Chapter 16: Don’t You Think You’ve Weighed Them Down Enough?
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I have completely lost track of time, and that is why this chapter is late! Oops! My bad.

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The absence of flittering birds and chirping crickets along the dirt road was heavy on their shoulders. The kids kicked up rocks, some dragged their feet, but otherwise the forest was aggressively silent. It was a wrongful quiet that Cindy had never felt before. There was a shared, unspoken fear that speaking was breaking taboo, and there would have physical consequences.

The road rounded a large rock outcropping. They followed but shuffled to a stop once they saw what was past the bend. Someone had stuck a metal post in the ground, standing at an angle like it had been shoved there in a hurry, an animal skull perched limply on top.

“This feels like a mistake,” Roberto mumbled, raising his spear and glancing around. “I feel exposed.”

Diana hissed, “Why are we doing this?! Risking our lives when staying at camp is safer?”

“Is it safer?” Alex asked, looking around. “Whatever’s hunting Clay isn’t stuck at that building.” He glared at Diana. “Unless you think we should leave him here.”

“Of course not! Don’t act like I’m suddenly okay with abandoning people to die. But whatever it is, it never came into our camp, not even when we were sleeping.”

Chris added, “You of all people, Alex, should know that there are things in the world we won’t ever understand. This is not worth dying for.”

“We will be safe,” Alex said. “The worst thing we can do is panic.”

Winter turned and asked, “Clay? You’re being awfully quiet.”

All eyes turned to Cindy, sapping the breath from her lungs. Even the breeze stilled in anticipation of her answer, leaving Cindy to bake and sweat in the summer heat. They were all in danger because of her, and whatever waited for them at the end of the road was more aggressive than any other phenomena on the island. They were not equipped for this, but returning later was not an option; her parents would not allow it, and the government certainly wouldn’t either.

Everyone’s faces, weary and wary, pressed themselves into Cindy’s memory. This could be the last day she saw all of them–any of them, even–alive and well. She couldn’t have that on her conscience. Cindy opened her mouth to call it off, to give up and return to the relative safety of the campsite.

Before she could, Roberto slung the spear over his shoulder and walked past the post, saying, “Stay back if you’re afraid. Nobody has to come with me, but dangerous or not, I won’t be spooked by someone too cowardly to show their face.”

Winter followed him, as did Alex and Terri. It was another long moment before Diana chased after them with Chris on her tail. Cindy gave one last long look to the skull–it returned her gaze, offering wordless questions about her conviction that she didn’t have answers for–and then fell in line behind the others.

The building stood where they had last left it. Small windows faced them like pinprick eyes, reminding Cindy of an alligator’s head perched just above the water. Nothing held it back but a rotting stone wall and defunct iron gate. They strode through the grounds with Roberto at the helm, and the building did not snap them up.

The dark and quiet inside did not put them at ease. Every footstep seemed to echo farther than it should. Roberto did not falter, leading them to the staircase Cindy had found before. As he stood in the doorway, peering down into the black pit, they could hear shuffling from below. He took a few steps that echoed to alert the stranger of their presence; the sound beneath them stopped abruptly.

At the bottom of the stairs, they were met with the long corridor, and everyone could see soft green light pressing between cracks in the double doors at the far end. Every other door was still welded shut, but the group moved forward at a crawl. They had come too far to trust everything they saw. The slightest provocation could send things sideways.

Everyone shuffled to a stop at the far end. Roberto reached out his hand and wrapped his fingers around the handle but did not move further. Cindy couldn’t hear so much as a breath, but the hair on her neck stood up.

From inside, a muffled voice called out, “You may as well come in if you’ve already come this far.”

Roberto swung the door open and raised his spear. The room was no different from before: cooking supplies, industrial batteries, ammo crates. Sitting on the cot was the masked woman, dressing cuts with fresh bandages and seemingly undisturbed by their presence. A rifle sat against the wall just out of arm’s reach.

“Good to know that they still don’t teach critical thinking in schools,” she said before tearing the bandage with her teeth. “You’re going to get yourselves killed, and I will not feel bad that you brought it on yourselves.”

“We just need answers, lady,” Winter said, walking over and snatching the gun. She held it limply in her hands, barrel facing the wall. “You know what happened to… our friend, and if there’s any way to fix it, you know that too. None of this ‘for your own good’ bullshit. We’re adults; give us the truth.”

The lone survivor glared at Winter before turning to Cindy.

