"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that; hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."- Martin Luther King Jr.
It would feel great to see light again.
This thought fueled me ever since we'd fallen into that bunker. But as I climb out into the day, I realize that my thought was wrong.
Seeing light again is useful, but it does not feel great. In fact, it feels like I'm going blind.
I'm the first one out of the hole, and I can't even see what's around me for almost a minute because of the searing pain in my eyes. I only have my head out of the ground, and I can imagine what it must look like to see me like that; scruffy, sticking out of a hole.
Once I manage to get a composure of myself, I check my surroundings. We're in what looks like a field. A few cows graze the field. One stands a foot away, my head only reaching the height of its hooves.
Quietly hissing a curse, I scramble out of the hole and onto my feet. Getting my face split in half by some bovine idiot has never looked appealing to me.
And we sure are in a field. A small house can be seen about 50 meters away. The jungle is visible in the distance. For the first time, I begin to wonder how far we are from that river we were at; it seems like a million years ago that we stood in its shallow waters.
As I dust off my jeans, Perry, supported by Bob, heaves himself up out of the hole. I clasp his hand and help him up, where he puts his weight on my shoulder.
Rather than saying anything, the boy just squints and watches the sun set over the hills. It isn't hard to notice the bruises covering his body. I'm afraid of the severity of pain he's feeling, but also about how we're going to hide his injuries once we get into a city.
Soon, Bob, Alice, Diana, and Janis are all out of the hole too, blinking around at the darkening sky.
And then, as if we don't know, Janis says, "Well this sucks."
For some reason, I want to disagree with her. It's not like nothing good can come from this. Bad things are worth at least something.
It reminds me of a spot of wet concrete by my hut in Punta Arenas. It sucks to walk in at first but eventually it makes life easier.
Our trials aren't something that just need to be thrown away and forgotten in the metaphorical wastebasket of our minds.
No one says anything until I suggest we head to the nearest city. Being outside in the dark is not how I would like to spend my night. Thankfully, everyone is on the same page.
. . .
We search on somebody's phone for the closest city and find that we are at Manaus. It seems we've come pretty far and that we have about 250 miles to go until we reach Bogota.
After being underground so long, what we discover at Manaus is enough to break our eardrums.
Even though it's probably classified at "night" right now, no one in Manaus seems to be asleep. Some kind of celebration seems to be in order. The streets are overrun with people, music and festivities.
Frankly, I've hardly seen anything so amazing. Color blasts everywhere, people are dressed up in costumes, and everyone is dancing.
"Oh my gosh!" Alice exclaims as we weave through the crowds. People bump into us carelessly, and someone is shoved into my back. My worries about hiding Perry's injuries from other people are dissolved quickly: the streets are so packed that no one will notice.
"Where do we go? How are we going to sleep here? I need my beauty sleep!" Bob yells over the noise.
I shrug. The chaos is loud and hard to concentrate in compared to the eerie silence of the underground maze we were in less than an hour ago.
"Guys!" Diana suddenly yells, pointing to a float in a parade heading towards us down the street.
I've only ever gone to the parade for Chile's Independence Day to get free food, and if this one's even close to the same, it will be amazing for the squad.
The float Diana is pointing to has a fake building on it, and someone is throwing paper slips from the car driving it. Still not sure what it is, I follow the rest of the squad as they eagerly dash to get the paper from off the street.
"Hey!" I call after them as I desperately try to keep up in the crowd. It's hard to keep up as it is, but Perry weighing me down is not helping. I almost run over several small children, and a couple excited children almost run over me.
Each member of the squad holds handfuls of paper, and they keep collecting more until one of them yells, "That's enough!"
It takes a few seconds, but we soon are all united again at the sidewalk, festivities continuing around us. Everyone fashions smiles as wider than imaginable.
"What are those?" I ask, still confused. "Why are you all so ecstatic?"
Janis, practically jumping up and down, hands me a slip. I first note that it's a coupon, and I can't help but hope that it's for food. In Spanish, it reads, "One free stay at the Black Cat."
"El Gato Negro," I repeat. "Is that a hotel?"
Janis shrugs. "What else? We've gathered enough for us all to split into two rooms."
