The Place Between Worlds

The trench was done.

Not perfect, not permanent—but finished in the way that mattered. Water flowed where it should, pooled only where it was meant to, and vanished into the far dip of land beyond the treeline. Vince had walked the line that morning, boots sinking into the newly packed clay, eyes scanning for blockages or sabotage. There were none. Only wet earth, shaped with care.

But when he turned back toward the village, his eyes caught something new. Or maybe something he'd been too focused to notice before.

A wall had collapsed.

Not entirely, but enough. A thatched side panel, lashed together with twine and brittle reed, had given out under its own weight. Behind it, a crude interior was visible—dirt floor, straw bedding, a blanket hung up to block wind.

No one was home. But the sight made Vince still.

He looked around.

Roofs sagged under waterlogged weight. Some walls leaned precariously, saved only by shared support with neighboring huts. One had a corner blackened by mold. Another had a visible gap between roof and wall—large enough for rain or worse to slip through. In the early morning light, everything wore the tired lean of structures waiting to fail.

Sanitation was no longer the village's most urgent crisis.

Shelter was.

A cold wind ghosted between the huts, lifting a flap of fabric nailed to a frame. Somewhere, a child coughed—a deep, barking sound that didn't come from simple dust.

Vince felt the shift settle heavy in his gut.

The trench had bought them time. But it hadn't fixed the world.

He walked slowly, not down the main path, but between houses—watching the way rope held together weak joints, how bundles of grass had been shoved into eaves to stop wind. None of it was built to last. Most of it wouldn't last another storm.

He paused near one hut where a young woman was kneeling beside a cracked pot, scrubbing something with a worn cloth. Her baby—blanket-wrapped—dozed beside her on a fur scrap. She looked up as he passed. Not afraid. Not curious. Just tired.

Vince nodded to her.

She nodded back.

He crouched near the wall of her home, tapped the reed panel with a knuckle, then made a roof with his hands. Sloped them. Tapped the base again. Then crossed his arms and shivered.

Her eyes narrowed. Then she looked at her own roof.

Understanding flickered. Not complete. But enough.

He remembered something Marco had once said, years ago—half-drunk on red wine after a job gone right.

"You don't learn to survive by muscle, Vince. You learn by watching shit fall apart before it does."

Marco had been a thief. But also a former builder—one of those guys who took jobs between prison stints. Vince had learned more from listening to him complain about drywall than from any formal lesson.

That night, in a safehouse far from Naples, Marco had sketched a crude hut on a pizza box.

"Rain hits here," he'd said, stabbing a crust. "You want a slope. Always. Flat roofs are for dead men and gods."

Vince looked up now at the village's flat-roofed, patched-together shells.

Dead men and gods.

He stood again, eyes scanning for the weakest among them.

If winter came fast—if snow fell hard—they'd lose people.

He could smell it in the air.

And smell, Vince had learned, was always the first warning.

Vince didn't ask anyone.

He didn't wait for a meeting, a nod, or an invitation.

By midmorning, he was stripping bark from a fallen pine near the treeline, laying it flat to dry in the sun. He dug into the mossy loam where old firewood had rotted and came back with long, firm branches—not perfect lumber, but strong enough. His hands moved without hesitation. His back did not thank him.

He brought the first load to the hut of the woman with the infant.

She was still there—kneeling, same cracked pot, same silent eyes.

He dropped the materials just beside her wall. Not forceful. Just deliberate. Then knelt in the dirt, tapped a corner of the hut, and began to dig.

She watched him work. Didn't interrupt. Didn't offer help.

Not at first.

Then, after an hour, as he began fitting one of the firmer poles against the leaning joint, she stood. Took the cloth she'd been scrubbing with, rinsed it, and handed it to him.

To wipe his face.

A small gesture. But the kind that shifted something.

By midday, the sun had dried the bark flat enough to stack. Vince lashed a few together using spare twine from his own pack, reinforcing the side wall with a crude half-roof. Slanted. Sloped the way Marco had always insisted.

The woman returned with reeds. Not many, but bound. Fresh.

And then a second person came.

The boy from the trench. Joran. He didn't speak—just handed Vince a long stick. Then pointed at the roof.

"Slop," the boy said. "Slop."

Vince blinked. "Slope," he corrected gently. "Slope."

The boy grinned.

Another set of feet arrived. The old man. Still barefoot. Still carrying things. Today, it was flat rocks—stacked in a crude netted sling on his back.

He said nothing.

But set them down beside the hut.

Later came a girl with moss. A man with rope. Another woman with lengths of bark already split and tied.

No one spoke to Vince directly.

But they were building beside him now.

The second hut began before the first was even fully finished. Someone had seen the sloped wall and mimicked it. Not perfect. But shaped. Guided.

He remembered something else Marco used to say, especially when they were on a job with no plan:

> "Once you start solving problems, the universe starts pitching in. It's lazy until it's led."

Vince didn't think of himself as a leader. He never had. Not really.

But he knew how to show the first move.

And right now, that meant building.

One hut at a time.

By sunset, three structures had new supports. Two others had makeshift roof slopes. One woman had started weaving thatch with tighter knots after watching Vince reinforce a ridgepole.

It wasn't an army. It wasn't even a crew.

But it was movement.

And in a place like this, movement meant survival.

When Vince finally sat back on the edge of the fire pit, his knees aching and fingers covered in resin, a shadow fell over him.

A young boy. Older than Joran—maybe twelve.

He handed Vince a flat piece of bark with something scratched into it.

A sketch.

Crude, messy. But recognizable.

A sloped hut.

And beside it, a figure—broad-shouldered, dark hair, holding a stick.

Vince stared at it.

Then laughed.

Rough. Quiet. But real.

He looked at the boy. Nodded once.

The boy ran off.

Behind him, a few villagers had gathered near the newly patched huts. Not talking. But not avoiding him either.

Vince leaned back on the log, watching the smoke curl toward the stars.

Tomorrow, there would be more roofs.

Tomorrow, he'd find stronger bark.

Tomorrow, he'd teach someone how to lash joints that wouldn't collapse in rain.

Because now, they knew he would keep building.

And they had started building too.

He could smell it in the air.

And smell, Vince had learned, was always the first warning.

He turned to the slope beyond the treeline—still green, but paling. The wind carried a bite now, one that didn't belong to autumn alone.

Winter was coming.

And these homes wouldn't survive it. Not like this.