Let's lock in.
Here's the re-tuned Chapter 1 of Skull Island: The Devil's Game, written exac
The first thing I remember is the wind.
Loud. Cold. Kinda rude.
I was standing on the edge of Whiteglass Tower — tallest building in the entire noble district. The kind of place you needed three IDs just to look at.
I didn't belong here.
But I climbed it anyway. No guards stopped me. Nobody even looked. It's like when you're poor, you just turn invisible.
Fine by me.
I looked down. Far below, the city looked like something out of a luxury catalog. Polished roads, hovercars cruising like they had somewhere important to be, nobles walking around like they were chosen by the gods. Everything was shiny. Clean. Fake.
The wind pushed my hoodie back. It was the only thing I owned that didn't smell like oil or old food. I tightened it around me.
This was it.
I wasn't scared. I wasn't even sad.
I was just… done.
My name's Jack Gulf.
Son of nobodies. Born in a corner of the slums nobody writes about.
Lived off scraps, worked like a dog, ignored by everyone unless they needed someone to clean something or bleed for them.
The nobles? They laughed at people like me. Thought poverty was some character flaw. Like we picked the "broke" difficulty on purpose.
My parents broke their backs for them.
And for what?
A shoebox apartment. Expired rice. Stress wrinkles. That's what.
I looked up at the sky.
Cloudy, of course. No drama. Just gray.
"If I had anything to live for," I muttered,
"I wouldn't be up here, would I?"
The wind answered by getting colder. Like it didn't want me to go either. Cute.
I looked down one more time.
Noble kids sipping imported drinks, making jokes, pushing buttons on gadgets that cost more than our rent.
I wasn't gonna be one of them.
But maybe I could make one of them remember me.
I took a breath.
"To the nobles who spit on my family.
To the teachers who pretended I didn't exist.
To the gods who watched and said nothing...
I hope your palaces burn.
I hope your children suffer.
And I hope, somehow, some way, I ruin this perfect little world of yours."
I leaned forward.
And I jumped.
Falling was weirdly peaceful.
No more pressure.
No more pretending.
No more being small in a world that never made space for me.
Then — black.
When I woke up, I was lying on something warm. Not soft. Just warm, like sun-baked stone. Except… it pulsed. Like it was alive.
I opened my eyes slowly.
The place looked like a weird dream. Or a lobby built by someone who used to be rich but went insane.
The walls were deep black, stitched with red lines that glowed faintly.
Weird portraits lined the halls — and I swear, their eyes followed me.
It smelled like perfume and burnt paper.
Not unpleasant, just... off.
Then I heard someone say, "You fell with style."
I sat up, groggy. My head throbbed.
Across the room, a man sat in a huge chair like he owned the place.
Which, knowing my luck, he probably did.
He looked like one of those guys who runs billion-dollar companies and ruins lives with a smile.
Black suit, blood-red tie, slick hair, glass of dark liquor in hand.
"You're not in Heaven, if that's what you're wondering," he said.
"I wasn't," I replied.
He laughed. "Good. Shows you're not delusional."
I looked around. "Hell, then?"
"Sort of," he said. "Technically Gate Zero. First level. The reception area."
"Reception?" I blinked.
"Think of it like middle management for souls. You're not good, you're not evil — you're just... here."
I stood up. My knees felt shaky.
"Okay, then what happens now?"
He swirled his drink.
"You made quite an exit, Jack Gulf. No screaming, no begging. Just a curse, a jump, and silence. Beautiful."
I didn't respond. I just stared at him.
He stood up and paced slowly.
"Most people fall and cry. You? You meant it. That kind of soul gets noticed."
"Noticed by who?"
He snapped his fingers.
A scroll appeared mid-air. Glowing. Burning faintly at the edges. The kind of paper that says don't touch unless you want to sell your soul.
"Here's the deal," he said.
"You enter a game. One island. Twenty nations. All filled with people like you — desperate, angry, cursed."
"Let me guess," I said. "We all fight for something."
"Exactly. Skull Island. Survival, war, strategy. Winner gets reborn into the real world with more money and power than the nobles who laughed at you."
I raised a brow. "And the catch?"
He sipped his drink. "You only live half your life. That's the cost. We only own half of you."
"And if I say no?"
He snapped again.
A section of the wall went transparent. Behind it? A massive office full of gray, twitching souls typing on computers. Filing papers. Forever.
I stared. One of them turned and looked straight at me.
Its eyes were gone.
"Nice coworkers," I muttered.
He smiled.
"So...?"
I looked at the scroll.
This wasn't redemption. This wasn't mercy.
It was revenge.
A second shot to do what I couldn't the first time: win.
"Give me the pen," I said.
I signed.
The scroll burst into flame.
The floor cracked open beneath me, and I was falling again — but this time, it didn't feel like an end.
It felt like the start of something awful.
And I heard his voice one last time before I blacked out again:
"Welcome to Skull Island, Mr. Gulf.
Conquer… or vanish."
I woke up with my face in the dirt and my dignity already gone.
The ground was hot, gritty, and smelled like metal and ash — not the peaceful kind of ash from a fireplace. This was battlefield ash. The kind that says people died here, a lot.
