back wall. Visual evidence of Luke's passage through our temporary home.

"At least he gets some things right." Paul's words carried light teasing, but they sparked something genuine in me—a smile that spread freely across my face, softening the hard lines of stress and weariness.

Yes, I thought, my gaze drifting to Duke and Henri. He does get some things right.

"I'm going to start putting up another one of these tents," Paul announced, his statement pulling me back from the edge of unconsciousness I'd been drifting toward. "Do you need anything first?"

"No." A gentle shake of my head conveyed my current state better than words could. Every muscle ached. The burn on my chest had settled into a constant throb that synchronised with my heartbeat. The exhaustion that pressed on my eyelids felt less like tiredness and more like gravity itself, pulling me down into depths I wasn't sure I'd emerge from.

"I think I might try and get some sleep," I finished, the prospect of rest feeling like the most precious commodity in existence.

"Good idea," Paul agreed, his voice carrying understanding and concern in equal measure.

My eyes closed before he'd finished speaking.

The act itself was surrender—a letting go of vigilance, of control, of the constant effort required to maintain consciousness in a body that had been pushed well past its limits. I waited for the sounds of Paul's departure, the soft shuffle of footsteps that would signal I could release fully into the darkness waiting for me.

But in the space between waking and sleep, where reality blurs into something softer, I never heard him leave. The exhaustion claimed me entirely, dragging me down with the swiftness of falling, leaving the outside world to continue without my participation.

In the darkness that followed, there were no dreams. No visions. No mystical voices promising new life or demanding surrender. Just the profound, healing emptiness of unconsciousness—the body's way of fighting damage the conscious mind couldn't address.

Duke's warmth pressed against my leg at some point. Henri's snoring provided a distant rhythm. The tent's fabric walls filtered the harsh Clivilius light into something gentler, almost comfortable.

And for the first time since arriving in this impossible place, I slept without resistance. Without fear. Without anything but the simple, animal need for rest that transcends dimension and circumstance and every other complication that existence can throw at a body pushed too far.