Amazon Rainforest
The camp buzzed with activity as Luis stared at what he had built. Sure, there were laws against logging in the Amazon rainforest, but a few well-placed bribes and a crew of young men indifferent to government warnings had allowed Luis to establish a thriving logging camp deep in the heart of the forest.
Towering trees, centuries old, fell with thunderous crashes. The air was thick with the scent of fresh-cut wood and diesel fumes. The songs of birds and the calls of wildlife were drowned out by the relentless roar of chainsaws and the shouted orders of the site foreman. Luis stood back and grinned, knowing that each felled tree meant more money making its way into his pocket.
The camp, a ramshackle collection of tents, sprawled throughout a clearing the crew had carved into the forest. Heavy machinery roared, ready to devour more of the jungle. Luis walked among the loggers, tents, and bulldozers, excited about his future. It was a beautiful sight, marred only by the dark clouds rolling in.
Luis wiped sweat from his brow and glanced up at the sky. The morning’s blue sky had quickly darkened, and the first drops of rain began to splatter around the camp. The drizzle wasn’t too bad yet, but the dark clouds promised a deluge was coming. That was the only serious problem about logging in the Amazon, besides the locals who constantly menaced his workers. “Keep going,” he shouted over the din. “We need to finish this section before the rain hits.”
As the loggers redoubled their efforts, a strange silence descended on the jungle. Birds took flight, and monkeys chattered anxiously in the treetops before fleeing. The jungle around Luis fell eerily still. A shiver ran down his spine as he glanced up at the sky again. He moved towards the camp foreman to ask if they could complete the day’s work before the rain halted everything when he stumbled. His foot had sunk deep in the mud, and Luis looked down in surprise.
That shouldn’t have happened. The workers had been all throughout the camp, their heavy steps having packed the ground together until it was stable enough that his foot shouldn’t have sunk. He glanced around and noticed the ground beginning to bubble. Pockets of earth darkened and turned into viscous mud.
The rain, which had started as a slow drizzle, turned into a flood. Everywhere it hit, the earth in the camp turned into a thick mud. The heavy machinery was the first to sink, the massive tires of the trucks disappearing into the muck, followed quickly by the rest of the vehicles. Drivers jumped from the cabins of their bulldozers, fearing they’d be taken deep into the earth as well. Panic rippled through the camp, with workers abandoning their tools and fleeing the spreading mud.
Luis shivered in fear, torn between saving the machinery – his costly investment – and running for his life. The mud was relentless, consuming the camp faster than the workers could flee. Tents collapsed, sucked into the earth as if the jungle itself was trying to reclaim what had been stolen.
“Run! Get out of here!” Luis shouted, but no one could hear him over the torrential downpour. Men cried out in fear and desperation as they ran from the creeping mud. Luis watched as one of his loggers tripped over a tree root, his muffled shouts of panic cut off as he sank deep into the mud until nothing remained of him.
Keys jingled in Luis’ pockets as he ran, reminding him of the trucks and motorbikes parked in a corner of the camp. He changed direction and sprinted towards them, thinking ‘if only I can get to my truck, I can escape.’
The rain intensified, somehow adding more water to the chaos. Mudslides surged, washing away the remnants of the camp and leaving a churned, desolate landscape. The tents and heavy machinery that had filled the clearing moments before were gone.
Luis heard panicked screams behind him as he raced towards the trucks and motorbikes. He ripped the keys from his pocket to be ready for when he finally reached them. There, on the outskirts of the camp, was his truck. The mud hadn’t claimed this area of the camp yet, so he jumped in, started the engine, and peeled out of there.
His foot jammed on the gas as he tore away from the camp, leaving behind the screams of his former employees. He raced to stay ahead of the jungle that had come to reclaim its territory.
Nazare, Portugal
Excerpt from Echoes of the Past: The Hunt for the Puppeteer by Francisco Abreu
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Tiago Costa lived a solitary life. When the pandemic swept through the world, he was one of the few who welcomed the opportunity to stay shut in his apartment. His small one-bedroom, perched on the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, was a sanctuary of peace and quiet. His only interaction with the outside world was the occasional trip to the corner store or letting the delivery man inside to drop off his packages.
It wasn’t that Tiago hated people; he simply saw no need to interact with them. He felt much more comfortable surrounded by his books, TV, and computer. His social battery was always in the red, and he found it easier to stay at home than deal with others.
When A Tempestade hit Nazare, Tiago was at his computer desk, typing away at emails for his boss. A Tempestade started small, with wind howling through the streets and a drizzle of rain pelting the windows. Tiago got up from his chair, crossed the apartment, and closed the window to prevent the rain from soaking his room. On his way over, a tingling at the back of his neck started, which Tiago shrugged off as another sign that he was getting older.
In the mornings, he’d wake to find new aches that tracked his growing age. Occasionally, when he ventured outside for air, brief pains would strike at his joints, reminding him he wasn’t a teenager anymore. While these aches and pains were probably due to his sedentary lifestyle, Tiago preferred to think of them as the consequences of growing old.
