What Grief Becomes

"Grief is exhausting—it hollows you out and offers nothing in return. Hatred, though? Hatred gives you something to do with your hands."

The first light of dawn crept over the horizon like an intruder, staining the sky in colours that had no right to be beautiful. Gold bleeding into pink, pink dissolving into pale blue—the kind of sunrise that on any other morning might have stirred something in me.

Now it felt like mockery.

My eyelids had become enemies, weighted with sand and grief, dropping toward surrender every few seconds before I jerked them open again. I'd lost count of how many times this battle had repeated through the long hours of darkness—the slow descent toward sleep, the violent snap back to wakefulness, the fresh wave of emptiness that accompanied the reminder of why I was here.

Duke deserved a vigil. Duke deserved someone to stay awake with him through his last night, even if that night had extended hours past the moment his heart stopped.

My legs had gone numb somewhere around midnight, submerged in the river's cold embrace until they'd stopped sending signals entirely. The sensation—or lack of it—felt appropriate. Why should my legs feel anything when the rest of me had become hollow, scraped clean of everything except this terrible, consuming void?

I held him against my chest. Had been holding him for hours now, cradling his body the way I'd cradled him as a puppy, the way I'd held him a thousand ordinary times when he'd bounded toward me after work, his whole body vibrating with the simple joy of reunion.

His fur had dried sometime in the small hours, stiffening where the blood had soaked through. The wound in his belly—that terrible gash that no amount of river magic could heal—had stopped weeping, its edges dark and final. He was lighter than he'd felt in life, as if something essential had departed along with his breath, leaving behind only the architecture of the dog he'd been.

Henri sat beside us on the bank, a small brown and white sentinel whose silence spoke louder than any howl. He hadn't left my side since I'd dragged myself from the water, since hands had pulled me back from that dark place beneath the surface where part of me had wanted to stay.

Every few minutes, Henri would lean forward and nudge Duke's form with his nose. The gesture was tentative, questioning—a dog's version of denial, perhaps. The inability to comprehend why his brother wouldn't wake up, wouldn't respond, wouldn't engage in the small rituals of sniffing and acknowledgement that defined their relationship.

Then Henri would place a kiss on Duke's head. A single lick, gentle and reverent, before settling back into his watchful position.

He's mourning. He knows Duke isn't coming back.

The thought should have shattered me. Should have cracked open whatever remained of my composure. I'd done enough of that during the night—wept until my tear ducts seemed to have dried up entirely, until my throat was raw from sounds I hadn't known I was capable of making.

But now, in the pale light of morning, I felt nothing.

Not nothing exactly. There was something in my chest—something cold and hard, something that had crystallised during the long hours like ice forming on still water. It wasn't grief, though grief was its foundation. It wasn't despair, though despair had been its catalyst.

It was anger.

The realisation surfaced slowly, filtering through the fog of exhaustion. I was angry. Furiously, savagely angry in ways I'd never experienced before.

Angry at what had attacked us. Angry at the night for hiding them. Angry at every element of this hostile dimension that had conspired to take Duke from me.

Angry at myself for letting go. For that single moment when he'd slipped from my grasp and disappeared into darkness.

But most of all, I was angry at Clivilius itself.

The river lapped against my numb legs, its current gentle and indifferent. This same water had brought Joel back from death. This same mystical, impossible water had knitted my son's slit throat closed and restarted a heart that had stopped beating. I'd watched it happen. I'd held Joel's cold body and felt the moment when life somehow returned.

Why not Duke?

The question had been screaming through my mind for hours. The lagoon had performed miracles before. The soil had grown plants in seconds. Clivilius bent the laws of nature like they were suggestions rather than rules.

But when I'd begged—when I'd pleaded with everything I had for this dimension to save my dog—nothing had happened. The water had remained just water. The wound had remained just a wound. Duke had slipped away while I held him, and all of Clivilius's mysterious powers had done absolutely fucking nothing.

Rejected.

That's what it felt like. A rejection so personal, so deliberate, that it couldn't be coincidence. Clivilius had chosen to save Joel. Clivilius had chosen not to save Duke. Some force had weighed my dog's life and found it wanting.

Fuck this place. Fuck its magic and its miracles and its selective mercy.

And fuck Luke for bringing us here.

The thought arrived with the weight of verdict. Luke had opened the portal. Luke had pushed me through without asking, without explaining, without giving me any choice. If we'd stayed in Berriedale—if Luke hadn't decided to play god with other people's lives—Duke would still be alive. He'd be sleeping on his bed, safe and warm and whole.

The anger felt good, in a terrible way. It filled the hollow spaces that grief had carved, gave me something to hold onto when the emptiness threatened to swallow me whole. I'd spent the night cycling through despair and denial and bargaining, and now I'd arrived at something that felt more sustainable.

Hatred.

I hated Clivilius. Hated the dimension that had trapped me here, hated the forces that governed it, hated every miracle it had granted and every mercy it had withheld.

Henri nudged Duke again. Another gentle kiss to his brother's head. Then, with a soft whine that sounded like resignation, he curled against my side, pressing his warm body against my cold, wet clothes.

We sat there together as the sun continued its rise—two mourners keeping vigil over what remained of a family broken beyond repair.

And in the ruins of my heart, a new conviction took root.

Vengeance.

The word was a whisper at first, barely audible even in my own mind. But it grew stronger with each repetition, fed by anger, nourished by grief.

I would find whatever had killed Duke. I would hunt it across this entire dimension if necessary. I would make whatever had taken him answer for it.

The lagoon had failed me. Clivilius had failed me. Luke had failed me.

But I would not fail Duke.

I had no weapons, no skills, no understanding of what we were fighting. But the conviction was absolute, a flame burning in the darkness of my despair.

There would be retribution. Blood for blood. Pain for pain.

I promise you, Duke. Whatever took you from me, I will make them pay.

The vow settled into my bones like concrete setting. I didn't know how I would fulfil it. I didn't know what it would cost.

But I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I would spend whatever remained of my time in this dimension trying.

Henri pressed closer. I wrapped one arm around him while the other continued to cradle Duke's body, holding what remained of my family through sheer force of will.

The sun rose higher. The river flowed on.

And vengeance became my heartbeat.