Chapter 2 Into The Green Abyss

The rain fell sideways as the plane dipped violently, swallowed by clouds as thick as smoke. Elias Kane gripped the overhead rail, knuckles white, eyes fixed on the altimeter spiraling downward. The pilot-a wiry Brazilian named Duarte with nerves of steel and a drinker's jaw-shouted something Elias didn't catch. Then came the roar. Metal screamed. The jungle reached up and took them.

When Elias woke, the sky above was choked with green. His ears rang. Blood trickled from his temple. The cockpit was crushed, the fuselage snapped in half like a child's toy. Duarte was gone-no trace but a scrap of fabric tangled in the trees and a smudge of blood on the console.

Elias didn't allow himself to mourn. Not yet.

He salvaged what he could from the wreckage: his satchel of notes and tools, a flare gun, half a water canteen, and the map-stitched from brittle parchment, monastery lore, and whispered legends. It was the only compass he had, and it pointed to the uncharted interior of the Verde Vazio-the Green Void.

There was no going back.

The jungle was not just vast. It was alive. And it did not want him there.

By day, he fought through foliage that clawed at his skin, each vine a serpent in disguise. Spiders the size of his palm watched from webs strung between trees older than cities. Birds screamed warnings from the canopy. And the rivers-oh, the rivers-seethed with piranhas and shadows that moved just beneath the surface.

By night, he lay curled on stone or root, his only lullaby the haunting roar of jaguars and the rustle of unseen things circling in the dark. He dreamt of falling. Of drowning in green. Of being forgotten.

But the map kept him moving.

Its symbols-ancient, erratic-matched natural formations only from above: a crescent-shaped gorge here, a stone that looked like a broken fang there. Slowly, the jungle began to give up its secrets. He found remnants: half-buried statues of jaguars, stairways devoured by vines, carvings hidden beneath moss like whispers under a tongue.

It wasn't just real.

It was waiting.

Then, on the sixth day, as he climbed a ridge slick with rain, Elias froze.

Across the clearing, half-shrouded in mist, a figure moved. Not a soldier. Not a local.

She stood tall and unmoving, a bow drawn in one smooth motion, arrow aimed directly at his heart.

She was wrapped in leather and vine, skin painted with blue sigils, her dark hair braided with feathers and bone. Her presence was elemental, as though the jungle had shaped her from earth and breath.

Elias raised his hands slowly, every instinct screaming not to run.

Then she spoke. Not English. Not Spanish. Something older-carved and rhythmic.

And though he couldn't understand the words, he understood the meaning.

You don't belong here.