Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

The air stilled. The figure's eyes met Jude's. "If you open it, you will see everything. The source of the island. The origin of dreaming. But once opened, it cannot be closed. And the hunger beyond may reach through."

"Why would we ever risk that?" Sophie asked.

"Because truth lies there," the figure replied. "And sometimes… truth is worth the danger."

Jude's pulse hammered in his ears. Around him, the others waited. Rose touched his arm.

"This is your choice," she said. "You carry the root."

He looked around at them - his wives, his bondmates, his circle.

Lucy.

Sophie.

Zoey.

Rose.

Scarlet.

Stella.

Natalie.

Susan.

Emma.

Grace.

Layla.

Each of them glowing. Changed. Whole.

Each of them waiting.

Jude stepped forward and reached for the lights in the figure's hands. The dark one pulsed cold. The golden one thrummed in time with his heartbeat.

He hesitated.

Then he whispered, "Can we choose together?"

The figure smiled, and the lights split - floating toward the circle of twelve.

Each wife lifted her hands, touching both lights.

The moment they did, the entire glade bloomed with color.

Not just gold - but violet. Indigo. Crimson. The sky opened above them, swirling with stars and memories and everything between.

And Jude saw it.

The breach.

A gate of shadows far in the east, still faint, still slumbering.

But watching.

Waiting.

The figure lowered her hands. "It is not your enemy. It is the other part of you. The forgotten."

Jude turned to his circle.

They weren't afraid.

Not anymore.

Lucy reached for him, pulling him into her embrace. "If you walk into that, we walk with you."

Rose pressed a kiss to his spine. "Always."

Zoey grinned. "Let's see what's behind the veil."

And Sophie, her eyes bright, simply whispered, "Let's dream it open."

Jude turned to the figure.

"We choose truth," he said.

And the island shuddered in reply.

The tremor that passed through the island wasn't violent - but it was vast. It spread like a heartbeat through the roots, through the stones, through the very breath of the air. Trees bowed. Water rippled in pools far away. The wind curled inward and then held its breath. Somewhere in the distance, a chorus of bird cries rose and then went utterly silent.

The ancient figure smiled, and then she was gone - dissolving into golden threads that wove themselves into the wind. The glade's stones pulsed once with radiant light, then began to fade, their purpose fulfilled. But the great center stone remained, its glow steady now, the dark shimmer beside it flickering softly like a hesitant flame.

The choice had been made.

Jude turned toward the east.

The others followed his gaze.

Between two distant ridges, a rift had opened - barely visible through the thick canopy, but present now, as if revealed by will alone. It wasn't a doorway, not yet. It was possibility. A seam in the fabric of this dream-shaped reality. A memory of something never fully understood. But it called.

"We walk," he said.

Rose was first to step beside him, and then Zoey, Lucy, Emma, Stella. One by one, they formed behind him like petals folding back into a blooming flower. Grace and Natalie exchanged a glance and reached for each other's hands. Sophie stood slightly apart, her arms folded, expression stormy. But she moved forward anyway, stepping into place at Jude's left, closer than anyone else.

Together, they began walking.

The path to the rift didn't form clearly. It responded not to their feet, but to their intention. With each step, the moss grew thicker, richer, blooming with bioluminescent strands. Ferns curled open with golden centers. Trees leaned away to offer space, and the air grew warmer - not oppressive, but intimate. Like breath against skin. Like the promise of touch.

Jude could feel the others drawing in tighter around him. Not out of fear. But instinct. He was the center. He carried the pulse. They carried him.

By the time the rift came into full view, the sky had darkened again - not night, not day. A perpetual twilight tinted in lavender and gold. The rift shimmered between two ancient trees that had grown into an arch, their roots braided together, their bark carved with old, looping script that none of them recognized, yet all of them felt.

Stella reached out to trace it. Her fingers glowed briefly. "This writing… it knows me."

"It knows all of us," Rose said.

Jude stepped up to the threshold.

The rift breathed.

That was the only way to describe it. It inhaled slowly, drawing in light, mist, heat. Then exhaled - spreading golden haze and scent like jasmine, like myrrh, like sex and sunlight and old books and firelight. Things that couldn't exist in the same space but suddenly did.

A single golden vine slipped from the arch and reached toward Jude, brushing against his wrist. It didn't tug. It waited.

He placed his palm on it.

The rift pulsed once. Opened.

Inside was not a tunnel or a forest or even a space.

It was color.

Movement.

Emotion.

A place shaped by thought and love and fear and lust and need. A place that shimmered in and out of focus. Jude stepped forward, and the others followed, drawn into it like water drawn down a riverbed. There was no resistance. No gate to push. Only passage.

Inside, everything was dream and not-dream.

It wasn't dark - but it lacked light.

It wasn't silent - but no sound echoed.

It wasn't empty - but there was nothing to hold.

Jude looked around, trying to focus, and the moment he did, the place shifted - walls of crimson silk formed, a floor of moss and feathers. Warmth pressed to his back - Lucy, her hand splayed against his shoulder.

"You're shaping it," she whispered.

He turned to her. "We all are."

Their breath became fog, became gold, became stars that floated into the air and hovered. As each wife stepped further into the space, it changed again. Susan's thought brought wildflowers.