Chapter Twelve: Breaking
The laughter turned into sobs.
Maya sank to her knees on the gravel and let it out—all the fear, all the exhaustion, all the tightly-wound terror of the last three days. She cried until her ribs hurt, until her throat was raw, until there was nothing left.
And then she stood up.
Because the thing was still out there.
She could feel it. Not see it. Not hear it. But feel it—a presence in the dark, watching from some place just out of reach.
It didn't kill you because you stopped being afraid.
The thought settled into her bones.
Fear was heat. Panic was a beacon. But calm—control—was invisible.
Maya wiped her face and looked out over the jungle.
The river was maybe two kilometers south. If she followed it downstream, she'd hit the extraction point by dawn. The coordinates were burned into her memory: 02°14'S, 77°53'W. A clearing. A dirt strip. Enough room for a helicopter.
If anyone was still looking.
She started walking.
Chapter Thirteen: Cold Water
The river was wider than she expected.
It cut through the jungle in a broad, lazy curve, the water dark and quick over smooth stones. The banks were steep—slick red clay studded with roots—and the sound of it drowned out everything else. A white-noise roar that made her feel small and safe and hidden.
Maya stood at the edge and stared down.
The water was cold. She could see that from the way the mist curled off the surface. Cold enough to drop her core temperature. Cold enough to make her disappear.
She hesitated.
If you go in, you might not come out.
The current was strong. The rocks slick. And she hadn't eaten in eighteen hours.
But behind her, upslope, she heard it.
Click.
Maya didn't look back.
She stepped into the river.
The cold hit like a punch.
It crushed the air from her lungs and set every nerve on fire. Her legs went numb instantly. Her fingers locked. She gasped and stumbled and caught herself on a rock, the current dragging at her hips.
Move. Keep moving.
She waded deeper.
The water climbed to her waist. Her chest. Her shoulders.
And then the current took her.
Maya didn't fight it. She let the river carry her, arms out, legs trailing, face tilted toward the stars. The cold wrapped around her like a blanket. Her pulse slowed.
Thud... ... ... thud... ... ... thud...
She was water. She was stone.
She was nothing.
The river carried her for maybe half a kilometer before spitting her out onto a sandbar. She crawled onto the shore and collapsed, lungs heaving, skin grey in the starlight.
And when she looked back—
There.
On the ridge above the river.
The shape.
It stood at the edge, perfectly still, watching her.
Not hunting.
Just... watching.
Maya raised one hand. A small gesture. Acknowledgment.
The shape tilted its head.
And then it was gone.
Chapter Fourteen: Extraction Point
Dawn came slowly.
The sky shifted from black to purple to the pale gold of morning, and the jungle woke around her in stages. Birds first, then insects, then the distant howl of monkeys claiming territory.
Maya stood on shaking legs and looked downriver.
Half a kilometer. Maybe less.
She could see it through the trees—the clearing. The dirt strip. The rusted windsock hanging limp in the still air.
Empty.
No helicopter. No rescue team.
But there was smoke.
A thin grey thread rising from somewhere past the clearing. Not a wildfire. Too controlled. Too small.
Someone's there.
Maya started walking.
Her legs felt like wood. Every step was a negotiation with gravity. The flight suit hung off her frame, stiff with dried mud and river water, and her skin was blistered from the sun. But she walked.
Because the alternative was stopping.
And stopping was dying.
The clearing opened up ahead—a raw scar in the jungle, maybe fifty meters across. The dirt strip ran east-west, churned and pitted with rain damage. At the far end sat a cargo container, doors hanging open.
And in front of it: a fire.
Maya stopped at the tree line.
A figure sat beside the flames. Small. Hunched. Human.
"Torres?" Her voice came out as a croak.
The figure turned.
It wasn't Torres.
Chapter Fifteen: The Survivor
The man was old—sixty, maybe seventy—with skin like leather and eyes that had seen too much. He wore faded military fatigues and a UN patch on his shoulder, the blue barely visible beneath layers of grime. A rifle lay across his lap.
He stared at Maya for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
"You made it," he said. His voice was rough. American. Southern drawl. "Didn't think anyone would."
Maya stumbled forward and collapsed by the fire.
The man handed her a canteen. She drank without asking what was in it. Water. Clean. Cold.
"How long have you been here?" she asked.
"Here?" The man shrugged. "Three days. Out here?" He gestured at the jungle. "Fourteen years."
Maya's stomach dropped.
"You're—"
"Ramirez. Staff Sergeant. UN Peacekeeping Mission, 2011." He poked the fire with a stick. "I was part of the team that called in the last report. The one nobody listened to."
"The fuel depot."
Ramirez nodded.
"You read the notebook."
"What's left of it."
The old man was quiet for a while. Then he said: "You saw it, didn't you?"
Maya didn't need to ask what he meant.
"Yeah."
"And it let you go."
"Yeah."
Ramirez smiled again. It wasn't a happy smile.
"Then you passed."
Chapter Sixteen: The Truth
"It's not a predator," Ramirez said. "Not the way we think of them."
He fed another stick into the fire and watched the flames climb.
"It hunts, yeah. But not for food. Not for territory. It hunts for... sport. Challenge. Honor, maybe. I don't know the word." He looked at Maya. "You ever hunt?"
"No."
"Me neither. Not before I came here. But I learned." He tapped his temple. "The thing about hunting—real hunting—is you don't kill everything you see. You pick your target. Something worthy. Something that makes the hunt matter."
Maya's throat was dry again. "And if you're not worthy?"
"Then you're not worth killing."
The words hung in the air.
"The others," Maya said quietly. "Your team. Were they—"
"Afraid." Ramirez cut her off. "Panicked. Running. Shooting at shadows." He shook his head. "Fear makes you bright. Makes you loud. And when you're loud, you're prey."
"But you weren't."
"I was terrified." He laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "But I was also curious. I wanted to understand. So instead of running, I... stopped. Sat down. Watched." He looked at Maya. "And it watched back."
"Why didn't it kill you?"
"Because I wasn't prey anymore. I was something else." He paused. "A witness, maybe."
Maya stared into the fire.
"It's still here," Ramirez said. "In the jungle. Always has been. Maybe always will be." He stood slowly, joints popping. "Helicopter's coming at 08:00. You should rest."
"You're not coming?"
The old man looked out at the jungle. His expression was unreadable.
"I've been out here fourteen years," he said. "Waited every day for rescue. And now that it's here..." He trailed off. Shook his head. "Some part of me doesn't want to leave. Doesn't want to go back to a world that doesn't know what's really out there."
He picked up his rifle and slung it over his shoulder.
"Besides," he said. "Someone should stay. Keep watch. Make sure nobody else wanders in unprepared."
He walked to the edge of the clearing and stopped.
"You did good, kid. Stayed calm. Stayed smart. That's the only way to survive."
And then he was gone—swallowed by the jungle like he'd never been there at all.
Maya sat by the fire until she heard the helicopter.