Chapter 1 "The Crash"
The screaming didn’t stop when the plane hit the canopy.
It tore through the trees like a knife through wet fabric, metal shrieking as wings sheared off in bursts of foliage. The cabin spun violently, oxygen masks whipping in the air like nooses. People screamed. Some prayed. Some just closed their eyes.
Then—impact.
Silence, but for the moan of steel, the hiss of leaking fuel, and the distant cries of monkeys stirred by the violence.
When Aarya came to, blood trickled down her temple. Her ears rang. The right side of the cabin was gone—torn open like a tin can. Through it, she saw nothing but green. Endless, thick, pulsating green.
She unbuckled herself and stumbled forward, her legs shaky. Around her, people groaned. Some didn’t move at all.
"Hello?" she croaked, voice hoarse. "Is anyone—"
“Here,” came a low voice. A man—tall, broad-shouldered—emerged from the shadows, blood on his forehead but eyes alert. “You’re alive. Good.”
She blinked. “You’re…?”
“Reid,” he said, scanning the wreckage. “You okay?”
“I think so,” Aarya replied. Her heart raced. The trees were so dense it felt like the air itself pressed down on them.
Behind her, a young girl crawled out of the rubble, her school uniform torn and muddy. “Where… where are we?”
Reid looked around. The jungle was loud—too loud. Insects screamed. Birds cackled. Somewhere, something big moved unseen.
“We’re nowhere,” he said. “Or worse—somewhere not on any map.”
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