The walk back to the beach was tense.
They moved in a tight formation, weapons drawn, every person watching a different direction. The forest was just as silent and dead as before, brittle branches swaying without wind, dried grass crunching underfoot.
Ah'Ming's antennae were on high alert, twitching at every micro-vibration. The viewer commentary had settled into background noise—still there, still occasionally distracting, but manageable.
Three zombies attacked during the journey.
The group handled them efficiently this time—everyone had learned the pattern. Stay spread out beyond ten meters. When a zombie lunged, the person it targeted dodged while others attacked from range. Magic, arrows, thrown weapons.
Ah'Ming took out one with his flamethrower gauntlet, carefully avoiding the spray of blue-black ichor.
His bruises had multiplied. He counted twenty-three now, spreading up his arms, across his chest, even one on his neck. They ached with a cold, wrong sensation that made his skin crawl.
|Necrotic damage accumulation: 31% |Recommendation: Avoid further zombie contact
"Working on it, Steve," Ah'Ming muttered.
By the time they reached the beach, the sun was lower in the sky, painting everything in shades of orange and red that should have been beautiful but just felt ominous.
The beach stretched before them, white sand pristine and undisturbed except for—
"Is that more wreckage?" Yuki pointed down the shoreline.
She was right.
The helicopter crash Ah'Ming had found earlier wasn't the only debris. Scattered along the beach at irregular intervals were pieces of... things. Old wood that might have been boats once. Rusted metal. Barnacle-covered fragments that could have been machinery or building materials.
And personal belongings.
Waterlogged backpacks half-buried in sand. A child's toy, faded and worn. Shoes. Clothes. A rotted life jacket.
"This isn't recent," Kael said, crouching to examine a piece of timber that was more decay than wood. "Some of this has been here for years. Decades, maybe."
"Shipwrecks?" Darius suggested.
"Multiple shipwrecks," Min corrected, looking around. "Look how spread out the debris is. Different types of materials. Different levels of decay."
Ah'Ming walked along the waterline, studying the items. His antennae twitched, picking up something off about the placement.
"They're in a pattern," he said slowly.
"What?"
"The debris. It's not random." He gestured along the beach. "It's in a line. A curve, actually. Like high-tide marks, but there are multiple lines at different heights."
Kael came to stand beside him, following his gaze. "Tidal patterns."
"Except the water doesn't move," Ah'Ming said. "We've established that. So why are there tide lines?"
Nobody had an answer.
"Tide lines without tides = not normal"
"NOTHING about this island is normal"
"The personal belongings are so SAD"
"A child's toy I'm gonna CRY"
While half the group investigated the debris, the others went hunting for coconuts.
The palm trees were clustered in a small grove near the tree line, and mercifully, they were full of fruit.
"Thank GOD," someone breathed, already climbing the nearest tree.
Coconuts rained down. People caught them, cracked them open with weapons and rocks and desperate enthusiasm, drinking the water inside like it was the finest wine.
Ah'Ming cracked his open with a claw, ignoring the way it made his bruises ache, and drank deeply.
The water was sweet. Clean. Normal.
It tasted like hope.
"We should collect as many as we can carry," Kael said, already gathering the fallen coconuts. "If we can't store water in inventory, at least we can store these until we need them."
"Good thinking," Yuki agreed, helping pile them into makeshift slings made from torn clothing.
Ah'Ming finished his coconut and stood, looking back toward the helicopter crash site.
Then he froze.
"Hey," he said slowly. "Hey, was the helicopter always that close to the water?"
"What?" Min looked up from where she was collecting debris samples.
"The helicopter." Ah'Ming pointed. "When I first found it this morning, there was more beach between it and the waterline. I'm sure of it. Like... twenty meters of sand, at least."
Kael stood, frowning. He walked toward the wreckage, counting his steps.
Then he stopped at the water's edge.
"He's right," Kael said, voice tight. "Look at the sand around the crash. There's a moisture line—where the water has been. It's closer than it should be."
"Maybe the tide came in?" Darius suggested weakly.
"THERE ARE NO TIDES!" Min snapped. "The water doesn't MOVE, remember?!"
"Then why is it closer?!"
