2025-10-23 20:21:04Chapter 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.
Because for a second, he saw himself again in the fog. The double. Same stance. Same face.
Then it was gone.
He blinked hard. “Nothing.”
Elara didn’t press. She’d stopped pressing questions that had no human answers.
By noon, the team began moving toward the northern ridge. Reeve led, rifle drawn, his jaw tight. The jungle was quieter than it should’ve been — no birds, no insects, just wind shifting leaves like whispers.
“Keep formation,” Reeve said. “We don’t split again.”
They hadn’t slept properly in days. Mira stumbled once, clutching her satchel. “It feels like the ground’s… breathing.”
No one laughed. Not anymore.
Hours passed. The fog thickened as they descended into a ravine. The trees bent inward, their branches forming black arches overhead. The deeper they went, the more the world warped — light flickering wrong, air humming like distant electricity.
Kael’s vision wavered. He saw ruins between the trees — flickering in and out like ghosts. Stone faces carved into trunks, eyes weeping streams of dark water.
He stopped. “Do you see that?”
Reeve turned. “See what?”
“The carvings.”
Reeve scanned the area. “There’s nothing there.”
But Elara froze. “Wait.” She lifted her flashlight — and this time, they all saw it.
Ancient stone pillars jutting from the earth, each engraved with spirals identical to Kael’s mark.
“God,” Mira whispered. “They go on for miles…”
Elara approached one, tracing the markings. “These are older than anything we’ve seen. This isn’t natural erosion. It’s a barrier.”
Reeve raised a brow. “A barrier against what?”
Kael looked at the carvings. “Not against. It’s keeping something in.”
The ground rumbled softly, like it agreed.
They camped under the shattered remains of a temple arch. The sun didn’t set — it just vanished behind clouds.
Reeve gathered everyone. His tone was low, tense. “Listen. Whatever’s happening here, it’s tied to Rynor.”
Kael stiffened.
Reeve continued. “Every quake, every storm, every hallucination — it starts when he’s around. You’ve all seen it.”
Mira shook her head. “You think he’s doing this on purpose?”
Reeve’s glare cut through her. “You tell me. He glows when the island shakes. That mark wasn’t there before we came here. He’s the damn epicenter.”
Elara stepped in. “That’s not fair. He’s as much a victim of this as we are.”
Reeve scoffed. “Victim? He talks to voices in the rain. The ground moves when he bleeds. That’s not human.”
Kael stood. “Say what you’re really thinking, Captain.”
Reeve leveled the rifle at him. “I think you’re the reason my men are dead.”
The silence hit like a gunshot.
Elara’s voice cracked. “Put it down.”
Reeve didn’t move. “You’ve been lying since we got here, Rynor. Who are you really?”
Kael met his stare — calm, cold. “If I knew, maybe I could tell you.”
Mira whispered, “Please… stop fighting.”
But the jungle itself seemed to stir around them — wind slithering through vines, whispering Kael’s name again and again until even Reeve hesitated.
Then came the quake.
A thunderous crack split the earth a few meters away. Trees toppled. A shockwave sent them sprawling. Kael fell to his knees, clutching his head as the mark on his arm ignited like fire.
Elara grabbed him. “Kael!”
He gasped — and then spoke words none of them understood. Harsh, guttural syllables that made the air shimmer.
Mira screamed. The stones around them glowed the same color as his veins — blue-white light pulsing like a living heart.
Reeve stumbled back. “What the hell—?”
Kael’s eyes snapped open, glowing bright. “It’s breaking,” he rasped. “The seal’s breaking!”
The temple floor split apart. Steam hissed upward, reeking of iron and rot. Beneath them, something moved.
Elara dragged him away from the edge. “We need to move—now!”
But Kael wasn’t listening. His body trembled violently, voice overlapping with a second one — deeper, echoing.
“You cannot run from what you are.”
Everyone froze. The voice came from Kael’s mouth — but it wasn’t his.
Reeve’s grip on the rifle tightened. “He’s possessed—!”
Elara shouted, “Don’t shoot!”
Kael looked up, eyes black as the chasm below. “If you shoot, it wakes faster.”
The ground lurched again. A fissure tore through the camp, swallowing one of the ancient pillars whole. From deep below came a sound — not a roar, not a growl. Something older. Like the island exhaling after centuries of silence.
Mira clutched her head. “It’s inside my mind—”
Elara grabbed her shoulders. “Focus on me! Don’t listen to it!”
Kael’s mark pulsed again, harder, until blue light burst from his palm, forming a barrier around them. The quake stopped. The jungle fell still.
Smoke curled from his skin. He looked hollow, drained.
Reeve lowered his weapon slowly, eyes narrow. “What the hell was that?”
Kael took a shaky breath. “Control. Barely.”
Elara knelt beside him. “That language you spoke—what was it?”
He hesitated. “It felt… familiar. Like muscle memory.”
Mira shivered. “It called you by a title.”
Kael’s head turned. “What title?”
“Guardian.”
His breath caught.
Before anyone could speak again, a faint click echoed behind them. Metal against stone.
Reeve’s voice was cold. “I can’t risk this anymore.”
Elara turned sharply. “Reeve—”
He aimed the rifle at Kael’s head. “You’re going to tell me what’s down there. Now.”
Kael stared at him. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
The jungle around them groaned. The mist shifted, forming faint human shapes between the trees. Dozens of them — faces without eyes, bodies flickering like smoke.
Reeve’s hands trembled. “What the—”
Kael’s voice was calm now. “They’re the ones who tried to stop it before. They failed.”
The shapes turned, faces contorting in silent screams.
Mira whispered, “Reeve… we need to move.”
But Reeve was too far gone — panic mixing with rage. “You did this! You brought them here!”
He pulled the trigger.
The shot rang out—
—but Kael was gone.
The bullet hit stone, sparks flaring. The air where Kael stood shimmered, collapsing inward like a ripple.
Elara screamed, “Kael!”
Then everything went dark.
When Kael opened his eyes, he was alone.
No rain. No voices. Just endless ruins stretching beneath the island’s surface.
His body ached. Blood trickled from his ear. The mark on his arm was glowing again — brighter than ever.
He stumbled to his feet, scanning the empty chamber. The air hummed, alive. In the distance, a massive obsidian door stood half-open. Light bled from its cracks like veins of fire.
He walked toward it, every step echoing.
Whispers rose — thousands of voices overlapping, chanting in the same ancient tongue he’d spoken earlier.
Kael touched the door. The symbols flared, responding to his presence.
Then he saw it — a figure on the other side. Human-shaped. Waiting.
“Who are you?” Kael whispered.
The figure tilted its head.
> “You still don’t remember?”
The voice was his own.
Kael froze.
“You sealed me here once. Now you’ve come to finish what you started.”
The light surged. The door creaked wider. Heat blasted out, thick with the scent of burning earth.
Kael took a step back, heart pounding. “I didn’t come here to free you.”
“Then why are you standing at the gate?”
He couldn’t answer. Because deep inside, he knew.
The door shifted again, opening wider. A single tendril of black smoke curled through the crack, wrapping around his arm.
It burned — but it didn’t hurt. It recognized him.
“Welcome home, Guardian.”
The door groaned open another inch.
And from the darkness beyond, something reached out — not to kill him, but to pull him in.
When Kael screamed, the sound wasn’t human.
It was ancient.
And it echoed through the island like thunder.
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