At the center of the room—
Mr. Koroma.
He was bound upright to a metal chair, thick chains wrapped around his chest, arms, and legs. His body was barely recognizable beneath the blood. Dried, fresh, smeared—layered like someone had worked on him patiently, carefully.
The floor beneath him was dark and sticky, and scattered across nearby tables were tools I couldn't bring myself to name.
Rose screamed.
The sound tore out of her throat, raw and uncontrollable.
I couldn't move.
My hands shook so badly I had to clench them into fists to stop them rattling against my own bones. My teacher—our teacher—hung there like something abandoned after use.
"M-Mr… Mr. Koroma?" I called, my voice cracking.
No answer.
I stepped closer, forcing myself not to look at everything else. Not the stains. Not the tools. Not the marks on his skin. I reached out and gently took his wrist, my fingers brushing against something wet and cold.
I pressed my thumb against his pulse.
There. Weak. But there.
"He's alive," I whispered. "Rose—he's alive."
Hope surged through me, sharp and painful. I scanned the table wildly until my eyes landed on a small ring of keys lying beside a blood-soaked cloth.
I grabbed them, fumbling until I found the right one and unlocked the chains around his arm.
I tried to lift him.
He didn't move.He was too heavy. Too limp.
"Rose!" I called. "I need help!"
She didn't answer.
"Rose!" I shouted again.
Still nothing.
I turned.
She stood frozen near the far wall, both hands clamped over her mouth. Her entire body trembled as if she were standing in freezing water. Tears streamed down her face, but her eyes never blinked.
They were fixed on something behind me.
"Rose…?" I asked softly.
She didn't respond.
Then slowly—reluctantly—I followed her gaze.
I wish I hadn't.
The corners of the room were packed.
Bodies.
Not whole ones.
Limbs. Torsos. Heads. Pieces stacked carelessly, like broken mannequins shoved out of sight. Some were old, some newer flesh in different stages of decay.
The smell hit me all at once, thick and suffocating.
I screamed.
The sound tore through my chest as the room spun. My legs nearly gave out. My mind refused to process what my eyes were seeing.
This wasn't a room.
It was a grave, No—worse.
A storage.
I stared at the pile, horror burning through my skull.
Then… something made me stop.
My vision narrowed.
My breath hitched.
Near the top of a cupboard, slightly tilted, was a head.
A young boy's head.
Black hair.
Thin glasses.
Empty eye sockets staring at nothing.
"…b-brother?" I whispered.
My knees buckled.
"No," I said, shaking my head violently,"No… it can't be."
The world blurred as I stepped closer.
"Marco?" My voice broke completely. "No… it—it can't be."
Marco.
My little brother.
He had died years ago—or so we were told.
A school trip. A museum. A bus explosion.
No survivors. Closed caskets. Mourning that never really healed.
So why—why does this boy look like him?
Rose suddenly ran to the corner and vomited, the stench finally overwhelming her while I barely noticed.
I clutched my chest, breathing hard.
"No… no… this isn't him," I muttered. "This isn't him."
But my heart knew.
I walked closer, each step heavier than the last, until I stood inches away. Even without eyes—especially without them—I knew that face.
"Hendry…." Rose's voice snapped through my thoughts.
I turned.
She stood holding a file, her hands shaking so badly the papers inside rattled. She thrust it toward me without a word.
I took it.
My fingers felt numb as I opened it.
Names.
Schools.
Dates.
I skimmed faster, desperate to prove myself wrong.
Then I saw it.
A school name.
Marco's school.
I flipped the page.
A list of students.
And there—his name.
"No," I whispered. "No… no…"
I turned the pages faster, heart pounding, vision swimming. Then something slipped loose and fell to the floor.
A photograph.
I picked it up.
A class photo.
Marco stood in the front row, smiling shyly, his friends around him, unaware of what waited for them.
The sound that came out of me wasn't human.
"Ha… ha… ha… haa…"
My laughter broke into sobs.
My body collapsed inward as despair crushed me from the inside out. Rose could only stand there, helpless, watching as something inside me finally shattered.
