Sky Without Stars

"Firelight only reaches so far. Eventually you have to look at what's waiting in the dark—and hope it's not looking back."

Night came to Clivilius without stars.

I'd noticed it when the last traces of daylight bled out of the sky — the way the blue deepened into black without any of the familiar pinpricks of light appearing. No moon, either. Just an endless void overhead, dark and heavy, pressing down on us like a lid on a pot.

The campfire was our only defence against it.

We'd gathered around the flames after dinner, the four of us — me, Paul, Glenda, and Luke — arranged on logs that someone had dragged into a rough semicircle. The fire crackled and popped, throwing dancing shadows across our faces, painting everything in shades of orange and gold. Warmth radiated outward, pushing back the chill that had crept in with the darkness.

The whiskey bottle made its rounds, passing from hand to hand. I'd lost count of how many swigs I'd taken, but the alcohol had settled into my bones, softening the edges of everything. The fear was still there, lurking beneath the surface, but it had been muffled somehow. Wrapped in cotton wool. Pushed far enough away that I could almost pretend it didn't exist.

Almost.

Glenda had her hand pressed to her lips, trying to hold back a laugh that kept threatening to escape. Her shoulders shook with the effort, her eyes sparkling in the firelight.

"Shh," she managed, the word barely more than a whisper. "The zombie is sleeping."

The giggle that followed was infectious. I found myself chuckling despite everything — despite the ache in my chest, the fear coiled in my gut, the constant low-level hum of wrongness that had been my companion since I'd landed in this place.

"I didn't know how else to describe him," I said, a wry smile tugging at my mouth.

It was true. Joel defied every category I had for understanding people. Dead, but breathing. Bloodless, but bleeding. Walking around on legs that shouldn't work, looking at us with eyes that had been empty and staring just hours ago. Zombie was as good a word as any.

Paul leaned forward on his log, his brow furrowed even as the corners of his mouth twitched with suppressed amusement. "Are we sure it's safe in there? We don't really know what's going on."

A fair point. Joel was in the same tent with Uncle Jamie, doing whatever it was that zombies and their obsessive caretakers did after dark. For all we knew, he could be shambling around in there, hungry for brains or whatever the horror movies always went on about.

Luke sighed and pushed himself to his feet, swaying slightly. His hand found Glenda's shoulder, using her as an anchor while he steadied himself.

"Don't be so stupid, Paul," he muttered, though there was no real heat behind the words. Just weariness, the bone-deep exhaustion of someone who'd had enough of questions he couldn't answer.

He moved away from the fire, his footsteps unsteady, heading toward the dark silhouette of the tent where Joel and Uncle Jamie were. His figure grew smaller as he went, eventually swallowed by the shadows beyond the firelight's reach.

Paul clutched at his chest with exaggerated drama, his face twisting into a wounded expression. "Ah," he gasped, playing at hurt feelings.

I watched Luke's retreating form until it disappeared entirely, then turned to Paul. "Is he alright?" I asked, keeping my voice low.

Paul waved off the concern, the firelight dancing across his features. "Oh, he's fine."

Silence settled over us like a blanket, comfortable in a way I hadn't expected. The fire became the centre of everything — the crackle and hiss of burning wood, the way the flames reached upward like hands grasping at the dark, the warmth that soaked into my tired muscles and made my eyelids heavy.

I stared into the heart of it, letting the light fill my vision. There was something hypnotic about fire, something that bypassed the thinking parts of the brain and spoke directly to older, more primitive instincts. Safety. Warmth. Home.

Except this wasn't home. Would never be home, no matter what that cold voice had told me earlier.

Glenda's movement caught my attention. She tossed her paper plate into the flames, watching as the fire caught the edges and began to consume it.

"Well, dinner was tasty," she declared, her eyes fixed on the disappearing plate.

I watched it burn — the way the paper blackened and curled, the brief flare of brighter flame as it caught properly, then the slow collapse into ash. Gone in seconds. Transformed into nothing but smoke and heat, rising up into that starless void above us.

Everything ended up that way eventually, I supposed. Reduced to ash and memory.

Christ. The whiskey was making me morbid.

"Thank you both," Glenda said, and there was genuine warmth in her voice. She paused, seeming to gather herself for something. "I wonder whether now might—"

"Shh."

