---
Two days earlier
Just after the anaconda incident—we'd found a cluster of torn fabric hanging from a low branch. A corner of someone's tent. Caleb recognized the fabric. Said it was Ama's.
But there was no blood.
No bones.
Just a strip of nylon flapping in the breeze.
We called out, softly, carefully.
No one answered.
That night we'd heard the voices for the first time—those cries in the darkness.
And the next day, silence again.
The jungle was toying with us.
Not by hunting us.
But by isolating us.
---
By day five, our faces were thinner.
Caleb walked slower.
His eyes were growing glassy.
"I had a dream," he said, without warning, while we were resting midday. "I saw water. Clear. With sunlight on the surface. I saw us there."
I nodded. "You sure it wasn't memory?"
He smiled faintly. "Don't know anymore."
We didn't laugh.
The jungle had taken our laughter too.
---
That evening, as the birds gave one last shriek before surrendering to dusk, we came upon a stream—a real one this time. Not one muddied or brackish. Clear, fresh, and humming with movement.
We knelt to drink. I splashed it over Lola's face.
She smiled weakly.
Caleb took a deep breath and said, "We keep moving tonight. Even slow. We keep going."
He was right.
This jungle didn't just kill with claws.
It killed with waiting.
With stillness.
---
That night, I sat watch while Lola slept.
She curled against a fallen tree, her hands over her belly. Her breath was calm for once. Peaceful, almost.
Caleb sat next to me, machete across his lap.
"I think they're still out there," he said. "The others."
I nodded. "So do I."
He turned to me. "You think we'll find them?"
I didn't answer right away.
But eventually, I said what we both needed to believe.
"Yes."
Even if it was a lie.
Because sometimes, lies are all you have left to keep walking.
And right now, that was enough.
We weren't just surviving anymore.
We were enduring.
And we weren't done yet.
Not until the jungle said so.
—
---
Joseph's POV – The End of the Green Abyss
April 5th, 2000 – Leaving the Amazon
It had been five days since we last saw signs of another human being. Five days of silence and aching uncertainty. Five days of wandering the edge of the green abyss, hoping for life but preparing for death.
Every crack of twigs. Every rustle of leaves. Every gust of wind sent our eyes darting. But no voices. No rescue. Just the three of us—Lola, Caleb, and me—moving forward like shadows with purpose.
Each day felt heavier.
Each night, longer.
We tried calling out, softly, never loud enough to provoke the wrong ears. Not in a place like this. But there were no answers. Only the thick, humming silence of the Amazon's breath around us.
Until one dusk—
We heard it.
Footsteps.
Somewhere ahead, someone—or something—was moving.
Caleb instinctively took point from me, machete clutched, shoulders taut. I let him. He needed this moment of protection, as much for himself as for us. He stepped forward through the brush, parting vines and overgrown roots, when he suddenly stopped.
I saw his eyes widen—not in fear.
In disbelief.
Then a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Out of the dense tangle ahead, a figure emerged.
Kwame.
Solid. Familiar. Alive.
Behind him was a group—thin, scratched, dusted in despair, but unmistakably survivors. And standing among them—
Captain Penny.
She looked at Caleb and me like ghosts had just walked out of the jungle. For a moment, no one moved. Then joy cracked the frozen air like sunlight after a storm.
We ran.
We embraced.
We didn't need words.
In this place, being alive was enough.
We reunited under the fading light, sharing our stories in broken murmurs—sorrows over lost comrades, awe over what each of us had faced. Lola and Ama clung to each other, their reunion quiet but powerful, two women who had endured what would shatter many.
Not everyone had made it. The jungle had claimed its price.
We walked together again, one group—bruised, battered, but whole enough to hope.
But hope, in this jungle, was always fragile.
Because fate wasn't done with us yet.
—
Caleb's Final Days
It was two days later that Caleb began to slow. He hadn't said anything at first, but we noticed the sweat, the shallow breaths, the way he cradled his ankle.
A sting.
Something small. He hadn't thought much of it—until the burning spread up his leg.
A scorpion.
The same jungle that had taken so many had marked him next.
He tried to keep going, insisted he'd be fine. But the poison worked fast. His words slurred. His balance faltered. And finally, he collapsed beside a tree.
We circled him. No one wanted to accept what was coming.
I took his hand.
He squeezed weakly.
"No regrets," he whispered.
I nodded, tears burning behind my eyes. "You saved us."
He smiled. "Then it was worth it."
And then, slowly, gently—he was gone.
We buried him with a blade in hand, like a warrior.
And continued forward.
He had earned our survival with his final breath.
—
Out of the Amazon
The morning after we buried Caleb, we heard it.
A truck engine.
At first, we thought it was imagination—a fantasy born of fatigue. But no. It came again.
Closer. Real. Human.
Captain Penny rushed forward, waving her arms as we all stumbled toward the sound. Kwame shouted for them to stop, and with her limited Portuguese, Penny pleaded desperately to the driver for help.
To our amazement—
The truck stopped.
It was a woodcutter—a local man, rugged, sun-darkened, stunned by the sight of us: mud-covered, thin, haggard… survivors.
He helped us climb aboard without hesitation.
That moment—climbing into that truck—was the first time I truly felt it:
We were free.
—
Belém – Port of Farewell
On April 5th, 2000, we arrived at the port of Belém—a place that now felt like the gateway to a new life. There, under the faded sky, we hugged and cried.
We said our goodbyes to Kwame, to Ama, and to Captain Penny, whose leadership had helped carry us from the edge of death into the dawn.
Their roads were different from ours.
But their stories… would always be part of us.
And then—
It was just the two of us again.
Lola and me.
—
The Promise and the Kiss
She stood beside me on the dock, her hands resting over the swell of her belly. Three months along now. A growing life inside her. A heart that beat because we had fought through fire and claw and venom to protect it.
I looked at her.
She looked at me.
The breeze from the ocean lifted strands of her hair across her cheek. Her lips trembled—not from fear, but from something far deeper.
Joy.
"You ready?" I asked softly.
She nodded.
Tears rimmed her eyes, but her smile was unwavering.
I took her hands in mine.
"Let's go to the USA," I whispered.
She pressed a kiss against my lips—slow, lingering, tender.
And I kissed her back, with everything I had left to give.
It wasn't just survival anymore.
It was love.
It was rebirth.
We had come from fire, and now we stood in the glow of a new beginning.
That kiss—it wasn't goodbye to the jungle.
It was hello to the future.
It was a promise.
That our love would outlast the pain.
That we would rebuild.
That our child would grow up not knowing the horrors we faced—but only the strength we carried through them.
And that, somehow, would make it all worth it.
---
THE END OF CHAPTER
(But not the end of the journey...)