The Decision to Return

“Crossing dimensions was never the hard part—it’s knowing what you’re dragging through behind you that starts to haunt you.”

I stood for a long moment with the notebook still open in my hands, the final words lingering in my mind like the echo of something shouted across a canyon:

Better one of us knows where we disappeared.

The phrase hung in the air between us, charged with fatalism. Mason had written those words believing they might be his last communication—a farewell note disguised as a warning. The page curled slightly in the dry air, a corner lifting in the faint wind. My fingertips traced the indentations where Mason's pen had pressed too hard, following the contours of his fear made physical.

Josh said nothing at first, just stood a metre or so away, arms folded across his chest, his gaze sweeping the horizon with that tight, controlled sort of disappointment that masked something heavier. I recognised the stance—it was the same one he'd adopted when Mum told us Dad was leaving, when his police force application was rejected, when his first serious girlfriend ended things. Josh processed fear through personal disappointment; it was safer that way, more manageable.

I turned back toward the direction of the abandoned shelter and tucked the notebook gently beneath a flat stone—just enough weight to keep it from blowing off if the wind picked up, but not enough to make it look hidden. I positioned it carefully, then took a step back, eyeing the arrangement. It looked deliberately casual, like a marker rather than a hiding place.

"They left it for us," I said quietly, straightening up.

Josh nodded, jaw tight. “Yeah.” His eyes lingered on the notebook with furrowed focus. “I just keep wondering... where the hell did Mason even get it from? He didn’t take anything with him when we crossed over. I remember that.”

The words hit harder than he knew.

Not because of what he said—but because of what I hadn’t.

He didn’t know. Not yet.

My throat tightened, the weight behind my ribs growing heavier by the second. This was the moment I’d been dreading since we stepped through the portal. The pressure to speak was rising, slow and insistent, like groundwater forcing its way through cracked concrete. I could still stay silent. Let him think the notebook had been scribbled down here, left behind like everything else in this fractured, abandoned world.

But that wasn’t the truth. The truth was sitting like a stone in my gut—wedged there since row 29.

I glanced back at the flat rock, the notebook tucked just beneath it. Familiar. Distinctive. I’d seen it before.

On the plane.

In the woman’s hands.

A flash of her voice. Her posture. That glance. That moment. And now... this.

The connection was impossible to ignore. I wasn’t just tangled in someone else’s story—I was in it, deeply. The thread had looped back around me, drawn taut, and I could feel the inevitable snap just waiting to happen.

I cleared my throat.

"I need to tell you something about the notebook." The words came out more firmly than I expected, anchored by resignation.

Josh looked at me, his expression shifting from distracted concern to focused attention. His eyes narrowed slightly, that big-brother scrutiny I'd known all my life. He didn't speak, just waited—that patient stillness that had always been more effective than any interrogation.

I pressed on, the words feeling like stones I'd been carrying for too long. "I know where the notebook came from. It was in a backpack." The admission hung between us, the first thread of a much larger confession.

A deep, uncomfortable pause.

"There was a woman. On the flight from Melbourne to Adelaide. She was sitting next to me." The memory flashed vivid and sharp—her tense posture, the way she'd watched me from the corner of her eye.

His brow furrowed, lines deepening across his forehead. "The one who vanished?" The question caught me off guard, sending a jolt of surprise through my system.

I blinked, thrown by his knowledge. "How did you—?"

"You mentioned something weird at Macca's. Didn't say much, but I clocked the way you looked. Like you were carrying a grenade in your back pocket." His tone was measured, but the accusation was clear enough. You've been hiding something.

I gave a dry laugh. "That's not far off." The comparison was more apt than he knew—I'd been carrying the knowledge like something volatile, afraid of what might happen when I finally let it go.

Josh waited, his stillness a demand for more.

"She was watching me," I said, the words coming faster now, tumbling out as though a dam had broken. "More than just curiosity. She saw the Portal Key. Told me to hide it." The memory twisted in my gut—her urgency, her fear, the way she'd leaned in close to whisper the warning. How her eyes had darted around the cabin as though expecting to find someone watching.

His eyebrows lifted slightly, interest sharpening his gaze. "She knew what it was?"

"I don't know. But she reacted like she did. Warned me. Then went to the bathroom and..." I paused, the strangeness of it hitting me anew. "Never came out."

