Welcome To The Jungle

BRAZIL

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The crew landed in beautiful Brazil several hours after they had boarded their flight from Boston. The trip was a long one but it was worth it because they were finally here.

At the airport, there was a car already there to take them to the hotel where they would be staying while they were here. The drive to the hotel was calm and wonderful as the kids saw sights they’d never seen before as this was the only time they’d ever left Boston.

It was truly a wonderful spectacle and when Philip saw the look on their faces, he could only imagine how they’d feel when they made it to Randos.

“We’re going to be staying at a hotel that’s not too far from a marina. The marina flows straight into the Amazon River so we’ll get a boat there and begin our search a day after we’ve settled in,” Philip said as he drove.

“And you’re sure there’s a passage that leads from here to Troleyadia?” Lydia asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. The only problem is finding it but I’m certain we can do that too,”

“This country is beautiful, guys. Did you see that giant statue with the arms wide open?” Kurt asked.

“Yeah, that was the biggest piece of rock I’ve ever seen,” Joe said to him.

“That was nothing compared to the huge statues in various places in Randos. There are ancient sculptures so huge that they’ll over that statue like three times over,” Philip said.

“How do you know that?” Lydia wondered.

Philip wasn’t speaking as an archaeologist when he was describing the statues in Randos. His tone of voice would suggest that he had seen these statues with his own two eyes and Lydia picked up on it.

“In all my travels, I found scrolls and hieroglyphs that depicted all sorts of monuments from Randos and judging from those depictions, it’s clear that they were much larger,” Philip said and was glad to see that Lydia bought it.

"I need to be careful with how I talk about Randos or they might figure out that I'm lying to them," Philip thought to himself.

About thirty minutes later, they arrived at the entrance of Vivo Hotel and Philip drove the car in. He found a space to park and they all came out of the vehicle.

The kids were a bit depressed when they saw the hotel they would be staying in. It was definitely not a five-star establishment and it looked like it was about to collapse on itself.

“I thought you were a millionaire, Philip?” Kurt asked as he stared at the building.

“I am,” Philip replied.

“Then, why are we staying in this dump?”

“I thought you lived in the streets?” Micah cut in.

“I did, which is why I know that this place is a dump,” Kurt answered.

“We’re going to have to make do with this so we don’t draw attention to ourselves. Not everyone here thinks the tales of Troleyadia are just stories. Some of the locals believe that it’s real and their stories involve a path filled with gold that leads to the entrance of Randos. If they knew we were here to try and find the gateway, they might inconvenience our search by conducting one of their own. But don’t worry about the hotel, if we’re lucky and we find what we came here for, we won’t need to sleep in it for more than one night,” Philip said and walked into the building.

The kids followed behind him and they checked into the building. They made it to their rooms and after settling in, Philip asked Kurt and Micah to accompany him to get them some food since the hotel didn’t have room service.

After the three of them left, Joe and Lydia were left alone in their suite of three adjoining rooms and unpacked the rest of their stuff together.

“What do you think our parents would be like?” Joe couldn’t help but ask because he had been thinking about it ever since they got on the plane.

“I haven’t thought about it but if I were to guess, I’d say they were an ordinary couple living a simple life until they had us and realized that their simple life was going to change forever. Our dad’s probably a shepherd with a small flock of sheep while our mom would be a florist who sold her flowers in the marketplace,” Lydia answered with a longing smile on her face.

“And you claim you haven’t thought about it,” Joe asked with a raised brow.

“Okay, I may have thought about it a little bit,” She admitted with a soft chuckle.

Suddenly, Joe heard several voices whispering in his ears and he stopped what he was doing. He looked over at Lydia and saw that she too was hearing something and they both wondered what it was.

“You hear it too, don’t you?” Lydia asked.

“It sounds like…whispering,” Joe nodded affirmatively and the twins began to move towards the door so they could follow the whisper and try and locate where it was coming from.

They reached the door and Joe reached for the handle which caused him to notice that the mark on his palm was glowing but this time, it didn’t hurt and it wasn’t a steady glow instead, the light was switching back and forth from a bright glow to a dimmer one. Lydia looked at her palm and the same thing was happening to her as well and it made them both wary of the sounds they were hearing and what it meant.

