Teeth Beneath the Surface

Sector Six looked different at night. The torches burned low. Shadows leaned longer. And whatever hope this place had during the day? It curled up and died the moment the stars came out.

I lay on a thin cot in what Mercer's people called the "resting hall." It was more like a holding pen. Rows of beds. Moaning, coughing contestants. Some were missing fingers. One guy near the back didn't have legs, just two bandaged stumps and a bottle of something they swore was medicine but looked more like swamp water.

I couldn't sleep. Not because I was uncomfortable — which I was — but because this place hummed with something I couldn't name. A wrongness. Like the walls themselves were waiting to snap shut and swallow me.

I glanced to my left. Ava was sharpening her blade again, sitting cross-legged at the foot of her cot like a sentry dog trained in pain.

Theo was passed out. Finally. He hadn't said much since the orb incident. Since the seizure. Since the burn mark on his chest started to glow faintly in low light.

Yeah. That part was new.

He hadn't noticed it yet. I made sure of that.

He'd been quiet since Mercer's men pulled us into the camp, but not the "I'm-processing-things" kind of quiet. No. This was something heavier. Theo had been flickering in and out — one moment fidgeting, the next staring into space like someone whispered a secret only he could hear.

And I couldn't shake it: whatever the orb did to him, it wasn't done.

They fed us in shifts. If you missed your window, you didn't eat. Mercer's rules.

Tonight was bread that tasted like dirt and a stew that smelled like regret. But I ate it. Ava ate it. Theo... picked at it.

"You've got to eat," I said. Not in a motherly way — in a "don't collapse on me tomorrow" way.

"I'm not hungry," he muttered.

"Too bad. Surviving isn't optional."

He didn't look up. "You ever think maybe it is?"

Ava's eyes flicked over.

I didn't answer.

Because yeah, I had. Before. Once. A lifetime ago.

And then I died for it.

After food came "orientation."

That's what Mercer's crew called it.

We were marched — yes, marched — into a large, half-collapsed amphitheater on the edge of the camp. Torches burned along the walls. Half the seats were filled with Mercer's soldiers. The rest were people like us: fresh meat.

Mercer stood at the center, one hand on the hilt of a gold-handled sword like he was born holding it. His coat was black and sharp, the fabric too clean to make sense. No dirt. No blood. No truth.

Behind him was a map. A full layout of Skull Island etched onto a metallic board. Each sector marked. Some lit up with glowing stones. Others blacked out completely.

I scanned it quickly. Twenty sectors.

Six were under Mercer's flag.

Four were marked as "lost."

The rest? Free game.

"We're building something here," Mercer said, voice calm, practiced, too smooth. "A new order. One that will survive this game. One that will win."

The crowd murmured. He let it sit for a beat.

"You were all sent here to fight. To claw your way back into life. But fighting alone is a child's fantasy. And fantasy gets you killed. Out there—" He pointed toward the jungle. "—is chaos. In here, there's structure. Power. And above all, future."

People nodded. I saw the ones it landed on. The ones desperate enough to believe it.

But me? I watched his eyes.

And those eyes weren't selling a future.

They were measuring worth.

After the speech, we were split. Ava got pulled into what they called the "Talon Core" — a squad built for scouting and frontline recon. She didn't like it, but she didn't protest.

Theo was sent to "Observation." He didn't ask questions. Just nodded and walked off like someone told him where he belonged his whole life.

Me?

They didn't assign me.

They requested me.

Mercer himself.

His right-hand lackey, some dude named Bram, found me leaning against a wall.

"The leader wants a word."

"Of course he does."

"Follow me."

Mercer's tent was bigger than the others. No surprise.

Inside, it looked like a dictator's Pinterest board. Weapons displayed on racks. Flags on the walls. A massive wooden table with detailed figurines marking every known faction on the island.

He didn't look up as I entered. Just moved a piece across the map.

"Sector 9's dissolving," he said. "Internal schism. Two lieutenants at war."

"Tragic."

He looked at me. "You're clever. That's rare here. I need rare."

"What do you want?"

He walked to a cabinet, poured himself a drink, then poured a second one and slid it toward me.

I didn't touch it.

"I want you in my command structure. Not as a soldier. As a strategist."

That caught me off guard.

"Why me?"

"You see angles. I've read your file. Watched the way you speak. The way you don't. You're dangerous. But controlled. I like that."

"And if I say no?"

He smiled faintly. "Then you'll do it anyway. Because here, 'no' is just a prelude to 'yes' after you've been broken a little."

He sipped his drink.

I stared at him. "You mistake tolerance for loyalty."

"And you mistake options for freedom."

We locked eyes.

That was the real Mercer. Not the speaker. Not the symbol. The tyrant in waiting.

I didn't answer.

And he didn't press.

"Think it over," he said. "Sleep near power long enough… and it starts to feel like warmth."

Outside, the wind had shifted. Ava was nowhere in sight. Theo either. Everyone was busy being molded.

I sat down on the edge of a dry fountain. The torchlight flickered.

Then I heard it.

A whistle.

Low. Casual. Too calm for this place.

I turned.

A figure leaned against a tree just outside the torch radius. Blond. Grinning.

Calen.

He gave me a mock salute.

Didn't say a word.

Then disappeared into the dark.

To be continued.

Sectors Are Just Fences for the Dead

I didn't sleep.

Couldn't. Not after seeing Calen.

Because the moment he whistled, the rules changed again. Not Mercer's rules. Not Skull Island's.

Mine.

Calen wasn't supposed to be here — not in Sector Six. Not this soon. Last I saw him, he was charming his way through the woods like some off-brand cult recruiter. Now he was inside enemy lines, grinning like he owned the place.

What the hell was he doing?

And more importantly… why didn't anyone else see him?

