The humidity of the two men caught by the light of the bure was sliced open by a slow, creeping draft.
It carried a scent, a thick, cloying stench of stagnant reef water mixed with the sharp, copper tang of wet iron.
The wind pushed the smell forward, wrapping around the men like a heavy, invisible gauze.
From the edge of the clearing, the Chief's Bure. Elevated on massive coral-stone plinths and coconut-wood pillars, it loomed over the smaller huts like a sleeping predator.
A Rama torch outside provided the only movement. It was lashed to the perimeter post, its light pulsing in heavy, uneven waves. The sound was not a gentle crackle,
but a low, rhythmic —Voom... Voom...—
The sound of oxygen being sucked into the heart of the flame and exhaled as thick, oily smoke.
Tenia's silhouette cut through the orange glare with a low-slung grace.
Against the back wall—furthest from the opening, stood a heavy Te-Kaibure, a solid slab of petrified driftwood supported by four thick coconut-timber legs.
It was a rugged, utilitarian surface, high enough to meet Maluma's waist without forcing his massive frame to stoop.
The primary orange pulse from the outside Rama torches couldn't penetrate this far into the Bure, instead, it caught only the rounded edge of his massive shoulder and the side of his jaw, leaving the rest of him in a murky, high-contrast gloom.
Maluma stood before the table, his head bowed.
Each exhale was a dense Hhhhh-unnn, a sound of air being pushed through a heavy valve.
The dim, low-angle light hit the underside of his brow, leaving his eyes in a bottomless, ink-black void.
In that shadow, his pupils caught the faint, distant flicker of the fire, turning his gaze into a Damning Spirit's stare—unblinking, cold, and utterly devoid of mercy.
On the table, his Te-Waka-n-Ika laid on a bed of raw sennit.
He didn't lift the weapon, he pressed it against the wood.
The sennit made a dry, biting Crrrk-hiss as he cinched a knot tight.
As he cinched the final length of sennit, his thumb slipped.
The edge of a tiger-shark tooth—honed to a glass-shattering point—sliced through the calloused pad of his index finger.
The skin didn't tear, it parted.
He stopped. The Hhhhh-unnn of his breath held steady, neither hitching nor accelerating.
He didn't pull his hand away.
A bead of blood, thick and dark as overripe fruit, bloomed from the slit.
It surged with a slow, rhythmic pulse, unspooling down the side of his finger and onto the pale, petrified wood, dripping once—thip—
He didn't flinch. There was no sharp intake of air, no instinctive rub to dull the sting.
He simply stared at the red liquid coat.
His deep, ink-black orbits reflecting the tiny, shivering red smear.
The entrance of the second figure didn't just break the silence, it removed the remaining warmth in the room.
The thick, humid scent of coconut oil and a sharp, pungent, herbal scent was sliced open by a sudden, predatory draft.
The silhouette moved with a hissing, sibilant intake, the sound of wind whistling through a cracked shell.
The voice was a hot friction against the stillness. It cut through the Hhhhh-unnn of the room like a splintering mast.
"Do you think it was a good choice?"
Her voice was thin and brittle.
Maluma's eyes shifted slightly to the side, tracking the movement of her shadow on the wall before he slowly pivoted his massive neck.
"What choice?
Tenia stepped fully into the dim amber radius of the ember bowl.
The torchlight caught the movement of her throat as she swallowed softly, her vocal cords pulling tight like sennit under strain.
"Who else do you think? I'm talking about the visitors."
Maluma didn't look back at her. He looked at the table, his chest expanding in a heavy, weary sigh that smelled of salt and old stone. "I sympathized with them."
She rolled her eyes, her body language turning into a series of sharp, disjointed angles.
Her voice broke into staccato bursts—a rapid-fire Te-ke-te rhythm that sounded like a bird trapped in a cage.
"An—and.. and, that is supposed to change what excactly?"
Maluma remained a block of unmoving
Timber.
The silence between them was a physical weight.
"Didn't you see what happened out there?"
Tenia pressed, her words tumbling over each other.
"Poa. We know him as our neighbor, our family. Suddenly, he just kills Kanka.. out of nowhere. Not to mention we don't know how innocent the Fijians are. They might be a burden to a curse unknowingly—they bring it here with them and now our locals are acting Insane."
She stopped.
The frantic energy drained out of her, replaced by a hollow, skeletal slump.
"Maluma, my father is died, without warning."
Her voice dropped an octave, becoming a raw, gravelly rasp. "His whole... life he took care of me and he had to see me suffer as I got older. I didn't even make it right with him, and say 'Dad, I'm okay.' He didn't even get a proper funeral, and the killer just..."
She sealed her lips, her jaw muscles locking in a violent isometric contraction.
The dim light caught the silver glint of moisture pooling in her lower lids.
She didn't blink, she simply stared at the back of Maluma's head, with
agonizing grief.
"... Look, we don't know if the killer's still out there," she whispered, her voice splintering like dry palm fronds under a heavy boot.
"For the first time in eighteen years I feel a... rotting, dry taste at the back of my throat. The fear of not being there for your loved ones, is one of the most damaging things for a mother, and i'm afraid i would fail Kanoa also, but I won't put him in danger. Not again."
Maluma's head tilted, a slow, predatory movement. His eyes slid to the side, catching the amber glow of the ember bowl.
But this time, the Damning gaze fractured.
A rare, unsettling smile pulled at the corners of his mouth, the muscle displacement making his face look like cracked earth shifting over a fault line.
"Just.. Please. Promise me you can fix this. That this won't repeat itself, Please," Tenia begged. The sound of her own vulnerability caused a sudden snap.
She slapped her thigh—a sharp, skin-on-skin Whack that echoed against the thatch like a gunshot.