Josh's expression shifted—not surprise, but a deeper, more uncomfortable interest. The kind of look that suggested pieces were falling into place in his mind, a puzzle assembling itself into something he'd been expecting but hoping not to find. His shoulders tensed, fingers curling slightly at his sides.

"I checked. The door opened. It was empty." The memory sent a fresh chill down my spine—that moment of standing in the cramped airplane bathroom, staring at the absence where a person should have been. No sign of struggle, no indication she'd ever been there at all.

He ran a hand over his face. "And you took her bag." Not a question—a statement, flat and judgmental.

"She left it under her seat. I waited, but she didn't come back. Everyone began to disembark. I panicked." The explanation sounded weak even to my own ears, a flimsy justification for what amounted to theft. But panic was the right word—that crawling dread, the certainty that something was very wrong, the desperate need to act before the opportunity was lost forever.

"You panicked and smuggled a stranger's backpack into another dimension." Josh's voice had taken on that particular tone he reserved for when he thought I'd done something spectacularly stupid—equal parts exasperation and disbelief, with an undercurrent of begrudging concern.

"I didn't want to open it in public," I snapped, defensiveness flaring hot in my chest. "And I wasn't going to leave it lying there if she was connected to all this somehow." The justification sounded stronger this time, anchored in a logic that felt sound, even if my methods had been questionable.

Josh held up his hands, a placating gesture that somehow managed to convey both surrender and skepticism. "Alright. Just... processing." The words were conciliatory, but his expression remained troubled, eyes darting toward the horizon as though expecting to see something approach.

I let out a breath, the tension in my chest easing slightly now that the confession was in the open. "I didn't tell you because I didn't know what to say. But now that Mason used her notebook—" The connection hung in the air, impossible to ignore.

"You think she followed you here." He finished the thought, his voice dropping lower, as though afraid of being overheard. The idea settled between us like a physical presence—a third figure in our already strange tableau.

"Or someone else did. Either way, I don't think that bag was just full of toiletries and novels." The understatement felt necessary somehow, a way of containing the vastness of what we might be facing.

Josh stared at the notebook beneath the rock, his gaze intense as though trying to extract more information from its presence.

A long silence settled between us, filled with the weight of everything we didn't know.

Josh shifted his weight, glancing once more toward the horizon. The movement was restless, charged with the need to act. "I still think we should go after them." His voice carried that familiar determination—the same tone he'd used when arguing with Dad, when defending me from school bullies, when insisting he could handle things on his own.

I nodded slowly, weighing the risks against the growing certainty that inaction would be worse. "I do too. But not like this. We're not prepared." The admission felt like surrendering something important, but the facts were undeniable—we were alone, unarmed, and facing an unknown threat in an environment we barely understood.

He looked reluctant to agree, his jaw working silently as he processed my words. After a moment, he sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. The tension in his shoulders didn't ease, but his expression softened slightly, pragmatism winning out over impulse.

"We need gear," he said, turning his gaze back to me. "Shelter. Food. Proper boots." The list was practical, focused—a way of breaking down the impossible into manageable components. It was Josh's way of processing fear: turn it into a problem that could be solved with the right preparation.

"Weapons," I added, the word feeling strange on my tongue. I'd never owned a gun, never wanted to. But the memory of Mason's frantic writing, the description of lights in the darkness, the sense of being watched—it all coalesced into a certainty that we needed to be able to defend ourselves.

He gave me a sideways look, one eyebrow raised. "You planning to shoot ghosts?"

"I'm planning not to get cornered by something we don't understand." The reply came out harder than I intended, edged with the fear I'd been trying to contain. Whatever was out there had frightened Mason enough to abandon the safety of his camp, to flee into the unknown rather than face it.

Josh rolled his jaw, a subtle movement that spoke of concession. "Fair." The single word carried acceptance and a new wariness—an acknowledgment that we were dealing with something beyond our experience.

We stood there for a while longer, the empty sky overhead beginning to soften with the early signs of dusk. The temperature was dropping rapidly, a chill settling into the air that hadn't been there before. The silence of Saint Phillis seemed to deepen with the gathering darkness, pressing against our ears, filling the spaces between thoughts.

Josh turned and began walking back toward the portal. I followed, the dust rising in small clouds with each step, clinging to my legs and clothing in a fine rust-coloured powder.