“I suppose it was inevitable,” she said. “There wasn’t much time left to intervene, anyway. I’m guessing that you–all of you–know more than I would like. What have you discovered?”

“Supernatural monsters,” Alex said, glancing warily around the room. “Native Americans may have fought them, but that was so long ago that nobody has any details.”

Roberto lowered his spear just a hair and added, “You did research here and found strange electromagnetic and seismographic readings. Assuming you were actually part of the military investigation?”

Without breaking eye contact with Cindy, the stranger nodded.

“You were watching us from the beginning,” Diana said. “You must have known something happened even if you didn’t see it yourself.”

“Observant!”

Chris glowered, finishing, “And you claim we’re in danger, but you’ve hidden the truth so we don’t know what we’re up against or how to protect ourselves.”

“Enough sharing,” Cindy said, curling her hands into fists and stepping forward. “You know this. You probably knew that we knew all of this. So just get to it! You say everyone is in danger because of me. They’re still putting their lives on the line to find out why! Enough stalling!”

The masked woman took a deep breath before answering, “Not in danger because of you, specifically. If anything, your recklessness has kept its attention off of them. Your fate was sealed early, but in turn you’ve spared everyone a lot of grief.”

The words struck Cindy in the chest. Alex raised his spear and stepped forward to level it at the stranger’s face.

“Cut the fear tactics, lady. Explain, slowly, what you know.”

“The sheer disrespect. Fine. You have the broad strokes, despite my best efforts. And I would have warned you, if not how busy I was protecting you from what you saw the last time you were here.

“It’s not clear if the Native Americans or Norse settlers were here first; the island had some trade with the outside. We also don’t know if they worshiped or feared the force trapped here–possibly both at different times–but what we could glean from pottery and reliefs is that they feared it spreading off the island. And this was probably not the only island, just the only one that survived; satellite imagery has found a few spots on the ocean floor that look like they might be islands collapsed by sinkholes. Investigations turned up cultural layers on a few. Hopefully, it means that they defeated whatever was sealed below, but we were never sure of the timeline or sequence of events.

“I was brought here well into the investigation. The goal was to catalog and study the site after its initial discovery. Several archeologists had uncovered the cultural layer here, but they grew sick–just as your friend has–and had to be quarantined on the island. Suffice to say, finding answers did not physically protect us, and I stayed behind to bury the dead and watch the site while survivors returned to the mainland. Sometimes, they send me a care package and new books, but the island makes radio or satellite contact impossible.”

“Why not make it illegal to come here?” Winter demanded. “They know it’s dangerous.”

“It is illegal to come here. You vacationers never think to check, and the coast guard doesn’t want the media attention or the hassle of covering up the deaths of their men. Better to press charges against the boat captains when they’re found.”

Diana said, “You’re here, though. Why did you stay behind?”

“...I was eager to prove myself, and I grew reckless when investigating the shrine at the heart of the island. The cave your friend found is not the only place where they left the mark, just the most accessible by outsiders. Had you arrived later in the day, the tide would have prevented you from finding it so soon, and I would have had time to react. But like you, I let my curiosity get the better of me, and I became one of the Marked Ones.”

Cindy was struggling to breathe. The walls felt like they were closing in on her, but when she glanced around, everything seemed normal.

“Explain that,” Alex said, though he drew back his spear a little.

“The locals, before they were wiped out–we never figured out exactly how or why–had a tradition of electing or appointing a ‘shrine maiden’ who would accept the mark and act as a defensive measure. By accepting this… entity into themselves, they spared others by dominating its full attention. Without the shrine maiden, the whole community was vulnerable.”

Roberto shook his head. “None of that makes any sense. How is it supposed to work? How…?” He looked at the back wall where they’d seen hands reaching out from the voice. “If you’re really a scientist, you can’t be satisfied with just guessing the mechanics of all this.”

“I wish I had all the answers,” the stranger said wistfully. “I don’t think this thing is a ‘goddess,’ but that’s how the locals depicted it. The fact that it’s a shrine maiden seems arbitrary, but as you’ve seen, the mark is determined to make it so. There is a consistent narrative, which the island somehow follows.”

Terri’s voice was trembling. “Then how do we fix it? How do we turn Cindy… Clay back to normal?”

Cindy felt a cold grip around her heart. It had her pinned in place and pressed so hard against her chest that she couldn’t breathe. The survivor glanced away, unable to meet her gaze. What was Cindy more afraid of? That there was no cure or that the cure might be easy?

“I’m sorry to say that you won’t be able to leave the island.”

