The Ones Who Shouldn't Be Seen

“Some people walk like they own the ground—but he walked like the ground had agreed to keep his secrets.”

I woke up all at once.

Not the slow kind of waking, where your dreams let go of you piece by piece, where consciousness arrives like a gentle tide washing over sand. This was like being dropped back into myself — a jolt, a full-body hush, as if my soul had been yanked back from somewhere else and stuffed roughly into my skin.

One moment nothing, the next, terribly awake.

I didn't move.

Didn't blink.

Didn't breathe properly.

My heart, which should have been pounding, seemed to have stopped entirely. The blood in my veins felt thick and cold, reluctant to flow. Every muscle in my body had turned to stone, heavy and immovable.

There was no sound. Not at first. Just the heavy, still weight of dark pressing against the sides of my head like my ears were full of water. Like I was deep underwater, the pressure squeezing my skull, making my temples throb with the effort of listening to nothing.

I didn't know what had woken me.

No creak. No whisper. No sudden movement.

But something was wrong.

The wrongness hung in the air like smoke—invisible but undeniable. A shift in the atmosphere. A disturbance in the perfect stillness of our abandoned shelter. As if the building itself had sensed an intrusion and was holding its breath, waiting.

It wasn't cold, not exactly — though the air had a bite to it, sharp and dry like the inside of a freezer left open too long. But it was heavy, like it had grown thicker during the night. Like the room had filled with something invisible while we slept. Something that had substance but no form. Something that was watching.

I blinked, but everything stayed dark. The blackness was absolute, impenetrable. I couldn't see the windows anymore. Couldn't see the corners of the room. The moonlight, which had crept in through the broken roof earlier, creating silver puddles on the concrete floor, was gone. Maybe hidden behind clouds. Maybe hiding itself from whatever had disturbed our sleep.

My eyes strained against the darkness, seeking shapes, edges, anything to orient myself. But there was nothing but void. A blackness so complete it seemed to swallow even the memory of light.

The silence was strange.

It wasn't empty. It wasn't the peaceful hush of a sleeping world. It was dense. Full of pressure. A silence with weight and intention. Like the world had taken a deep breath and was waiting to let it out. Like something was gathering itself, coiling tight before striking.

Every instinct I had—primitive, animal instincts buried beneath layers of childhood and safety and civilisation—screamed danger. Though no danger was visible. Though no threat had announced itself.

I shifted slightly on the mattress. The fabric beneath me made the tiniest squeak—a sound so small it would have been insignificant in daylight, lost beneath the normal noises of existence. But in this unnatural silence, it seemed to echo like a scream.

And that was when I saw him.

Mack.

He was already awake.

Sitting upright, knees pulled in, back against the metal locker that leaned over our little bed. His body was tense, coiled, ready to move. His face was turned toward the far wall — or maybe the door — but I couldn't see his eyes. Just the outline of him, carved faintly in the dark by the shape of the broken roof. A slightly deeper shadow against the blackness.

He didn't move.

Not when I sat up. Not when I whispered, “Mack?”

My voice emerged as barely a breath, like an intrusion into the waiting stillness. If silence could flinch, it flinched then.

But then he did move. Only his hand — reaching sideways, fast and silent, curling around my sleeve with a grip so tight I could feel his fingernails through the fabric. Urgency in every tense fingertip.

“Get down,” he whispered.

His voice didn't sound like his voice at all. It was the voice of a stranger wearing my brother's skin. It wasn't loud. It didn't shake or tremble or crack with fear. But it had something in it that made my whole body obey before my brain even knew what was happening. Something primal. Something that bypassed thought and went straight to muscle and bone.

He pulled me gently but urgently off the mattress, down into the tight space between the bed and the lockers. My legs folded awkwardly beneath me, and the concrete was cold against my shins, sending a shock of discomfort up through my knees. Small pieces of grit pressed into my skin, but I didn't dare shift position to relieve the pressure.

We crouched there, side by side in the shadows, knees touching. His shoulder pressed against mine, solid and warm. I could feel him breathing, each inhale measured and controlled, as if he were counting the seconds between each breath.

I didn't ask what he'd seen.

Because now I felt it too.

Not just the weirdness in the air.

Not just the unnatural silence.

But something near.

