Excitedly, Pablo pulls the rope from the spool of the cutlass and begins tying it around his chest. Vines had grown around it, so Jeff carefully pulls them free to avoid the poisonous sap. Mathias goes into the tent and returns with a lamp, which he lights and hands to Pablo. Using the hand crank, Jeff and Eric begin lowering Pablo into the hole. However, after several moments, Mathias yells at them to stop. He points to the unspooling rope where some of the vines remain, and the sap is quickly eating through the rope. Everyone reacts at once, trying desperately to pull Pablo up, but the rope breaks. They hear a thud; after a moment, Pablo screams from below.

As everyone panics, Jeff begins unspooling the rope and tells Eric to find a knife. Eric desperately searches one of the tents; he finds various camping supplies, a journal, and a camera, but no knife. When he emerges from the tent, Mathias is coming back from a different tent with a knife. He and Jeff work quickly to cut away the eaten rope, then retie the good rope back together. Through it all, Pablo continues to scream from below.

Once the men finish repairing the rope, Eric volunteers to go down to Pablo. Jeff gives him another lamp, then they tie him to the end of the rope and begin lowering him down. However, before he reaches Pablo, the rope comes to an end. As the group tries to pull him back up, Eric feels as though he is abandoning Pablo. He panics, untying himself, and jumps. He lands on Pablo, causing him to begin to scream again. Eric realizes that he has a large piece of glass embedded in his knee, which he pulls out, but is otherwise unharmed.

Up above, the group pulls back up the rope and searches for a way to lengthen it. Jeff and Mathias decide to use one of the tents and begin cutting the fabric into strips. Meanwhile, Stacy begins yelling to Eric. He explains that he is cut and is bleeding badly from his knee. Jeff drops down aspirin, a shirt to tie off his cut, and matches to relight his lamp. He then asks about Pablo, and Eric explains that he thinks his back is broken. Jeff proposes building a backboard to lift Pablo out. Stacy briefly argues that they shouldn’t move Pablo, then relents when she realizes they have no other options.

Jeff and Mathias begin working on the backboard while Stacy and Amy continue tying the strips of the tent to the rope. As she works, Amy panics about their situation, realizing that it will be dark soon and that they are low on supplies. After a few minutes, Jeff pulls her aside and tells her that she will be the one to go down into the shaft to help Eric tie Pablo to the backboard. She is initially afraid, then realizes that it was likely her fault they’re there because she stepped on the vine. When everything is finished, they begin lowering Amy into the hole on the backboard.

In the hole, Eric shuts off the lamp to preserve the oil until they need it to move Pablo. As he sits in darkness, he tells Pablo stories from his past. At one point, he feels as though someone touches his back, only to realize that it is the vines. He repeatedly checks the matches and lamp, ensuring that they are both still there, while he continues to talk to Pablo. He again feels something touch his back and realizes that the vine has seemed to move closer toward him. A shaft nearby intermittently blows cold air on him. At one point, the phone rings and Eric desperately searches for it, but the sound seems to be coming from several places at once.

Up above, the open hole is suddenly covered by the backboard. Jeff yells down to Eric that Amy is coming. He scrambles to find the matches, which he thinks he inadvertently moved in his search for the phone. He finds them near the wall completely covered in vines. As he pulls them free, he feels the sap from the vines burning his hands, but he ignores it and lights the lamp.

Amy is lowered into the hole, but the rope ends a few feet from the ground. She and Eric discuss whether to lengthen the rope and wait so they don’t worsen Pablo’s injury. However, Eric argues that he can’t wait in the darkness any longer. After a struggle that causes Pablo to scream in pain, they manage to get him into the backboard and secure him using belts. At that moment, the lamp runs out of fuel and shuts off.

Up above, Jeff and Mathias pull Pablo out of the hole. They start to put him in the tent, but Jeff decides against it, feeling a sense of foreboding from the “stale” air. He argues that Pablo’s bladder will continue to go, ruining the tent with urine, so they decide to build a shelter for him later. Stacy then sits with him, trying to comfort him as he shivers violently. He intermittently opens his eyes and murmurs in Greek, then closes them and remains silent. Stacy fights against her panic at the situation.

