Jo, Dick and Anne were driven further and further through the dense jungle. They no longer knew whether they were still in the forest of death or not. Even Jo had lost track of the situation and was following two men in improvised handcuffs next to Dick. One of these men was Laoghaire, whose strong Irish accent was getting on Jo's nerves. She had nothing against the Irish, but her relationship with the guy was anything but friendly. She would have liked to beat the guy up so that he would cry and call for his mum, but as these people are, he was not alone. Cowardly! That is the word that kept running through the Thai girl's head. How cowardly these people are, to simply attack defenceless children, put them in "handcuffs" and then drag them along with them. In the process, they were constantly making fun of them. Especially Jo's action of calling one of the guys a "sap" became the joke of the day among the men. Dick had his hands full keeping the extremely agitated Jo in check and preventing her from doing anything stupid.

Anne, on the other hand, was close to tears. Since her "arrest", she had been following the others every step of the way in silence and with her head down. At the same time, she was feverishly thinking about what these guys would do to them. Would they be injured, shot or even killed? Would they be taken to Mr Haynes and held hostage or something like that? She hoped so much that the other two would somehow save them. The thought of "the others" immediately brought Julian's health back to her mind. "Julian... Damn it, Julian will die without the berries," she let out a little louder, which the men circling them also heard. Dick and Jo turned to Anne and looked at her sympathetically yet dejectedly, as if they had given up hope of saving Julian. The men, however, had something to say about this that completely stunned Anne. "Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to say goodbye to your brother. A few of our men were quick enough to catch him, too," Laoghaire said, laughing nastily. "What?" all three youths let out in shock. "Yeah, what an achievement. Only that one curly headed chap managed to get away with his mutt. But what danger will he pose?"

###

About 30 minutes before...

"Don't let the waters of this river..., in plain English, fuck with ya. It looks calm, but there are extreme currents in these waters," Lewis warned as he approached a shallow, calm-looking, quietly lapping river with George, Julian and Timmy in his wake. The same river that Jo, Dick and Anne had followed, but in a different place. "I've heard that the berries your boyfr..., sorry cousin, grow in numbers along these rivers," the Australian explained, pretending that his slip of the tongue was completely unintentional. George was a bit bothered by this. She didn't want him to think of her that way. She was strong and independent, not a little girl who let childish feelings control her. George didn't let the frustration of Lewis's confusion show, but still clenched her hands into fists instinctively. How dare that rich prig call Julian her "boyfriend". Sure, he was one of her best friends, but the way Lewis had said it, she felt like he was calling Julian her boyfriend.

"Hello, London this is Canberra, are you still afloat? Dude, have you been smoking something?" asked Lewis, who she seemed to have completely ignored. "Huh? Sorry, I was just thinking about the others," George lied, "They're fine. We'll check on them soon, once Julian gets those berries," Lewis replied. How could he be so sure they were really fine? He was the one who wanted to stop them from going into the forest of death. Now he has dragged them into it and is literally ignoring George's concern for Dick, Jo and Anne. For George, this Australian was becoming more and more mysterious and also a little suspicious. Did he really want to help them or was he just a stooge of Haynes, posing as a friend of theirs?

When George turned around, she saw Julian sitting down on the ground, exhausted and leaning against a stone. Timmy joined him and lay down next to him on the ground. The sight of her severely weakened cousin made her come down a little again. "Lewis, what exactly is going on here? You said this section of the jungle was a place of absolute lawlessness, but so far, all I see is untouched, undisturbed nature. I don't really know what to think at the moment," Julian spoke weakly, giving George hope that she wasn't the only one questioning the Australian's theories about the forest of death. "To explain everything accurately, I'll have to elaborate properly. The best place for me to start, is with what happened earlier," Lewis replied calmly. "What's he talking about?" asked George quietly, to which Julian replied with a smile, "You didn't notice anything about that earlier. You were too focused on me." At this saying, Julian conceded a not-so-light blow to his uninjured left arm. "Ouch.", Julian whined in fake pain, holding his right hand where George had hit him. "Don't you dare make fun of me, okay?!" she hissed. Her reaction disappointed Julian a little. He just wanted to have a little fun to take his mind off his humble situation. He didn't just want to think about possibly dying soon.

"I don't know if you noticed, but where George noticed the red line on your arm and called out to me, I didn't run straight towards you did I?" asked Lewis, which confused George a lot more. Julian gently put a hand on her arm to calm the visibly confused girl a little. "Yes that's right, I was going to ask you about that anyway," he confirmed. "Yes, that's one of the aspects of this forest that researchers and scientists have been racking their brains about for months," Lewis replied and began to tell them everything he knew about this seemingly bewitched jungle.

In fact, research teams as well as local people whose nothing had happened during their expedition had encountered extremely strange things. This darkness that Jo, Anne and Dick had noticed just before they entered the Death Forest was one of them. However, it was much worse when one was inside the forest of death. If you looked "outside" within the area, you saw nothing but black, empty darkness that engulfed everything over about 200 metres away. However, none of the Famous Five or even Jo noticed this, as they had never looked behind after entering the Khwām Tāy.

