I woke up to the sound of someone sobbing.
Not the delicate kind you'd hear in a movie where the girl covers her mouth and a single tear rolls down. Nah. This was guttural. Broken. Like a bear choking on guilt. It was too dark to see anything, but it didn't feel like I was alone in the cave anymore.
"Ava?" I whispered.
No response. But the sobbing stopped instantly. That made it worse.
I sat up, back hitting the jagged stone wall, heart rattling in my ribs like a prisoner who realized the door's still locked. Something shuffled nearby. And for a second, I thought maybe I'd hallucinated everything. Maybe I never jumped. Maybe I'm just lying in some hospital bed, drugged up and broken, dreaming about hell and skull-shaped islands.
And then the voice spoke.
"Do you think they cried for you too?"
A boy's voice. Quiet. Almost too calm to be real.
My fingers scraped the dirt as I reached for a rock or stick or anything I could use. "Who's there?"
"I watched them cry. My parents. When they put my body in the ground, they cried so much, I thought it would bring rain."
A spark lit up across the cave. A match. Then a candle. Then the boy's face.
He was maybe thirteen. Pale. Freckles across his cheeks like someone slapped him with a handful of cinnamon. He wore what looked like an old school uniform—neat, pressed, and bloodstained.
"You're new," he said with a faint smile. "You still think this is a game."
I didn't respond. Mostly because he was holding a blade.
"Relax," he said, waving it like it was a toothbrush. "Not here to kill you. I just come to this cave when I can't sleep. The dead don't rest easy."
The kid sat cross-legged and lit a few more candles. The cave slowly revealed itself—crude carvings in the walls, like tally marks and little symbols. A few bones in the corner. Probably animal. Hopefully.
"I'm Jack," I said.
"I know," he replied. "Everyone does."
"…Okay, creepy."
He laughed. "Name's Elias. I've died twice. Maybe three times. Lost count."
I blinked. "You what?"
"Skull Island doesn't let you die until it wants to," he said, looking down at his hands. "Some people come back broken. Others come back worse. I was one of the lucky ones. I remembered who I was."
He looked up, eyes catching the candlelight. "You won't be."
I didn't sleep the rest of the night.
The next morning, Theo barged into the cave with Ava behind him. I could hear the annoyance in his voice before I even saw his face.
"Jack, you disappeared last night—do you have any idea how dumb that was?"
I stood up, brushing dust off me. "Appreciate the concern, Mom."
"I'm serious. This isn't like your town back home. People disappear here. Permanently."
"Actually," I muttered, thinking of Elias, "they don't always."
Ava looked at me strangely. "You okay?"
"Peachy."
Theo crossed his arms. "You went wandering off while we're trying to survive on a damn war island. That's not just reckless, it's suicidal."
"Wouldn't be the first time," I shot back.
That shut him up. For a few seconds, at least.
He rubbed his forehead. "We need to move soon. Country 16's scouts were nearby. And if we don't get to higher ground by sundown, we're going to be sitting ducks."
"We found a ravine about a kilometer out," Ava added. "Looks climbable. Might give us a view of the next few territories."
"And a better chance at spotting food or enemy movements," Theo said, shifting back into military mode.
I nodded, following them out of the cave, but my mind stayed back there—with Elias.
He hadn't been in the cave when I woke up. No blood, no candles, no carvings. Just dirt and silence.
I didn't tell Theo or Ava about him.
Somehow, I felt like Elias wasn't for them. Not yet.
We hiked through twisted forest roots and ash-colored soil until we reached the ravine. It was narrow and steep, with stone ridges that looked like they'd crumble under too much weight. Perfect.
"You first," I told Theo.
He shot me a look. "You're the Zeist. Shouldn't we be sending Ava first?"
Ava glared. "I dare you."
Theo smirked and started climbing.
I waited until Ava followed, then began my ascent.
Halfway up, a gust of hot wind blew past me. The sky was redder than usual today, like the sun was mad at us. Maybe it was.
"Hey," Ava called from above. "You really okay? You were off this morning."
"I just had a weird dream."
"About?"
I paused, hands gripping the stone tighter than I realized.
"Nothing worth telling."
"Liar."
She didn't press, though. And that was something I liked about Ava. She was curious, but not nosy. Sharp, but not sharp enough to cut. She just nodded and kept climbing.
By the time we reached the top, the view nearly stole my breath. Sprawling jungle spread out in every direction, broken up only by crumbling towers, scattered fires, and the distant shimmer of a lake shaped like a skull.
At least twenty countries. Twenty different hellscapes.
One winner.
Theo whistled low. "We're in the middle of a chessboard. And I don't think we're the queens."
"Speak for yourself," Ava said, brushing her hair back.
I squinted at the horizon. Something moved by the lake. A convoy? Maybe soldiers?
And then I saw it. A flare—bright green—shot into the sky.
Theo cursed. "That's not good."
"What does it mean?"
"It means Country 12 just declared war."
"On who?"
"On everyone," Theo muttered. "It's their game now."
Ava looked at me. "So… what do we do?"
I glanced back at the trail we came from, then at the smoke rising from across the jungle. Then I heard Elias's voice in my head again.
"You still think this is a game."
I turned toward Ava and Theo. My voice steady.
"We stop surviving."
"…What?"
"We stop running. Hiding. Waiting. That's what the dead do."
