The ocean was quieter today.
Jiwoon stood alone on a ridge overlooking the bay, watching waves roll in slow and heavy. The girls were still asleep in the makeshift hut behind him — soft breathing, tangled limbs, the warmth of last night still lingering in the air.
But Jiwoon couldn't sleep.
He hadn't since the silence returned.
Not peace — silence. The kind that came before a storm.
A faint hum tickled the edge of his mind.
He closed his eyes.
⸻
[System Ping: Signal Detected]
Target Classification: UNKNOWN
Location: ??? (Island anomalies increasing)
⸻
Jiwoon frowned. The Sin System wasn't supposed to work out here. That's why they came.
He turned back toward the beach just in time to see Kaelya step out of the hut, hair messy, shirt too big.
"You're brooding," she said, rubbing her eyes.
"I'm listening," he corrected.
"To what?"
"Something I thought we left behind."
Kaelya's face changed. Serious now.
"…Is it waking up again?"
"Not yet. But it knows we're here."
⸻
Later that afternoon, while Vera was out gathering fruit and Kaelya dozed in the shade, Jiwoon wandered inland.
That's when he saw it:
A circle of charred sand. Symbols carved into stone.
It hadn't been there yesterday.
⸻
[System Alert: Unknown Entity Approaching]
Jiwoon spun.
A boy stood at the edge of the jungle — barefoot, eyes too old for his face.
"You're not from here," the boy said.
Jiwoon didn't answer. His hand hovered near his side.
"You shouldn't have come. This island isn't a place for sins to sleep."
Then the boy smiled — and vanished.
Jiwoon blinked.
Gone.
⸻
When he returned to camp, Vera was waiting. Her face pale. She held up a necklace — not hers — coated in ash.
"Jiwoon," she said quietly. "This place… it remembers something."
Jiwoon looked to the sea again. The sun had vanished behind clouds.
"Then we'll have to remember it too."