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Begrudgingly, Y/N is dragged to a party on campus. Alex, Ren, and Jonas would be there too. Music thunders out of the three-story house and you can feel it through your feet, through your bones. Inside it stinks of BO, cologne, and alcohol. A headache claws through her head so she navigates past wild partiers to a small balcony. Out here you can still hear thrashing bass but it is quieter.
Y/N lost her friends in the crowd, and being around intoxicated strangers is a shitty way to kill time. At least out on the balcony the view is pretty. Hopefully she could find her friends and ditch this place. The question is, what would they do then? Most of the shops in town are closed. Y/N sighed. Guess I’m stuck here for the night.
“How’s the beer?” Jonas’ voice is a beacon to a ship lost at sea.
She turns and says, “Tastes like regret and bad decisions.”
“Yeah,” he laughed.
Y/N tips the red cup over the railing and piss-colored beer falls to the concrete under them.
Parties were never her thing. Sure, it’s cool to dance and eat, but the negative is all the damned people. She’d rather just invite friends over to the arcade (sadly that shut down), or the movies (in Canema theaters only plays three movies), or at the restaurant. Something quiet. Parties are just for clowns and circuses.
Jonas nervously drums his fingers on the icy metal railing, wondering what to say. The words cram in his throat.
Stationed like a boat left to rot in the shipyard, never to embark on more adventures.
(Color) eyes gaze sullenly at the sky. They hadn’t escaped Edwards Island unscathed. The supernatural terrors that they saw –it’s indescribable. They somehow survived but at what cost? It’s like the entities sucked out all their hope, and left them empty husks.
“You ever think about it? If we sealed the portal?” So it’s been on Jonas’ mind too.
“I try not to.” She latches onto the eternally dark expanse of sea beyond Canema. We only experienced a fraction of what the Sunken have suffered. Are they still watching, waiting to bring the world to its end?
The real question is, why us? Hundreds of teens now and before have tuned into the supposedly haunted stack of rocks via radio that connect to the other side, but none have ever encountered the Sunken from…whatever hell dimension they exist in. The ghosts almost killed them last time, but were also begging –no, demanding a way out of that loop.
Y/N, Jonas, and Alex reason that the Sunken are solely acting on emotion. Desperation, fear, and anger. You’d do anything, sacrifice anybody you had to, or rely on dumbass teenagers scared out of their minds to rescue you from a never-ending hell.
The timeline is damaged, frayed, and split into countless fractions.
Beautiful brown-green eyes glaze over as Jonas rolls a cigarette between his lips. He doesn’t light it. “You ever…hear it?” Ever since Jonas and Alex returned to Canema they have been plagued by hauntings. They became obsessed. “The violent waves? The sounds of a sinking ship? It’s almost as if they’re screami-”
“Heeeey! There you are.”
Ren stumbles onto the already crowded balcony and wraps an arm around Y/N’s shoulder. She smiled at him and asked, “How many brownies did you have?”
“Lesseee,” the stoned curly-haired man counted his fingers slowly. “Three. What you two doing out here?”
Bright blue hair flashes past and Alex appears on the balcony too. “Ren!” The balcony groans in protest and Jonas nervously grabs the railing. Four people are obviously too much for the balcony.
“I was wondering where you guys went,” Alex said. “This party is lame. You wanna ditch?”
You know every decision you make is futile, Alex. Anything you do, you’ll always wind back up to the start.
Hundreds of thousands of timelines you’ve seen. Yet none hold the answer, they key you’re looking for.
When they left the island, they thought the portal had been sealed. The ominous triangle no longer hovered high in the sky above Edwards Island. But Alex kept being thrown into wild visions, kept seeing life rewind and play like an old videotape. Forever trapped in a loop. Jonas, whenever he looks at water, deep expanses of ocean, he hears the Sunken –and all the chaos along with the disaster. The two became ghost hunters, trying to decipher what Adler couldn’t.
“Where to? Nothings open.”
Alex shrugged. “I don’t know. Anywhere?”
“I think the pizza place is open,” Ren said.
“Sure, sounds great actually.” The blue-haired woman smiled. “I’ll drive.”
Before anyone left the balcony the sky explodes into rainbow colors. A loud deafening bang startles them, sounding like cannon fire. Then a powerful shockwave shakes Canema. It dangerously rattles the balcony, and terrified, everyone freezes in place. Y/N tries to anchor herself by latching onto the railing but she topples over the side. Her heart lurches into her throat as she screams.
Jonas jumps towards her, his hands missing by a breath’s width. “Y/N!”
The balcony gives way. And Jonas’ scream is silenced by water flooding his lungs.
The sky bleeds a murky green-blue.
Four bodies plunge into the ocean, into icy, watery graves.
Static snaps and pops in Jonas’ ears. A bobbing light (gold and warm like a lantern’s glow) shines brighter than the inky darkness around them. And faintly, he sees giant looming human-shaped shadows in a triangle window. It’s the portal-
The portal.
“The portal?”
“Huh?”
Alex shook her head and gave Jonas a lopsided smile. The air is musty and earthy. They were camping out in the woods. Him, Alex, Ren, and Y/N. Rain gently drummed against the van they were in. They had rented the vehicle to carry equipment, and set their tents outside.
“I was going over some theories on how to close the portal. And you fell asleep.”
“Sorry,” Jonas tried to stifle his fear. It felt like he was watching a movie, a soul inhabiting a puppet on strings.
“It’s okay. We’ve been working all day and night,” Alex stretched and grabbed a hot cup of coffee. “You’ve been all smiles lately. Ever since we left the island you’ve been happier. Is it because of Y/N?”
