Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 1602

Chapter 1602: Chapter 1602

The darkness didn’t frighten him. It wasn’t the absence of light - it was the presence of something older, deeper. It wrapped around Jude like velvet, weightless and dense at once, humming softly in a language that pulsed against his ribs. He floated again, suspended in that soundless space, but he wasn’t alone. One by one, they entered.

Lucy’s hand brushed his first, her fingers curling around his in the dark. Then Rose, her breath hot against his shoulder. Emma followed, her body pressing to his back, anchoring him in this strange in-between. He felt Grace’s fingertips along his chest, Stella’s thigh against his, Zoey’s heartbeat close to his ear. Sophie whispered his name. Susan wept quietly, but it wasn’t fear - it was reverence. Natalie, radiant, shimmered like she carried stars inside her. Scarlet kissed his spine. And the children... they came too, wrapped in arms that trembled with devotion, carried through the void in warmth and love.

Time didn’t exist here. Neither did pain. Only anticipation.

And then, light.

Not golden.

Blue.

Pale and endless, it filtered through the dark like cracks in a shell, and the moment Jude reached for it, the world broke open.

They spilled into a clearing not unlike the first - but colder. The trees were silver here, their trunks shimmering with frost. The moss beneath their feet was white and soft, and above them hung a sky not of day or night, but twilight. Stars blinked in patterns they didn’t recognize, constellations in motion, spinning slowly as if watching them back.

Jude looked around as the others emerged beside him. Their bodies glowed faintly from within, no longer gold but something else - silver, with flickers of blue and violet. Lucy turned, her hair shimmering like moonlight. Her lips parted.

"We’re not on the same island."

"No," Rose said quietly, her eyes scanning the trees. "We’re in the other half."

A slow wind passed through them. It carried no warmth, but it wasn’t cold either. It simply was.

Then the forest responded.

Shapes moved in the distance. Tall. Lean. Watching.

They didn’t threaten. They didn’t speak.

They observed.

Children.

Not like theirs.

Older. Pale-skinned. Their eyes shone white with no pupils. They stood in pairs, motionless. Silent.

Grace stepped forward, arms still wrapped protectively around her son. "What are they?"

Emma’s voice came soft behind her. "What we might become."

Then one of the watchers approached. A woman - tall, skin like pearl, long black hair trailing behind her like a veil. She stopped just short of them. Her gaze settled on Jude.

"You are the root," she said. Her voice echoed with strange harmonics, like wind through crystal.

He nodded, cautious. "And you?"

"I am what comes after the bloom."

The woman reached out and touched Lucy’s cheek. Not threatening. Almost gentle.

Lucy didn’t flinch. "Are you like Alara?"

"I am beyond Alara," the woman said. "She chose to begin. I chose to end."

Rose stepped beside Jude. "What do you want from us?"

"Nothing," the woman said. "You came to see."

Sophie held her twins tighter. "See what?"

"What becomes of gods who refuse to sleep."

The woman turned and began walking away, barefoot across the glowing moss. The others like her vanished silently into the trees, but Jude felt them still - everywhere, brushing against the edges of his thoughts.

They followed her, wordlessly, through a forest that was mirror and opposite. There were trees, yes, but none bore fruit. Their flowers were pale and closed. The water was still. And everywhere they stepped, echoes followed - not sounds, but impressions. Glimpses of themselves from other paths. Jude saw a flash - Lucy alone in the golden forest, crying into her knees. Another glimpse - Rose holding a blackened heartstone, her eyes blank. A third - Sophie standing beneath a silver sky, blood on her hands and no child in her arms.

The island showed them possibilities.

All of them terrible.

All of them true.

But then - Jude turned.

And saw another version.

Them. Together. Whole. Not just lovers or mothers, not just gods. Something more. A village. A song. A civilization built from love and lust and sacrifice.

He stepped forward, breath catching.

And the path changed.

Ahead, the silver woman waited at a pond so still it reflected the sky perfectly. She pointed.

"Drink."

Rose stepped forward first and cupped her hands in the water. She drank, then gasped - staggering back with her eyes wide.

Zoey followed, then Grace, then Susan.

Each time, a cry of awe.

When Jude drank, he saw it all.

The future.

Not fixed. Fluid. Bending.

A world shaped by desire, by connection, by fearless love.

But also danger.

A shadow in the north.

A rift in the bloom.

A place where the heartstone would shatter if left unguarded.

He pulled away, chest heaving.

The silver woman touched his temple.

"You are chosen," she whispered. "But so were others. And some chose to destroy."

"Why?" he asked, voice hoarse.

"Because not all love forgives."

The wind howled then - rising from nowhere, curling around them in invisible waves. The children stirred. Sophie clutched hers close.

The silver woman’s form began to fade.

"Return," she said. "Plant what you’ve seen. It will grow."

Lucy reached out, but her hand passed through the woman’s skin like mist.

And then everything vanished.

The silver trees.

The white moss.

The stars.

They blinked.

And were back in the golden grove.

The heartstone pulsed steady.

Their bodies glowed once more with soft amber light.

But something had changed.

Jude looked around. No one spoke. They didn’t need to.

Because in each pair of eyes, he saw the vision.

The warning.

The promise.

Lucy stepped forward, pressing her lips to his. It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet.

It was power.

"We know what we are now," she whispered.

Rose placed her hand over Jude’s heart. "And what we have to protect."

Emma raised her gaze to the canopy. "Then we build again."

Jude looked at the sleeping children.

And nodded.

They were gods now.

And gods had work to do.