The sun never moved.
It sat above us—fixed and blinding—as if the sky had forgotten how to turn. Time didn’t pass here. It hovered.
There was no night on this island.
No sunset. No stars. No sleep.
Only light. Always light.
And something in that constant brightness began to feel wrong. Like we were inside a story the world had chosen to keep awake.
After returning from the forest of statues—or what we thought were statues—we needed answers. The fear hadn’t faded. It had simply… settled.
That’s when Rose said it.
“The people,” she whispered. “They weren’t turned to stone by chance. Something held them there. Trapped them.”
Rohan nodded, jaw tight. “And that something is still watching us.”
We knew what we had to do.
The island’s center wasn’t easy to reach.
We passed blackened homes and broken remnants of a village long buried beneath soot and silence. Roofs had collapsed. Doorways had crumbled. But there was order beneath the ash—like it had once been sacred.
Every home, every street led inward—as if the entire island was built to point toward one thing:
The heart.
And at that heart, in a circular stone courtyard scorched by time and flame, we found it.
Not a statue.
Not a person.
But a single, brilliant shard of crystal—shaped like a flame rising from a crown.
It glowed faintly, the color of molten gold, resting on an altar carved into the very ground. The edges were jagged where it had once been part of something larger—something regal. Something ancient.
“It’s not a person,” Rose said, breath catching. “It’s a piece of a crown.”
The color shimmered when she said it—like fire answering to its name.
“So that’s what the statues are,” Rohan murmured. “Worshippers. Servants. Trapped until…”
“Until someone pure enough touches the crown,” I finished.
We hesitated.
Then Rose stepped forward and gently picked it up.
And in that exact moment—
everything breathed.
A rush of wind without sound.
Stone groaned softly behind us.
We turned.
And saw them.
The people—the ones turned to stone—lined the outer walls of the village. Their faces no longer blank. Their bodies no longer rigid.
They were bowing.
One breath—short, quiet—escaped from every frozen chest.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
A heartbeat. A moment. A return to life.
Then it was gone.
They were stone again.
But their new positions were unmistakable:
Every head bowed toward Rose.
Every hand pressed gently to their hearts.
We stood in awe.
No one dared speak.
Then, with a soft click, a stone panel on the altar slid open.
Inside: a smooth obsidian tablet, pulsing with gold lines. Letters glowed, ancient and flawless.
Rose read aloud:
**“Agni – Fire.
One of Five.
Flame once sacred,
shattered by pride.
Reclaimed only by the pure.”**
Below it:
Riddle of Fire
“I am born of hunger.
I consume to live.
I die if fed what I give.”
I reached into my bag and quickly jotted it down in my notebook. Something told me it would matter.
And that’s when I noticed it.
“Wait... where’s Jack?”
We turned.
His spot was empty.
He hadn’t wandered.
He hadn’t spoken.
He was just… gone.
“Jack?” Lily’s voice cracked. “JACK?!”
We ran back through the ruins, calling his name.
No answer.
His footsteps were still in the ash.
But his shadow was gone.
Back at the yacht, panic set in.
His bag still leaned against the rail.
His water bottle sat half-drunk on the deck.
But Jack… Jack wasn’t there. And he wasn’t coming back.
For a long, suffocating moment, there was only silence. Then the anger came—sharp, hot, unrestrained.
Rohan was the first to snap.
“This is exactly why we should’ve stayed the hell away from here!” He kicked the edge of the yacht. “Jack wanted this! He wanted adventure. Wanted to be the hero. But now—now look at us! We’re stuck in a place we don’t even understand, and he’s gone without a trace! God knows where he is, or if he’s even alive!”
Lily’s face twisted in frustration, her voice laced with betrayal.
“He dragged us here! All for a party on a yacht. All for his stupid, selfish reasons. He never thought for a second what this place might mean. He didn’t care. We told him it was dangerous. He didn’t listen. And now, look! We’re stuck in God knows where, with no way back, and he’s just… gone!”
Rose, usually so calm, was shaking with anger, her fists clenched at her sides.
“It’s his fault we’re here,” she spat. “He brought us here, chased after those whales, got us caught in this mess. And now, he’s vanished like some kind of damn ghost. Did he even care what happened to us?”
There was a bitter taste in the air.
Each of us had, at some point, felt the sting of Jack’s recklessness, his prideful insistence on always pushing the limits, always being the one to lead. Now, all we could do was rage at him for bringing us here. For making us part of something we didn’t understand, dragging us into danger, without a second thought.
I could feel it too, the anger simmering just below the surface. I had been angry with him too. His constant need to be the one in control, to lead us into these uncharted waters. I had scolded him in my head, every time he pushed too hard, too far. I had blamed him, just like the others.
But then, in the midst of our frustration, a quiet voice spoke—Rose’s.
“It’s not his fault,” she whispered.
We stopped, the anger suddenly turning cold, as her words pierced the haze of our rage.
“It’s not… his fault?” Lily repeated, almost laughing. “Are you kidding?”
Rose nodded slowly, her eyes serious now.
“No. It’s not. Look at the riddle,” she said, pointing to the glowing inscription on the tablet. “Flame once sacred, shattered by pride. Reclaimed only by the pure.”
We were all silent.
And then, it hit us.
Jack’s disappearance hadn’t been a punishment for his recklessness or his daring nature. It had been because of his impurity—his pride.
He wasn’t pure enough to stay in this place.
None of us had considered it, but the island had chosen him first. Chose him because of his impurity, his arrogance. The fire had burned him away, just as it had burned the people turned to stone. The island’s power rejected him, and he was lost because of it.
A chill crept through my bones. The anger I’d felt earlier turned to guilt.
I hadn’t just blamed him for this situation. I had judged him, just like the island did.
“We shouldn’t have… we shouldn’t have blamed him,” Rohan said quietly, his voice heavy with regret.
Lily looked down at her hands, the fire of anger gone from her eyes.
“We were angry. And we had a right to be, but…” she trailed off, her voice thick with emotion. “I never thought… that it was because of his pride. That’s why he vanished.”
I swallowed hard. “We all pushed him. We all let our frustration take over. And now he’s gone.”
Rose stood motionless, staring at the stone slab.
“The fire shattered him. We’re here because we were all tempted by it. But Jack… Jack was the first to fall.”
There was no answer, no words that could fix it now.
Jack was gone, but not because he was careless or reckless.
He had been too full of himself, too full of pride. The island had seen it. And now, it had rejected him.
We had blamed him, scolded him, but in the end… we were the ones who had been wrong.
The sun remained fixed above us, its brilliance unwavering, as if it knew our guilt.
We were no longer angry at Jack. Now, we simply had to face the truth of what had happened.
And the truth was this: We had followed him. And now we had to live with the consequences.
TO BE CONTINUED .......................
But wonder has a price—and the islands are only just beginning to collect.
The others are being watched.
But so are the consequences.