Pretty Fucked

"Three years of early mornings and shit pay, and it turns out the universe had a plan for me after all. Just not the one I expected."

We walked in silence at first, our feet sinking into the soft dust with every step. Paul led the way, picking a path between the low dunes, his stride purposeful despite the terrain working against us. I followed a half-step behind, my eyes taking in everything — the endless sweep of browns and reds, the scattered rocks jutting up like broken teeth, the way the landscape seemed to swallow sound and distance alike.

It felt good to move. To have a direction, even if I didn't know where we were going. Better than standing around waiting for the next disaster to unfold.

"This is the Drop Zone," Paul said, gesturing toward an area marked by two small piles of stones. Between them lay a collection of supplies — boxes stacked haphazardly, rolls of material I couldn't identify from this distance, what looked like tools scattered across the ground. "Luke delivers supplies here."

I nodded, filing the information away. So Luke could come and go. Could bring things through from Earth. Which meant the portal worked both ways, at least for him.

"He has a habit of dropping items without informing us," Paul continued, a note of frustration creeping into his voice. "We have to keep a close eye on this area, to make sure we don't miss anything important."

Brothers. Even in another dimension, sibling dynamics didn't change. I thought of my own sisters — Rebecca with her sharp tongue, Emily with her quiet judgments, Katie with her endless questions — and felt a pang of something that might have been homesickness if I'd let myself dwell on it.

We approached the supplies, and I crouched down to get a better look. Boxes of various sizes, some opened and rifled through, others still sealed. Building materials — timber framing, sheets of something that looked like corrugated iron, bags of what I assumed was concrete mix. The basics for putting together a structure, if you knew what you were doing.

"You haven't started constructing any of the sheds yet?" I asked, a flicker of something like excitement stirring in my chest. This was familiar territory. This was something I actually understood.

Paul grimaced, his expression souring. "Well, I'm pretty sure we've screwed up the first slab of concrete we tried to lay."

I couldn't help it — I laughed. Not a big laugh, just a short huff of air that escaped before I could stop it. The idea of these blokes trying to pour concrete without knowing what they were doing... it was almost funny. Almost.

"You better show me then."

The first slab was a disaster.

I stood at the edge of it, hands on my hips, taking in the full extent of the damage. They'd got the basic shape right — rectangular, roughly the dimensions you'd want for a small shed — but that was where the competence ended. The surface was uneven, lumpy in places and cratered in others. Cracks ran through it like veins, the concrete having dried too fast or been mixed wrong or both. The edges were ragged, crumbling away where they should have been clean and sharp.

Three years of apprenticeship had taught me to recognise good work and bad work. This was neither. This was a crime scene.

"Yeah. That's pretty fucked," I said, keeping my voice flat. No point sugarcoating it.

Paul winced but didn't argue. He knew. Anyone with eyes would know.

I walked around the perimeter, assessing the damage from different angles. The mix had been wrong — too much water, probably, which would explain the cracking. And they hadn't compacted it properly, hadn't worked out the air bubbles, hadn't done any of the dozen small things that turned a pile of wet slop into something you could actually build on.

But even as I catalogued the failures, something else was stirring in my chest. A familiar feeling, one I hadn't expected to find in this place. Purpose. Direction. A problem I actually knew how to solve.

"I helped my father put our garage together, so these should be pretty straightforward," I said, a grin spreading across my face before I could stop it.

Paul's eyebrows shot up. "Straightforward?" He laughed, the sound carrying a edge of disbelief. "And just how big was this garage?"

"Oh, it was ten meters by ten meters."

The eyebrows went higher. I watched his mental calculations play out across his face — ten by ten, that was a hundred square metres, a serious bit of construction work. Not something you knocked together over a weekend with a mate and a slab of beer.

"Impressive," he said, and there was genuine respect in his voice now.

I shrugged, trying not to let the praise go to my head. "Dad wanted it done right. Spent three weekends on the slab alone, making sure everything was level. Drove Mum mental, but the thing's still standing."

