The Hit of Loss

“I didn’t think it would hit me like that. But grief doesn’t ask your permission—it just arrives, and takes what it wants.”

The warmth of the early morning sun promised a day devoid of clouds, its golden rays creeping steadily across the landscape like an unspoken assurance. Yet inside me, a storm brewed—silent, shifting, persistent. The brightness above belied the murky swirl of questions and uncertainties that had begun to lodge themselves deeper with every step we took away from the lagoon.

Karen’s voice broke through my drifting thoughts, pulling me back from the edge of spiralling introspection. “Did those two seem a little odd to you?” Her tone was light, but the undercurrent was unmistakable—something niggled at her too.

"I'm sure they're just being men," I replied with a half-hearted shrug, aiming for flippancy. The words hung in the air, a brittle attempt at dismissing a concern that felt anything but trivial. Even as they left my mouth, they rang hollow. The men we knew were changing—or maybe it was the place itself that reshaped everything it touched.

Karen wasn’t so easily placated. Her brow furrowed, and I could sense her trying to put shape to thoughts she hadn’t fully allowed to settle. “You don't think that maybe there's something weird going on with the water?” she pressed. “I mean, look what we discovered with the soil.”

Her words struck deeper than she likely intended. As we walked, my foot disturbed the chalky dust beneath us, sending delicate plumes skyward—small, ephemeral ghosts whisked away by the lazy breeze. I watched them vanish, wishing my doubts could be dispelled just as easily.

“I believe the water has some interesting healing properties,” I offered carefully, choosing my words with the precision of someone walking a tightrope over unknown depths. “I suspect the healing process hurts a little,” I added, trying to summon reason from the sparse evidence at hand—Paul’s arm, Joel’s recovery, now Kain.

Karen scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Manly façade,” she muttered, and for a fleeting moment, the mood lifted.

“Exactly!” I laughed, grateful for the crack of levity in the tension. That thin thread of camaraderie was a lifeline—proof that we hadn’t lost ourselves entirely in this strange new world.

But it didn’t last.

She started to speak again, her voice just forming the next question when I stopped abruptly and reached out, grabbing her arm. The gesture startled her—and myself. A visceral reaction, sparked not by something seen or heard, but felt. A warning, rising from some primal place that words couldn’t touch.

The fine line we walked stretched before me then, stark and brittle. Every step away from the lagoon felt like stepping off a map. We were explorers in a place where natural law tangled with something older, something elemental.

"I'm sure they'll be fine. Chris will come and get us if they have any problems," I said at last, forcing steel into my voice that I didn’t feel. It wasn’t just reassurance for Karen—it was a tether for myself. A spoken anchor in waters that grew stranger by the day.

Still, as we continued walking, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder—just once—to where the lagoon shimmered in the distance like a promise… or a threat. Its surface, now far behind us, caught the sunlight with deceptive innocence, belying the pain and questions it left in its wake.

Karen’s sigh broke the stillness, low and burdened. It wasn’t just the weight of weariness—it was the sound of a woman bracing herself against something she didn’t know how to face. The kind of sigh that speaks volumes even in silence. As she moved to pull away, I instinctively tightened my grip on her arm. Not forcefully, not to stop her, but to say without words: Don’t go just yet. I needed that tether—someone solid, someone known, even as everything around us felt like it was shifting beneath our feet.

That’s when I saw it—a thin, angry scratch slicing across her forearm. It was fresh. Stark against the paleness of her skin, it hadn’t been there yesterday.

"How did you get that scratch?" I asked, my voice sharp with a note I couldn’t suppress. It wasn’t just concern—it was the sudden, sick certainty that something else had happened, something I hadn’t seen, hadn’t accounted for. The question carried an undertone of dread that surprised even me.

Karen froze. The subtle change in her posture didn’t escape me—her shoulders tensed, her expression wavered. The morning sun felt colder somehow, the air shifting with the heaviness of the moment. It was as if a shadow had fallen over us, unannounced.

My breath caught. Please no. Not another panther attack.

"Duke accidentally scratched me when Chris and I attempted to help Jamie and Duke," she said, but her voice lacked the easy cadence of truth. It wasn’t a lie—at least not outright—but something was buried beneath it. Something she was skimming over.

Her answer only raised more questions. "Why did Jamie and Duke need help?" The words came out sharper than I intended, almost accusatory, but I couldn’t stop myself. Every fragment of information felt like a puzzle piece too critical to mishandle.

Karen’s pause was telling. The way she searched for the right words, the way she faltered... I knew. I knew something was wrong before she even said it.

"You haven’t heard?" Her voice was almost too quiet.

My stomach dropped. "Heard what?" My reply was barely a whisper, though the thud of my heart seemed loud enough to drown it out.

"Duke," she said, and the way she said his name—carefully, sorrowfully—unlocked the door to the truth I didn’t want.

