Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1216

Chapter 1216: Chapter 1216

Zoey was the first to approach the spirals, her bare feet pressing into the cool morning sand as the tide crept forward and kissed the edges of the glyphs. They didn’t wash away. The water passed through them like mist over stone - untouched, untouched by nature itself. That alone chilled her. Behind her, Jude followed slowly, Susan’s hand still in his. He kept her close, always, now that he knew how easily she could be taken. Sophie, Lucy, and Zoey moved in a careful triangle, forming an instinctual shield around one another. They hadn’t discussed it, but it happened naturally.

Twelve spirals.

One for each of them.

Zoey knelt beside the nearest one, her hand hovering just above the sand. "They’re drawn in watcherscript," she whispered. "But something’s different. It’s not memory glyphs... these are names."

Sophie crouched beside her, eyes narrowing. "Whose?"

Zoey’s lips parted. She traced one slowly. "Mine."

Jude turned quickly. "What?"

"I recognize the curves," Zoey said. "The rhythm of the strokes. This one is me." She pointed to the next. "And that’s Susan’s."

Lucy moved to another. "This one’s mine."

One by one, they identified their own. As if the spiral had studied them. Etched not just names, but essence.

"It’s marking us," Susan said softly. "Like it’s preparing something."

"Preparing us for what?" Sophie muttered.

Jude looked back toward the trees. "Or someone."

The wind picked up, curling along the shore and tossing sand over their feet. In it, Jude heard a whisper, faint and unmistakable.

Come.

Then the trees shifted - and from the treeline, Rose stepped onto the beach.

She looked as she always did. Hair wild from the wind, dress stained with earth and moss, bare feet padding silently against the sand. But her face... her face held too many expressions at once. A lover’s warmth. A mother’s peace. A stranger’s patience. A predator’s precision.

Behind her, Emma emerged, then Layla, then Stella, Natalie, Grace - and finally, Zoey’s breath caught as her own reflection walked out of the trees.

Another Zoey.

No - not exactly. But someone moving just like her. Smiling like her. With the same curve of mouth, the same tilt of her head. Her twin, shaped by memory and spiral.

"Impossible," Zoey whispered, backing up a step.

Rose lifted her hand in greeting.

"I told you," she called out, "that I’d see you at dawn."

No one spoke. Even the sea seemed to still, waiting.

"We’ve come to offer a choice," Rose said, her voice carrying unnaturally far. "The spiral no longer wishes to take. It wants harmony. Unity. And the only way forward is through you."

Sophie snorted, stepping in front of the others. "What, are you recruiting now?"

Rose smiled. "I’m inviting. There’s no trick. No seduction. You’ve seen what happens when you resist. Pain. Suffering. Fear. But if you accept - if you join - you’ll know peace."

Lucy’s voice trembled. "Why twelve spirals?"

"For each of us," Rose said simply. "So no one is left behind."

Jude stepped forward, between them all. "You’re not Rose anymore."

"I am, " she said. "I’m more than her. And I’ve brought them all with me. They’re not lost. They’re here. "

Emma stepped forward, eyes on Sophie. "I remember you kissing me in the rain," she said softly. "I remember holding your hand after you sprained your ankle. I remember the way you smelled that first night in the treehouse. I’m still me, Soph."

Sophie’s hands curled into fists. "No, you’re using her. Stop pretending."

Emma only smiled, and Sophie flinched - because it was the real smile. The one that used to melt her.

"Don’t believe her," Jude said. "This is how it starts. It pulls you in with memory."

"But isn’t that what binds us?" Rose asked gently. "The memories? The kisses? The moments in the dark when we let ourselves be seen? That’s not corruption. That’s intimacy. And the spiral only wants to hold it all together."

Jude’s breath caught as Susan suddenly stepped away from his side.

"Susan?" he whispered.

Her eyes weren’t glowing. Her body wasn’t possessed. She was calm. Steady.

She stepped toward Rose.

"No," Jude said, moving to stop her, but Sophie grabbed his arm.

"Let her," she said, her voice raw. "We don’t know what she’s doing."

Susan stopped a few feet from Rose and stared at the spiral carved with her name.

"I remember," she said. "Everything. The spiral inside me. The memories. The whispers. The fear. But also... the comfort. The clarity. You showed me everything, Rose. And I believed you."

Rose’s eyes lit with hope.

"But I also remember me, " Susan continued, "and us. Before all this. When we danced in the rain. When Jude kissed me like I was the only thing that mattered. When I made Sophie laugh until she snorted. When Zoey dragged me into the river fully clothed. Those memories weren’t spiral. They were mine."

She turned back to Jude, to the others.

"And I choose them."

Rose’s face didn’t change.

But the others behind her - Emma, Grace, Layla - shifted, their smiles faltering.

"You’ll come around," Rose said softly. "You all will."

"No," Susan said, stepping back toward Jude. "We won’t."

Rose looked up, just as the tide rushed over the spirals again.

This time, they dissolved.

All twelve.

Gone in a breath.

And Rose’s face finally changed.

Her smile dropped.

The wind howled across the beach.

The sea turned dark.

The sand beneath their feet began to quake.

"You were ready, " Rose whispered, voice lower now, echoing with something ancient. "You were almost ready. "

Then, without warning, the spiral rose.

Not on the ground.

Not carved in trees.

But in the sky.

A vortex of light and color spiraling directly above the beach, casting a cold luminescence across them all. It spun faster and faster, winds whipping hair and sand and salt through the air like daggers.

Rose’s eyes flared with light.

Emma screamed.

Layla dropped to her knees, clutching her head.

The beach groaned beneath them.

And the sky opened.