Side Quest: The Earth’s Throat [Mega Flora Trilogy]

Meanwhile, the raft had no business staying together, but then again, neither did our team. An everyman for himself approach to the situation would have been totally understandable. They were now, suddenly down to one light.

Fran was bleeding from the temple, not that she noticed. The root that had clipped her headlamp was thick as a Sasquatch's thigh and just as merciless. Douglas, soaked to the bone, wrestled with the oar like a madman possessed. Huxley, tail high, teeth bared, planted himself at the bow like the spirit of Old Salty himself. CUBE bobbed overhead, also doing his best to dodge whatever came at it, out of the slogging darkness. Then Doug's headlamp failed and time seemed to stop.

In that suffocating blackness, the only sound louder than the river was their breath. Until the CUBE’s eerie blue glow kicked on.

Only ten feet. Ten measly feet of visibility.

Just enough to see the next stalactite aiming for Douglas’ head. Barely.

Just enough light to feel they were not alone in that black, black river.

The glowing amber eyes returned, this time closer. They blinked in patterns. Intelligent. Watching.

But none of this was new.

They were in the Amazon Basin not just to field test Terra Preta, the mysterious black earth, considered ancient tech by some and a modern a marvel by others…but also because the whispers, always the whispers, spoke of something else buried deeper still.

The Hamza River, unknown to most of the world, older than the Amazon itself, and twice as mysterious. Locals called it A Gola da Terra, the Earth’s Throat. And down there, that's exactly what it felt like.

But what pulled them in? What turned a simple soil science survey into a full-blown pulp odyssey? It all started with a glyph Fran spotted during sample collection. Engraved in curious clay tablets found in a sealed earthen mound, written in a Portuguese and Latin dialect, was a name she couldn’t ignore:

TITANIX
Rainha da Legião Lyme: Queen of the Lyme Legion

A half-forgotten insectoid deity. Guardian. Or curse. Or both. Said to command armies of parasitic horrors. Said to sleep beneath the ancient biochar pits now known as Terra Preta. Said to rise again if her children are threatened.

And something had awakened her.

The GPS scrambled the moment they reached the test site. Fran’s tracker fizzled. CUBE detected a smell not unlike burning wires. [This is the exact order of events.]

And now?

The river narrowed, roaring around the team, and somewhere ahead...a low, insectoid chitter echoed off the wet stone. It wasn’t the raft. It wasn’t CUBE.

Fran looked at Douglas and Huxley, mud streaked, eyes wild.
“You don’t think...”

They all gave a collective gulp in reply.

Because they all knew now.

TITANIX was not a legend. {And she was Ticked-Off!}

To be continued...

8.1.2025