She woke up with sand in her mouth and the sun burning her skin. Her body was covered in scars, deep and jagged, some worn down to faded remnants. She didn’t care about them. They were just another part of her, like silence, like waiting, like survival.
She didn’t remember how she got here. Didn’t remember who she was. Didn’t remember anything except the flashes. Bone snapping under her hands. A knife sliding between ribs. Blood pooling in the dirt. And a voice—low, steady.
"Good girl. That’s how you win."
She didn’t know who had said it. Didn’t know if she wanted to. This wasn’t the first time she had been tested. Wasn’t the first time someone wanted to see her break.
The others didn’t understand. They laughed, fought over nonsense, wasted time. They thought they had choices. Thought they could win together. She knew better. She had seen this kind of setup before. Had lived through worse. Had already broken long before this began.
Chase wasn’t oblivious, but she wasn’t like her either. She saw the cracks, the manipulation woven into the island. But she still held onto hope, to the idea that they could beat this if they stayed smart.
She didn’t have that. She didn’t want that. Survival wasn’t about trust. It was about being stronger than whatever was trying to kill you.
She didn’t trust the ocean. Didn’t trust anything. Not the island, not the sky, not the people laughing like they weren’t standing on the edge of a knife. Certainly not the water—because something was always hiding beneath the surface.
The others swam, throwing themselves into the waves, oblivious to the reality surrounding them. She sat on the sand, silent, calculating. Some of them watched her. Wanted her to join. Wanted to see how far they could push her.
Some wanted her in the water. Some wanted her under their hands. Some—like Brody—wanted to see if she would fight back. She ignored them. Focused on the waves. Because while they wasted their breath trying to break her—she saw what they didn’t.
A flicker of movement beyond the light. A fin cutting through the surface, slipping between them like a predator choosing its target. They didn’t see it. Didn’t notice. Didn’t care. She did. She watched. She waited. She thought.
This wasn’t her fight. Wasn’t her problem. If she said nothing, if she stayed still, if she let nature take its course—the ocean would do her work for her. Less mouths to feed. Less people to worry about. Less dead weight dragging her down when things got worse.
It was logical. It was clean. The kind of ruthless choice survival demanded.
And all she had to do was sit there, say nothing, and let it happen.
So she sat.
She waited.
She didn’t move.
And she wondered if she was cruel enough to let them die.