His voice, firm and reassuring like my father’s, comforted me, and I relaxed a little, fixing my eyes straight ahead on the opposite bank, which drew steadily closer. The river sprayed my face, providing a welcome contrast to the sun’s rays, which felt like they grew hotter by the moment.
Five minutes later, when we were almost there, I noticed something odd.
A greenish mist seeped through the trees. I had seen mist before, of course, and knew the green tone was just a reflection of the greenery of the jungle, but the density of this struck me as somehow… off.
“Is that smoke?” my aunt asked, her voice suddenly tight.
There was a long silence as we all stared at the bank, the final few feet of water disappearing beneath us. When we came ashore, my father quickly leaped out and steadied the vessel while the rest of us clambered onto the bank. Then we stood still, staring at the jungle entrance.
“It does look like it, doesn’t it?” my uncle murmured, his jaw tense as he stepped closer to the trees.
My father flashed me a concerned look, which made my stomach tense up harder.
Could this really be smoke? Could that single flare have been a true plea for help after all? Could Dad have been wrong?
“It doesn’t smell like smoke to me,” Jessie said, frowning as she sniffed the air.
My aunt sniffed too, then exhaled. “You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t.” Her face, which had grown completely pale, relaxed a little.
I breathed in through my nose, and realized they were correct. It didn’t smell even remotely like smoke. In fact, it had a sour smell that I couldn’t quite place. Maybe it was some kind of natural phenomena we hadn’t come across before—some chemical reaction between plants, perhaps triggered by the storm that had swept this way last night?
“The storm,” I said abruptly, now completely confident. “Yeah, there’s no way this is smoke. That flare went off a couple of days ago and it’s rained both nights since, particularly heavily last night. There wouldn’t be any fire left burning now. We’re just letting ourselves get spooked.”
My uncle heaved a relieved sigh, then chuckled shakily. “I think you’re right, Tani. We’re letting paranoia get the better of us. Let’s keep moving.”
We pulled the boat fully onto the dry bank, secured it, and then entered the jungle. We walked in single file, my uncle and father at the lead again, and thoughts of the mystery vapor were soon pushed to the back of our minds, as we were forced to keep an eye out for more immediate dangers.
By the time we reached the ladder that would connect us back to a zip line route, we were scratched, bruised, and ridiculously thirsty. The undergrowth on this leg of the journey was more difficult than the last, as it forced us tonavigate around piles of branches that must have snapped and fallen last night. Apparently, the storm had hit this area harder—though I hoped not hard enough to cause serious damage to their tree houses.
It was a relief to climb the ladder and emerge above the treetops, out of the dim dampness and back into the open air. Once we reached the platform at the top of the tree, we took a moment to catch our breath and drink from our water canisters. We’d gone through about half of our water supply already, but once we reached the end of this next batch of zip lines, we wouldn’t have much farther to go.
“Right,” my father said, returning his canister to his backpack and setting his dark eyes on the zip line. “Let’s get this final part over with.”
The wind quickly cooled my sizzling skin as we soared, and I relaxed for the first time in several hours, once again weightless and safe in the air. I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to catch the smallest bit of rest after the lack of sleep last night. Then I opened them again and looked downward, curious to see if I could make out the mist from up here.
I could.
In fact, unless my eyes were grossly deceiving me, it looked like it was growing eventhicker. It roiled above the trees, so dense that I could barely make out the shapes of the leaves anymore.
I looked ahead of me and saw that the others had noticed it too. Their heads were turned downward.
Why was it so widespread? We had traveled miles since we first spotted it. And more importantly, why was it growing thicker?
I realized then that the farther we glided, the higher the mist grew. After another few minutes, I saw what might have been called a cloudbank of it directly ahead of us. We were going to pass directly through it.
“What are you guys thinking?” I shouted over the whistling wind, no longer able to keep my confusion to myself.
There was a pause before my father yelled back, “I’m not sure, Tani. This is very weird. But it’s definitely not smoke.”
I held my breath when we reached the cloud of mist that had drifted high enough to touch us, and when we hit it, to my alarm, my eyes began to sting. This was much, much, thicker than any of the mist we had experienced earlier; it was almost suffocating, and as we glided through it, I began to find it more difficult to breathe. My throat felt parched, as though I hadn’t drunk anything for hours.
I heard the rest of the group making uncomfortable sounds ahead of me.
“How much longer till the next platform?” I yelled out, my voice uncharacteristically scratchy.
“I think about a minute,” my father shouted back, his voice also sounding strained. “Just hang in there.”
What the hellwasthis?