A pressure. A presence. Like when someone stands behind you in a shop and you haven't heard them, but you know they're there. The subtle shift in air currents. The sense of space being occupied where before it was empty. The feeling of being observed.

Only this time it wasn't behind me.

It was outside.

Beyond the walls of our shelter. Beyond the broken windows and rusted door frame. In the vast darkness of the outback night.

I tilted my head slightly, my ear straining toward the nearest window, and that was when I heard it.

A sound.

Very faint.

Not the wind — at least, not wind like I'd ever heard it. Not the familiar whistle through tree branches or the gentle rustle of leaves. Not the hollow moan around the corners of houses or the distant howl across the desert.

It was too steady. Too low. Like breath, but stretched out. A long, unbroken exhale. Or the sound of a heavy coat dragging through dry scrub. Or something being slowly pulled across rough ground.

It didn't rise or fall. It didn't gust or fade. It just... was. Constant. Deliberate. Purposeful.

My throat felt tight, as if invisible hands were pressing against it, squeezing just enough to remind me how fragile breathing really is. I hugged Ribbons to my chest, squeezing her so hard her ears folded backwards and her stuffing shifted beneath the worn fabric. My fingers fumbled blindly along her seams, needing to feel something familiar. Something safe. Something that belonged to the world of bedtime stories and morning cereal and parents who tucked you in at night.

Mack still hadn't moved.

His body was rigid beside me, every muscle locked in perfect stillness. His hand was now on the torch — but he didn't turn it on. He just held it like it might protect us. Like it might matter if whatever was outside decided to come in. Like a plastic tube with a dying battery might somehow shield us from the nameless thing that had stolen the night.

We stayed there, frozen in that horrible, breathless hush. Time stretched, elastic and meaningless. Seconds might have been minutes. Minutes might have been hours. There was no way to know.

Then came a second sound.

Soft. Rhythmic.

Footsteps.

Not running.

Just walking.

Slow and careful and deliberate. As if whatever it was had all the time in the world. As if it knew exactly where it was going. As if reaching us was inevitable, so why hurry?

Crunch. Pause. Crunch. Pause.

The sound of boots or shoes on gravel. On the path that led to our building. On the very same path we had walked just hours earlier.

Someone was outside the building.

Not close — not yet — but moving in our direction. Each step measured. Each pause calculated. Like a predator stalking prey that it knows cannot escape.

The silence inside stretched thinner and thinner, like it might snap if either of us dared to speak. The darkness seemed to press closer, wrapping around us like a shroud, hiding us but also trapping us. There was nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide except this small space between metal and mattress.

I didn't even know how I was breathing anymore. It felt like my lungs had shrunk to the size of walnuts. Each shallow gasp seemed too loud, too revealing. My heart, which had seemed frozen moments before, now hammered against my ribs like it was trying to break free.

I wanted to say something — Who is it? What should we do? Should we hide somewhere else? — but no words came. My mouth was dry, my tongue thick and clumsy. Fear had stolen my voice just as it had stolen my ability to move.

Because in that moment, I realised: this wasn't pretend.

All the games we'd played as children—hide and seek, monsters under the bed, spaceship adventures—they were just rehearsals for this moment. Preparation for real fear. This wasn't a game. Not the spaceship, not the fort, not an adventure we could end by saying “I give up” or “time for dinner.”

This was real.

Whatever was outside wasn't here by accident.

It wasn't a curious animal or a lost traveller or the wind playing tricks. It moved with purpose. With intent. The footsteps never faltered, never deviated. They knew where they were going.

And we were not supposed to be here.

We were witnesses to something we weren't meant to see. Intruders in a place that belonged to someone—or something—else. Children in a forgotten building that perhaps wasn't as forgotten as we'd thought.

The footsteps grew louder. Closer.

Crunch. Pause. Crunch. Pause.

I could feel Mack's breathing change beside me. Shorter. Quicker. His hand found mine in the darkness, our fingers interlacing with desperate strength. His palm was slick with sweat, but his grip was firm. An anchor in a storm of fear.

His movement was so slow, so calculated, that I barely noticed him shifting until his shoulder was no longer pressed against mine. The space where his warmth had been turned cold instantly, sending a shiver across my skin. His hand brushed the edge of the locker beside us, finding a gap where the metal had pulled away from the beam. I could see the shape of his eye close to the crack, unmoving, not even blinking. His body had gone utterly still, the way a lizard freezes when it senses danger.

