A Signal Worth Bleeding For

The outpost wasn't much — three prefab towers, a fuel station, and a radio mast that looked like it had survived a lightning strike and begged for another. It sat at the edge of a dried-up riverbed, barely defended, mostly ignored.

But it had something Mercer cared about.

Signal reach.

And right now, we needed to be heard.

"This is a bad idea," Reef muttered for the fifth time as we crawled through the brush.

"No, a bad idea is splitting up in a thunder zone with no shoes," Theo whispered back. "This is just ambitious."

Ava didn't say anything. She was already at the ridge, peering down through a cracked scope.

"Three guards. Two on the towers, one pacing the yard. Light patrol. No drones."

Lenn crouched beside her, silent. His eye studied the placement like he was painting something with his mind. Then he pointed.

"We hit hard. Fast. I'll take left. You hit center. Ava, right. Jack, Theo, once we breach, head for the tower and take control of the console. If we can patch a feed through to Calen's sector and the freelancer grids, this works."

"And if it doesn't?" I asked.

Lenn grinned. "Then we die louder than usual."

We moved.

Night had thickened. The wind kicked up ash from the south. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled — faint, but close enough to sting the back of your teeth.

I followed Theo toward the central shack, staying low, stepping only where he stepped. Ava's blade flashed once — a whisper of silver — and the tower guard collapsed without a sound. Lenn took the other, a quiet shot from his crossbow.

The patrol noticed too late.

By the time his alarm reached his mouth, Theo slammed a brick into his skull.

One minute. No alerts.

We were in.

The control room looked like a thrift store threw up in a bunker. Old dials, patchwork wires, five screens — only two functional — and a panel labeled in faded blue:

Uplink: Main Grid. Emergency Channel.

Theo ran to the console and started flicking switches.

I watched the screens flicker. One showed static. The other, a rotating map of the island, marked with a dozen blinking dots. Sector hubs. Outposts. Strongholds.

Mercer had eyes everywhere.

"Can we send something out?" I asked.

Theo nodded. "A short-range broadcast, yeah. If we boost with the main antenna, we might reach Calen's territory."

"Might?"

He winced. "This thing's older than sin."

Ava stepped in, blood on her shoulder. Not hers.

"We've got three minutes, tops. Another patrol's due to check in."

Lenn pushed past us, jabbing a cord into the uplink. "Then let's get poetic."

We argued over the message for all of five seconds. Then I stepped in front of the mic and hit transmit.

I didn't prepare a speech.

I didn't clear my throat.

I just spoke.

"To anyone listening — we're not Mercer's.

We're not Calen's.

We're not Halden's.

We are what this island made us — and we refuse to keep dying just to extend someone else's leash.

This is Jack Gulf.

We've taken your outpost.

We'll take more.

Join us. Hunt us. Watch us.

Either way — the island just changed."

Theo hit SEND.

And the whole board lit up.

One beep. Then another. Then a full chorus of alerts.

Incoming transmissions.

Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty-two.

Ava blinked. "Did… did that work?"

Theo looked at the blinking console. "I think it did more than that."

Lenn stepped out onto the tower balcony. His eye scanned the horizon.

He saw it first.

Lights.

Dozens of them.

Signals flaring from the hills. Morse. Flashbangs. Smoke trails. Freelancers. Outcasts. Scavengers. The ones who didn't belong.

Responding.

Not because they trusted us.

Not because they knew us.

But because something finally moved.

A crack in the system.

A chance.

Lenn grinned.

"You just lit a bonfire, Gulf."

We didn't wait for Mercer to respond.

We torched the outpost. Left only the tower — and the message echoing from its top.

We are not yours.

We are not done.

We are just getting started.

Somewhere else, in a clean, cold bunker beneath a waterfall, Mercer watched the feed. He didn't blink.

Behind him, a woman in a lab coat spoke carefully.

"They're rallying. Not enough to take a sector, but… they're organizing."

Mercer said nothing.

He just reached forward.

And pressed a button labeled:

Protocol C: Black Signal

The feed died.

He turned to the woman.

"Find Calen."

She hesitated. "You want to work with him?"

