Jack and Sam trailed after Teal'C, feeling completely useless in the search for their lost team member. Teal'C, despite the pounding rain, was able to pick up a trail in only a few minutes. No one had tried to cover their tracks. Daniel had ran off into the forest, limping but with a good pace, and was followed by at least three men.

The three remaining members of SG-1 had entered the forest after Jack had radioed the other SGC member atop the hill. After sending the bodies through, he told them to post a watch at the 'gate. Just in case something happened. Under the canopy of leaves, the rain was lesser, but it was still wet and dreary. They were forced to use flashlights, despite the attention it would call to them if enemies were near.

Teal'C walked with his head lowered, eyes searching the ground, the leaves, the trees for any sign of…anything. Sam kept her flashlight beam near the ground, looking herself, though her own skills were rather bad in comparison to the Jaffa's. She felt that she had to do something. It wasn't helping very much--at all, really--but she felt less useless. Jack, however, just held his flashlight without thinking about where the beam went. His mind raced with a million different scenarios. None of them ended well for Daniel.

Suddenly Teal'C stooped in a fluid motion--from walking to crouching. Sam stopped short, but Jack nearly tripped over him. He was stopped by Sam, and stared down at where Teal'C was looking. A pair of broken glasses lie in the mud between the roots. He reached down, over Teal'C's shoulder, and picked them up. The left lens was cracked in a spider web like fashion. The right one was completely shattered. Mixed among the mud was the distinct color of blood.

Teal'C stood and scanned the ground. "It appears that DanielJackson fell here. The men caught up and one carried him." He said this without looking up, and turned off of the path they had been following, to the right, and started down the new trail. Sam followed, silent, brow wrinkled in silent fear and worry. Jack looked down at the glasses in his hand, clenched his hand, and dropped them in the mud. He trudged after Sam, hand coming to rest on the butt of his gun.

* * * * *

He sat numbly in his cell, staring at the bars, thinking over his situation. He hurt like hell--was it actually his fault?--and didn't have any medical equipment, not even a first aid kit. No one knew where he was--surely they'd have sent a probe through the 'gate by now--it had certainly been long enough--but no one knew what had happened other than that they were ambushed. They'd never find him. He didn't even know himself where he was, and the planet was mainly just wilderness. As much as he would like to hope that they'd be able to track him, his hope was not much, and he wondered if he should begin to accept that he'd never get home to save trouble later. When they went to kill him.

Who exactly were 'they' anyway? As far as the probes and UAVs had shown, the planet was uninhabited. So why was he sitting in the corner of a cell, hand pressed against the covering on a shoulder wound made by a weapon? Having had his arms chained above his head did nothing for him--the pull had actually made him start to bleed again, and now he pressed his hand on it to keep the blood to a minimum.

When he had regained consciousness, Daniel had been faced again with the Goa'uld woman. She had spoken again in a tongue he couldn't understand. In fact, he couldn't even understand why she didn't speak in the Goa'uld tongue. Too many questions in his own mind, and too many questions he didn't understand. She had finally given up, stared at him, contemplating him, and drawn a syringe out of the folds of her cloak.

He'd been injected with a dark-colored liquid in a vein on his neck. It wasn't so much the fact that she was injecting him with something, but the thought of what she could be injecting him with that had caused him to panic. He had kicked out, shoving her back. The empty syringe had fallen and shattered, and the guards had advanced. They hadn't used the torture instruments--he had a feeling that they'd use those later. Instead, their fists had done a bang-up job--no pun intended. His left eye was bruised, blackened, and practically swollen shut. His jaw was turning a lovely shade of purple, and his nose had just stopped bleeding.

But what had really hurt most was the attack at his chest and stomach. Every time he moved, there was that shifting feeling--the rub of bone against bone? There was really no doubt in his mind that they'd broken at least one of his ribs. Others were surely cracked. His chest was darker than his facial bruises. He thanked God that he'd been chained with his back to the wall. Lord only knew what they would have done to his lower back--beat his kidneys into a pulp.

But now, a slow trickle of blood still working its way down his forehead from where a guard with a ring had sliced the skin at his hairline, he took to trying to figure out what it was that she had put into his blood. Most likely not poison--he didn't feel anything other than pain from the beating. No sickness. And he wasn't dead. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or not in this particular situation. Truth serum of some kind? Like the blood of Sokar? Than why hadn't she tried to question him after injecting him, instead of letting the guards use him as a punching bag and drag him back to his plain, cold cell?

