Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 886 - 888

Chapter 886: Chapter 888

Behind him, Emma and Scarlett were carrying woven baskets filled with root vegetables, their laughter light and unbothered. It was the kind of normalcy that once would have settled his heart. Now, it unsettled him. There was something forced about the brightness in their eyes, the way they clung to their tasks like lifelines. He caught Emma glancing at him once, a second too long, her gaze unreadable, and when he turned to meet her eyes, she quickly looked away and started humming a tune under her breath, one he hadn’t heard since last year, something her grandmother used to sing in dreams. The hairs on the back of his neck rose.

They returned to camp before noon, arms full of fresh water, fish, and soaked clothes from the riverbanks. The others were already at work, Grace and Zoey building new bindings for a hammock that had torn during the storm, Stella and Serena inspecting the net traps near the lower forest clearing, while Nefertari sat with Sophie boiling herbs and pressing them into clay pots to store for future fevers. On the surface, everything was fine. Smiles. Movement. Routine. But Jude had learned to see deeper.

Susan had left the fire circle during the night. Jude had heard her steps, light and fast, moving away from the treehouses and into the darker part of the jungle. When he followed, he found her sitting cross-legged near the root of an ancient tree, eyes glassy, lips moving in silence. She didn’t respond to him for minutes. And when she finally did, she claimed she had no memory of walking there.

Now she was helping Natalie braid new ropes, humming under her breath, as though nothing had happened. Like the rest, she had no memory of the lost time.

Jude gathered the group after lunch. Not for a warning. Not yet. Just to watch. To listen. To see if any new cracks had formed in the illusion of safety they all wore. They met under the shade of the central fig tree, leaves forming a ceiling overhead like cupped hands protecting them from the sun. He leaned back against the thick trunk, arms crossed, eyes moving from one face to the next as the conversation drifted between topics, the approaching dry season, plans for building a new smokehouse, a discussion about whether the animals near the border had grown bolder.

Then Lucy leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and said, "Do any of you feel... like you’re being watched? Not just by each other. I mean... really watched?"

A hush fell. Eyes darted around the circle.

Sophie blinked. "Sometimes. Mostly near the water. Or when I’m alone. But it always passes."

"It’s stronger at night," said Amelia, brushing her hair from her face. "It’s like a weight. You feel it before you hear anything."

Nefertari didn’t speak. She just nodded, slowly.

Grace looked at Jude. "Is it the blue smoke again?"

He paused, then nodded. "I think it’s always been here. I think it never left."

Zoey’s voice cracked a little when she spoke. "Then why hasn’t it taken one of us already? If it wants us so badly?"

"I don’t think it wants to take you," Jude said. "It wants to wear you. Like clothes. To be near me. Through you."

The group fell silent again.

Scarlett stood up, pacing slowly. "Then what do we do? We can’t fight something we can’t see."

Serena lifted her head. "But we can watch. Track it. Write it down. Every black out. Every strange feeling. Even if we think it’s nothing."

"I’ll make the record," Natalie offered. "We’ll keep it hidden. In the underground stores."

Jude nodded. "Good. Start tonight. And no one goes out alone."

By evening, the group had split off into pairs and small clusters. Jude stayed behind near the river with Zoey, watching her cast a woven basket into the slow current while her brow furrowed with quiet thought.

"Do you ever feel like this island is alive?" she asked softly.

Jude glanced at her. "Yes."

"Not just the smoke. Not just the monsters. The whole place. Like... we’re inside something."

He didn’t answer. She looked at him with knowing eyes.

"I think it’s a shell," she whispered. "I don’t know why I think that. I just... do."

His throat tightened. "Why now?"

"I dreamed it," she said. "I dreamed the jungle opened. And underneath was nothing but bone."

They walked back in silence. Jude didn’t know what to say. Every day, the island revealed just a little more. And every day, the boundaries of their reality eroded like cliffs in wind.

That night, after dinner, the wind picked up. Not from the ocean. From the volcano side. That never happened. Jude stood by the fire with his back to the jungle, watching as the trees swayed and bent from the wrong direction. The border was too far for the wind to cross. But tonight it had.

Emma approached him. She looked strange. Her hair wild. Her smile too sharp.

"Come with me," she said, taking his hand. "I want to show you something."

He followed, unease wrapping around his chest like a vine. They didn’t go far, just to the edge of the clearing where the ferns grew thick and high.

"Do you remember our first day here?" she asked. "You said the trees were smiling."

He nodded slowly.

"Do you think they still are?"

He turned to look at her. Her eyes were too wide. Her breath too steady. And for just a moment, barely a flicker, he saw it. The blue haze behind her pupils.

He gripped her shoulders gently. "Emma. Can you hear me?"

She smiled again. "Of course, Jude. I always hear you."

Her voice was not hers.

He leaned in close. "Then who are you?"

And then it was gone. Her body sagged slightly, and she blinked like waking from a deep sleep. Her hands clutched his shirt. "What... what happened?"

He held her as she trembled. "It’s okay. You’re back. It didn’t hold you."