**Chapter 12: The End of the Green Abyss (part 6; part "IV")**
January 30th – February 1st, 2000
Captain Penny's POV
We had been wandering the fringes of the jungle for what felt like weeks, though the calendar insisted it had only been a few days since the last death. The sun was no longer an unfamiliar stranger hiding behind dense canopies. It now greeted us with steady light, burning gently through breaks in the thick trees.
We were at the edge—finally. After all the bloodshed. After all the screams and vanished shadows. We had made it to the borderland between nightmare and something like relief. But even as hope seeped through the cracks, a part of me refused to trust it.
I was bringing up the rear, keeping a watchful eye on the jungle behind us, while Kwame—solid, unshaken—led from the front. Every step was deliberate. No one spoke. Not after what we'd endured. Grief had its own language now, and it kept us mostly quiet.
Then—
A rustling.
A sound we'd heard far too many times.
Leaves trembled.
A shape moved.
Instinct kicked in immediately.
Kwame raised a fist—signal to halt. The group stopped mid-step, eyes darting toward the direction of the sound. Tension froze us in place like prey sensing the stalk of a predator.
"Something's there," I whispered.
Kwame turned slightly, just enough for me to see the set of his jaw. Determination. Readiness. He motioned for the others to stay down as he took slow, careful steps toward the sound.
I lifted my weapon. My heart thudded. Not again. Not at the edge. Not now.
Then—
Out of the foliage came a shape.
Then another.
And then a third.
Weapons still raised, no one moved at first. No one could believe it.
But my heart—God, my heart knew it first.
Caleb.
Bloodied, dust-covered, eyes sunken but burning with fire.
Lola.
Pregnant. Weak-legged. But alive.
And Joseph.
Carrying her—both with arms and with will.
I didn't say a word.
My hands dropped to my sides, rifle forgotten.
I rushed forward.
Others followed—stumbling, weeping, laughing.
We embraced.
I reached for Joseph, clapped his shoulder.
I turned to Lola and held her by both hands. She looked like she could crumble at any second. But in her eyes, I saw something unbreakable.
She had survived.
They all had.
We cried. We grinned. Some just sat down in disbelief.
"I thought you were gone," I murmured.
"So did we," Caleb said hoarsely, managing the shadow of a grin. "But the jungle had other plans."
We exchanged stories, sitting in a loose circle like survivors at the end of the world. Their tale was no less tragic than ours. The snake. The chase. The near-drownings. The starvation. The fear.
Joseph told me how Caleb had nearly died saving Lola from an anaconda. The way he'd turned himself into bait so she and the child could live.
I looked at Caleb again—his sunken eyes, the ragged breaths, the scars down his neck and arms. The man had nearly become a myth.
I reached out and gripped his wrist. "You've got more than a spine of steel," I said. "You've got a heart to match."
He didn't respond. Just nodded once and looked away.
That night we rested under open sky.
For the first time in weeks, no caimans circled us.
No eyes glinted in the treetops.
Just stars.
We had survived.
But fate had more to carve into us.
—
The Final Stretch
The journey after that moment felt lighter—if only by spirit.
There was still danger—still traps hidden beneath the green.
But we moved as one now.
Cohesive. United. Whole.
Even so, the jungle hadn't let go completely.
We buried two more before the trees truly opened.
The first—a man who stumbled into a trap vine and was gored by hidden spikes. It happened too fast. No time to scream.
The second—
Caleb.
It happened quietly. He hadn't said much that morning. He lagged behind a little, eyes duller than usual. When we finally stopped to drink, he sat down and whispered, "Something's not right."
A faint swelling had begun near his ankle.
One of the guards spotted it first—the two tiny puncture marks.
A scorpion sting.
And not just any—one of the jungle's deadliest. He must've stepped on it during the night.
The toxin spread fast.
Faster than we could respond.
He didn't scream. Didn't cry. He just went still in Joseph's arms.
Lola turned away, clutching her stomach.
Another grave. Another soul claimed.
But what Caleb gave us in those final days—his sacrifice, his guidance, his strength—was more than most gave in a lifetime.
We left him beneath a circle of stones, wrapped in silence and gratitude.
