The Cursed Isle of Echoes

The morning after Yumi left was an empty blur. I found myself pacing the house, the stillness pressing in around me. I couldn't shake the feeling that something had irrevocably shifted—not just on the island, but inside me. I hadn't realized how much I was hanging on to the familiar until I saw Yumi's retreating figure on the ferry. She'd been the last connection I had to my old life.

And now, she was gone.

The knock still echoed in my mind. The knock that had opened something I wasn't prepared for. I couldn't explain it—not to myself, not to Yumi, and certainly not to anyone on the island.

But there was one person I could turn to now.

Kaito.

I found him by the shore, his boat bobbing gently in the water as he unloaded a basket of fish. The morning light danced on the surface, casting long shadows over the small dock. He was hunched over, focused, his weathered hands moving with practiced precision.

"Hey," I said, the word coming out softer than I intended. "Can we talk?"

He glanced up, pausing in his work. His eyes locked onto mine, unreadable at first, then softening when he noticed the tension in my shoulders.

"What happened?" Kaito asked quietly, already knowing that something had gone wrong.

I didn't waste time with pleasantries. "I opened the door. For Yumi. Last night."

His face paled, and the basket of fish slipped from his hands, falling with a dull thud onto the dock. He stood frozen for a moment, his gaze shifting between me and the boat.

"You did what?" His voice was hoarse.

"I didn't mean to. She… she didn't believe me. She thought it was all superstition." I rubbed my forehead, feeling the weight of my confession settle on me like a cold stone. "And then, when the knocks came, she… she opened the door."

Kaito stared at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then, without a word, he reached for the edge of his boat and pulled himself up onto the dock, his movements stiff.

"Sit," he ordered.

I obeyed without thinking, lowering myself onto a nearby crate. The air smelled of saltwater and fish, the hum of the island's life surrounding us in quiet reverence. Kaito took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, his hands clasped tightly in front of him.

"You're lucky you're still here," he said finally, his voice tight with something I couldn't quite place. "No one survives opening the door. Not once the entity is in."

I flinched, the words sending a chill down my spine. "What do you mean?"

"They get dragged out," Kaito continued, his voice low, barely audible above the sound of the waves. "Screaming. All that's left behind are bloodstains. I don't care if the entity looks like your mom. I don't care if it acts kind. They don't stop at kindness."

I swallowed, the sick feeling in my stomach twisting. "But she—it—never tried to enter. She just knocks, and when I don't answer, she leaves."

Kaito's gaze hardened. "That's because you're different, or maybe it's the entity that's different. Either way, you're tempting fate, Haruto. You don't understand what you're dealing with."

I opened my mouth to protest, but Kaito held up a hand, silencing me.

"Don't try to reason with it. Don't try to make it human. It's not." He looked down at his forearm, his sleeve rolled up to reveal a long scar, jagged and discolored. "I didn't listen when I was younger. I thought I could handle it, that I could protect my sister from the spirits. I let them in when they came for her. And I... I couldn't stop it. This scar is all that's left of me."

The horror in his voice sent a shockwave through me. I looked at the scar—old and faded, but still unmistakable in its grotesque detail.

"Is that… is that from your sister?" I whispered, unable to tear my eyes away.

Kaito nodded grimly. "Her entity. She came to us after she died in the storm. Begging for something. I let her in. I thought I could save her."

His fingers brushed over the scar, his gaze distant. "You don't understand the power they have, Haruto. It doesn't matter if they look like the people we loved. They're not human. Not anymore. And you're lucky to have had the chance to close that door."

I felt a pit open in my stomach as the weight of his words settled in. "So, what should I do?" I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

Kaito turned to face me, his eyes soft with something like pity. "You stop testing your luck. You lock the door every night. No exceptions. Because next time, it won't just be a knock."

I nodded, though the doubt still lingered in my chest. The entity—my mother—had never tried to come inside. She'd only knocked, waited, and left. But Kaito was right about one thing: I had to stop testing fate.

But it didn't stop the question that gnawed at me. What if I was different? What if my mother's spirit—my mother's entity—was different?

I watched Kaito walk back to his boat, the lines of his face drawn tight with the weight of his past. I couldn't shake the image of the scar on his arm—the scar that would never fade.

The curse wasn't just about the spirits. It was about surviving them—about resisting the temptation to believe in something that wasn't human.

And I couldn't help but wonder how much longer I'd be able to do that.