The Dust Remembers

“Even in a world stripped bare, the body still breaks—and someone must answer its call.”

As I stood there, enveloped in the vast silence of Clivilius, a sense of desolation swept over me—swift and all-encompassing. The quiet wasn’t peaceful. It was immense, oppressive. A kind of silence that didn’t just fill the air but pressed against the skin, wrapped around the bones. After the ceaseless hum of human life, the buzz of machines, the low murmur of voices in waiting rooms and corridors, this stillness felt unnatural, almost hostile.

Around me, the landscape stretched unbroken in every direction—a monochrome of brown, rolling into soft hills and shallow gullies, the earth dry and dust-soft beneath my feet. The ground seemed untouched by wind or weather, as though time itself had paused here. There was no horizon, only a gradual fade of form into the pale bronze haze of distance. My boots sank slightly with every step, leaving temporary imprints in the fine silt. No birdsong. No breeze. No sign of movement.

It was beautiful, in a stark, almost lunar way—but the beauty was marred by its emptiness. A loneliness that radiated outward from the land itself, settling into my chest like sand in the lungs.

A sudden pang of panic seized me, sharp and primal. My breath hitched. My heart pounded against the confines of my ribs, too loud in the stillness. This isn’t what I expected at all.

The surrealness of it made each step feel like a misstep, as though I’d walked through the wrong door and found myself not in a sanctuary, but in an afterthought of a world. I tried to reconcile this silence, this barrenness, with the stories I’d grown up with—the world my father had painted with such vivid, loving detail.

Where is the bustling city? Where are the abundant herds of animals roaming freely? Where are the brilliant flora that grow in every nook and cranny? Where are all the people?

The questions spun in my mind like leaves in a dust storm, too fast to catch, too many to answer. The Clivilius my father had described was alive—a tapestry of colours and movement, of light filtering through glass-like trees, of markets filled with music and voices, of skies that changed colour with emotion. That world had glowed in my childhood imagination.

But this?

This was a silence so total it felt post-apocalyptic. A place not asleep, but emptied.

The stark dissonance between memory and reality struck like grief. What stretched before me didn’t look anything like the world my father had described before he disappeared. That had been years ago, but the wound never truly healed. And now, a darker fear began to creep in—What if it had all been destroyed?

Is it all gone? Is my father really dead?

The possibility settled over me like a shroud. That the vivid Clivilius of Gebhardt’s tales—his wondrous sanctuary, his imagined salvation—had been reduced to dust and emptiness. It wasn’t just a blow to my mission. It was a loss of faith. A death of hope. The place I’d risked everything to find might never have existed at all. Or worse—it had, and it had perished without witness.

A lump formed in my throat. I swallowed hard, but it didn’t dislodge. The idea that my father, if he had indeed found his way here, had met his end in this empty, featureless expanse was too painful to bear. I couldn’t let it be true. Not yet. Not without knowing more.

And yet—even in the hollowness, even as that ache deepened—something within me began to shift. A resolve, small at first, but gaining weight with each breath I drew in the thin, indifferent air.

If this world had once been what he said it was, then perhaps its story wasn’t finished. Perhaps it had been buried, not erased. Perhaps there were remnants beneath the dust, echoes hidden in silence, waiting to be uncovered.

The desolation was not the end of the journey. It was the beginning.

This wasn’t the refuge I’d hoped for. It wasn’t safety, or even welcome. But it was a place of answers. And if I’d learned anything from my father, it was that even the smallest clue could unravel a whole truth.

I looked out at the endless stretch of dust and silence, and for the first time since stepping through the portal, I allowed myself to feel something other than fear.

Determination.

The search—for my father, for the Clivilius he’d spoken of, for whatever truth lay buried in this land—was just beginning.

The sudden appearance of the tall, slender gentleman, materialising from the seemingly empty landscape, struck me like a bolt to the senses. Already rattled by the surreal stillness of Clivilius, my nerves flared anew. He hadn’t emerged with fanfare, nor even with the faintest rustle of movement across the dust—just was, suddenly, unmistakably there. His presence disrupted the barren calm like a ripple through water.

It was the soft shuffling of his footsteps, approaching from the side, that announced him. No grand arrival. Just the simple sound of existence in a place that had, until now, felt devoid of life.

A gentle touch landed on my shoulders.

I startled, a light gasp escaping as I jumped slightly beneath Luke’s guiding hands. The gesture was meant to steady me, to turn me gently towards the newcomer—but it also underscored how tightly wound I still was, how foreign this world continued to feel. My body betrayed what I was trying to mask—my heightened tension, my readiness to flinch at every unknown.

