4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
The Last Man Standing
Clivilius burned its message into Paul's chest, and he's still feeling the heat when his camp begins emptying like a sinking ship. A warrior marches toward violence. A grieving father sprints after her. A doctor abandons medicine for a voice only she can hear. Paul shouts for silence and nobody even turns around. Now he's standing in the dust with a Shih Tzu and a coriander update, wondering how leadership found the one person least equipped to survive it.
Something ancient spoke inside Paul's chest, and the words haven't stopped burning. But whatever authority Clivilius intended to bestow, the camp didn't get the memo. Within minutes, Paul watches his settlement haemorrhage in every direction — Beatrix cresting the dunes with a dead man's body, Charity striding toward the mountains with arrows on her back and murder in her vocabulary, Jamie tearing after them on raw grief and adrenaline. When Glenda — their only doctor — announces she's leaving too, chasing a father she was told is alive somewhere in this impossible landscape, Paul's protest dies before it reaches his lips. How do you argue with that? How do you tell someone their parent matters less than your staffing crisis?
What remains is quieter and somehow worse: Karen delivering bad news about Kain's bleeding leg, Chris cheerfully reporting on coriander growth, and the dawning recognition that Paul is now responsible for everyone who stayed and everyone who left. He starts walking toward the Portal to check on the wounded, manufacturing purpose from obligation. Then something stops him — not a sound, but an instinct older than language, a pulse in his chest like a signal lamp demanding he turn around.