As soon as he closed the window, a flash of lightning and a crack of thunder sounded. Tiago leapt back in panic, steadying himself on an end table near the window, his hand instinctively reaching out to grip the worn wood.
Once his hand made contact with the end table, a flood of memories pierced Tiago’s mind. He saw an oak tree in a vast forest, watched it get cut down and loaded onto a truck, saw it arrive at a carpenter named Raoul. He watched as the carpenter carved the wood into a table and saw it change hands from family to family, each of whom left their mark on the worn surface – the father who never used a coaster left the ring stains, the child playing with his tiny action figures left the dents. Tiago watched as the table ended up at the Feira de Ladra in Lisbon, where he had picked it up for his college dormitory.
Panicked, he moved away, his feet landing on the rug in the middle of the room. A torrent of images shot into his mind; every step taken across the rug’s surface flashed before his eyes like a sped-up highlight reel. He stumbled again, his hand landing on the futon couch, half on the cushion and half on the blanket draped across its back. The memories were mixed and jumbled this time – a market stall, an old woman spinning yard with an antique spool. The constant barrage of images wore on him.
He jerked his hand back as if it had been burned, afraid to let it touch anything else. Every time he touched something new, he saw every moment of its past pulsing behind his eyes. His once comfortable and safe home had become a minefield of memories.
He needed to get out of his apartment. Tiago glanced at the windows he had just closed to check on the status of the storm, finding that the rain was hitting the city harder. It didn’t matter. Tiago just wanted to escape the apartment and find somewhere safe to figure out what was happening to him. He reached for his red Converse shoes tucked under the futon.
The moment his hand touched one, he was inundated with memories. He saw the factory in Indonesia where they were stitched together, being shipped to Vietnam, placed into packing crates, the ocean transport, and finally, the arrival at the shoe store four blocks from his apartment.
He let out a scream and hurled the shoe across the room, deciding to go barefoot instead. He raced to the front door, his bare feet slapping against the linoleum kitchen tiles as he ran. Each step brought a barrage of memories: every time someone had walked the floor, every dish made in the kitchen, every midnight trip for water. He slipped, his knee crashing against the refrigerator, and was bombarded with its history. He saw the factory in Ottawa, Ohio, the assembly line, and its shipment to Portugal.
When he finally snapped out of the memories, he was crying, overwhelmed by the sensory onslaught. He reached for the front door, and the moment he grabbed the doorknob, the memories surged again. Every time he had opened the door, every entrance and exit of previous tenants, flooded his mind. He wrenched the door open, desperate to escape.
He bolted out of his apartment, stumbling and smashing against the wall as he turned the corner to sprint down the stairs. Visions of carpenters, electricians, plumbers, and every person who had built the apartment building and used those stairs filled his head. He witnessed the lives of every tenant who had ever rented a place there. Each memory wormed its way into his consciousness, leaving him disoriented and frantic.
Tiago finally burst out of the building, whipping his head left and right, desperate to find somewhere, anywhere, to escape the flood of memories that turned every touch into an unbearable cascade of history. Rain soaked him instantly as he stepped out of the apartment building, his foot making contact with the concrete steps, and he passed out.
It was the massive influx of memories that finally did it. His left foot touched the concretet steps, revealing their construction, the tenants who climbed them daily, and the neighborhood kids who lounged on them after school. His left hand, in an attempt to steady himself, grasped the metal railing, showing him the blacksmith who had built it, the elderly tenants who used it for support, and the delivery men who leaned on it while waiting to be buzzed up. The rain that coated his body revealed even older memories, stretching further back than anything he had seen before.
The memories began with a single raindrop, formed high in the atmosphere amidst the dark, brooding clouds. Tiago traced its descent through the sky, watching as it landed on a leaf in a dense forest. The raindrop rested there, shimmering in the sunlight, until it slipped off the leaf and joined a tiny rivulet trickling down the mountainside. It flowed over rocks and roots, gathering speed as the rivulet grew into a stream. The stream joined a river, which carried the raindrop through a countryside that Tiago somehow knew was Romania. The river flowed into the Danube, traveling westward, passing through Serbia, Croatia, Hungary, and Austria. It eventually spilled into the Danube Delta, merging with the vast waters of the Black Sea.
The raindrop was carried by the currents of the Black Sea before eventually turning into water vapor that rose high into the sky, joining a wisp of a cloud that drifted westward. The cloud traveled across Europe, floating over the Balkans, crossing the Italian Peninsula, and sailing over the Pyrenees. Eventually, it reached the skies above Portugal and began to darken, The Storm commanding everything in the sky to obey its wishes. With a clap of thunder, the raindrop was released, descending once more to the Earth. It landed on a panicked man who had collapsed on the front steps of his apartment.
Every raindrop that hit Tiago told a similar story, overwhelming him with a torrent of memories. He drifted into unconsciousness, unable to withstand the relentless barrage of images. When ambulances arrived, they found him drenched to the bone, bleeding from where he had struck his head against the ground, and unresponsive.