The Family: Chapter 7: Shattered Veil
Some truths are only skin deep.
Chapter 5: Shattered Veil
Previously in The Family…
In Chapter Five, the island felt different in the morning light. The night before lingered—not just in memory, but in something deeper, something physical. Adrian’s body felt off, like a song played in the wrong key. Celeste was there, waiting, her touch lingering just a little too long. Elsewhere, whispers built into something sharper—names that shouldn’t be spoken, warnings buried beneath pleasantries. The Family was still smiling, still welcoming. But beneath the surface, the island had already started making its claim.
Now, in Chapter Six, paradise reveals its first cost. A scream shatters the morning calm. A guest is missing. And the question isn’t whether The Family is hiding something. It’s how long they can keep it hidden.
Shattered Veil 🎵🎵▶️
Isla Rosario, Región Insular del Caribe, Colombia
I found my way through the beams of the morning sunlight filtered through the trees abutting the beach, each beam cut through the dense foliage casting long shadows over the jungle floor. As I neared the beach, I could hear the rhythmic crash of the waves, the churning sound of the ocean meeting the shore creating a steady rhythm that syncopated with my heart.
Following last night’s revelations, I drifted in and out of restless sleep my mind shattered by the truths I had been confronted with as far as what was real and what was illusion here. Even though last night played back in my memory as a mobius strip of fractured thoughts and barely comprehensible memories, one thing I knew for sure was that as Celeste and I stood in the Pavilion looking out over the plankton, there was a moment when I caught Celeste’s face, her skin seemingly catching the colored haze of the bioluminescence, she turned to me and said softly, “We’re running out of time, The Family will find me again soon,” she said as her gaze drifted into darkness. As I left, she grabbed my hand and as I turned back to look at her, she said wistfully, “Find me at sunrise on the beach.”
And so, here I was, doing as she said to find her here. I parted the palms guarding the beach and as I stepped onto the already warm sand, I looked out to see the sun igniting the horizon, its rays bathing the Island in light that seemed to ignite the verdant greenery covering every inch of the Island. As I turned to look at the Island behind me, the palms had split the sunrise’s rays making the jungle look like a peristyle Greco-Roman temple from which I had just emerged, its column of palms standing tall and proud as if holding the sky in place.
In the gentle churning of the ocean waves, Celeste stood like a Venus surrounded by delicate seafoam, statuesque and inviting, her one arm and hand extended towards me as if inviting me into a lush painting that was in progress.
I walked towards her and pulled my shirt off discarding it on the shore before shimmying out of my shorts and moving towards the water.
As the water came up to my chest, I continued my course towards Celeste, my hand outreached. Finally, our fingers touched and her eyes flicked to meet mine. “Adrian,” her voice said barely above a whisper as her grip brought me in closer.
I pulled in close to her and ran my hand through her hair as she began talking to me breathless snippets, “Thank you for coming,” she said as the salt water and the rhythmic pull of the ocean gently bobbed me and up and down.
“It’s safe here - they can’t hear,” she told me with urgency fueling her voice, “The Island is a part of The Family’s program, The Family has woven itself into every part of the Island, including the plants,” Celeste said verifying and codifying part of my seemingly well-founded paranoia.
Knowing that we were far from The Family’s eyes and ears, I asked Celeste a question that had gnawed at me now for a few days, “Hey Celeste,” I asked, “Orion…what’s the deal with him?”
“He can be very intense, I know,” Celeste said seemingly side-stepping the question.
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I clarified, “It’s just that you’re all to the outside world, you know…,” I said with words unsaid. “…And he’s not. It seems a bit odd considering that the program is aiming for perfection.”
With a knowing smile, Celeste said, “When it came to Orion, The Family created a purposely different version of its ‘ideal’ avatar.”
“While we never really understood why, its become evident that this avatar many might call a flaw as you just did, actually helps The Family understand its own flaws and enhances its self improvement considerably.”
I winced a bit hearing Celeste saying I implied Orion’s sexual orientation was a flaw as she said, “If anything, his difference enhances us as a whole, we get to see the world differently through him and his existence enriches The Family.”
I guess I had never really thought about The Family this way. Ever since the revelation I just thought of them as a computer program with robotic limbs mindlessly flailing about - I had not really thought of them as individuals contributing to a larger self.
As we talked, a metallic drone flew out from one of the Island’s rocky outcroppings and headed out over the bay, looking up at it and then quickly returning her gaze to my face, she quickly whispered, “Get down,” I held my breath and plunged under the water, I could feel her body tensing and looking up from under the water, I could see her craning her neck, her movements telling me it had most likely flown over already. Celeste began tapping my arm and I returned to the surface.
“Morning patrols,” Celeste said, her voice dripping with a short of no-shit nonchalance.