The researchers concluded that the Khwām Tāy was surrounded by a "psychedelic sphere" never seen before. Further research, however, was interrupted by domestic unrest. The permanent violent protests against the monarchy in the main major sites of the country, where most researchers held their headquarters, simply became too much of a danger for them.

This "psychedelic sphere" had serious influences on all living beings, whether human or animal, who were in the Khwām Tāy. Especially as the strange difference in temperature, which Dick, Jo and Anne also noticed, was triggered by emotions and feelings. If someone was insecure, afraid or panicked, it suddenly became cold for that person. If one was happy, euphoric or simply in a good mood, the temperature compared to a lukewarm late spring day. Romantic feelings, lust, but also enormous anger and a desire for violence, caused the temperature to shoot up to considerable heights, the latter making the air pressure almost unbearable and therefore only intensifying anger and violence, as one felt one had to "fight through" this air pressure.

Roughly speaking, this amplification of emotions occurs with all kinds of feelings. No matter what one felt, in the Khwām Tāy it was twice as strong. Someone who was angry lost control of that anger. Someone who was afraid was in danger of falling into a panic attack, and someone who tried to suppress romantic feelings for another person who was also in the Khwām Tāy was guaranteed to lose that battle at some point.

The Thai government, of course, was informed by the explorers of their discoveries and had declared the Khwām Tāy as a zone where they no longer took responsibility. Thus, the area of lawlessness came into being. International gangs and other criminal groups took full advantage of this decision and built first makeshift camps, then large main and temporary camps in the vastness of the jungle. Some of these were so well camouflaged or kept secret that they have not been found to this day. However, it was quite rare to come across these gangs, as they usually made their way cautiously through the jungle, or used old underground tunnels as routes. In exceptional cases, these tunnels were even developed by the gangsters for short passages. Fights between these gangs were usually lightning-fast and very deadly. The danger of being caught in the crossfire as a bystander was one of the greatest dangers for civilians and tourists in the Khwām Tāy.

"You know quite a lot about this place," Julian noted. "I also did my research before I travelled here. I don't go anywhere unprepared. That can put me, or more importantly others, in danger and being such a sensitive bastard, I can't afford to do that," Lewis countered, laughing softly. "So, now I'll get you the berries to get you back on your feet," he added, turning away from the other two. "What?" let out George in surprise and confusion. "What the hell is wrong with you?" asked Lewis, who had then turned around again after all. "I'm really starting to get the feeling you're a bit stoned or something," he laughed. Julian grinned slightly to himself as well. "I told you earlier that there's a bush of these berries up ahead. But you were kind of out of the loop there," Lewis said to George, who was getting increasingly irritated by Lewis' jabs. Frustrated, she straightened up and went over to Lewis to check on those berries herself. "You stay with him, I'll get them," the Australian stopped her, which immediately went against her grain. "If you think I can't climb down there because I'm a girl, you're seriously mistaken," she hissed, looking at him grimly. "Dude, it's got nothing to do with that. If you want to be a guy, you're a guy to me, I'm more progressive about that than your cousin over there. I just think it's better that someone stays with him who knows him well," Lewis immediately rowed back, which honestly surprised George a little. Did the Australian really just tell her that he saw her as a boy?

Completely perplexed, she trotted back to Julian without talking back and sank back down on the floor beside him. Never before had anyone voluntarily offered to see her as a boy. To her, that meant so much that she shut down her concern that Lewis might not be trusted. "Are you okay?" asked Julian, looking at her with a smirk. George nodded and asked him the same. "I just want to have these berries and get my strength back," he replied, grinning. George just couldn't help but return his grin. They were very close, which normally she would not have liked at all. But for whatever reason, she didn't care at all, at that moment. On the contrary, she even leaned slightly against him. Whether he noticed was also of no concern to her. She was exhausted. Exhausted from worrying about the others all the time and whether Lewis might not be their enemy after all. Now she just wanted to relax for a moment and listen to the quiet rippling of the river in front of them. Unintentionally, she nodded off, leaning close to Julian's shoulder.

George was jolted out of her sleepy state by a strange crackling and popping sound that sounded like footsteps. At first, she thought that Lewis had finally returned with the berries, but he was nowhere to be seen. "What was that?" asked Julian, who was also visibly confused by the noise.

Only after listening more closely did George realize that these noises were coming from a completely different direction, one in which Lewis had not gone at all. Instinctively, she stood up and looked around. Timmy did the same and followed her. Slowly she stepped to the ledge where Lewis had climbed down to reach the bushes. But when George arrived at the said ledge, there was no one there. No sign of the young Australian who had promised them to get the berries for Julian. George wanted to call for him, but before she could do so, something happened that completely took her breath away.

Strange, deafeningly loud noises reached her ears, which immediately set her heart racing. A frightening mix of distorted, distant screaming, wild chattering in a language completely unknown to her and strangely cheerful laughter from children's voices tugged at her hearing. It was all paired with a shrill whine that sounded anything but natural. "What the hell is going on now!" she thought to herself as she turned to Julian with her hands on her ears. However, there was only the stone... without Julian.

