Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1118

Chapter 1118: Chapter 1118

Emma’s eyes softened. For a brief moment, something flickered there, remorse? Memory? But then she turned and followed Rose into the dark.

Sophie’s fingers clutched Jude’s shirt. She was shaking.

"Don’t let them take me too," she whispered.

"You’re stronger than that."

"No. I’m scared."

He kissed her forehead, pulling her in close. "Then we’ll be scared together."

That night, they didn’t sleep.

The jungle was too quiet. The watchers, once ever-present with rustling, whispers, and glow, had gone silent. Even the stars above seemed dimmer. Jude stayed by the dying fire, sharpening a stick into a spear out of instinct more than need. Sophie curled beside him, eyes open and glassy.

At dawn, they searched.

Emma was nowhere. Neither were any of the others.

Only footprints in the soft earth, strange, repeated spirals, marked their absence. Sophie knelt beside one of the spirals, running her fingers through the pattern.

"It’s watcherscript," she said softly.

"No," Jude corrected. "It’s something else. Look at the angles. This isn’t memory. This is... invocation."

Sophie stood. "Then we need to find the source."

They hiked northeast, where the forest deepened and the trees twisted unnaturally close together. The air smelled damp, the light filtering down in an eerie green shimmer. Here and there, they saw symbols carved into bark, sharp, recent, and wrong.

Rose’s mark.

At midday, they found it.

A clearing encircled by standing stones. Each stone had a figure carved into it, elongated, faceless, arms open wide. In the center, a pit filled with black water, still as glass. Around it, petals, bones, and shreds of cloth floated in lazy spirals.

Jude crouched beside the pit. "This wasn’t here before."

"It was made," Sophie said. "By them."

He touched the water. It was ice cold.

A soft whisper echoed from the trees.

They spun. Nothing.

And then another whisper. Closer.

Sophie grabbed his arm. "We need to leave."

But as they turned, a figure stepped from behind the largest stone.

It was Lucy.

Her lips were painted red with some dark berry, and her smile was wide.

"You came," she said sweetly. "We’ve been waiting."

Sophie took a step back. "Don’t come closer."

Lucy paused, tilting her head. "You don’t have to be afraid of me."

Jude raised the spear. "We’re not afraid. Just not ready."

"Ready for what?" Lucy asked innocently.

He didn’t answer.

Instead, they retreated, fast and silent, back into the jungle.

Lucy didn’t follow.

Not with her feet.

But as they ran, Jude heard laughter ahead of them, soft, melodic, familiar. Then Layla’s voice. Then Zoey’s.

And finally... Rose.

They stopped only when the trees thinned and the sky opened up. They were back near the cliffs, the ocean crashing far below. Sophie sank to her knees.

"I don’t know how to stop it," she whispered.

Jude didn’t either.

That night, the fire was left unlit. They huddled in the shelter with dry leaves wrapped around their shoulders, listening to the sounds of the night. There were no animals. No birds. Only the rhythmic hum, far off but constant. A chorus that echoed through the earth.

Sophie woke him just before dawn.

"They’re here."

He rose slowly.

At the edge of the clearing, Rose stood again. Not alone.

This time, all of them were with her.

Emma.

Zoey.

Layla.

Lucy.

Susan.

Grace.

Scarlet.

Stella.

Natalie.

And now... even Sophie.

She let go of Jude’s hand without even looking at him. Stepped forward, toward Rose. Her body moved gently, seductively, drawn as if by some invisible thread. Her smile began to bloom, slow and haunting, as she reached for Rose’s hand.

Jude’s breath left his lungs.

"No," he whispered.

Sophie turned, eyes gleaming gold.

Jude didn’t sleep that night. The fire had burned low, casting long, pulsing shadows across the clearing, and the memory of Sophie’s smile, twisted in that golden, corrupted curve, refused to leave his mind. He sat motionless, staring into the coals, letting the ash settle into his lungs like grief. Morning arrived as a dull gray smear over the treetops, and with it came silence, unnatural and complete.

He moved through camp like a ghost, avoiding the others. Sophie was gone when he woke. Not just out of sight, gone, her place in the shelter cold. Her things untouched. It was like she had vanished, or had never slept beside him at all.

He wandered through the woods, his body heavy with dread. The forest was too still, too aware. Leaves didn’t rustle unless he touched them, and even then, the sound seemed muffled. No birds. No insects. Just the faint, vibrating hum in the distance, growing louder each day.

He found her near the river, standing barefoot in the water, her dress soaked halfway up her thighs. The current pulled softly at her, but she didn’t move. She just stood there, facing away, as if lost in some memory she couldn’t shake.

"Sophie," he said.

She didn’t answer right away. Then, slowly, she turned.

The smile wasn’t there anymore, but neither was the spark in her eyes. She looked at him like she remembered something painful. Something buried.

"I’m still here," she said softly.

He exhaled. "You came back?"

"I never left. But they almost took me." Her voice trembled. "It was like falling. Like being kissed and drowned at the same time."

He stepped into the water with her, gripping her arms. "Then we can still fight it."

"I don’t know how."

"We’ll figure it out." His forehead pressed against hers. "We always do."

But he wasn’t sure he believed it this time. Thoughts started to stab him in the back.

Later, while they gathered fruit under a canopy of twisted vines, Sophie whispered that she had seen something, something she hadn’t told the others yet. During the night, after her smile had faded, she had woken to find Rose kneeling in the woods, her palms pressed to the dirt. The earth had glowed beneath her fingers. And when she rose, she whispered something into the air.

A name.