Jonah didn't realize he was standing until Mara touched his arm.
"You weren't breathing," she whispered.
The others were watching him.
Not with fear.
With expectation.
The residents had stepped back into the trees, but Jonah could still feel them—lined up just beyond sight, listening like jurors behind a wall.
The forest sighed.
Not wind.
Approval.
Jonah's chest tightened.
"Do you hear it?" he asked.
No one answered.
Then—
"I do," Mara said softly.
The sound wasn't a voice yet.
It was pressure behind the eyes.
A thought that didn't feel owned.
Jonah staggered back a step.
The ground steadied him.
Held him.
You understand now, something said—not aloud, not inside his head, but through him, like breath passing through hollow bone.
The others gasped.
Jonah felt his mouth move.
"I understand," he said.
But he hadn't decided to speak.
Fear rippled through the group.
"Jonah?" someone said carefully. "That wasn't—"
"I know," Jonah replied. His voice sounded the same. That terrified him more than if it hadn't.
The fog rolled closer, stopping just short of their feet.
A boundary.
A courtroom line.
Tell them, the island urged—not commanded. Never commanded.
Jonah swallowed.
"This place doesn't punish mistakes," he said slowly. "It punishes repetition."
Mara's breath hitched.
One of the men shook his head. "You're not speaking for it."
Jonah turned to him.
The man flinched before Jonah even spoke again.
"It already knows how you'll choose," Jonah said quietly. "That's what it's testing."
Silence cracked.
The man stepped back. "Make him stop."
Jonah tried.
He really did.
But the truth flowed anyway—smooth, calm, merciless.
"You think survival is enough," Jonah continued. "But survival without change is just delayed damage."
The fog pulsed.
Satisfied.
Jonah's knees buckled.
Mara caught him.
The pressure lifted instantly—like a hand releasing his throat.
The forest relaxed.
"What happens now?" Mara whispered.
Jonah looked at the trees.
At the fog.
At the invisible weight of centuries watching him breathe.
"Now," he said, voice fully his again, "the island stops hiding."
As if summoned, the ground trembled.
Not violently.
Formally.
Somewhere deep within the forest, something ancient shifted position—preparing to be seen.
And Jonah understood the next truth with quiet horror:
The island would no longer test them in private.
From now on…
judgment would be witnessed.