Chap­ter 17 titled “999 Priscil­la” begins with the unex­pect­ed arrival of Lieu­tenant May on the jun­gle shore, his pres­ence bring­ing not only mil­i­tary for­mal­i­ty but also answers long await­ed. He comes from the U.S.S. New Mex­i­co, dis­patched by the Pacif­ic Fleet in response to dis­turb­ing rumors and a trail of events too strange to ignore. His orders are clear: appre­hend Doc­tor Carl von Horn, a fig­ure of inter­est whose name has stirred atten­tion for years. With reports of strange beings, vio­lent episodes, and a young girl kid­napped by whites, the sit­u­a­tion had all the mark­ings of dan­ger and inter­na­tion­al intrigue. Yet at the heart of this expe­di­tion was a man—elusive, dan­ger­ous, and now nowhere to be found. When Lieu­tenant May learns von Horn has van­ished, he insists the mis­sion con­tin­ue, offer­ing secu­ri­ty aboard the cut­ter to Pro­fes­sor Max­on and his par­ty while they fol­low the trail deep­er into the island.

Their search leads to an unset­tling scene not far inland. A Dyak native, once among von Horn’s ranks, emerges with urgency, guid­ing the lieutenant’s par­ty through a dense thick­et. There, they find von Horn’s life­less body sprawled grotesque­ly across a wood­en chest, his head miss­ing, and nature already reclaim­ing what man had left behind. The par­ty is hushed not by fear, but by the irony they are about to face. The chest—once the object of ambi­tion, theft, and bloodshed—is opened by Max­on. Inside are not jew­els or gold, but aca­d­e­m­ic jour­nals, notes on selec­tive breed­ing, and dense vol­umes on bio­log­i­cal the­o­ry. These were the seeds of von Horn’s decep­tion and ambi­tion, now worth­less in the silence of the for­est. With­out hes­i­ta­tion, Max­on orders the chest to remain buried, a sym­bol of knowl­edge per­vert­ed by ego, and the cost of chas­ing mis­guid­ed glo­ry.

As their ves­sel cuts through the sea, return­ing them to civ­i­liza­tion, the shad­ows of the island begin to lift. Vir­ginia, free from the ter­rors she endured, finds com­fort in con­ver­sa­tion with the man she believed was named Bulan—once uncer­tain, now awak­en­ing to his true self as Townsend J. Harp­er Jr. There is hes­i­tan­cy in his voice as he recounts his con­fused mem­o­ries. Though love anchored him to Vir­ginia, he feared his ori­gins. Was he an impos­tor, or worse, a crim­i­nal cast ashore? Yet as he speaks, a frag­ment of a for­got­ten phrase—spoken while delirious—triggers clar­i­ty. His name, long buried beneath trau­ma, returns to him with full aware­ness, tying togeth­er the final mys­tery. Vir­ginia lis­tens, tears mix­ing with laugh­ter, as his past becomes a map instead of a void. Her faith in him, once based on instinct, is now affirmed by truth.

Harper’s sto­ry unfolds like a con­fes­sion with­out guilt. Months before, he had heard of Vir­ginia and fell instant­ly, fool­ish­ly, in love. Her image in a pho­to­graph stirred some­thing reck­less in him. What began as roman­tic ide­al­ism turned into deter­mi­na­tion. He crossed oceans, hop­ing for a chance to meet her, not know­ing he’d lose his mem­o­ry and iden­ti­ty along the way. That per­sis­tence led him to Maxon’s island, and to the strange role he played in its chaot­ic dra­ma. Through fire and fear, he became the very hero she didn’t know she needed—only to real­ize he had once been a man of priv­i­lege who had thrown it all away for one fleet­ing glance. Harp­er doesn’t regret it. Fate had inter­vened, and what was born of infat­u­a­tion matured into deep, abid­ing love.

The chap­ter clos­es with a sense of final­i­ty, but not of loss. Those who sur­vived leave the island with more than they came for—answers, yes, but also a new under­stand­ing of love, loy­al­ty, and the line between ambi­tion and obses­sion. The jun­gle, now dis­tant, fades into mem­o­ry. The hor­rors endured, the truths uncov­ered, and the bonds formed under pres­sure form a foun­da­tion none of them expect­ed. For Vir­ginia and Harp­er, their jour­ney is just begin­ning. And for the oth­ers, the jun­gle remains—not a curse, but a cau­tion: that the human desire to cre­ate and con­trol can become mon­strous when left unchecked. Their pas­sage away from the island feels like an escape, but also like rebirth. What once was a tale of sci­ence turned sav­age has end­ed with hearts reclaimed and futures rewrit­ten.