Death came for Melanie James when she was seventy-six pounds. Her mother was in the middle of berating her when he walked into her hospital room, dressed like a doctor.

"You're selfish," her mother accused, her voice an angry hiss. She said more, and Melanie tried to listen, but the sound kept slipping in her ears--her mother shouted, her mother whispered, her mother's voice became white noise.

Katherine gazed up at the distant green canopy. Monkeys chattered and parrots cawed, but she couldn't see a thing - so much for the exotic wildlife of the Amazon! She pictured Professor Collier enjoying the cool British Autumn, and cursed him roundly. What with the heat, humidity, and lack of sleep, the constant irritation of the mosquitoes...

A muffled exclamation made her turn. John Pangborn was enjoying this expedition as much as she, it seemed. She stifled a grin at his red-faced discomfort - perhaps the mosquitoes had a saving grace after all.

Those who survived the night bore no palpable wound, but for all my care they died soon enough anyway. They stumbled from the temple's jagged maw during the fading dark, when the lake lay calm and colourless, or they crawled forth when dawn bloodied the old stone. They left behind the lucky ones, slumped cold beneath the waxing sunlight.

During what days remained them, they flinched at the sight of stone walls, and cowered from the encroaching dusk. Their eyes were haunted with a gold glaze, their skin drawn and pale; their limbs sluggish and their minds dazed. They would not eat. Their deaths were infinitely slower, drawn to an exquisitely prolonged pitch.