Jonah did not answer the voice.
Not immediately.
His name still echoed faintly between the trees, stretched and distorted, as though the forest itself was testing how it sounded on its tongue.
"Jonah…"
Too close.
Too familiar.
He stepped back, heart pounding, every instinct screaming at him to run—yet his feet felt heavy, rooted to the black sand.
"You heard it too, didn't you?" one of the men asked, his voice shaking.
Jonah swallowed. "You heard my name?"
The man nodded. "And it said mine."
A cold understanding passed through them.
The island wasn't calling randomly.
It was choosing individually.
Another voice rose—then another. Soft. Persuasive. Loving. Each man stiffened as his own past reached out from the trees, wearing a voice it had no right to use.
One man dropped to his knees, clutching his head.
"That's my mother," he sobbed. "She died ten years ago…"
Jonah grabbed his arm. "Don't go in there."
"But she sounds scared," the man whispered. "She needs me."
The forest shifted.
Branches parted.
A narrow path revealed itself—clean, intentional—leading inward.
Inviting.
The man stood.
Rule two echoed in Jonah's mind.
Do not follow voices that know your name.
"Stay!" Jonah shouted.
Too late.
The man stepped onto the path.
The moment his foot crossed the tree line, the forest closed behind him like a mouth shutting.
No scream.
No struggle.
Just silence.
A long, terrible silence.
Then—something changed.
The air felt heavier.
Satisfied.
Like the island had been fed.
Jonah backed away, breath ragged.
"That's how it starts," he whispered. "It doesn't chase you."
The fog at the shoreline stirred.
For a brief moment—just one—Jonah thought he saw figures moving inside it. Not coming toward them. Watching. Waiting.
The stranger's words returned to him:
You weren't all chosen randomly.
Jonah clenched his fists.
Because the island wasn't just testing them.
It was sorting them.
And somewhere deep within the trees, something that knew Jonah far too well was already preparing to speak again—this time with a truth he had buried for years.
Author's Thought
Temptation rarely looks like danger.
It looks like home.