Then, as Luke gently guided me to face the man, I felt something shift. Apprehension, yes—but also curiosity. A budding hope stirred quietly within me. Perhaps this world wasn’t as barren as I’d feared. Perhaps Clivilius still held its stories and its people, hidden just beyond the dust and silence.

I took a cautious step forward.

The stranger—this man—stood poised, his stillness unnerving in its grace. He was tall, easily towering over both of us, his silhouette stretched long in the low, diffuse light. Despite the austerity of the landscape, there was something composed about him, like a sentinel from another time.

Luke moved with a quiet urgency, slipping ahead of me in a few long strides. His posture straightened slightly, his gait more purposeful. There was a familiarity in his approach—a confidence that suggested this meeting was not unexpected. A reunion, perhaps. Or something planned.

"This is Glenda," Luke announced, his arm sweeping in my direction with a flourish that felt both proud and theatrical. His voice carried easily, bouncing in gentle echoes across the dust-blown air. "Glenda is a doctor in Hobart," he added, his tone warming with something that felt distinctly like pride.

And in that moment, I felt it—a tether. A lifeline.

His words grounded me in identity, in the truth of who I was amidst everything unfamiliar. I was still Glenda. Still a doctor. Still someone who helped others, who bore witness, who fought for clarity in dark places. His words reminded me that I had not been erased in the crossing.

I stepped forward instinctively, extending my hand—a gesture so mundane in my world, but here, under the open expanse of a new sky, it felt oddly ceremonial.

"It's a pleasure to meet you..." My voice faltered mid-sentence, my breath catching as the obvious struck me. I had no name to attach to this figure standing before me. No context. No grounding.

"Paul," he replied smoothly, filling in the silence with ease. His handshake was firm—warm, grounded. Not forceful, but deliberate. "I'm Luke's brother."

A slight beat passed before I replied, the words tumbling out with instinct rather than thought. "Of course. I see the resemblance now."

The moment I said it, I frowned slightly, internally grimacing at how automatic—and inaccurate—the comment had been. I glanced between them, registering the differences with sharper clarity.

They were brothers, yes, but strikingly different.

Paul stood at least six inches taller than Luke, his posture broad-shouldered and powerful in a way that suggested labour, or combat, or long journeys beneath harsh suns. His presence felt solid—like a stone embedded in the earth. By contrast, Luke was leaner, lighter in frame, his movements more precise, almost graceful. Paul’s hair, just a few shades lighter, curled at the ends in a way that Luke’s didn’t. There was a coarseness to it, a sun-bleached wildness that hinted at a different rhythm of life.

Perhaps they were…

"Paul burnt his foot last night," Luke’s voice broke cleanly through the fog of my drifting thoughts, pulling me back from my quiet examination of their differences. The words landed with a mix of casualness and concern, the kind of understated urgency I recognised instantly—where the gravity was tucked just beneath the surface, waiting to be uncovered.

My speculative gaze shifted immediately to Paul. The analytical part of my mind snapped back into gear, slotting into its familiar track like a train realigning with the rail. Injury. Evaluation. Care. Regardless of where I was—be it a sterile clinic in Hobart or this dust-cloaked world called Clivilius—this was the work I knew.

"He seems to be doing okay with it, but I reckon a bit of medical attention wouldn't hurt."

There it was—the reason I’d been brought here, perhaps. A reminder that even in the unknown, people still needed help.

"Sure," I said, my tone slipping easily into its professional register, calm and composed despite the strange soil beneath my boots. "Show me your foot."

The direction came out crisp, but beneath it was an undercurrent of compassion. Medicine is as much about tone as it is about treatment. I caught the subtle flicker in Paul’s face—hesitation, modesty, or perhaps the reluctance of someone unaccustomed to showing weakness. But slowly, deliberately, he lifted his leg.

It was a silent offering, a quiet trust.

I crouched without hesitation, my fingers already reaching out to steady his limb. The motion was second nature—done a thousand times before, in countless settings—but never quite like this. Never with a backdrop of absolute stillness and skies that felt too wide. Dust shifted beneath me as I knelt, the air dry and oddly still around us.

And then—

"Oh, no, no. Not yet," Luke interrupted sharply.

My hand froze mid-air, instinctively recoiling as though I’d touched something searing. The authority in his voice wasn’t laced with panic, but urgency—a redirection rather than an alarm.

