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Chapter 12: Terrors of the Amazon IV (Part 6; part 3)
Captain Penny's POV
January 2000 – Riparian Zone, Edge of the Ravine
We were still at the riparian zone—that damp, deceptive stretch where the jungle pretends to be calm. The ravine beside us gurgled quietly, its waters smooth and silver in the dying light. Birds had stopped chirping. The air was still. And in that stillness, we let ourselves believe—just for a moment—that we were safe.
We weren't.
Dusk fell like a warning.
That's when it happened.
First, it was just a sound.
A splash. Subtle. Dismissible.
Then a scream—short, sharp, and silenced halfway through.
Someone was gone.
We didn't see who. We didn't know how. But we heard it.
Dragged.
Into the water.
The silence that followed was louder than the scream.
We froze. Every single one of us. Our makeshift group of twenty-five. Survivors huddled together by a fire that was losing its heat.
Then another splash.
Another scream.
Then panic.
"WHAT IS THAT?!"
"It's in the water—something's in the water!"
That was when we saw them—black caimans, long and glistening, sliding back beneath the river's surface. Their tails whipped up as they disappeared, and a boot—someone's boot—floated briefly before sinking.
I didn't even have time to order calm.
Because by then, we were moving.
Running.
"RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" I shouted.
The words tasted bitter in my mouth.
Not orders. Not tactics. Just primal desperation.
The camp at the ravine erupted. People stumbled over each other, grabbing anything within reach—machetes, packs, flashlights. Some dove into the brush, others bolted blindly into trees.
A woman screamed—her voice cracked in terror—and then silence. The woman with the broken leg. We had tried to carry her. We'd told her she'd be okay.
But the caimans didn't care about promises.
Her cry pierced me like a blade. I'd promised I wouldn't leave anyone behind. But now, I couldn't even save myself.
In less than five minutes, ten of us were gone.
Ten.
Gone to the water.
To the teeth that had waited in the shallows.
Kwame was the only one who fired a shot—two, actually—but it did little. A loud bang, a flash of flame, and then nothing. The caimans didn't even flinch. They knew how to stalk. How to wait. How to outlast panic.
By the time we regrouped, we were fifteen—and only just.
Ama was among us, trembling, her face pale as ash. Kwame was bleeding from a gash near his ear. The rest were just as broken. Scratched. Bitten. Torn down to raw fear.
We huddled beneath the trees like children in a storm.
"Keep moving," I said. My voice was quieter now, but hard as bone. "We move at first light."
No one questioned me.
We couldn't stay. The ravine was a trap. A grave in waiting.
We had escaped one predator only to walk into the jaws of another.
The Amazon was never finished with us.
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The Days That Followed
Each day after the ravine felt longer than the last.
We thought the worst was behind us.
But we were wrong.
The jungle isn't just about beasts. It's about details.
A single wrong step.
A plant that brushes skin too long.
A spider in your boot.
And then—another body down.
One man—Samuel—died just after breakfast on the second day. He'd eaten a fruit that looked like mango but was laced with neurotoxins. He was dead before the sun hit its peak.
We buried him beneath palm leaves. We didn't have time for prayers.
The next night, Kwame found one of the women—Ngozi—lying near a tree, her body stiff with venom. A scorpion sting to the ankle. She hadn't even screamed. Just slipped away while we slept.
I didn't know what was worse—the death or the quietness of it.
We were dwindling.
Twenty-five had become fifteen.
Then ten.
And then eight.
People were breaking not just in body but in spirit. You could see it in their eyes. Like their minds had already left, and their bodies were just shadows pretending to survive.
Ama had started whispering to herself at night.
I heard her once.
"Maybe we never left the water," she said. "Maybe this is still the river, and we're drowning slowly."
I didn't answer her.
Because sometimes I wondered the same thing.
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The Fourth Night
We'd made it to higher ground—rocky terrain above the flooding zone. Less water meant fewer caimans, but now we were exposed to snakes, tarantulas, and whatever else made its home in the branches above.
We couldn't win.
Not here.
One man stepped on a pit viper. It didn't even give him time to shout. Just bit. And left.
He bled for an hour before he went still. His face looked calm, like he'd finally found peace.
We didn't stop to bury him.
We couldn't.
Kwame and I barely spoke anymore.
Our eyes did all the talking. We were both exhausted. We were both watching everything die around us.
But we still moved.
Still fought.
Still hoped.
Eight of us were left.
Only eight.
Out of fifty.
And the jungle was still whispering our names.
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Now
I sit beneath a fallen log, using it as shelter while the others rest. I sharpen the tip of a broken spear with a jagged rock, my hands moving in rhythm with my breath.
I try not to think about what comes next.
But I know one thing:
The jungle is not done with us.
Not yet.
And if we let our guard down even once more, there won't be eight left tomorrow.
There will be none.
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