Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1257

Chapter 1257: Chapter 1257

Susan stood back, Lucy at her side, arms wrapped around herself. She hadn’t said a word since the creature’s appearance, but now her lips parted. "I hear it again."

Jude turned to her. "The monster?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. The lake. It’s... calling."

Sophie’s hand moved to Susan’s shoulder. "What is it saying?"

Susan closed her eyes, tears slipping down her cheeks. "It wants to help."

The group stood in stillness, the weight of her words settling over them.

Jude looked back at the glowing water. "Then maybe this is where we stop running."

No one argued.

Together, they moved along the lake’s edge, following the narrow ledge until they found a descending path, a series of eroded stone steps leading directly into the water. They paused there, standing at the threshold of whatever came next, each of them caught between fear and resolve.

Jude stepped forward first, the water rising around his legs. It was warm, like breath, wrapping around him with surprising gentleness. Not pulling him down. Not pushing him back. Just accepting.

Sophie followed next, then Lucy, then Zoey, Susan, and Emma. As the water reached their chests, the glow intensified, and the descent revealed itself more clearly - a sloping floor beneath the surface, ancient tiles covered in luminous moss, leading down into the city below.

As they moved deeper, their bodies began to feel lighter, the pressure that had clung to them since the Offering Bowl shattered seeming to lift. The weight of the forest, the fear, the nightmares - all dulled beneath the water. Here, it was quieter. Here, something watched them not with hunger, but with mourning.

At the base of the slope, they emerged into a submerged courtyard. Tall columns rose on either side, inscribed with markings that pulsed faintly with light as they passed. The structures here were more intact, untouched by whatever destruction had overtaken the surface. The air - if it could be called that - didn’t need to be breathed. They didn’t speak, but somehow they understood each other, each thought shared in silence, like the lake had become the space between their minds.

They were no longer cold.

They were no longer alone.

Sophie moved to the center of the courtyard, where a circular platform rose from the floor. At its center was a pedestal, cracked but upright, with a hollow bowl that mirrored the one above - only this one glowed from within, soft and pulsing, alive with the same memory as the lake.

"This is the original," she thought, her gaze sweeping the room. "The Offering Bowl above... was a replica. A safeguard. A decoy."

Susan approached the pedestal slowly, the water parting for her. Her eyes were wide, filled with something that looked too complex to name - grief, awe, peace, fear. She raised her hand and placed it inside the bowl.

The lake answered.

A wave of warmth swept outward from the pedestal, brushing across each of them. Their vision blurred, and suddenly they were not in the lake anymore.

They stood on the edge of a city bathed in gold, tall towers gleaming in the sun, the people around them dressed in robes of light. Laughter echoed in the air. Peace hummed in every stone. And in the sky above, the sun itself pulsed with life.

"This was the island once," Susan whispered, though her lips didn’t move.

They walked forward as a group, watching the memory unfold. A gathering of people - hundreds of them - stood around a similar bowl, placing their hands on its edge, their expressions full of joy and reverence.

"They weren’t sacrificing," Sophie realized. "They were connecting. They offered their love, their unity. That’s what the island wanted."

The scene shifted, darkened. The sun dimmed. The city cracked. The people began to change - divided, afraid. Some turned on one another. The Offering Bowl cracked. The light dimmed. The creature appeared - not from outside, but within .

"It was born from their fear," Emma said softly. "It didn’t invade. They created it."

The scene collapsed, and they were back in the lake, standing in silence, the glow around the pedestal now softer, calmer.

Zoey looked around slowly. "So what do we do? Reconnect?"

Sophie nodded. "If love sealed it once, maybe it can again."

Jude stepped forward. "Then we do it together."

They joined hands around the pedestal. One by one, they placed their other hands inside the bowl - Jude, Sophie, Susan, Lucy, Zoey, Emma. The glow surged, gentle and steady, and the lake began to hum.

They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to.

Each of them opened their heart, offering not fear or obedience, but love - raw, complicated, imperfect love. Love that had survived storms and possession and despair. Love that had grown in impossible soil.

The pedestal lit from within, the pulse becoming a steady thrum that echoed through their bones. The lake answered with light, and the city around them shimmered with new color.

And in the shrine far above, the shadow screamed.

They could feel it in their bones - rage, pain, the shock of something ancient being denied. The roots in the tunnel above curled inward, withdrawing. The pressure broke. And the creature - born of fear and division - fled into the cracks it had once emerged from, banished not by power, but by unity.

When they surfaced, the air was warmer.

The sky visible through cracks above was clear, the unnatural haze gone. The forest no longer held its breath.

Susan took her first full, unshaking inhale.

"I don’t hear it anymore," she said softly.

Neither did Jude.

They climbed out of the lake, soaked and silent, each of them carrying the stillness of the water inside them. There would be more to face. The island would still shift. Its magic would still test them.

But they had remembered something no one before them had.

The island did not need fear.

It only needed love.

The morning after the lake was quiet in a way none of them had ever known. The birdsong was delicate, not shrill.