Adam pushed a large branch from his path, breathing heavily. His lungs felt like red hot coals fresh out of the fire. He wouldn't have been in this state if it weren't for a certain tribe girl.
Mana agreed to help him find his crash site after they ate breakfast, but he had no idea she would insist on running the first hour of the journey. It was more than he bargained for, that's for sure.
Adam thought he was in pretty good shape. He exercised regularly and kept a healthy diet, but he couldn't compare to the young woman before him. The girl's breathing was steady, and her clothes dry, the opposite of his.
His clothes were soaked with sweat. The air was so humid it was more water than actual oxygen. Thankfully he was used to this kind of humidity. A normal person would probably drown themselves if they weren't used to it.
Mana hummed a tune while pulling further and further ahead of Adam. She agreed to slow down when he couldn't run anymore, but her walking was too fast for him to keep up with.
"H-Hey...how much...further is it," he said, gasping for air.
Mana stopped raising an eyebrow.
"At this pace, we will be lucky to get there before nightfall," she said, her tone cheerful despite her words.
Adam slumped against a tree, sliding down the rough bark until his rear end hit the warm damp ground. He leaned his head against the tree, staring at the endless green. The sun poked its way through the tops of the trees lighting up the jungle, but the sky was nowhere in sight. All he could see was an endless ocean of green. That was the reason why so many people got lost in forests. There were no road signs, just an infinite maze that never ends.
Adam heard Mana sit by on a neighboring tree, and he slowly met her eyes. He was expecting to find pity or, worse, disappointment, but she didn't have either of those. She just sat there inspecting him with her good-natured smile as if nothing were happening.
"Can I ask you something?" he asked, unable to hold his curiosity anymore.
Mana nodded, pulling her knees to her chest and laying her chin on them.
"How did you get so..." he waved an exaggerated hand in her direction, unsure what to say.
"Strong," he decided. It was the only thing he could think of to describe the girl. Mana raised an eyebrow, a look of puzzlement washing over her.
"What do you mean?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused. Adam took in a deep breath of air and let it out. Was the girl seriously oblivious to her strength, or was she playing him the fool? He had to know.
"You found me at the wreckage, which, according to you, is a three-hour run, right?" he asked, ensuring he didn't miss anything. The girl nodded.
"Yeah, three hours if we keep the pace," she said, completely misunderstanding his point.
"So, you're telling me-- that you carried me!" he said, jabbing a thumb at his chest to make a point. "for three hours, running. Without taking a break," he said incredulously. Adam stood up, his emotions giving him the strength to stand. Most women couldn't lift him, let alone carry him for any distance. He was six-three and weighed nearly three hundred pounds. It was absurd to think of a girl like Mana bringing him to safety. Hell, if he didn't see it with his own eyes, he wouldn't have believed it. Mana wasn't one of those fabled Amazonian women who were as big as a bear and could break a man in two with a single blow. No, she was short, five foot five, and couldn't have weighed more than a hundred and twenty pounds.
"No break, just run... We were being hunted," she said. Adam felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. How could he have forgotten where he was? The Amazon rainforest is one of the world's most dangerous places. He couldn't help but look around. Danger could lurk behind any of the trees. Did that branch move? Adam felt a new wave of sweat leaking down his back. Maybe he shouldn't have only brought Mana. He should've grabbed a few of the men from the village to accompany them.
Mana slipped her fingers into his palm, interlocking them with his own. Adam didn't even hear her get to her feet, let alone approach him, but the contact made him feel more at ease.
"Don't worry, we are safe here," she said, certainty in her eyes. He laughed it off, but even he heard the fear in the laugh. His father always told him never to wander too far into the woods, and if ever there was a time he found himself in his predicament, never to leave the area. He told him to shoot a flare and build a huge fire to keep the predators away. Adam failed to do any of those things.
They continued their journey to the plane crash, only this time, he kept his eyes moving. Every time a branch snapped or a strange noise came from the bushes, he flinched. He wished he had his gun with him. At least then, he could protect them both, but it was back at the plane with all his other belongings.
"So what did you mean by, we are safe? How can you be so sure?" Adam asked, keeping as calm as possible.
"We're still close to the village," she said without breaking stride. Adam scrunched up an eyebrow. They weren't that close to the village. Dangerous animals avoided human settlements out of self-preservation, but they were miles from the town by now. Unless, of course, there were other villages around he didn't know about.
"Are we close to another village?" he inquired of her. If they were, they mightn't have to camp out all night on the way back.
Mana raised an eyebrow while shaking her head. "There are no other villages," she said. Something about how she said that made him uncomfortable, but he wasn't sure why.
"Okay then, if there are no other villages around here, then how can you be sure it's safe?" he asked, slightly annoyed.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"We are still in the village's hunting grounds."
Adam nodded his head. He remembered all the animal furs they used back at the village. So that meant they were safe for now, but the plane crash mustn't be if they were being hunted.
"I think I can run some more," he said. The sooner they got there and back to safety, the better.
Adam let go of the girl's hand before they started running. The fresh scabs on his knees were all the reminders he needed.
Adam huffed, coming to a halt. He pointed exaggeratively at a piece of plastic from his plane, glad for an excuse to stop running. He opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was unintelligible wheezing. Mana noticed the object he pointed out and picked it up with curiosity. Adam felt joy at being so near to the crash site. He leaned down and clutched his knees, trying to catch his breath while the girl was preoccupied.
Adam closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing. Right now, his heart pounded like a drum that reverberated throughout his body like shockwaves.