“Wait,” Lydia called out to Joe, “We can’t go outside like this, people may notice,”

She went to her bag and took out two pairs of gloves and handed a pair to Joe so they could cover up their palms. They both did so and stepped out of the hotel room so they could follow the sound of the whisper.

They arrived at the yard of the hotel that was overlooking the jungle which could be seen from where they stood.

“The sound is coming from the jungle,” Joe pointed out.

“What do you think it is?” Lydia asked.

“I don’t know but it must be important if we both can hear it. Maybe it’s the gateway to Randos calling out to us,”

They stared at the jungle while listening to the voice and the more they listened, the more the gibberish whispers started to sound like words that they actually understood.

Unknown to them, there was man coming up from behind them with a dagger concealed within his jacket and he reached for it as he got closer to them. The man pulled the weapon out and the blade had Troleyadian runes drawn on it and it was also glowing blue. As he was about to reach Joe and Lydia, Kurt’s voice was carried by the wind as he called out to them from behind.

“Guys!”

Joe and Lydia turned around just before the man reached them which made him return his dagger into his jacket and abort his plan to take them out. He walked past them like a regular person and they didn’t suspect him at all.

“What were guys looking at?” Kurt asked after him, Micah and Philip reached them.

“The jungle…we think it’s calling out to us,” Lydia stated.

“That’s a good sign, isn’t it, dad? That must mean we’re on the right track,” Micah said.

“Yes it does,” Philip agreed, “I would have loved it if we could begin right away but it’ll be dark soon and we’re not ready to start searching the entire jungle just yet. For now, let’s eat some food and get some rest. At first light tomorrow, we’ll get a boat and head out to find the gateway. I hope the jungle will still be calling out to the two of you by tomorrow because we'll need to narrow down our search radius so we don't have to spend an eternity in there.”

The sun was now setting and the group sat outside underneath a large gazebo and ate their dinner. They were all enjoying the local cuisine and it was a beautiful evening that they all enjoyed together.

“So, Philip, you’ve been studying about Troleyadia for almost two decades, right?” Joe asked while they ate.

“That’s right,” Philip answered.

“What else can you tell us about it from everything you’ve unearthed over the years?”

“Well,” Philip put down his food and the kids all looked at him and paid attention, “some of the scrolls I found talked about the magic of the realm, the people and the creatures that roam the land,”

“What kind of creatures?” Kurt asked.

“Magnificent beasts of all shapes and sizes living on the land, in the water, and in the sky. These creatures aren’t like the animals here on Earth. They’re smarter and a lot more special because they all have a mystic ability unlike any animal you know of. The most magnificent of all the creatures in Randos are the Krans,”

“What are Krans?” Lydia asked.

“They’re a magical species of birds that can live on the land, the water and the sky. Krans have retractable wings and they also have gills on their necks that help them to breathe underwater. They can also grow to be ten times the size of an average person and when they get angry or feel threatened, their entire body will burst into flames as a sort of defence mechanism. They are extremely dangerous and live in the tallest mountains, away from people,” Philip told.

“Wow! They sound amazing. Maybe we’ll run into one,” Joe said.

“You better hope not. They’re not exactly friendly to people.”

“They would be to the twin seeds of Eyah, wouldn’t they?” Kurt joked with a funny voice and everyone laughed.

Dinner was over a few minutes later and they all turned in for the night because they needed to be ready for tomorrow’s search. While they slept, the same man from earlier was standing downstairs, staring at the section of the building where their rooms were.

His hands were glowing and so were his eyes and he was making vines sprout out from the earth and they crawled up the walls and into the rooms of Lydia and Joe.

Since Lydia was the only girl, she had one of the rooms all to herself while Joe and Kurt shared one room and Philip and his son were in the last one.

The vines crawled underneath their doors and slithered over to Lydia and some of them went over to Joe. They slowly began to wrap around the twins and twirled around their necks.

The man outside could see with the vines and when he wrapped the vines around their necks, he folded his fist and the vines tightened around them and began to choke them. Lydia and Joe opened their eyes but weren’t able to scream or even move a muscle because the vines had covered their mouths and was holding them down. They were being killed and survival felt like it wouldn’t be possible for them.