Diego stood before the handful of able-bodied survivors. His voice, though quiet, cut through the miserable silence of the shelter. He spoke not of a guess or a hope, but of a certainty. He described the hidden glade, the sweet cupuaçu fruit, and the clean spring water as if he were looking at them at that very moment.
Skepticism clouded the faces of the two best remaining hunters, a man named Kael and his sister, Nala. They were pragmatic, their belief system rooted in the tangible world of spear and blowgun, not in the visions of a grief-stricken boy.
"A dream, Diego," Kael said, his voice gentle but firm. "Grief plays tricks on the mind."
"It was not a dream," Elara's voice cut in from the shadows. She had risen and now stood beside Diego, her ancient eyes fixed on Kael. "The world is dreaming a new, terrible dream around us. To survive it, we must learn to dream back." She placed a hand on Diego's shoulder. "I trust the forest's son. You should too."
Her endorsement, and the undeniable desperation of their situation, was enough. Kael and Nala exchanged a look, and then nodded. Their small party of four, armed with crude spears and a shared, fragile hope, slipped out from behind the curtain of vines and back into the alien jungle.
The world Diego had once navigated by sight and sound was gone. Now, he walked with his eyes half-closed, his head tilted as if listening to a distant song. He followed the thread of pure, clean energy he had felt in his vision, a lifeline in a corrupted world.
"This way," he'd murmur, leading them away from a patch of oddly beautiful, glistening fungi. As they passed, Kael saw the fungi twitch, and the skeleton of a capuchin monkey lying half-dissolved at its base. Another time, Diego froze, holding up a hand. "Wait." A moment later, a pack of peccaries, their hides covered in bony spurs and their eyes glowing a faint red, thundered through the undergrowth on a path that would have trampled them.
He was not just guiding them; he was navigating the very currents of life and death that now flowed through the jungle.
They were halfway to the glade when the symphony of the forest went silent. It was a sudden, unnatural deadness that raised the hair on their arms. Diego's new sense screamed a warning, a sharp, piercing note of pain and predatory hunger.
From the canopy above, it dropped. It was a jaguar, but its coat was a shifting, liquid pattern of leaves and shadow, a perfect, living camouflage. Its fangs were too long, dripping a black, viscous venom that sizzled when it hit the damp earth. It landed without a sound and lunged for Nala.
There was no time to think. Kael screamed her name, raising his spear. But Diego was already moving, acting on pure instinct. He slammed his palm against the trunk of a massive ironwood tree.
He didn't know what he was doing, only that he was pouring his will, his desperate need to protect, into the wood. The ground at the jaguar's feet erupted. A thick, gnarled root, thick as a python, whipped up from the soil, ensnaring the creature's hind legs. It crashed to the ground with a snarled roar, its camouflage flickering and failing.
In that single moment of surprise, Kael's spear found its mark.
They reached the glade minutes later, their hearts still pounding. It was exactly as Diego had seen it. A small circle of serenity in a world gone mad. The cupuaçu hung heavy from the branches, and the spring bubbled with water so clear it seemed to hum with life.
As Nala and Kael hastily gathered the life-saving fruit, Diego walked to the edge of the glade. The immediate crisis of thirst and hunger was over, but this was not a victory. It was a reprieve. He closed his eyes, listening past the gentle song of the glade, and felt for the discordant note of their enemy.
It was still there, a cold, hateful thrum in the distance. The serpent. It was waiting. And Diego knew, with a certainty that chilled him to the bone, that they could not hide from it forever. Sooner or later, the forest would demand a fight.