Maya pressed her back against the cave wall, listening to the creature pace outside. Every shallow breath she took felt precious — she knew the oxygen was thinning in this sealed chamber, replaced slowly by carbon dioxide from her own lungs. She couldn't prolong her stay much longer.
She checked her equipment. The climbing rope had snapped on the descent, her radio was shattered, and her left forearm burned where the jungle thorns had slashed her skin three days ago. She'd promised her sister, a dermatologist back in Chicago, that she would get it looked at properly once she returned home. Right now, that felt like a distant dream.
The pacing stopped.
Maya counted to ten, then slowly edged toward the cave mouth. Pale moonlight spilled across the rocky ground outside. Empty. She exhaled — a long, careful release of that stale, carbon-heavy air — and crawled forward on her elbows, keeping low until the jungle swallowed her.
She ran.
Branches clawed at her jacket. Her boots found the muddy riverbank trail she'd memorized two weeks ago when she first scouted this region. One mile to the outpost. Half a mile. The lights appeared between the trees like orange stars dropped to earth.
Maya burst through the outpost door and collapsed against the communications desk.
"I found it," she gasped to the stunned operator. "The ruins are real. All of it."
She pressed her torn forearm against her chest and laughed breathlessly, already planning how she would describe every extraordinary moment to her sister — starting with the part where she nearly didn't make it back at all.