Others are more esoteric. They speak of ancient alignments. Of submerged temples predating Polynesian navigation. Of sea gods whose names were never meant to be spoken aloud. They cite the Book of Ulu, the forbidden charts of Captain de Mornay, the vanished pages of *Codex Vix Sol*. They say the island is a seal. A prison. A gate. That the real question isn’t *where* it is— But what it’s holding *in*. And if that gate opens again, it might not close. Whatever the truth is, we may never fully know. The ocean keeps its secrets well. Satellites lie. Governments redact. Memories fade. Islands vanish. But one thing is certain: The last thing the missing crew ever transmitted wasn’t coordinates. It wasn’t a mayday call. It was a whisper. “*It’s listening back.*” The whisper was barely audible—distorted, buried in static, almost an accident. But it was there. “*It’s listening back.*” Not *we found it.* Not *we made contact.* Just… that. As if whatever they had seen wasn’t meant to be seen. As if simply *acknowledging* it was enough to invite something closer. Since then, more whispers have followed. Strange echoes picked up by deep-sea microphones off the Mariana Basin. Ultra-low frequencies that mimic whale song, but… don’t match *any* known species. Rhythms too structured. Gaps too precise. Analysts at Woods Hole tried to model the pulses and found, to their confusion, that they mapped perfectly onto Morse code timing—but contained no recognizable letters. Just a repeating loop of noise that isn’t *quite* random.