“If you were to destroy the belief in immortality in mankind, not only love but every living force on which the continuation of all life in the world depends, would dry up at once.” (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

Many people believe that being immortal is a bliss, something that’s priceless...something that one would do next to anything for. Would it be bliss to live long enough to see all your loved ones perish? To wander around the world in loneliness, for every friend you ever made have run out of time to spend with you? Personally, I think not! It’s not a bliss. If anything, it’s a downright curse.

Lucas Petersen, a professor at the University of Texas, is resting quietly in his apartment on Guadalupe Street near the main campus. There’s a knock at his door that surprised him. He is visited by Tommy Hansen, a good friend. With him, he brought a steel box, set it down at his friend’s table, and explained his unusual request, including the fact that he was soon to die. Part of the request was that the contents of the box couldn’t be disclosed for 20 years.

Later that day, Lucas received a message that his good friend did, in fact, die the same night after visiting with him. At that time, he adopted his friend’s five-year-old son and waited over 20 years to open the steel box.

After 20 years, Lucas and his adopted son read of the quest they must follow into the darkest jungles in Peru, a place more than1000 miles northeast of Lima.

As they journeyed, the men encountered a most terrible storm, a river full of crocodiles, never-ending mosquitos, seven-foot-tall savages, giant Anaconda snakes, cannibals, and last but not least, Queen Nevaeh herself.