CHAPTER TWELVE:
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The fire had long since died out.
A pale mist crawled low over the jungle floor, threading through roots and rocks like hungry fingers. The moon, once full and silver, was now a faint smudge behind clouds that didn't move. It was as if time had stalled—or forgotten them altogether.
Kairo couldn't sleep.
He sat upright, wrapped in his damp coat, staring into the shadows as if waiting for something he couldn't name. Every now and then, the wind would pass through the trees and carry with it a whisper—a murmur of words he didn't understand, yet felt deep in his bones.
"Nara."
The name surfaced again.
He didn't know if he'd heard it in his dream or if it had been spoken aloud. He only knew it made his skin crawl and his heartbeat quicken.
Nearby, Ember lay still, her face tense even in slumber. Lewin twitched in his sleep, muttering fragmented words: "…hollow… burn it down… can't forget…"
The island didn't rest. Not truly. It breathed in the dark.
Kairo stood and wandered to the edge of the camp where the jungle thickened. He knew better than to wander—but something called him.
Softly.
Patiently.
His boots pressed into the moss, sinking slightly. The trees arched over him like ancient gatekeepers. He heard water ahead—trickling, not rushing. A sound so delicate it was almost shy.
Then he saw her.
At first, he thought it was a trick of light. But as he stepped closer, the figure remained—barefoot, standing ankle-deep in a pool of water that hadn't been there before. She was clothed in something long and white, torn at the edges, her hair floating about her like strands of smoke.
She turned.
Her eyes met his.
They were silver. Not reflective—radiant. Like stars sunk deep into flesh.
"Kairo," she said.
His breath caught.
"You know me?"
She nodded. "Not yet. But I know you."
He stepped closer, heart hammering. "Are you real?"
She smiled, sad and slow. "I'm what remains."
Then the forest shivered.
Leaves rustled violently above, though there was no wind. The pool began to churn, blackening at the edges. Her form flickered.
Kairo reached out instinctively.
"Don't," she said sharply. "If you touch me now, it'll take you whole."
"What is this place?" he asked.
"The island is a wound," she whispered. "And I'm its echo."
He stared, stunned. "You're Nara."
She didn't answer.
Instead, she began to sink slowly into the water—though the pool was shallow. As she vanished, her voice whispered again, now inside his skull.
> "Follow the rhythm. Beneath the roots. Where memory cannot lie."
Then silence.
Kairo stumbled back, breath ragged.
Behind him, a twig snapped.
He spun—Ember stood there, eyes wide. "You saw her too?"
He nodded.
They didn't speak as they returned to the camp. The silence between them was not empty. It was loaded. Shared. Sacred.
---
By morning, Lewin was gone.
His pack lay half-buried in leaves. His journal was open beside it, ink smudged by dew.
Only one word was written across the page—again and again—pressed harder each time until the paper tore:
"NARA"
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CHAPTER TWELVE B: A VOICE IN THE DARK (continued)
The night came down like a curtain of ink, thick and final. Even the fire they built at the camp flickered low, as if reluctant to burn in the presence of whatever stirred beyond the reach of the flame.
Kairo sat apart from the others, knees drawn to his chest, staring into the darkness that bordered their clearing. His thoughts weren't quiet anymore. Not since they left the temple.
The heartbeat still echoed inside his skull. Subtle. Relentless.
And the voice.
Not quite words. Not quite sound. But a presence.
Something was calling to him.
Again.
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He woke hours later—though time had become a lie on this island—with a cold jolt. His back ached from where he'd dozed against a tree. The fire had burned down to coals. Ember and Lewin were asleep, curled in makeshift bedding beneath the heavy leaves.
But something was missing.
The silence.
It was utterly gone.
Now, he heard whispering. Not far.
And not just one voice.
Dozens.
No.
Hundreds.
They murmured from all directions. Through the canopy, from beneath the soil, echoing inside his own bones. Kairo stood shakily, grabbing the small lantern Lewin kept nearby, and held it out before him like a talisman. The light barely reached the trees.
Then came the light breeze… carrying a scent both floral and rotten.
And a word.
"Kairo…"
He froze.
The voice was unmistakably female. Distant. Soft. But coated in something unnatural—like a memory worn thin from too many plays.
"Come…"
The vines ahead swayed unnaturally. A path opened in the underbrush, not with the logic of nature, but as if something had reached into the jungle and parted it for him.
He should have woken the others.
He didn't.
---
The path wound like a snake between trees that leaned close. Their trunks bore etchings—faces, hands, weeping mouths—carved in the bark, or maybe grown into it.
The light in his hand dimmed with every step. Like the island wanted him blind.
He passed a pool of black water. His reflection didn't mimic his movements.
It stared at him.
Then grinned.
Kairo staggered back and moved on faster.
When he reached the glade, the whispering stopped. Entirely. Not a single breath of wind. No chirp. No rustle.
In the center stood a woman.
Pale. Long-haired. Barefoot. Draped in a garment that looked like woven mist. Her eyes were closed. Her hands were outstretched.
Kairo couldn't move.
Her voice—no longer distant—slid into his mind like a knife dipped in honey.
> "I've waited for you."
He tried to speak. No words came.
> "I am Nara. Memory. Curse. Witness. The soul that lingers where time was broken."
She stepped closer. Her feet made no sound.
> "I was the first to find the heart of the island. I fed it what it needed—what it demanded. I gave it myself."
Kairo finally found his voice. "Why me?"
Her eyes opened.
Empty. Black as the trench between stars.
> "Because you still have a choice."
Suddenly, Kairo was no longer in the glade.
He stood inside a memory.
But not his.
He saw Nara, years younger, wandering the same island paths with a journal. Her crew. Her fears. Her descent. He watched her fall to her knees at the temple's core, hands stained in blood—offering her thoughts to the pulsing heart.
Then the betrayal.
Her team tried to leave.
The island turned on them.
One by one, they were consumed—not with violence, but madness. Forgetting their names. Writing pages that turned to ash. Speaking to trees. Drowning themselves in mirror-pools, thinking they saw home.
Only Nara remembered.
So she stayed.
She became the voice.
The memory.
The warning.
---
Kairo gasped and collapsed in the glade.
Nara knelt beside him. Her touch was cold.
> "The island will make you forget who you are. One thought at a time."
> "But you… you can still carry something back. Something it fears."
"What?"
> "Truth."
> "It does not want to be known. It survives by being dismissed—told as myth. Laughed off. Lost in folklore."
> "But you've seen it. Felt it. You can write it."
Kairo's breath caught.
He remembered something from earlier.
His journal had new pages—ones he hadn't written.
But what if… what if that wasn't a glitch?
What if it was the island writing through him?
He shook his head. "What if I lose myself?"
Nara's smile was sad. Timeless.
> "Then become the next voice."
The glade began to dissolve.
She was fading.
But her last words rang louder than anything he'd heard since arriving:
> "Remember this: The deeper you go… the less of you returns."
---
Kairo opened his eyes.
He was lying back in the clearing. The fire was burning bright. Lewin and Ember were stirring.
It was morning.
Or close to it.
Had he dreamed?
No… something was in his pocket.
He pulled it out.
A single leaf, pressed flat, etched with symbols that burned softly in the dawn light.
He'd never seen it before.
But somehow, he understood what it said.
"This island remembers everything. Even you."
He turned to Lewin, who was staring at the compass—spinning wildly again.
"Something happened last night," Kairo muttered.
Ember met his eyes, wide with a strange awareness.
"I know," she whispered. "I heard her too."
And in the distance, the jungle exhaled slowly.
As if preparing for something.
As if watching them.
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END OF CHAPTER TWELVE