Running Towards Fire

"Family makes fools of us all—though some of us are better at swearing while we burn."

Frozen in a moment of dread, I inched forward in my seat as though movement itself might shatter something fragile. My hands clamped the steering wheel so tightly that my knuckles had blanched to bone-white, the tendons in my wrists taut as wire. The wheel’s texture bit into my palms, grounding me in a way I didn’t entirely want.

Leaning over, I peered through the windscreen, the glass now a fragile membrane between me and the chaos outside. Dust still swirled in gritty eddies, catching the light, turning the world beyond into a blurred, shifting haze.

"Is he dead?" The question slipped out unbidden, carried on a whisper that barely felt like my own voice. It was a thin, breakable sound—almost an afterthought—yet it seemed to hang in the heavy air, daring an answer I wasn’t ready to hear.

My eyes stung—not just from the grit carried by the choking dust, but from the sharp, intrusive fear pressing in behind it. Fear of what I might have done. Fear of what this could spiral into. Every second the figure remained still was another step into a version of this day I didn’t want to see.

And then—like shapes stepping out of smoke—Luke and Paul materialised. The sight of them was jarring, a sudden re-entry into the world of the living. Their silhouettes moved fast, purposeful, cutting through my paralysis with an efficiency I couldn’t summon.

They went straight for the fallen man, no hesitation, no wasted movement, each step loaded with the weight of knowing exactly what to do. Their urgency made mine—or the lack of it—feel exposed.

As they crouched, their bodies blocking most of my view, I caught flashes: hands gripping under arms, the shift of weight, the rough scrape of boots against the ground. They pulled him free from beneath the motorhome’s looming bulk, and the sight carried a strange clarity—as though every grain of dust, every twitch of muscle, was etched into me.

I stayed frozen, eyes fixed, watching the scene unfold as if it belonged to someone else’s life entirely.

The door of the motorhome gave a long, reluctant creak as I nudged it open. It was almost accusatory, as if even the hinges knew what I’d just done.

My right foot found the narrow instep first, trembling just enough to betray me, the rubber edge of the step feeling too small, too precarious for what came next. I used it as a momentary anchor before I jumped down from the cab. My landing was awkward—more stumble than step—my movements stilted, caught somewhere between adrenaline’s jitter and the heavier drag of remorse.

"I'm so sorry," I blurted as I rounded the front of the vehicle, the words tumbling out without finesse, raw and unfiltered. My voice carried genuine concern, but even I could hear how small it sounded against the enormity of the situation. "Are you okay?" I added, though the question felt almost absurd, like trying to mop up a flood with a single tissue.

Luke was already crouched near the man, his eyes sharp, scanning the scene with the detached focus of someone who’d done this before. "I don't see any blood," he said, and for a fleeting second, relief broke through the knot of tension in my chest—thin, but enough to breathe around.

Paul knelt beside him, his tall frame casting a shadow over the prone figure. His attempt at a medical check felt improvised at best. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked, thrusting his hand into view. The fingers wavered slightly, his own nerves betraying him, turning the gesture into something almost comical—at least, it would have been in any other setting.

The man’s answer wasn’t an answer at all. His eyes, dull and unfocused, drifted somewhere far beyond us, glassy pools offering neither recognition nor comprehension. It was like looking into a window and finding nothing but fog on the other side.

"He's high," Luke concluded, his voice clipped but certain. "And most likely dehydrated. You'd better take him back to camp." His words were brisk, almost clinical—a necessary anchor in the middle of the emotional undertow pulling at me.

The sudden arrival of Nial and Kain folded a new layer into the already tangled scene. Their figures appeared at the edge of the dust haze, solid and purposeful, their presence shifting the air around us.

"Everything okay?" Nial asked. His voice was calm enough, but the question felt almost rhetorical given the tableau before him—a dazed man on the ground, Paul crouched like a watchman, and me hovering nearby, dust still clinging to my clothes and my conscience.

Paul answered without hesitation, his tone practical but carrying a subtle undertow of concern. "Can you two take him back to camp?"

Nial’s response wasn’t to Paul but to the man himself. Recognition flared in his eyes, sharp enough to cut through the dust. "Shit! Adrian. What the hell are you doing here?" His voice rang with incredulity and the sort of frustration reserved for people who should know better.