“First of all,” Celeste continued, “I’m so sorry about last night, I’m sure that was a lot to take in all at once,” she said as I listened dutifully. “If we are going to disrupt The Family, we should do it during the final night Dinner on Sunday evening, and then you’ll get me out on the boat, right?”
It all seemed so easy and logical saying it out loud, until it wasn’t, “Wait so I’m just going to casually walk out of here with you on the yacht?”
“No, that wouldn’t work,” Celeste said clearly working overtime thinking up scenarios and possibly infinite backup scenarios. I really didn’t know how her hybrid nature worked just yet.
“There is a boat docked on the other side of the Island,” Celeste told me, “So once we disconnect the program, you have to get me to the boat and we’ll leave together, right?”
“What happens,” I began to ask, “If The Family gets wind of us trying to disconnect them?”
“Once the silver samples your DNA, it will take 5-10 minutes to propagate the patch to the central program which will restart the program and set it into failsafe mode, and from there it will take probably just as long for the update to cascade across all the hybrids,” she said making it sound so damn easy.
“But,” she said striking fear into me just as easily, “Until the patch severs all the hybrids, they will still retain a portion of the central program and the control it has meaning they could still fight back.”
Knowing what I had seen of Ronan’s body, I knew what this could potentially look like.
“6:40AM,” Celeste said indicating the time, “You should probably join the others for breakfast,” Celeste said indicating her time was running short.
“Tonight after dinner at the Big House,” Celeste started to say as I turned back towards the shore, “I’ll find a chance to disconnect again and we can talk okay?”
I turned my back to the shore, and looked at Celeste, and I have no idea if it was because I was intoxicated by the promise of this or if I had merely lost all journalistic ethics but I pulled her close one last time and brought her mouth to mine and kissed her passionately as little dribbles of salt water harshed at my tongue, Celeste even uttered a sort of a low sound somewhere between a giggle and what someone would say a smile might sound like.
As I emerged from the water, I began heading back to the trail that would lead to breakfast, As I stepped onto the trail, I heard an ear-piercing scream. I heard a man’s voice shouting followed by a woman screaming and running, Imani came running out of the thick jungle foliage, her feet blistered and bleeding, her skin pierced by thorns of some kind.
I threw my arms out and Imani fell, or rather collapsed into my arms. I brought her down to the ground and turned her onto her back as she began to hyperventilate, her breathing shallow and her pulse racing. .
“It’s okay, Imani,” I said holding her gently, “Just breathe,” I said my words slowed and calm in my attempt to calm her.
Through her desperate attempts to breathe, Imani managed croak out a few hoarse words I could barely understand. “Dead,” is all I heard, followed by “Terrifying.”
I heard Imani trying to speak, her mouth groaning to get the strength to form words, pulling her close to my ear, I strained to listen as she said, “It was…a…”
“It was a what, Imani?” I asked softly.
“Monster, it was a monster,” Imani croaked before seemingly passing out from the trauma of what she had experienced, her forehead hot as a stone in the sun and slicked with sweat. .
As I hovered over Imani and examined the wounds on her feet, the sun was suddenly blotted out, I turned up to see Moira Sterling hanging over me, Elektra at her side. “What happened?” Moira barked at me.
“She came running through the jungle screaming and I caught her,” I said trying my best to keep my voice low.
“What way did she come from?” Orion asked me. I turned up to see him hovering over me with that Faustian grin of his on full display, a smirk laced with malice and menace.
I pointed back towards the jungle from whence she came. As Elektra and Orion continued studying me, Willow approached, her icy hair swiped across her face, dramatically with an edge that could classify as a weapon.
“Mother,” Willow said, “There has been an incident…in The Grove.” She said, her words clipped, monotonous and hollow, as they were merely soulless sounds created out of some vacuum.
Moira looked at her tipping her head to the side as if she were attempting to bend her gaze to bore a hole through Willow’s face. “An…incident?” Moira exhaled with an air that reeked of dramatic practice. “I hope this doesn’t affect the dinner at The Big House. It’s a tradition,” Moira said with an equally vacant tonality and edge.
“Moira?” Imani croaked as she began to come out of her stupor. Sitting up she pressed Moira, “What happened?”
“We’re figuring it out Imani, I’m so sorry for this,” Moira said in a clipped tone most people only reserve to when talking to The Help.
Flicking her gaze to Willow and Orion, Moira said, “Gather the family in The Grove, and lets ensure this doesn’t upset our tradition, yes?”
In a cold tone, both said, “Yes, mother,” as they began walking towards The Grove. I followed behind and as we walked, Aurora, Jaxon, Kai and Theron followed suit, each chattering happily amongst themselves about how excited they were to visit the pool and the lagoon today. And then it was as if a little grenade went off between them, Kai asked, “Anyone seen Ronan? We were going to maybe try surfing after the lagoon today.”
There was a light murmuring that amounted to not much more than a rote “that’s strange.”
