Leo’s voice on the recording cuts through his words, crying out Elena’s name, and I hear Chase start beside me. I lay a hand on his shoulder, and he leans toward me.

The strange dark figure that emerges is only a speck in the lens, not enough to make out what it truly was. We watch as I grab Gries, dragging us to safety as Hemslock’s bodyguards open fire at something behind us. But there is nothing on screen to show beyond shadows, even as we all retreat.

And then, Goatee—again from Hemslock’s perspective—runs up ahead, sliding and skidding, until that last fatal trip sends him sprawling to the ground. The screen goes blank as he begins to scream.

“What’s wrong with the recording?” Hemslock demands, nearly beside himself and livid.

“I don’t know, sir!” Straw Hat frantically types on his keyboard, trying to sort out the technical difficulties, to no effect. “It’s not that there’s anything wrong with our equipment, it’s just that the camera didn’t film shit!”

Images return abruptly, but by then it’s far too late. We can see Hemslock’s hands digging frantically into the ground, desperately searching for his friend. But Goatee is gone.

Hemslock yanks off his mic and throws it on the floor before stalking off, his bodyguards silently following.

Straw Hat leans back in his seat, looking like he ran a marathon. “I don’t understand,” he says. “There’s nothing wrong with the—”

“Play it again,” Gries orders.

“Sir—”

“Play it again.”

Straw Hat flinches but obeys.

Nothing changes in this second playthrough—Leo and I escape with our lives and the soldiers fire at something that is never caught on video. Goatee runs, falls, and then—nothing but the sounds of his screams.

“It was a woman,” Leo says, as if trying to convince himself of his own words. “No—a creature with a woman’s shape. Only there was—it had no face. None at all. But it had a mouth. A wide, carnivorous—you saw that too, right? Tell me I wasn’t hallucinating.”

“I don’t know what that was,” the historian says, her hands trembling. “Nothing like that should exist—”

“I want to look through the rest of the footage,” Gries says abruptly. “Surely one of the cameras we wore will show more.”

Wordlessly and unwilling to prove him wrong, the crew looks through the rest of the recordings—all at different angles and multiple viewpoints, none showing us the creature that had chased us or what had taken Goatee.

“Impossible,” is all Gries can say each time. “This is impossible.”

“Did you see it, too?” Chase whispers to me. “Have you ever seen any creatures like that on the island before?”

“Yeah, kid,” Hawaiian Shirt says, overhearing him. He looks exhausted. “You’ve been inside the cave. You told me you’ve seen figures moving around this place. Tell us why it isn’t showing up on our cameras like some fucking vampire.”

“I’ve never seen it up close,” I say.

All eyes turn my way. “Explain,” Gries says tersely.