He didn't speak.

Something in his stillness—the absolute, unnatural rigidity of his spine—told me more than words ever could. Whatever he was seeing through that gap wasn't something I should look at. Wasn't something I wanted to see.

But I had to know.

So I leaned forward too, slowly, holding my breath as I pressed one cheek against the cold steel and peered through the slit. The metal was ice against my skin, its chill spreading through my face until my teeth ached with it. The jagged edge of the tear caught at my hair, tugging painfully, but I didn't pull away.

And I saw them.

Two figures, half-shrouded in mist and moonlight and drifting dust. They emerged from the darkness like ghosts materialising, their outlines blurred by the pre-dawn haze that hung over the scrubland. The cold knot of fear in my stomach tightened, twisting into something sharper, more urgent.

The man moved first — tall, straight-backed, in a long dark coat that reached just below his knees. Not a work coat like Dad wore, rough canvas with big pockets, but something smoother, more deliberate. Urban. Out of place in this forgotten corner of the outback. His boots crunched softly with each step on the loose earth, but the sound was swallowed almost immediately by the stillness of the morning air. He wasn't rushing. He wasn't hunting. Just walking. Quiet. Like he had nowhere to be — but every right to be there. Like the land knew him and offered no resistance.

Beside him — or beneath him, really — was a girl.

At least, I think she was a girl. It was hard to tell.

She was the wrong shape.

Not because her body was strange, but because she wasn't moving properly. There was something fundamentally broken in the way she occupied space, as if she'd forgotten how humans were supposed to move through the world. She leaned against the man, her feet dragging behind her like they weren't quite sure how to work. Her shoulders were slumped, her head tilted forward at an angle that looked painful, impossible to maintain without injury. Her hair — light, maybe blonde or sandy brown — hung limp across her face and clung to her cheeks, as if it had been wet recently and dried in clumps. Her shirt was torn down one side, and there was a rip in her jeans near the knee, crusted with what looked like dried blood or rust. A dark stain, too old to be fresh, too new to be part of the fabric's design.

Her skin was pale, but dusted in red earth like she'd been dropped and rolled across the ground. The dirt clung to her in patches, especially around her knees and elbows, the places where you'd try to catch yourself if you were falling.

She stumbled.

One foot caught a root or stone, and she lurched sideways — almost falling — until the man caught her with one swift movement of his arm. The motion was smooth, automatic, like he'd done it many times before and expected to do it many times again.

Not tender.

Not gentle.

Just efficient.

He didn't look at her. He didn't stop walking. He didn't check if she was hurt or needed a moment to steady herself. He just tugged her upright again and kept moving, her weight swaying like a half-filled bag being carried home from the shops. Something to be transported, not someone to be helped.

And that was the strangest part.

He never said a word.

Not to her. Not to the world.

Not “be careful” or “watch your step” or “are you okay?” Nothing that a normal person would say to someone struggling beside them. Nothing that acknowledged her as anything more than an object being moved from one place to another.

Not even when she murmured something — a whisper, hoarse and broken, drifting faintly across the scrub like it had no hope of being heard. Like words thrown into a void, expecting no answer.

I couldn't catch what she said.

I only knew that she spoke — once — and that it sounded like “please”.

A single syllable, carried on the cold morning air, somehow containing every ounce of desperation a human voice could hold. A plea without a specific request. Just “please” – please stop, please help, please let me go, please end this. Please, in the way drowning people say please with their eyes when there's no one left to save them.

The man turned his head slightly.

Just slightly.

Not toward her — toward the ground ahead of them. As if he'd heard something in the dirt more interesting than her plea.

And whatever she had hoped that whisper might do, it didn't do anything.

She didn't speak again.

My hand found Ribbons, clutching her worn body against my chest, seeking comfort in her familiar form. But she felt different now—just cloth and stuffing, no longer the magical companion who could keep nightmares at bay. What protection could a toy rabbit offer against whatever this was? Against the wrongness playing out before our eyes?