He was breathing in huge lungs full of air and releasing it just as fast. Adam remembered something his father had taught him years ago. The memory came without warning.
"Son, if you keep breathing like that, you're going to pass out," his father had said gruffly. His words were as clear to him as the day he told them.
"Now do as I say. Take a deep and steady breath through your nose, then hold it in. Now I want you to let it out like you're going to blow out a birthday cake...that's good, now keep doing that until you can't hear your heart drumming against your ears."
His father had patiently shown him how to breathe properly before he was allowed to go and play.
"SNAP. " Adam's eyes darted open at the sudden loud noise. He automatically turned towards Mana, whose eyes were wide as saucers. The piece of plastic in her hand was broken in two. Adam shook his head at her. If no beast had noticed their presence yet, they did now.
"I thought it would have been stronger than that," she apologized. She wrapped her knuckles against the broken half with a look of disappointment. Adam was baffled. It was like she had never seen plastic before.
"It's plastic. It's supposed to break like that," he said.
"Then what good is it?" she asked, waving the plastic around wildly.
"Plastic is used in almost every Vehicle you know," he said.
"Its value isn't in its durability, but in how flexible and light it is."
Mana looked back and forth between him and the plastic with a perplexed look.
"One question...what's a vehicle?" she asked, tossing the plastic behind her.
Adam rolled his eyes. The girl was a natural at playing dumb.
"Ha Ha, very funny. Now come on. We're nearly there," Adam said instead. He wanted to get to his stuff as soon as possible. With a little luck, his GPS was still working, and with more luck, the CB might have survived the crash.
"What's so funny... hey, Adam, wait up," Mana called after him. He put her in the back of his mind and instead focused on finding the plane. The further they walked, the more junk was scattered across the ground.
"There it is," Adam said excitedly. The plane was still way up in a tree, but it was fine. He had a partner with him that was super strong and would have no problems climbing a tree.
"Hey Mana, you think you can do me a favor?" Adam asked, giving her the most charming smile he could muster.
Mana stepped back, her smile fading with a look of fear. He quickly removed his smile. He forgot how unsettling it made other people feel for some reason.
"Think you can get up there," he said, pointing at the plane in the tree. She looked up at the plane for a moment before nodding her head. Mana moved to the tree's base and, without warning, jumped straight up twelve feet to the first branch. Without pause, she swung her body like an acrobat and landed on the limb.
Adam whistled, impressed with how limber her body was. She moved and jumped between branches until she landed on the plane with a loud clang.
"Now what?" she called down. Adam lifted his jaw off the ground. It wasn't the time to be impressed.
"uh, I haven't gotten that far yet," he admitted. After a moment of thinking, he decided on a plan.
"Can you get in the cockpit?" he asked.
"What's a cockpit?" Mana asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"And why is this hunk of metal so important anyways?"
Adam tried his best not to pull his hair out, but it wasn't easy. He decided the girl wasn't playing dumb. No one was that good at play pretending. Instead, he decided she was very sheltered, and that was worse.
Adam scratched his head, trying to think of a way to describe what he wanted, but no matter how hard he tried, it was just impossible. It would be like trying to ask a man from the twelfth century to go and fetch a TV from an electronic store. There was no way.
"I got it," Adam said, hitting his palm with a fist.
"Hey Mana, can you see if you can find a rucksack inside the plane," he hollered up to her. She nodded before carefully moving toward the edge.
"It should be in the back half of the plane," he said helpfully.
Mana stopped moving, giving him a confused look.
"It's on the other half your not standing on," he elaborated. The plane was split in half, almost dead center, and one of the wings was completely missing. Adam had no idea how he had survived the crash. The front end was unrecognizable. It was caved into where the seat used to be, and the chair had been completely ripped from its spot.
He had thought the pilot seat was still attached to the plane when he woke up, but that was not the case. It had somehow broke free from the aircraft and got lodged inside a branch right next to it.
Adam felt a cold sweat drip down the back of his neck. There was no way he should have survived that crash. If he hadn't been there when it happened, he wouldn't have believed it.
Adam took his eyes off Mana for only a couple of seconds to examine his father's plane, and in that time, she disappeared.
She must have already found her way into the passenger side of the plane because she was nowhere in sight. The back half of the aircraft was dangling over the edge of the branch, and Mana would need to be careful where she stepped. He wasn't worried about the plane falling since the tail was sitting atop a group of branches, but it was still at a forty-five-degree angle and could be dangerous to navigate.
Adam noticed the makeshift water holder he had created when he arrived was full and leaking over the top.
He bent down and refilled his waterskin. At least his efforts didn't go to waste, and he found a use for it, just not immediately. The water was still cool, so he splashed his face and arms with his collected drinking water. It felt good against his hot, sweaty skin, and he wished he could keep going, but Mana might need to refill her waterskin, so he stopped himself.
"Speaking of Mana, where is she," he mumbled. The girl had been inside the plane for quite some time, and it shouldn't take long to get his rucksack.
He frowned up at the plane but shook his head after a second. Mana would be fine. The girl was probably exploring the plane, and that was why it was taking so long.
Adam paced back and forth across the green forest ground with a worried expression. Mana had only been up inside the plane for a few minutes now, but something in his gut was telling him something was about to go wrong. He stepped on a branch, which snapped under his foot, causing the noise to echo through the forest. Just then, an even louder cracking noise stopped his heart for a few beats. Above him, the plane's back half twisted as the small branches broke underneath it. There was a loud sound of metal grinding together that followed the movement of the aircraft.
Adam's sense of uneasiness turned into a full-on panic attack.
"MANA, GET OUT OF THERE!!"