Chapter Five: The Clearing
By midday, Maya had made it two kilometers.
The terrain sloped upward, the jungle thinning as the ground shifted from loam to volcanic rock. The trees here were shorter, their roots clinging to cracks in the stone, and the canopy opened enough to let shafts of white sunlight knife down through the leaves. The air was hotter. Drier. The humidity a weight on her shoulders.
She stopped at a rocky outcrop and checked her bearings.
The beacon was still transmitting—red light pulsing every three seconds—but the battery indicator had dropped into the yellow. Maybe twelve hours left. Maybe less.
She allowed herself one sip of water and kept moving.
The trail—if it could still be called that—wound between boulders and over root-choked gullies. Maya followed it because it was the only option, but the further she went, the more wrong it felt. Game trails meandered. They followed water, or food, or the path of least resistance.
This one ran straight.
She stopped at the edge of a clearing and crouched low.
The space ahead was roughly circular, maybe thirty meters across, and the ground was scorched. Not recently—the ash was cold, the vegetation already creeping back in—but the char patterns were unmistakable. Too even to be a wildfire. Too contained to be natural.
In the center of the clearing sat a rusted fuel drum.
Maya's stomach tightened.
She scanned the trees. Nothing moved.
Military outpost? Drug runners?
She stepped into the clearing, knife in hand.
The drum was pocked with bullet holes and streaked with rust, but the stenciling on the side was still visible: UN PEACEKEEPING -- 2011.
Fourteen years old.
The jungle should have reclaimed this place by now. Vines should've wrapped the drum. Moss should've buried the ash. But the clearing was maintained. Deliberate. Like something had been coming back.
Maya turned slowly, scanning the tree line.
The jungle stared back.
And then she saw the bones.
Chapter Six: The Message
They were piled at the base of a strangler fig, half-buried in the leaf litter. Femurs. Ribs. A skull cracked open at the crown. The bones were old—bleached white, picked clean—but they hadn't been scattered by scavengers. They'd been arranged.
Stacked.
Maya's throat closed.
She backed away slowly, eyes on the pile, and her heel caught on something soft.
She looked down.
A pack. Military-grade, U.S. issue, the straps rotted through. She knelt and unzipped it with shaking hands.
Inside: a waterlogged notebook, a canteen, a flare gun with one round left.
She took the flare gun.
The notebook was swollen and illegible, the pages fused into a solid brick of pulp. But on the inside cover, someone had scrawled a message in permanent marker:
DON'T RUN. DON'T HIDE.IT SEES HEAT.
Maya's pulse spiked.
Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
She stuffed the flare gun into her belt and stood.
The jungle was still watching.
And this time, she knew it.
Chapter Seven: The Mud
She found the mud pool an hour later.
It sat at the bottom of a ravine, fed by a thin trickle of runoff from the rocks above. The water was brown and thick, the surface scummed with algae and dead insects. It smelled like sulfur and iron.
Maya didn't hesitate.
She stripped off the flight suit and waded in.
The mud was cold. It sucked at her legs, swallowed her to the waist, coated her skin in a slick brown film. She scooped handfuls over her shoulders, her neck, her face. Worked it into her hair. Smeared it across every inch of exposed skin until she looked like the rocks around her.
Camouflage. Scent suppression. Thermal masking.
If it sees heat, then I'll disappear.
She crouched low and waited.
The jungle hummed.
Minutes passed.
And then—click.
Maya's blood turned to ice.
Click-click.
Close. Maybe ten meters. Upslope, past the rocks.
She sank deeper into the mud, mouth just above the waterline, eyes scanning the ridge.
Nothing.
Click.
Five meters.
She could hear it now—not just the clicking, but the weight. Something heavy displacing air. Footsteps that didn't quite touch the ground.
And then, through the vines at the edge of the ravine, she saw it.
Not the whole thing. Just a shape.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Moving with a smooth, predatory gait that didn't belong to any animal she knew.
It stopped at the edge of the ravine.
Maya held her breath.
The shape tilted its head.
And even though she couldn't see its face—couldn't see anything except the vague outline of something wrong—she knew it was looking at her.
Not at the ravine.
At her.
Directly at her.
Through the mud. Through the water. Through the stone.
It sees heat.
Maya's heart was a drum.
Thud-thud. Thud-thud. Thud-thud.
The shape watched her for five seconds.
Ten.
Then it turned and walked away.
Maya stayed in the mud until the sun started to set.