Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 946

Chapter 946: Chapter 946

He sat up slowly, his head ringing, muscles stiff and sore. The robe was gone, reduced to a pile of dust at the base of the central stone. Around him, the twelve stones stood unchanged, except for subtle, glowing lines now etched between each, connecting them. A pattern had emerged, something the island had accepted or perhaps feared. Jude touched the nearest line, and it warmed under his fingers, pulsing gently with a rhythm that was not his own.

He didn’t need to ask if the wives were safe. He felt them, some strange, quiet certainty that the island had not touched them in his absence. It had seen him. Heard him. Chose to blink instead of devour.

Footsteps approached. Zoey was the first to reach the circle, her boots squelching in the wet grass. She was soaked through but smiling, her eyes bright with relief. She dropped to her knees beside him and wrapped him in a fierce, shivering hug.

"You’re back," she said into his neck.

He managed a smile. "Didn’t go far."

"You looked dead when we found you," she whispered. "You weren’t breathing for a minute."

"I was somewhere else," he said softly. "Deep inside."

Other footsteps followed, Susan and Natalie next, then the rest, one by one emerging from the woods or the house, surrounding him like gravity. Layla held his face between her hands, checking his pupils. Serena stood behind her with arms folded and tears drying on her cheeks. Even Ashra, usually so composed, looked visibly shaken.

"We thought you wouldn’t come back," Grace said. "That the island finally took you."

"It tried," Jude replied. "But it couldn’t make sense of me. I confused the story."

Scarlet cocked an eyebrow. "You weaponized being complicated?"

He gave a faint, tired chuckle. "Exactly."

They helped him to his feet. Every part of him ached, but he moved. That was enough. As they returned to the house, a breeze picked up, clean and cool, sweeping the last traces of smoke and rot from the air. The world smelled new.

That afternoon, they burned the dust that remained of the robe. Not out of malice, but respect. It had served its purpose. The fire crackled low and slow in the center of the circle. Emma said a few words, then Lucy scattered herbs into the flame, watching the smoke twist upward into strange shapes. It didn’t drift. It spiraled into the sky as if being drawn, as if the island itself wanted to remember this moment.

In the days that followed, the land began to change again, but not violently. The plants grew faster, richer. The mutated trees that once stood as twisted guardians of the forest began straightening, shedding their gnarled bark for soft moss. The beasts that had stalked their perimeter fell silent. Jude saw a pack of them once, standing just beyond the orchard, staring at the house with something like respect in their eyes before turning away.

But not everything was peace.

On the sixth day, the dreams returned.

Jude woke in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat, his hands clenched around the bedsheets like they were rope and he was falling. Serena stirred beside him but didn’t wake. He slipped out of bed and stood at the window, staring into the forest.

He’d seen something, no, someone, in the dream. Not the shimmering figure from the underground, but a child. A little girl with no face and long white hair. She stood in the middle of the circle, silent, staring directly into Jude’s soul.

When he asked who she was, she opened her mouth and nothing came out. Just the sound of waves crashing.

He whispered into the dark, "What are you trying to say?"

No answer.

The next day, he didn’t tell anyone. But the girl returned again that night. And the next. Always silent. Always watching. Her presence didn’t feel malevolent. But it didn’t feel kind, either. It was a question without a mark. A warning with no cause.

On the fourth night, Jude broke. He went to Ashra’s quarters and knocked.

She answered instantly. "You saw her."

"You know who she is?" he asked.

Ashra nodded and stepped aside to let him in. "She’s not new. She’s old."

They sat together by the low lantern light, and Ashra opened a worn leather book, one Jude had never seen before. Inside were hand-sketched drawings of various entities, some monstrous, some beautiful, some both. She flipped to a page near the middle and turned it toward him.

The faceless girl stared up at him from the page.

"She’s the island’s beginning," Ashra said. "The seed from which all the dreaming grew. The first form it ever imagined. Before gods. Before monsters. Just her."

"Why is she showing herself to me now?"

"Because the island’s story is broken, but its core remains. She is that core. And she’s watching to see what you’ll do next."

He sat back, rubbing his temples. "I thought I changed the story."

"You did," Ashra said. "But stories don’t die. They mutate. You didn’t end her. You woke her."

The next morning, Jude told the others. Not everything, just enough. He described the girl, the dreams, the sense of being evaluated. No one laughed. No one doubted. Rose immediately began carving protective sigils into the walls of the house. Emma and Stella worked together to create a new barrier of bones and rope around the circle. Natalie placed dreamcatchers woven from vines over every bed.

But none of it stopped her.

Jude began finding footprints in the mud outside. Small. Bare. Leading toward the circle and disappearing before they touched the stones.

Then things began to vanish.

First, Lucy’s necklace, one Susan had made for her out of old shells. Then a handful of Grace’s herbs. Then one of Jude’s old shirts. Not stolen. Taken. Chosen. There were no signs of entry. No disturbed locks. Just absence.

On the tenth day, they found the first message.

Carved into the trunk of the tree near the east garden, in perfect spiral lettering:

YOU ARE NOT THE LAST