TIMELINE

Chapter one

The group arrives at Sonny's home, a remote fishing villa dubbed 'siren island' - a name not, as the group learns, a fond nod to the mythical monster; but the chinese term for 'dead people.' The unsettling title -- which Sonny dismisses simply as racist slang -- does little to sway Joan, for her mind is plagued by other matters. Though usually reserved, she is unnervingly silent, saying nothing even when the group witnesses a ritual of senicide. Perhaps she was simply unphased by what shocked and even struck fear into others, due to her experience with historically much more gruesome practices. Maybe the intense heat and humidity, sickly and cloying, was getting to her as well. She did seem awfully pale. During the koi hunt, she lingered behind the group, fingers kneading her pockets, her eyes focuses intently on seemingly nothing. In the evening, she inquired about the possibility of a shower -- but, after looking out into the dark, hot night, something made her retract her request. Though she was restless at first, when she finally drifted off, Joan slept like the dead.

Interlude

Joan stirs early, and heads to the beach to clear her head. To her suprise, she encounters Qui Feng, hunting in the shallow water. The fisher quickly notices her, and they share a moment of tense silence. They ultimately introduce themselves and Feng threatens Joan's friends, letting her know they should stay out of her way or she'll kill them. Joan shrugs it off, but part of her wonders if Feng isn't joking. She offers Joan her harpoon, and, by beginners luck, Joan spears a small fish. She heads back to town and runs into the rest of the group, who are returning from breakfast. Ever since recieving a certain text, Joan has been especially aloof -- her friends finally confront her on avoiding them, Sonny being particularly persistant. She snaps, and explains that, in a brief moment of internet when they first arrived, she recieved a text confirming her sister, Aina, was dead. A suicide. Saying it out loud really solidified what happened, and, unable to deal with the truth, Joan retreated into her mind and said nothing else.

Chapter two

After Joan spilled her secret, the group heard a pained wail, and in seeking it out stumbled upon Sonny's coming of age festival. Despite the gruesome detail of the ceremony, Joan was unable to focus on anything except what she had just revealed. When the group learned that, as part of the tradition, they were to be hunted, Joan took any excuse to run and immediately bolted. She headed for the woods, and found a patch of shrubbery to hide in. Finally alone, she broke down, no longer able to maintain her composure. She was interrupted when she heard a scream somewhere past the thickets. In a moment of desperate delusion, she rationed that, perhaps if she could reason with Sonny and save her friends, it would make up for her failure to save Aina. Joan reaches the source and, instead of Sonny, finds Feng -- who looks frighteningly out of place in the woods with her massive fishing harpoon. Marc, who was about to become Feng's next victim, takes the opportunity to bolt. Left alone, Joan attempts to reason with Feng, suddenly realizing the other woman has genuine intent to kill her. Marc had nabbed the harpoon in his escape, so Feng pulls a knife and charges after Joan. She slips, giving Feng the sliver of a second she needed to pounce on her, and she plunges the dagger into Joan's chest. As Joan struggles to piece together what just happened, Feng grips her close enough to whisper, letting her know, with a sickening tenderness, that she isn't done with Joan just yet. This is the last bit of information Joan can process before she succumbs to blood loss, passing out. As the world slips away, she thinks of her sister.

