<h4>Chapter 1126: Chapter 1126</h4>


    The fire had long since burned down to glowing embers when Jude stirred. The air was too still. Not theforting hush of sleep, but something heavier. A hush full of watching. He sat up slowly, careful not to wake Sophie, though her hand still clutched his. Across the clearing, the moon hovered low and bright, casting silver light over the sleeping forms of the others. But Zoey was gone.


    He stood quietly and scanned the camp. La’s hammock swayed faintly, as if recently vacated. Rose’s was empty.


    His heartbeat picked up.


    He squeezed Sophie’s hand gently. Her eyes fluttered open.


    "They’re gone," he whispered.


    She sat up without a word, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, already knowing who he meant.


    By the time they slipped into the trees, the jungle had shifted again. The path didn’t lead to the river or the orchard but deeper, toward the hills no one had dared to name. The air was damp, carrying a pulse that matched the beat in his chest. As they moved, they began to hear it, soft singing, like wind through reeds butyered with words.


    Words that weren’t theirs.


    The trees opened into a wide hollow bathed in moonlight. The ground there pulsed with watcherscript, lines curling like roots, glowing a dull red that hadn’t been there before. In the center of the hollow, Zoey, La, and Rose stood in a perfect triangle. They were nude, unashamed, their bodies marked with dark, inky runes that shimmered against their skin. Between them, something had risen from the earth, ck stone, jagged and steaming.


    It looked like a spine.


    Or a fang.


    Or a piece of something ancient trying to climb back into the world.


    Jude stepped forward without thinking. A twig cracked underfoot.


    All three turned at once.


    Their eyes locked onto him, and their smiles came slowly. Too slowly.


    Rose stepped forward. "You came."


    "We’ve been waiting," La added.


    Zoey’s voice was calm, almost sweet. "You alwayse when we call."


    Sophie emerged from the brush behind him, her voice sharp. "What is that?"


    Rose didn’t answer. She turned and ced her palm on the ck stone. It responded with a low hum, pulsing like a heart.


    "It’s her," Zoey whispered. "The part we buried. The part you didn’t kill."


    Sophie grabbed Jude’s wrist. "We need to leave."


    Rose took a step closer, her voice velvet-smooth. "You still don’t understand. She’s not other. She’s not invading us. She’s what we’ve be. We’re just peeling away what we thought we were."


    Jude shook his head. "You don’t know what you’re doing."


    Laughed softly. "Don’t we?"


    Then from the shadows came another figure.


    Grace.


    Her hair fell around her shoulders in tangled waves, her eyes wide and glistening. Her body was bare, marked now in the same runes that adorned the others. She walked straight to the center, stepped into the ring, and knelt before the stone.


    "No," Sophie said under her breath. "Not Grace too."


    Rose turned to Jude. "It’s not possession. It’s evolution."


    Grace looked up at him, smiling. "It feels likeing home."


    The red glow intensified. A tremor ran through the earth, the stone groaning. Something shifted inside it, something like a heartbeat answering another. The runes on their bodies pulsed in sync.


    Sophie pulled Jude back. "We can’t stop it like this."


    "No," he said. "But we can witness it. We can remember what they were. So when this ends, if it ends, we bring them back."


    A scream tore through the clearing, raw and feminine.


    From behind the stone, someone stumbled forward.


    Ste.


    She looked dazed, her body scraped and bruised, her hands red with earth. She wasn’t marked.


    She wasn’t smiling.


    She fell to her knees and cried out, "Help me, don’t let them, "


    Rose reached her in two steps, catching her by the shoulders.


    "No!" Jude started forward.


    Rose turned Ste gently and pressed her lips to hers.


    A long, slow kiss.


    And when Rose pulled away, Ste looked up with a nk expression.


    Then smiled.


    Exactly the same smile as the others.


    Jude stopped, heart pounding.


    Sophie whispered, "They’re turning them one by one."


    He turned to her, eyes burning. "Then we stop waiting. We fight for them."


    She nodded. "Whatever it takes."


    And from the stone, a new pulse echoed.


    Deeper.


    Hungrier.


    As if something inside had finally awakened.


    The ground trembled under their feet, soft at first, like a whisper of breath through soil, then deeper, like something massive had stirred beneath the earth. Jude took a step back, arm instinctively wrapping around Sophie as the crimson glow from the watcherscript intensified, spreading like veins from the jagged ck stone at the center of the clearing. The air smelled of iron and wet ash, thick enough to taste.


    Across from them, Rose, La, Zoey, and now Ste and Grace stood in eerie stillness, bathed in red light. They didn’t move, didn’t flinch at the quake. Their eyes shone with a dull, haunting shimmer, unblinking, watching. The runes on their skin pulsed with the same rhythm as the rumbling below, synchronized to something ancient and alive. Jude’s throat tightened. The stone, whatever it was, wasn’t just reacting to them. It was responding. Feeding.


    A sound broke the moment. Leaves rustled behind them, frantic and sharp. Jude spun, muscles tensed, then rxed slightly as Emma and Lucy emerged from the trees, breathless and wide-eyed.


    "We heard the chanting," Emma said, her voice low. "We followed the sound."


    Lucy’s eyes locked on the glowing stone. "What is that?"


    "They’re calling her again," Sophie answered. "And this time... it’s stronger."


    Emma looked past Jude and froze. "Grace?"


    "She’s gone," he said bitterly. "They turned her too."


    "No," Lucy whispered, shaking her head. "She wouldn’t, "


    "She did," Sophie snapped. "They kissed her, and it was like a switch flipped. She smiled."


    Emma’s expression hardened. "Then we need to stop it now. Before anyone else, "


    The ground cracked. A thin fracture raced from beneath the stone toward the trees, glowing red and hissing like steam escaping a wound.