NOVEL NEXT Chapter 57: What's Next?
"Ouch, what was that for?" Orion blurted with his cheek reddened from the slap as he pressed a hand against it, the sting almost bringing tears though he forced himself to hold firm.
Na-Ri and Adela stared in silence with wide eyes, their shock plain as their gaze shifted from Kyle to Orion, then to the shattered amulet on the ground, until at last the grey-haired beauty broke the pause with a faltering voice:
"Why did we come here?"
Kyle gave a humourless laugh.
"Oh, marvellous. You were not even aware your own legs carried you into this place, and you were all but ready to march into a trap?"
He gestured towards the faint discolouration that betrayed another hidden door.
Reasoning ran clear in his mind. That passage was most likely the path the zealots used to come and go, and she had been on the verge of flinging herself into it, driven by humanity's most dubious curse: curiosity.
Had he not stopped her, something dire might have occurred.
***
That afternoon, they had fled the ruined temple, keeping their distance from it and abandoning any thought of probing further into the island. The conclusion was obvious enough: it was not a place they could wander freely.
Kyle laid out what had happened, but the others admitted they remembered nothing. From the moment they stepped inside, their minds had been lost to the haze.
It had been a complex trap, enough to bind even them, and so the four sat beneath a cluster of trees, thoughts circling the zealots and their false gods.
They had nearly fallen victim, and worse still, the zealots now knew of their presence. The island was no longer simply hostile; it was a cage.
Right now, all they were intent on doing was finding a way out of the island, but in one case, they seemed to have all forgotten the way back to the shore.
"Okay, seriously, whose fault or big idea was it to cross the sea and come all the way to an island of cultists, where we almost died in battle?" Orion asked, and for the first time, a grimace stained his face.
Adela, Kyle, and Na-Ri turned to him with blank stares, their mouths slightly ajar.
"Umm... are you still under the mind spell? Because if I remember correctly, it was all of us, and we built the damned raft that brought us here. Look at that, we are all dumb, right?" Adela finally broke the silence, answering Orion's foolish question.
"Oh..." Orion muttered with an awkward grin, then quickly turned his gaze away to a tree.
After a weary sigh and a glance at the blank luminescent sky, Adela buried her face in her hands and began brooding.
"It will be all right. It was not our fault that we were foolish enough to come here, and then continue to remain and do nothing," Kyle said to the grey-haired beauty with his customary sarcasm, folding his arms.
Na-Ri glared at him and abandoned her habitual detachment. Her expression filled with annoyance before she regained her usual composure and looked away towards the distance. She spoke without hesitation:
"We are not idle. We will hold this ground and eliminate the cult, or else find some way to suppress them."
The other three turned to her, baffled by the assertion.
"Wait. Are you hearing yourself, Lee? We are going to do what?" Orion exclaimed as he hurried to stand before her and waved his hand to check whether she had dozed off and spoken nonsense.
'Fuck me sideways!'
"You know that is suicide and not a plan, right?" Kyle added.
The beautiful stranger did not flinch. She tilted her head from Orion and reclined on the large rock where she sat, as if the notion of danger carried little weight for her.
"No. Think about it. We wandered into their den once and it almost cost us our lives. That counts as two strikes. Do you truly believe they will ignore us now? They will regroup and they may watch us even now, like a predator waiting to pounce. That is what zealots do. They do not forgive intrusion."
Adela frowned before replying:
"But Lee, charging in solves nothing. We do not know their numbers and we do not know their strength. We cannot match them blindly."
"That is why we will not charge in," Na-Ri said with measured calm. "We will observe them first and learn all we can. Every cult thrives on patterns. They consist mostly of fools, like the puppets that are called characters in fiction books. Once we know, we can strike when the cost is lowest and when we are fully prepared."
Orion's face contorted as he asked, "And if we misjudge? If they prove stronger than we imagine? We will become offerings at their altar, bound and gutted in their next ritual. What then? Who will be the paper figures?"
Na-Ri turned to him with a hard gaze.
"You do realise that if we do nothing the result will be the same, but slower."
Kyle cut in with a scowl and crossed his arms.
"She has a point. Someone already knows we exist. The zealots are not blind. Pretending they do not know will get us killed."
He tightened his arms across his chest.
"It is better to choose when to fight than to wait for their knock at the door."
Orion raked a hand through his blond hair, frustration pinching his features as he moved in a short circle.
"You are saying we hunt them before they hunt us? Sure?"
"That's exactly her point… I mean… well, that's what we're saying. Or rather, what she's saying. Whatever." Kyle replied, tapping his temple with a self-mocking grin. "We are the ones who must leave this cursed island. They have the advantage here; they are entrenched and nourished by their delusions and whatever they sacrifice. Which side has more to gain by gambling, us or them?"
Adela bit her lip and hesitated.
"It sounds logical, but..."
Her voice faded into silence.
"But you do not want to believe it," Kyle finished for her. "Yes, none of us do. Yet here we are."
Orion dropped onto a rock, resting his elbows on his knees while his scowl deepened.
"Damn it, I hate when invasion makes sense."
Na-Ri allowed herself the faintest flicker of satisfaction. She leaned forward slightly and spoke in a low voice.
"We cannot keep wandering the island without direction. We need food and water. Above all, we must know what sustains the zealots. Civilisation, however twisted, does not exist without supply."
Adela raised her head, curiosity breaking through her worry as she asked, "You mean there must be something keeping them alive here?"
Na-Ri nodded.
"Exactly. They are feeding on more than ritual fervour. Somewhere on this island there is fresh water beyond the sea we can no longer find, and no settlement endures without game to hunt either. That means a creature roams here, and a Trial Zone always harbours such things. If they have endured this long, then those beasts are tied to their survival."
Orion looked up sharply.
"Beasts? You are suggesting we hunt it? If a Demon is here, then you know those mutated creatures would be powerful as well."
"We killed a Demon, by chance. If we manage to kill one of them, we gain meat, yes, but more than that, strength. With food and water secured, we are set." The beautiful stranger replied in her usual flat tone.
Kyle's smirk thinned into something colder.
Adela glanced between them, feeling nervous but paying closer attention now.
"But finding such creatures will not be easy. We have not come across one, and if my sense of time is correct, it is nearly a full day already, perhaps even past that."
"It was never going to be easy," Na-Ri admitted. "Yet it is the only path ahead. Waiting is death. Wandering without purpose is death. This is the one choice that gives us ground to stand on. Decided or not, it is inevitable, because no island cult thrives without something to feed on and a spring to drink from. Both exist, hidden from us now, and when we find them, we will understand what keeps this place alive."