Chapter 1 — The Map of Ashes
The air above Manaus smelled like metal and sweat. The Amazon stretched endlessly below, green as spilled ink.
Ethan Cross, a treasure hunter known for surviving the unfindable, leaned against the rattling window of a cargo plane. Across from him sat María Alvarez, a local archaeologist who had reluctantly agreed to help. Between them lay an old leather journal, its pages burned and brittle.
“Do you believe it?” María asked over the engine’s roar.
“I don’t believe,” Ethan replied, smirking. “I verify.”
The journal once belonged to Father Luis de Acaran — a 16th-century Jesuit who vanished after claiming he’d found a “temple built before God had a name.” His last entry mentioned “The Eye of the Forest” — a structure shaped like a spiral, visible only when the sun bleeds red.
As they landed on a crude dirt strip, two armed guides waited. One, Rico, muttered, “People who look for Acaran never come back.”
Ethan grinned. “That’s why we’re here — to prove them wrong.”
By sunset, they entered the jungle. Every step was swallowed by the hum of unseen creatures. María’s compass spun uselessly.
Then the night came alive.
Rico screamed. A cloud of darts hissed from the dark. Ethan fired into the trees — nothing. When silence returned, Rico was gone. Only a small wooden charm remained, carved with the same spiral pattern as in the priest’s drawings.
María whispered, “The Eye has already found us.”
