The forest didn't sound like a forest.
That was the first thing Mark understood.
No insects.
No birds.
No wind moving freely through leaves.
Everything felt muted, as if sound itself was being swallowed before it could travel far.
Five survivors.
That number didn't change.
A girl with a broken arm sat against a torn section of fuselage, pale and shaking. One boy was bleeding from the head, eyes unfocused but alive. Another vomited repeatedly, hands trembling. Jason stood near Mark, unusually quiet, staring at the trees like he expected them to move.
Mark scanned the wreckage.
Fire was dying. That was bad.
Darkness crept in fast beneath the canopy, swallowing the sky piece by piece. Whatever time it was, night was coming early.
"We need to stay together," the teacher said weakly.
Mark looked at him.
The man was injured. Leg twisted wrong. Shock already setting in.
He wouldn't last the night.
Mark didn't say it out loud. He didn't need to.
Instead, he moved.
He pulled loose pieces of metal, dragged them closer, forming a crude barrier. His hands worked fast, efficient, ignoring the heat and sharp edges.
They worked until the last light died.
That was when the sounds started.
Not close.
Far.
Branches snapping—slowly, deliberately. Heavy footfalls that didn't belong to any animal Mark knew. Something scraped against bark, long and dragging, like claws being tested.
The girl whimpered.
"W-what is that?" she whispered.
Mark listened.
Whatever it was, it wasn't hunting.... yet.
A low growl rolled through the forest, vibrating in Mark's chest. His skin prickled. The pressure returned, stronger than ever, pressing inward like something inside him wanted out.
He forced it down.
Not now.
The teacher tried to speak.
The growl cut him off.
Something moved just beyond the firelight.
Eyes opened in the dark.
Too many.
They weren't reflective like animals.
They glowed—dim, sickly, distorted—set too high off the ground.
The thing stepped forward.
It was wrong.
Once, maybe, it had been a bear. Or something close. But its limbs were elongated, joints bent at unnatural angles. Its skin hung in places where muscle bulged too much in others. Its mouth opened wider than it should have, rows of uneven teeth clicking together as it tasted the air.
The girl screamed.
The creature lunged.
Mark moved before fear could catch up.
He grabbed a broken metal rod and slammed it into the creature's jaw as it crossed the firelight. The impact rang through his arms, but the beast recoiled, snarling—not in pain, but surprise.
It hadn't expected resistance.
That was a mistake.
"Back!" Mark shouted.
The others scrambled behind him instinctively.
The creature circled, slow now, calculating. More shapes shifted behind it. Not attacking. Watching.
Learning.
Mark's muscles burned—but not from exhaustion. From restraint. Every instinct in his body screamed to tear forward, to end the threat violently and completely.
He didn't.
He planted his feet.
Minutes passed like hours.
Then, from deeper in the forest—
A sharp whistle cut through the darkness.
The creatures froze.
Another whistle followed. Different pitch. Commanding.
The mutated beast snarled once, then retreated, melting back into the trees like it had never existed.
Silence returned.
Not relief.
Control.
From the shadows, human figures emerged.
Armed. Masked. Moving with precision that didn't belong in chaos.
One of them raised a rifle—not at the kids, but at the forest.
"Stay where you are," a distorted voice ordered. "Hands visible."
Mark didn't move.
The mercenary's gaze lingered on him longer than the others.
"Interesting," the man muttered. "This one's still standing straight."
Another mercenary approached, scanning Mark with something handheld. The device flickered, then died.
"…That's not right," he said quietly.
The leader turned towards the teacher, the only adult from those kids.
"I am william jones black ops commander." Mercenaries leader said introducing himself
The teacher in excitement said "oh so you are from military, you must be here to get us-"
William cuts him off by saying "we are also stuck here for almost a year, our plane crashed here, some kind of turbulence, since then we are not able to contact to outside world"
Teacher replied "same with us"
William started to stare at Mark unintentionally.
Mark met his gaze.
"I want to go home," Mark said.
William studied him for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"Don't we all kid " he said
The mercenaries didn't move the survivors.
They moved themselves.
By morning, the wreckage was already being stripped. Not for supplies—for hazards. Fuel lines sealed. Sharp edges removed. Smoke dispersed. The forest reclaimed what it could.
The teacher didn't make it through the night.
He died quietly.
Shock first. Then the fever. Then silence.
The mercenaries watched the body for a full minute before dragging it away.
No words were said.
The kids understood something then.
Help wasn't coming.
The next days blurred together.
They were not trained.
They were instructed.
"Don't speak unless spoken to." "Follow tracks exactly." "If you fall behind, you're dead."
No encouragement. No correction unless it was fatal.
Mark noticed things.
The way the mercenaries never turned their backs to the treeline. The way they slept in shifts—even when exhausted. The way their eyes never fully relaxed.
The island pressed down on them constantly.
Animals watched from the dark. Sometimes something screamed far away—high and broken, like pain stretched too thin. Sometimes the ground trembled faintly, like something massive turning over beneath the earth.
The kids learned quickly.
Or they didn't.
One of them didn't wake up one morning.
No blood. No struggle.
Just gone.
The mercenaries adjusted their perimeter and kept moving.
Mark felt anger then.
Not grief.
Anger at waste.
Survival lessons were brutal and short.
How to tell poisoned water from safe by smell alone. How to move without snapping branches. How to freeze when something with better senses was near.
Mark learned faster than the others.
Not because he tried harder.
Because his body already knew.
When a mutated predator tested the camp one night—smaller than the first, faster—the mercenaries didn't intervene.
They watched.
Mark repositioned without being told. Took higher ground. Forced the creature into a narrow space where its size worked against it.
One mercenary tilted his head slightly.
Interesting.
The beast fled.
Mark didn't chase.
That mattered.
Days later, one of the mercenaries finally spoke to him directly.
"You ever fight before?"
Mark thought of the metal rod. The jaws. The eyes.
"No."
The man studied him.
"Good," he said. "That means you won't fight stupid."
No praise.
Just a conclusion.
The mercenaries stopped giving instructions that assumed weakness.
They started giving ones that assumed competence.
That was the difference.
One night, Mark overheard them talking.
"Three might make it," one said.
"If the island allows it," another replied.
"And him?"
A pause.
"He's not normal," william said. "But not in a way I understand."
Silence.