ECHOES OF THE FORGOTTEN ISLE

BLOOD MEMORY

Chapter 7

The 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 rift. Steam rose from the gap—cold, not hot—and the smell of old stone filled the air.

Elara stared into the fissure. “That’s not… lava.”

No. It wasn’t.

It was light.

Blue, ancient, breathing.

Kael felt it pulling at him—like gravity, like memory.

He staggered forward, unable to stop himself. His fingers brushed the glowing air above the chasm. A flash of white seared his vision—and the world shifted again.

He stood somewhere else.

Same island. Different time.

The jungle was alive but not wild—orderly. Structured. The trees stood in rows. The rivers glowed like veins of glass. And everywhere he looked, people worked—chanting, building, carving symbols into stone.

A city beneath the sky.

Kael turned slowly, heart racing. His own voice echoed behind him.

 “The seal must hold. The Entity cannot awaken again.”

He turned—and saw himself. But older. Dressed in white armor lined with light, the spiral mark engraved on his chest.

The other Kael—the Guardian—stood before the obsidian temple, the same one buried beneath the roots now.

And kneeling before him was a figure wrapped in shadow.

You fear what you don’t understand,” the dark figure whispered.

“I am what protects this world from itself.”

The Guardian raised his hand, palm glowing. “You consume everything you touch.”

 “Because everything I touch begs to be consumed.”

The Guardian’s eyes hardened. “Then you’ll sleep. Beneath the roots. Until the world forgets you.”

The dark figure laughed. A sound like thunder trapped in a whisper.

“You can’t bury your own reflection, Kael.”

Then light. Blinding, violent.

The Guardian thrust his hand forward, sealing the Entity into the earth. The spiral burned into the soil, the mark spreading from his own skin into the land. The world screamed—and fell silent.

When the light faded, the jungle was ash. The people were gone.

And the Guardian—Kael—collapsed beside the seal.

Kael’s knees hit the mud.

The vision dissolved. The rain returned, cold and sharp. The others were shouting, pulling him back to reality.

Elara knelt in front of him. “Kael! What did you see?!”

He met her eyes, hollow. “It’s not a curse. It’s a prison.”

Mira’s voice shook. “For that thing?”

“For me.”

The jungle moaned again, the ground trembling beneath them. The fissure widened, spilling blue light like blood. Shadows swirled within it—faces forming, melting, reforming again.

Reeve yelled, “We have to move! The whole ridge is collapsing!”

But Kael didn’t move. He stared into the light.

His reflection stared back.

The same double from before—eyes burning blue, expression calm. It stood in the glow as if waiting.

 “You sealed me away,” the double said softly. “But when you died, the seal weakened. Every breath you take brings me closer.”

Kael’s hand trembled. “You’re not real.”

 “I am you. The part that stayed buried while you were reborn. Every lifetime, I wait. Every century, I whisper your name.”

The light pulsed again, blinding white. Mira screamed as a tree collapsed behind them. Elara grabbed Kael’s shoulders. “Kael, please! You have to stop it!”

He looked at her—really looked. Her face streaked with rain, eyes wide with fear but still… human. Grounded.

He envied that.

“I don’t know how,” he whispered.

Reeve fired another shot toward the fissure. “We don’t have time for this!”

The bullet vanished into the glow—swallowed like nothing.

Kael turned back toward the light. His double was closer now, standing half in shadow, half in rain.

 “You tried to destroy me,” it said. “But we were never meant to be separate. You can’t destroy what you are.”

Kael shook his head. “You’re the part that killed them. All of them.”

 “I protected them from themselves. The island’s power feeds on balance. Without me, it rots. Without me, you rot.”

The ground thundered. The fissure expanded, the air vibrating. Elara stumbled, crying out as the light flared.

Kael felt the pull again—deep, primal, magnetic.

He could resist it… or face it.

He stepped forward.

Mira shouted, “Kael, don’t!”

But it was too late.

The light swallowed him whole.

Silence.

Weightless, endless silence.

Kael floated in the dark. No rain, no sound, no body—just thought. The voice spoke inside his skull.

 “Do you remember now?”

He saw flashes—cities burning, seas boiling, the temple collapsing. His own hands stained with blood.

 “You weren’t the hero, Kael. You were the weapon.”

 “You didn’t seal me to protect the world—you sealed me to punish yourself.”

Kael’s voice cracked. “Then what am I now?”

 “A fragment. A shadow of what you were.”

 “But it doesn’t have to end like before.”

The light flared—images racing past his mind. The others screaming on the ridge. The jungle cracking apart. The island pulsing like a living heart.

 “Let me back in,” the voice whispered. “Together, we can stop it. We can make it whole again.”

Kael clenched his fists. “You mean destroy it.”

 “Balance requires sacrifice.”

The words echoed until they weren’t words anymore—just vibration, just rhythm, merging with his heartbeat.

 Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

Then the world exploded.

He gasped awake on the ground, drenched in mud. Elara was kneeling over him, shaking his shoulders.

“Kael! Say something!”

He coughed, eyes wide, chest heaving. His mark was still glowing—but softer now, steady.

Reeve was scanning the horizon. “The fissure’s closing!”

Mira was crying quietly beside the fire, staring at the valley below. The glow there was fading, veins retracting into the earth like dying roots.

Kael sat up slowly, dizzy, staring at his hands. The mark had changed—no longer a spiral, but a line split in two.

Elara noticed. “Kael… what happened?”

He looked at her with eyes that no longer seemed like his own.

“I made a choice,” he said quietly. “But I don’t know which one.”

She frowned. “Meaning?”

He stood, staring at the valley as the last of the blue light vanished beneath the rain. His reflection in a puddle flickered—two faces overlapping for just a heartbeat.

“One of us went back to sleep,” Kael murmured. “I just don’t know which.”

The jungle was silent again.

Too silent.

Then, from deep below the earth, came the faintest whisper.

Thank you… for remembering.

Kael’s breath caught.

Because this time—it was his own voice.