Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women
Chapter 995

Chapter 995: Chapter 995

She smiled, too wide. "He’s coming." Jude’s blood chilled. "Who’s coming?" "The one beneath," she whispered. "You woke him." Then she lunged. He stumbled back, barely avoiding her hands as she clawed toward his face. She was fast, inhumanly fast. He struck with the butt of his knife, catching her jaw. She went down hard, and when she hit the ground, her body convulsed and dissolved into a pile of ash and wet leaves. Jude backed away, heart pounding. He turned and ran. The forest blurred. He didn’t stop until he saw the orchard’s edge. Smoke curled from the cookfires. Laughter rang from the longhouse. But it felt hollow now. Fragile. He stumbled into the clearing. Grace met him first, grabbing his arms. "What happened?" "It’s changed," he gasped. "The boundary is breaking. And there’s something... else. Not a monster. Not a watcher. Something older." He opened his pouch and pulled out Stella’s stone. It was burning now, glyphs glowing bright crimson. Grace stared. "It’s calling something." "Or warning us," Jude said. Behind them, the wives had gathered. He looked at each one. "We need to prepare." "Prepare for what?" Susan asked. Jude looked toward the dark trees. "For a god." That night, the orchard did not sleep. Fires were stoked higher. Weapons were sharpened. Ribbons of watcher silk were wrapped around wrists and ankles like blessings, or perhaps armor. Jude paced the edge of the orchard, eyes on the forest. Grace kept close. At one point, Zoey joined them, holding Laurel’s hand. "There’s someone in the trees," she whispered. Jude’s knife was already in his hand. But when he turned to look, he saw no one. The air, though, was thick with presence. As if something watched. As if something had always been watching. Midnight passed. Still no attack. Still no watchers. Then Raven screamed. Everyone ran. She stood near the shrine, pointing upward. The sky had opened. Not torn. Not broken. Opened. Like a mouth. Stars twisted inward toward it, pulled like beads on a thread. Mist poured down from the wound in the heavens, thick and blue, glowing. Jude’s breath hitched. The same mist. The blue smoke. The one that changed them. The one from before. Grace stumbled. "It’s back." "No," Jude whispered. "It never left." The mist began to spread, pouring over the orchard in slow tendrils. Wherever it touched, things flickered, stones shifted colors, flowers bloomed and wilted in seconds. The trees groaned. Jude turned to the wives. "Get everyone inside." They ran, collecting children, pulling bundles. But Jude stood still. The mist had reached him now, curling around his feet. And deep in its fog, a voice spoke. A voice older than any watcher. Deeper than any glyph. "You opened the gate. You woke me. Now I will see what you have made." Jude gritted his teeth. "You don’t belong here." "But I do," the voice crooned. "This is my body. This island. This mountain. The watchers were my bones. You have unbound them." Grace reached for his hand. He gripped hers. "What do we do?" "We fight," Jude said, raising his knife. But even as he said it, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Not against this. Not against a god. Not unless he became one too.

Wind howled across the orchard like a living thing, threading itself between trees and dragging the mist in trailing ribbons behind it. Jude stood at the edge of the longhouse, his hand still clasping Grace’s. The blue smoke had settled low now, licking across the grass in slow, seductive coils, as if choosing what to claim first. The wives had retreated inside with the children, every window covered, every entrance sealed with symbols traced in ash and dried watcher silk. But Jude remained outside. He had to. Something inside him had changed. It wasn’t just the glyph’s heat pulsing through the stone in his pouch. It wasn’t just the blood in his veins beginning to hum with some unknown rhythm. It was the way the mist looked at him. Like it knew him. Like it had been waiting. The voice from earlier hadn’t returned, but its echo clung to the back of his skull like a memory he hadn’t made. He squeezed Grace’s hand once, then released it. "Stay here. If something happens to me, you lead them." "No," she said. "Not again." "Grace," he whispered. "If I lose myself, " "Then I’ll come find you," she said firmly. Her voice was steady, but her eyes shimmered. "We’re not playing that game again. Not after everything." Jude hesitated. A flicker of guilt passed through him, and for a heartbeat, he wanted to forget the mist, the watchers, the gods. He wanted to turn, go back inside, hold them all, press kisses into their hair and say this was all a bad dream. But it wasn’t. And something was coming. He stepped into the mist. It parted for him, flowing away as if pulled by invisible hands. The jungle didn’t protest when he entered. No snapping twigs, no rustling leaves. It was still . Unnaturally so. When he reached the shrine again, it was different. The stones had rearranged. The glyphs on the altar glowed with a strange, purplish hue. And the blue mist was no longer spilling from the sky, it was rising from the altar itself. Jude knelt, one hand on the warm stone. His breath came slow, controlled. The stone in his pouch throbbed like a drumbeat. As he watched, the glyphs pulsed and shifted, not randomly, but as if responding to him. Or calling him. Then the voice returned, low and endless. "You came again. As you always do. As you always will." "Who are you?" Jude asked, voice steady. "Why do you speak to me?" "Because I was made for you," the voice said. "And you were made for me." A shape began to form in the mist. Not a figure, just a silhouette. Broad. Tall. Ever-shifting. Like the mist refused to give it one form.