My breath hitched. No.

"Duke was attacked last night too. He didn’t make it."

Time stalled. My hand flew to my mouth, as if I could physically contain the shock. I didn’t even realise I’d gasped until I felt the dry rasp of it in my throat. The image of Duke—irritating, unpredictable, fiercely loyal to Jamie—collapsing under the shadow panther’s claws was too awful, too intimate to fully process.

Karen nodded, her face tight with the restraint of someone who had already cried all her tears and was now just trying to make others understand.

A burn gathered behind my eyes, stinging. The grief was unexpected in its sharpness. I’d never liked Duke, not really, but that didn’t matter. He had been ours—one of us in this strange new world. A piece of the odd little ecosystem we’d built together. "I know Duke and I weren’t exactly on the friendliest of terms, but…" I tried, and failed, to finish the thought. The words wouldn’t land right, wouldn’t do the loss justice.

Silence settled around us like a fog, thick with all the things we couldn’t say.

"Are Duke and Kain our only losses?" I asked at last, the question tasting bitter in my mouth. It felt cold to phrase it that way—like tallying up lives instead of mourning them—but I had to know. Had to brace myself.

Karen glanced sideways at me, her gaze pointed and slightly scolding. "We haven’t lost Kain yet," she said, and the way she stressed the word yet made my heart clench.

"Of course not," I replied, quickly. But the moment hung there between us. Not yet was still too close to maybe.

"But yes, I’m pretty sure that Duke and Kain were the only ones injured."

A small breath of relief escaped me. It was still tragic, still unbearable, but it could have been worse. The panther hadn’t decimated us. Not this time. Yet even that slight comfort didn’t soften the truth—Clivilius had shown its teeth, and we’d barely survived the bite.

The silence that greeted us upon our return to camp was wrong—not the gentle quiet of a place stirring to life, but an unnatural stillness, thick and oppressive. It clung to everything like a shroud, muffling the morning sounds I had come to rely on: the rustle of tents, murmured conversations, the occasional bark or cough. None of it. Just silence.

A sense of unease coiled tighter with each step. My boots crunched over dry earth, a sound suddenly too loud in the hush, amplifying the absence of movement around us. The empty fire pit. The still tents. The absence of people. My eyes scanned the camp’s edges, hoping for a glimpse of Henri, or Joel’s familiar shuffle. But there was no one.

Besides Kain, Chris, and Karen this morning, I hadn't seen Joel... or anybody else for that matter.

A chill ran through me—not the kind caused by wind or temperature, but the instinctive prickling that comes when something vital is missing, and your mind races to fill the void with worry.

With that knot tightening in my chest, I ducked into Joel’s tent. The flap rustled closed behind me like a breath held too long.

Empty.

The stillness inside felt deafening. No Joel. No Jamie. No Henri. And, of course, no Duke. Just vacant sleeping bags, a half-folded blanket, and the lingering impression of where lives had been only hours before. A camp without its people was not a home—it was a shell. And the hollow ache that swelled in my chest mirrored that emptiness.

"Where are Jamie and Duke?" I asked Karen, barely trusting my own voice to stay steady. My gaze flicked to her as she stepped into the tent behind me.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, her shake of the head simple, but solemn. There was no need to say more. We were both thinking the same thing.

Back outside, the wind seemed to shift—carrying something faint. Voices. Not laughter, not chatter. Strained, low, urgent. Instinct took over, and I followed the sound, each step accelerating with trepidation. The landscape unfolded before me in waves of muted colour, and then—

There they were.

Jamie stood near the river’s edge, his frame stiff and oddly small in the open space. He held something in his arms. As I drew closer, the shape came into focus—and my breath hitched. My heart sank.

A small, lifeless form.

Duke.

Even knowing it—expecting it—hadn’t prepared me for the image of Jamie cradling him like something sacred, something irreplaceable. The sight knocked the breath from my lungs. Grief, sharp and cruel, lanced through me.

Jamie didn’t weep, but everything about his posture was grief made manifest—the rounded shoulders, the clenched jaw, the distant stare of someone holding it together by threads.

To the side, Paul and Charity stood in solemn conversation with him. A woman I didn’t recognise lingered nearby, arms crossed tightly, her face drawn and serious. The way they all stood, the angles of their bodies, the stiff intensity of their words—even at a distance—I could tell it wasn’t just mourning that filled the space. It was tension. Conflict, maybe. Something unresolved beneath the surface.

Their voices didn’t carry clearly, but the tone did. Low and urgent. Paul looked worn, drawn in a way I hadn’t seen since our earliest days. Charity’s expression was unreadable—stoic as ever, yet her hands kept wringing unconsciously. The stranger beside them exuded a quiet authority, as though she had something to say but was waiting for the right moment to say it.

The world felt very far away in that moment. No wind. No sun. Just the echo of grief and the knowledge that something had shifted—perhaps permanently—within our little community.

