Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 831 - 833

Chapter 831: Chapter 833

Darren stayed for a few more weeks, watching the seal, making sure it held. Lin brought him coffee every morning. Rojin shared old war stories. Maye didn’t say much, but every time she passed, she nodded at him, a silent acknowledgment of what they’d shared.

Eventually, he left.

Not to the village. Not to the woods.

To somewhere new.

The Helix was asleep again.

And this time, it was dreaming of something it couldn’t understand.

A man who stood between chaos and silence.

Not a hero.

Just someone who stayed when it mattered.

The rain hadn’t stopped in hours, thick sheets pouring from a bruised sky that pressed down on the city like a weight. Jude stood at the edge of the rooftop, the worn soles of his boots planted on rusted metal, his coat soaked and heavy against his frame. Below him, the city writhed in silence, its lights dimmed, its noise swallowed. Not even the neon dared to flicker too brightly tonight. His eyes scanned the skyline, hunting for movement. The kind of movement he didn’t want to see. The kind that didn’t belong.

The message had come two hours ago. A whisper through old channels, dead frequencies brought to life by desperation. He hadn’t heard the name in years, Alis. She was supposed to be gone. But the signal had carried her voice, distorted but real, requesting help from a zone that had been quarantined since the second seal. It wasn’t possible. And that’s exactly why he had come.

He climbed down from the rooftop, his limbs aching from days without sleep, landing silently in an alley choked with fog. The smell of wet concrete and rust hit him immediately, sharp and nostalgic. He moved quickly, navigating through side streets and broken passageways, until he reached the southern wall. The gate there had been locked since the collapse, sealed with layers of arcane barriers and tech locks. Now it was open. Not broken, open, clean, precise. Someone had bypassed the protections without triggering a single alert.

That terrified him more than any monster.

He stepped through the threshold into the Lower District, once a vibrant network of underground markets, now a hollow graveyard of steel and glass. The buildings here leaned like they were tired, and every shadow felt alive. He pressed onward, boots echoing in the dark. Fifteen minutes later, he reached the terminal station. That’s where she had told him to come.

The platform was empty.

He waited.

Five minutes. Ten.

Then a train arrived, no lights, no sound, gliding in like a ghost. He stepped back as the doors opened, half expecting an ambush. Instead, a soft click echoed from within, and a lone figure stepped out. She was smaller than he remembered. Or maybe he had just grown too used to carrying too much. Her face was pale, her hair longer, tangled with dust and time. But it was her.

"Alis," he said.

She looked up at him, eyes wide with disbelief, and then rushed forward, embracing him like a memory clawing its way into the present. He held her, frozen. Her body shook in his arms, and he realized she had been crying.

"I thought you were dead," she whispered.

"I thought you were a ghost."

She pulled back. "There’s no time. It’s moving again."

He didn’t need to ask what she meant. Only one thing ever moved like that.

"How long?"

"Three days. Maybe less."

"Why didn’t you tell them?"

"They’d never listen. They sealed me out when I refused to give up the fragment."

Jude’s jaw tightened. "You still have it?"

She nodded. "It’s buried. Deep. But it’s active. I can feel it pulling."

He swore under his breath. The fragment was a piece of the original seal, a shard of the old construct that had been used to lock the Helix away the first time. They had been told it was destroyed during the collapse. Clearly, someone had lied.

"Who else knows?" he asked.

"No one. Just you. I encoded the signal so only someone from the First Watch could decrypt it."

Jude’s stomach turned. "Then we’re both targets now."

They moved quickly, leaving the station and weaving through the abandoned corridors of the district. She led him through a series of maintenance tunnels that curved and twisted unnaturally, the walls pulsing faintly with residual energy. It wasn’t safe, but it was fast. As they walked, she explained everything.

After the collapse of the second seal, the remnants of the First Watch had scattered. Most of them were believed dead. Alis had gone underground, literally and metaphorically, using the chaos to retrieve what she could. The fragment had called to her, subtle at first, then louder, a persistent rhythm under her skin. She had spent years trying to suppress it, to seal it away again. But now, it had begun to hum.

"It wants to return," she said.

"To the Helix?"

"No," she whispered. "To something worse. Something older."

Jude stared at her. "There’s nothing older."

"You keep believing that."

They reached the old cathedral by midnight. It was crumbling, its spires broken, stained glass shattered into colorful wounds on the floor. Beneath it, in the crypts, Alis had hidden the fragment. They descended a spiral staircase that cracked with every step, reaching a chamber lined with ancient seals and rusted chains. At the center was a containment unit shaped like a coffin. She activated the interface, and the chamber hissed open.

The fragment floated above the surface. A shard of pure light and shadow, rotating slowly, emitting no sound but vibrating with such intensity that Jude’s bones ached.

"It’s beautiful," he muttered.

"It’s alive," she corrected.

They didn’t touch it. Instead, they began running diagnostics. He uploaded a scan to his personal device, watching as it struggled to make sense of the data. Every reading was inconsistent. The fragment didn’t follow the rules of physics, logic, or reality. It existed because it wanted to.

Suddenly, the lights flickered.