They moved closer now, coming around the far side of the building, toward the front. Their path would take them directly past our hiding place, separated only by the rusted walls of our shelter. If they decided to enter—if they chose to explore this abandoned place—they would find us. Two children crouching in the dark with nowhere to run.

The girl's foot twisted sideways with one step and she went down again — this time landing hard on her knees. A puff of dust rose around her as she crumpled, a small cloud catching the moonlight like silver smoke. The sound of her impact—the soft thud of bone against hard earth—made my stomach clench in sympathy.

I winced. Mack tensed beside me, his breath catching in his throat.

The man didn't pause.

Not even a hitch in his stride, as if her falling was so expected, so ordinary, that it didn't register as an event worth acknowledging. He reached down with one hand, grabbed her by the upper arm, and hauled her upright. No wasted motion. No hesitation.

Her legs worked again after that — barely — but she leaned heavier into him now, like she'd given up pretending she could walk on her own. Like the last reserves of whatever strength had been keeping her upright had finally drained away, leaving only the hollow shell of someone who used to be a person.

They passed beneath the shattered awning that hung over what used to be the main entrance. The metal creaked softly above them, a sound like something in pain trying not to show it.

That's when the moonlight touched his face properly for the first time.

And I saw it.

Not a clear look — not like you'd get in a school photo or at the shops — but enough to burn itself into my memory forever. Enough to follow me into dreams for years to come.

His features were plain. Almost ordinary. He could've been someone's uncle or a man from the petrol station. Nothing remarkable in the shape of his nose or the line of his jaw. Nothing that would make you look twice if you passed him on the street. But it was the stillness of him that made my chest feel tight, that sent ice crawling down my spine and pooling at the base of my skull.

His face didn't move. Not even his eyes. None of the tiny, unconscious adjustments that living faces make—the slight shifts of expression, the flicker of attention, the constant micro-movements that show a mind at work behind the features.

He looked forward, with the blank focus of someone listening to something far away. Like he didn't need to see where he was going because he already knew what was waiting there. Like he was following directions only he could hear, moving toward a destination only he could perceive.

The girl whimpered again. Just a small sound, like something hurt deep in her throat. A noise so full of resignation that it barely qualified as a plea anymore.

Still, he didn't speak.

Didn't hush her.

Didn't look back.

He just kept walking.

And she followed because she had no choice. Because whatever had happened to her had taken away all other options. Because there was nowhere else for her to go, and no one else to see her go there.

I felt Mack's hand close around my wrist. Not tight. Not pulling. Just there. Warm and steady. A silent reminder that I wasn't alone in witnessing this nightmare. That what I was seeing was real, because he was seeing it too. His fingers trembled slightly against my skin, the only sign that he was just as terrified as I was.

I wanted to ask him who they were.

What was happening.

If we should help her.

But I didn't say anything.

Because I already knew what the answer would be.

We couldn't.

We were just two kids in the dark, hiding in a broken building in the middle of nowhere. Two children sent away for our own protection, now discovering that perhaps the world held dangers our grandparents hadn't even known to warn us about. Dangers with ordinary faces and extraordinary stillness.

And that man — that thing — wasn't like us.

He wasn't cautious or worried or uncertain. He moved through the landscape with the confidence of someone who owned it, or at least had permission to use it as he pleased. He didn't look around. Didn't check his surroundings. Didn't call out or whisper or even glance behind him. Didn't behave like someone who feared being seen or caught or stopped.

Because he knew no one was coming.

Because he didn't have to run.

Because out here, in this forgotten place, there were no rules except the ones he made. No witnesses except the ones he allowed.

And we were not supposed to be witnesses.

I didn't know who the girl was.

But something about the shape of her reminded me of a photo I'd seen — weeks ago, on the telly. A girl with a backpack, standing by a signpost with a map and a smile. Blonde hair caught in a ponytail, eyes squinting against the sun. Something about a backpacking trip through the outback. Something about how beautiful the landscape was, how you could walk for days and not see another soul.

I couldn't remember her name.

But now her face was bent, covered in dirt, her steps not her own. Her journey twisted into something else entirely. Her freedom converted to its opposite.

And I knew — I just knew — that this man had done this before. That the girl beside him wasn't the first to be dragged across this landscape. That the path they were taking had been worn smooth by previous journeys, previous captives, previous pleas that went unanswered.