Ah'Ming's mind was racing. The debris patterns. The multiple tide lines. The waterlogged zombies. The prophet's words—
Sink. Replace. Surrender.
"Oh no," he whispered.
"What?" Yuki demanded. "What is it?"
Ah'Ming walked along the beach, looking at the rocks that dotted the shoreline. Large, permanent rocks that had probably been there for years.
And on each one—
"Markings," he said, voice hollow. "Look. Water lines. Layers of them."
He pointed to the nearest rock. It stood about two meters tall, and carved into its surface—either naturally by water erosion or deliberately by human hands—were horizontal lines at different heights.
Dozens of lines.
The lowest was near the base, barely above the sand.
The highest was almost at the top of the rock.
And the current waterline...
"It's between them," Min breathed, coming to look. "The water is BETWEEN the lines."
"It's been higher," Ah'Ming said. "And lower. Multiple times."
Kael checked another rock. Then another. Each one had the same pattern—horizontal markings showing different water levels over time.
"This doesn't make sense," Darius said. "If the water level changes, that means the island floods and then drains, but—"
"What if it's not the water level changing?" The prophet's voice was quiet, strained. He was leaning heavily on Yuki, fresh blood dripping from his nose. "What if it's the island?"
Everyone turned to stare at him.
"What if the island is sinking?" He continued, words tumbling out faster now. "Not flooding. SINKING. Into the ocean. Slowly. And then rising again? Or—or not rising. Just sinking. Slower and slower until—"
"Until it's completely underwater," Ah'Ming finished, ice forming in his stomach.
The group stood in horrified silence.
"That's ridiculous," someone said weakly. "Islands don't just sink—"
"We're in an INSTANCE," Min cut them off. "NOTHING is ridiculous. Islands can absolutely sink if the instance WANTS them to sink."
"Check the waterline again," Kael ordered. "Everyone. Find something that you can use as a marker. Rocks, debris, whatever. We need to know if the water level is actually rising."
People scattered, grabbing sticks and stones and pieces of wreckage, pushing them into the sand at the current waterline.
Ah'Ming stared at the too-still ocean, counting in his head.
Sink. Replace. Surrender.
Sink—the island, slowly disappearing into the ocean.
Replace—the zombies, replacing the living investigators one by one.
Surrender—to what? The water? Death? The inevitable?
"How long?" He asked quietly, not sure who he was asking. The prophet. The system. The universe.
The prophet understood. "Three days," he rasped. "Maybe four if we're lucky. Before the camp at the lake goes underwater."
"How do you know?"
"Because that's what I saw. When I asked about the danger." His eyes were unfocused, seeing something beyond the present. "I saw water. Rising. Covering everything. And I saw us—all of us—trying to run. Trying to escape. But there's nowhere to go."
"We have to get off the island," Yuki said urgently. "Build a boat, make a raft, SOMETHING—"
"With what?!" Darius gestured at the debris. "Rotten wood and rusted metal?! And even if we DID build something, how do we sail on water that doesn't MOVE?!"
"We FIGURE IT OUT—"
"There's no TIME—"
"EVERYONE STOP!" Kael's voice cracked across the beach.
The arguing died.
Kael was staring at the markers they'd placed at the waterline.
Specifically, at one marker that was now ankle-deep in water.
"It's been five minutes," he said quietly. "Five minutes since we placed these markers."
"So?" Someone asked.
"So the water is already over this one." Kael's face was pale. "The island isn't sinking slowly. It's sinking NOW. Fast enough that we can watch it happen."
Everyone rushed to check their markers.
He was right.
In the five minutes since they'd been placed, the water had crept forward. Not much—maybe ten centimeters—but visible. Measurable.
"Oh god," Min whispered. "Oh god, oh god—"
"How long?!" Someone was shouting. "How long do we have?!"
Kael pulled out his gauntlet, accessing what little system functionality still worked. "If it's rising at this rate... and if the rate stays constant..." His hands were shaking. "Three days. Maybe less. Before the lake camp is underwater."
"And the whole island?" Ah'Ming asked, though he already knew the answer.
"Seven days." Kael's voice was hollow. "The instance time limit. Seven days until the entire island is gone."