Chapter three

Joan jolts awake in the medical wing, along with Arrosa, who is being tended to by Meng. Delirious from pain and panic, Joan searches briefly, fruitlessly, for her sister. The searing pain of the stabwound between her ribs swells with her newfound conciousness, serving as a painful shock back to reality. A genuine fear of death looms over Joan's head -- she can't help but wonder if, perhaps, the same terror filled Aina's heart before she took her own life. For a moment, Joan is closer to her sister than ever, bound by their shared pain. She finds she feels particularly sick. She attempts to stand, but crumbles back onto the bed. Meng rushes over to help her. At the stranger's touch, Joan immediately recoils, and hisses not to be touched. Meng obliges with a look of pity, like to one might cast upon a suffering animal, a final glance of consolation precursing euthanization. She asks if there is anything she can do, and, begrudgingly, Joan asks for water, the pain burning in her body overcoming her newfound fear of the islanders. Meng leaves. In the morning, Meng wakes Joan an Arrosa to take them to a festival. Both are hesitant, so Meng calls in a few men to carry them in makeshift stretcher. Joan considers struggling, but, as she could barely stand before, reluctantly holds still. They are carried to the top of the mountain. All the townsfolk have gathered around a pagoda at the center. Sonny and Benny are present, but Joan fails to find Marc in the crowd. Beside Sonny stands Baba and Feng -- the latter of which sends a shock through her system, be it pain or fear. Drumbeats rise akin to the pounding of her heart. The villagers begin to chant. The collective heat, noise, pain, naseua, and panic inhibit Joan's understanding of the ritual, but she is, miraculously, able to maintain her composure. Benny is selected as the town's heir -- shortly after which Sonny slits the throat of his predecessor. With Baba dead, Feng and Sonny begin skinning his face, arms, and legs, draping them over Benny. Joan no longer recognizes her former ally as a sick feeling settles in her gut. She cannot bring herself to speak. Arrosa, however, pipes up, and calls in desperation for Meng -- when confronted by the townsfolk, both revoke their association of eachother. Joan manages to stand on her own and, albeit painfully, joins Arrosa's side to pull her away from the spotlight. She realizes she should keep her remaining allies close. Despite successfully denying it, the supposed relations between Meng and Arrosa fuel a tension that still lingers in the air. Benny announces that, as the new Baba, his first decree is to allow homosexuality -- to which the town suprisingly agrees. Whether this was to protect Arrosa or himself, however, Joan has yet to decide.

Chapter four

Benny is offered a clear drink with blades of grass in it. Upon drinking some, he visibly shows signs of relief, indicating the serum was a sort of antivenom. He walks over and offers some to Joan who, without much choice, swallows a sip or two. He moves to do the same with Arrosa, but is forbidden by Ghost, who urges him it is against tradition. He does not challenge her and steps back. Baba's descendants announce the next ritual, which involves the act of sacrifice -- four, to be exact. A few villagers drag a bamboo gallow from the bushes, and set up buckets below the rods. They realize, now, that Marc is missing. They move to sacrifice Sonny in his place, but Benny urges they kill Ghost instead, and Sonny is returned to his arms. While this was happening, Joan manages to slink away with Arrosa -- but when she reaches the treeline, she realizes she is alone. She tries to ignore Sonny's lingering cries of panic and the bubbling of water as Ghost is boiled alive. She contemplates turning back, but realizes that, even if she did, there is nothing she could have done. By following the trail, she makes her way down to the now vacant town in hopes of finding something that could help them. She finds Marc's note and the medicinal plants he left. After chewing a few leaves to clear her head, she rummages for weapons, but finds herself increasingly panicked. The noise from her desperate foraging draws the attention of Qui Feng and a few others, who had noticed her dissapearence and sought her out. They easily overpower her and bring her back to the mountain, where Meng is standing in Joan's place. Joan tries, desperately, to convince Benny there is still good in him, and that he can't let himself be swayed by Sonny and the others. She recites the note and attempts to explain that she was trying to get something to help. Benny turns rigid, his posture unreadable. He is cold as ice. Joan, suddenly enraged by his apathy, lunges for him. The guards holding her held lightly due to her injuries, and she easily slips from their grasp, granting her a split second to latch onto Benny's ankle and bring him to the ground. In this brief altercation, Meng and Arrosa manage to wriggle out of their constraints and flee for the woods. Joan tries to remind them of the herb, but Qui Feng cuts her off with a punch in the ribs, sending her crashing to the ground. Feng continues kicking Joan with ruthless vigor, targetting her already searing wound and breaking her bones. Benny rushes over, out of pity or a need to gloat, Joan couldn't bring herself to care. Blood dripping from her mouth and nose and wheezes racking her body, she musters a last bit of strength to spit a "fuck you" in Benny's face. She knows, now, that it is over for her. She still struggles, albeit weakly, when they tie her up. Her eyes stay locked with Bennett's as she is lowered down, her head finally submerged in a boiling bucket of water. The pain is excrutiating. The lack of oxygen, the scalding heat, her broken lungs, her shattered moral. She wonders, briefly, if this is penance for Aina. Joan couldn't make her life mean anything, afterall. But it was only true to her character, in the end: She lived her life constantly fighting, constantly angry and pained, and constantly, tragically, hopelessly, alone. She died as she lived -- and part of her, at the very end, was glad that it was finally over.

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