It took the group a moment to find its voice before Winter demanded, “What?”

Standing, the masked woman explained, “The shrine maidens keep attention off of others, but in turn, they are a carrier of the… condition, capable of letting it spread across the mainland if they leave. That too is a consistent part of the story.”

The room ruptured into a fury of shouts as everybody unloaded their frustration into the masked stranger. For her part, the survivor stood still and took the abuse without reacting. Seconds passed, and the anger in the room only escalated, voices growing louder.

Only once everybody had run out of stuff to yell did Cindy ask, in a warbling voice, “So it’s impossible to fix?”

“Not impossible, but certainly too dangerous.”

Alex interrupted, “That’s not for you to–”

“She would almost certainly be killed if she tried; I’ve seen others fail before her. And while she has extended her protection to the rest of you, I have actively been distracting the island as well, but the longer time goes on, the greater the chance becomes that it latches onto another one of you.”

“We can’t just leave,” Terri insisted.

“Not before tomorrow, at least,” Diana said. “But we won’t leave him here, not with a complete stranger, and especially not if this place is as dangerous as you say. So what’s the cure?”

Chris nodded. “We have the right to know, so we can decide for ourselves if we’re willing to take the risk.”

“There’s nothing for you to do.”

“Well, we’re not letting him do it on his own,” Roberto said, standing up straighter. “So tell us.”

Turning to Cindy, the lone survivor explained, “You would have to approach the shrine and confront the goddess at the source. I have never tried; all but one person I’ve seen go has died, and succeeding will only cure you. It won’t transform you  back.”

Cindy lowered her head. She wanted the stranger to be wrong, but wishful thinking didn’t accomplish anything. Whoever this woman was, she knew more than any of them. Cindy absolutely did not want to be quarantined for the rest of her life, receiving anonymous care packages from the government while everyone else moved on. But whatever it was she carried, spreading it to the mainland was out of the question, and she couldn’t ask her friends to follow her blindly to their deaths.

“Okay,” she said, voice shaking as her vision grew blurry. “I’ll stay, then.”

The chaos resumed, this time turned on her, but Cindy shook her head and cried, “Stop! I have to! I can’t ask you to die for me. I won’t allow it!”

Alex said, “She can’t stop us from–”

“Please, Alex, she’s not doing this. Let me make my own decision.”

Roberto placed his hand on Cindy’s shoulder. “I know that this is confusing and scary, but we’re not giving up.”

“I’m not asking you to give up, I’m telling you to go.”

Roberto turned to Winter, who didn’t seem to have answers either. Diana wouldn’t look directly at Cindy. Terri was ready to burst into tears, and Chris looked unsure if he should comfort her.

Their host took the gun back from Winter, who did not resist, and placed it on the cot.

“The rest of you should return to camp and prepare to leave in the morning,” she said. To Cindy, she added, “You’re safer–they’re safer–if you stay with me. There’s a lot to learn, and we should start immediately.”

“No!” Terri threw herself between Cindy and the stranger, grabbing tightly onto Cindy. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous; I don’t care what you say; I’m not going to leave you. I promised to help!”

“Absolutely not,” the masked woman said, pulling her away from Cindy. “I cannot babysit you, and I won’t be responsible for your death. As it is, it will be a strain just to feed the two of us.”

Terri shook her head, but Cindy took her hand and squeezed it.

“It’s for the best. You’ve already done more for me than I deserve. Go on and worry about starting college in the fall. Just… remember what I said about setting boundaries for yourself, okay?”

Terri scowled and pulled away, then turned to storm out of the room. Chris followed, calling after her, and Roberto ran behind with his spear.

Alex turned to Cindy and frowned. “This is wrong. What am I supposed to tell your parents?”

“I’m sorry. You just have to trust me, Alex.”

He scooped her up in a tight hug. When he let go, Diana was standing right beside him.

“I wish it didn’t have to be this way,” she said, surprising Cindy by giving her a brief hug as well. Cindy barely touched her hands to Diana’s back, afraid of grabbing too hard and making her uncomfortable.

Winter glared at the stranger, who weathered it without comment, before telling Cindy.

“I’m going to raise Hell about this when we get back.”

“As long as you’re safely on the mainland. That’s what matters.”

Winter sighed, then nodded. “No point in dragging it out, then.”

They gave her one last long look before departing. Cindy watched them leave through the double doors and listened to their footsteps recede. When she was finally alone with the stranger and the silence, Cindy covered her mouth and sobbed.

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