This Is Home Now

"Home is supposed to mean the place you'd do anything to get back to—not the place you're desperately trying to make good enough to bring the people you love."

Sitting up slowly, the ache in my bones greeted me like an old, unwelcome friend. Every joint protested, every muscle complained—the accumulated toll of sleeping on ground that had never been designed for human comfort. My lower back screamed as I straightened, a symphony of cracks and pops accompanying the movement. My neck had stiffened into something resembling concrete, and when I rolled my shoulders, something in my spine shifted with an audible click that couldn't possibly be healthy.

Despite the discomfort, there was a small consolation—the dust beneath me. It shifted easily under my weight, almost like a natural mattress, moulding itself to the contours of my body. In a world stripped of most comforts, this small adaptation of the earth to my form made the harsh reality of sleeping without a mattress just a tad more bearable. Back home, I had slept on a king-size bed with memory foam and Egyptian cotton sheets. Claire had insisted on thread counts I didn't understand and pillows that cost more than some people's furniture. Now I was grateful for dust that didn't actively resist my body's attempts to find rest.

The fire had burned down to embers sometime in the early hours, despite my best efforts to keep it blazing. The grey ash still held a faint warmth, a ghostly reminder of the flames that had pushed back the darkness. I had woken twice in the night to add more wood, driven by the promise I'd made to Kain, to myself. The light had held through most of the night. That was something. After the gratitude ritual, after Kain had stormed off into the darkness, I had sworn to myself that I would keep the fire burning. That I would not let fear claim another night.

I glanced over at Kain, who lay in a tangled half-in, half-out sprawl across his sleeping bag and the dust. The sight brought a smile to my face despite the aches. One arm hung free of the sleeping bag, his face pressed into the fabric at an angle that would surely leave him with a crick in his neck. His mouth was slightly open, a thin line of drool darkening the fabric beneath his cheek. It was hard to tell whether Kain had been battling restlessness or had found an odd sense of comfort in his unconventional sleeping position. Either way, he had slept. After the tension of the gratitude ritual, after storming off into the darkness when I had scoffed at his mention of Jamie, he had returned and he had slept. That was something too.

I still felt the weight of that moment—my dismissive snort when he'd tried to express gratitude for his uncle. The look on his face as he'd walked away into the night. I had wanted to call after him, to apologise, but the words had stuck in my throat. Now, watching him sleep with the abandon of youth, I felt the familiar twist of guilt. I would need to make it right. Somehow.

As the gentle morning breeze brushed against my skin, the hairs on my arms stood on end, a chill running down my spine despite the warmth of the rising sun. The breeze carried with it a small puff of dust, swirling in a miniature whirlwind before dissipating into the air. The sight, rather than being mundane, filled me with a sense of unease. It was a haunting reminder of the dust storm we had endured, the strongest breeze I had felt since that torturous night when the world had turned red and choking and I had thought we might all be buried alive.

The memory was still vivid—the wind tearing at the tents, the dust invading every breath, the absolute blindness of it. Mack and Rose wouldn't survive a storm like that. The thought arrived unbidden and unwelcome, settling into my consciousness like a stone dropping into still water. If I brought them here, if something like that happened again...

The thought of facing another storm so soon sent a shiver of apprehension through me, even as I gazed up at the clear, cloudless sky, questioning the likelihood of a repeat disaster. The sky offered no answers—just that endless, empty blue that looked almost right but wasn't quite Earth's sky. Never quite Earth's sky. The colour was too deep, too pure, lacking the subtle variations that atmospheric pollution and moisture gave to the skies back home. It was beautiful in its way, but it was not the sky my children knew.

Shaking off the dust and the lingering worry, I quickly dressed in yesterday's clothes, the fabric stiff and gritty against my skin. The red-brown powder had worked its way into every fibre, every seam. I would need fresh clothes soon. I would need many things soon. The list grew longer with each passing day, and our resources remained stubbornly finite.

Rolling my sleeping bag, I entered the third tent, the one we had rushed to set up the day before.

The large, vacant spaces within it seemed almost mocking in their emptiness. Canvas walls stretched in all directions, bare floor covered in nothing but the inevitable intrusion of dust. No furniture. No storage. No evidence that anyone had ever intended to live here.

