Provision

“Clivilius teaches you quickly—the grand visions mean nothing if you forget the basics. Food, shelter, and a place to breathe are what keep the cracks from swallowing us whole.”

Jamie's barbs lingered in my chest long after his voice had faded into the dust-laden air.

His attitude was a weight I could not shake, thick and unwieldy, hanging over me like something physical—a coat soaked through with rain that I couldn't quite shrug off. Yet, even as resentment tried to harden within me, a softer current ran beneath. Stubborn. Inexplicable.

Against all logic, against all reason, I still cared for him.

I cared for Paul too, perhaps in a way that was easier, less jagged around the edges. My brother and I had our history, our childhood shorthand, the accumulated years of knowing each other's rhythms. With Jamie it was different—more volatile, more consuming, built on passion rather than familiarity. We had burned bright together once. Now we seemed to be burning each other.

Love, I realised, was rarely tidy. It clung and pulled in ways that defied explanation, rooted deep in the soil of shared history, nourished by something older than choice. You couldn't simply excise someone from your heart because they'd hurt you. The caring persisted like a phantom limb—absent yet achingly present.

I found myself drifting into that philosophical fog, my mind wandering to questions I could not hope to answer. What was it in us that bound us to those who wounded us? What strange alchemy of memory and feeling could turn pain into loyalty, bitterness into attachment? Was it weakness or strength to keep loving someone who seemed determined to make you regret it?

The universe did not care for such musings.

It reminded me of its brutal simplicity in the most primitive way possible—my stomach growled, fierce and insistent, echoing in the hollow quiet like something alive and indignant. The sound startled me from my thoughts, raw and undeniable.

They need food.

The thought struck with the weight of revelation, absurd in its obviousness yet piercing in its urgency. I had been so consumed with survival on the grandest scale—shelters, tempers, the unyielding laws of Clivilius—that I had neglected the most basic of needs.

Food. Sustenance. Water.

Without it, all the rest—our arguments, our plans, even my lofty visions of a civilisation reborn—would crumble into dust just as lifeless as the ground we stood on. You couldn't build a new world on empty stomachs. You couldn't forge unity when hunger gnawed at the edges of every thought.

I returned to what I had begun to think of as my command centre—the study—its cluttered desk now more than just a place for books and half-finished projects.

Here, amidst the hum of the computer and the quiet stillness of the house, Paul's mobile sat beside the wallets I had hastily deposited earlier. Mute reminders of the ties we still held to Earth. The credit cards inside them were keys to a world that would soon forget us—or perhaps already had.

The act of jumping online felt almost absurdly ordinary, a flicker of routine against the backdrop of everything else.

For a few minutes, it was as if I had slipped back into a more recognisable life: one filled with weekly shops and mundane tasks instead of Portals and inter-dimensional exile. The familiar interface of the grocery website greeted me like an old friend, its cheerful colours and promotional banners utterly indifferent to the circumstances that had brought me here.

With grim focus, I navigated through the digital aisles, selecting staples and comforts alike. Tins of beans and soup, their long shelf life suddenly invaluable. Fresh produce—apples, oranges, carrots—things that would remind us we were still human. Bottled water by the case, because I had no idea what the river in Clivilius might contain. Bread, cheese, crackers, peanut butter. Snacks for morale—chocolate biscuits and crisps, the sort of small pleasures that might ease the inevitable tension that came with hungry bellies and frayed tempers.

I added torches and batteries. Matches. First aid supplies. The list grew and grew, each item a small hedge against the unknown.

Two rather sizeable orders later, confirmation screens flared up, their glowing digits presenting me with a sum so grotesquely high it was almost comical.

The laugh that escaped me was hollow, caught somewhere between disbelief and defiance.

The decision was instinctive. I barely hesitated before charging it all to Jamie's card.

What was money now but numbers trapped in a world we might never return to? There's no point leaving money on it now, I reasoned, the thought as pragmatic as it was ruthless. Jamie certainly wouldn't be needing it in Clivilius. And if he was going to treat me like a servant, the least he could do was fund the operation.

