Twenty Minutes, Tops

"Your gut tells you something's wrong. Your manners tell you not to make a scene. Guess which one wins every time."

The Brooker Highway was quiet for a Thursday morning, traffic moving freely as I headed south towards Berriedale. I had the windows cracked despite the cold, needing the bite of winter air to keep my head clear after everything that had happened. The radio was playing something I wasn't really listening to — Triple J, probably, whatever was on — just background noise to fill the space between my ears where thoughts kept circling back to places I didn't want them to go.

Brianne's face when I'd left. The frustration she was trying not to show. The way she'd said go see your mother like the words tasted sour.

I'd sort it out when I got back. Quick check on Jamie, confirm he was fine, grab those pastries from Battery Point, smooth things over. That was the plan. Simple enough.

The turnoff to Berriedale came up faster than expected — I'd been driving on autopilot, muscle memory taking over while my brain chewed on other things. I indicated, took the exit, wound through suburban streets that all looked vaguely the same. Brick houses, neat lawns, cars in driveways. The kind of neighbourhood where people mowed on Saturdays and complained about council rates.

Uncle Jamie's place sat on the corner of Wallcrest Road. I'd been here maybe half a dozen times over the years — Christmas drinks, a birthday barbecue once, the odd visit when Mum dragged me along to check in. It was the sort of house you'd drive past without noticing: split-level, pale brick, a garden that was tidy without being memorable. The concrete driveway had a crack running through it near the letterbox — tree roots, probably, pushing up from underneath. Needed patching. I noticed these things now, couldn't help it. Three years of construction work had rewired my brain to see buildings as collections of problems waiting to be fixed.

Jamie's Mazda sat in the driveway. Silver, sensible, exactly what you'd expect from a bloke who worked in aged care and didn't give a stuff about impressing anyone. I pulled in behind it, killed the engine, and sat there for a second with my hands on the wheel.

Right. Get in, check Jamie's alive, get out. Twenty minutes, tops.

I climbed out of the car, the cold hitting me properly now that I wasn't moving. July in Tassie — the kind of grey, biting morning that made you wonder why anyone lived here voluntarily. Three steps up to the front porch, concrete like the driveway, and I knocked on the door before I could talk myself into leaving.

It wasn't Jamie who answered.

Luke stood in the doorway looking like he'd just crawled out of bed — tracksuit pants, wrinkled t-shirt, hair flattened on one side in that way that meant pillow, not product. His eyes had that unfocused quality of someone who wasn't fully online yet, still buffering.

"Oh. Hey, Kain."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

It came out automatically, the polite thing to say, even though a part of me registered that it was after nine in the morning. Not exactly sparrow's fart.

"Nah, I was already awake. It's about time I got myself out of bed."

We stood there looking at each other, that awkward pause when neither person knows whose turn it is to talk. I'd met Luke plenty of times — family stuff, mostly, the kind of gatherings where you nod at someone across the room and maybe swap three sentences about footy or the weather — but we'd never had what you'd call a conversation. He was Jamie's partner, which made him family-adjacent, but that didn't mean I actually knew the bloke.

"So, what can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for Uncle Jamie." The words came out flatter than I'd meant, so I kept going, filling the silence. "Well, not really, but my mom has been trying to reach him for days, and he's not answering his phone. So, she got worried and told Nan, who had a bit of a freak-out and convinced Mum that something might have happened to him. And now, here I am."

Luke's gaze drifted somewhere past my shoulder, fixing on nothing. His jaw worked like he was chewing on something he couldn't quite swallow.

"So, is Uncle Jamie here?"

Luke closed his eyes for a second, his face doing something I couldn't read. When he opened them again, there was a quality to his expression that put me on edge — not quite panic, but close. Like a bloke who'd been asked a question he hadn't prepared an answer for.

"Right," he said, drawing it out. "Umm... Well... Umm..."

I waited. Felt my back teeth grinding together. It wasn't a hard question. Yes or no. Was my uncle in this house or wasn't he?

"He just popped out for a little bit."

The words came out in a rush, tumbling over each other like they were trying to escape before Luke could think better of them. I looked at him, then at the Mazda sitting in the driveway, then back at his face.

"But isn't that his car in the driveway?"

Something flickered across Luke's features — there and gone, quick as a shadow. "Ah, yes, it is," he said, his voice lighter now, almost breezy. "Gladys picked him up."

Gladys. Jamie’s best friend for close to a decade Gladys? The explanation made a kind of sense on paper, but something about the way Luke delivered it felt off.

I could push. Ask follow-up questions. Demand to know where exactly she'd taken him and why Jamie had apparently buggered off without his car or his phone.

But that would mean standing on this porch having an uncomfortable conversation with a bloke I barely knew, and honestly, I just wanted to get this done and get home. Mum had asked me to check. I'd checked. Jamie wasn't here. Box ticked.