"Well, that was worth the rush to get it up yesterday," I muttered to myself, the words heavy with a mix of sarcasm and resignation.

Yet, as I surveyed the space, a different thought occurred to me—having the tent up spared us the task today, a small victory in itself. One less thing to worry about. One more shelter ready for whatever came next. One more step toward something that might, eventually, resemble civilisation.

"This is my home now," I declared, a statement that was more an affirmation to myself than anything else.

The words echoed slightly in the empty space, bouncing off the canvas walls and returning to me hollow and strange. I said them again, quieter this time, testing how they felt in my mouth. "This is my home now."

Dropping the sleeping bag onto the floor at the back of the central shared living space, I felt a complex mix of emotions. There was a sense of finality in accepting this place as my home—a closing of doors, a narrowing of possibilities. The word itself felt wrong, almost blasphemous. Home should mean the house in Broken Hill. Home should mean Claire's voice in the kitchen, even if that voice had grown sharp and cold in recent years. Home should mean Mack's questions and Rose's laughter echoing through the halls. Home should mean the particular angle of morning light through the bedroom window, the smell of the jasmine that grew along the back fence.

Yet there was also a subtle undercurrent of defiance and resilience in claiming this space, in making it ours despite everything. The tent, like Clivilius with its vast, empty expanses, was a blank canvas—a place of potential and possibility. If I was going to bring my children here, they would need a home to come to. This would have to be that home. This bare canvas floor, these dust-infiltrated walls, this space that smelled of nothing but heat and earth—this would have to become something worth crossing dimensions for.

The realisation hit me with a mix of discomfort and necessity—I really needed a wash, and a change into fresh clothes seemed long overdue. The grit of dust against my skin had become a constant irritation, a physical reminder of how far removed we were from civilisation's comforts. I could feel it in the creases of my elbows, behind my ears, between my toes. I made a mental note to collect my bags once Jamie woke up. Fresh clothes. A proper wash. Small dignities that felt enormous in their absence.

Stepping out from the tent, the absence of Glenda was noticeable—she who seemed to be everywhere at once, tending to everyone's needs—but my immediate concern led me towards the river located behind our camp. The cool morning air brushed against my skin, a reminder of the day's start and the tasks that lay ahead.

Approaching the river, the sound of its flowing water was a welcome respite—the gentle burble of current over stone, the whisper of water moving endlessly onward. It was the most Earth-like sound in this place, this alien world that looked so much like the Australian outback but felt so fundamentally different.

Crouching down by the river's edge, I cautiously began to unwind the bandage wrapped around my arm. My hands were trembling slightly, though I tried to tell myself it was from the morning chill rather than fear. The bandage was very dry, a good sign perhaps, but it did little to ease the knot of worry forming in my stomach. My brow furrowed as I contemplated the state of the wound beneath.

The fear of finding my skin in a deteriorated condition, possibly turned grey again as it had before, weighed heavily on my mind. The memory of that ashen colour spreading across my flesh was still too fresh, too terrifying. I had watched it creep up my arm like frost spreading across a window pane—that unnatural grey that spoke of death, of Joel's touch, of something that should not exist in any world. Glenda's treatment, the river water soaking through the bandage, the desperate hope that something would work—it had all felt like grasping at straws in a hurricane.

Holding my breath, I braced for what I might uncover.

To my profound relief, as the bandage came off and I examined the wound, the greyness had not returned.

I exhaled a long, steadying sigh, my shoulders dropping slightly with the release of tension. The skin was pink. Healthy. Normal. The colour of living flesh, of blood flowing beneath the surface, of a body that was healing rather than dying. Just yesterday, I had been grabbed by a dead man, infected by whatever strangeness coursed through Joel's resurrected body, and now—healing. Actually healing.

The relief was so intense it made my eyes sting. I blinked rapidly, telling myself it was the dust.

Closer inspection of the three puncture marks revealed a healing process underway. The wounds where Joel's fingernails had dug into my flesh—desperate, grasping, the grip of a man who had died and somehow returned—were scabbing over. Gently poking the surrounding flesh, I observed how the skin turned pale under pressure, a sign of blood flow interruption, only to see it promptly return to its normal fleshy pink colour upon releasing my finger. Small scabs had started to form over the puncture sites, a clear indication of the body's natural healing at work.

