Previously—January 1, 2025

Flinders Ranges, South Australia

"I am the leader. I am the leader."

"Look, mate, calm down. Just calm down. Relax. Take a sip of water.

Slowly now. That's the boy. Have another sip. Good. Now, just take it easy, okay, mate?"

Close by, behind a bush, black hands cautiously parted the thick shrub, and peering eyes keenly surveyed the scene before them.

Two white men were on a small bush track. One was completely naked and lying on his back, while the other, in khaki shorts and shirt, knelt next to him and propped up his head to help him sip water from a well- used army water bottle. The man with the bottle eventually stood up and revealed a full shock of blonde hair as he took off his bushman's hat and wiped down his sweaty brow with his handkerchief.

In the dry and glaring midday heat, the young man sat down on a rock beside the track, under the shade of a leafy eucalyptus tree. He looked at the strange man stretched out on the ground in front of him. He was curious as to how this naked man had ended up in this isolated place.

This day was turning out to be a lot more eventful than he had envisioned. The outback police officer, Peter Brand, had never encountered anything like this during his career with the force.

It was the first day of the new year, and if it was an indication of how the rest of the year was going to shape up, then it was going to be a year to remember.

He had been stationed in Port Augusta in the state of South Australia for nearly five years, ever since graduating from the police academy in Adelaide. Patrolling the local area of approximately ten thousand square kilometres was his primary duty. This was a country for men—harsh but beautiful.

Brand loved travelling from town to town, helping the local forest rangers. He particularly liked the Flinders Ranges; these ranges extended for over 430 kilometres and contained three national parks. There, he could lose himself among the rugged beauty of the purple mountains. His youth and his bronzed good looks attracted many a young lady, but he still preferred his own company somewhere out in the bush, away from the human race.

The local Aborigines were his main concern, and they kept him busy. Peter considered them a lost cause with no real prospect of a future in their own land. Most of them coped with the white man's rule by drinking alcohol. The invading whites, with their superior attitude, considered the blacks not much better than animals. They stripped them of their humanity and their rights as the indigenous people of the land. The Aboriginals had no concept of ownership. They were simply the caretakers of the land and were thankful for the bounty it provided.

That day, Brand had made his way to Wilpena Pound in the Flinders Ranges National Park, approximately 250 kilometres from his base at Port Augusta. This reserve lay just over 400 kilometres north of Adelaide, and the Pound was one of the most extraordinary geological formations in Australia. It was a vast natural amphitheatre ringed with sheer cliffs and jagged rocks. The Pound floor was flat and covered with trees and grass. To Peter, it appeared as if the land and been formed by a meteor that had fallen to Earth millions of years ago.

He was investigating a complaint from German hikers camping in the area. The young couple claimed that four young Aboriginals had attacked and robbed them. Brand surmised that the German tourists had probably just been intimidated by the sight of the youths and fled, leaving their belongings behind.

He had driven his four-wheel drive as far as he could along the main track to the Pound. He set up his one-man tent on a hilly outcrop and took off on foot through the smaller tracks towards the hikers' campground.

The refreshing breeze blew gently on this torrid day. It helped alleviate his hopelessness in finding the young men. They were undoubtedly watching him. He would only find them if their curiosity got the better of them and they showed themselves.

Peter stopped to look intently at a haze glittering through the trees in front of him. It was a strange yet beautifully coloured sight. The haze started to concentrate at one spot on the track ahead and thickened downward and inwards, changing shape as it whirled around. Even with his attention focused on the phenomena before him, Peter noticed that the breeze had stopped. All was unusually and absolutely still. Yet something made the thick mist move. He could not hear a sound, not even the familiar cawing of the many crows that inhabited the area.

It took him a few moments to comprehend that the haze was no longer there. Something else had taken its place among the trees—a solid and pale object, not an animal.

The apparition started to move unsteadily, and as it staggered through the shrub and headed towards him, he stood his ground and waited.

Brand soon saw a man completely naked, reeling from side to side, coming slowly closer. Staring ahead with glazed eyes—seemingly unaware that Peter was there—the man mumbled, "I am the leader. I am the leader," as he walked past the astonished onlooker.

"Who in fucking hell are you?" Peter yelled in a frightened and quivering voice.

The naked man stopped, unsteady on his feet, turned around, and, for the first time, appeared to notice Peter standing on the track. When the man opened his mouth to speak, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

Peter bent over the man and began reviving him with sips of water.

"What's your name, and what happened to you? Where are your clothes?" Peter asked. "How long have you been out here?"

The man looked up at him in a vague and puzzled trance. Peter noticed the man's eyes were the biggest and the most vivid blue he had ever seen.

It seemed as if two chunks of the clear sky had broken off and imbedded themselves in his face.

In that region, afternoons in January were stifling, while the nights could be freezing. "Were you out here last night?" Peter queried.

Receiving no reply from the hapless man, he decided to stop any further interrogation for now. The stranger had a serene look about him, with long, wavy dark hair and a long beard. Odder still, his hair and beard were perfectly washed and combed. His pale body was proportionate—not overly big, but muscular. There was not one grain of dirt on him. He looked as though he had just stepped out of a bath. Peter found it difficult to estimate how old the man was, but he figured he was roughly his own age: twenty-nine, maybe a bit older.

This is weird, he thought. Peter felt uneasy about admiring this seemingly perfect man. "Come on, mate. I'd better get you to the car and get a helicopter out here. You look physically okay, but I'm no doctor. You may need to be in a hospital."

He helped the man to his feet, and they started trekking back to Peter's camp, which was three kilometres away. With the naked man walking in front, Peter swatted at the endless annoying flies. "How come these bastards aren't pestering you?" he called up to the man. The little pests buzzed all around Peter, but the mystery man was free from them.

No answer came—not that Peter had really expected one anyway. Seemingly unaware of what was happening around him, the man walked on, still mumbling about being the leader.

A skinny black hand reached out...