The Forgotten Island

The storm hit harder than anyone expected.

Jake, Mira, and Daniel had planned the sailing trip for months. It was supposed to be a quick weekend getaway—sun, sea, and sand. But when the dark clouds rolled in, and the waves rose like monsters, their small boat didn’t stand a chance.

They woke up on the shore of an island that wasn’t on any of their maps or GPS.

“This wasn’t here before,” Mira said, brushing seaweed from her hair. “I checked a dozen times.”

Daniel stared at the thick jungle ahead. “Maybe it’s uncharted. People still find new islands sometimes, right?”

Jake, always the practical one, shook his head. “Not ones this big.”

They gathered supplies from what was left of the boat and made camp just off the beach. There were no signs of other people. No animals. Not even birds. Just trees—tall, dark, and strangely still.

The first night was quiet. Too quiet. No wind, no waves, not even the usual hum of bugs. They thought it was strange, but exhaustion kept them from worrying.

In the morning, everything changed.

The beach was gone.

Where there had been white sand and crashing waves, there was now thick jungle. Their boat? Disappeared. Even the footprints they had left behind were erased, as if they had never been there at all.

“I swear the trees moved,” Mira whispered.

Daniel laughed nervously. “Trees don’t move.”

But Jake had seen it too—out of the corner of his eye, a whole section of forest shifting like it was breathing.

Still, they pushed deeper into the island, hoping to find a high point or running water. Instead, they found ruins.

Broken stone towers covered in moss, twisted statues with faces worn smooth by time. Symbols were carved into the rock—symbols that pulsed faintly when touched.

“This place isn’t just forgotten,” Jake said. “It was erased.”

That night, Daniel vanished.

They searched for hours, calling his name, shining flashlights into the dark. But it was as if the island had swallowed him whole.

In the morning, Jake and Mira returned to the ruins—and found a new statue. One that looked exactly like Daniel, face frozen in fear.

Mira screamed.

They ran.

But the island shifted with them. Paths changed. Trees turned. Time bent. They would walk for hours only to return to the same clearing. And each night, the island took something else—Jake’s compass, Mira’s journal, the memory of a song Jake used to hum.

By the fourth night, Jake was gone too.

Mira sat by the fire alone, clutching the last thing she had—Daniel’s lighter. She stared into the darkness and whispered, “What do you want?”

The jungle whispered back. Not in words, but in feelings. Hunger. Curiosity. Loneliness.

The island was alive.

And it didn’t want to be forgotten.

By morning, Mira stood at the edge of the jungle, facing the sea. Somehow, the beach was back. So was the boat. Her friends were still gone—but she had a choice.

Leave and forget everything.

Or stay and remember.

She set the lighter in the sand and walked to the boat.

The ocean was calm now, like the storm had never happened. As she drifted away, she looked back—and the island was gone.

No GPS. No trace.

But Mira remembered.

And some nights, when she dreams, she hears the jungle calling.