The silence in the van was almost unnatural.
Outside the windows, the dense greenery had swallowed the road. Towering trees twisted toward the sky like giants, their branches locking together to block out most of the light. The deeper they drove, the darker it became.
"No signal. No maps. No anything," Asher muttered, tapping his phone like that would fix it. "It's like we're in a dead zone—or another dimension."
Sylvia leaned forward between the seats, chewing on a piece of gum. "This is kinda sick though. Like we're entering a forbidden level in a video game."
"Or a horror movie," Blair muttered, hugging her guitar case a little tighter.
Zora turned in her seat to face Enzo, who hadn't spoken since they took that last turn off the main highway—onto a road none of them remembered planning. "Okay, spill it. That map you showed earlier? Where'd you get it?"
Enzo hesitated. His fingers were gripping the edges of the worn parchment like it was alive. "I found it a few weeks ago. At the Brooklyn Public Library. Deep in the archives, back behind the closed stacks."
Asher turned halfway in his seat. "You were in the closed stacks?"
Enzo nodded slowly. "I was researching ancient civilizations for my archaeology thesis. I stumbled across this rolled-up document inside an old donation box. No barcode, no classification. Just... there."
He unrolled the map across the van's dashboard.
The paper was old, nearly crumbling at the edges. Hand-drawn routes curled and swirled across it like veins, marked in ink that shimmered faintly under the shifting light. But what really got everyone's attention was the symbol in the center.
A city.
Circular, layered like a spiral. Surrounded by thick forest. And across the top, scrawled in a language none of them recognized, was one word burned into the parchment:
KEITHA.
Zora blinked. "That's not English. Or Latin. What language is that?"
"I tried running it through every app I know," Enzo said. "Nothing matched. I even scanned it through some archaeological AI filters. Nothing. It's like... it predates language as we know it."
"Why didn't you tell us before?" Athena asked from the back, her sketchbook forgotten in her lap.
"Because I didn't think it was real," he admitted. "I just thought it looked cool. Until now."
Asher squinted at the roads. "So you think this is where we are right now?"
"I don't think," Enzo said. "I know. Look—this curve, this fork, that weird U-turn? They match exactly what we've driven so far."
Ace leaned forward, pulling his sunglasses down slightly. "Okay but like... how does an ancient map show modern roads?"
No one had an answer.
Just then, the engine sputtered.
The van slowed.
"Wait, what's happening?" Blair asked, her voice a little too high.
"Don't panic," Asher said quickly, eyes flicking to the fuel gauge. "We have gas. Battery's fine. It's not the car."
The van shuddered once... then stopped completely.
They were surrounded on all sides by jungle—thick, dense, alive. Shadows moved between the trees, although nothing was there.
"Okay, now we panic," Blair muttered.
Axel jumped out first, motioning for everyone to follow. "Stay close."
They gathered around the van as Enzo laid the map across the hood. "According to this," he pointed, "we're here. Right on the border of the outer ring."
"Outer ring of what?" Sylvia asked.
"Keitha," Enzo whispered. "The city. If this map is real, we're just a few miles from something no one has ever documented. It shouldn't exist. But it's here."
Ace pulled out his phone again. "Still no signal. Like we fell off the Earth."
Zora looked around. The jungle seemed... too still. Not quiet, exactly—there were sounds: distant bird calls, wind shifting leaves—but no normality. No bugs buzzing. No breeze.
And then... she saw it.
Off the road, behind a cluster of thick vines, there was something strange—like stone. Just a glimpse. Covered in moss. Too perfectly shaped to be natural.
"Guys..." she pointed, already moving toward it. "Come look at this."
They pushed through the underbrush, hands parting vines sticky with dew. The forest opened into a small clearing—and there it was.
A massive stone doorway. Circular. Covered in carvings none of them could read. It was half-buried in earth, like it had been sleeping for centuries.
"Tell me that's not giving ancient temple vibes," Athena breathed.
Enzo stepped closer. "This... this is it. This is a gate."
"To what?" Axel asked.
"To Keitha," Enzo whispered. "I think we just found the entrance."