The imagined scene of warming themselves by a fire never ca to pass.
As the saying goes, “looking at a mountain makes a horse die from exhaustion”—the journey from first spotting the island’s jagged peaks to actually reaching it took far longer than they had expected.
At the beginning, Everly was still driven by urgency. Enduring the pain, she forced herself to use her ntal power, stirring the waves to push the wooden raft toward the island. However, as ti passed, the aftereffects of overusing her ntal strength began to show. She could no longer focus properly, and a faint feeling of nausea crept in.
anwhile, the island remained aloof in the distance, barely seeming any closer at all.
Helpless, Everly could only collapse onto the raft like a dead crab, lying there obediently.
Fortunately, by this ti, the sun had broken through the clouds ahead of schedule.
The blazing sun scorched the sea surface below, driving away the cold from Everly and Misha’s bodies and drying their soaked backpacks and the canopy fabric. Their body temperatures quickly recovered, and they escaped the threat of hypothermia.
After a while, the long-lost heat returned in full force, and Everly and Misha stuck out their tongues like panting puppies.
The four wooden poles that had supported the canopy had been lost in the storm. To avoid the scorching sun, the two could only huddle together pitifully, using the remaining canopy cloth to shade their backs.
Although they no longer needed warmth, their destination remained fixed on that small island.
After drifting at sea for three days, it was ti to go ashore and resupply.
By this point, Everly could no longer control the waves. The responsibility of bringing the raft to shore fell to Misha.
After recovering so strength on the raft, Misha jumped into the sea. With both hands pushing against the back of the raft and her legs kicking hard in the water behind her, she beca a human propeller, pushing the raft toward the island.
It was by no ans an easy task.
After swimming a short distance, Misha would stop from exhaustion, cling to the side of the raft, and pant to rest, allowing the boat to drift forward a bit on inertia. When the montum faded, she would dutifully get back into position and resu the exhausting task of treading water… repeating the cycle over and over.
After nearly an hour of this push-and-drift rhythm, the raft finally jolted slightly and ran aground on a stretch of dirty yellow sand.
They had reached the island.
It was a large island.
The “pointy peak” Everly and Misha had seen from the sea was actually a mountain on the eastern side of the island—the highest point of the entire landmass.
Aside from that mountain, most of the island was relatively flat. The edges were made up of reefs and sandy beaches, while the center—like many islands—was covered in dense forest.
The place they had landed was a small stretch of beach not far from the mountain.
After so long at sea, when Everly finally stepped onto solid ground again, she actually felt as if the land itself was swaying side to side, and she almost lost her balance.
She steadied herself and waited for the dizziness to subside before walking back with Misha to the raft. They first retrieved the bottled water tied with string and the “water-filled condom balloons” used for storing freshwater, hauling them back onto the raft. Then, working together from either side, they dragged the heavy front end of the raft fully out of the sea and left it on the beach to dry in the sun.
The water-filled condoms were acting as natural convex lenses; if left improperly in sunlight, they could easily start a fire.
They unloaded all their belongings—including the condoms—and placed them in the shade on the island, covering them with grass and other debris for concealnt.
Afterward, following the plan they had made on the raft, Everly and Misha took down their clothes from the canopy, put them on, grabbed their weapons and backpacks, and began exploring the island.
This ti, they had three objectives upon landing:
Objective one: dry the raft.
The reason has already been ntioned earlier, so it will not be repeated here.
Objective Two: Build a sunshade.
Drifting at sea in the sumr heat, a sunshade was absolutely essential. The previous makeshift canopy wasn’t particularly effective, so now that they were ashore, Everly and Misha planned to use branches, leaves, and other materials from the island to build a new one.
This would also an Everly and Misha no longer had to run around like savages wearing only their underwear. Leaving aside the issue of appearance, having no padding underneath also made lying on the rough wooden raft quite uncomfortable.
Objective Three: Gather supplies.
Supplies included wooden planks that could be used as oars, fruits rich in vitamin C, dry grass that could be used to pad the raft for better comfort, and anything else that could be useful on the boat.
Since this was their first ti on the island, they could not rule out the possibility of danger. Therefore, they strictly followed “Horror Movie Survival Rule #11: do not split up or act alone,” and stayed together for all activities.
They first headed into the forest behind them.
Both the paddles and the sunshade required large amounts of wood, branches, and leaves. In addition, the wild fruits they needed were also more likely to be found in the forest.
However, exploring an uninhabited forest was not easy. In particular, both girls’ long pants had already been turned into makeshift shorts with no lower legs, so when moving through the undergrowth, their bare calves were easily scratched by serrated grass blades.
After struggling through the trees for a distance and finding that the ground was completely overgrown with weeds with nowhere safe to step, the two had no choice but to retreat. They instead chose to walk along the edge of the forest, scanning the trees for useful resources as they went.
While they were walking, after rounding a pile of reefs, a new stretch of beach appeared before them.
And with it ca a colossal creature stranded on the sand.
“What is that… an orca?”
Everly narrowed her eyes against the sunlight and looked carefully.