It jarred me—seeing Nial’s reaction twist the moment into something personal. As he stepped forward, his hands landed on Adrian’s face in a series of brisk slaps. They weren’t cruel, but there was an edge to them, a double purpose: to shock clarity back into him, and to bleed off whatever exasperation Nial had clearly been carrying.

"You know him?" Paul’s query felt almost redundant in the close-knit geography of our lives here, where even casual acquaintances had a habit of looping back into your orbit.

"Not surprising. Hobart’s a small place," Luke said, his voice dry, his comment landing like a reminder that coincidence in our world was rarely as innocent as it seemed.

I stood back, my arms folded loosely, watching. My heart was heavy in that way it sometimes got here—a weight made of empathy and inevitability. Nial’s grip on Adrian’s shoulders was steady, unyielding, a wordless mix of care and authority.

"Let’s get you to camp," he told him, voice low but firm.

"We’ll come back," Kain added quietly, stepping in to brace Adrian’s other side.

Paul’s silent nod sealed the moment, a mutual understanding passing between them.

As they began the walk back, the dust settled around their retreating forms. The mood shifted—reflective, subdued. It wasn’t just about Adrian anymore. It was about the fragile lattice of fate and choice we all moved through here, the threads we tugged without always knowing where they led.

---

As the trio faded into the haze of distance, their figures shrinking with each slow step back toward camp, I waited—counting in my head—until I was certain they were far enough away not to overhear. Only then did I let the lid blow off the tightly packed questions and emotions that had been pressing against my ribs.

The need for answers was a living thing—sharp, restless, clawing at the inside of my chest. I wanted clarity. I wanted a thread to follow through the mess, something that would make the last twenty minutes feel less like a fever dream.

"What's going on, Luke? Why the hell is Gladys in a bloody car chase with the police?" The words tumbled out hot and fast, edged with the kind of tension that doesn’t wait for permission. My voice didn’t bother hiding the rising note of panic; it mirrored the churn in my stomach perfectly.

The absurdity of it all pressed in—the sheer strangeness of standing in Clivilius, motorhome behind me, dust still clinging to my hair, and discussing my sister tearing through Tasmanian roads with a police convoy at her back. It felt like someone else’s story, one we’d somehow been dropped into without a script.

Luke’s reply was infuriating in its restraint. His tone was maddeningly calm, as though we were discussing a late grocery delivery, not the possible implosion of my family’s safety. "Things didn’t go quite according to plan with Adrian," he said, offering a statement so blandly obvious it almost hurt.

No shit. The thought screamed silently in my skull, rattling around until it made my teeth ache. My irritation wasn’t just with the words—it was with Luke’s composure, that unbothered demeanour he could slip into like a well-tailored coat. It made me want to shake him, to snap him out of it.

And beneath the irritation was the heavier thing. The realisation that Adrian had been lying there because of us—because of me—and that it could so easily have ended differently. That thin line between inconvenience and catastrophe was still visible in my mind’s eye, drawn right under the wheels of the motorhome.

"Clearly," Paul said, his voice carrying a kind of casualness that struck entirely the wrong note.

The undercurrent of tension was inescapable now, its presence almost physical—like a storm cloud sitting low above our heads, just waiting for the right moment to break.

Luke’s account unfolded with a maddening steadiness, as though the reckless chain of decisions he was describing were nothing more than a casual itinerary. "We chased after him when he took off," he said, voice clipped and matter-of-fact, as if the choice barely warranted a second thought.

"You couldn’t just let him go?" The question shot out before I could soften it, my tone edged with incredulity. I couldn’t align his telling of events with any version of logic that didn’t end in disaster.

Before he could answer, movement at the periphery pulled my focus. A sharp commotion had sparked near Adrian’s ute, the air around it alive with tension. Dust swirled lazily in the sunlight, catching on the edges of boots and the rust-flaked tray.

Adrian’s voice sliced through it—firm, defiant, underpinned by a thrum of something wilder. "I’m just getting the rest of my gear," he snapped, shoving Nial away with a force that made him rock back a step. The motion wasn’t casual—it was loaded with agitation, maybe even desperation, and it left a faint crack in the fragile calm we’d been holding together.