Paul's interruption was sharp, his hand coming up in a warning gesture. His eyes had gone to the tent, his whole body suddenly alert.

We listened.

Voices. Faint at first, then rising — the unmistakable sound of an argument. I couldn't make out the words, but the tone was clear enough. Anger. Accusation. The kind of heated exchange that didn't end with handshakes and apologies.

Paul rose from his log, his movements careful and deliberate. The playfulness from moments ago had vanished entirely, replaced by something harder, more guarded.

Then the tent flap burst open and a dark figure stormed out.

Luke.

He moved fast, practically running, his footsteps kicking up clouds of dust that caught the firelight before settling back to earth. He didn't look at us, didn't acknowledge our presence at all — just barrelled past the camp and out into the darkness beyond, as if something was chasing him.

"Luke!" Paul called out, concern sharp in his voice.

No response. Luke kept going, his figure growing smaller, swallowed by the night.

I felt the hairs on my arms stand up, a chill running down my spine that had nothing to do with the temperature. Whatever had happened in that tent, it had been bad. Bad enough to send Luke running into the dark like the devil himself was on his heels.

Paul made a move to follow, his body tensing, but Glenda stopped him with a firm wave of her hand. Some unspoken understanding passed between them — a warning, maybe, or just good sense. Whatever was happening with Luke, chasing after him in the dark probably wouldn't help.

Then I saw it.

In the distance, beyond the camp, colours burst across the landscape. Bright, swirling, impossible — the same colours I'd seen when Luke had pushed me through the portal. They lit up the dunes for a brief moment, painting everything in shades of violet and gold, before vanishing as quickly as they'd appeared.

The portal. Luke had gone through the portal.

Gone back to Earth, maybe. Back to the world I couldn't reach, the life I couldn't return to. The unfairness of it burned in my chest, hot and bitter.

"Yep. Looks like it's definitely you and me tonight, Paul," I murmured, resignation heavy in my voice.

Paul nodded, his eyes still fixed on the spot where the colours had been. "I might get used to this dust yet," he said, a weak attempt at humour that fell flat in the heavy silence.

Glenda's expression shifted, something like concern flickering across her features. "Oh no," she said, worry evident in her voice. "There's a sleeping bag for you in the other tent."

Paul looked at her with surprise, gratitude brightening his tired face. "Really? That should make a nice change." Then he shifted his gaze to me. "But the tent's all yours. I'll sleep out here again tonight. I don't want to let the fire completely burn out."

I raised an eyebrow, curious despite my exhaustion. "Don't like the dark?"

Something passed across Paul's face — a flicker of unease that he quickly suppressed. His eyes met Glenda's for the briefest moment before dropping away.

"Hmph. Something like that."

The knot in my stomach tightened. There was something they weren't telling me. Something about this place, about the darkness beyond the firelight, that made Paul prefer sleeping on the ground near dying embers to the comfort of a tent.

I bit my lower lip, weighing whether to push further. Part of me wanted to let it go, to accept the non-answer and move on. But another part — the part that had been through too much today to tolerate any more bullshit — needed to know.

"Is there something out there?" I asked, keeping my voice steady. "Other people, maybe?"

Paul's response was guarded, his words chosen carefully. "Not that we know of."

Not exactly reassuring.

The unease coiled tighter in my gut, twisting into something that felt like fear. I pressed a hand against my stomach, trying to settle it, but the effort was useless.

There was something Paul wasn't saying. Something important.

"But," I blurted out, the words tumbling free before I could stop them, "if Luke is telling the truth about not bringing—" I hesitated, my tongue tripping over the implications. "About not bringing Joel here, then who did? And how did they get him here without any of us seeing something? There isn't exactly any cover here. And he looked like he had spent a fair amount of time in the water."

The questions hung in the air between us, ugly and unavoidable. I watched Glenda shift on her log, her movements betraying a discomfort that went beyond the hard surface beneath her. Her eyes darted around, scanning the darkness that pressed in from all sides, the wall of black that started where the firelight ended.

Paul's gaze had sharpened, his earlier weariness replaced by something more alert. He was looking at Glenda now, really looking, with the kind of attention that made people squirm.

"Do you know something that you're not telling us?" he asked, suspicion threading through his voice.

