The jungle picked them up.
The mist undulating thick around their ankles, lapping at their arms like a thing that wanted to be free. Overnight, the sun had dropped to night, a wet shiver running through their blood. No one whispered. Nobody moved
As long as someone was missing.
Before it had a name, Riah felt the void. A warble of the world's burden, an exchange from the very air. He jerked to a strightenish, looking within the ranks of his crew.
Ronan. Elias. Marcus. Three more coming from behind us.
Someone was missing.
But who?
My heart pounded so hard I could hear it. He did another count. Seven. There had been eight before, he knew it. He knew it. He opened his mouth, but the words would not come.
Because no one else saw it.
The men were frozen in place, hands on weapons, eyes skirting towards the jungle as though expecting it to move. But they were not looking at each other. They weren't counting.
They weren't cognizant.
Dorian clenching his cutlass to his heart. His breath short and ragged. His throat desperate to shout, who went missing,who went missing,who went missing….
But my gut was screaming at me to be quiet.
So he did.
They were light on their feet. Faster than you should have. The jungle itself was dangerous…. roots underfoot and unseen ditches stunned them all. Fear pushed on.
The Smiling Stranger had not come.
And yet, it remained, I just knew this. A smell in the air, a murmur just shy. At times Dorian could still hear its last words in his own head.
You have picked the wrong one;
He did not know what it was.
Didn't want to.
It was dusk when they sat asunder. No fire. No light.
First watch was Dorian.
And he sat on the edge of his lair, cutlass hand steady and staring off to the jungle horizon. The fog had settled, light-thin and damp, a black sea washing out the grass. The crew beneath him slept or feigned.
He took a long breath, in and out and bit try to set himself.
Then…..
A whisper.
Low. Familiar.
Turning dextrously.
Elias was sitting just in back of him, with her arms across his knees and watching the black. His face was unreadable, but his voice was hushed. "You feel it, too."
Dorian didn't answer.
Elias didn't push.
He whispered worse instead.
"I counted us. twice.
His chest went into a vise.
Elias turned and looked him in the eyes for the first time.
All that unreadable face, but
His eyes…..
They didn't fear for their lives.
That was resigned.
We are but eight, Captain.
Blood ran cold.
Jungle A temp
Silence was heavy. Like a physical burden crushing over them. I could feel the hands of Dorian were colder than ice even in the jungle humidity.
Eight of them.
There was seven before him
But yet, he watched the sleeping bodies of his crew.
He recognized them. All of them.
Ronan, holding a knife. Breathing slow and shallow Marcus; Elias still awake by his side. Three more in the back. That was everyone.
Yeah, but why would his gut lie to him like that?
The missing man was found. Dorian tried, but could not remember what the man looked like.
"Elias, I think," he said through a dry throat and fingered his own.
Elias jaw was tense.
Shook his head, barely.
Dorian's Stomach Rolled.
They didn't know.
Odd that someone in their camp wasn't supposed be there.
The Wrong One
Elias did not sleep.
Neither did Dorian.
The jungle shifted. Once a bird called as the night, then fell completely quiet.
There was a movement in the darkness. Not wind. Breathing.
He turned his head slightly, not much, a flicker, enough to catch the crew.
They were still. Too still.
And then...
One of them moved.
A slight twist, a finger barely moving. But Dorian had seen it
Because the movement itself
Yet only because the man who moved had slept too conveniently. So still. It just so happened to resemble someone he expected to see.
The pounding of Dorian's heart drowned out static in his ears. Kept perfectly still, he watched as the figure (a black silhouette in the mist) slowly rose up, with methodical, measured motions.
Elias was yanked up next to him.
And in the dim moonlight, Dorian saw it.
The face of the man. Wrong.
Nothing to see here. Absolutely unnatural. Only… wrong.
Like a forgotten memory, faded to the rim. The face he should have known, but did not. A stranger in familiar skin.
The fugitive glanced around the camp. His gaze roamed over Dorian and Elias and the others.
And then…
He smiled.
The same smile.
Elias Let the cool air in with a slow, controlled exhale.
He leaned away from the man, walked in silence to where he was meant to be back amongst his companions. He lay back over his crouched body.
Nothing moved. Not a word.
The man closed his eyes.
He did not breathe.
Morning Comes
The sun came up, pillowing tendrils of mist into gold vapor.
The crew began to stir, yawned and stretch Ronan cursed under his breath about the cold. Marcus shrugged and mumbled something about his back Marcus rolled.
Oh the man, an interloper, woke up to himself and crouched into the crew as if he had just nudged in from outside
Dorian stared.
And then…..
Marcus spun it to him. Frowned. "Captain?"
Dorian blinked.
Its a normal Marcus voice.His face looked puzzled, but right.
He glanced down at the crew.
Seven men.
Seven.
The eighth was dead.
But he could not remember what his face looked like.