"Okay."

I was already turning to leave when Luke spoke again.

"But you're welcome to stay and wait for him to return. He shouldn't be too long."

The offer hung in the air between us. My brain scrambled for an excuse — somewhere to be, something to do, any reason to politely decline and get the hell out of here. But nothing came that wouldn't sound like a brush-off, and Mum had raised me to be polite even when I didn't feel like it.

Shit.

"I guess."

The silence hit me first.

Jamie's place was never quiet. Not really. He had two Shih Tzus — Duke and Henri — who treated every visitor like a returning war hero. The second you stepped through the door, you'd be mobbed by a blur of fur and yapping and those ridiculous little tails going a million miles an hour. Annoying as hell, honestly, but you got used to it. Expected it.

Today, nothing. The house sat there like it was holding its breath.

"Where are Duke and Henri?"

"They must be outside."

Luke's voice was barely above a whisper, which seemed weird. I looked towards the window, the ones that overlooked a corner of the yard. No movement. No muffled barking from outside.

The leather couch was black and overstuffed, the kind of thing that looked flash in a showroom but was actually murder to sit on for more than twenty minutes. I dropped onto it anyway, my body grateful to be off my feet even as my brain kept snagging on things that didn't add up.

The missing dogs. The car in the driveway. Luke's fumbled non-answer before he'd landed on the Gladys story.

You're being paranoid, I told myself. Mum's worry is catching. That's all.

"Would you like a coffee?"

Luke was already moving towards the kitchen, gesturing at the kettle on the counter.

"Yeah, thanks."

I watched him fill the kettle, pull mugs from a cupboard. Normal domestic movements. Totally unremarkable. So why did my shoulders feel like they'd crept up around my ears?

The lounge was tidy in that way that suggested regular cleaning rather than obsessive neatness. The furniture was decent quality, nothing special, the kind of stuff you'd pick up from one of those warehouse places where everything's fifty percent off but you have to assemble it yourself. I'd done that with Brianne when she'd moved into the manor — spent a whole afternoon swearing at an IKEA bookshelf while she laughed at me from the bed.

Brianne. Christ. I needed to get out of here.

"Can I use your loo?"

"Sure, you know where it is."

Down the hallway, first door on the left. I'd used it before at family things, standing in line behind cousins while Jamie apologised for only having one bathroom. The memory felt strange now, like it belonged to a different version of this house. A louder version. One with dogs.

The hallway was dim, no lights on, and my footsteps sounded too loud, even against the carpet. The bathroom door was where I remembered it. I went in, closed it behind me, and stood there in the quiet.

Something was wrong.

I couldn't put my finger on it — nothing specific, nothing I could point at and say there, that's the problem. Just a feeling. The kind of gut-level unease that usually meant something was about to go sideways on a job site. Too quiet. Too still. Like the house itself was waiting for something to happen.

I took a piss, washed my hands, splashed water on my face. My reflection in the mirror looked tired, which made sense given I'd been up since half-seven and the morning had been... eventful. But there was something else in my expression too. Something I didn't like.

Duke should have found me by now. That dog had a nose like a bloody radar — could hear a car door close from three streets away and would start yapping before you'd even made it up the path. The fact that he hadn't come scratching at the bathroom door meant either he wasn't in the house, or—

Or what? What was I thinking? That something had happened to Jamie's dogs? That Luke had done something to them?

Get a grip, mate. You're losing the plot.

I dried my hands, opened the door, and headed back towards the kitchen.

Coffee beans were scattered across the floor.

That was the first thing I saw — dark granules scattered from the counter towards the fridge, crunching under Luke's feet as he crouched with a dustpan, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. His face was flushed, sweat beading at his hairline even though the house was cold enough that I'd kept my jacket on.

"Everything okay in here?"

He looked up, and for a split second I saw something in his eyes that made my stomach clench. Not embarrassment. Something else. Something that looked a lot like fear.

"Yeah, the stupid coffee lid came off as I was taking it out of the cupboard."

Fair enough. Containers had lids. Lids came off. Shit happened. But Luke's hands were shaking as he swept beans into the dustpan, and there was a quality to his movements that reminded me of blokes I'd seen on site right before they cracked under pressure. That barely-held-together energy. That sense of something about to give.

"Do you need some help with that?"

"Nah, it's all good." He straightened up, dumped the beans in the bin, wiped his palms on his pants. His eyes were everywhere except on my face. "But, um, I actually remembered something. I wanted to move the TV cabinet downstairs. Jamie keeps saying he'll help me, but he never seems to get around to it. Don't suppose you can lend a hand? It'll only take a couple of minutes."

I stared at him.

He wanted me to help move furniture. Right now. While I was here to check on my missing uncle who apparently wasn't missing at all, just out with Gladys, in a house where the dogs had gone silent and the host was sweating bullets over spilled coffee beans.

