NOVEL WEB Chapter 4: The Last Voyage of the Marama’s Wake
Extracts from the Log of Captain Tane RaukuraDate Unknown
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Entry 1
We saw the lights today.
Seven orbs, burning low against the horizon, just as my grandfather once described. The crew whispers among themselves—some with reverence, others with fear.
I should turn back. I should.
But I have spent my life chasing stories, and this one is within reach.
The Island of Lights. Motu o te Žumarama.
They say it appears once every century. They say those who land upon its shores return blessed beyond measure—or do not return at all.
I have never feared the sea, nor the things that slumber beneath it.
But this is not the sea I have always known.
This is something else.
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Entry 2
The lights do not move as they should.
They hover, distant but watchful, shifting like stars caught in a slow, endless descent. I have marked their positions against the night sky, but they defy my calculations. They are closer than before. I know it.
The men refuse to say it, but they feel it too. The ocean is too still beneath us, the waves muted as if holding their breath. The wind is absent. Even the gulls have vanished.
The only sound is the creak of the Marama's Wake and the faint, humming pulse of the lights.
We will reach the island by dawn.
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Entry 3
It is beautiful.
The shore is made of pearl-white sand that does not darken with moisture. The trees shimmer with leaves of silver and blue, their roots twisting in ways I cannot trace. The air is thick with the scent of something I cannot name, something that does not belong to any land I have known.
We stepped ashore with reverence. Even the most superstitious among us did not hesitate.
The lights followed.
Seven orbs, shifting, watching.
One of my men reached for one, his fingers outstretched, his lips parted in silent awe. I meant to call out—meant to warn, to stop him—but before my voice could rise, the light touched him.
He vanished.
Not in a flash. Not in fire.
He was simply no longer there.
The others screamed. I did not.
I only watched.
And in the place where he had stood, a faint glow remained.
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Entry 4
They will not let us leave.
The wind refuses to rise. The tide does not shift.
The Marama's Wake sits where we left her, untouched by the waves, as if she too is held by unseen hands.
The crew does not speak of the missing. They count fewer rations, they make space in the sleeping quarters, but they do not say his name.
And the lights remain.
Always seven.
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Entry 5
They are calling us.
Not in words. Not in whispers.
But in knowing.
In the way my own hands tremble toward them when I do not think to stop them. In the way my men no longer speak of escape, only of wonder, only of fate.
I watch them walk toward the lights, one by one.
They do not scream.
They do not hesitate.
They are simply gone.
And always—always—there remain seven lights.
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Entry 6
I am alone.
Seven orbs drift around me now, silent and waiting. I have not eaten. I have not slept. I have not moved from this place where the sea does not touch the shore, where the sky does not change, where time itself feels unwound.
I do not know if I am alive.
I do not know if it matters.
The lights pulse softly. A soundless question. An invitation.
I understand now.
The island does not take.
It becomes.
And soon, so will I.
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Final Entry
To the one who finds this log, if you are still a man of flesh and bone, leave.
Turn your sails from this place, burn the pages you have read, let the sea swallow my name.
The Island of Lights is not a place to be found. It is a fate waiting to be met.
And now… it is my turn to meet it.