Below, Amy and Eric hold hands while they wait. They talk about how the Greeks will come for them and what they will do when they get back to the hotel, trying to ignore the darkness around them. After several moments, Jeff yells down that they are lowering the rope for them. Amy goes first at Eric’s insistence. Alone, Eric hears the phone ring again, but he is adamant that he needs to stay where he is, overcome by fear of the dark. He fights away thoughts of his wound getting infected and no help coming until the rope finally comes back down for him.

Jeff continues to lead the group. He has Mathias begin building a shelter for Pablo from the remnants of the tent they cut, then states that they should take two-hour shifts watching over the camp. He advises that they start saving their urine for when they run out of water, then instructs the others to sleep while he and Mathias finish the shelter.

In the tent, Stacy, Eric, and Amy struggle to sleep. Mathias returns and lies down next to Amy. Once the other three are asleep, Amy gets up and joins Jeff on watch. He talks about how they will distill their urine to make it drinkable, then points out that the Mayans are building fires around the base of the hill to watch in case they try to escape in the night. Amy realizes that, of anyone, Jeff is the perfect person to have with them in a survival situation like this, as if he’s been planning for it his whole life.

After a while, Jeff decides that he wants to try to sneak past the fires. As he makes his way down the hill, the vines seem to pull at and cling to him. Partway down, birds begin to screech, responding to his movement. He sees five Mayans gathered near the fires at the bottom of the hill, four with bows who search the hillside, and a fifth with his gun trained on Jeff. Seeing no other option, Jeff retreats.

After Amy finishes her watch, she wakes Stacy. Stacy worries about Pablo the entire time as he wakes up and repeatedly asks her the same question in Greek. Unable to understand him, Stacy sings Christmas carols to him, which seem to calm him down. After he goes to sleep, Stacy drifts off, too. She is woken up at the end of her watch by Mathias. She apologizes for falling asleep, then tries to talk about Henrich’s death. However, Mathias insists that she needs to be “like an animal” (119), worrying only about survival instincts like eating and drinking.

Meanwhile, Amy struggles to sleep in the tent. She inadvertently kicks the water jug, then realizes how thirsty she is. Initially, she insists that she is not going to steal water, but then she rationalizes that Jeff told them they couldn’t drink anymore—she never actually agreed to it. Without thinking, she takes two large swallows. As she puts the jug back, she sees Jeff staring at her in the darkness. He shakes his head, then rolls away from her. She tries to explain that she was thirsty, then reacts angrily. She cries in the dark, frustrated that Jeff won’t either scold her or forgive her.

The next morning, Eric wakes up and assesses his injuries. He realizes that the vine has grown up his entire leg, nearly to his waist. He reacts with “disgust” and begins pulling it off when he hears Pablo scream.

Meanwhile, Jeff decides to make a sign for the bottom of the trail. He gets duct tape and a notebook from one of the tents. He makes his way down the hill, then realizes that the vines have begun to grow directly in his pants. They are small buds that look like fuzz. He brushes them away, causing the sap to get on and burn his hands. He ignores the strange feeling it gives him.

Jeff uses a metal tent pole as a post. He draws a skull and cross bones, then writes “SOS” and “Danger” on two other papers. The Mayans gather to watch him, pointing their weapons at him. He then makes his way along the bottom of the hill, skirting the edge of the vines. He notes how the vines stop suddenly, then realizes that the Mayans have salted the soil at the bottom of the hill to keep them at bay.

As he walks, he finds several more mounds of vines. Brushing them away, he finds more dead bodies in various states of decay. The vines seem to have rooted directly in their bones. With one body he finds the remnants of a wallet, noting how the vines had “eaten” the leather as an “active force” (132). He finds a passport for a Dutchman named Cees Steenkamp, which he takes. When he gets to Henrich’s body, he notes that all the flesh that had been there the night before is now eaten away by the vines.

Around an hour later, Jeff returns to the start. He is not surprised to find that his sign is now gone. He finds the metal pole nearby, the paper mostly gone from the vines. He also finds a metal baking pan with the word “danger” scratched into it in Spanish. He wills himself to believe that the Mayans took down the signs, yet deep down he knows that they were dragged by the vines. Curious, he tosses a pebble into the vines, noting how quickly the vines move in reaction to it. Through it all, the Mayans watch impassively, as Jeff reasons that they have seen the vines do things like this many times.