"No."

Mercer's eyes narrowed.

"I want to remind him who the real player is."

Skull Island: The Devil's Game

Flags Made From Fire

We didn't sleep that night.

Not because of the cold. Or the wolves. Or the rotating drone that kept buzzing the treetops like it was searching for guilt with a spotlight.

No, we stayed up because the world had moved.

We lit a signal, and the island blinked back.

By morning, we'd received over sixty responses — some names, some coordinates, some just symbols carved into transmission codes. Theo had them all scribbled across a stolen map, half-mad with adrenaline.

"They're real," he said for the tenth time. "We're not alone."

"No," Ava said quietly, "but we are exposed."

She was pacing near the ruins of a bridge, her boots crunching gravel. Her blade was already cleaned, holstered, and tapped once every minute like she was grounding herself with the sound.

"We lit a beacon," she said. "That makes us a target."

Lenn stood at the edge of the ridge, watching the treeline with narrowed eyes. "We're not hiding anymore, Ava. That was the whole point."

She stopped. Turned. "We're not ready to fight Mercer."

"I didn't say we were," Lenn replied. "But he's going to fight us now, whether we're ready or not."

Midday brought a visitor.

He didn't come quietly.

No shadow games. No ambush. Just a single man in a black coat, walking down the ridge like he had an appointment.

He stopped twenty feet from our campfire, hands raised.

"I'm not here to fight," he called. "I came to talk."

Ava drew her blade anyway.

Theo stepped behind me, muttering, "Do we know him?"

We did.

I did.

Calen.

Smiling like the war didn't touch him. Like he wasn't keeping ledger tabs on who would burn first.

He looked older than I remembered. More worn. But that grin? Still surgical.

"I hear you've been making noise," he said.

I didn't move. "You spying on us?"

"No. Just listening. The island speaks — sometimes it even shouts." He nodded toward the half-torched tower still smoking behind us. "And you've been shouting."

Lenn tensed beside me. "What do you want?"

Calen ignored him. His eyes were locked on mine.

"I'm not your enemy, Jack."

"That's funny," I said. "Because I don't remember putting out a friend request."

His grin didn't falter. "You lit the fuse. I just want to see where the fire leads."

"Why?" Ava asked. "So you can hijack it?"

He didn't answer immediately. Just looked at her, thoughtful.

"You're not wrong to be suspicious," he said. "But I'm not Mercer. I don't want a kingdom. I want survival — for the ones who don't fit in Mercer's 'sectors.' The ghosts. The freelancers. The ones too wild to tame, too smart to silence."

"You mean your people," I said.

He shrugged. "They're just people. But they listen to me because I don't lie to them."

"That a promise?" Theo asked.

"That's a test," Calen replied. "And I pass it daily."

He sat with us by the fire, uninvited but unchallenged. Lenn never looked away. Ava didn't blink. And me? I listened.

Because whether I liked him or not, Calen was dangerous in the way only charismatic survivors can be.

He told us things Mercer didn't want public.

About Protocol C — a purge order reserved for "uncontrollable cells."

About Black Signal — a frequency that scrambles memory implants and forces loyalty resets in old contestants.

About how many had already vanished trying to do what we just did.

"You've started something real," Calen said. "But real doesn't mean safe. It means watched."

Theo leaned in. "So help us."

Calen smiled again. Less sharp this time. More... human.

"I will. But not by taking over. You want a new faction? Build it. But know this—"

He stood.

"Once the sectors know you're building a home for the unwanted, they'll burn it before it has walls. That's the game."

Ava's voice was soft. "Then we need to play louder."

Before he left, Calen handed me something.

A flare gun. Single shot. Black barrel. Modified.

"If things go sideways," he said, "this calls me. Once."

"And if we use it?"

"Then I'll come."

"And what's the price?"

He smiled, turned, and walked back into the trees.

"You'll know when I ask."

That night, the wind shifted. The ash cleared.

We buried the signal tower and moved east.

Not running.

Not chasing.

Just carrying a flame that might become something more.

Ava called it suicide.

Theo called it purpose.

Lenn called it strategy.

Me?

I called it ours.