The Ones Who Watch and Wait

We didn't see the watchers at first.

Not until we stopped for water near a creek that ran too clear for comfort. Ava dipped her hand in and instantly pulled back. "This isn't right."

"What?" Theo asked, crouching beside her.

She held her fingers up.

The tips were bleeding.

No cut. Just... leaking.

Theo stepped back.

I didn't move. I looked around.

That's when I noticed them.

Five of them.

Up on the ridge.

Standing still.

Not hiding — watching.

They wore no uniforms. No sector tags. Just plain, ash-colored cloaks with hoods low over their faces.

"Friends of yours?" I asked Ava.

She shook her head. "They're not Mercer's. Or Calen's."

Theo turned slowly. "Halden?"

"No," Ava said. "Halden's people make noise. These aren't hers."

The one in the center stepped forward. Only then did I notice he wasn't carrying a weapon. No blade. No gun. Just a walking stick carved with a spiral that went all the way to the base.

Then he spoke.

But not with words.

It hit my head like a memory I never made.

"You've crossed too many fires to turn back now."

Theo staggered. "Did… did he just talk in my brain?"

Ava went pale. She hated things she couldn't stab.

The man smiled. No teeth. Just lips drawn tight, like he was pretending to be human.

"We're leaving," I said, grabbing my pack.

The man didn't move. But the other four raised their arms and pointed — not at us — but at the sky.

I looked up.

Smoke.

A black line trailing from somewhere behind the trees.

Sector Seven. That's where it was coming from.

Calen's direction.

Theo looked at me. "What do you think it means?"

"It means someone's already started the fire," I said. "We're just catching up."

The man tilted his head.

Then all five of them turned — in perfect unison — and walked away.

Not fast.

Just… away.

Theo looked like he was about to chase after them.

I grabbed his arm. "No. That wasn't an invitation. That was a warning."

We camped in a cave shaped like a yawning mouth, moss growing between the stone teeth. Ava kept watch. She hadn't said a word since the psychic incident. That worried me more than anything.

Theo finally spoke. "You think Calen's making a move?"

I nodded. "He's already made one. We're just too far from the board to see it."

"And those guys?"

"I don't know," I said. "But they weren't human. Not all the way."

Theo fidgeted. "They knew us."

"They knew of us," Ava corrected. "Big difference."

He threw a pebble at the wall. "I'm sick of this. The riddles. The factions. The traps inside traps."

I looked at him. "You think a revolution's supposed to be clean?"

"I think it's supposed to mean something," he snapped.

Ava turned her head. "It means we survive. Together. That's enough."

Her voice was sharper than usual.

She wasn't just tired.

She was scared.

And if Ava was scared, something was deeply wrong.

The next morning, the cave entrance was sealed.

Stone. As if it had always been that way.

Theo panicked first. "We didn't hear anything—how the hell—"

Ava was already scanning the walls, running her hands over the moss. "No cracks. No moisture. This wasn't a cave."

I stared at the ceiling.

There were symbols etched in faint chalk above us — almost childlike, spirals and triangles.

Theo saw them too.

He stepped back.

Pulled the pendant from his pocket.

The one Halden's girl had given him.

It glowed.

Faint. But undeniable.

I turned to him slowly. "Theo."

He was shaking.

"I didn't wear it," he whispered. "I swear."

"You kept it," Ava said, her voice low.

Then the symbols lit up.

One by one.

And the air got thicker.

A rumbling noise echoed through the cave — not from outside. From below.

I drew my knife.

Useless.

But it made me feel better.

The stone wall began to split. Not crack — separate, like a mouth opening.

Theo dropped the pendant.

The glow vanished.

So did the noise.

And just like that... the wall was gone.

No sign it had ever moved.

We didn't say anything.

We just left.

That night, I sat alone under a tree with bark like snake scales.

Ava came over, crouched beside me.

"You believe in fate?" I asked.

She didn't answer right away.

"No," she said eventually. "But I believe in patterns."

I looked at her. "What kind of pattern are we in?"

"The kind where everyone wants to claim us," she said. "But none of them know us."

"Think that'll save us?"

"No," she said. "But it might let us choose who we become."

Elsewhere...

Mercer sat in a stone chair made from a repurposed generator. The room was dim, lit only by the faint glow of a tablet showing flickering maps.

A boy entered — thin, pale, nervous.

