My guide tried to convince me not to move on further, as no one to his or his tribe’s knowledge had ever moved on from the man-made boundary. We quarreled a little bit to see if he would join me in my quest to discover something that had never been previously discovered, but he refused, as he claimed to know of a great evil that lurked beyond. Despite never being further than where he stood, all those years ago he knew that something was beyond that spot. The last thing he told me was to light a fire before I slept, to ward off alligator attacks. As this was in the summertime, I set up a tent to protect myself from the rains too. Florida has a bit of a monsoon season in the summertime, and I set up a camp outside the mounds where I would sleep. The night went from hot and humid to cold and humid, and I struggled to sleep due to my fears of possible attacks from gators, and the night calls of the birds resonated deep in my skull as I sweated in my sleep. My guide decided to stay with me for one more night to protect me from possible alligator attacks. In the morning, he bid me adieu, and I had to continue my trek without him. I woke up from a drenched sweat as I saw the footsteps of my assistant heading west in the sand. I knew it was just me now. I had to move on. It was too late for me to stop now. I had to continue the job that I was hired to do and head east. I had to at least try and find a path connecting Tampa to the Atlantic Ocean. 

Before I went further into the heart of the swamp, I walked north to see any anomalies in these mounds. I walked several kilometers to see if there was anything different in these mounds, but I saw nothing different for some time. However, as I walked northward, expecting to see another mound, I noticed that a few were destroyed. I scurried up to the destroyed mound where I saw small hills that were built by displacing the soil of these mounds to other locations. I also noticed that there were excavated areas of the land to make it flatter than the other locations. They were most likely trying to build a railroad track through here, I thought. Whatever happened to the people here? 

I walked back past the mounds westward where I noticed abandoned supplies, labeled, “Atlantic Coast Line Railroad.” My inkling was right. I set up camp and took these supplies with me and constructed a small fire and slept the night. I saw a small inscription that was written in Spanish on a tree that was faded. As I had a good understanding of Spanish, I was able to see it said, 

GET OUT, DO NOT CONTINUE FURTHER, GET OUT AND BACK TO THE SHORE. 

I continued to obey my duty and move on. 

It is a different experience to traverse the jungles of what is essentially a foreign land alone. The sweat lingers longer, the heat suffocates you further, the mosquitos’ bites last longer, the itches itch stronger, and your vision diminishes quicker. I could feel the sweat burn my face as it dripped, and my eyes widened to see anything before me or in my periphery while I made my descent past the mounds, only to reel in terror of what could possibly await me past the ancient edifices that trapped whatever horrors beyond. 

I stared southeast and saw a great monster look at me with its beady eyes as it waded through the water. It was a gator. I could feel its cold eyes stare at me and its reptilian brain took account of me. However, the water in which it lay made me think that the ditch in which it waded was not a natural river, but instead a canal, as its shape was too perfect. 

I walked for a few meters when I noticed a gale that swept past me. I had to hold on to my hat, my backpack, and my pistol on my holster as I struggled to maintain my balance. Suddenly, the gale subsided, and I was left to walk alone further and further, as I feared I had awakened a great and terrible monster that slumbered in the area, and I was unwelcomed to confront it. I did see, however, a pathway in front of me that I decided to tread on. The weather after the wind ended was surprisingly pleasant. Much more so once I walked on the path. I followed my compass east. 

I knew that the mounds were 30 kilometers out from Tampa and the mounds on the other side of the state. Florida is about 200 kilometers from one side to another, so I still had 140 kilometers to walk eastward. I estimated that this would take about five days when I was to meet an officer at a naval station in Melbourne. Luckily, there is a path for me to walk, and the foliage could not block me this time. Perhaps, if I can light a torch, I can traverse in the nighttime, although the only thing scarier than this hellish swamp in the daytime is this hellish swamp in the nighttime. 

I continued to walk down the path as the swamp seemed to generate some kind of fog that obstructed my view. My compass appeared to start spinning around this, but I took the faith that the path would take me eastward. The sun began to set as I grew more and more tired and realized I would have to take a nap in order to regain my energy to continue traversing. 

I could barely sleep as the thought of imminent danger would swallow me. I dreamed of when I was a child, so young and vibrant, when I had hope for a good future, when I was much more creative and confident in my abilities. When I was a child, I probably wouldnt have so much fear and lose so much sweat to these petty fears of traversing the landscape. My mind was consumed by a snake that fed on my brain as I sat there all alone, motionless and painless. I could not feel it when I saw this scarlet serpent swallow my cerebellum and cerebrum swiftly as I slept. I would gladly lose myself after all this traveling in the stomach of this satanic snake that would consume me and my mind for eternity. I would no longer be thinking of all the fears that consumed my heart and my mind since I decided to take this asinine journey for a Rockefeller or a Carnegie or general or admiral to connect the sides of Florida together east and west or north and south. And would I even be properly compensated for this? Most of the money made by my surveying would probably go to the university instead. 

I lit a small fire and suddenly I inhaled a sweet smell as I delved into a great deep sleep, staring at the glowing river around me, surrounded by small lights igniting over the swamps around me.