The Amazon

"No, Shia! Don't go in there! It's not safe! "I was trying to chase him down, to keep him from going after the one thing he's been after. I didn't know why, but I knew I had to. The hallway was of a familiar factory, but not the one before. "No! It's a trick!" I screamed after him. I watched him go into the room, "No!" I cried out helplessly.

~

I awoke with a start, my head pounding in pain. I knew not where I was or who I was with. However, I did know one thing: I was getting very annoyed by waking up in different places. My vision was blurry, and I couldn't see at all. I could hear birds chirping, and the smell of fresh plants invaded my nose. My whole body ached, and I could barely suck air into my battered lungs.

"I heard a groan behind me that sounded an awful lot like Shia. I rolled over and lifted my head to see that it was Shia. He was stretched out on a thick branch of the hugest tree I had ever seen. Shia groaned again, rolled off the branch, and landed softly on a pile of green fronds. I thought to myself that I'd always wanted to go to the rainforest. Well, here I am I managed to get on my hands and knees. I crawled towards Shia, my body protesting with every inch forward.

"Are you ok?" I asked as I peered down into his pale face. His eyes were closed, and his breaths were slow and shallow. I shook him gently by the shoulder. He wasn't opening his eyes. I placed two fingers on his neck. His pulse was super fast; I had completely forgotten what that meant.

"Shia, come on, wake up!" I whined. I didn't know what to do. I looked down at him…that's weird, I thought. He was clean-shaven, and his clothes were different. He was wearing a short-sleeved blue shirt and blue jeans. I looked down at myself to see I was wearing the same jeans and shirt as we were in the desert. Interesting. Someone had taken great pains to take care of him. It made me slightly uncomfortable to see that his clothes had been changed. If they could do that, what else did they do? True, I was slightly jealous, but now was not the time to worry about it. I needed to get him awake so we could figure this out.

The forest was dim and humid. I imagined that we weren't in the states anymore. The only rainforest that I could think of was the Amazon. Surely we weren't all the way in Brazil?

"Shia?" I asked plaintively. He didn't stir. I sat down and pulled his head into my lap. Absentmindedly I threaded my fingers through his hair. I looked around at the trees and great leafy ferns, and twisting vines. If this wasn't creepy, I didn't know what was. A small tree frog caught my eye. It was brilliantly orange and blue. Its presence alone determined my worst fears.

"You're touching my hair." Shia said from out of nowhere. I nearly jumped, forgetting that he was on my lap. I smiled and looked down at him, stopping my methodic tousling of his soft hair.

"You're ok!" I exclaimed. I fought the urge to hug him. First, it would have been doubly awkward for him and myself; second, I couldn't move, and third, I was pretty sure he was hurting too.

"Please tell me we're back in L. A.", Shia muttered, closing his eyes.

"Sorry, but it looks like we're in the middle of the Amazon," I said quietly.

"I figured as much," Shia said without opening his eyes.

"I'm serious, Shia."

"Oh, don't worry, so am I. Right now, I'm going to take a well-deserved nap, if you don't mind." Shia said with a well-placed smirk on his face.

"Yeah, sure," I said. We sat there in that position for a while longer. Although it was starting to become awkward now that he was awake, I didn't care. My hero was literally in my arms. At least it wasn't in a bad condition, like if he was wounded. I hope nothing like that happens, I thought to myself.

"This is kind of nice," Shia commented a minute later.

"Um, ok?"

"No, I mean if we didn't have some crazed maniac after us. This is a far stretch from the hassles of my life. Shoot, I've never been on a vacation for longer than a day and a half!" Shia chuckled to himself at some joke that I couldn't fathom.

"Really? Weren't you in the middle of a movie shoot?" I asked him.

"Well, yeah, but they can take a break. After all, if we are in the middle of the Amazon, we have no choice but to play this…this…game of whoever it is that has us," Shia answered.

"I don't think you'll die, but I'm pretty sure I'm not liked," I commented dryly.

"I dunno; besides the obvious, why do you say that?"

"Well, in however long it's been since the desert and the facility building, you've had your clothes changed, and your face shaved," I said.

Shia's eyes opened up. His eyes were bluer than anything in his blue shirt and the dim light. He reached a hand toward his face and felt from neck to cheekbone.

"Can you help me up? I dunno what's wrong with my back, but it feels like I landed on it hard or something…." I nodded, put my arms under his shoulders, and helped him sit up. I gently wiped the leaves and dirt off his back and helped him lean against a tree trunk.

"Wow, this isn't weird at all," Shia said in a sarcastic tone as he studied his clothes.

I stretched my aching body and stood up, leaving Shia at the tree. I went to the branch he had been on and noticed a brown knapsack. I tugged it out of its crevice and went back to Shia.

"Not another cell phone, please," Shia murmured.

I sat down in front of him and opened the bag. It seemed brand new. I tilted it upside down and poured the contents at our feet. There was on silvery, thin contact container, a bottle of cleaning solution, a first aid kit, his switchblade, a red plastic poncho, a package of crackers, a small pot, a fork and knife, a box of matches, a bottle of aspirin, bug repellant, and a compass.

"No cell phones in Brazil, silly," I told him as I rifled through the contents. The cleaning solution was for contacts. I should have known.

"Well, at least they thought about your contacts," I said, handing him the bottle and the contact case.

"Looks like they only packed for one?" Shia commented as he lifted up the red poncho. "Red—my favorite color," Shia added as he turned it over in his hands. I picked up the switchblade and weighed it in my tired hands. It was heavy and looked extremely familiar with its black handle and crest.

"Is this by any chance one of your props?" I asked Shia as I handed it to him.

"Yeah, from the Crystal Skull. There were about a dozen of them, and the director let me keep one," Shia answered. "See?" He showed me that on the crest, it had an identification number and said "Property of Mutt Jones."

"Funny," I said. I shook the bag to ensure there was nothing left in there. Of course, to defy the odds, there was.

It was another envelope, crisp, white, and so out of place in the rain forest. I opened it and gave the note to Shia, my head pounding with an almost crippling migraine. Shia began to read the note out loud.

"'Greetings, Mr. LaBeouf and Miss Stanson. I'm hoping you are well. Inside this pack are the keys to your ultimate survival. We have placed you in a section of the Amazon forest far from any outreach of civilization. You will have one night to complete this task. My company has allied with a group of cannibal aborigines. They will be coming to your location after sundown and following you from there. Your task is to evade them while refraining from getting caught in my elegant traps. Please consider the other entities you will face along the way. If you fail, the aborigines are told to take Mr. LaBeouf captive and send him home. Miss Stanson will be theirs to keep. If you succeed, at the eastern end of the forest is a waterfall called the Ahuashiyacu waterfall. With the aborigines to your backs, you must make your way down the waterfall. Once down the waterfall, there will be a ship for you to take. The ship's name is Mari Cruz. I do hope you make it in time. Sincerely yours, The Director.'"