It was a huge marine creature, large enough that its body rivaled a speedboat in size. It resembled a whale in shape—streamlined, with a large head and a tapered tail. Its skin was smooth, with no scales.
Its black-and-white coloration, along with the white patches around its eyes, made it easy at first glance to mistake it for an orca. But upon closer inspection, its fins—on the sides and back—looked strange.
Everly wasn’t a marine biologist, so she didn’t know how to describe it in technical terms. In her impression, whale fins were smooth, curved shapes—like little clay sticks, rounded and harmless-looking, almost cute.
But the creature in front of her was different. Its fins were lined with bone spurs. They looked like unfolded fans—translucent mbranes forming the surface, while sharp protruding bones served as the “ribs” of the fan, untrimd and dangerous.
Especially the dorsal fin along its back: each bone spine pointed skyward like a sword. Its glass-like transparency did nothing to soften its aggressive presence. Under the sunlight, even the reflected glint carried a cutting, almost scorching sharpness.
Everly swore she had never heard of any whale or dolphin with fins like that.
“Have you ever heard of a whale with horns?” Misha asked.
Everly shook her head firmly.
“Whales don’t have horns. Don’t try to trick —you’re not fooling a kid like that!”
“Ah-ha, you lose, Everly.”
Misha put her hands on her hips, wearing a smug little expression.
“I told you—there really are whales with horns in this world. They’re called narwhals. I even saw soone share a picture of its ‘unicorn horn’ online before. That thing looks like a really good collectible!”
“……”
Everly stared at Misha for a mont, still deeply skeptical about the claim.
Co on. Whales were supposed to be those big, round, smooth, slippery creatures. How could they possibly have horns?
Misha suddenly flared up. “Then let’s make a bet! When we get back to shore, we’ll check online to see if narwhals exist. If they do, you give 50 USD. If they don’t, I give you 50 USD.”
The mont money was ntioned, Everly instantly folded.
“Fine, fine. It’s my ignorance. I believe you.”
After all these years together, she knew Misha too well. That girl only ever made bets when she was absolutely certain she would win.
So… that ant there really were whales with horns?
If so, maybe creatures like this one with crystal-like fins could also exist. The ocean was huge, after all. Didn’t scientists say humans had only explored about 5% of it, with the rest still a mystery?
Another possibility was that this whale-like creature was the result of pollution or scientific experints. After all, this was a “horror world”—man-made aberrations like this were not exactly rare.
Everly felt a little regretful that she didn’t have her phone with her. Encounters like this didn’t co often. If she could take a photo and bring it back to land, it would be pretty cool.
If she sent it to her grandfather, he might forward it straight to Grandpa Karl, and the two of them would probably end up turning it into so wild story about their granddaughter battling a sea monster—and turn it into a competition between them.
Thinking of her grandfather, Everly felt a heaviness settle in her chest.
The kidnapping had happened too abruptly back then. She had only managed to send a quick “I’m fine.” to Old John, without ti to explain anything before turning her phone off. By now, news of her disappearance must have already reached her grandfather. She had no idea how he was handling it. Even if she had said she was safe in advance, he would definitely still be worried…
“Hey, Everly, am I seeing things, or did that orca just move?”
“What?”
Snapped out of her thoughts by Misha’s shout, Everly raised her head and looked back at the strange orca-like creature.
Only then did she notice what had happened to it.
She didn’t know what had happened to this whale-like creature, but its body was covered in injuries—many of them severe and grueso.
So were clear tearing wounds, where the flesh had been ripped open and curled outward, exposing raw tissue beneath. In the deepest parts, pale bone could even be seen. Others were more unusual—circular puncture-like wounds, resembling small impact craters.
The dense web of injuries crisscrossed its body, making it look as if it had just been pulled out of a pool of blood. When Everly and Misha had first climbed over the reef, they had even seen seabirds perched on it, calmly tearing at its wounds for flesh, as if it were already dead. The creature hadn’t reacted at all.
Yet now, as Everly looked again, it truly moved.
Half of its body was stranded on the scorching sand. Its dark skin had dried and cracked under the blazing sun, seeping traces of blood. Despite injuries that should have been fatal—injuries that even seabirds treated as an easy al—it was still clinging stubbornly to life.
It lay tilted on its side. One eye stared upward at the blinding sun, and with great effort it forced its mouth open into a narrow slit, revealing densely packed white teeth and a deep, shadowy throat.
Not long after, Everly heard a thin, piercing cry.
It was sharp and mournful, carrying a desperate, broken quality. The sound seed to carry so strange power—one that made images suddenly flash before her eyes, as if she were witnessing the collapse of beautiful things.
Natalie turning into a mannequin under self-curse, Radyard reduced to ruins under artillery fire, a lamia mother dissolving into seawater slipping from her embrace, fragile Buddy falling into eternal sleep right before her eyes… countless losses, endless regrets, indescribable sorrow and grief.
Unknowingly, a faint mist of tears gathered in Everly’s eyes.
Even though she did not understand whale language, she sohow understood its aning with eerie clarity.
This whale… was lanting its own approaching death.
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