As we moved, I tried to etch the terrain into memory: the shape of the shelter, the curve of the stone ridge, the slope leading from the portal to the basin. The effort felt almost physical, like pressing the details into clay. Without GPS or landmarks, we'd need to return the old-fashioned way—by memory and instinct. I found myself counting steps, noting the peculiar formations that might serve as markers—that twisted column of black stone, the three flat rocks balanced precariously atop one another, the deep crevice that snaked like a wound through the dusty ground.

"Do you think they're still nearby?" I asked after a while.

Josh shrugged, the movement stiff with tension. "If they are, they're not leaving tracks anymore. The wind's covered everything." His gaze swept the horizon again, that same searching look he'd worn since we'd arrived. The strain was evident in the set of his shoulders, the tightness around his eyes.

"And if they've left this area entirely?" The question emerged softer than I intended, weighted with implications neither of us wanted to face.

He didn't answer. He didn't need to. It was obvious neither of us had any idea how vast Clivilius truly was. The horizon stretched endlessly in all directions, offering no clue to the scale of this world. For all we knew, Mason and Ella could be three ridges away or easily end up ten days' walk across lifeless terrain. The thought sent a chill through me despite the lingering warmth of the day. The vastness of this place made our search feel futile before it had even begun.

"Next time," Josh said finally, breaking the heavy silence, "we bring flags. Markers. Something we can follow." His voice had that particular quality it got when he was problem-solving—focused, practical, pushing emotion aside to deal with logistics.

"Trail paint," I suggested, falling into the familiar rhythm of our collaboration.

"Stacked stones." Josh's response came automatically.

"Bread crumbs," I added dryly.

He gave a humourless laugh, the sound brittle in the still air. "Diesel would've eaten them."

That name hung in the air a moment longer, charged with meaning and emotion. Diesel wasn't just a pet—he was family to Mason.

"He's with them," I said, trying to sound reassuring. "That's something."

"Yeah," Josh said, quieter now. "He'll protect them."

Neither of us spoke after that. The silence felt appropriate, respectful almost—as though we were traversing hallowed ground. By the time the Portal Screen came into view again, it felt like we'd been gone a full day, though it had likely only been an hour.

We stopped just shy of it, the portal's surface shimmering faintly, like the membrane between worlds was growing thinner as dusk approached. The sight of it—our way home—should have brought relief, but instead, I felt a strange reluctance. Leaving meant abandoning Mason and Ella, even if only temporarily. It meant stepping away from the mystery, letting the trail grow colder.

Josh turned to me. "We leave anything else behind?" The question was practical, but his tone suggested deeper meaning—were we forgetting something important, something we might need?

I checked my pockets, the ritual familiar despite our extraordinary circumstances. The notebook stayed under the rock, a marker for Mason should he return to the shelter. The Portal Key was in my palm, its cool metal surface a constant reminder of the power we wielded so casually.

"I think we're good." The words felt insufficient for the magnitude of what we were doing—leaving one world for another as easily as stepping through a doorway.

Josh nodded, a sharp, decisive movement. "Right. So back to Earth. Grab gear. Come straight back." His tone had shifted to what I privately thought of as his 'mission voice'—focused, efficient, the same manner he'd used when planning our childhood adventures.

I hesitated, the doubt that had been nagging at me since finding the notebook finally crystallising into conscious thought.

"What?" he asked, immediately picking up on my reluctance. His eyes narrowed slightly, reading my expression with the ease of long familiarity.

"I don't think it's going to be that simple."

He frowned, brow furrowing. "Why not?"

I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the rocks once more. The deepening shadows seemed to shift and pulse with potential movement, though nothing actually stirred. The feeling of being watched had intensified as the light faded, pressing against my skin like a physical weight. "Because if she came here too... she's not going to stop looking." The woman from the plane—her presence lingered like a ghost between us, another complication neither of us had anticipated.

Josh's expression darkened, shadows deepening the lines around his mouth. "You really think she's here?"

"I think she wants that bag. And now it's gone." The logic felt sound—if the backpack was important enough for her to vanish from a commercial flight, it was important enough for her to follow it to Saint Phillis. And if she discovered it missing, taken by Mason... The possibilities multiplied, none of them reassuring.

He was quiet for a moment, the silence filled with unspoken calculations. I could almost see him processing the new variable, adjusting plans, considering contingencies. Josh had always been methodical that way—seeing three moves ahead while I was still trying to understand the current situation.

"Then we'd better be ready."

