"Oliver," someone said. "Wake up." Oliver opened his eyes. The sun was shining brightly through the treetops.
"What?" Oliver asked. Emma pointed to a butterfly on a leaf. It had bright blue wings, its color standing out in the dull green if the rainforest.
"Isn't it so pretty," she asked. Oliver sort of liked the blue on the butterfly. "The color matches your eyes." Oliver saw that the wing color was, in fact, the same shade as his eyes.
"What are we supposed to eat?" Oliver asked, taking his eyes off the magnificent butterfly. All he could see around the jungle was trees, vines, and more trees. "Nothing here looks edible"
"I don't know much about the Amazon rainforest, so if we get desperate, we'll just eat fruit or something, and hope it's not poisonous," Emma said. "For now, we need to keep searching." They did not find anything. About three hours had passed when they decided to take a break. Then they kept searching. It turned out, ten meters away, the ground dropped into a giant chasm. The only thing that spanned it was a small bridge made of vines.
"Someone had to make this bridge, right?" Oliver asked. "So doesn't that mean we are close to human civilization?" Emma shrugged.
"You go first," Emma said. "I don't like the look of this bridge." Oliver slowly walked along the vine bridge. It seemed sturdy enough.
"It's fine," Oliver said. "You can come—" A vine snapped, and the bridge collapsed. Oliver was screamed while holding on to the end of the bridge, which was dangling on a few vines still attached to the other side.
"I'll get you!" Emma shouted. She looked around, then grabbed a thick vine from a nearby tree. "Catch!" She threw the long vine towards him. Oliver just barely managed to grab the end of the vine. He let go of the bridge, which sent him grabbing the vine, five meters from the surface. Above, Emma was trying to pull, but he was too heavy, so she ended up wrapping it around a tree. She peeked down the chasm. Oliver was now climbing the vine until he finally got to the top. He sat down, breathing heavily.
"How are we goin to get across now?" Oliver asked. "The bridge broke, and I don't see any other way."
"We could try to pull the bridge back, then secure it to this side," Emma suggested. Oliver shrugged. The threw some vines, and some latched onto the bridge. Then they pulled the vines closer to them. When they got hold of the broken bridge. They tied the ends to thick, sturdy trees, keeping the bridge up. Oliver went first, lightly stepping to the damaged bridge. Emma came even slower, and more cautiously. Suddenly an arm wrapped around his neck, and a hand clamped on his mouth. Oliver struggled, but his captor was stronger than he was. Emma was captured by another man, who was wearing bright clothing, and a hat with a bunch of feathers. Their kidnappers dragged them about half a mile, to a small village made of huts. They were pulled to a wooden lodge, in the center of the village. A man wearing more fancy clothing, who was probably the leader, was sitting down, his eyes closed. The man holding Emma clears his throat. The village leader looked up. They talked in a language Oliver and Emma didn't know, then finally, they were brought out. The men threw them into an open roofed cell, then left. The cell they were in had bars of woven vines making them hard to break. The jail was across from the leaders house. Oliver's shoulder hurt from hitting the floor.
"What now?" Oliver asked. "We just got kidnapped and thrown into jail by crazy tribal men in just a matter of minutes." Oliver watched as Emma walked to the bars and shook them ferociously. They were too strong.
"These vine bars are as hard as steel," she said shaking the bars again. "The only way out is the top, and it's too high up to climb." Suddenly his hands felt cold. The place where he was touching the bar turned blue and cold, like cold water or . . . ice. He turned to Emma. She was staring at him like he was crazy.
"Uhh," Oliver said. "That just happened." He rammed his shoulder, the one that did not hurt, into the icy bars. The vine bars shattered like glass. Doors opened, and everyone in the village stared. Oliver and Emma ran. They turned back. Five village men were chasing them. Without control, Oliver's hands shot ice, freezing two of the men in their tracks. Then the unexpected happened, flame engulfed two more.
"Oops," Emma said, looking at her hands. "What's going on?" The last man ran away in fright. The next few moments seemed like fantasy.
"Do you know what just happened?" Oliver asked, breaking the silence. "This is not possible. Magical powers are only in stories."
"Apparently not," Emma said. She pointed her hands at a tree, and the whole thing went up in flames.
"You might want to be careful with that," Oliver said. "We're in a rainforest, which is highly flammable." Oliver waved his hand toward the tree. Ice covered it. The tree sizzled, and the fire died down.
"Wait!" someone said from behind them. The tribe leader came out of the grove of trees. "Come with me. It wasn't like the leader could do anything to them, so they followed him. He led them to a clearing with no trees.
"What do you want?" Oliver asked. The leader beckoned them to sit down. They sat.
"You have powers, correct?" the leader asked. "I'm sorry, that was an informal greeting. My name is Santiago. I presume you found out about your powers just today? See, you are the only people who have these abilities. I can see you do not know anything about magic. Let me tell you something. Do not let your power get the best of you. Your own power can take your life. Learn to control it. Have you ever heard the Legend of Magic?"