Stuck in an Island with Twelve Beautiful Women

The sky above shimmered with constellations unlike any Jude had ever seen, shifting patterns that moved with purpose. This was no ordinary civilization. These were not ordinary people.

These were beings on the brink of something greater.

Jude stood at the center of it all, his past self, the one who had lived in this time, who had known this place as home. He was speaking to others, his voice strong, filled with certainty. The people around him listened with unwavering focus. They were discussing something immense, something that would change everything.

And then,

Darkness.

It didn't come as an invasion, not at first. It was subtle, creeping, unnoticed. A shift in the stars. A change in the balance of power. The people continued their work, their lives, unaware that something had already begun unraveling around them.

Jude saw himself, his past self, realizing it too late.

The void didn't come with an army. It didn't come with war. It came with absence.

One by one, the lights of the city vanished. People disappeared. Not killed, not destroyed, erased.

Their existence was undone, as if they had never been.

Jude felt his past self fight. He saw the others, the ones like him, the ones who had understood what was happening before the rest. They had tried to stop it. They had tried to anchor their people, to keep them from slipping into nothingness. They had fought not against an enemy, but against unmaking itself.

And they had failed.

Jude gasped as the vision shattered, his mind snapping back to the present. The ruins of the city stood before him once more, lifeless, quiet. But he knew now, they were not just ruins. They were remnants. Fragments of a time that had been wiped from existence.

Not completely.

Not entirely.

Jude still existed.

And that meant something of them still remained.

He turned back to the woman. "They didn't just destroy us. They erased us."

She nodded. "Yes."

"But why? What were we doing that was so dangerous?"

"You already know."

Jude did. He could feel the answer at the edge of his mind, just beyond his grasp. His past self had been on the verge of something. Something beyond. The city, the people, they had been ascending. Not as gods, not as conquerors, but as something else entirely. Something the void had feared.

"We were evolving," Jude whispered.

The woman's gaze burned with quiet sorrow. "And that is why we were stopped."

Jude clenched his fists. His whole life, he had felt lost. As if something fundamental was missing, as if he had been born into a world that didn't quite fit. Now, he understood. He hadn't been missing something. Something had been missing from him. His memories. His purpose.

They had taken everything from him.

Everything except this city.

Everything except the fire in his veins.

Jude lifted his gaze. "How do I fix this?"

The woman smiled. "You already have."

And then, the city stirred.

It wasn't a trick of the light. It wasn't imagination. Jude could feel it. The golden threads woven through the ruins brightened, pulsing, answering. The streets beneath his feet remembered. The sky above them shimmered as the broken constellations shifted.

Jude was no longer just standing in a forgotten ruin.

He was standing in something waking up.

"You were the last of us," the woman said. "The last who still carried the fire. But you are no longer alone."

Jude felt it, movement, presence.

He turned, and for the first time, he saw them.

Figures, emerging from the ruins, stepping out of the shadows, their forms flickering between what they had once been and what they had become. Some were barely more than ghosts, faint outlines struggling to take shape. Others were stronger, their golden fire dim but not extinguished.

They had been waiting.

Waiting for him.

Jude's heart pounded. This wasn't just about memory. This wasn't just about reclaiming the past.

This was about bringing it back.

He stepped forward, and the city answered. The golden threads coiled around his fingers, his wrists, his chest, weaving through him, recognizing him as something more than a mere remnant. He was one of them. He had always been.

And now, he was their beginning.

Jude reached out, and the figures in the ruins stepped closer, their fire flaring, responding.

The void had tried to erase them.

It had failed.

They were still here.

And they were not done yet.

Jude's breath was still uneven as he took in the sight before him. The figures—his people—stood frozen, their golden light flickering like candle flames caught in an uncertain wind. They were not fully **here** yet, not completely formed. The city had recognized him, but its awakening was incomplete. The energy pulsing beneath his feet felt like a great beast stirring from a long slumber, powerful but disoriented.

He clenched his fists, steadying himself. He could still feel the weight of his past self's final act, the sacrifice that had woven them into the golden threads of the city, ensuring they would not be entirely erased. They had not been saved in the traditional sense. Their bodies were gone, their world was gone, but something of them had remained. Fragments, echoes—waiting for him.

The void had not been **absolute.**

Jude stepped forward, and the figures flickered again. This time, they did not fade. Their golden eyes locked onto him, and he could feel something shifting between them, something **remembering.** One of them, a woman with hair like molten gold and eyes that burned with the same light, took a hesitant step closer. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

He **knew** her.

Not in the way one knew a stranger's face, not as a fleeting recognition. He **knew** her. Knew her voice, knew the way she laughed, knew the way she had once stood beside him in the city when it was whole. Her name formed in his mind before he even thought to summon it.