Jake woke up that morning feeling fresh and energized. Caryn and Andres were already sitting on their sleeping mats, chatting. Caryn saw Jake was already awake, "Grab some breakfast. I prepared some food on the table."
There were bananas and some boiled camote on the table. "Beggars cannot be choosers", Jake thought, as he grabbed 2 bananas and joined Caryn and Andres.
"Eat some camote too", Andres said, as he handed one to Jake.
"But this makes me fart!" Jake replied, as they all laughed.
"Don't worry, it won't, anymore", Andres assured Jake. And then, on a more serious tone, Andres continued, "Jake, the root tea we had was to ground us, especially you. When we go out of this tent, you will see things you haven't seen before."
Jake looked at Caryn to see if she knew about this. Caryn defensively said, "Hey, I just found out about all this last month. I didn't believe it at first either, but you'll see".
"I urge you to really take everything in and believe what you see. That "dream" you had about me wasn't a dream. The apparitions you see in mirrors are not hallucinations either", Andres said firmly. "You're not going crazy. This is the truth that has been kept from you all your life. So, when you're ready, let's go out".
Jake could barely swallow the camote he was eating upon hearing all of this. After everything he's been through the past few days, he wanted to believe in what Andres said, just because he didn't want to think he was going crazy. He wanted to google his symptoms so he grabbed his phone from his backpack only to see there was no signal. There he noticed the date. "Uhm, does losing your signal affect the date on your phone", he asked, while holding his phone infront of Caryn.
"You slept for three days", Caryn replied casually.
"What was in that tea?" Jake thought to himself, slightly losing trust in these people whom he realized he just met. "All this doesn't make sense, Andres!" How can you be my brother when you're so old? And Caryn, we don't even look alike..." Jake was screaming, and was growingly agitated when Andres put his hand on Jake's arm, looking into his eyes, and calmly said, "I think you need to sleep".
"I think I need to sleep", Jake repeated, as he slowly laid down his mat and slept again.
"He's not ready", Caryn said to Andres while shaking her head.
"I know", Andres sadly replied, "the very fact that he willingly followed my order shows that. Quick, gather some leaves outside. We need to do the next step".
Caryn came back after 5 minutes with 5 Banaba leaves in her hands. Andres took 3, washed and applied some oil on these leaves before putting them on Jake's forehead. "This will do the trick. Stay here, I need to prepare them for Jake", Andres told Caryn, as he walked out of the tent.