"..."
It is his third day on the horrible island. When he opens his eyes, Jeremy is lying in bed, just like the day before. His body is naked, and the marks of a handprint followed by a tentacle are clearly visible on his inner thigh.
"..."
His head feels dizzy, as if he had been drinking the night before, his throat is raw and his hole is sore. It's one of those moments when you realize you've screwed up. Jeremy continues to lie on the bed in a daze, unable to collect himself.
Then he hears the sound of something falling outside.
Thud!
Buried under the covers, Jeremy jumps up, startled by the noise outside. It is a familiar sound.
"No way... That must be...!"
His sunken blue eyes suddenly light up. Thud, another sound.
The plump man, without a single thread covering his large breasts and buttocks, jiggling in the air, rushes to the front door and opens it. There is a newspaper on the doorstep. But no matter how hard he looks, Jeremy can't see the delivery man.
"Oh..."
It's a sinking moment. But...if the newspaper is being delivered, there might actually be someone on the island. His hopes are quickly dashed.
Thud!
The sound of another newspaper falling in the distance, this time from the neighbor's door. Jeremy sticks his head over the wall across the yard. Still naked, he peers over the fence at the house next door. Bending down a little so that his twitching assh0le is clearly visible between the crack of his butt cheeks.
Thud!
The newspaper is being delivered to his neighbor's door. But to Jeremy's surprise, instead of being delivered by a human hand, the newspaper appears out of nowhere and simply falls to the ground with a thud.
"..."
No, no, no!
An indescribable feeling of emptiness washes over Jeremy. He staggers away from the wall, looking rather vacant. Desperation sweeps through him as he realizes that even though he knows it, there really is no one else on this island but him.
"...What do I do now?"
What good will going to the store do? There is no Max, no tourists on this island, and he feels a sinking feeling as he realizes that he won't be able to entertain anyone with his carving. Jeremy staggers back to the front door. On the porch is a freshly delivered newspaper.
"That means..."
There is no delivery man, so the newspaper cannot have been written by a human. Jeremy gets a serious look on his face and picks up the paper. As he eagerly rolls his eyes and checks the date, he can't help but cringe and shake his head in disbelief.
"May 31, 2012."
He can't remember the last time he read a newspaper or what day of the week it was.
Jeremy tries to awaken his sense of date and time, but nothing comes to mind, as if someone has tampered with his memory. All he can remember is waking up in the middle of a huge fight with Max.
"..."
The frowning middle-aged man puts down the newspaper and begins to read the headline.
"Seafood Seller's #1 Secret..."
"Huh...?"
The headline is strange. It has nothing to do with anything that would normally make the headlines. It's just about selling local seafood, something he's seen somewhere before.
Puzzled for a moment, Jeremy lets out a small gasp. He finally remembers. The source of the newspaper article is the news on the television that he and Max were watching one night.
The next chapter isn't much different. None of the stories are about the economy, current events, or politics. It is all crammed with unimportant information, and even the writing is poorly organized. As Jeremy reads the words, which read like someone's stream of consciousness, he rushes back into the house.
His heart races. In his excitement, the middle-aged man pulls out all the books and magazines he had stacked on the bookshelves as decorations and flips through them left and right. All the writing is sloppy, and in some places the books are even empty.
It feels like he is flipping through the channels on an old television. Just as a good channel might be followed by a bad screen, a book might start out full of text and then be followed by more and more blank pages.
Jeremy swallows hard and closes the book. He has a theory, though it sounds so ominous and yet so right.
"...Oh, sh*t."
He picks up the remote control and turns on the TV. The news comes on. They are the same. The kind of news Jeremy had seen before, but without any of the hard stuff like politics or economics.
This world is not Nawatuwa, the almighty creation of Asterios; the damn jackal is nothing but only a mind reader!
Jeremy is certain that this island is constructed from his own memories. There is nothing new on the island, only things he remembers clearly. All that's left is the stuff he already knows, the anecdotes that impress him, and the haphazard way he pretends to organize his life.
Jeremy is literally trapped in his memory.
"..."
He thinks he shouldn't be surprised, but Jeremy can't shake the feeling that he's been thoroughly deceived. He feels like an idiot for being so genuinely happy when he first arrived on the island.
Jeremy is upset. He is angry at the theme, at the fake island, and at the monster that taunted him like a god. The middle-aged man, standing and shivering as if nailed to his seat, unable to control his temper, vents his frustration into the air.
"You... YOU FVCKING BASTARD!"
No use. He pours out his anger, but his angry voice becomes an empty monologue. Everything around Jeremy is silent, as if he were trapped in a vacuum. Not only the house he stands in, but the world around him is empty.
"..."
Confusion slowly creeps into Jeremy's blue eyes. He feels as if he is suffocating, and then he realizes that he has just cursed an authority figure in a fit of affirmation.
"..."
Jeremy's eyes dart around, afraid that he is being watched, having already learned to fear the monster's instant retaliation.
'No way. That thing only comes out at night, only when I am in heat.'
Jeremy tries to calm his nerves by telling himself that nothing will happen. He doesn't want to admit that he's scared, that he's getting used to the monster's ways.
And indeed, he then sees black flames gathering in the air. This time the Jackal has answered his morning call.
"You seem to have woken up relatively quickly this morning, so good morning."