I blinked, coughed, and rolled over.
My back screamed.
I sat up slowly and immediately regretted it — the noise around me hit like a car crash. Screaming. Arguing. Heavy footsteps. Something exploded in the distance.
I wasn't alone.
And I sure as hell wasn't home.
---
This place looked like someone had taken pieces of a jungle, a war zone, and a sci-fi battlefield and tossed them in a blender.
Massive black-leaved trees towered above, half-dead and humming with energy. The sky was a sick orange, like someone dimmed the sun just enough to make you uneasy.
All around me, people were waking up — coughing, panicking, some already fighting.
I saw one guy stand up, scream, and immediately get tackled by someone three times his size.
Another was already looting bodies.
Some weren't even human. Horns. Glowing eyes. A guy with gray skin and four arms casually cracking his knuckles like it was game day.
---
I backed up fast and ducked behind a chunk of ruined wall. Stone. Charred, cracked, probably old as hell.
I needed to think. But my brain was still booting up like a broken laptop.
Where the hell was I?
Then I remembered:
> The jump.
The devil in the red tie.
The contract.
Skull Island.
I didn't think it'd be literal.
---
Just as I was catching my breath, a guy came charging from the left, eyes wide like a rabid dog. No words — just raw panic. He had a rock in his hand, swinging it like a caveman.
I sidestepped.
He missed.
I elbowed him in the back of the neck, and he dropped instantly.
Didn't mean to hit that hard.
Didn't mean to hit at all, honestly.
But this wasn't Earth.
This was survival.
---
Above us, the sky pulsed. A sound like a hundred drums echoed across the jungle, and then — a projection. Giant, floating, holographic.
A masked figure appeared — face covered by a sleek white mask, black smoke curling off the edges.
His voice came through like thunder soaked in electricity.
> "Welcome, new souls, to Skull Island.
You are no longer among the living.
But you are not condemned… yet."
Everyone froze.
Even the guy with four arms stopped cracking his knuckles.
> "This is a domain built for the desperate.
A battlefield for the damned.
And a proving ground for the worthy."
The masked figure raised a single black-gloved hand.
> "Skull Island is divided into twenty territories.
Each one holds resources, relics, and ruin.
To survive, you must conquer.
To conquer, you must build power.
Every action earns you Dominion Points — your key to status, safety, and survival.
At the end of each lunar cycle, the top-ranked will be granted access to Hell's Chambers — a place of contracts, choices, and... escalation.
You will not all survive.
But those who do… may rewrite fate itself."
The projection vanished. The sky returned to its eerie orange glow.
---
Everyone stood in stunned silence.
Then chaos returned — louder, messier, faster.
People started sprinting into the jungle, forming groups, shouting for allies, weapons, food, anything.
Some were already stabbing each other.
I crouched lower behind the wall and tried to breathe.
---
That's when I noticed her.
A girl about my age — maybe younger. Pale skin, short white hair, strange jagged tattoos crawling up her arms like vines. She was sitting on a boulder, calmly tying a cloth around her leg.
She looked like she belonged here. Like this wasn't her first apocalypse.
We locked eyes.
I didn't say anything. Neither did she.
Then she nodded once. Just enough to say, "You good?"
I nodded back. Just enough to say, "Barely."
---
I stood up and walked toward her — cautiously. She didn't flinch.
When I got close, she spoke first.
"You punch the guy with the rock?"
"More like panicked into him."
"Good. He was annoying."
I looked around. "You got any idea what's going on?"
She shrugged. "Besides the end of the world? Not much."
"Name's Jack."
"Lira."
We didn't shake hands. Not in a place like this.
---
A small group ran past us. One of them — a tall, scrawny guy with big goggles — was shouting, "This is just like FortDoom! I'm a top ten player! I can lead us!"
No one followed him.
I turned back to Lira.
"So… Dominion Points, twenty regions, people dying already… this doesn't feel like a quick game."
"It's not," she said flatly. "I've been watching. The sky shifted. Time runs different here. They said 'lunar cycle' — that's a month. This place wants to break us slowly."
I looked around again. Jungle in every direction. Ruins deeper in the distance. Strange temples on hills. Smoke coming from somewhere far off.
This wasn't a match.
This was a world.
---
I sat beside her. My legs were still shaky.
"What now?" I asked.
She cracked her knuckles.
"We move. We find supplies. We find a safe spot. Somewhere we can hold. Every region probably has a flag or something — maybe relics or shrines."
"Like King of the Hill," I muttered.
"More like King of the Graveyard."
I almost laughed.
Almost.
---
From up here, we saw the spread.
Groups forming factions. Some heading for the hills. Others diving straight into battle. A few building weird circles on the ground — rituals, maybe.
We saw a guy summon a sword out of thin air and cut a tree in half.
Another girl turned invisible and stabbed someone from behind.
Yeah.
This was gonna get worse before it got better.
---
I looked down at my hands. No weapons. No abilities. Just me, my hoodie, and my need to make someone pay.
That devil said I'd come back richer than any noble… if I won.
But he never said what happened if I lost.
I looked at Lira.
"You got a plan?"
"Survive the first night."
"And after that?"
"Conquer everything."