We both stepped forward, approaching the portal with newfound purpose. The air seemed to thicken as we neared it, charged with potential, as though the boundary between worlds grew more substantial the closer we came to crossing it.

The Portal Screen shimmered to life between us, rainbow tendrils of light coalescing across the crystalline surface in that now-familiar bloom of swirling, electrified colour. It pulsed like something alive—responsive and waiting. The display was mesmerising, beautiful in its complexity. No matter how many times I witnessed it, the portal's activation never failed to inspire awe—a reminder that we were tampering with forces that defied conventional understanding.

I looked at Josh, gesturing slightly toward the glowing surface. "After you." The deference was half-genuine, half-teasing—an echo of our childhood dynamic.

He gave a half-smirk, a flash of the old Josh breaking through the tension. "Typical. I do the hard yards, you watch."

He stepped forward and disappeared into the light. The portal shivered in his wake, its surface settling like ripples fading across a pond. One moment he was there, the next—gone, swallowed by the swirling colours. I'd experienced it before, but it still struck me as miraculous each time—the impossible made routine.

Without thinking, I followed.

And hit it like a wall.

It didn't hurt—nothing so dramatic—but the force of it was absolute. One second I was stepping through, the next I was frozen in place, breath caught in my throat, skin prickling like static was clinging to the inside of my bones. The sensation was unlike anything I'd experienced before—not pain, but a profound wrongness, as though my atoms themselves were being rejected by the portal's energy.

I stumbled back a step, heart racing, the shock sending adrenaline coursing through my system. My lungs burned, and I realised I'd been holding my breath.

"What the—?" The half-formed question hung in the air, unanswered. I stared at the surface, still glowing, still shifting—but now just out of reach. It wasn't closed, but it wasn't open to me. The swirling colours seemed to mock my confusion, dancing just beyond my fingertips.

That’s when I realised.

Josh had activated the link. The portal was responding to his connection, not mine. Even though the destination was one we both had access to, the portal only allowed one Guardian to travel through it at a time. One link. One mind. The system was designed for individual travel, not group expeditions. Each crossing was personal, tied to a specific Guardian's neural signature.

I exhaled slowly, pulse starting to settle as understanding replaced panic. The knowledge felt important—a piece of the puzzle slotting into place, revealing a fraction more of how this extraordinary technology functioned.

So this is how it worked.

I waited, watching as the swirl began to dim, colours receding slightly as the link from Josh's side was severed. The moment he arrived—wherever he'd landed—the connection would collapse, and the system would be free again. The portal's surface pulsed with decreasing intensity, like a heartbeat growing fainter.

Sure enough, after a few seconds, the colours began to slow. The swirl softened, dimmed, then folded inward with a final flicker—like a held breath finally released. The Portal Screen darkened completely. Dormant once more. Smooth, transparent, blank. No residual shimmer. No trace of the place it had just opened to. It looked inert, passive, waiting.

Only then did I step forward, heart steadying, and focus on the same destination: Josh’s lounge room in Broken Hill.

The Portal Screen flared in response, light cascading outward like a reflex—and welcomed me. The renewed colours intensified, swirling faster, acknowledging my command and preparing to execute it. The change was immediate and dramatic, as though the portal had been waiting for precisely this interaction.

You couldn't just follow someone through—not without reactivating the link. The portal only responded to one Guardian's connection at a time. Once Josh's was closed from Earth, I could reinitiate it from here, using the same destination he'd just travelled to. The system required deliberate engagement, not passive participation. Each crossing was a conscious act of will, a directed commandment to the fabric of reality.

Shared locations. Personal connections.

The revelation felt significant, though I wasn't yet sure how. It suggested limitations to the technology that we hadn't fully understood—and limitations meant rules, patterns that could be anticipated and potentially exploited.

I took a breath, feeling the weight of the discovery settle into my understanding. The cool air of Saint Phillis filled my lungs one last time, carrying that strange, metallic taste I'd noticed earlier. Around me, the landscape had grown even darker, shadows merging into a general gloom as night approached. Whatever watched from the cliffs or plains seemed closer now, emboldened by the gathering darkness.

The portal bloomed—vibrant, waiting. Its light cast strange patterns across the dust at my feet, creating dancing shapes that seemed almost meaningful, like a language I wasn't quite equipped to understand.

And I stepped through, as the silence of Saint Phillis folded in behind me.