I cracked my neck. "We start fighting."
Ava smirked. Theo didn't argue.
Guess I wasn't the only one who woke up different.
[To be continued]
War Cries and Waterfalls
If I had a dollar for every time someone looked at me like I had lost my mind, I'd already be richer than the nobles back home. Not that it mattered anymore. On Skull Island, the only currency was blood, and I was running dangerously low on savings.
"Just to be clear," Theo said, dragging a stick through the dirt to draw what looked like an extremely bad map, "your plan is to 'go to war.' You realize we're three people, right? Three. Uno, dos, we die."
"We won't be alone for long," I said.
"Oh, so the jungle's going to sprout allies for us? Maybe a friendly war elephant will show up?"
"Wouldn't that be convenient," I muttered. "Look, I don't expect us to steamroll the island. But there's something worse than dying here."
"And that is?"
"Dying as one of the extras."
Ava tilted her head. "You mean…?"
"I mean if we're going to be here, we might as well matter."
She leaned back against the rock and crossed her arms. "I hate to say it, but I agree with him. If we're going to be hunted anyway, we might as well become a threat worth hunting."
Theo looked at both of us, then stared up at the orange-gray sky like he was begging for patience. "Fine. But if I get impaled by some 12-year-old wielding a chainsaw made of teeth, I'm haunting both of you."
"Dibs on your boots," I said.
We packed up, scavenged what little edible moss and dried fruit we could, and started moving east—toward the last flare's direction. Not directly into the war zone, but close enough to scope the edges.
As we hiked through terrain that smelled like wet iron and mildew, Theo taught Ava how to sharpen a spear using rock friction. They didn't talk much, but there was a rhythm forming between them. He'd motion, she'd mimic. He'd grunt, she'd frown. Not flirtation—something more mechanical. Practical. Two minds syncing like gears in a survival machine.
Meanwhile, I kept an eye out for anything unnatural. And that's when I heard it.
A voice.
Whispering.
Not in my ear, not in the wind—but inside my head.
"Take the waterfall path."
I froze.
"Jack?" Ava called. "You good?"
I scanned the area. Nothing. Just vines and shadows and the endless sigh of the island.
"…We should go left," I said. "There's a waterfall that way."
Theo raised a brow. "And you know this how?"
"Call it instinct."
He didn't trust it, I could tell. But he followed anyway.
We reached the waterfall a few hours later. It wasn't on any of the maps Theo scribbled, which only made it more suspicious. Crystal blue, unnaturally so. The kind of waterfall you'd expect to see in an overpriced vacation brochure, not a death island.
And behind it—a cave.
A real one this time.
"Please tell me we're not doing the cliché 'walk through the waterfall' thing," Theo said.
I stepped under the cascade without a word. Water pelted me like tiny fists, and the cold sucked the warmth right out of my bones.
Then I emerged inside.
Dry. Warm. Lit.
The cave had torches lining its walls, flickering even though no one had touched them. Symbols carved into the stone glowed faintly. Gold. Crimson. An ancient kind of beautiful.
Ava stepped in beside me, mouth slightly open. "Okay, this is… something."
Theo followed reluctantly, muttering something about cursed tombs and idiots.
There were artifacts on stone pedestals. Weapons. Cloaks. Scrolls. Nothing flashy. But everything looked… personal. Like someone had left them for us.
Or for anyone who made it this far.
At the center of the room was a pedestal with a symbol etched into it: a skull with a crown. It pulsed as I stepped closer.
"Careful," Theo warned.
I touched it.
Flashes. Screams. A burning village. A girl in a red dress running through mud. A man with no face handing a child a sword.
Then I was back.
Ava caught me as I staggered.
"Jack?! What happened?"
I looked down at my hand. A mark had appeared on my wrist. A glowing red line that curved like an ancient letter.
"I… I think it gave me something."
Theo examined it. "Some kind of mark. Like a sigil."
"Looks like a target," I muttered.
"Maybe," Ava said slowly. "Or a key."
We stayed in the cave that night. None of us slept well. The torches never burned out. And sometimes, if you listened closely, you could hear footsteps that weren't ours.
The next morning, we left the cave with new supplies—some weapons, a map, and a little more paranoia. The map was old, but it had one thing Theo's didn't: markers. Territories. Base camps. Dangerous zones.
A kingdom system.
We were in Sector 4. A neutral region bordering Sector 7—controlled by a group called The Rivenblood Pact.
"Catchy name," I said, studying the scratched-out emblem: a wolf biting its own tail.
"Sounds like a cult," Ava muttered.
Theo agreed. "We stay out of their territory until we know more."
Spoiler: we didn't.
Because later that day, as we crossed a blackened field full of old bones and burnt banners, we saw them.
Marching.
Clad in blood-red leather, faces masked, weapons glinting with the kind of precision that only came from killing without blinking.
And leading them—a tall woman with silver hair tied in a whip-like braid. Her armor looked ceremonial, but the way she moved screamed battlefield.
She stopped.
Turned toward us.
And smiled.
"Fresh meat," she said.
Theo's hand moved to his blade.
Ava readied her bow.
I just sighed. "Can we skip introductions and get to the part where someone threatens to kill me?"
The silver-haired woman's grin widened.
"Oh, darling," she said. "Why kill you when I can offer something worse?"
She raised a hand.
"Welcome to Skull Island diplomacy."
[To be continued]