CHAPTER FOURTEEN
"You can survive the island. But can you survive each other?"
---
The jungle had grown quieter since the compass shifted. The air, once thick with cicada hums and bird calls, was now heavy with an almost sentient silence. Even the trees seemed to lean in closer, eavesdropping.
Kairo led the group with a machete in hand, but each step forward felt more like descent than progress.
They were days from the shore now—though how many days exactly, no one could say. Their watches had long since broken or glitched, ticking backwards or stopping altogether.
Food was scarce. The strange fruits they once relied on now left a bitter aftertaste. Ember complained of dreams that bled into waking. Lewin's journal had vanished entirely—one moment nestled in his satchel, the next gone without trace.
They were changing.
Or worse—something inside them was waking.
---
The first argument started over a whisper.
They were resting near a stream, the cursed compass lying in the dirt beside Kairo's boot. Ember stood by the water, frowning.
"You hear that?" she asked.
Lewin perked up. "Hear what?"
"Voices. Beneath the water."
Kairo rose. "We've heard things before. It's the island's tricks—"
"No," she snapped. "This is different. It sounded like my brother."
Lewin's face paled. "Your brother is dead."
"Exactly," she whispered.
There was silence.
Then Lewin muttered, "Maybe it's guilt talking. Maybe you wanted to hear him."
Ember turned sharply. "Don't psychoanalyze me. You think just because you read books, you understand the human mind?"
He stepped closer. "I understand how stress fractures people. And this place—this island—is doing it faster than anything I've studied."
Kairo stepped between them. "Enough. We're all fraying. But we need to stay sharp. Focused. United."
"United?" Lewin laughed bitterly. "You're still pretending we're a team? Since the cave, it's been your mission. We just follow."
Ember backed away, voice cold. "He's right. You've changed, Kairo. Obsessing over that compass. Over her."
Kairo said nothing at first. Then quietly, "You didn't see what I saw. In the fog. In her eyes. Nara isn't just a ghost. She knows something."
Lewin scoffed. "Or maybe she's another illusion. One that's already poisoning you."
Kairo looked at them both, something dark flickering in his gaze. "You think I want to be chosen by this place? You think I asked for the compass to bind itself to me?"
He turned, pointing to the jungle. "Go back, then. Turn around. See where that gets you."
But no one moved.
Because they all knew the truth.
There was no way back.
---
That night, the dream returned.
Kairo stood in the ruins again, the compass glowing red-hot in his palm. Nara appeared, not in flesh, but in flickering shards of memory—her voice layered, speaking in echoes.
> "They won't follow you forever. The island tests not just the body, but the bond. What breaks faster: the path or the people?"
He woke with a start, sweat dripping, heart hammering.
A knife was missing from the camp.
Lewin was gone.
---
They found him two hours later—standing in a circle of stones near the river, muttering to himself.
In front of him, carved crudely into the dirt, was a symbol none of them recognized: a spiral swallowing itself.
"Kairo," Ember whispered, "he's not… well."
Kairo approached slowly. "Lewin. What are you doing?"
Lewin turned, eyes glassy, voice hollow. "Did you know this symbol shows up all over ancient maps? Even ones we thought were unconnected?"
Kairo glanced down. The symbol pulsed faintly, as if drawn with embers instead of mud.
"The spiral means convergence," Lewin continued. "Or collapse. Everything folds inward."
Ember stepped back. "He's not speaking for himself."
Kairo crouched, staring into Lewin's eyes. "Who are you speaking for?"
Lewin blinked, the trance breaking. He looked around—lost, frightened.
"I don't know."
---
By morning, things were worse.
Lewin refused to eat.
Ember barely spoke.
Kairo kept the compass tucked away now, too afraid to touch it. It whispered in his bag, though—audible only to him. At night, it felt like it breathed.
The final fracture came when Ember suggested they leave Lewin behind.
"He's slowing us down. And he's… dangerous."
Kairo stared at her. "We don't abandon our own."
"He's not our own anymore," she hissed. "You saw the symbol. He's channeling something. If we stay with him, we all fall."
Kairo didn't answer.
But that night, he sat alone with Lewin by the fire.
The once-stoic academic looked like a shadow of himself. Thin. Hollow-eyed. Trembling.
"Do you think she's real?" Lewin asked.
"Nara?"
He nodded.
"I think she was real," Kairo said. "Now? I don't know. Maybe she's just the voice of the island. A lure."
Lewin laughed softly. "Then why keep listening?"
Kairo looked at the fire.
"Because the only thing worse than being wrong… is being lost forever."
---
They didn't abandon Lewin.
But from that day on, he walked behind them. Silent. Distant.
And every night, the symbol reappeared in the dirt near their tents.
Even when no one carved it.
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