We Enter Her House

I don't know when the forest stopped looking like a forest.

But somewhere between the girl's vanishing act and the bone-grinned woman pointing me out like I was today's lottery winner, the trees changed. They weren't just trees anymore. They arched. Bent inward. Forming ribs. Spines. An anatomy of wood and silence.

We were inside something.

Ava didn't say it, but I could tell she felt it too.

Theo finally whispered what none of us wanted to admit: "This place is shaped like a mouth."

He wasn't wrong.

Every root was a tendon. Every vine, a muscle.

And we were walking straight down the throat.

No birds anymore.

No insects either.

Even the wind had dipped out.

All that remained was the sound of breathing — not from us, but underneath us. Like the ground had lungs.

Theo stopped suddenly and pointed. "Is that… a doorway?"

It was. A perfect rectangle carved into a slope of moss-covered stone. No hinges. No handle. Just an opening, barely taller than me, cut into the wall like it had always existed.

And just above it?

That same triangle-slash symbol.

Etched in blood.

Ava ran her fingers over the edge of the stone. "This isn't a camp."

"No," I said. "It's a temple."

Theo groaned. "Cool. A death cult temple. Great. Can we leave now?"

"Do you see a better option?" Ava asked flatly.

He didn't.

Neither did I.

So we went in.

The air was wet.

Not humid. Wet.

Like stepping into a bathroom right after a hot shower, except the water felt... wrong. Heavy. Like it had memory.

The corridor curved down, deeper and deeper, spiraling like a drain.

And all along the walls?

Paintings.

Crude. Charcoal and blood. Hundreds of them.

Children. Fire. Masks. Eyes.

A repeated image: a figure with no mouth and hands made of flame.

Halden?

We passed alcoves lined with skulls.

One had a crown.

Another had hair still attached.

I didn't ask.

We didn't stop.

Because we could hear something now — faint, but growing louder.

Drums.

The room at the bottom was wide. Circular. A pit at the center, filled with dark water. Candles lined the rim. And surrounding it all: robed figures, kneeling, swaying to the beat of the drums.

None looked up.

At the far side of the chamber, a throne of bones sat beneath a broken skylight where moonlight filtered in like dust. And on that throne, lounging as if she'd been waiting for centuries, was her.

Halden.

She wasn't armored. No visible weapons. Just a long, black robe that shimmered like oil and eyes that didn't blink.

She didn't move.

Not when we entered.

Not when the drums stopped.

Not even when Ava reached for her knife.

But she smiled.

Wide. Crooked. Familiar.

Same stitch-scar grin as the woman from the forest.

Except hers wasn't sewn.

Hers was real.

"Welcome," she said. Her voice was like silk pulled through gravel.

"To what?" I asked.

She spread her arms. "To sanctuary."

Theo laughed nervously. "Right. The kind with body piles outside and symbols carved into children's necks?"

"Sanctuary is not comfort," she said. "It's clarity."

I stepped forward. "You sent that girl. You wanted us to see the outpost."

Halden nodded. "Truth must be seen to be chosen."

"What truth?"

"That Mercer is a lie."

Ava bristled. "You don't know Mercer."

"I know his kind," Halden said. "I was one of them."

Her hand rose — not in threat, but to gesture at the room around her.

"I followed orders. Led sectors. Built structure in chaos. And then I realized… order is the cruelest prison."

Theo folded his arms. "So you built a cult instead?"

"No," Halden said, almost gently. "I freed one."

She stood now, moving down the steps of her throne like she was gliding.

"You think I kill children," she said, eyes on Ava.

Ava didn't answer.

"You're wrong," Halden said. "I raise them. I show them how to survive."

"You brand them," I said.

"I mark the willing," she replied. "So no one else claims them."

Theo narrowed his eyes. "Then what was that massacre at the outpost?"

Halden's face went cold.

"That was a lesson," she said. "For those who wore my mark but still bent the knee to Mercer."

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

"Mercy is for after the island."

The room stayed silent for a long time.

Then Halden looked at me.

"You've been marked."

I nodded. "Not by choice."

She tilted her head. "And yet... it fits you."

Theo stepped forward. "So what now? You kill us? Recruit us?"

Halden's smile widened.

"No," she said. "I invite you."

"To what?" Ava asked, voice low.

Halden raised her arms again.

"To step out of the game."

We blinked.

All three of us.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

She stepped closer. Her breath smelled like incense and firewood.

"It means... forget sectors. Forget missions. Forget Mercer and Calen and all the false kings clawing at this broken throne."

She placed a hand over my heart.

"Build something new," she whispered. "With me."

Ava's hand twitched toward her blade.

Theo looked at me.

And I?

I said nothing.

Because for one terrifying moment... I didn't know what I wanted.

Elsewhere...