The river water, Glenda's wet bandage technique—something had worked. Something had saved me from whatever fate had threatened. I didn't understand the mechanism, couldn't begin to explain the science of it. But the evidence was there on my arm, undeniable. The grey had retreated. The flesh was healing. I was going to be all right.

The sudden sound of Glenda's voice close behind me was enough to almost send me toppling into the river.

"That's looking really healthy," she observed, her tone carrying a note of genuine approval.

Caught off guard by her silent approach, I struggled to regain my balance, my concentration shattered. My arms windmilled briefly, my feet scrambling for purchase on the muddy bank. For one undignified moment, I was certain I was going in—certain I would end up floundering in the shallows while Glenda watched with that inscrutable expression of hers.

"We'll have to stop meeting like this," I joked, an attempt to lighten the moment and cover my embarrassment.

But the joke seemed to fly right past her, leaving a momentary awkwardness hanging in the air between us. She just looked at me, waiting for something more.

"I mean you sneaking up behind me at the river," I clarified, hoping to bridge the gap my attempted humour had seemingly widened. The explanation felt even more awkward than the original joke.

Her brow narrowed slightly, a sign of misunderstanding or perhaps concern about my mental state.

"Sorry," she said, her voice softening as she crouched down beside me to take a closer look at my arm.

I turned my gaze out across the river, shifting my now reddening face away from her direct scrutiny. The water moved past us in its endless journey, catching the morning light and fragmenting it into a thousand shifting diamonds.

Did Glenda not get the humour? I found myself wondering, a ripple of unease threading through the brief exchange. Perhaps humour didn't translate well in survival situations. Perhaps I was simply not as funny as I imagined myself to be. Claire had certainly made that point often enough in recent years—my jokes landing flat at dinner, my attempts at levity met with tight-lipped silence. Perhaps the problem wasn't Glenda. Perhaps the problem was me.

After inspecting my arm with clinical thoroughness—prodding the scabs, examining the colour of the surrounding skin, checking for any signs of infection—Glenda released it and pushed herself to her feet, her movements confident and focused.

"Keep a close eye on it. Notify me immediately if anything changes. And soak the bandages back in the river," she instructed with a professional detachment that belied the earlier awkwardness. The doctor was back, the moment of social confusion filed away somewhere irrelevant.

"Of course. I'll watch it closely," I assured her, pulling myself up to stand. The riverbank squelched slightly beneath my feet, the mud releasing its grip reluctantly.

As she turned to leave, a thought occurred to me, prompting a spontaneous call. "Hey, Glenda?"

"Yes, Paul?"

She paused, turning back with an openness that invited further conversation. The morning light caught the grey in her hair, the lines of fatigue around her eyes. She had been working harder than any of us, I realised. Tending to Joel. Organising the camp. Keeping everyone alive through sheer force of competence.

I ventured into the logistical arrangements that had been on my mind. The domestic details of survival—who slept where, how we organised our small community. It seemed mundane compared to resurrection and infection and the mysteries of the Portal, but mundane things mattered. Mundane things were what separated civilisation from chaos.

"Are you happy to keep sleeping in the medical tent for now? If so, Kain and I will share that third tent and we can leave Jamie and Joel where they are," I proposed, the practicalities of our living arrangements suddenly pressing.

"Oh, and Luke if he ever decides to stay the night," I added, almost as an afterthought, acknowledging the fluidity of our group's dynamics. Luke who came and went like a ghost. Luke who kept secrets and offered vague promises. Luke who was my brother and a stranger all at once.

"Sure," Glenda responded with a gentle shrug. "I don't have any issues with that."

Relief washed over me, accompanied by a smile. "Great. I'll move my suitcase across as soon as Jamie is awake," I confirmed, buoyed by the ease of the arrangement.

Despite the occasional misunderstandings, I found a deep sense of gratitude for Glenda's agreeableness. She made things easier simply by not making them difficult. In my experience—in business, in marriage, in life—that was a rarer quality than it should have been.

"They are both awake now. I was just in with them."

Glenda's words caught me off guard as we made our way back to camp, our footsteps crunching in unison through the dust.

"Oh," was all I could manage, my surprise evident. "Joel too?"

The question slipped out as we walked, carrying more weight than its simple words suggested. Joel. Awake. Aware. Watching. The man I had injured in my desperate flight from his dead-not-dead grasp.

