Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

It wasn't a creature. It wasn't a shadow. It was something between the two. A figure wrapped in the absence of light, its form shifting like it wasn't entirely real. It didn't walk. It didn't move. It simply was.

And then it spoke.

**"You are late."**

The voice was wrong. Not deep, not high, not even a sound. It was something that crawled into their bones, something that existed not as words but as understanding forced into their minds.

Jude's fingers twitched. The fire inside him roared in response to the presence, but he didn't release it. Not yet.

Mira tensed beside him. "And you are…?"

The figure tilted its head.

**"That is not the right question."**

Eldara's voice was calm, but there was an edge beneath it. "Then what is?"

The figure was silent for a long moment. Then it raised one hand, a hand that wasn't a hand, a shape that twisted and blurred as it moved. It pointed at Jude.

**"You already know."**

Jude's breath caught. His body was still. His fire burned hot beneath his skin. But his mind,

He did know.

He didn't know how, but he knew.

Not a name. Not a face. But a presence.

This thing had been waiting for him.

Not Mira. Not Vaelin. Not Eldara.

Him.

The figure took a slow step forward. The solid black beneath them didn't react. Didn't shift.

**"You carry the flame."**

Jude swallowed. "And?"

The figure didn't blink.

**"The flame does not belong to you."**

Jude's blood turned to ice. The fire inside him flared, angry, desperate, **defiant.**

But the figure simply watched.

And then, it smiled.

Or at least, the shape of it twisted into something that **felt** like a smile.

**"You will understand soon."**

The darkness around them **shifted.**

The sea was gone. The ship was gone. The world itself **collapsed inward.**

And Jude,

Jude was falling.

No,

Not falling.

**Being pulled.**

The air around him shattered like glass, fragments of reality breaking apart as he was dragged into something beyond. The fire inside him **fought,** burning against the force, but it wasn't enough. He wasn't strong enough.

His body hit something solid.

The world returned in an instant.

Jude gasped, his lungs burning, his vision spinning. He pushed himself up, his hands pressing into the ground,

**Stone.**

Not the ship. Not the black sea. **A city.**

But not a city he had ever seen before.

The buildings stretched impossibly high, their shapes **wrong,** twisting and curving in ways that defied logic. The sky above wasn't a sky at all, it was **a void, a swirling mass of colors that shouldn't exist.**

And the people,

No.

Not people.

Figures moved through the streets, their forms shifting like echoes of something that had once been human. They walked without footsteps, **spoke without words.**

And they all turned to him.

Jude's pulse pounded in his ears. He took a slow step back,

A hand caught his wrist.

He spun,

Mira.

She was there.

So was Eldara.

So was Vaelin.

They had been pulled with him.

Mira's grip was tight. "What the hell just happened?"

Jude didn't have an answer.

But the figures in the city,

They did.

They turned toward him.

And then, as one, they **knelt.**

Jude's heart slammed against his ribs.

One of the figures, the tallest among them, lifted its head.

And spoke.

**"The lost flame has returned."**

Jude's body **froze.**

The fire inside him burned.

And for the first time in his life,

It **answered.**

The fire roared within him, not just a spark of warmth but a voice, a presence, a force that had been waiting. Jude staggered back, his breath shallow, his pulse hammering in his ears. The city around him felt unreal, wrong in a way that had nothing to do with its twisting architecture. The figures that knelt before him weren't human. They weren't anything he could name. And yet, they knew him.

Mira's grip on his wrist tightened, her fingers cold against his skin. "Jude," she whispered, her voice sharp with urgency, "what the hell does that mean?"

He couldn't answer. He didn't know. But the fire inside him **it knew.**

The tallest figure stood, its form shifting like a shadow caught between worlds. Its face was a blur, its features indistinct. And yet, when it looked at him, Jude felt as if he were being **seen.** Not just his body. Not just his mind. **All of him.**

"You have been lost," the figure said, its voice layered, ancient. "But now you return."

Jude's hands curled into fists. The fire beneath his skin responded, eager, restless. It wanted something.

Eldara stepped forward, her magic humming in the air around her. "Return from where?"

The figure didn't look at her. It didn't acknowledge her. Its gaze remained on Jude, unwavering.

"From the fracture. From the breaking. From the exile."

Mira's breathing grew uneven. "That doesn't explain anything."

The fire inside Jude pulsed again **not in resistance, but in recognition.** He clenched his jaw.

"I don't know you," he said. "I don't know this place. And I sure as hell don't know why you think I'm something I'm not."

The figure tilted its head. "You do not remember."

Jude took a step forward, and the fire inside him burned hotter. "You keep talking like I'm supposed to know you. Like I've been here before. But I haven't. So start explaining, because I am done with riddles."

The city groaned. A low, deep tremor ran through the streets, as though the buildings themselves were responding to his voice. The kneeling figures did not move. They did not speak.

But the tallest one **it smiled.**

"You have always been here," it said. "Even when you were not."

The words slammed into him like a blow. The fire inside him flared, hotter, wilder, **angry.** And in that moment, something cracked.

Not physically. Not in the world around him.

**Inside him.**

A memory, not his, but his, unfurled in his mind.

**A city burning.**