Mercer sat at the edge of a ruined dock, sharpening a blade under moonlight. A scout approached.

"They made contact with Halden."

Mercer didn't look up. "And?"

"She offered them sanctuary."

He paused.

Then smiled.

"Let's see if they understand what that word really means."

Every Choice is a War

We didn't speak after she said it.

That invitation.

That damn word: sanctuary.

It hung there, heavier than any threat Halden could've made. Not a knife. Not a chain. Just a possibility. And somehow, that was worse.

Ava's eyes never left her.

Theo kept fidgeting. His heel bounced against the stone floor like he was trying to tap out Morse code for let's get the hell out.

And me?

I stood there like an idiot, tasting the weight of power disguised as mercy.

Halden stepped back and waved a hand toward the pit in the center of the room. "You're not prisoners," she said. "You're pilgrims. But if you step beyond that circle... you become kin."

Theo scoffed. "You want us to join your cult."

"Call it what you like," she said, unmoved. "A cult. A sect. A rebellion. Labels are for the dead."

I glanced at the circle of candles lining the pit. The water shimmered, dark and bottomless. Something beneath its surface pulsed.

Not a ripple.

A heartbeat.

Ava noticed it too. She touched my wrist — barely — but it was enough. We were on the same page.

Theo wasn't.

"Let's hear her out," he said.

I turned to him. "Seriously?"

"She's not Mercer. She's not Calen. And we need allies."

"She's a walking mass grave," Ava said coldly.

"Maybe," Theo admitted. "But she's honest about it."

That shut us up.

Because he wasn't wrong.

Halden didn't push. She just waited.

Predators do that — the patient ones. They don't pounce. They let you step into their teeth.

And damn it, Theo took a step closer.

"Just questions," he said, raising his hands. "No pledges."

Ava didn't stop him. Neither did I.

Halden gestured to one of the kneeling figures. A girl — maybe fifteen — stood and walked over. Her eyes were clouded. Not blind. Just... detached. Like she saw different wavelengths.

She handed Theo a small object wrapped in cloth.

He unwrapped it slowly.

Inside was a bone pendant, carved into the same triangle symbol, but this one had something else: a second slash beneath the first.

A completed mark?

"What's it mean?" he asked.

Halden's smile dimmed into something quieter. "It means you've walked through fire and remembered who you are on the other side."

I could feel Ava's judgment simmering like acid beside me.

Theo pocketed the pendant.

Didn't wear it.

But he didn't throw it away either.

Later, after we left the chamber — still in one piece, no blood spilled — we camped just outside the threshold of the temple's maw. Trees pressed in from all sides, but didn't cross the stone line. Even nature didn't want inside that place.

Theo stared into the fire, the pendant still in his hand.

"She didn't lie," he said, almost to himself. "Not once."

"Maybe not with words," Ava muttered, cleaning her blade. "But every smile was a loaded gun."

I leaned against a rock and closed my eyes.

"She scares me less than Mercer," I admitted.

"Same," Theo said.

"That doesn't mean she's safer," Ava replied.

None of us had an answer to that.

Morning came jagged and colorless.

We kept walking. Didn't agree on a direction — we just moved. That was the problem with Skull Island: the map changed every time you thought you understood it.

By noon, we reached an old ridge over a gorge. The rope bridge was gone. Burned. Or cut.

And across the chasm?

A small group was waiting.

Three figures. Lightly armed. Lean. Watching us without urgency.

Theo raised his hand. "Friendly?"

One of them stepped forward and waved.

Then tossed something.

It hit the dirt at our feet with a thunk.

A head.

Still fresh.

Not Halden's.

Not Mercer's.

Someone else.

Ava crouched to inspect it. "Sector Eight," she said, nodding at the faded tattoo on the jawline.

Theo swallowed. "Mercer's reach?"

"No," I said. "That's Calen's message."

We looked back up.

The figures were gone.

That night, we argued.

Theo wanted to circle back to Halden's territory. "At least she has a code."

Ava refused. "If we go back, it's not as guests. It's as converts. Or corpses."

I stayed quiet.

Because I didn't want to go back.

But I couldn't forget the way Halden looked at me.

Like she knew something.

Like she'd already placed her bet on me.

And maybe she had.

Maybe all these factions — Mercer, Calen, Halden — maybe they weren't fighting for territory.

Maybe they were fighting for us.

For what we'd become.

Elsewhere...

Calen sat in a cave lit by chains of glowing moths. His second-in-command — the redhead with the butcher's apron — unrolled a map dotted with marks in blood.

"They survived Halden."

He nodded.

"They're on the move again."

He smiled.

"Perfect," Calen said.

"Why?"

"Because they're no longer just pawns," he said. "They're becoming options."

She frowned. "For us?"

"No," Calen said. "For the island."