Chapter 874 - 876
He stood and turned to the others. "We go back to camp. Now. No one splits up. We stay together."
There were no arguments. They walked in silence, a tight group moving through the trees like a single living thing. Even the birds had gone quiet again. Not a single chirp, no rustling in the underbrush. Just the steady crunch of their footsteps on the forest floor and the low beat of something beneath it all.
Back in camp, Jude gathered them around the fire pit. The sun had risen fully now, but it felt muted, filtered through a sky that looked too pale. Like the color had been washed from it.
"I think we’ve been too quiet about this," he said. "We keep experiencing things we can’t explain, and we’re trying to treat them like they’ll pass if we ignore them. But they’re getting stronger. More coordinated. We need to face whatever’s happening, together."
No one disagreed. Susan looked up from where she’d been kneeling by the fire, her voice shaking slightly. "Do you think it’s the island?"
Jude didn’t answer immediately. Then he nodded. "I think it’s always been the island. We’ve just... been too distracted to see it."
Sophie, sitting cross-legged next to him, leaned in. "Do you think it’s trying to communicate with us? Through the smoke?"
"I don’t know. But whatever it is, it’s getting inside us. Literally. And then it’s making us forget."
Zoey looked pale. "So then how do we fight something we can’t even remember?"
Jude looked at her. "We write it down."
They started keeping a record. Jude found old parchment scraps from when they’d tried mapping the island in the early days. He handed them out, along with charcoal. "If something happens to you, anything, even if you’re not sure, it goes on paper. Then hide it. Somewhere only you know. That way, if your memory’s wiped again, we still have a trail."