"Yes. He has a broken finger but apart from that, he looks to be making a speedy recovery. It is quite remarkable, really," Glenda explained, her voice carrying a note of professional admiration.

A dryness clutched at my throat, the memory of the sound of bone snapping vividly replaying in my mind.

I had done that.

When Joel had grabbed me, when his fingernails had carved into my flesh, when the grey had begun spreading up my arm like poison, I had panicked. I had grabbed his finger and bent it backward—backward against the joint, backward against nature—until I heard the crack that freed me. The violence of that moment—my violence—sent an involuntary shudder through my body. I had never broken anyone's bone before. Had never caused that kind of damage to another person. The sound haunted me—that wet, definitive snap that meant something had broken beyond easy repair.

"It is very odd," I found myself agreeing, though I strained to keep my voice even and casual.

The words felt hollow, a feeble attempt to mask the unease that twisted in my gut. Did Joel remember? Did he know who had broken his finger? Would he hold it against me? Was there enough of the old Joel left to understand that I had acted in self-defence, in terror, in the desperate certainty that I was about to die?

"I may as well move my stuff now then."

"I don't think they'd mind," Glenda remarked.

My voice dropped to a softer register, a reflection of the concern that lingered beneath my composed exterior. "Do you know if Kain slept alright?"

The question was directed at Glenda, but my gaze drifted toward Kain, who was showing signs of waking. After last night—the gratitude ritual, my thoughtless scoff at his mention of Jamie, his angry retreat into the darkness—I needed to know he was all right. Needed to know I hadn't damaged something between us that couldn't be repaired.

"I assume so. I didn't notice anything unusual," she answered, her response straightforward. "Why do you ask?"

Her inquiry, simple on the surface, felt laden with a deeper probing for my motives. Glenda missed nothing, I was learning. Her clinical observation extended beyond medical matters.

"Just making sure we're all safe, I guess."

The words were a shield, a vague explanation for the genuine concern that drove me to ask. Safety had become a precious commodity, its assurance found not in grand gestures but in the small checks we made on each other. Had Kain encountered the night terrors? Had the darkness held horrors for him as it had for me? Had he heard the screams that sometimes split the night, or had exhaustion granted him mercy?

"You could ask him yourself, he is awake now," Glenda suggested flatly, her statement a gentle nudge towards direct communication.

"Sure, okay," I agreed, nodding, though the prospect of broaching the subject directly filled me with an inexplicable hesitance.

How did you ask someone if they'd slept well when you'd laughed at their vulnerability the night before? How did you make casual conversation about rest when you'd dismissed their attempt at gratitude with a dismissive snort? The social calculus seemed impossibly complex.

"I'll do that then. I'll just grab my bag first."

The smile I offered Glenda was uncomfortable, a poor mask for the mix of concern and responsibility that tugged at me.

Pushing my way inside Jamie's tent, I was acutely aware of the delicate balance we all maintained, each of us orbiting the others in a silent dance of mutual support and individual resilience. The canvas flap fell closed behind me, and I was suddenly in the dim interior, the morning light filtering weakly through the fabric.

"You two look well," I ventured as I stood up, striving to infuse a note of cheer into my voice despite the complexity of emotions swirling within me.

The tent was dim, the morning light filtering weakly through the canvas, illuminating Jamie and Joel in soft, forgiving tones. The space smelled of sweat and something else—something metallic and faintly wrong. Blood, perhaps. Or something less identifiable. Something that belonged to whatever Joel had become.

Joel sat propped against a pile of supplies, his eyes tracking my movements with an awareness that hadn't been there yesterday. The stitches on his throat stood out starkly against his pale skin—Glenda's careful work, holding together flesh that had been sliced open and left for dead. But beneath them, the flesh looked... alive. Healing. His right hand was wrapped in a crude splint—Glenda's work again, no doubt—the broken finger I had caused held immobile against its neighbours.

My broken finger. My handiwork. The evidence of my violence displayed prominently on his hand.

I forced myself not to look at it. Forced myself to keep my eyes on safe territory—the corner of the tent, the supplies stacked against the wall, anywhere but Joel's wrapped hand.

"Well enough," came Jamie's succinct reply, his voice carrying an undercurrent of resilience mixed with resignation.

