Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 891 - 893

Chapter 891: Chapter 893

He recognized Grace’s stance. Her shoulders squared over her weight, arms firm at her sides. Simon: eyes closed, chest exposed. She opened her eyes, the milky white of sculptures. Then lifted a hand to her chest, as though touching a heart that no longer existed.

Emma’s echo trembled in her cloak, hands tremored at her side, lips parted in a silent question. Lucy’s form bore the absence of resistances, the grace of stillness. And the others mirrored every feature: Scarlett, Sophie, Stella, Zoey, Susan, Natalie, Serena, all at the rim.

Jude swallowed hard. "Why, "

"Because we are the memory.", it interrupted, voice layered eleven times. "We are the unnamed."

"Naming," Grace’s echo said softly, "is recognition."

"And ritual," was Lucy’s voice, low and hollow, "is confirmation. Without praise, we vanish."

They stood around the basin, mirrored eyes blank, as though seeing past them.

Jude rose onto a stone, voice booming without meaning. "What do you want of us?"

The echo figure smiled, and for a moment all echoes did, like reflections in a cracked mirror. "Your unspoken oaths. The tokens at the arch. They made bonds. We are your bindings and your breath."

Nefertari’s form moved forward. "You are born from promise."

"And bound by fear," Emma’s echo amended.

"We come so your promises take hold," Lucy’s echo said. "Dare you let us exist inside you? Or will you forget our names again?"

Jude swallowed. His throat hurt. He looked to his wives at the rim. They watched, scared and brave.

"I swear," Stella’s echo said, "that we will not leave."

"And do you?" one echo voice asked Jude.

He looked at each wife. He saw them trembling, wrists white from clutching torches. He remembered each name, they were not myths, but living, growing.

He stood, voice strong: "We named you. We brought you into being. You are our voices when we can’t speak. You are our truth when we fear false memory."

He looked to each. "You will not vanish. You belong as we belong."

The echoes paused. Silence. The basin’s water shimmered and cracked into luminous tendrils that snaked outward. One figure stepped back. Another knelt.

"All of us?" asked a dozen voices rising in echo.

"We will not deny any of you," Jude said, stepping from the stone and kneeling beside Lucy’s reflection. He reached out and gently kissed the smooth, pale forehead. It did not flinch. "I will remember you."

He rose. Each echo figure gazed at its counterpart. Then, slowly, they stepped away into the forest, joining the trees, blending until the forest was still once more. The basin’s water still glowed, then dimmed. A last ripple, and it was black again.

Awed silence. Nobody moved.

At last Grace whispered: "We did it."

"That was a covenant," Natalie said. "An acknowledgment."

They shared glances. Nefertari carefully the words: "But we’re still here, in the island’s hold."

The basin overflowed toward the slope, black water trickling down in skinny rivulets.

Jude took Lucy’s hand. "We keep going. Up."

There was no argument, only agreement.

The slope was steeper now: jagged glass-rock paths through scrubby brush. Occasional vents hissed wet steam. They kept low to see the ground. Water shimmered there in places, like oil, like ink.

They paused where the ground was soft moist. Jude removed his boots, let them fill with rainwater and ash. He closed his eyes. The island’s heartbeat was strong, beneath the crust, beneath the trees, even beneath the smoke.

Shaking his head, he put his boots back on.

They pressed higher. Serena stumbled in the loose ash. Jude caught her. They leaned on each other, climbing.

Near the rim of black rock, they found footprints. Too large for them, too human to be island beasts. One set: bare, mud-slicked, deeper. Then fainter prints: smaller, bare. Tracks ascending with them.

A crisis of dread, a reminder of Lyla made flesh. Guilt welled up, but Jude pushed it down.

They halted near the rim. The slope leveled onto an ashy plateau. The volcano’s crater ahead gaped, black stone circling red glow deeper inside. The barrier posts stood tall, shimmering field beyond. They filled the plateau.

Jude held his arms out. "We’ve bound ourselves this day. We summoned truth. Now we choose again: do we end this, or become part of the island’s memory forever?"

Lucy pressed his hand. "We choose ourselves."

Grace nodded. Softly. They looked at the volcano mouth. Seconds passed like months.

Then Jude stepped forward. He raised his voice: "We remember!" The echo died. He spoke again: "We belong here. We form this place!" Stones skittered underfoot. He didn’t care.

Surge of wind. Sulfur hiss. The barrier glowed dead purple. Beyond it, the great shape hovered: massive, crab-like limbs hewn from magma, shell glowing veins. Beneath its carapace, the island’s heart beat.

He dared to speak: "We will not forget."

Something inside him shuddered. The barrier wavered. The volcano spoke through its open maw, a low drum of rock. The shape recoiled.

The air shimmered blue smoke along the barrier. Waves of cold swept past them, distorting the stones. A thousand echoes of their voices, names they’d forgotten and now remembered, filled the wind.

Jude twisted to his wives. "Sing their names."

They did so. Grace, Emma, Lucy, each called the memory of the place, of their oath, of the children they’d been and the selves they chose.

The barrier glowed brighter, purple blazing to white.

The shape buried claws in the rim, grinding. The island bucked underfoot, but the song continued.

Then light broke, the barrier cracked, smoke dissipated.

They still stood on the plateau.

Between them and the crater, the barrier lay broken. The rock shivered. The wind turned warm.

Silence.

Jude exhaled. Lucy held him.

From the crater, a new sound reached them: a low moan, as though the island wept.

He raised his voice again: "Return." Quiet. Steady. Clear. "Be part of us. We belong. We remember."

Seconds passed. The moan ended. The plateau stilled. The crags beyond the barrier fell silent.