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The whole place had a bizarre sort of sentience.

We filed down a path lined with gnarled roots and dense vegetation. The smell of damp earth pervaded humid air. Fireflies lent mystic luminescence to the primeval scene. Every now and then bits of stone, arranged in vaguely intelligent patterns, would make us pause and ponder. Until a shove informed that we must troop on.

Sam’s tan baseball cap bobbed prosaically, just feet from my line of sight, intermittently obscuring my view of a darkness that was surprising for mid day. The canopy was thick, stretching some hundred feet above, vaulting cathedral-like, assuring the sun dared not defile an eternal vesper.

The hush among us Americans was certainly church like, much to the amusement of our guides, who laughed and sang in a mix of Portuguese and Arawak.

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This is how I began recollecting the strange series of events that led to our present situation in the Amazon Rainforest. Everything that I’ve so far recounted is crystal clear in my memory. It is my fond hope that those who can glean what stands in the shadows of my words…do. That is that I have communicated effectively.

It is a matter of necessity that this record is episodic. Despite our notes, our corroboration – there is some difficulty in recollection. Yes, I understand that this seems to contradict the earlier statement about a crystal clear memory. What I mean is that the skeletal framework is crystal clear. But certain connective tissues remain mercurial. Did you ever forget the name of a coworker you saw daily. Someone you knew, whose name you knew, yet for some reason now that name escapes you. So you resort to recalling facts about your interactions, their appearance, how you felt etc. Well, this is exactly like that.

Most of the blank spaces have been surpassed except that which regards the key. I can barely piece together the connection between the strange soldiers and a certain shadowy lodge in Germany. The furthest true planet is cloudy.

I think these men have something to do with the giants that attacked us at Luckadoos lodge; and maybe some of what the country swain recounted was not entirely fabricated. Physically they are not a threat. Whatever has Hoyt in its grip does not tolerate them. He’s like some white blood cell.

But, metaphysically something has crept in. I think the strange shaman who appeared at the Kuikuro village is trying to keep it at bay. Nightly he makes some sort of propitiation. He sits alone by a strange geometric fire that he himself has set and rocks back and forth as he mutters some staccato chant.

Many of our guides have abandoned us. We did foresee this eventuality. Which is one of the reasons for our (traditionally speaking) inadvisably outsized expedition. It isn’t their exit that alarms us. It is their parting words.

What I am saying is an extreme paraphrase but I believe it to be a faithful enough rendition. In essence they told us that there is no such thing as balancing duality, in affixing it, and that our attempts to do so render us: ‘as wicked as the wicked.’

Who knows what sorts of bizarre imaginings the Catholic/indigenous syncretism fosters in local brains. Yet there was something uncannily erudite in their debased Portuguese patois. Something forceful in the rhythm of syllable and the sternness of expression.

This coupled with the fact that their admonishment echoed well established alchemical truisms.

I approached the Shaman one night mid ceremony. Something no one had done. But, I was through with politesse. I entered with the intent to get answers. And I did.

He met my gaze and instantly I was flooded with inexpressible awareness. It was throbbing, pulsing, wavelike – everyting was solid but nothing was tangible. It was as if the whole present reality was comprised of smoke. A wispy thing an afterffect…and then I heard him say….

“Sacred fire…sacred fire is timid…it does not consume. Rather it perpetuates. It is flux and stasis.” As these words manifested in my brain I saw two iridescent orbs emerge from the ground and phase their way through the trees.

I was immediately transported back to that spot by the kitchen window at the lodge. By now I knew…but still it threw…me…the saucers I saw at a hidden Kentucky lake were not the effects of military grade hallucinogens.

For what I saw now…I saw stone cold sober.

And this is where the trouble and the shadow began. Memory flees from me just as those orbs seemed to flee from our strange companion.

My surroundings aren’t helping matters. As of the writing of this, I am inside a shipping container aboard a Chinese cargo vessel. I’ll reveal the reasons behind this later – post hoc dangers aren’t primarily metaphysical.

If it wasn’t for Chao and his dumplings I may have given up on recounting this at all. I mean in the grand scheme I suppose it doesn’t matter. Whether one knows or not. It’s not a matter of fate either…but I get ahead of myself.

The trouble is that the key as you may well have guessed was chemical in nature. And the realization of the city shattered our standard temporal apparatus to such a degree that everything in the periphery of the epicenter was lost. That is we that survived knew…but we do not know how we knew. It is against my better instincts that I am trying to surpass that gap….

There is a reason that there is no heaven on Earth. But more on this later. I hear the sound of flesh on metal…that’s Chao with the dumplings.

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