Survival demanded sacrifice. And for once, Jamie's sharp tongue might actually serve a purpose—even if only to justify my petty revenge.

"It's a good thing I can order online and they home deliver," I said aloud, the words absurd in their cheerfulness as they floated into the quiet.

Duke, sprawled at my feet with the chew toy abandoned beside him, blinked up at me with his familiar expression—the same one he had worn since his puppy days. Wide-eyed, slightly vacant, utterly devoted. His blank but loyal gaze was oddly reassuring.

I leaned down, fingers slipping behind his ear, scratching gently until his back leg thumped against the floor in bliss.

"At least you're easily pleased," I murmured, my voice softening as a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth.

For a fleeting moment, in that quiet exchange of affection, the storms of Clivilius and Jamie's venom and Paul's despair seemed far away. Replaced by something pure, uncomplicated, and entirely grounding. Duke didn't care about inter-dimensional portals or the weight of destiny. He cared about ear scratches and the promise of dinner and the simple joy of having his human home.

There was wisdom in that, perhaps. A lesson I wasn't quite ready to learn.

As I leaned back in the chair, the fragile bubble of calm I had found in Duke's company deflated, replaced by the oppressive weight of responsibility.

It pressed against my chest, heavy and unrelenting, as if the very air had thickened. The brief respite I had stolen evaporated, swallowed by the ever-expanding list of demands clawing for my attention. Each item that surfaced in my mind—shelter, food, supplies, the fragile sanity of those I'd dragged here—stacked one atop the other until it felt like I was carrying a tower ready to collapse at any second.

The memory of Jamie's scathing tone resurfaced, unbidden but sharp.

And put some bloody clothes on while you're there.

For once, though, it tugged not anger but a crooked grin from me.

I pushed myself up from the chair, the words spilling into the stillness with a half-hearted attempt at levity. "I guess I had better have a shower and, by special request of Clivilius' first arsehole, put some clothes on," I quipped, reaching down to give Duke a final scratch behind the ear.

His tail thumped once in approval—an audience of one for my reluctant humour.

The walk from the desk to the bathroom felt oddly symbolic. A shift from command centre to sanctuary, from survivalist to ordinary man. The study with its glowing screen, wallets, and phones had tethered me to the chaos of Clivilius. The shower promised something else—routine, normality, if only for a fleeting moment.

Yet even as I peeled away the dust-streaked remnants of the day, my mind refused to quiet.

It leapt ahead, restless and insistent: What next? What else? How do I hold them together?

The questions circled like carrion birds, patient and relentless, waiting for me to stumble.

The water cascaded over me, hot and cleansing, carrying away the grit and grime clinging stubbornly to my skin.

I stood there longer than necessary, letting the heat work into muscles I hadn't realised were knotted, feeling the tension slowly uncoil from my shoulders. The bathroom filled with steam, soft and white, blurring the edges of reality until it felt almost dreamlike.

But no torrent could dislodge the true weight I bore.

Clivilius clung to me like an invisible film—dread and determination intertwined, inescapable and unyielding. Each droplet that slid down my body seemed to whisper reminders of what was at stake. Of Paul's face when he'd written his passcode, the quiet surrender in his sigh. Of Jamie's back turned away, his refusal to bend even an inch.

Clean, yes.

Renewed, perhaps.

But unburdened?

Not for a moment.

I turned off the water and stood in the steam, droplets tracing paths down my chest, and tried to remember who I had been before all of this. Before the Portal Key. Before the voice. Before destiny had reached out and wrapped its fingers around my throat.

That Luke felt distant now. A stranger glimpsed through fogged glass.

This Luke—the one who ordered groceries for an alien world and charged them to his partner's credit card, the one who shuttled between dimensions with shopping bags full of kitchen knives—this was who I was becoming.

I wasn't sure yet whether to mourn the change or embrace it.