Lila
The forest seemed endless.
Hana and I moved carefully through the trees, our footsteps silent over the carpet of fallen leaves. She held my hand tightly, her small fingers cold against my skin. The sky above us remained dark and heavy, as if the world had decided that morning was over before it even began. Light tried to push through the clouds and failed. Everything felt trapped in a half-shadow.
Every now and then, the ground would shift somewhere far away. Not close enough to see anything.
Close enough to remember.
Close enough to feel it crawling beneath us like a heartbeat.
We were not alone on this island anymore.
And none of us were safe.
"Hana," I whispered, squeezing her hand, "stay close to me. No matter what happens, you don't run ahead. You stay where I can see you."
She nodded, but she didn't speak. Her eyes were glossy and scared, and I could almost see the thoughts running through her head; the same ones running through mine.
What if it comes back?
What if it never left?
A breeze moved through the trees, brushing the leaves together in a low whisper. It carried something faint, not the sharp salt-smell of the sea this time.
Something human.
Voices.
I froze.
Not loud. Not shouting. Just… talking. Soft. Uneven. Like someone trying not to cry. Like the sound of fear being held inside.
Hana tugged my sleeve. "Lila, do you hear that?"
"I do."
My heart sped up. My head filled with questions, warnings, hope, and dread all at once.
We crept toward the sound, staying low, moving from tree to tree, the way you do when you do not want the world to know you are still alive. Twigs pressed into my palms. My breath sounded too loud in my ears.
I didn't know whether I was walking toward danger or safety.
Then I saw them.
Three figures moving slowly through the thinning trees. A boy around my age in front, tall, tense, shoulders tight like he'd forgotten how to relax. His clothes were streaked with dirt, his hair messy, his face pale beneath it all. A smaller boy clung to his hand, half hiding behind his arm, while a girl walked on his other side, close enough that their shoulders brushed like she didn't want to risk losing contact.
Their faces…
They looked like ours. Afraid. Exhausted. Lost. Trying very hard not to fall apart.
For a second, I just stared. I had imagined seeing someone else again, imagined what I'd say, what they'd look like, whether they'd believe me about the creature. But imagining was different from reality.
Seeing them made everything feel sharper.
Realer.
The older boy noticed us first.
He stopped instantly.
Fear flickered across his face, but not the kind that makes you run. The kind that makes you protect. I immediately pulled Hana slightly behind me, my arm instinctively forming a barrier.
He did the same with the younger two.
For a long moment, none of us spoke.
No birds.
No insects.
Just breathing. Just watching each other with wide, tired eyes.
Then he swallowed and said carefully, "We're not going to hurt you."
His voice sounded like it had been scraped across stone. Tired. Frightened. Still steady, like he'd decided he had to be.
"I know," I replied, though I wasn't sure how I did. Maybe it was his eyes. Maybe it was the way his hand shook just a little around the smaller boy's fingers.
The girl beside him studied me with wide eyes. "Did… did you see them too?" she asked.
Hana's grip tightened painfully around my hand. I felt her fear like a second heartbeat.
"Yes," I said softly. "We saw them."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
None of us asked what she meant.
We didn't need to.
The wind carried the silence between us, cool and heavy. For a moment, the world felt paused like everything was balanced on something thin and fragile, and the smallest push would break it.
Then the ground shifted again.
Not far this time.
A low roll beneath the soil. A reminder.
All five of us felt it.
All five of us went tense.
The little boy sucked in a sharp breath. Hana pressed herself into my side. The older boy's jaw tightened. The girl's lips trembled for half a second before she forced them still.
We didn't need to explain anything to each other.
We already understood.
Whatever this island was, whatever was living here, it was still moving.
And it had not finished with us yet.
Without another word, we stepped closer together, like gravity was pulling us into the same orbit. Strangers, but not strangers at all.
Because fear does that.
It turns people into something else.
It turns them into us.
And for the first time since arriving on this island, I felt something warm beneath the terror.
We were not alone anymore.
And somehow, that was both the safest and the most dangerous thing of all.