The sixth morning opened with silence.
No shouting from Mercer's camp.
No arguments over food.
No fake speeches.
Just wind over sand and the distant grind of surf against rock.
Ethan didn't trust it.
He and Lena left early, following yesterday's markers deeper into the trees. The ground turned soft and dark, thick with roots and fallen leaves. Mosquitoes swarmed in patches. Somewhere ahead, birds burst from the canopy all at once.
Lena flinched. "What was that?"
"Something bigger moving through," Ethan said. "Stay close."
They found freshwater thirty minutes later.
Not a river—just a narrow stream cutting through stone, clear enough to see pebbles on the bottom.
Lena crouched immediately, hands shaking with relief. "We found it. We actually found it."
Ethan grabbed her wrist before she drank. "Wait."
He checked upstream first—no carcasses, no heavy algae, no obvious contamination. Then he filled the metal cup, let sediment settle, and smelled it.
Clean enough.
They drank in turns, then filled every container they had.
Water changed everything.
Water meant options.
On the way back, Ethan noticed movement near a broken tree trunk. Three wild pigs—one sow and two juveniles—rooting in wet soil.
He pulled Lena down behind brush.
"Boars," he whispered. "Remember this spot."
Lena nodded, barely breathing.
"Can we hunt them?"
"Not yet," Ethan said. "Wrong tools, wrong timing. A bad boar charge ends us."
When they reached camp, Mercer's group was waiting.
Not all of them—just Mercer, Zhao, and one follower.
Zhao spoke first. "We heard you found freshwater."
Lena looked at Ethan. Ethan said nothing.
Mercer stepped in. "If that's true, we should share locations. It helps everyone."
"Share what?" Ethan asked calmly. "Your camp has more people than work. Ours has less talk and more output. That's not a partnership."
Zhao's smile sharpened. "So you'd keep water from survivors?"
Ethan met him without blinking. "I'd keep leverage from opportunists."
The follower took a step forward, angry, but Mercer raised a hand.
"Fine," the captain said. "Then at least exchange information. We can offer protection in return."
Ethan almost laughed.
"From what?" he asked. "Reality?"
No one answered.
After they left, Lena exhaled hard. "That was… intense."
"They're probing," Ethan said. "Testing boundaries."
He looked at their camp—fire pit, supplies, rain catch, spear, water containers, and now a marked route inland.
Then he looked toward Mercer's group.
"They still think this place has social rules," he said quietly. "Titles. Etiquette. Negotiation theater."
Lena sat beside him. "And you?"
Ethan poked the fire and watched sparks rise.
"I think this island has only three rules."
He held up one finger.
"Water."
Second finger.
"Fire."
Third finger.
"Control."
Lena listened without interrupting.
"If you lose any one of those," Ethan said, "you start dying. If you lose all three, you just haven't noticed yet."
As sunset bled across the shore, the two camps watched each other from a distance.
No open war.
Not yet.
But now everyone knew:
The island had entered a new phase.