Two hands grabbed her violently from behind, whereupon she immediately moved forward and freed herself from their grip. With a startled cry, George turned around and faced a tall, broad-shouldered guy who was looking down at her with a nasty grin. Timmy immediately started growling and put himself between her and the strange guy, who clearly had no good intentions. "George!" a very familiar voice called out, causing her to turn around momentarily. "Julian!" she cried in shock as she saw her cousin being forcibly held down by another stranger and dragged away from her. George took a few steps backwards, but bumped into the chest of another guy. A third man also joined in and tried to surround her with the other two. The third was a lot slimmer than the other two and held a pistol in his right hand, which kept George a little at bay. Out of reflex, she grabbed Timmy's collar to stop her dog from putting herself in danger. "Run, George! It's no use struggling!" roared Julian with all the strength he had left. For a split second, George looked in the direction from which his voice came and looked Julian straight in the eye. They were simply pleading with her to run away and not do any heroic deeds. Running away was not at all their style, of course, but their situation was hopeless.

This became obvious to her when she saw the slender unknown man raise his right hand with the pistol and point it at her. Before he could shoot her, George ducked quickly and backed away. The next shot would hit her, she knew. With that thought, she gave up all her courage and willingness to fight and turned around. As fast as her legs carried her, she ran into the wildly overgrown jungle, Timmy always at her side. A few more shots were fired by the slender man, but they all whizzed past her. Then it was quiet again.

George, however, did not stop. She ran, ran and ran, further and further into the jungle. Only after what felt like an eternity did she stop and rest her arms on her legs. She was definitely lost and didn't know where she was at all, but she didn't care. Panting heavily for breath, she wondered what on earth had just happened. First those strange, unnatural sounds, definitely playing from a loudspeaker or something. No one could make such disturbing sounds themselves. Then the sudden appearance of these men and how quickly they had caught Julian. Had these men been watching them all along? Or had they been betrayed? For seconds, she pondered what explanation there was for what had just played out before her eyes. Then something hit her like a fist in the face...

Lewis! Did he have something to do with it, or did he flee when he saw the men without warning them. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. "Bloody hell!" she cursed, kicking with all her might at an innocent little tree near her. Swaying wildly back and forth, the plant seemed to complain about the disturbance of its peace. "Pl̀xy h̄ı̂ c̄hạn xyū̀ khn deīyw.", she heard a soft voice whisper from the direction of the tree, which confused the second oldest of the Famous Five mightily. Had the little tree just spoken to her? In Thai? Was she losing her mind completely now? Countless questions ran through her head at the same time and she could not answer any of them.

These questions in her aching head were silenced by the sound of footsteps and voices. Not wanting to get into any more life-threatening situations, George decided to just keep walking and hope the people she heard were either not hostile or did not notice her at all. Unfortunately, neither was the case and after a few steps she heard a man's voice shouting something.

"Vamos. ¡Atrapen a este tipo, no lo dejen escapar! Nos prometieron mucho dinero por atraparlo."

"Spanish!?" gasped George in confusion, turning once more to the voices. She was horrified to discover up to eight masked gangsters rushing towards her with old weapons and wearing hip clothes. "Come on Timmy, let's get away from here," she said to her dog and picked up her pace.

The gangsters seemed to notice this and actually started chasing them. As they did so, they kept shouting Spanish phrases like "¡Consigue a ese hijo de puta!", "¡No dejes que se escape!" or "¡Quieto ahí, mocoso!". She knew the men spoke Spanish, but she didn't understand a word of what they were shouting at her. She had a dull feeling at her back, though, that it was not good. To her advantage, George was a lot more nimble than these guys and managed to break visual contact in short order. As she continued to run away from the gangsters, she discovered something that gave her hope of getting rid of these men: a cave.

Briskly, Timmy and George rushed into the protective darkness of the cave and hid behind a ledge. With her heart pounding and a loudly panting Timmy beside her, she saw the men looking around in confusion. ¿A dónde fue?, one of them asked. "No sé, me temo que se nos ha escapado.", another replied. "¡Maldita sea, esa era nuestra oportunidad de embolsarnos dinero de verdad!" cursed another of the gang of thugs. Continuing to babble something unintelligible in Spanish, the men walked away, leaving George and Timmy unharmed.

Relieved, George took an audible deep breath and looked at her dog with a grin. "What idiots, Timmy. We really showed them, didn't we, big guy?" she laughed and stroked her dog's ears wildly. He barked in affirmation and licked his mistress happily across the face, who then laughed loudly.

Exhausted, George leaned against the cold stone wall of the cave and breathed heavily. A little dazed, she grabbed her forehead, which was suddenly frighteningly hot. "I think I really need to have a nap," she said to her dog and slumped limply. Timmy looked at her worriedly and nudged his snout against her, whimpering. But his mistress did not move a bit. Breathing heavily, she lay in front of him on the unusually cool stone floor and did not even react to his worried barking.