This was weird. This whole thing was weird. Every instinct I had was telling me to make an excuse and get out of here, to go home to Brianne and forget about Jamie and let Mum sort out her own family drama for once.

But Luke was looking at me with those desperate eyes, and the words it'll only take a couple of minutes were hanging in the air, and I thought about how awkward it would be to refuse. How I'd have to explain that I didn't want to help because something felt off, even though I couldn't say what. How that would sound. How Mum would react when I told her I'd bailed on the visit early because of a bad vibe.

Pathetic. That's how it would sound. Like I was making excuses.

"I guess I can."

"That'd be awesome! Thanks heaps."

The relief that flooded Luke's face was way too much for the situation. He practically sagged with it, his whole body loosening like a knot coming undone. Then he was moving, gesturing towards the sliding door at the far end of the living room.

I followed him, my boots crunching on a few stray coffee beans he'd missed. Luke was talking as we walked — something about the neighbours, something he'd seen across the road last night — but I wasn't really listening. My attention had narrowed to the sliding door ahead, to the strange pressure building behind my ribs, to the voice in my head that was getting harder to ignore.

Something's wrong. Get out. Get out now.

Luke reached the door. His hand reached for the handle.

I should have left. Should have trusted my gut, made up some bullshit about needing to be somewhere, walked out of this too-quiet house and its nervous occupant and its missing dogs and never looked back.

But I didn't. Because I was Kain bloody Jeffries, who couldn't say no to his mother, couldn't refuse a simple favour, couldn't make a scene even when every part of him was screaming that this was a mistake.

Luke slid the door open.

And something hit me in the back.

Sharp. Hard. Right between the shoulder blades, enough force to knock the breath out of me and send me stumbling forward.

"What the—"

My hands shot out, grabbing for the doorframe, fingers scraping against wood as I tried to catch myself. But what I saw beyond the door wasn't stairs. Wasn't a downstairs living room. Wasn't anything that should exist in a brick house in suburban bloody Berriedale.

Colours. That was the only word for it. A churning, swirling mass of colours that hurt to look at, that seemed to pull at my vision like water circling a drain. The wall that should have been at the top of the stairwell landing had become something else — something alive, something wrong, tendrils of light reaching towards me like fingers.

"Fuck!" Luke's voice, somewhere behind me. High and panicked.

And then the voice. Not sound — not really — but something that bypassed my ears entirely and landed straight in the centre of my skull, resonating through bone and brain and whatever else was in there.

Clive sees you, Kain Jeffries.

"What?"

I tried to turn, to look at Luke, to demand an explanation for whatever the hell was happening. But my right hand was slipping, my grip on the doorframe failing, and before I could recover — before I could do anything — something nudged the back of my knee.

Deliberate. Precise.

My leg buckled.

And I fell.

The colours took me.

That's the only way I can describe it. One second I was in Luke's house, the next I was falling through something that wasn't air, wasn't water, wasn't anything I had a name for. The light was everywhere — in my eyes, my lungs, my skin — and the sensation was like being turned inside out, every cell in my body screaming that this was wrong, impossible, not meant to happen. It felt like hours and a split second all at the same time.

Then I hit the ground.

Hard. Palms first, then knees, the impact jarring through my wrists and up into my shoulders. The surface beneath me was dry and packed, gritty against my skin. Dirt. Actual dirt.

I stayed down for a second, maybe two, my heart slamming against my ribs so hard I could feel it in my throat. Tried to breathe. Tried to think. Tried to make any of this make sense.

Then I pushed myself up and looked around.

No house. No Luke. No sliding door or anything else from the world I'd left behind.

Just... space.

Open space stretching in every direction, rolling hills of rust-red earth under a sky that was blue but somehow not. The sun hung overhead, warm on my back.

The voice came again, filling my skull without passing through my ears.

Welcome to Clivilius, Kain Jeffries.

I knelt in the dirt of a place that shouldn't exist, the warmth of an alien sun on my skin, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Brianne. The baby. Mum waiting for a phone call that would tell her Jamie was fine. The pastries I'd planned to buy, the apology I'd planned to make, the future I'd been building with the woman I loved.

Gone. All of it, gone.

Luke had pushed me. My uncle's partner, the bloke I'd known for years, had stabbed me in the back and shoved me through some kind of... what? Portal? Doorway? Whatever the hell that swirling light had been.

I didn't know where I was. Didn't know how I'd got here. Didn't know if there was any way back.

All I knew was that my life — the one I'd been living half an hour ago, the one with Brianne and the baby and the apprenticeship and the plans we'd made — had just been ripped away from me like something torn out by the roots.

Clivilius.

I was somewhere called Clivilius, and I had no bloody idea what that meant.