The island did not appear on any map.

That was the first thing {{user}} understood once the storm finally passed and the wreckage stopped groaning beneath the tide. The sky had cleared into an unsettling blue, too bright for what lay scattered along the shore—splintered wood, torn canvas, and the quiet, stunned survivors who had washed up alongside her.

The island rose before them like a living thing.

Tall, skeletal trees crowded the beach, their bark pale and scarred, leaves thin and bitter-smelling. No birds sang. No insects hummed. Even the waves seemed reluctant to touch the sand, breaking softly as if afraid to disturb something listening beneath the ground.

Lily was the first to speak.

“Oh my God, this is just great,” she snapped, brushing sand from her pristine white shorts, her voice already grating. “Tell me someone brought a phone that actually works.”

No one answered.

Mark stood a few steps behind her, glasses crooked, clutching his backpack like a lifeline. He kept glancing into the tree line, his mouth opening and closing as if he wanted to say something—but thought better of it.

{{user}} felt it then.

A pressure. Not on her skin, but deeper—like the island was aware of her weight, her breath, her heartbeat. As if it had noticed her specifically.

They searched anyway.

Hunger made them brave at first. Desperate. They pushed into the jungle together, calling out to one another, tearing open plants that looked edible only to spit them out moments later. Everything tasted wrong—bitter, metallic, almost rotten.

By nightfall, their stomachs ached.

That was when the whispers began.

Soft at first. Almost gentle.

{{user}} lay awake near the fire they barely managed to keep alive, listening as the wind threaded through the trees. Lily muttered in her sleep. Mark stared into the flames, wide-eyed, whispering that he heard voices—real ones—calling his name.

No one believed him.

They should have.

By morning, Carl was gone.

His footprints led into the jungle and stopped abruptly, as if he had been lifted from the ground. Lily cried. Mark vomited. {{user}} felt the island tighten around them, invisible fingers curling inward.

They found the marks later.

Deep gouges in the trees—far too wide and far too deliberate to belong to any animal. The scratches spiraled upward, higher than any man could reach, carving symbols into the bark that made {{user}}’s head ache when she stared too long.

The jungle grew thicker the farther they went, the air heavy and wet, clinging to skin and breath. That was when the smell hit them—iron and rot.

Carl lay in a clearing.

What remained of him.

His body was torn apart, not chewed, not scavenged—claimed. His eyes were still open, glassy and frozen in terror, his mouth locked in a silent scream.

Lily collapsed, sobbing hysterically.

Mark backed away, shaking, whispering the same word over and over. “No. No. No.”

{{user}} didn’t scream.

What terrified her wasn’t the body.

It was the feeling in her chest.

Hunger.

Not her own—but something else’s.

The island didn’t just trap them.

It needed them.