The memory surfaced unbidden — Dad in his old work clothes, sweat dripping down his face, showing me how to work the screed board across wet concrete. The satisfaction of watching a perfect surface emerge from chaos. The cold beers afterward, sitting on the back steps while the concrete cured, talking about nothing important.

I pushed the memory aside. No point dwelling on things I couldn't have right now.

"Come on," I said, jerking my head toward the second slab. "Let's see if you managed to do any better with that one."

The second slab was... not terrible.

I crouched at its edge, running my palm across the surface. Rough, yeah — you could feel the texture where the concrete hadn't been finished properly, the tiny ridges and bumps that spoke of hurried work. But beneath the imperfections, the basic structure was sound. No major cracks. No obvious weak points. The edges were cleaner than the first attempt, more deliberate.

"We followed instructions for that one," Paul called out from behind me, hope and uncertainty fighting for control of his voice.

"It shows." I stood up, dusting off my hands on my jeans — not that it made much difference, given how filthy they already were. "It's a little rough, but I think this one will actually be okay for what you need."

The relief that washed over Paul's face was almost comical. His whole body seemed to sag, tension draining out of muscles that had been holding tight without him realising.

"Really? That's the best news I've heard today."

I looked around the site, taking in the full scope of what they were trying to accomplish. The piles of supplies at the Drop Zone. The ruined first slab. The salvageable second one. The vast expanse of empty land stretching away in every direction, waiting to be shaped into something.

"It looks like you've already got so much work to do. The less rework, the better."

Paul nodded, some of the energy returning to his posture. "Well, let's get to it."

We headed back toward the Drop Zone, my stride quickening as my brain started clicking through the logistics. Materials, tools, timeline. The familiar rhythm of planning a job, breaking it down into steps, figuring out the order of operations. It felt almost normal. Almost like being back on a real site, with real stakes, working toward something that mattered.

"So, what do we do first?" Paul asked, falling into step beside me. "Dig up that first one?"

I stopped walking, turning to stare at him. The question was so wrong, so fundamentally backwards, that for a second I thought he might be taking the piss.

He wasn't. His face was completely serious.

"Shit, no," I said, shaking my head. "There's no point touching that for now. We'll get the slabs done for a few more sheds first. We have to let them cure for seven days."

Paul's brow furrowed, confusion carving deep lines across his forehead. "Cure for seven days?" he repeated slowly, like the words were in a foreign language. "What the hell does that mean?"

I had to remind myself that not everyone grew up helping their dad pour concrete on weekends. That most people went their whole lives without learning the basics of construction, the fundamental rules that governed how materials behaved.

"It means that once we have poured the concrete, we have to leave the slabs for seven days before we can build the sheds on them," I explained, trying to keep my voice patient. "The concrete needs time to harden properly. If you build on it too soon, it won't be strong enough to support the weight. The whole thing could crack or shift."

"Shit." Paul's eyes widened as the implications sank in. "I've never heard of that before."

"I'm not surprised."

The words came out gentler than I'd intended. A week ago — Christ, was it only this morning? — I might have been more cutting about it. Might have let some of my frustration show, might have made Paul feel stupid for not knowing something that seemed so basic to me.

But we were all stupid here, weren't we? All fumbling around in a world none of us understood, trying to build something from nothing with tools we barely knew how to use. Paul's ignorance about concrete wasn't any worse than my ignorance about portals, about Clivilius, about whatever the hell was happening with Joel back in that tent.

We were all just doing our best.

"Right," I said, clapping my hands together and immediately regretting it as dust billowed up around us. "Here's what we're going to do. We prep the forms for the next few slabs today, get the ground levelled and the boxing in place. Tomorrow we mix and pour. Then we wait a week, and while we're waiting, we can start sorting through those supplies, figuring out what we've got to work with."

Paul was nodding along, his expression shifting from confusion to something that looked almost like hope.

"You really know what you're doing," he said.

I thought about all the times I'd complained about the apprenticeship. The early mornings, the shit pay, the foremen who treated me like I was brain-dead. The blisters and the sunburn and the aching muscles at the end of every day.

Funny how none of that seemed to matter now.

"Yeah," I said. "I guess I do."