Y/N and Jonas spent half the night together on Edwards Island. They had to rescue Alex and Clarissa. Then Jonas helped Alex look for Ren and a way to close the portal. When they first arrived on the island, Jonas clicked with Y/N.
“Ask her out on a date. She’s single.”
“What if I make a fool of myself? She probably wouldn’t even like me. I’m stale and boring like chips left in a bag.”
The blue-haired woman rolled her eyes. “We survived an island full of crazy ghosts and you’re afraid to ask someone on a date? C’mon Jonas. I see hearts floating between you two. And what if some other guy sweeps her off her feet? I’m not going to let that happen. You deserve to be happy, Jonas.”
Being flung through time at break-neck speeds isn’t fun. You feel like clothes in a washer. Limbs turn to jelly.
The eternal darkness closes in.
Jonas desperately tries to claw his way to the surface, to breathe air. The water in his lungs burns. His arms and legs go numb.
He’s become a floating carcass entombed in salty brine. Forever adrift like those lost at sea.
“Oh my god! Jonas! You were like, possessed. Your eyes were glowing red and you were walking in circles-”
His vision slowly sharpens and the world stills. He sits up and observes the environment.
Y/N and Jonas are sheltering in an empty grocery store. A broken window lets in pale sunlight. Rain lashes violently outside. Everything is shrouded in darkness –holding a watery, shimmery quality to it.
Pain ignites around Jonas’ body, like he hit electric wires. His mouth moves sluggishly. It tries to keep up with his brain. “I thought you died. I saw you fall and-”
“Jonas, I’m okay.” Y/N offers him a sweet smile and clasps a hand over his shaking hand. He realizes his entire body is trembling. And blood.
Blood trickles down from his chin and dapples his pale skin.
“From the looks of it, you’re in worse shape than I am.”
“I thought I lost you.” His eyes trace her face –worn, tired, and pale like his- and the injuries she must’ve patched up when he was knocked out. All Jonas could picture was her falling from the balcony and landing with a disquieting thud.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easy. You and me? We’re going to make it out of this.”
Y/N walks over crunching glass and finds another med kit. A blush scars her face and she shrugs one shoulder, motioning for Jonas to take off his shirt. He blinked several times and blushed too. Fresh wounds and cuts seep through his torn clothes. He tosses his jacket, hoodie, and shirt away. Y/N dabs the wounds and he feels the chemicals sting.
“What happened?”
“When we fell, I don’t think we hit the ground. We ended up by the shops. You were walking around in circles, your eyes were glowing, and you were talking. You were possessed, Jonas. Then is started to rain –but it wasn’t normal rain. Sharp as razors.”
“You broke the window?”
“Yeah. And the alarm didn’t go off. Strange thing is, the town looked empty. I didn’t see Alex or Ren either.”
Waters rising. Sun is sinking. Bodies are floating.
Jonas grabs his clothes and shrugs them back on. The rain isn’t clearing up, so he can’t tell what’s changed outside thanks to the Sunken. Guess they’d have to stay here. At least there’d be plenty of snacks.
“Y/N.”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to say,” Jonas sighed. He can almost hear Alex’s voice, teasing him right now. He wonders if he should focus on survival, that’s what’s most important right now anyway.
Why can’t one day in life be still waters? Everybody says the world might end tomorrow, but for me, the world ends every day. Jonas thought. What’d be the point of doing anything worthwhile if it all gets washed away? The Sunken won’t stop until Alex and I figure out a way to shut the portal.
“After what we’ve been through, don’t you think we all deserve a happy ending?” Alex smiled at Jonas. It had been another day searching the woods of Canema for clues, radio signals, and deciphering the Sunken’s garbled wave frequencies. “We might never find a way to close the portal –and the world will end or something. If that happens, you should be able to look back on your last moments with a smile.”
“I like you. No. I love you, Y/N.” Jonas held his breath, his frantic heartbeat the only sound in the deserted grocery store.
Shock trickles into her beautiful [color] eyes. “Really?” A warm smile fractures the lethargy that had been there. “I do too. I wanted to tell you, Jonas. But I thought you wouldn’t like me back. And with the Sunken and all the crazy ghost shit going on, I thought-”
Lips seal Y/N’s into a sweet kiss. Jonas pulls her close into his arms and she kissed him back. Neither wanted to part but eventually they had to. Bliss endured, even in a world drowned in uncertainty and darkness like now. The world may end, but they had each other, and they’re going to fight to the very last.
Y/N smiled at Jonas who mirrored her emotions. “We stopped the Sunken once. We can do it again.”
“Whatever the world is like out there, I’ll protect you Y/N.”
I won’t let you die.
They gather what supplies they could. Food, spare med kits, and makeshift weapons. The rain fades away and the two carefully look outside.
Half of the island is flooded. Boats that were neatly anchored at a dock now bobbed peacefully by. The world is soundless, radio silent, and the streets are empty. The sky is darker than the depths of the ocean and absent of any stars. In the distance, they see something that hadn’t been a fixture of Canema. A radio tower at Charity Point. From there one can see Edwards Island on most days.
The structure glows with an eerie light. Red, gold, green, and blue. Jonas and Y/N could reach it by scaling the roads free of water carefully. And along the way they hoped to find Alex and Ren. Leaving the grocery store, they stare at the unnerving radio tower, before trekking there way over to it. Above the top awaiting for the heroes are the otherworldly triangle and the Sunken. Time to seal the portal once and for all.