The jungle swallowed her whole. Towering kapok trees stretched toward a bronze sky, their massive roots twisting out of the earth like ancient, petrified serpents. The hum of cicadas pulsed in rhythmic waves, and somewhere in the distance, a jaguar’s guttural growl echoed through the dense foliage. She crouched low near a moss-covered boulder, her green shorts brushing against damp undergrowth, and tightened her grip on the twin pistols holstered against her thighs. The faint glimmer of her white crop top flashed between the shadows as she leaned forward, her braided hair slicked with sweat and mud.
Her heart threatened to jackhammer out of her chest, but her hazel eyes remained steady—focused, calculating. Less than twenty feet ahead, sunlight dappled over a crumbling stone idol of a long-forgotten civilization, its cracked face frozen in a perpetual scream. Obsidian shards embedded in its gaze glittered ominously. This was it: the Shrine of the Weeping Jaguar. No adventurer who had ventured here before had lived to describe its halls. The jungle ensnared their stories like its vines claimed their remains.
She stood slowly, her boots crunching over brittle twigs and soggy leaves. The leather harness strapped across her chest creaked faintly as she shifted her weight, the straps bearing the weight of ammunition, a rope, and a weathered field journal. Just beyond the idol, the entrance to the shrine yawned—a narrow fissure carved into a limestone cliff, dark as a tomb. The air smelled of damp earth and something metallic. Blood? No. There hadn’t been anyone alive here for centuries. At least, that’s what she had told herself when she took the mission.
“Emily Carter, world’s greatest living archaeologist,” she muttered with a sarcastic grin. “But let’s see if you can be the world’s greatest surviving one.”
Sliding her pistols from their holsters, Emily moved forward with the precision of a cat lowering itself to pounce. Every step was deliberate, her footfalls melting into the ambient noise of the jungle. As she made her way toward the cliff, her mind began to replay the events that had led her here—not just to Central America, but to this life.
Years ago, she had been holed up in a London library, poring over manuscripts about the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, and dismissing those adventures in fiction as academic fodder. Her colleagues mocked her unorthodox theories: that every myth held a grain of truth, every legend a spark of history. But when her father, a celebrated explorer, disappeared eight years ago pursuing this very same shrine, she had resolved to uncover the truth. What started as a need for closure had evolved into something more. She was no longer chasing his shadow. She was chasing her own need to prove she could outsmart death itself.
The idol loomed closer. Emily glanced over her shoulder and froze. The jungle had fallen eerily silent, as though the forest itself was holding its breath. Her index finger hovered over the trigger of her pistols, and slowly, she turned her gaze forward again—to see the obsidian eyes of the idol bleeding streaks of black ichor. A sudden crunch of movement to her left made her pivot, gun pointed at what appeared to be nothing but shadows and drooping branches.
And then, a flash of gold. It disappeared like a flicker of light in a storm. Another flash, this time from an entirely different direction. Her instincts screamed for her to move. She bolted toward the shrine, vaulting over roots and jagged stones, the pistols swinging in her grip. Behind her, the sound of movement erupted like a predator’s chase. Distant snarls and guttural breathing—no, panting—cut through the heavy air. Whatever it was, it wasn’t human. Not entirely human, at least.
Emily slid into the shrine’s entrance just as claws raked through the air where her head had been seconds earlier. She spun to see golden irises staring back from the shadows of the jungle—two pairs. The creatures that emerged were jaguar-like, but their movements, too precise and too calculating, chilled her. They were larger than any big cats she had ever seen, their fur ink-black and spotted in gold patterns that shimmered like molten lava beneath the sun.
Not willing to find out what they were, she pushed deeper into the shrine. Torchlight flickered along the walls, though she could feel no heat. How was there light here when no one had been? Her boots clicked against smooth obsidian floors, and ancient glyphs depicting sacrificial rites scrolled across the walls. Above her, the ceiling appeared to stretch infinitely upward, reminding her of some cavernous cathedral.
“Dad, I hope whatever you were looking for was worth this,” she whispered. Her voice echoed unnervingly in the hollow silence. “Because this place was definitely built to kill people.”
She descended deeper, an unnatural pull drawing her forward. When the walls exploded outward into a central chamber, her breath caught. The ruins gave way to a towering ziggurat of gold, jagged and nearly blinding in its sheen. At its summit sat the idol’s twin—its obsidian tears carving a dark path into an enormous basin below, where the gold seemed to flow like liquid.
A low growl came from behind, and Emily spun sharply. The creatures had followed—impossible though it seemed—but they weren’t alone. A figure cloaked in jaguar pelts and adorned with bone and jade jewelry stepped out from the shadows. His face, half-painted in black, revealed eyes that gleamed with an otherworldly light.
“You should not have come,” he whispered, his voice like the rasping of leaves underfoot.
Emily tightened her grip on her pistols. “And miss a party like this?” she quipped, her heart pounding. “Not a chance.”
The man raised a staff, its head carved into the form of a snarling jaguar. The creatures at his side growled in unison, their golden eyes fixed on her. The staff hit the ground with a resounding thud, sending a shockwave through the temple. The liquid gold in the basin began to rise, forming tendrils that moved unnaturally, their fluidity betraying a life of their own.
Emily exhaled sharply and muttered to herself as she raised her weapons. “Yep—definitely should’ve stayed in London.”
The hunt had begun.
Genre: Adventure
The Source…check out the article that inspired this amazing short story: Lara Croft Cosplay: Green Shorts Adventurer Costume Inspiration
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