"Sector Thirteen's outpost was destroyed."

Mercer didn't look up. "And the three?"

"They made contact with Halden. Then moved on."

He closed his eyes.

"And Calen?"

The boy hesitated. "He's positioning. Slowly. Gathering strays."

Mercer stood, finally.

"Then it begins," he said.

The boy blinked. "What begins?"

Mercer smiled.

"The part where I stop pretending this is about territory."

The Girl in the Smoke

The sky turned red before we saw the village.

Not sunset-red. Not blood-red.

Ash-red — thick and humming, like the clouds were made of coals instead of vapor.

Ava halted at the edge of a broken road, her hand instinctively going to her blade.

Theo coughed beside her. "Jesus. This is recent."

I stepped forward, brushing a layer of soot off a rusted sign.

The word Juniper was barely visible beneath the grime.

"Village?" I asked.

Ava nodded. "Was."

The buildings ahead were more skeletons than structures — frames blackened by fire, doors still swinging from invisible wind. It looked like the aftermath of a war no one bothered to finish.

And in the center of it all, the smoke twisted differently. It moved, like it had somewhere to be.

Theo pointed. "Is that…?"

"Not smoke," Ava said. "Someone's in there."

We moved cautiously — no heroics, no shouting. Skull Island had taught us that noise got you killed and curiosity usually meant bleeding.

As we approached the epicenter, I saw her.

A girl. Maybe fifteen. Sitting cross-legged on the scorched earth, hands folded in her lap, surrounded by a perfect ring of untouched soil. Everything around her was burned to cinders — but she sat in a circle of pure, black glass.

Her eyes were open.

And they glowed.

Theo stopped dead. "You see that, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "She's either possessed, radioactive, or incredibly unlucky."

Ava didn't speak. She crouched, slowly, watching the girl like a bomb she couldn't defuse.

I took a cautious step forward. "Hey."

No response.

"Are you alright?"

Still nothing.

Then her head tilted. Barely.

"...Do you want to die here?" she asked.

Not whispered. Not screamed.

Just asked.

Like she was offering a drink.

Theo flinched.

Ava stood again. "Back away."

The girl's fingers twitched.

And the ring of glass cracked.

A pulse rippled through the ground — not loud, but deep. It shook our boots and made my spine buzz.

"What are you?" I asked before I could stop myself.

Her eyes focused on me for the first time.

"I'm the one they buried. And the one they forgot."

Theo shook his head. "This island's cursed."

"No," she said. "You are."

The second pulse hit harder. Theo stumbled. Ava moved in front of him.

The girl blinked, and the air got thick again — same as in the cave. Same pressure. Same hum.

I took a chance. Pulled out the scorched pendant Theo had dropped days ago. The one from Halden's girl.

The glowing returned.

Faint. Just enough for the girl to notice.

She smiled — not kindly.

"You carry her mark," she said.

"Whose?" I asked.

Her smile widened.

"The first one."

Then she stood.

And the ring of black glass shattered.

We ran.

We didn't talk. Didn't scream. Just ran.

Whatever that girl was, she wasn't meant to be disturbed. Not by us. Not by anyone.

We didn't stop until we hit a ridge overlooking a sunken plain dotted with old containers and broken machinery. Looked like a junkyard had collided with a graveyard.

Ava dropped into cover behind a rusted transport.

Theo collapsed beside her. "Was that Halden's doing?"

"No," she said. "That was older."

I nodded, still panting. "Something deeper than sectors and factions."

"Then what?" Theo asked. "What was that?"

Ava hesitated.

Then, finally: "A warning."

That night, none of us slept.

We took shifts, sure — rotated watch like trained dogs — but none of us truly rested. Because the girl wasn't just power. She was proof. That this island had layers none of us were ready for.

At some point, Theo sat next to me and said, "You think Mercer knows about her?"

"I think Mercer pretends not to."

"And Calen?"

I didn't answer.

But I remembered his last words, before we left:

"Let them."

Let us walk into that smoke.

Let us meet her.

Let us see the island the way he sees it.

Elsewhere…

Calen stood at the edge of a cliff, staring down into a crater carved by something no one dared name.

His red-haired second — the one with the cleaver-smile — stepped up beside him. "They survived the girl."

He didn't look surprised.

"They needed to."

"She marked them," she said.

He finally turned.

"Good."

"Why?"

Calen's voice was calm.

"Because now the game can start."