It was the silence that convinced me. Not the hush of sleep, but the kind of silence that vibrates behind the ribs — a hollow, humid absence of human things. No engines, no phones, no voices. Just wind dragging across the sand like fingers through silk.

I coughed, sea salt cracking on my lips. My tongue tasted of blood and brine. My skin felt like it belonged to someone else. I was sprawled face-down on a shore I couldn't name, the world grainy and bright, the sun stinging like punishment.

How did I get here?

A storm. There were flashes—screams, foam, someone yelling my name. But memory slips through wet fingers. All I know is this: I am alone. Alive. And the island, a place of both terror and wonder, stretches out before me like a fever dream.

The sand burns my calves as I push myself upright. I'm scraped raw across the shoulders and back, my clothes half-shredded, pants soaked and heavy. The heat is relentless, searing my skin. My body aches like it remembers things I don't, a constant reminder of my vulnerability in this strange place.

Behind me, the ocean hisses. Ahead, the jungle waits.

I walk because there’s nothing else to do. Each step is an act of defiance, each breath proof I’m still here.

It isn’t until late afternoon that I find the spring.

Clearwater trickles from a rock bed into a shallow pool. I fall to my knees and drink like an animal. The coolness slides down my throat like grace. I dunk my head, shivering in the heat, and peel off the last of my clothes to rinse the salt and stink from my skin.

I don't expect to see her, not like that.

She moves like smoke between the trees. Barefoot, sun-browned, hair long and wild, dark as soil after rain. Her body is wrapped in something soft and ragged, clinging where the heat makes it stick. She watches me without shame, head tilted, as if I’m the wild thing.

We stare at each other.

And then, she smiles.

Not the shy, civilised kind — this smile is raw and unfiltered, ancient. She steps closer, quiet as a shadow, and reaches out with a hand that's rough but careful. Her fingertips graze my jaw.

"You fell," she says. Her voice is low and musical. "From the sky."

“From a boat,” I correct, though the words taste unsure. “I think.”

She nods. “Then the sea gave you to the island.”

I should ask her name. I should ask a thousand things. But none of that matters, not right now. The air between us is thick with something more immediate. Hunger. Curiosity. Heat.

She circles me slowly like a tide reclaiming the shore. I don't stop her.

That night, I dream of fireflies and storms. I wake tangled in leaves, her skin pressed against mine, the jungle breathing around us. Her mouth tastes of mango and salt. Her thighs lock over mine. We don't speak, and we don't have to. In that moment, I feel a connection, a sense of belonging, that I've never felt before.

She moves like water. Urgent, slow, with purpose. There is no performance, no artifice. Just two bodies meeting in the old language. I lose track of where she ends, and I begin. The island moans with us. The stars above watch without blinking.

When I sleep again, her breath is warm on my neck.

Days blur.

Or maybe weeks.

She doesn’t tell me her name, and I stop asking. We speak little, but we touch often. We hunt together, bathe in the spring, sleep in a canopy of leaves and skin. She shows me which berries are sweet and which frogs to avoid. She presses her palm to mine and studies the lines as if they'll spell out our future.

The sex becomes more than needed. It's communion. A religion without gods, just ritual: the way she bites my shoulder at the edge of release, the way I hold her after, listening to the cicadas whisper.

She laughs often. Deep and real, like it's pulled from her belly. Sometimes, I catch her watching the sea with a look I can't read — part longing, part warning. She never says what she's thinking.

I stopped wondering how I got here. The past feels distant, like someone else's dream. There is only the now, the breath between kisses, the taste of sweat on her collarbone.

Until one morning, she isn’t there.

I wake alone. Her warmth has vanished from the bedding, but her floral and earthy scent still lingers. I searched the beach, the jungle paths, and the cliffs she loved to climb barefoot.

She’s gone.

The silence is heavier now. It presses in on my chest and curls around the edges of my mind like smoke. I yell her name — if she ever gave me one. I scream until my throat tears.

Nothing answers.

I sit by the spring for hours. The water no longer feels like grace. It feels cold and indifferent. The island hums, but it doesn't care.

I start walking.

I circle the island. I find bones — old and white, picked clean. I see footprints that aren't mine, leading nowhere. I find a carved stone with markings I can't read and a necklace made of teeth hanging from a tree.

I find memories, or maybe hallucinations: her fingers in my hair, her breath in my ear, her mouth whispering things I never understood.

The nights grow louder. I hear drumming in the distance. Once, I see lights — flickering orange, too high for torches, too low for stars. But when I run toward them, there’s only forest.

The island is changing, or maybe I am.

One night, I dream she returns.

She’s not the same.

She's crowned in bone and feathers, her eyes rimmed in ash. Her mouth curves in that same smile but doesn't reach her eyes. She touches my chest and says, "You belong here now."

When I wake, there are fresh footprints in the sand beside me. I follow them until they vanish at the waterline.

That's when I hear the whisper of waves, not just against the shore but in my blood. I walk into the ocean until I'm waist-deep. The water is warm, almost welcoming.

I think about letting go.

But something holds me back. A voice, maybe mine, maybe hers. A memory of her hands, rough and tender. A flash of fireflies.

I stumble back to the beach and fall asleep under the stars.

When I wake, there’s a single mango placed beside my head.

I don't know if I'm alive or if the island is some afterlife wearing a beautiful face. I don't know if she was real or if I created her out of salt and loneliness.

But I know this:

Every night, I walk the beach and wait for her.

And every morning, there’s a mango.