Nadia, you do realize this hike will take 3 days to finish, right?" Jade questioned
"Longer the better" Nadia responded. "besides we have been here, in Brazil for how many days now?"
"three days" Jade responded.
"Exactly, it's our last 5 days. We finish here, then we go home and watch movies till we pass out" Nadia reassured.
"Okay, but if we get lost, die, or discover some ancient ruin, I'm paying you back for my bag," Jade responded.
"Deal," Nadia responded shaking Jade's hand.
Zipping up their bags the girls headed out to start their hike.
The Hike took them on the "El Dorado" trail in Brazil. The trail was created in 1929 after a local reported an odd glow in the surrounding forest and claimed it to be EL Dorado, the city of lost gold. However in recent years, it has been abandoned, and there is no plan to restore the trail or the ruins around the trail.
People have gone missing for the past 3 years trying to walk the trail, and those who don't go missing have reported strange silence, animal sounds that don't sound quite right, or sounds of screams in the forest. Many reports have been made, and for a few months last year, the Brazilian government got involved and in a search on and off the tail, some of the soldiers reported the same thing but, they reported they found nothing.
Oddly enough, that wasn't the only time the Brazilian government had closed off that trail. 3 months before the reports started coming in, many reported hearing a loud crash in the woods surrounding the trail. The next morning all entries into the trail were closed off, and heavily armed soldiers surrounded the tail. Many reported seeing men in black military armor who seemed to be the only ones allowed into the trail woods. Some reports say one of the trucks read "E.D.Corp" on the side of the truck.
"Scared?" Nadia asked as they stood before the trail"
"Not at all" Jade replied. "Are you?"
"Not one bit" Nadia repeated.
The main trail was only about 4 hours long. Still, the more popular option with many experienced hikers was to take a series of connecting trails that take the Hiking time from 4 hours to 3 days, eventually leading you back to the El Dorado trail where you can finish your hike.
"So, 3 days of supplies, 1 day of backup supplies" Jade commented
"And we can probably make it 2 days without supplies. "Nadia added. "Ok, well it's 5 am, so wanna get ready and start in 30?"
"Sounds like a plan" Jade responded.
Day 1. 7:30 am
They had been walking for 2 hours and came to the tail split. At this point, they needed to walk through about a mile of woods before meeting the trail that would lead them to a series of trails that would last three days. There was no service, so no calls or texts in or out of the woods, the girls had told their families where they were going and how long they should be gone.
Day 1. 8:00 am
1/4th of the way into the mile-long hike off the trail.
"Do you hear that?" Nadia asked
"Hear what?" Jade asked
"The animal sounds" Nadia added, "they don't sound quite right"
Jade knew that tribes would often communicate with animal sounds, these sounds have been known to confuse hikers in the past, but there were no known tribes in or around this area.
"What about them?" Jade responded.
"The monkey calls... they just dot sound right... they sound like Capuchin monkeys but they sound distorted... also electronic." Nadia added, "Even the Manakin bird calls sound distorted."
To Jade, these all sounded normal, she was a researcher and a writer, not an explorer. She began to realize how little she knew about Nadia.
"Hey Nadia, I just realized, I don't know how old you are," Jade asked
"Oh, 25" Nadia responded
"Wait really?" Jade responded.
This caught Jade off guard, she thought Nadia was younger than that, Nadia looked almost 18 if not younger.
"I get that a lot," Nadia said laughing
"I didn't expect you to be older than me". Jade remarked
"I know, too bad I do not have the looks of a model" Nadia joked. "Then I wouldn't have to do what I do now."
"What do you do again?" Jade asked.
"Secret government blacklist group." Nadi sounded serious.
"What!" Jade exclaimed.
"I'm kidding obviously" Nadia responded laughing.
The girls laughed and continued walking
Day 1. 10:34 am
The girls had stopped to take a break. They planned on setting up camp in a clearing about 5 miles up. They'd been playing cards for a few hours, and Jade wrote about the strange animal calls. They had found the other trail an hour ago, but quickly had to divert to a different tail, they were now in a 5-mile-long clearing. As they prepared to continue their journey...
"AHHHHH!!"
The girls froze in place as an ear-piercing scream came from the woods.
"What... the hell was that" Jade whispered.
"No clue" Nadia whispered, then yelled, "HELLO?"
Silence...
"Anyone there?" both girls yelled.
Silence...
"What the fu..." Jade was cut off when another ear-piercing scream was let out."
"HELP!"
"PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME"
"THEY TOOK ME"
"HELP"
Then someone came running out of the woods. A little girl had long red hair, and freckles around the cheeks, was young, and couldn't be older than 15. She came running into the small clearing Jade and Nadia were standing in.
She ran un and hid behind Nadia.
Before anyone could ask any questions, calls from the woods were heard, they were screaming a name.
"Help" Run?" the girl asked in a panic
Nadia grabbed the girl's arm and ran.
"Jade, let's go!" Nadia ordered.
They ran out of the clearing and into the trees, they hid in a large nearby bush. From there they watched in horror as the clearing they had just been in was filled with hundreds of soldiers in black body armor and guns.
Day 1. 4:00 pm
The soldiers left hours ago. But the three were too scared to move, so they decided, to try and figure out who this little girl was.
"Okay, we've been at this for an hour, those people are after you, and we can't know you if we do not know who you are," Nadia said, getting annoyed.
Silence...
"Nadia has a point. We've told you our names, you can at least tell us yours."
The girl thought for a moment
"Iris" the girl whispered.
YOU ARE READING
El Dorado 1 (Brazilian Lies)
AçãoJade, a little-known writer, and college student comes across a little girl in a deep forest after wandering in because she believed she heard a child crying. She finds a base of a secretive underground military blacklist group. reads to see if they...
