Chapter 2
TWO
Three hundred years ago, our ancestors did something unthinkable: they left North America behind and vanished into the southern jungles. The world thought they were fools—conspiracy nuts, panic-driven cowards. Even their loved ones mocked them.
But they saw disaster coming. They trusted the itch in their bones, the warnings etched across the world, and ran as far from humanity as they could.
It saved them.
War soon set the earth on fire, incinerating everything mankind had accomplished. The cities our forefathers fled were flattened to graveyards. A toxic haze followed on the flames’ heels, enveloping everything in its path.
Nobody was prepared, and everyone died—except for our forefathers… and whoever else had dared to prepare for the worst.
“Hellooo! You sleeping, Tani?”
I flinched at the sound of my sister’s disgruntled voice drifting up from a few branches below.
I’d left her on the lower platform while I climbed to the lookout—the highest perch in our tree house colony—to examine the darkening sky.
My mother had sent me up here to estimate how much time we had before the rain clouds rolled in.
We had a celebration planned for tonight, and nobody wanted it drowned out by another storm.
I had a habit of getting distracted when I came up here. The view was breathtaking, for one thing. “I’m coming, Bea,” I called down.
The truth was… I didn’t know who else was out there. The only humans I’d encountered outside of our five-hundred-strong community belonged to neighboring jungle colonies to the north.
Sometimes, though, I looked to the far horizon, that hazy, blood-orange strip hovering above the ocean of treetops, and wondered who else had survived. How had they endured? What were their ancestors’ stories? And how did they live now?
But then another, wiser part of me whispered that perhaps it was better not to know.
Rumors had long drifted in from colonies near the jungle’s edge, tales of militant nomads sweeping through desperate settlements already teetering on extinction.
They stripped each community bare, stealing everything of value and leaving behind only ruin and hunger before moving onward.
Stories like these made me grateful we lived so remotely, so cut off from anyone who could harm us.
My grandmother used to say that every ending was necessary for a new beginning.
She believed humans had become such pests to the earth that the world had no choice but to renew itself, to give those who remained another chance.
Yet it seemed that, even now, some humans hadn’t learned their lesson.
The nomads paid no heed to history. They still made war and preyed on their fellow human beings, just as the humans of the past had done.
At least in the jungle, it was just us, the plants, and the animals, and because we respected nature, nature fed and sheltered us.
“Come ooon!” Bea’s voice rang out again.
“I’ll be just another minute!” I called back, then refocused on the task at hand.
We didn’t have high-tech gadgets to predict the weather—those belonged to another era.
But a lifetime spent in the wild had honed our instincts into something our ancestors could only envy.
I’d had plenty of chances to fine-tune my storm sense, especially this year.
It was only March, and we’d already been battered by more storms than usual.
Judging by the breadth of this evening’s cloud formations and its dark, monsoon-blue color, this storm was going to be another dangerous one.
I just hoped it wouldn’t be as violent as the one that had hit two weeks ago.
The water was welcome but the wreckage was not.
The wind from the last storm had caused severe damage to several roofs, the debris of which had injured four people and almost crushed an entire family while they slept.
It took days and dozens of man-hours to patch them up.
I wanted to reassure my mother that we'd probably miss the worst of the storm, but judging by the darkening horizon, it would be a lie. Doubt crept in about the wisdom of continuing with tonight’s celebrations, yet with the storm still lingering just out of reach, the organizers likely wouldn’t cancel.
All we could do was make certain everyone reached the community hall safely, secured its windows and doors before the winds hit—and then brace ourselves, hoping for the best.
I glanced at the family of squirrel monkeys perched restlessly on branches of the neighboring tree.
They seemed uneasy, shifting nervously, but hadn't yet retreated to shelter. Parrots were still streaking across the sky, their vivid colors catching the fading sunlight. Typically, the jungle would fall eerily quiet an hour or so before a storm arrived. Judging by the animals’ behavior and my own instincts, we probably had two hours—three at most—before it reached us.
That would have to be enough.
