Lost In Pindorama

It was night time. The sound of the rustling of leaves made Jason shoot up from his deep sleep. His vision blurred when he stretched and made a noise. His blurry vision could only perceive tall trees around him and instincts told him that he wasn’t at home or even near a remote settlement, forget a city. He swore and tried to get up when a sharp pain in his right hand almost made him scream. He continued swearing and stole a quick glance at his body. His eyes widened. For a moment he looked like he was paralyzed. He was bleeding profusely and had insect bites all over his body. Shocked at what he saw, he whispered to himself “Oh my God!”.

Utterly confused, he tried to remember what had happened. Jason sat there for a couple of minutes before it all hit him; he and his parents had planned to go on a holiday to Brazil. They had booked three tickets for the ten-hour-flight to Sao Paulo. After crossing Venezuela and covering five hours of the flight, did he realize that they were hovering above the largest rainforest in the world. The euphoria of hovering above the Amazon rainforest passed as quietly as it came. Not very soon, he became restless and checked on the flight details. “Great,” he thought “we’re still in Brazil after 5 hours. Already it feels like a day has passed.

All of a sudden the plane started shaking. From there chaos took the reins of the people inside the airplane. The flight attendants and pilots started saying their last words, confessions of love or anything else that struck them. Passengers started crying or praying to God. His parents were crying. Seconds before the plane had crashed Jason shed a single tear and hugged his parents, who like Jason, were weeping silently and praying intently. Seconds later, the plane had crashed.

After Jason recalled what had happened he tried to find his parents. He first saw his father on his right, sprawled on the ground, clearly dead. Jason swallowed; he never thought he was going to see his father die. He next saw his mother sitting next to a campfire with her head in her arms was clearly not dead. Jason called loudly, “Mom! Mom! ”Immediately Jason’s mother got up, shocked and looked for the source of the noise. When she saw Jason, she ran to him and started crying. Jason’s will broke down and from his eyes too did tears flow.

Then his mother stopped crying and said, “Jason, the authorities might be coming. We must wait.” He gave a stiff nod and asked, “Are we the only survivors?” “No. There are four more.” Silence echoed after his mother stopped speaking. Then Jason asked,” How many days have I been unconscious?” His mother hesitantly replied “Five”. Then all of a sudden a desperate rough voice shouted from behind a plane engine that Jason had just noticed,” What happened Rina? Did you see anything?” Jason’s stomach rumbled and protested against the sudden lack of food in the past eleven days-he laughed till his lungs hurt. His mother had now a concerned look etched on her face – her eyes narrowed and on her mouth was a frown, and as distant as it was, Jason remembered the look well enough and despite current circumstances, smiled; “I was laughing because I felt hungry, and my stomach rumbled in ‘The Amazon’ rainforest and now of all times!” was his answer to his mother’s unasked question.

Jason was about to ask his mother a question when suddenly the man who had called to his mother came running. His face evinced fear and he screamed, “Run for your lives! Martins spotted a Jaguar running towards us. Run, before you get eaten!” His mother swore (much to the surprise of Jason) and ran and so did Jason after getting up. The trio ran in the dark despite the angry protests of their muscles and lungs. A woman suddenly appeared from behind the plane engine and shouted, “Run! Run!” when a loud piercing cry was emitted dangerously near to the plane crash survivors. They had barely run another hundred meters when the Jaguar came in sight. It produced a massive roar from its impressive mouth. The distance between the four survivors and the jaguar lessened alarmingly as the seconds ticked by.

When the Jaguar was about to pounce on the woman nearest to him, a jeep stopped abruptly a few meters in front of Jason’s mother. The driver yelled something in Portuguese and a second person shot a bullet into the Jaguar, immediately killing it. “You’ll wish you had died, lucky ones.” said the man with the gun, in a voice, which everyone understood as cold and grave.