Because now I understood.
The explosion.
The trips.
The missing students.
They never died.
They were taken.
And this place—this island,
Was where they ended.
***********
I don't remember when I started laughing.
I only remember the sound tearing out of my throat—sharp, broken, wrong. I was laughing and crying at the same time, my body shaking like it didn't know which reaction to choose.
Tears blurred my vision, but even then, I couldn't look at that head anymore.
My heart refused.
"Why… why… why…?"
The words fell from my mouth like useless scraps.
Rose stood frozen a few steps away, her face soaked in tears. "I—I'm sorry, Hendry… I—"
"Shut up!!" I screamed.
The moment the word left my mouth, I regretted it, but I couldn't stop. If she finished that sentence, if she said anything else, it would make it real. She was making me accept it, and I didn't want to. I couldn't.
Then suddenly arms wrapped around me.
Warm. Bloody. Trembling.
"It's okay, Hendry… please," Mr. Koroma whispered from behind me. "It's okay… I'm so sorry."
That was it.
Those words shattered whatever was left holding me together.
I don't remember when my legs gave up.
I only remember the sound of my own crying—ugly, broken, endless—like something inside me had finally been torn out and left bleeding on the floor.
My face was buried in Mr. Koroma's chest. I could feel his heartbeat—slow, weak, stubborn. Alive. Still alive. And somehow that made everything hurt more.
My brother wasn't.
I laughed again. It slipped out without permission.
A broken sound.
Why was i alive?
Why wasn't Marco?
"Why… why… why?"
The words tasted bitter, useless. They didn't change anything.
Rose was crying too. I could hear it behind me, soft and helpless. She said she was sorry again, but the word sorry meant nothing in a room like this. Sorry couldn't stitch a head back onto a body.
Sorry couldn't rewind five years.
I wanted silence.
I wanted everything to stop.
That's why the knife called to me.
It sat there quietly on the table, stained dark red, waiting like it had always belonged in my hand. For a moment, it felt right—peaceful.
One stab. One moment. No more images. No more guilt.
No more Marco looking at me with empty eyes.
I slipped out of my teacher's embrace and stagger my way to it.
"Hendry don't!!" Rose screamed.
Too late.
But before I could reach it, a weight slammed into me.
Mr. Koroma. Weak, shaking—yet he still threw himself between me and the blade like his body was worth less than my life.
"Let me go!" I screamed, pushing against him. "Let me go! I want to be with him, please!"
"It won't fix anything," he said through clenched teeth.
"It will!" I cried. "It will stop this! It will stop the guilt!"
My voice cracked so hard it hurt my throat.
"I forced him!" I cried. "I told him to go! He didn't want to, teacher! He didn't want to go!"
I remembered that day clearly.
Marco was standing in the doorway, sulking.
He said it'll be boring.
He said he didn't want to go.
And me—annoyed, impatient—promising him my PC just to get him out of my room.
I traded his life for convenience.
I always had.
Mr. Koroma didn't answer right away.
Then he grabbed my face and forced me to look at him.
His eyes were burning.
Not with fear.
But with rage.
"So," he said slowly, his voice low and shaking, "you want to let the people who did this… walk free?"
I stopped struggling.
The room felt smaller.
I looked down at the knife, it didn't look peaceful anymore.
It looked like escape.
A cowardly escape.
"If you die," he continued, "they win. They keep doing this. More brothers. More sisters. More children stacked like trash."
My chest tightened.
My hands went limp.
I couldn't breathe.
I pressed my face back into his chest, my body folding in on itself as the sobs returned—louder this time. I cried until my throat burned, until my eyes hurt, until my head felt empty.
Marco was gone.
Nothing would change that.
But whoever did this—
They were still breathing.
And for the first time since I stepped onto this island, something else joined my fear.
Hatred.
Pure. Quiet. Heavy.
I don't know how long we stayed like that.
All I know is—
Above us, somewhere beyond the walls, something moved.
And for the first time…
I felt like we weren't alone anymore .