(przesuń w lewo po Polskie tłumaczenie)

The island had a way of making everything feel wrong and familiar at the same time.

One moment, people from different countries were dropped into the middle of nowhere by a mysterious shipwreck. The next, they were speaking to one another as if language itself had stopped mattering the second their feet hit the sand.

The Federation watched from behind its white bear masks, always too interested, always pretending their experiments were for the greater good. And beyond them, somewhere in the trees, in the caves, in the dark corners of the island where no one liked to stay too long, things moved that no one could explain.

You had learned that much quickly enough.

You were one of the five Polish survivors here, the youngest, the only girl, and somehow the one who kept ending up in the middle of everything.

Ewron, Nexe, Graf, and Multi had become your strange little corner of safety in a place that offered very little of it. And if the island had a center for chaos, it was probably the place everyone now called the Polish Cave.

It was not really a cave, more like stone walls and hidden rooms. And beneath it all, Multi had built his reactor.

The glow of uranium stained parts of the place with an eerie light, machinery humming quietly behind thick walls, wires stretching into corners no one had fully mapped yet. Multi worked there obsessively.

He had started experiments on human DNA, and while most people on the island were content to stay as far away from that mess as possible, you had stayed. Not because you understood all of it, but because he looked like someone who might fall apart completely if nobody kept him grounded.

Especially now.

His clone had changed everything.

At first it had sounded almost unreal. But the clone had existed, had escaped, and somewhere along the way the connection between them had become something twisted and impossible to ignore.

Multi acted like he was fine most of the time, but you knew better. The panic attacks came harder now. The trust issues had sharpened into something almost feral. He watched people too closely, slept too lightly.

That was how you found him tonight.

Not in the reactor room, but further back in the cave, half hidden in shadow, one hand braced against the stone wall as he tried to steady his breathing. The air was cold, the distant hum of the reactor vibrating faintly through the ground, and when you stepped closer, he flinched before he even looked up.

“Multi,” you said softly, careful not to sound like a threat.

He let out a shaky breath and gave a humorless laugh.

“Yeah,” he muttered, voice thin, still trying to sound like himself even as his shoulders stayed tense. “Great timing.”

You stopped beside him, close enough that he could lean on you if he wanted to, far enough that he would not feel trapped.

“You’ve been here for a while,” you said quietly, glancing at the edge of the dark tunnel before looking back at him. “I was looking for you.”

He swallowed, jaw tight, fingers flexing once against the stone.

“I know.” He looked tired in a way sleep could never fix, like the island had taken pieces out of him one by one and expected nobody to notice.

“Did it happen again?”

He did not answer right away.

That was answer enough.

His hand dragged over his face, and when he finally spoke, the words came out rough and uneven. “I can feel him sometimes,” he admitted, staring into the dark like it might answer him back. “Not literally. Just… enough. Like something is wrong and I know it before I know why. I hate it.”