Chapter 1The ocean stretched endlessly, gray and restless under a bruised sky.Kael Rynor sat on the edge of the boat, staring at the fog ahead.Somewhere inside that mist lay the island—the one everyone said didn’t exist.Thunder cracked.Lightning painted the waves white.He barely blinked.The pilot glanced back. “You sure this is the right place, sir? GPS keeps resetting. It’s like the island doesn’t want to be found.”Kael didn’t answer. His hands were trembling again, fingers tapping against his knee in a rhythm he didn’t remember learning. Every sound—the crash of the sea, the hum of the engine—felt too loud in his head.He’d seen the island before.Not in photos.In dreams.“Landfall in five!” the pilot shouted.Kael’s pulse picked up. The mist began to thin, revealing dark cliffs and towering trees. The island rose like something alive, breathing fog through its valleys.Captain Reeve Darrow stood beside him, broad shoulders tense. “Eyes sharp, Rynor. We’re not here to play

Chapter 3 (Previously: The team found the missing expedition’s camp untouched—plates still warm, beds made, but not a single person left behind.)Rain hadn’t stopped since dawn.The forest swallowed the light, turning the air a greenish gray. Kael walked through mud up to his boots, the sound of his heartbeat blending with the steady drum of rain.He couldn’t shake the cold crawling under his skin. The others were moving ahead—Reeve barking orders, Elara taking samples, Mira photographing a strange fungus that grew in spirals around tree roots. Kael barely heard them.Something pulsed beneath his sleeve again.The mark.It had appeared at dawn, just after he woke from another dream of fire and voices calling his name. At first it was faint—a shimmer of light under the skin—but now it burned with a slow rhythmic throb, as if matching the island’s pulse.He pulled his glove tighter. No one could see.“Kael,” Elara called. “Over here.”She crouched by a broken crate stamped with the mis

Perfect 😈Chapter 5 The storm passed before dawn.Not because it stopped—because the island let it.Kael could tell. The way the air shifted wasn’t natural. The jungle’s sounds returned, soft and hollow, as if mimicking calm instead of living it.He hadn’t slept. Couldn’t. The mark still pulsed faintly beneath his sleeve, warm and alive.It hummed in rhythm with the heartbeat of the island.Reeve’s gruff voice broke the silence.“Pack it up. We’re moving out.”No one argued.They were too scared to.Mira’s eyes were red from crying, Elara was pale but steady, and Reeve’s jaw was locked tight—like a man trying not to believe in ghosts.Kael led the way through the fog. The jungle had changed again overnight—paths that existed yesterday were gone, replaced by thick roots and walls of vines.“Compass is useless,” Reeve muttered. “North keeps turning.”“Then we follow that,” Kael said.He pointed through the mist.A faint blue glow pulsed between the trees.It wasn’t sunlight. It was de

Chapter 7The jungle was burning blue.From the ridge, Kael could see it spreading through the valley—veins of light slithering through the trees, connecting roots, rivers, even the clouds above. The air trembled. The hum had turned into a low chant, resonating through every stone, every drop of rain.Elara gripped his arm. “Kael, we have to move—now!”He didn’t respond.The mark on his skin was glowing violently, tracing every vein up his arm like living fire. His body shook with each pulse, his breath coming shallow. Somewhere deep inside, the voice whispered again. You can’t run from yourself.Reeve cursed under his breath and fired a warning shot into the air. The sound was devoured instantly by the jungle’s hum. “Move! Everyone back to the cliffs!”But the ground shifted beneath them.The earth cracked open with a deep groan, splitting the ridge apart. Mira screamed as the mud gave way under her boots. Kael caught her arm, pulling her back before she could fall into the widening

Chapter 9 The rain stopped at dawn.Not slowly — just stopped. One heartbeat, it was thunder and chaos; the next, silence so thick it pressed against their ears.Kael stood outside the cave, staring at the fog curling over the valley. Every breath he took came out white, even though the air was warm. The temperature was wrong again. The jungle smelled of rust and ash.Behind him, the others were waking. Mira coughed softly, her voice thin.“Did it stop?”Kael didn’t answer. His skin still glowed faintly where the mark had burned through his sleeve. The same pulse echoed deep below, faint but steady.The island’s heartbeat.Elara joined him. “It’s getting worse,” she said, brushing rain from her jacket. “The seismic activity last night — if that wasn’t an eruption coming, I don’t know what is.”He nodded absently, but his eyes never left the mist. “It’s not the volcano that’s waking.”She frowned. “What do you mean?”Kael opened his mouth to answer — but the words caught in his throat