The jungle at night was not silent — it was alive.
Crickets clicked in steady rhythm, frogs barked in the underbrush, and above it all came the soft, eerie hum of fireflies weaving through the darkness like drifting embers of old fires. The canopy creaked with the weight of nocturnal creatures, and in the distance, a jaguar called once — low, mournful.
This was when Ma'kua summoned Arã to the edge of the sacred trail.
"It is time," he said.
Arã wore no cloak, no paint. Only a satchel of cassava flour and dried berries, a knife carved from bone, and his own silence.
"You will go alone," Ma'kua continued. "Until the moon wanes and returns."
"Three nights?" Arã asked.
"Three trials."
Ma'kua handed him a small gourd of water. "The forest remembers the old ways. You must walk without asking, sleep without fire, and return without fear."
Arã took the gourd.
Then he turned and stepped into the dark.
Behind him, no one called farewell.
The Trial of Fireflies had begun.
He walked for hours, deeper than any hunt had taken him, past roots that curled like fingers, past stones marked with red lichen. The deeper he went, the less he recognized — not just paths, but scents, sounds, even the wind. Trees leaned in as if whispering secrets too ancient to be spoken aloud. Once, a vine brushed his neck like a hand reaching for his spirit.
He did not flinch.
He listened to the hush between footsteps. To the silence beneath the rustle. And slowly, the jungle seemed to shift its breath.
When night fell fully, the fireflies came.
They did not swarm, but circled — slowly, cautiously, blinking one after another like ancient eyes. They painted soft lights on leaves and danced like spirits over waterlogged roots.
Arã found a tree with thick roots and nestled into its shadow. He did not build a shelter. He did not speak.
He placed three small stones around him, each one chosen for its smoothness, its place — one for each night.
Then he closed his eyes.
And the jungle watched.
The first night was full of strange songs.
The call of a howler monkey rang across the valley, echoed by the bark of a fox unseen. Branches cracked in the distance, not from footsteps, but from the slow shifting of something heavier than a man. Arã remained still. His breath matched the rhythm of the night, slow and steady. Every time a leaf rustled or a shadow moved, he kept still, listening with more than his ears.
At dawn, he moved.
Not far — only enough to stretch, to drink the last of his water. He ate a small piece of dried berry. Then he watched. The fireflies had vanished with the night, but their rhythm pulsed inside his memory, flickering patterns that seemed like words he could almost read.
He walked to a narrow stream.
There, he saw a stone altar half-swallowed by earth, marked with carvings he could not read. Symbols of leaf and tooth. It was old. Older than Ayruam. He crouched beside it, feeling a strange energy humming from the stone, a low vibration like the growl of something dreaming.
As he reached to brush away moss, a snake coiled beneath the stone struck out.
He pulled his hand back just in time.
The message was clear.
Do not uncover what sleeps.
He bowed his head. Whispered nothing.
That afternoon, clouds gathered. A soft drizzle began, soaking the forest without thunder or wind. Arã took shelter beneath a wide-leafed palm, pressing his back to a tree whose bark was warm with trapped sunlight. He spoke no words but shaped thoughts into rhythm — old chants remembered from the circle.
By the second night, hunger bit sharper. His thoughts wandered.
He remembered Iwame's touch on his cheek, Ma'kua's eyes before he turned. He remembered Tika's river stone.
He held it in his palm now. It was warmer than it should've been, pulsing gently.
That night, beneath fireflies, Arã dreamed.
Of a sky without stars.
Of fire circling a boy who would not scream.
Of a figure in the trees, watching — not with eyes, but with memory.
He saw the altar again. The moss was gone. The symbols glowed faintly. The snake was no longer there — only its skin, shed and hollow.
He awoke cold.
And the jungle did not move.
But he felt it breathe.
The final day dawned with a strange stillness. The sky above the canopy held no clouds, no breeze — only a pale, watchful blue. Arã stood and stretched his limbs, muscles sore from stillness more than movement. His breath was slow, controlled. Hunger gnawed sharper now, but he had learned to make space for its voice.
He walked again.
This time not to seek shelter or stone, but meaning. The jungle was familiar now, not in the way of paths, but presence. He no longer marked the turns. He let his feet follow.
They brought him to a clearing flooded with light — a break in the canopy where golden beams slanted down like spears of silence. The air was filled with drifting motes and low humming — not insects, not animals.
Fireflies.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
They danced in wide spirals, forming a shape above the clearing. It pulsed — first outward, then in. Arã stepped into the light. The fireflies did not flee.
He reached into his satchel and pulled out the last berry. He placed it on a flat stone in the clearing's center and knelt beside it.
"This is my gift," he whispered. "You showed me your breath. I give you mine."
The fireflies paused.
Then they flared — brighter, for a single heartbeat.
And scattered.
The clearing darkened just slightly. Enough to remind him that light is never owed.
He remained there a while longer, kneeling in stillness. The breeze returned in soft pulses, lifting leaves and tracing his skin like farewell touches. Then the sounds returned: distant birdsong, the tap of falling seeds, the breath of the world beginning again.
He stood. Turned.
And made his way back through the trees.
No roots caught his feet. No vines touched his neck. The jungle let him pass.
On his way back, he crossed the same stone altar hidden by the snake days before. The moss was gone. The carvings were bare — and where once the snake had threatened, now its skin lay like a ribbon of offering. Arã did not touch it. He bowed.
When he reached the sacred trail's edge, Ma'kua waited.
"You return with nothing," the chief said.
"I return with breath."
Ma'kua stepped aside.
And Arã entered the village — not as a child who had walked into the dark, but as one who had learned its name.