Chapter 1575: Chapter 1575

The rocks were slick, but the island cushioned their steps. The ocean welcomed them - not cold, not harsh - but warm and glittering. As they waded in, the water shimmered with the same faint glow as the heartstone.

Then the pulse began again.

A low rhythm beneath the waves, echoing in their bones.

They dove.

The world below the surface was dreamlike. Fish with golden scales darted between pillars and broken arches. Coral bloomed in strange shapes - faces, hands, lovers entwined in stone. As they swam deeper, they found murals carved into the submerged stone - scenes of people gathered around glowing trees, bodies intertwined, petals raining from the sky.

And then the shift.

A crack in the seabed.

Darkness spiraling outward.

Where golden trees once stood, now twisted roots rose, clinging to shattered altars.

At the heart of the ruins stood a tower, half-collapsed, but intact enough to draw them in. They surfaced inside it, gasping for air in a chamber lit by glowing moss. Jude climbed onto a ledge, the others following. Carvings covered the walls - figures in circles, hands joined, bodies glowing - just like them.

Until the final panel.

A single figure, isolated.

His body blackened.

Eyes open wide.

The circle around him shattered.

Emma’s breath caught. "They chose one to carry it all."

"Too much," Sophie whispered. "Too fast."

Natalie stepped closer. "That’s what Alara meant."

They explored deeper, following tunnels of broken stone and bioluminescent roots. At the very bottom, they found a dais. And on it, a crystal - not golden, but red. Pulsing.

Jude reached out.

It didn’t reject him.

But it didn’t welcome him either.

It warned .

The pulse entered his fingers, and in a blinding moment, he saw it all - the rise of the first circle, the bliss, the worship, the fear. The hunger for more. One among them, chosen to bear their bond, cracked under the weight. The island couldn’t save him. The bloom turned to fire.

He pulled back, gasping.

Sophie steadied him. "What did you see?"

"What happens," he said, voice trembling, "if we forget who we are. If we love the island more than each other."

They didn’t speak after that.

Not until they swam back, climbed the cliffs again, dripping and shaken.

The others met them with anxious eyes. Rose stepped forward, searching Jude’s face.

"What did you find?"

He pulled her close, forehead against hers.

"Our future."

"But not our fate," Lucy said firmly behind him.

Jude turned to the others. "We go back to the Bloom. We record this. Everything."

"And then?" Zoey asked.

"We change," Emma said. "We slow down. We listen."

That night, they gathered in the memory hall, and Jude laid his palm against the center stone.

The island received his truth.

And in turn, gave back silence.

The good kind.

The sacred kind.

The Bloom pulsed softly as they rested. As they held each other. As kisses were shared and tears shed, not from sorrow but from gratitude.

They had almost lost the story.

Now they would guard it.

And in the deepest roots of the island, something smiled.

Not a god.

Not a watcher.

Just memory.

At peace again.

The morning after the Bloom took in their story, the island exhaled. Not with sound, but with space. Trees leaned wider from one another. Flowers that had never grown before bloomed in spirals. A mist lifted from the moss, not damp but luminous, hovering low like breath. It was as if the land itself had been holding tension, waiting for them to remember, to choose balance over hunger. Now it eased, stretching into itself the way a body does after deep sleep.

Jude awoke slowly, curled between Lucy and Grace, their bodies warm against his on either side. Above them, the dome of the sanctuary glowed gently - no longer pulsing with that urgent golden heartbeat, but softer now, steady. Content. His hand slid along Lucy’s hip. Her skin responded, warm and humming faintly, like the island had laced itself into her nerves. She sighed and shifted, brushing her lips along his shoulder without opening her eyes.

"You’re thinking," she whispered.

"I am," he said.

"About the ruins?"

"About what comes next."

She opened her eyes then, golden and soft. "We’re still becoming, aren’t we?"

Jude nodded. "But I don’t know what into."

They didn’t have answers. None of them did. But the questions no longer frightened them. The fear had turned into something gentler - curiosity, reverence, patience.

The others stirred around them. Natalie rolled over and stretched like a cat. Scarlet kissed Stella’s bare shoulder. Susan curled tighter into Zoey’s side. Emma sat up with her hair a tangled crown, already scanning the light outside the sanctuary’s woven walls. Sophie stood first, naked and still marked faintly with sea-salt on her thighs, her body tall and watchful. She was always the first to rise now. Always guarding.

Rose entered last, her body wrapped loosely in flowering vines, her hair wet from the morning dew. She walked with ease now, with the presence of one who had finally stopped resisting her place. She leaned over Jude and kissed him on the mouth, slow and full, then kissed Lucy’s temple before sitting beside them.

"Today we build," she said.

Jude sat up. "What?"

"A place. For others. For what’s coming."

He felt the others’ attention shift. Sophie turned. Emma stepped closer.

"You think others are coming?" Emma asked.

Rose tilted her head. "I don’t think. I know. You saw the beacon too. That pulse into the sky wasn’t just light. It was invitation."

Natalie ran her fingers through her hair. "And we’re just supposed to... what? Welcome anyone?"

"No," Rose said. "We choose who enters. The same way the island chose us."

Grace spoke softly, her hand on Jude’s thigh. "So how do we prepare?"

"We shape," Lucy answered. "Again."

Jude stood, brushing moss from his legs. "Not a sanctuary. Not a Bloom. Something new."

"A gate," Sophie said.

Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "A gate to what?"

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