Eventually, thoughts still buzzing through his mind, he managed to doze off. His left hand still pressed against the blood-stained bandaging on his shoulder, chin to his chest. No one came to bother him, to wake him, to question him. He was alone for a good many hours, allowed to sleep his restless but dreamless sleep.

* * * * *

Nothing. Hours on end and still nothing. What had been uncomfortably squishy boots had become mud-filled lakes of rainwater. No one spoke as the thunder rolled overhead. The rain had grown even harder, and it was worse beneath the cover of leaves than before. Teal'C, who had been so sure of where he was going before, began to seem unsure, and stopped often to check his surroundings. Carter was staring at the flashlight beam with no real hope left in her eyes. Jack maintained his silent, brooding demeanor. But inside, he silently prayed to all that was good and perfect in the world for Daniel to be alive. The way that the archaeologists had been massacred on the hilltop left no doubt in his mind that these people would kill Daniel if he didn't talk. And Daniel wouldn't talk. That was certain. Despite his civilian title, Daniel wouldn't give in. It would be the end of him, this secret of the SGC.

They reached a clearing where rain came down in painful sheets, practically cutting off all visionary. But even through the rain, they could see the temples. Three large, overwhelmingly huge temples. The tops were brushed with the leaves of the swaying trees, and hundreds of steps lead to the pillared tops. Doorways and walkways surrounded the outsides, almost in the way that the Anasazi's caves in the hillsides looked, without ladders.

Teal'C stopped here. Rainwater had flooded the wide opening. He turned to Jack, and the Colonel's heart chilled. "There is no more trail. The rain has washed away what was left of the markings. There are no more footprints--they would be impossible to find in this water. I am sorry." He lowered his head, truly meaning what he said.

"Then we'll look in the temples. We can't stop here. If the tracks lead here, then they probably were leading to the temples. We'll start with the one on the right." He left no room for argument, striding through the ankle-high water toward the designated building. No one hesitated. They followed, hands on their weapons, ready for any ambush.

Jack randomly chose a doorway on the lowest level and stepped in, flashlight on. It was dusty inside, but there was archaeological equipment every here and there. This was where the mission had been going and had not gotten. He moved deeper into the room, following passageways in the dark, followed by his team members, silently promising to Daniel that he would find him.

* * * * *

Daniel woke suddenly, sensing someone else in the room with him. He raised his head up slowly, his hand coming up to brush blood away from his left eye. It was now trickling down in a steady stream due to the angle he had held his head at. His dark blue eyes locked on something unseen, and he gasped, left hand clutching at the shooting pain in his ribs as he did so. He cowered back into the darkness of the corner, refusing to believe, but unwilling to tear away his gaze.

His parents stood before him. They were bloody, broken, disfigured, crushed. Blank white eyes staring at nowhere, but also at him. Especially at him. His father opened his mouth. Blood ran down his chin as he tried to speak. Nothing came out but a cracked whispering noise--indistinguishable. He lifted a hand and staggered forward a step.

"NOOO!" Daniel screamed, finally slamming his good hand over his eyes. He could still hear the soft shuffle of feet approaching. "No…" he whispered, shaking, curling himself up tightly in the corner. "You aren't real. You aren't real." An eerily calm voice in the back of his head asked if he should have stayed in that padded room; asked if he wasn't really nuts. No thought bothered to mention that the Goa'uld woman had injected him with something unknown--something that could easily cause hallucinations. The thoughts just asked if he were nuts, insisted that this wasn't real, screamed at the horror. "You aren't real! You can't be--" A hand fell on his shoulder and he let out a choked cry, dark eyes raising to meet the white blankness where he father's kind, sweet eyes used to be. The man who would let him help explore in great temples, dig at sites, read him stories at his bedtime. The hand tightened on his injured shoulder and he cried out. There was a dry cracking noise as the hand tightened. Pale lips moved to say words that didn't come, and more blood trickled out.

Daniel sobbed, shaking, unable to move anywhere. Unable to escape. His mother stepped forward and he couldn't bare to look anymore. He couldn't scream anymore, couldn't protest the reality. He could feel the hand on his shoulder, pressing against his wound, or the creaking of dead bones. His father shifted, and he could feel dry, dead, decaying skin brush against his own. The stench of death filled his nostrils and he choked, pushing back nausea. Cold lips touched his ear as his father's voice--the voice that had read him those stories, had explained about the origins of the temples, had taught him how to use the equipment in the dirt of the dig--whispered haunting words in his ears.

It won't be long, Danny. It won't be long until you come…before you join us.