All Flags Begin as Fire

We found it by accident.

Not in a vision. Not in a map. Just dumb, desperate luck.

Ava was scouting ahead when the fog broke, and there it was—partially collapsed, overgrown with thornroots and fungus, but unmistakably a stronghold. Stone walls, rusted gates, turrets long since gutted by time and flame. Half-swallowed by the jungle.

Theo stepped forward like he'd seen a ghost.

"I've dreamed this place," he said. "Exactly this."

I looked at Ava. She didn't respond. But her hand did tighten around her blade.

Reef climbed onto a chunk of stone. "You think it's abandoned?"

Lenn snorted. "Nothing on this island stays abandoned."

Fair point.

Still, we entered.

No one stopped us. No bones. No screams. Just vines, silence, and history.

Inside the main hall was a shattered throne, and above it—faded but still visible—was a symbol:

A sun crossed with chains.

Ava exhaled softly. "Pre-Game sigil. One of the old kingdoms."

Theo traced the symbol in the air, his fingers glowing faintly.

"House Alkaris," he murmured. "They ruled the eastern ridge before the First Game. Believed in order through trial. Their strongholds weren't just forts—they were ritual sites."

I raised an eyebrow. "And you know that how?"

He blinked. "I don't."

Oh. Good.

We spent the night there.

Lenn made a fire in the old war room. Reef scouted the perimeter. Ava cleaned the broken weapons we'd salvaged from a nearby corpse pile that was hopefully centuries old.

Me?

I walked the walls.

I don't know what I was looking for. Answers. Signs. Maybe just ghosts.

Instead, I found a view.

From the tallest turret, you could see the valley below—burned-out fields, a dried-up riverbed, and to the far right, what looked like Mercer's western patrol route. And beyond that, if you squinted...

You could almost see the tip of Halden's territory.

No one owned this place.

Yet.

Theo approached me later. Quietly. Like he was afraid of scaring the idea away.

"This is it," he said. "This is where we start."

"You sure?" I asked.

He nodded. "I don't know why. But I feel like... the island is showing us something. Giving us a chance."

Ava stood nearby, arms crossed. "Mercer's going to notice if we go dark too long."

"Let him," I said. "We're not running. We're planting."

Lenn chuckled from below. "That's a nice way to say pissing on territory."

Reef was already marking the boundaries.

By morning, we'd done it.

We raised no flag. Just carved a symbol into the outer gate—a rough triangle intersected by a line and a circle. Ava's idea. Simple. Clean.

Meaning?

Balance through memory.

Whatever that means.

Theo liked it. I didn't argue.

Later That Day…

We found the first challenge.

A scouting party. Not Mercer's. Not Halden's.

But Calen's.

Five scouts in dark gray armor, whisper-silent and perfectly in sync.

They didn't see us.

But we saw them.

Ava whispered, "They're not hunting."

"They're counting," I muttered. "Taking stock."

Reef raised his crossbow. "We take them out?"

"No," I said. "We follow."

Because this wasn't just survival anymore.

This was politics.

Power.

Territory.

And we had just stepped into the game for real.

Meanwhile…

Calen sat in a dim tent lit by blue fire. He studied a crude, hand-sketched map of the island. On it, someone had circled a forgotten stronghold deep in the neutral zone.

A voice behind him spoke: "They've claimed it."

Calen smiled.

"Let them build," he said. "Let them believe."

He drew a symbol beside the stronghold.

A question mark.

"Because the moment they become something… is the moment I make them mine."

[To be continued.]

Skull Island: The Devil's Game

You Only Own What You Can Keep

I've never been a fan of speeches.

Not the "We few, we proud, we blah blah blah" kind. Especially not when the walls around us are half-collapsed, we're living off stale rations, and I've just spent the last ten minutes convincing a squirrel to stop nesting in my boots.

But apparently, founding a faction comes with responsibilities.

"Say something," Theo urged, practically shoving a makeshift flagpole into my hands. "You're the face of this."

"No, I'm the mouth," I muttered. "You're the half-possessed prophet, Ava's the blade, Lenn's the engine, and Reef... well, he scares me. In a useful way."

Reef grinned from where he was sharpening stakes. "You're welcome."

Still, everyone gathered around the campfire. We had six new recruits—wanderers Ava and Theo found along the road. One was a medic, one was missing two fingers, and one wouldn't speak unless asked twice. Great start.

So I stood.

Cleared my throat.

And said the most honest thing I could.

"We don't have a name yet. We don't have resources. We don't have a hundred men waiting in the wings.

What we have is a place no one thought to claim. And we're gonna bleed to keep it.

Not for glory. Not for vengeance.

For space. For breath. For something that's ours.

If you want to leave, leave. If you want to take it, try.

But if you're staying?

Then understand this:

Skull Island remembers cowards.

But it names the bold."

And damn it… they stayed.

Day Three of Factionhood.

We fortified the outer walls using debris and sharpened logs. Ava directed the labor like a general with a grudge. Reef laid traps. Theo kept sketching impossible symbols in the dirt and muttering about timelines.

Lenn built something he called a "pulse rod," which might be a weather vane or might be a localized EMP. Even he wasn't sure.

But the point was—we were making progress.

The stronghold was becoming a home.

Which meant, naturally, that something had to go wrong.

It happened at midnight.

The eastern watchman screamed once.

By the time we got to the wall, he was gone.

No blood. No body. Just a broken arrow wedged into the gate and a small strip of fabric tied to it.

Gray.

Calen's color.

Ava crouched by the arrow, jaw tight.

"He's testing us."

"He's taunting us," I said. "Like a cat leaving a rat at the door."

Reef checked the treetops with his scope. "No movement. They're already gone."

Theo joined us last, eyes heavy with something else. "He's not after the stronghold. Not yet."

"What then?"

He looked at me, hesitant. "He wants you, Jack."

Ah.

Of course he does.

The next morning, we woke to a gift.

A single crate. Placed right outside our gate like a bad omen in a cheap fairy tale.

I opened it.

Inside?

Meat. Clean. Salted. Perfectly preserved.

And a note:

"From one builder to another.

I'm watching your walls grow.

—C."

I stared at it for a long time.

Then dumped the crate into the fire.

Theo didn't object. Ava didn't blink. Lenn muttered something about psychological warfare. Reef simply added another six traps to the eastern perimeter.

No one slept easy that night.

Somewhere in the jungle...

Calen stood at the edge of a cliff, watching smoke rise from the valley below.

Beside him, a scout asked, "Should we strike now?"

He shook his head. "Let him breathe. Let them hope. It's the taste of comfort that makes the fall burn."

The scout hesitated. "And if they survive the next phase?"

Calen smiled faintly. "Then we'll make room... in our ranks."

The wind shifted.

Somewhere, far beneath the stronghold's foundation, something old began to stir.