Part 1
(The Island)
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Chapter I
The sound of helicopters roars across the ocean in a low, steady formation. Rotor blades carve through the thick salt air, whipping up spray as they move in a grim procession toward Kilmonder Island. Each helicopter carries something slung beneath it on thick steel cables—a prison box forged from riveted iron, reinforced with layers of steel plating, rust streaks running down its battered surface.
Below them, the sea churns dark green, waves smashing against the rocky outcrops that ring Kilmonder like broken teeth. The island spans 5.5 million square kilometres of unbroken forest canopy, a vast green expanse that seems endless from above. Dense foliage bristles like a living carpet, vines twisting over fallen trees, great rivers snaking through it like coiled serpents. Thunderheads gather above the treeline, heavy with rain.
Kilmonder Island breathes danger. Animals prowl in the undergrowth—jaguars with glowing eyes, venomous snakes that slip between roots, crocodiles that watch from brackish swamps. Clouds of insects rise from stagnant pools, biting and buzzing, carrying diseases that rot the body from the inside: malaria, dengue, filarial worms. Leeches wait in muddy rivers. The ground collapses into quicksand-like bogs without warning, and sudden floods can sweep away anything in their path. Parasites burrow under the skin. Thorned vines hang in curtains from giant trees, slicing clothes and flesh alike.
There is no road, no building, no sign of human habitation. The forest consumes everything that lingers. Even daylight seems to die under the canopy.
Different governments could no longer contain the monsters in their countries. Negotiations turned to deals brokered in secure rooms, generals shaking hands over files stamped with top secret warnings. Nations gathered their worst offenders, the ones who could not be housed in any prison without endless bloodshed. Murderers without remorse. Butchers who killed for pleasure. Criminals whose cruelty defied reason.
The helicopters arrive at the assigned coordinates and hover. Cables swing. Clamps release. Prison boxes drop one by one, plummeting through humid air before smashing into the forest floor with metallic thuds that echo like artillery. Branches snap, soil erupts in fountains of dirt and broken ferns.
As the helicopters peel away, the prison boxes begin to groan and creak. Hydraulic bolts disengage with a mechanical hiss. Heavy doors swing outward. Shapes spill onto the mossy ground.
A skinny boy with hollow cheeks and wild brown hair steps out, eyes blank with ancient rage. Blood stains under his fingernails. He wiped out his entire family. His small body shivers as he scans the shadows, fingers curling like claws.
Nearby, two massive figures haul themselves out of another box. Twin brothers, Cain Dantries and Abel Dantries, towering and thick-limbed, each with a shaven head and barrel chest. Tattoos spiral across their arms in jagged lines. They speak in guttural Russian as they test the air, cracking their necks in unison, their weight leaving deep prints in the wet soil.
Another door opens. Lillian steps out, lean and hollow-eyed, her hair streaked with grey. She licks her cracked lips, eyes scanning the vines with practised hunger. She has fed on human flesh before. She knows what cuts to make for maximum pain.
Osuna emerges next, ink swirling over every inch of his face like ritual scars, black hair slicked back with sweat. Symbols of devils and sigils of death mark his skin. He wipes blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his tattooed hand. He once murdered fellow inmates in rituals of sacrifice, chanting prayers in the dark.
Denne slides from another container, red hair tangled and filthy, eyes glinting with cunning. Men never expected the lean woman in the tight dress to kill them. She always made them comfortable first. A serial killer.
John clambers out, running his fingers along the crude scars on his wrists. His smile is distant, distracted, as if he hears a symphony no one else can. He whispers to himself about the beauty of fire, about the perfection of an explosion.
There are others as well, shapes and faces marked by brutality and madness, crawling into the damp heat and listening to the riot of insects.
She steps out barefoot onto the wet moss, a brown-skinned young woman, no older than eighteen. Her hair falls in tangled, greasy coils around her face. Dirt smears her arms and legs, but her posture stays unnaturally still. She wears ragged clothes that hang from her thin frame in strips, soaked from the rain.
All in different locations. No guards watch them now. No fences hold them. The forest claims them all.
Kilmonder opens its maw, green and endless, ready to swallow the worst humanity has to offer.
Now the game has begun.