"Just turn around and say something!"
Maluma chuckled. It wasn't a warm sound; it was a low grind—Khhh-khhh-khhh—, like two basalt boulders rubbing together deep underground.
His massive shoulders, slick with the orange reflection of the torches, began to heave.
Tenia gasped, her breath hitching in her throat in a sudden Shock.
The chuckle died as abruptly as it began, leaving a silence that felt twice as heavy as before.
He moved with a weightless fluidity, his massive frame closing the distance until he occupied the very air she breathed. The Hhhhh-unnn of his chest smoothed out into a quiet calm.
When he reached out, his hands held her cheeks, his calloused skin feeling like warm, sun-baked earth against her cold skin.
"Oh, Tenia. You worry too much, dear. There's no need to stress over this. Everything will work out fine and always will. You also need to promise me that you won't worry so much."
Tenia's head moved in a small, desperate whine, her neck muscles twitching under the strain of her grief. "I know, but—"
"Promise me. Promise me."
He leaned in, his gaze locking onto hers with a magnetic intensity. The orange glow from the ember bowl caught the wetness in her eyes,
while his own remained steady, unblinking, and hypnotically focused.
Tenia paused, her heart finally slowing as she fell into the orbit of his calm.
She blinked once, then twice, the surface tension of her tears finally breaking.
"I promise."
"There you go," Maluma murmured. He pulled her into his chest, his massive arms wrapping around her like ironwood beams.
As he held her, the soft and assuring man disappeared over her shoulder.
While his hand gently caressed the back of her head—a tender motion—his face went completely void.
He stared empty into the dark corners of the Bure, his eyes wide and utterly predatory.
"All will be okay. Nothing gets out of our sight. Not one."
The atmosphere outside the Chief's bure was a stark contrast to the ceremonial glow inside.
As Tako and Rania moved away from the lights, the terrain beneath them became a sensory map of their rising tension.
Tako's footsteps were percussive and impatient.
His heels struck the packed coral earth with a sharp, skeletal —Tack-thud—,driving his weight downward as if he were trying to anchor himself to a reality that was rapidly shifting.
Beside him, Rania's pace was a hesitant syncopation.
Her feet brushed against the loose surface with a dry, sweeping —Sss-cht,—the sound of someone walking on eggshells in a world that felt increasingly fragile.
"I can't believe mom would just bounce all of a sudden, Tako," Rania whispered, her voice competing with the —Crrrk-hiss— of the wind in the palms.
"I'm so angry at her, but at the same time worried. Do you remember when Chief Nimanoa used to say they were sent off from their homes by monsters?"
Tako didn't slow. "Hm."
"And now people are dying and missing here as well," she pressed, her steps quickening to match his aggressive stride.
"It's kind of convenient. You don't think maybe... its Te Anti?"
Tako gave her a soft, stern look, before his gaze darted away, searching the tree line with a jagged, hyper-fixated focus.
"No, Rania. That's crazy. Monsters don't exist, not here. Maybe where the others came from, yeah, but not here."
"But—"
Tako turned to her fully, his body a taut, linear shadow. His eyes were stern, constricting into needle-points of denial.
"There's no 'Buts' Rania. Monsters cannot exist here, period. We've been a safe and quiet society for centuries, dating back to our first ancestors. Te Anti is a myth made by them, trying to understand the world. Bako's death was certainly caused by a sadistic person."
He didn't wait for a response. He stomped off, his teeth gritting so hard the muscles in his jaw corded into visible knots.
"And the sooner we find mom alive and well, the sooner things can go back to normal."
Rania remained behind, her silhouette a crooked angle against the moonlit path.
She tilted her head to the side, a single brow rising in a skeptical twitch.
She paced toward him again, leaning into his side profile, her eyes searching for a crack in his coral-hard expression. "Are you okay, Tako?"
Tako gave her a quick, predatory glance. "Why are you asking? Of course I'm not okay. Mom is missing. Can't you get that?"
Rania's heart began a thumping vibration against her ribs. She opened her mouth partially, the air catching in her throat.
"What is going on with you? I'm just trying to understand why you're so upset. Don't be angry at me?"
Tako's posture softened by a fraction, but the air around him remained charged and brittle.
"I'm not angry at you," he muttered. "Now, let's put this silly conversation behind us and focus on finding mom."
Rania didn't argue. She simply shook her head, her eyes narrowing down in a heavy, disappointed slump.
She looked at the back of his head as he walked away.
The air suddenly thickened and rolled, pushing a heavy, salt-damped heat against their skin.
The breeze wasn't a gentle whisper anymore, it was a sudden-shove that sent the palm trees into a violent, thrashing panic.
Then, the night was split by a jagged-wail.
It was a man's voice, raw and frayed, getting louder as he tore through the undergrowth with a frenzied-thumping.
He burst from the thicket like a panicked animal, his chest heaving in wet, ragged-gasps.
Every intake of air was a sharp-hitch, a frantic —Khhh-ahh—that vibrated deep in his lungs, echoing the frantic thudding of his feet.
As he sprinted past, his head snapped toward them for a fleeting second, his eyes were two shimmering-white-circles of pure terror, before he vanished into the blackness of the grove,
his footsteps a fading, frantic drum-beat on the hard earth.
Rania's jaw fell open, her breath hitching in a hollow-gasp. "Woah!"
They both turned quick.
Tako's eyes were wide, reflecting the frantic movement of the runner, but his brow stayed clamped in that stiff-stubborn-knot.
They gave each other a long, heavy-hearted-look.
The silence that followed was worse than the scream, lingering in the salt-heavy air even after he vanished.
A cold, weighing-pressure that sat between them as they realized the world they knew was starting to fray at the edges.