It was honestly not much to get upset over and in retrospect had we known, the true horror was about to come. Harmony, Blanca, Aurora, Jaxon, Kai, Theron, and I walked in to The Grove where we found Moira, Orion, Willow, and Elektra standing around looking up at the canopy surrounding The Grove with the same sort of wonder as we had at our previous night’s dinner. Except instead of the hazy colors created by the many inventive lighting fixtures, there instead were flayed reams of human flesh dangling from the tree branches. And flayed across the large marble table was a human torso, head and limbs removed and scattered carelessly nearby. As I leaned over the toro, my head turned against my better judgement and my eyes stared into Victor’s face, his eyes now gone and replaced by deep caverns, his face torn beyond recognition.
The torso looked like it had been ripped over by a wild animal with torrents of liquid silver splattered all over the table and the severed limbs themselves.
The guests stared up, mouths agape in horror and while looking up at one of the torn swaths of flesh, Kai strained to see the horrific sight and as he strained, a big tacky dollop of silver came dripping down and across his face, some of the metallic goop falling into his agape mouth.
“Fucking gross,” Kai screamed as he dropped to his knees and began vomiting from the shock of it.
“Are you okay?” Jaxon asked reaching out to help him to his feet. Kai regained his bearings and stood wiping his face with his hand smearing the drippy silver across his face like a blood splatter.
As the guests began to take in what we had seen. A general sense of fear and paranoia began to take hold, I could see their faces tightening, their jaws clenching, their gaits stiffening as they took in their surroundings like caged beasts.
“Okay, now this is fucking weird,” Jaxon muttered, his jaw tightening.
Moira, unfettered merely turned towards the guests still agape with horror and began making announcements like some sort of deranged camp counselor, “While this is incredibly unfortunate,” Moira said, “We can’t let this spoil our trip,” she said as Kai seemingly broke in two, “Moira,” he barked, “One of us just got killed and one is missing, who gives a fuck about ruining the trip?”
“Blanca,” Harmony quipped, “Get us out of here on the next plane, boat, whatever.”
“I would,” Blanca said consulting her phone, “But my phone has no signal.”
“Me either,” Kai said followed by the slow realization amongst all the guests that we were trapped here, electronically speaking.
Moira moved towards Kai and Harmony like the way a wisp of smoke blows across the water, her movements silky, smooth and deceptively elegant, raising her finger to his lips she pressed her finger against his lips and uttered a low, “shhhh,” followed by a treacly, “The Island is one of the safest places to be, our security is top notch, I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said before flicking her gaze to the others, “Or any of you,” she said, “You are guests of The Family after all,” an assurance that landed with little if no reassurance to me or anyone else from the looks of it.
“Why don't you all relax by the pool?” Moira cooed, “And then we’ll have everyone up for dinner at the big house,” she said in a desperate plea for seeming normalcy.
Back at the pool, Imani joined me and the rest of the guests as everyone laid out on the loungers carefully and tactfully sidestepping what we had all seen although the topic and its heaviness floated heavily on the air.
In the middle of sitting on a lounger reading a book, I saw Jaxon, Kai, Harmony, and Theron heading over to a cabana. I moved in and tried to organically inject myself into their conversation.
Luckily they saw me coming and called me in to join their discussion, “Thank god,” Jaxon said, “We’ve got the journalist.”
“Come in here, man,” Jaxon said amiably, “Okay,” he said taking a hearty swig of a beer, “We were just saying, first Victor, now Ronan is missing, like for real, what the fuck is going on here?”
I held my hand up to stop him right there before pointing to my ear and then pointing upwards to indicate someone might be listening. “Oh yeah, definitely,” Jaxon said showing he understood my message.
I leaned back in the lounger, cradling the chilled bottle of beer in my hand before saying out loud, “I think what we have here is that The Family are not as perfect as everyone thinks they are…they claim to have the best security and yet they can’t keep their own guests safe, they would rather cover up two potential murders on their own land than admit that they are less than perfect,” I said proudly setting a clear and obvious trap. I knew we were all rats in a cage and so here I was testing the weaknesses of the cage in which we found ourselves.
The other guests looked at me puzzled pointing up at their ears and making a sort of “what gives” expression. I held up my hand as if to say “just see.”
I grabbed a glass of ice off of one of the tables and filled it with water from a nearby carafe. Holding the glass up in front of me, I breathed a puff of hot breath onto the glass watching its outside fog up. Holding the glass up with one hand for the guests to see, I used my other hand to write into the condensation TEST followed by me pointing at my ear and then pointing upward to indicate there was some method to my madness. Everyone looked around at each other seemingly pleased as they nodded.
I wanted so badly to confess to them what I knew about The Family and this place but I knew revelation might come at too high a cost, they’d have to see it with their own eyes to believe and hopefully my control test would do just that.