Glenda hesitated. It was brief — half a second, maybe less — but I caught it. Saw the way her eyes dropped to the ground before coming back up, the tiny pause before she spoke.

"I'm just as confused as the two of you are."

The words were meant to reassure, but they landed wrong. Too careful. Too measured. Like someone choosing what to say from a limited menu of acceptable options, rather than just speaking the truth.

I didn't believe her.

The realisation settled into my bones with a cold certainty. Glenda knew something. Maybe not everything, but something. Something she wasn't sharing, for reasons I couldn't begin to guess.

The dread that had been simmering in my gut all day finally boiled over, spilling out in words I couldn't hold back.

"I don't think we're safe here."

Blunt. Undiplomatic. Exactly the kind of thing you weren't supposed to say when you were stuck in a survival situation with people you barely knew. But I was too tired for tact, too scared for social niceties. The truth was the truth, and pretending otherwise wasn't going to change it.

Paul sighed, the sound carrying a weight of resignation that told me he'd had similar thoughts. "Right now, we don't really have any other option. I'm sure Luke would have warned us if it wasn't safe."

The words were meant to comfort, but they bounced off me like pebbles off a windscreen. Luke. The same Luke who'd pushed me through a portal without warning. The same Luke who'd hidden Joel's body, who'd lied to Uncle Jamie, who'd just stormed off into the night after some mysterious argument.

Yeah. Luke was definitely someone I trusted to keep me informed about potential dangers.

"Luke doesn't know everything," I retorted, the skepticism in my voice sharp enough to cut.

Paul's eyebrow rose, his gaze turning speculative. I could feel him studying me, trying to read what was underneath my words. The secrets I was keeping — Uncle Jamie's revelations about the lagoon, about the glow, about things I still couldn't bring myself to think about too directly — pressed against my chest like a physical weight.

I bit down on my lip, an old nervous habit that Brianne always teased me about. If I said too much, I'd expose Uncle Jamie. Expose what had happened at the lagoon, what I'd seen, what I'd experienced. And once that door opened, there was no telling what else might come spilling out.

Some secrets were better left buried.

Fortunately, Paul either didn't notice my discomfort or chose to ignore it. His expression softened slightly, some of the suspicion draining away.

"We'll just have to watch out for each other," he said, his voice firm with conviction. "We're all we've got right now."

His eyes moved to Glenda as he spoke, the look carrying an edge of meaning that I couldn't quite decipher. A reminder, maybe. Or a warning.

Glenda shifted again, the movement restless and uncomfortable. The firelight played across her features, casting shadows that made her expression hard to read. Whatever was going on behind those eyes, she wasn't sharing.

"I think it's time for bed," she announced, slapping her thighs lightly as she rose from the log. The words were brisk, final — a door slamming shut on any further conversation.

She was gone before I could respond, her figure retreating into the darkness toward her tent. I watched her go, a knot of frustration tightening in my chest. That was it? Just "time for bed" and off she went, leaving all those questions hanging unanswered?

The silence she left behind felt heavier than before. The fire crackled and popped, but even that sound seemed muted somehow, swallowed by the vast emptiness that surrounded us.

Paul broke the quiet first, pushing himself to his feet with a grunt.

"I'll go grab a sleeping bag then," he said, his voice carefully neutral. His eyes met mine, a question in them. "Does it matter which one?"

I shook my head, still grappling with Glenda's abrupt departure, with all the things that had been said and not said.

"Nah."

The word came out flat, barely audible. I watched Paul walk toward the tent, his figure outlined by the dying firelight, and tried to make sense of the tangle of thoughts in my head.

Someone had brought Joel here. Someone who wasn't Luke — if Luke was telling the truth, which was a massive if. Someone who'd dumped a body in the river and vanished without any of us seeing a thing, despite the complete lack of cover in this barren landscape.

That meant someone else was out there. Someone who knew about this place, who could come and go as they pleased, who had reasons for their actions that none of us understood.

And we had no idea who they were or what they wanted.

The fire popped, sending up a shower of sparks that danced briefly before dying in the dark air. I stared into the flames, but the comfort I'd found there earlier had vanished. Now all I could see were shadows at the edges of the light, pressing in from all sides, hiding whatever might be lurking just beyond the reach of my vision.

Paul was right about one thing, at least.

We were all we had.