Suddenly, I'm caught up in the same excitement my friends have. We get to sleep in beds. I haven't slept in a bed in almost a decade. The thought is outrageous. I'd never guess that the most relaxing night of my life would take place while I'm on a transcontinental journey through the jungle.
"What were we waiting around for?" Diana asks, grabbing my hand spontaneously. "Let's head to this Black Cat!"
. . .
I've probably never set foot in a place as luxourious as El Gato Negro. There's a chandelier hanging from the ceiling and people dressed in fancy black clothing walking around with food.
I'll admit, I'm close to tears. Not in 10 years have I not worked for my food. And now it's just handed to me. People are serving me.
Probably looking barbaric, our group instantly makes our way to a cookie and coffee counter.
"Gosh, control yourselves, guys. You look suspiscious," Janis orders as she stuffs a full cookie into her mouth at once.
No one really listens to her.
Our stomachs are so small now that it only takes about a minute to fill ourselves up. We lean against the wall of the lobby, except for Perry, who sits slumped against the wall. I noticed the man at the front desk is giving us a horrified look.
Since Perry isn't looking so great for the job of a spokesperson, I decide to be the one to "explain" the situation to the desk guy.
"Hola," I say, walking up to the front counter. I begin to tell him in Spanish that we lost all of our food hiking and haven't eaten in 24 hours. "I'm very, very sorry," I apologize, although inside, I'm grinning at how well I did.
The guy nods, even though he doesn't look impressed. He asks if we're staying, and I reply by having Janis check us in with the coupons.
We end up with two rooms across the hall from each other on the third floor. After we've settled in as much as we can, we meet in the girls' room.
"So what do we do now?" Diana asks, lying down on her fluffy new bed.
"There's so much free food they offer down there, we'd be idiots to not pack some," Alice says, pointing out something that's been on my mind.
"We need to be careful so that no one asks questions," Perry says from where he's relaxing on an armchair. He hasn't really spoken all night, and it's understandable why.
"So how about the girls go?" I suggest.
Janis nods. "We can get like, a plastic bag or something." We all pause for a second. Then Janis continues. "But we can't let you boys off the hook. What will you do?"
Glancing at Perry's injured arm, Bob offers, "I'm okay with healing Perry for Alice," neither of the twins look happy with this comment, "and I'm not too bad with medicines."
"Can you use your room to work in?" Diana asks.
Bob nods solemnly. "Yeah, I should be able to find some basic meds in there."
Nodding as if everything is sealed, Alice says, "So are we good? Do we want to meet back here in an hour?"
Before anyone can object, Bob declares, "Guad Squad out!"
. . .
I've always detested to watch or do medical type things, so it's really only for Bob and Perry's sakes that I'm even semi-helping.
When Bob works on Perry, it's honestly the most professional I've ever seen him. He lies him down on the couch and lets him watch TV while he gives him pain killer and bandages up his worst wounds.
Occasionally he'll ask for me to put suave on his bruises or something, but besides that, I don't really "help" much.
Perry's pretty engrossed in the Spanish soap opera he's watching until he drifts off to sleep with only 15 minutes left until we need to meet the girls.
Deciding to spend the rest of that time wisely, I sit on the arm of the couch and by Perry and watch the rest of the soap opera. Bob begins to pack the medicines he found into one of our backpacks.
What feels like the second after I've sat down, Bob says that we should probably head to the other room soon.
I shake Perry's shoulder, looking at his swollen face and grimacing. It only takes a few seconds for him to wake up.
"Vamos," I accidentally say before realizing my mistake. "Sorry. I watched too much of that soap opera."
Perry softly laughs as I help him up and into the girls' room. All three of them are already inside, accusing Bob of being late.
"Hey, guys," I say as I help Perry onto a chair and take a seat onto the floor.
Only Diana says hi back, which I really don't mind.
The squad talks for a few minutes about what we've done in the past hour, which is pretty boring, so frankly, I'm almost glad when we're interrupted. Almost.
There's a knock on our door and we all freeze. None of us say anything until the person on the other side does.
"Can I stay with you chaps? I'm really sorry," a familiar British voice says.
And that is why none of us are surprised when I open the door to Finn Ashton.