I sat still, letting silence devour the room while my mind chewed through memory, logic, and paranoia.
There were once nine of us. Now, seven. And soon—possibly fewer.
Mira was dead. Dr. Khanna too.
If they were alive, I wouldn't have doubted them. Not those two.
That left six names. Six potential traitors.
I began dissecting each one—not as people, but as problems. As equations that didn't add up.
Dr. Ankita.
She walks like she's always just exited surgery—controlled, precise, never wasting breath. Her tongue slices like a scalpel, yet there's grief under her mask, tucked in the folds of her posture.
Two years ago, she abandoned the lecture halls of Geneva to dissect mutated cells in the jungle. She won medals back then. Now she collects anomalies.
Some say she came here chasing cures. I think she came chasing guilt.
When Mira died, her rage wasn't just professional—it was personal. She didn't mourn like a traitor. She mourned like a surgeon whose patient bled out.
Still, she understands anatomy too well not to know where to cut if she wanted to kill.
"Empathy is a luxury surgeons can't afford. They learn to stitch hearts they cannot feel."
She organizes the infirmary with an obsessive neatness, the kind only the guilty or grieving cling to. Every scalpel in its place, every data sheet filed with military precision—as if controlling her tools can control her guilt.
Mr. Zakir.
He speaks in metaphors and coughs in equations. A physicist whose theorems outlived his credibility. He's not here to test—he's here to remember what it feels like to matter.
No labs. No machines. Just a dying jungle and a hollow man trying to trap ghosts in math.
He reacted in panic during the lab incident. That wasn't the face of a traitor—it was the face of a man whose belief shattered on contact with reality.
Still, he once designed dark matter storage without proof. He understands how to build things you can't see.
"Some truths aren't hidden. They're just too heavy to lift with facts."
He always carries a black notebook bound in cracked leather. Every time he writes in it, he mumbles first—as if translating from another language.
Miss Katrina.
The quiet knife in our ranks.
She's security, but she doesn't stand guard—she watches the exits.
She has no need for words. Her posture is an answer, her stillness a threat. If she were the traitor, we'd all be dead already. No drama. Just elimination.
She doesn't speak, because she doesn't need to.
"Some wolves don't howl. They just watch from the ridge and wait for you to blink."
I once caught her praying under her breath—not to any god, but to a picture. A photo. Cracked, water-damaged. A child with her eyes.
Dr. Imara.
Youngest among us. Fresh brilliance. No legacy yet—just ambition sharpening its edge.
When she speaks, it's not to fill silence. It's to shape it.
She studies memory algorithms and neurological decay, but her real project is control. Control over her image. Control over perception. Even her hesitation feels rehearsed.
The way she looked at me once—measured, surgical—like I was an equation miswritten.
She's either the most innocent here, or the most dangerous.
"Youth doesn't mean purity. Sometimes it just means they haven't failed yet."
She files her fingernails while reading. Distracted precision. Habitual vanity—or performance?
Mr. Koro.
The room dims when he enters. It isn't fear. It's gravity.
He mutters in code. His lab smells like metal and afterthoughts. He builds machines that dream, then wakes them up to see what they scream.
He's not curious. He's convicted. There's a difference.
I've never heard him raise his voice. But I've heard his machines echo with things I don't have the language to describe.
"Madness doesn't rant. Sometimes it just rewires the walls."
He keeps a broken audio recorder on his desk. Plays it in reverse. No one knows why.
Mr. Zabir.
The ghost of this island.
He returns like mold—inevitable and silent. A chemist by name, but he never teaches, never publishes. He observes. Not for data. For patterns.
Zabir doesn't act like he belongs here. He acts like the island belongs to him.
When asked why he returns, he once whispered, "Because some places need witnesses."
He moves like a man who's already written the ending.
"Some men don't escape haunted places. They just become part of the haunting."
Six suspects. Twenty minutes. One conclusion: There's a traitor among us.
And I was running out of time to find them.
My ribs groaned as I rose, bracing against a steel rod like a crutch. Every movement sent a warning through my bones.
I turned to the wall. There, on cracked concrete, I scratched six names using a rusted nail. Ankita. Zakir. Katrina. Imara. Koro. Zabir. I circled two. Imara. Zabir. Not conclusions. Just instincts. Blood from my cracked knuckle stained the list. Somehow, it felt... fitting.
If I failed to make it back—someone had to know where to start.
I limped toward the infirmary door.
And froze.
Rain.
But not the kind poets dream about.
This was radioactive rainfall—a chemical cascade that painted the sky in apocalyptic colors.
It came down in sheets—violet, neon green, rust-red—each drop heavy as molten glass, thick as oil. The hiss it made when it hit the ground was sharp enough to cut thought.
Boots dissolve in this. Suits fail. Skin melts.
It wasn't weather. It was a message.
A war cry from the sky.
Still, I stepped out.
Why?
Because even madness has a logic. Because waiting for sunshine on a burning island is suicide. Because the traitor wasn't going to pause for blue skies.
Each step forward felt like dragging a body made of iron across a field of acid.
The storm didn't welcome me. It tested me.
And I passed.
"Even the apocalypse has its art." "The world tries to kill you, and still finds time to impress you." "Even in decay, nature performs."
Sometimes, even poison glows like hope. Sometimes, even hell has a skyline.
I pushed forward. Not toward safety—toward necessity. Because the game had already begun.
And on this island, no one wins without making someone lose.
"In a world without trust, suspicion isn't weakness—it's armor." "Certainty is a luxury. Doubt is enough—if you keep moving." "My obstacles are many. My time is limited. But my mind... is sharp enough to bleed the truth."