He looked exhausted, the kind of bone-deep tiredness that came from worry rather than physical exertion. Dark circles had carved themselves beneath his eyes. His usually sharp features seemed softer, blurred by fatigue. How much had he slept, watching over his resurrected son? How many hours had he spent in this tent, waiting for Joel to breathe, to move, to show some sign that he was still—or again—among the living?

"I'm just collecting my suitcase to take to the other tent," I explained, deliberately keeping my gaze away from Joel.

The last thing I wanted was to make the situation more uncomfortable than it already was. The broken finger hung between us, unacknowledged, a silent accusation that I wasn't ready to address. I hastily gathered the few items of clothing scattered on the floor beside my bag—a shirt that had slipped free during unpacking, a sock that had wandered—stuffing them in before zipping it up with a decisive motion.

"Why?" Jamie's voice cut through the air, a note of curiosity or perhaps challenge in his tone.

I paused, the question hanging between us, heavy with implications. Such a simple word, carrying so much weight.

"Oh," I began, my voice slightly hesitant as I avoided turning back to face them. "Kain and I thought it would be a good idea if we took the third tent and left you and Joel to have this one."

It was a reasonable arrangement. Father and son together. The healthy separated from the healing. Privacy for a man who had died and returned, who might not want strangers witnessing whatever process of recovery he was undergoing.

"And Luke if he ever stays with us," I added, almost as an afterthought.

"Hmph," Jamie scoffed, a sound rich with scepticism and perhaps a hint of disdain. "I'm not sure Luke will be spending many nights with us."

His words left me momentarily puzzled, my brow furrowing in confusion. Jamie's comment hinted at something deeper—a story untold or expectations unmet regarding Luke. Sure, Luke had been distracted, a shadow figure flitting in and out of our collective existence, but his need for rest, for a place among us, remained undeniable—at least, in my eyes. He was still my brother. Whatever secrets he kept, whatever absences he accumulated, he was still family. Family counted for something, even here. Perhaps especially here.

With the bag now in tow, I felt the weight of the unspoken hanging heavy in the air. I chose not to press further, to delve into the meaning behind Jamie's words or to challenge the scepticism that laced them. Instead, I let myself out of the tent without another word, the act of leaving marking a silent acknowledgment of the complexities and tensions that wove through our group, binding us together even as they pulled us apart.

The broken finger stayed behind me in that tent, unmentioned, unforgiven, unforgotten.

"Do you have a preference as to side?" I called out to Kain, my voice echoing slightly as I emerged from the dimness of Jamie's tent.

The transition from the sheltered interior to the outside world felt symbolic—a step into a new chapter of our shared survival. The sun hit my face with unexpected warmth, and I squinted against the brightness.

"They're both the same, really," Kain replied, his voice stretching as leisurely as his arms above his head.

He was awake now, properly awake, standing and stretching with the unselfconscious flexibility of youth. Watching him, I felt every one of my thirty-something years in my aching joints and stiff muscles.

"Fair enough," I responded with a casual shrug, my mind already turning over the possibilities of our new living arrangement.

Carrying my bag into the tent, I chose a corner in the left wing almost instinctively—the corner furthest from the entrance, the corner that felt most protected, most private. Setting down my belongings with a sense of finality, I began the meditative act of unravelling my sleeping bag and smoothing it out on the floor.

Working out the lumps of dust beneath it with careful pats and adjustments was strangely soothing. Pat, smooth, pat again. Check for rocks. Remove the small stone that had somehow appeared. Smooth again. The rhythm of it was almost like making a bed—a domestic ritual transported to an alien world.

"So, this is home," I reminded myself with a murmur, the words barely audible.

The thought of personalising this space flickered through my mind like a distant dream—adding the comforts of a large pillow or two, drawers, hangers, and especially some form of light. A lamp. A candle. Something to push back the darkness when night fell. The idea of sleeping here, under the shelter of the tent rather than by the campfire, seemed almost luxurious in its novelty. A roof—even a canvas roof. Walls—even fabric walls. Privacy—even the illusion of it. Things that had seemed so basic on Earth now felt like extraordinary gifts.

A slight grimace marred my expression as I considered the distance between this makeshift home and the possibility of bringing my children here.