And we kept walking.
—
February 1st – The Jungle Opens
The next morning, as the last of our strength dwindled, we finally broke through the canopy.
Light. Full light. Sky. Air. Space.
It was overwhelming.
The trees thinned. The vines grew sparse. The dirt path beneath us turned to compact mud and then—miraculously—to prints.
Bootprints.
Human. Recent.
Kwame crouched to inspect them. We leaned in, hoping, praying.
He looked up.
"Woodcutters."
That word hit like a bell in the soul.
It meant life. It meant people. It meant a world beyond this one.
We didn't hesitate.
We followed the trail in silence—eyes red, clothes torn, hearts still thudding in disbelief.
And eventually…
We made it out.
No more jaguars.
No more snakes.
No more caimans lurking beneath dark waters.
Just the open breath of survival.
We had entered this jungle fifty strong.
We left it eight.
Recording two final deaths—including Caleb's.
But we lived.
We endured.
And for now…
We made it out.
—
---
Joseph's POV
Late January 2000 – The Fifth Day After the Anaconda
It had been five days since we last saw another human being.
Five long, hollow days since Caleb had saved Lola and nearly given his life for her. Five days since the scream of the jungle had quieted into an eerie, deceptive calm.
No jaguars.
No pumas.
No shadows moving through the leaves.
Just silence.
A silence that was somehow worse than the terror.
We'd kept moving—not just to survive, but to search. We'd been hoping, irrationally maybe, that we might stumble across the others. Maybe Ama. Maybe Penny. Maybe any of the fifteen that had broken off from us at the ravine.
But now—on this fifth day—that hope was fraying.
Lola walked with a limp, and her breathing was slower. The baby inside her was still moving, still fighting to be born. She'd told me twice now that the kicks had grown more forceful. I knew it was her body's way of bracing. Preparing.
I carried most of our supplies, which had dwindled down to little more than a bottle of river water, two torn cloths, and a makeshift satchel full of dried jungle fruit. I'd hunted small creatures, fashioned a trap or two, but even the animals had seemed to retreat somewhere deeper.
We weren't starving yet—but we were shrinking.
And the jungle wasn't helping.
---
"Joseph," Caleb said suddenly, his voice low.
We were hiking near a steep bend where moss coated the trunks like damp armor. He stopped and tilted his head.
"You hear that?"
I paused. Listened.
Then I heard it too.
Voices.
Distant. Disjointed.
Echoes bouncing across the trees in a scattered mess of syllables and panic.
Voices in distress.
I turned to Caleb and saw it—the flicker in his eyes. Hope, maybe. Or disbelief.
"You think…" he whispered.
"That it's them?" I finished for him.
We stood still, letting the sounds carry.
It wasn't clear. Too many trees. Too many echoes. But something in those voices… something felt familiar. The accents, the urgency—it didn't sound like local hunters or villagers.
It sounded like our people.
But it also sounded like fear.
Pure, visceral panic.
I didn't move.
Neither did Caleb.
Because we both knew what came next.
Ambushes in this jungle didn't announce themselves with roars or growls. They lured you with human sounds.
Sometimes real.
Sometimes not.
"How far?" I asked softly.
He squinted toward the west. "Maybe… three hundred meters?"
We stood frozen.
The sky above was graying. Twilight was folding over the horizon. If we moved now, we could reach the source before night fully swallowed us—but we'd risk exposing Lola, who by now was moving like she was balancing on glass.
"No," I said. "We wait."
He nodded reluctantly.
We watched the trees for an hour.
And then, the voices stopped.
Not faded.
Not quieted.
Stopped.
---
That night, around a low-burning fire I'd made using wet bark and damp rope, we huddled under a canopy of broad palm fronds Caleb had cut earlier that morning. The ground was soft but moist. Every hour, I heard things scuttle beneath the roots nearby.
Lola didn't sleep.
She tried, but her body refused. Every sound made her flinch. Her hands rested over her belly, calming the child within, whispering to it like a mother willing the world not to take another thing from her.
"I keep thinking," she whispered to me. "What if we're the only ones left?"
I couldn't answer.
Because I'd been asking myself the same thing since the third day.