Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1217

Chapter 1217: Chapter 1217

The spiral in the sky widened with a sound like cracking stone wrapped in song - beautiful, but wrong, bone-deep and ancient. The wind howled louder, twisting around them in bursts, lifting sand and salt and broken memories into the air. Jude’s arms wrapped around Susan as she stumbled, shielding her from the blast. Sophie had Lucy and Zoey pressed close, all of them ducked low in the sand, eyes squinting up against the storm above.

And Rose stood at its center, arms wide, her body glowing in pulses that matched the spiral’s rhythm. Her dress snapped in the wind, her hair lifted like a halo. Behind her, the other women who had followed - the ones taken, changed - began to chant in low, synchronized voices, words none of them recognized, but which twisted in their ears with familiarity. Words they had spoken before, maybe in dreams. Maybe never.

Jude looked up into the vortex and saw not just light but memories. Flashes of moments they had all lived - Rose’s laughter the first night on the island, Susan’s soft moans wrapped in moonlight, Layla pressing her body to his in the river, Sophie’s tears the night she broke down in his arms, Zoey’s wet smile under the thunderstorm, Lucy’s lips warm on his shoulder in the morning hush. All of it was spinning in the sky - broadcast.

The spiral wasn’t just showing them their past - it was harvesting it.

Sophie pulled free, yelling over the roar, "It’s feeding off us!"

Rose heard that. Her gaze snapped to Sophie. "No. It’s sharing. "

"Then stop it!" Jude shouted. "Shut it down! If you still care about us - if any of you are still inside - stop this! "

Emma’s face twitched.

Just a flicker.

A blink of her old self, visible for a single heartbeat.

Then gone.

"I can’t, " Rose said, but there was a catch in her voice now. "It’s beyond me. I’m not guiding it - I’m just the door. "

"What’s coming through it, Rose?" Susan asked. "If you’re the door, who’s the guest? "

Rose hesitated.

And in that moment, the spiral contracted - then burst outward in a ripple of shimmering air that knocked them all backward.

Jude fell hard, sand in his mouth, chest heaving. Susan was beside him. Lucy rolled and coughed, helping Zoey sit up. Sophie stood first, bracing herself with a broken branch, eyes locked on the sky.

The spiral was gone.

But something had arrived.

It hovered above the beach, pulsing with a soft light. Not a shape, not a creature - not in any way that made sense - but a presence. A distortion. Like looking through a heat shimmer, but it moved with intelligence. Curious. Watching.

The chanting stopped.

Even Rose went still.

The shimmering presence drifted forward, then dropped closer to the sand, circling their group slowly, and as it did, each of them felt it touch their minds. Not violently. Gently. Like a lover brushing a lock of hair from their face. But what it left behind...

Sophie gasped and fell to her knees.

Zoey clutched her chest like she’d been punched.

Lucy began to cry without making a sound.

Jude trembled.

Because it had shown him her - Rose.

Before.

Before the spiral. Before the possession. Before the power.

She was in the river, splashing water with Layla, her smile real and wide, sun-soaked and carefree. Her hands reached for Jude, pulled him in. They kissed under the trees, wet and breathless and laughing.

The shimmer had taken that memory from him - and returned it tainted.

Now, when he remembered it, he also saw her smile twisted, her eyes too deep, her touch lingering just a moment too long.

"It’s rewriting us," he whispered. "It’s taking who we were and turning it into something else."

Susan grabbed his hand. "Then we have to hold on tighter."

Rose stepped toward them, slower now. "I didn’t want this. I swear I didn’t."

"Then help us stop it," Sophie said, rising to her feet again, fire returning to her voice. "You let it in - now shut it out. "

Rose’s face contorted. Pain. Fear. Regret. Then, slowly, resolve.

"I need you to trust me one more time," she said.

Jude shook his head. "You betrayed that trust the moment you let that thing live in you."

"I did," Rose admitted. "But it’s not in me anymore. It’s here. And if I’m going to close the door, I’ll need help. I’ll need - " her voice broke " - you."

Sophie stepped forward, blade still in hand. "You’re not touching any of us again."

Rose turned to her, and Jude swore for a second, her old self flashed through. The woman who’d nursed cuts after the storm, who’d kissed Sophie in the firelight, who had wrapped herself around Jude in the cold.

"I wouldn’t ask," Rose said. "But I don’t think it came through fully. Not yet. We can stop it before it stays. But only if you trust me. "

Jude’s voice was quiet. "And if we say no?"

The shimmering presence above them pulsed once.

A warning.

And the trees behind them bent backward as if pulled toward the sea.

Susan whispered, "The island’s changing. Again."

Zoey stood up slowly. "Maybe she’s right. Maybe we don’t have another choice."

"No," Sophie said. "There’s always a choice."

Lucy looked at the shimmer. "What if it’s not trying to hurt us?"

Sophie turned. "You felt what it did. It twisted our memories. It changed them."

"But maybe it’s just confused," Lucy said softly. "Maybe it doesn’t understand us."

Rose looked at Lucy with wide eyes. "You see it."

"I feel it," Lucy whispered. "It’s not trying to destroy. It’s trying to connect. Like Rose said... like weaving."

Susan stood. "Then teach it. If you can communicate with it, do it. Help it understand."

Jude looked up at the presence again, heart racing.

It hovered, waiting.

Rose raised her arms again and stepped toward it, slowly. "Then we’ll try. One last time. Trying won’t kill us, right?"

Jude looked at her, his face looked like his mind is thinking a lot of things at once.