The ache of missing them was a constant companion, a hollowness in my chest that never quite went away. It sharpened at odd moments—seeing a stone that Rose would have collected for her "treasure box," noticing how the dust made patterns that Mack would have photographed with the intensity he brought to everything. The hope that they were too engrossed in the joys of spending school holidays with their grandparents to feel the weight of my absence was both comfort and torment. Would Mack be asking questions? He always asked questions—endless, probing questions that cut to the heart of things. Would Rose be crying for Daddy at bedtime? Her small voice calling for me, her arms reaching up for the hug I couldn't give?

Or had they settled into the familiar routine of Claire's parents' house, distracted by treats and attention and the particular brand of spoiling that grandparents specialised in?

I forced the thoughts away. There was nothing I could do about it from here. Nothing except build something worth bringing them to. Nothing except transform this dust-covered canvas box into a home that a six-year-old girl would find magical, that a ten-year-old boy would find worthy of his endless curiosity.

"I'm going for a walk to the Drop Zone," I announced, stepping back out into the relentless brightness of the day. "Take stock of what Luke's left us."

"I doubt you'll find anything new. I haven't seen him yet this morning," Glenda's words were a gentle reality check, delivered without malice.

"But I'm sure there might be useful things we didn't notice before," she quickly added, her voice tinged with optimism as she caught the fleeting shadow of disappointment on my face.

Always practical, always finding the silver lining. I appreciated that about her, even when the silver lining felt impossibly thin.

Taking my time, I trudged through the thick dust, my footsteps a slow, deliberate dance with the earth beneath me. Each step kicked up clouds of dust that seemed to defy gravity, lingering in the air with a persistence that caught my attention. It fascinated me, this dance of particles, suspended as if time itself had slowed to marvel at their grace.

The dust must be exceptionally fine and light, I mused, its behaviour unlike anything I'd encountered before—a small wonder in our new world.

On Earth, dust settled quickly, fell back to where it belonged, obeyed the laws of physics without argument. Here, it hung in the air like it was waiting for something. Like it was watching. The thought should have been absurd—dust didn't watch, dust didn't wait—but in this place where men died and returned to life, where Portals connected worlds, where the sky was blue but not quite the right blue, nothing seemed entirely absurd anymore.

As I approached the large, vacant screen of the Portal—that impossible window between dimensions, currently dormant and transparent—I detoured to the right, passing through the small rock-pile gate that served as the Drop Zone's informal entrance. The piles of rocks, haphazard yet deliberate, felt like silent guardians to the trove of discarded hopes and potential resources that lay beyond.

We had built those markers ourselves—Jamie and I, in those first confusing days—to designate this space as important. As if marking territory could make any of this feel more controlled. As if stacking rocks could impose order on a world that defied understanding.

Despite Glenda's earlier prediction, a part of me had held onto a sliver of hope that perhaps Luke had returned in the night, had left something new, something overlooked in our previous forays. A fresh delivery. A surprise. Some sign that the outside world—the real world, Earth, whatever we called it now—hadn't forgotten us entirely.

However, it didn't take long for me to conclude that the Drop Zone remained unchanged since my last visit. The same boxes. The same supplies. The same gaps where things had already been taken. The footprints from yesterday, half-filled with new dust but still visible. The evidence of our previous scavenging, untouched by any subsequent delivery.

Luke had not been here, or if he had, he'd left no trace of his passage. The realisation was a quiet disappointment, a reminder of the unpredictability and often fruitlessness of our scavenging efforts. My brother was out there somewhere—in Clivilius, on Earth, passing through the Portal that connected them—and I had no idea where or why or when he might return. He kept his own counsel. He always had, even as children. But now his secrets felt heavier, more consequential. Now his absences left gaps that couldn't easily be filled.

I stood for a moment in the silence, the vast empty landscape stretching out around me in all directions—red dust, distant mountains, that endless blue sky. The Portal loomed nearby, silent and dormant, a door to everywhere and nowhere. And I felt the familiar weight of uncertainty settle onto my shoulders.

Another day in Clivilius. Another day of waiting, of working, of wondering. Another day of hoping that somehow, against all odds, we would find our way through this.

Another day of telling myself that this was home now, even as every part of me longed for a different home—a home with my children's voices in it, a home where the sky was the right shade of blue, a home where men stayed dead when they died and dust behaved the way dust was supposed to behave.