Morning came like a punch in the spine. Skull Island light doesn't warm you — it exposes you.

I found Ava by the water trough outside the ration tent, rinsing her face with a mechanical coldness. Her shirt was half torn, dust smeared across her jaw, a thin red line on her forearm that wasn't there the night before.

"You bleed now?" I asked.

She glanced at it. "Talon Core doesn't train with wooden blades."

"Let me guess. Friendly sparring turned into 'Oops, I broke your ribs'?"

"Something like that."

She didn't elaborate. I didn't ask. That's how it worked between us.

But there was something different behind her eyes this morning. Something measured. Like she was stacking information in her head, and some of it didn't fit the puzzle Mercer wanted her to see.

Good.

Theo showed up late to the ration tent. Eyes swollen. Shirt soaked in sweat.

He hadn't slept either. But unlike me, he tried.

"Observation" looked like it was chewing him from the inside out.

He sat down with a tray of… something gray and wet. His spoon shook in his hand.

"You good?" I asked.

He didn't answer right away.

Then, softly: "I saw someone last night."

I froze.

"Blond hair?" I asked.

He blinked. "You saw him too?"

Calen.

So it wasn't just me.

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.

"Did he say anything?"

Theo shook his head. "Just looked. Smiled. Walked away. One of the guards passed by him and didn't even see him."

"Figures."

"Who is he?"

"A recruiter."

"For what?"

"Something worse than Mercer."

Theo didn't ask more questions. He didn't have to. The look on his face told me everything.

Calen had left a mark.

Not with weapons. Not with words. But with presence.

He was inside us now. In the quiet.

That afternoon, Mercer gave us an assignment.

"Sector Eight," Bram explained, pacing in front of a crudely drawn map in the war tent. "An old tech zone. Underground tunnels. Used to be a research hub before the island fractured."

"And now?" Ava asked, arms crossed, already annoyed.

"Now it's lawless. A neutral zone by claim, but not by action. No one's been able to hold it. Too many factions try, and they all bleed out."

"Sounds like a vacation," I muttered.

Mercer's plan was simple: send three teams in staggered formations, scout the tunnels, retrieve whatever tech or weapons were left behind, and establish a temporary outpost. Claim it before anyone else did.

Guess who got picked for recon?

Yeah. Us.

Me, Ava, Theo — and two of Mercer's loyal dogs, "to report back" if we died.

Names? Doesn't matter. Their eyes said everything: they didn't trust us. We returned the favor.

We left at dusk.

The route from Sector Six to Eight cut through jagged hills, patches of smoke trees, and a broken rail line half-swallowed by moss.

Theo kept glancing behind us. He wasn't scared of what was ahead.

He was scared of what might be following.

"Relax," I said. "If Calen wanted you, you'd already be with him."

"That's not comforting."

"It's not supposed to be."

Sector Eight hit us with silence.

No guards. No scouts. No traps. Just emptiness.

The first tunnel was wide enough to drive a car through, but the floor was uneven, cracked open like old bones. Rusted signs with strange symbols lined the walls. One of the dogs — I think his name was Kerr — muttered something about pre-island tech, but I wasn't listening.

Because the deeper we went, the colder it got.

And then we heard it.

Click. Click. Click.

Tiny. Repetitive.

Not footsteps.

Taps.

From metal on metal.

Ahead of us, the tunnel opened into a dome-shaped chamber. The walls were covered in scorched wiring. Broken glass. Half of a mech suit lay in the corner, twisted and hollowed out like a shell. The light from our torches bounced off the ceiling, revealing…

A door.

No, not a door. A hatch. Circular. Bolted shut with old, manual levers.

Ava was already reaching for it when I stopped her.

"Wait. Look."

The floor around the hatch was clean. No dust. No debris.

And there were prints.

Small. Barefoot.

"Someone's been through here," I said.

"Recently," Ava agreed.

The second dog, Marlow, stepped forward. "That means there's something valuable down there."

"Or something waiting."

But it didn't matter. Orders were orders.

Theo stayed by the wall, staring at the hatch like it was going to open on its own.

His hands trembled again.

I didn't say it out loud, but… I felt it too.

This place wasn't abandoned. It was bait.

We cracked the hatch.

Inside was a shaft. Metal ladder descending into blackness.

We dropped a flare.

The light fell... and kept falling.

Seconds passed before it landed. Far too deep. Far too quiet.

"You're not actually thinking—" I started.

"We go," Ava said.

"Of course we do," I muttered.

Only four of us went down. One of Mercer's guys stayed behind to "guard the entry."

I'm sure he just didn't want to die underground.

Smart.

The shaft led to another hallway, but this one wasn't broken. It was preserved. Lights flickered to life as we moved. Not torches. Electric.

I stared up at the ceiling.

"This place has power."

Ava frowned. "Then who turned it on?"

We passed through a series of labs. Glass containers. Empty cages. A wall covered in photographs, none labeled, all burnt along the edges. The smell of metal and something old hung thick in the air.

Theo moved slower here. Almost like he recognized something. I caught him brushing a hand along the wall — pausing, staring, as if listening.

"What is it?" I asked.

He blinked. "I… don't know. But this place feels familiar."

Ava and I locked eyes.

Not good.

At the end of the corridor was another room. A circular space with six doors.

All shut.

In the center?

A pedestal.

On it sat a box. Smooth. Black. No lock. Just a single symbol on top.

I didn't touch it.

Ava circled it, blade drawn. "Looks like another orb."

"Don't say orb," Theo whispered.

But he was already stepping closer.

Drawn.

Like it was calling to him.

I moved to stop him, but he touched it first.

The moment his fingers made contact — the lights died.

Pitch black.

Theo screamed.

And something moved in the dark.

Something with claws.

To be continued.