Forbidden Worlds #54 (1957)

In a gritty post-prison life, ex-con Rick Harris stumbles upon a mysterious sorcerer named Moritius, who offers him a chance to make wishes through a magical pentagon—five lines, five wishes, but the catch is that completing the final line binds his soul to the sorcerer. Drawn in by the promise of instant wealth, Rick uses his first two wishes to gain a million dollars and exact revenge on a rival, living lavishly and feeling invincible—until his fortune begins to dwindle and the price of his freedom grows ever closer.

Dr. James, a young idealist, arrives in Haiti to build a hospital in the jungle, determined to defeat the local superstition of voodoo with modern medicine. After two decades of failing to cure his patients and facing the relentless power of the mystic Mere Karana, he realizes he must confront her not with science, but with a desperate act of faith—using hypnosis to trick his own mind into believing he’s cured.

In the South Seas, botanists Emil Sumner and Kurt Hagen are drawn to a forbidden island said to have fallen from the sky, lured by the promise of impossible plant life. As they explore the lush, lifeless terrain, they soon discover the island’s soil is alive—rooting anything it touches, including their shoes and even a buried ruby ring. With their boat now trapped and their feet stuck in the ground, they barely escape, but the mystery of the island’s alien ecosystem only deepens.