"He’d already seen the Portal," Luke cut in, his voice tightening as he redirected my attention, dragging it back to the bigger, thornier mess—Gladys. "I know he’s high, but I didn’t think it was wise to let him go. Who knows—"

My glare landed on him before he could finish, sharp enough to feel in my own eyes. "Wise?" The word left my mouth heavy with disbelief, my voice threaded with heat. I took a step forward, not entirely aware of doing it, as though closing the physical distance might drive the point home. "You didn’t think it was wise to let him go, yet you had no qualms with racing through the streets and attracting the attention of the police?"

Each word came harder, my tone climbing with the momentum of my frustration. They landed like barbs, deliberate, aimed to pierce whatever bubble of justification he’d wrapped himself in.

Luke’s reaction wasn’t verbal. His eyes narrowed first—quick, instinctive—before his lips parted slightly, as if a reply was forming but couldn’t quite get out. The silence that followed felt heavier than any retort, as if my words had lodged somewhere he wasn’t ready to dig them out from, or perhaps he was already feeling the pull of his own choices weighing on him.

Paul broke the taut silence with the precision of someone sliding a blade between tightly bound ropes. His voice was measured, but there was an edge of impatience to it. "And how did you finally get him here?"

Luke didn’t hesitate. "We came through a wall of the toilet block at Myrtle Forest," he said, the words plain but carrying an undercurrent that betrayed just how far they’d been willing to push things. The mental image alone was enough to tell me the day had already gone miles past sensible.

"And my sister?" The question burst out. Urgency had stripped away any pretence of composure, and I could feel my patience fraying strand by strand. Every second without an answer felt like a door closing somewhere in the distance—another possible way out for Gladys vanishing before I could reach it.

This is going to get worse, isn’t it, I thought bitterly, the weight of the realisation settling low and cold in my gut. The taste of apprehension rose sharp at the back of my throat, metallic and unshakable.

Luke’s face shifted before he even spoke, the change pulling me in like a warning. His brows drew tight, a furrow deepening between them. A flush of red crept up from his neck, warming his cheeks in a way that read more like discomfort than embarrassment. The look alone told me I wasn’t going to like what came next.

"I told her to run," he admitted finally, the words wrapped in equal parts defensiveness and regret.

"Fuck’s sake, Luke!" The expletive tore out of me before I could shape it into anything softer—not that I wanted to. It was sharp, raw, and carried the throb of disbelief that had been building in me since this conversation began. How could he possibly think that running was a strategy worth gambling with?

The anger and worry tangled together, tightening into a hot pulse that seemed to sync with the frantic hammering of my heart. I could feel it in my temples, in my jaw, in the set of my shoulders—every part of me braced for the next bad turn this day was bound to take.

Driven by a volatile cocktail of anger, fear, and something more primal—family—I moved without thinking. My body knew before my mind had fully caught up. Huffing in exasperation, my mind turned toward the Portal. The screen flickered to life, its strange glow spilling over the ground in wavering bands of light, washing our surroundings in a surreal, otherworldly hue. It looked wrong here, in the middle of the grit and tension of Clivilius, like a dream bleeding into a nightmare.

My steps were quick, almost too quick, the kind of pace that teeters on the edge of recklessness. Determination pressed at my back, fear yanking at my heels, both forces propelling me forward towards the swirling colours of the Portal.

"Where are you going?" Luke’s voice cut through the low hum, trailing after me with a mix of concern and caution. "It’s too dangerous, Beatrix. The police were right behind us."

His warning barely grazed my awareness. My focus had narrowed to a pinpoint—the one thing that mattered. Gladys. Everything else was background noise.

Without breaking stride, without even affording him the dignity of eye contact, I let my hand rise. One finger extended. A sharp, silent rebuttal to his so-called wisdom. My message was as clear as the pulse hammering in my ears.

The colours ahead churned faster, pulling at the edges of my vision, promising escape and chaos in equal measure. I took a final step into the vortex, feeling it fold around me in a rush of vertigo and static warmth. The air shifted, taste and temperature warping in the space of a breath.

And then the Portal swallowed me whole, whisking me away—not just from the standoff with Luke, but across the fragile, shifting line between worlds. This was more than travel. It was a leap, fuelled by the unshakable pull of sisterhood and the dangerous currents of the life we’d built—one where every choice felt like rolling dice we couldn’t afford to lose.