As I approached, the knot in my chest pulled tighter. The grief in the air was thick enough to taste—salt, dust, and the metallic tang of unspoken dread. My eyes swept across the group, counting faces with the urgency of someone afraid of what they wouldn’t find. Paul. Charity. Jamie. The silver-haired woman. Karen behind me. Chris still at the lagoon with Kain.

But no Joel.

The realisation struck with a dull, sick thud, like the first roll of distant thunder. A breath caught in my throat, and the muscles in my neck tensed instinctively. He should be here. Joel’s absence wasn’t just another missing person—it was another thread threatening to unravel the fragile weave holding us together.

Where is he? The question looped in my mind, over and over, gaining weight.

"Has anyone seen Joel this morning?" I asked, louder than intended. My voice cracked at the edge, riding the thin line between urgency and rising panic. Heads turned. Eyes met mine, most shaking silently, their expressions blank or bleak.

The shorter woman turned to me, and despite the gravity of the moment, I was struck by her presence. She seemed carved from contradiction—her voice calm, composed, yet her appearance was unmistakably raw. "I've been with Jamie since I arrived," she said simply.

I studied her, feeling an involuntary shiver prickle my spine. Her silver hair shimmered faintly in the morning sun, the strands catching light in a way that almost made them glow. She could’ve been a vision—beautiful, strange—but the brutal cuts down her arms and the filth on her dress grounded her in stark reality. There was no hiding where she had been, what she had endured. She wore the chaos of the night on her skin. And suddenly, I knew: she was the one who had screamed.

Something inside me twisted at that. That scream hadn’t just been noise. It had been suffering.

Paul’s voice drew me back. "I've not seen him at all this morning," he said, frowning. "I just assumed he was still resting in his tent. Is he not there?"

I didn’t answer immediately. My throat tightened, lips parted—but the words stalled. The fear that had been steadily building finally surged into clarity.

"No," I said, and the word came out flat. Cold. My voice was stripped down to its bones. That one syllable carried every ounce of rising dread I felt.

Because if Joel wasn’t with us—and wasn’t in his tent—then where was he?

The conversation was abruptly cut short by Jamie's sudden collapse, the soft thud of his knees hitting the ground jarring in the still morning air. For a split second, none of us moved—frozen by the shock of it—until the sight of him crumpling around Duke’s small, lifeless form galvanised us into action. His arms clung protectively to the dog, even in descent, as though some instinct wouldn’t let him surrender Duke entirely. The image seared itself into my memory: a man unravelled by grief, refusing to let go.

"Jamie!" Our voices rose in unison, urgency and concern blending into a chorus of alarm that tore through the oppressive silence. Feet scrambled against the dry earth, arms reaching out, hands grasping, each of us united by the instinct to protect.

I dropped to my knees beside him, my medic’s training overriding emotion just long enough to conduct a swift scan of his chest. My eyes darted over his clothes, searching for blood that might speak of fresh wounds. But what I found instead was something heavier: the anguish etched into his expression, the deep puffiness under his eyes, the rawness of skin rubbed red from weeping. There was no mistaking the truth—his injuries were not of the body.

Still, I had to be sure. I adjusted Duke’s limp form slightly, gently, respectfully, as I leaned in closer to Jamie, checking for shallow cuts or abrasions hidden beneath the mess of fur and dried blood. My touch was clinical, but my heart was quietly breaking beside his.

"Gather everyone to the campfire," I said to Paul, my tone sharp with purpose. The moment called for action, not speculation. The living still needed guidance. The grieving needed witness. I felt Paul’s hesitation behind me—no one wanted to be the one to step away right now—but he nodded and turned without argument.

As I rose, a new voice broke into the space between us. “You must be Glenda.” I turned toward it, finding the silver-haired woman—new to our camp, but somehow already woven into the thick of its tension. Her eyes, calm yet cautious, studied me with quiet precision.

"I am," I replied, brushing dirt from my trousers in a gesture that felt woefully inadequate—an instinctive act to restore order when everything around us was anything but. My next words came automatically, issuing from that same place inside me that had led a thousand small crises before this one. "I'm going to find something suitable to wrap Duke in. Please help Jamie get himself cleaned. I'll meet you back here before we take the dog to the campfire."

"Yes, doctor." Her answer came without irony or hesitation, though something in her voice—worn and knowing—suggested she had once been the one giving such orders, not taking them.

I gave her a small, tight nod, then turned away, setting off with quick strides and a knot forming in my chest. My throat burned with emotion I couldn’t afford to release just yet. There would be time for that later—maybe.

Right now, there was something sacred about what lay ahead. This wasn’t just a chore. It was a rite. A final kindness for the dog who had lived among us, loved some of us, annoyed others—including me—and who had now, in his passing, drawn us all a little closer in grief.