The road into Warinook wasn’t even paved.

Just gravel, dust, and the illusion of direction. I pulled up in a borrowed ute with the aircon dead and the radio whispering static. The sign at the town’s edge read WELCOME TO WARINOOK - POPULATION 89. Someone had spray-painted a 7 over the 9, then crossed that out too. Beneath it, a slogan faded into the rusted metal: “Gateway to Something Greater.”

Sure.

I wasn’t here for the scenery. I was here for my brother.

Or, more accurately, to find out why he stopped returning calls, texts, and eventually, himself.

No one said much when he disappeared. He did that sometimes - dropped off for days, even weeks. But this was different. His worksite confirmed he’d left early. His phone last pinged near Warinook. After that: nothing. Like he slipped off the map and into the earth.

So I drove out.

The town felt wrong the second I stepped out of the ute. Not dangerous. Not haunted. Just… out of phase. Like it had once belonged to the world but forgot how to stay connected.

The air smelled like burnt grass and distant rain that would never arrive. Sunlight bounced off corrugated iron and into my eyes. A lone pub sat at the center of town, “The Red Dog,” its door swinging slowly even without wind.

I walked inside.

The bartender didn’t ask what I wanted. He just poured something brown into a dusty glass and slid it my way like we were resuming a conversation I hadn’t started.

“I’m looking for someone,” I said.

He kept polishing a glass that didn’t need it.

“Guy came through a few weeks back,” I added. “Tall, ginger beard, name’s Ryan. My brother.”

The bartender stopped moving. For a second, the silence deepened - not heavier, just more aware of itself.

“You’re late,” he said finally. “He already went looking.”

“Looking for what?”

He didn’t answer. Just nodded toward the back exit. “You should talk to Esther.”

“Who’s Esther?”

“The one who sent him south.”

South of Warinook, there’s only flat country and the beginnings of a gorge system no GPS likes to map. A place where compasses don’t always agree with each other.

Still, I found her. Esther.

She was parked behind the pub in an old caravan that smelled like eucalyptus oil and cigarettes. Mid-50s, long gray braid, eyes that looked like they’d watched a few decades too closely.

“He wasn’t ready,” she said before I even opened my mouth.

“For what?”

“The Call. Same one that brings all of you out here eventually.”

“I’m not him.”

“No,” she said. “But you will be.”

I laughed. “You want to tell me where he went or not?”

She pointed a gnarled finger toward the horizon, where the flat ground dropped off into distant red haze.

“He followed the ridge.”

I looked. Nothing but dry dirt and sunburnt stone.

“What the hell’s out there?”

Esther smiled - not kind, not cruel. Just sure.

“The Deep Road. Once you see it, you don’t come back the same.”

I left without another word.

But I kept looking back over my shoulder, half-expecting her caravan to vanish or fold into itself like a dream evaporating in daylight.

It didn’t.

The town remained behind me. Still. Watching.

And I stepped over the first ridge.

The ground under my boots shifted - not like a landslide or soft sand, but like something beneath had just taken notice.

Then, a footprint.

Fresh.

Not mine.

Follow the footprint. Nothing natural moves that quietly out here...