I stood slowly, brushing the dust from my hands, trying to recalibrate.

"There is another man in far more need than Paul," Luke added quickly, his concern sharpening the air around us. His tone reached something in me—tightened my shoulders, narrowed my focus. It was the kind of voice I’d heard just before a cardiac arrest. Something was wrong. Badly wrong.

"Take me to him, and I shall take a look," I responded immediately, the words leaving my mouth before my brain had time to fully catch up. There was no hesitation. The part of me that was doctor first—before friend, before wife, before daughter—had already taken over.

Luke turned to his brother, his expression darkening. Something unspoken passed between them—familial shorthand that needed no words.

"Where’s Jamie?" he asked.

There was a stillness, a pause, before Paul responded. A thick swallow, then:

"He’s resting in the tent. I think he has a fever."

The way he said it gave me more than the words themselves. The tightness in his jaw, the glance to the ground—it was worry barely veiled.

A cold weight settled in my stomach. Fever. In a place with no infrastructure, no access to consistent medication or sterile equipment. Illness here could spread like fire through dry grass.

"Shit," Luke muttered, a sharp exhale of tension. "What happened? I thought he was feeling better."

I watched them both closely, noting the unease in Luke’s posture, the guilt playing at the edge of Paul’s voice. Their concern wasn’t performative—it was lived-in, real. These weren’t men easily shaken.

They were scared.

"He seemed much better when we ate. But soon after… He looks pretty bad."

That told me more than I wanted to know.

A sudden deterioration after food—it could be a dozen things. Infection. Poisoning. An allergic reaction. Or something stranger, more insidious. In this world, who could say what dangers lay hidden in the simplest acts?

I didn’t wait for more.

"Take me to him. Now," I said, the command cutting clean through the uncertainty. My voice was low, firm, carved from years of triage and crisis.

I saw them move at the tone, the way people always did when they knew I meant it.

In that moment, the barrenness of Clivilius faded into the background.

There was a patient.

There was need.

And I was exactly where I was meant to be.

Luke's gesture for Paul to take the lead was swift, almost imperceptible—a flick of the hand more instinctual than deliberate. Paul responded without hesitation, setting off with a purposeful stride that suggested a sense of urgency, though his expression betrayed the weight of worry he carried. I followed them, falling naturally into step, though I lingered just a pace behind, allowing myself the space to absorb the landscape.

My eyes drifted downward as I walked. The soft dust stirred beneath my feet, curling in lazy spirals before settling again like breath on a mirror. Each step sent a ripple through the ground, a faint puff of ochre rising up to stain the hem of my trousers. There was a delicate beauty to it, hypnotic in its simplicity, though tinged with the unsettling knowledge that this was not home—not Hobart, not Earth.

Clivilius. Even the name still felt foreign in my mouth, strange on my tongue.

We moved steadily, ascending and descending a series of low hills, each one crowned by the same endless carpet of fine, brown dust. There were no tracks, no landmarks. Just a quiet that seemed to blanket everything, muffling our footfalls until the only sound I could truly register was the faint swish of fabric, the rhythm of my own breath, and the thudding cadence of my thoughts.

The silence was not merely absence—it was presence. A pressing, almost physical force that closed around us, thick and oppressive. No birdsong, no rustling wind. Even our conversation had stilled, as though words themselves might disturb something sacred—or dangerous—beneath the surface.

As we walked, I let my mind wander, though I kept my senses sharp. The anticipation of seeing Jamie, of examining his symptoms and determining a course of action, was grounding. The purpose of medicine had always served as my anchor. Even here, in a world whose rules I hadn’t yet begun to understand, the impulse to heal held steady.

But beneath that familiar sense of readiness, another layer tugged at me—uncertainty.

I didn't know what pathogens thrived in Clivilius. I didn’t know what was safe, what was toxic, or how a human immune system would fare against the invisible agents that might exist here. Could our medications work? Were our illnesses even the same?

A prickle of doubt crept into my chest. Not fear exactly—something quieter. The disquiet of not knowing the rules, not even knowing if I was playing the right game.

Still, the rhythm of movement, the steady progression over the hills, kept me grounded in the moment. I looked ahead at Luke and Paul—two men shaped by this place, their ease with the land evident in their stride—and I reminded myself that I had faced the unknown before. Viruses, emergencies, systems built to fail. Clivilius might be unfamiliar, but the human body was not.

And wherever there was illness, there was work to be done.