Although the sea breeze left them shivering, the spot offered a good view of most of the island, allowing them to spot any enemies as soon as they appeared.
The island was small to begin with, and it was now the dead of night. Its few residents had long since gone to bed, leaving an unusual stillness in the air.
"Doesn't something feel off?" Xiao Ran asked, looking around.
"It's too quiet. Even if there aren't any seabirds, there should at least be insects chirping!" Yun Mengqiu said grimly.
"So have we already walked into an ambush?" Veranica asked.
"I wouldn't call it an ambush. Maybe there's something strange about the island itself?" Xiao Ran ventured.
"Something strange about the island itself?" Veranica startled. Hearing that in the middle of the night was genuinely a little frightening.
"Could it be Ghost-type Pokémon?" Yun Mengqiu suggested. She had encountered plenty of supposedly supernatural incidents, but they had really just been Ghost-type Pokémon causing mischief.
"It's possible, but it doesn't quite feel like that!"
Xiao Ran closed his eyes and carefully sensed everything around him. There was an inexplicably familiar presence here.
"It's pitch-black out there. How can you tell what it does or doesn't look like?" Veranica said exasperatedly, pointing toward the island.
The strange occurrence seemed to have temporarily distracted her from the sadness of leaving home alone.
The island was so dark that they could see nothing but black silhouettes of trees swaying in the sea breeze. They couldn't even make out any houses.
"I meant the presence, not the appearance!" Xiao Ran opened his eyes and solemnly gestured toward the crescent moon in the sky.
"The moonlight is so bright, and the stars are so brilliant, yet this island is terrifyingly dark. Does that seem normal to you?"