All Thirteen: Chapters 1–5

He’s been promising to take the team on an excursion to a local cave, and all the boys want to know if their outing is still on.

On the team’s last outing—a strenuous bike ride to the top of a nearby mountain, Doi Tung—they discussed what their next trip would be.

Here in Southeast Asia, the monsoon rains can be torrential.

Here in Southeast Asia, the monsoon rains can be torrential.

The mountains glow green through the gray deluge.

The rains run down through the lush forests, carrying nutrients into the surrounding farmland, making the soil rich and ripe for growing crops.

As soon as the rains stop, the fields will burst with bounty: coffee, fruit, vegetables, and acres of rice.

But now that they’re here, deep into the cave, they fall into the allure that all cavers know well: What if we go just a little farther?

And yet a cave is not sterile. A cave has a life of its own.

The passage they came through is somewhere under the turbulent water, but they can’t see it.

Sangwut follows his rescue protocol, grabbing ropes, flashlights, and first-aid supplies, and loads up his truck in the rain.

The families grudgingly accept this explanation, but they do not leave the scene.

When the Wild Boars walked into Tham Luang, it was dry. But what the boys didn’t realize was that the heavy rains that hit the area a few days before had completely saturated the ground beneath their feet. The boys didn’t know that the dry ground they walked on masked a mountain already filled to the brim with water.

Around 250 to 500 million years ago, the surface of Thailand actually sat beneath a sea teeming with animal life.

Maybe if they dig it deep enough, that will allow the water to subside and make enough space for them to swim through.