“I counted, and it’s been a minute,” Bea announced. “So, I’m gonna climb the ladder if you don’t come down, ‘kay?”
I allowed my eyes one last sweep of the magnificent view, then swung down the ladder and landed on the platform below. At less than three feet, my three-year-old sister would have trouble scaling the ladder’s wide rungs by herself, but I didn’t want to tempt her into trying it.
Bea had been standing by the railing, her head leaning against a wooden beam as she stared glumly out at the trees, but, as I landed, she turned and planted one small hand on her hip.
Her chubby face was still smudged with dirt from when she’d been helping our mother with the flowerbeds earlier, and her moss-green eyes glittered with disapproval.
“Finallyyyy,” she said, letting out a dramatic sigh.
I rolled my eyes. “Sassy. I wasn’t up there that long.”
“Yeah, but it’s Founders’ Day and we still gotta do my hair!” She tugged at one of her russet-brown pigtails. Then her soft brow furrowed with worry. “Is there definitely gonna be a storm?”
My stomach tensed as I nodded. “Definitely.”
She wrinkled her button nose, grimacing, and I mirrored her expression.
Founders’ Day was, as the name implied, a day our community came together to remember and celebrate our early pioneers.
We usually gathered around a fire pit on the roof of the community hall, where we feasted, danced, told stories, and gave thanks to those who had the foresight to give us all a future.
I’d read about a tradition called Thanksgiving that was practiced in the old days, and I guessed it was a little like that.
All rooftop plans would be out the window this year, thanks to the storm, but, despite the impending danger, we’d still try to enjoy ourselves. Founders’ Day was too important to let the weather ruin our spirits.
“You know it only takes three minutes to do your favorite hairstyle, right?” I crouched in front of my sister and gestured for her to climb onto my back. She wrapped her arms around my neck and her small legs around my waist, while I fastened the mini harness she was wearing to the one around me.
“Takes longer if you do it properly,” she whispered loudly, directly into my ear, her small, moist lips tickling the inside of it and causing me to giggle involuntarily.
“Hey! I told you not to do that.”
She chuckled, then landed a sloppy, wet kiss against the side of my face, her arms tightening around my neck so much they almost blocked my airway.
“Calm down, you maniac,” I said, grabbing her arms and loosening them slightly. “Unless you want to go for a tumble down there…” I pointed toward the two-hundred-foot drop to the jungle ground, just beyond the platform’s barrier. “No more Founders’ Days for either of us.”
She leaned forward to look at the drop, her face growing solemn for a moment, and then her toothy grin returned. “Okay, go monkey, go!” She kicked her feet at the sides of my waist, as if she were giddying up a horse.
Sighing, I stepped toward the edge of the deck.
Monkey.
I was pretty sure she had been sent by the gods to test me… or torment me… or something, but I had to admit that it was a sweet torment. Hopefully I’d still feel the same once she hit her teen years, though I doubted it.
I reached for one of the four zip lines that connected the lookout to the rest of our tree house network and clipped its dangling hook to my harness. Then, after double-checking Bea was securely fastened, I launched off.
Her shriek immediately pierced my eardrums—a noise they’d grown accustomed to.
Despite the fact that she took a zip line at least ten times a day, traveling to and from the schoolhouse, the community hall where everyone ate meals together, or the laundry house where she helped my mother sometimes, she always screamed in excitement.
Our community formed an intricate network of tree houses, connected by occasional bridges, but zip lines were our preferred means of travel. We spent most of our lives avoiding the ground due to the predators that prowled beneath us.
This particular zip line led straight to our home, directly connecting to the lookout’s lower platform—one of the reasons I’d grown so attached to that spot.
Its easy accessibility meant I'd spent countless hours there over the years, sharing picnics with family and friends, the echoes of childhood laughter still lingering in my memory.
I inhaled the crisp, fragrant air, enjoying the still-calm wind against my skin as we glided the last dozen feet, our legs dangling above the sea of leaves.
When my feet hit the landing deck of our tree house—a narrow, two-story structure containing two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living area—the heady scent of fresh flowers greeted me.