The water was too still. The sea was rarely merciful, but this was no natural silence—it was the waiting of a world that did not want them to move forward.
Ghost (Reeve, watchful) stood near the railing, his gaze fixed on the worn wooden deck, but his thoughts were elsewhere.
The ship felt wrong.
It wasn't a single detail but the sum of small things: footsteps that sounded too even, a crew that barely breathed, glances that lingered a fraction too long.
He sensed it in the movements of the men. A seasoned sailor was never this stiff. Never this… perfect.
The tension crawled up his spine.
"The navigator." His voice was meant only for Phantom (Vera, lurking).
Phantom sat on a crate, spinning a blade between her fingers. She had noticed it too. Her gaze met Ghost's. Brief. Enough.
Aria (tense) sat on a toppled barrel, idly sharpening her blade, but her muscles were coiled like a predator ready to strike.
Ghost took his time. He stepped casually closer to the navigator, leaning against a crate as if merely resting.
"How deep is the water here?"
A simple question. One no sailor would need to think about.
The navigator hesitated.
Not even a full second—but Ghost needed no more.
His dagger flew through the air and struck the man's wrist.
No flinch. No blood.
The navigator slowly lifted his head.
Ghost saw no eyes. Only hollow, black voids where reflections should have been.
This was no longer the man who had boarded the ship.
Behind them, spines cracked in unnatural movements.
The entire crew turned at once. Their faces twisted into grotesque imitations of something trying to appear human—and failing.
The bodies flickered. Then the disguises fell.
There had never been humans here.
Phantom (Vera, lightning-fast) vanished from where she sat.
A single breath—and she was behind one of the shadows, whispering something into its ear.
"Echo Scream."
The scream wasn't loud. It didn't exist in the air but inside the creature's mind. An echo that burrowed into its consciousness. It twitched, froze, as if a molten nail had been driven through its skull.
Aria (focused) moved. Her steps left trails of heat on the wooden planks.
"Ember Waltz."
A shadow lunged, passing through her path—and its shape blurred, distorting like melting wax.
"They can't withstand resonance!"
Ghost (Reeve, calculating) was already in motion.
"Phantom Mirage."
His form multiplied, shattering the light. Three versions of him blurred across the deck, sharp-edged illusions impossible to grasp.
A shadow reached for one—and its hand passed through empty air.
Another lost its sense of direction, hearing only its own movements played back at a delay, as if time itself fractured around it.
"Black Echo."
Phantom wove between the creatures, leaving traces of herself in their thoughts.
"Subtle Damnation."
Her words took root inside them, shaking their very existence as their identities wavered.
Aria (merciless) was already striking again.
"Flameborn Strike."
White flames danced along her blade as she cut through the next shadow. It didn't just dissolve—it ceased to exist.
"Only resonance can destroy them completely!"
The remaining shadows hesitated—but they had no instinct to flee. They did not know fear.
A single misstep—Phantom had already thrown her dagger.
It struck not a body, but the idea of a body. The shadow halted, as if it had forgotten how to move.
A clean slash.
Ghost stood behind it, his blade coated in nothing but darkness.
The wood beneath them splintered.
A lone survivor of the real crew staggered back, eyes wide.
"We… we can't hold this any longer." His voice was ragged. "The ship is lost."
Water surged into the lower decks, dragging the wreck downward.
"The charges are armed," the man gasped. "Jump—or die with this cursed thing."
No one hesitated.
The sea swallowed them whole.
Aria (dazed) was the first to wake.
Sand. The taste of salt.
Her body felt leaden, as if the water had filled her bones with metal. She pushed herself onto her knees, her gaze scanning the beach.
Phantom lay on her side, one hand still buried in damp sand. Ghost sat further up, leaning against a rock, already awake.
He studied the landscape.
No sky they recognized.
No horizon they could understand.
A land that knew no time.
A tower loomed in the distance. Silent.
The earth beneath them did not feel dead.
It felt like it was breathing.
Then came the whispering.
Not from a single direction, but from everywhere.
Soft. Demanding.
"You belong to us now… The island has already accepted you…"
Phantom (coldly) lifted her head.
Her hand was already on the hilt of her knife.
"We are not alone."