Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 847 - 849

Chapter 847: Chapter 849

The book had no title. Its cover was made of leather worn smooth by time. When he opened it, the pages flipped on their own, moving faster and faster until they stopped at the center. One phrase filled the page in a handwriting that felt eerily familiar:

"You are not the first to seal a gate. But you might be the first to stay."

Jude stared at the words. Nyra stepped beside him, reading over his shoulder. "What does it mean?" "I don’t know. But it was written for me." The pages turned again, slower this time, revealing sketches, maps of places that no longer existed, diagrams of runes Jude had only seen in dreams, faces he didn’t recognize but felt drawn to. And then, a symbol, a new one, etched in bold ink at the bottom of the last page. A circle divided into three parts. One black, one white, one grey. Nyra touched it. The room pulsed.

Not with magic. With memory.

Images flooded Jude’s mind. A thousand lives he’d never lived. Battles he’d never fought. Cities he’d never visited. In every one, he wore a different name. Spoke different words. But always, always, the same choice, seal or break, remember or forget. The gate wasn’t a single thing. It was a test. A mirror. And Braethorn... Braethorn was a convergence point.

When the light faded, they stood in silence. The book was gone. The pedestal empty. The air different. "This place isn’t just remembering," Jude said slowly. "It’s connecting. Across timelines. Across choices." "Then someone brought us here," Nyra said. "On purpose."

Outside, the town had changed again. Where once there were only twenty or thirty homes, now there were hundreds, stacked along terraces that hadn’t existed hours earlier. People filled the streets, laughing, working, calling out to one another in languages Jude couldn’t recognize but could understand. None of them noticed the shift. To them, this had always been. Only Jude and Nyra stood apart.

They stayed in Braethorn for days. Then weeks. And every day, the town shifted slightly. More homes. New names. People with memories that didn’t align with what came before. And yet, no one questioned it. No one noticed. Jude began to understand. Braethorn was a hub, not of time, but of memory. A place where reality blurred and the fabric between worlds grew thin. If he had sealed the gate in his world, it had only forced it to reroute. To find another thread to pull. And now, it had woven itself through this town.

He spoke to the people, listened to their stories. Many of them carried fragments of memories that didn’t fit. A fisherman who dreamed of fire. A weaver who remembered building cities. A child who swore she had once lived in the stars. Jude took notes, mapped patterns, watched for signs. The gate wasn’t gone. It was shifting. Testing. Looking for another crack.

One night, he stood atop the chapel roof, staring at the sky. Stars flickered strangely. Some moved. Others pulsed with rhythm like breathing. Nyra joined him, silent as ever. "Do you think this is how it always ends?" she asked. "With remembering?" "No," Jude said. "I think that’s how it begins."

A week later, a traveler arrived. He bore no name, no history. Just a scar down one side of his face and a voice that spoke in riddles. He claimed to be a Watcher, one of the few who walked between threads of memory, not bound by a single world. He spoke of fractures, of convergences, of forgotten gods who slept beneath the folds of reality. And then, he looked Jude in the eye and said, "You’re the last."

Jude didn’t ask what that meant. He already knew. Others had sealed gates. Others had fought back the Hollowed. But only he had stayed. Only he had refused to forget. And that made him a threat.

The traveler vanished that night. His room undisturbed, his bed untouched. Only a note remained: "They will come for you soon. Be ready."

Jude didn’t run. Neither did Nyra. They fortified Braethorn, not with walls or weapons, but with memory. They taught the people to remember. Taught them to trace the symbols, to recite the old names, to speak the words that bound reality to its roots. They built stories, planted them in songs and carved them into stone. And as the world shifted, Braethorn stood still, not by chance, but by choice.

When the sky finally cracked above them and the stars fell like rain, Jude was ready. Not with swords. Not with magic. But with truth. He stepped into the storm, Nyra beside him, and whispered the name he had never spoken aloud, not even in dreams.

The wind stopped.

The Hollowed paused.

And the gate, for the first time in a thousand lifetimes, hesitated.

Because it remembered him too.

Jude sat in the back of the quiet bar, the rim of his glass catching the golden light from the hanging bulbs above. The murmur of laughter, the clink of glasses, the subtle jazz in the background, all of it seemed like a distant hum, as if the world had decided to move on without him. The cold in the drink did nothing to soothe the burn in his chest, not from the liquor but from the pressure building inside him. It had been days since the meeting at the warehouse, where the old alliances had frayed further and nothing had been resolved. Nothing ever was.

The bartender glanced at him from time to time, uncertain whether he should offer another round. Jude wasn’t a regular, but his eyes, sharp and stormy, didn’t invite conversation. He came here when he needed to think, and tonight his thoughts were crowded with silence. Silence from people who used to talk too much. Silence from his phone that once rang without pause. Silence from a world that used to expect things from him but now seemed to wait.

He turned the glass slowly in his hand and thought of Mara. She had texted him once since she left.