Eden Emerged by Seth Benjamin (digital e reader txt) 📖

flat of her back to keep her still. She looked over to him and he brought his finger to his mouth again

"No sound" he whispered, heavy with an accent and Brie's eyes widened in surprise. She opened her mouth to question him, but stopped when she heard the sound of the leaves shaking in the trees. Leaves shaking and the sounds of hoots and cackles, like monkeys. She chanced a glance upward in time to see shadows shaped like men racing through the branches. Her eyes caught on one, as he took one, two, three steps along a branch, running at a full sprint, before leaping off into nothing. He hovered for a moment, before spreading his arms and Brie couldn't stop herself from screaming. 

Wings, Brie couldn't believe it. He has wings.

The native's hands clamped over her mouth quickly but the damage was done. Before she could blink, a leathery shape descended from the trees and landed in the dirt several feet from their hiding spot. He was short, and had no weight to him. He wore leather as well, but only enough to cover his mid-riff. His fingers and toes were bare, ending in short, curved talons and scraped at the dirt impatiently. But Brie couldn't stop staring at his wings. The tucked underneath his arms like a bat as he stood, starting from above his hip and stopped just past his elbows on either side. They were almost translucent and tinted purple. 

She stifled a gasp as a second one landed just beside him, dropping as if from no where. This one had wings with a green tint but looked otherwise identical to the first. The first one made a sound like a hiss and Brie noticed that his front teeth were carved into fangs. The second snapped at him and chittered at him rapidly and pointed upward. The first hissed again and scanned the ground near us, his gaze almost settling on our hiding spot. 

The second let out a low growl before and the first rolled his eyes, but dashed off quickly for the nearest tree trunk. He stuck a hand into the bark using the talons at the end of his hands to pull himself up. He raced up the tree in a flash, making it halfway up the trunk before shooting off of it backwards, extending his wings and gliding across the jungle. He passed through a shaft of sunlight, which lit up his colored wings, before he was off, gliding out of sight. 

Brie returned her gaze to the second one with the green tinted wings. It scanned the area slowly and for a brief moment, Brie found herself making eye contact with it. But just when she thought it might see her, the horn sounded again and the man with wings gazed off in its direction. He cast one last curious glance at the bush before the horn called him again and like a flash he was climbing the nearest tree before jumping off and gliding out of sight. 

Chapter 3: Caleb

Caleb woke up on the beach, spitting surf and sand from his mouth. It seemed as if half the beach had found its way down his lungs. He spent several minutes on his hands and knees hacking and coughing in an attempt to return the beach to  its original state. When he had finally cleared enough of the sand from his body, he allowed himself to glance up and examine his surroundings. 

The sun had come up to reveal a vast stretch of empty beach as far at the eye could see down either side of him. Before him, the sand blended into jungle grass, giving way to a mesh of trees and foliage. When he rolled over to sit, he saw nothing but ocean water in front of him. The ocean was rolling back and forth gently, showing no signs of the storm from the previous night. His clothes were damp, but not soaked and he realized dully that he had been laying on the beach long enough for the sun to begin drying his clothing. It was inching close to noon based on the sun.

He sat in a dull stupor, slowly realizing that he was lucky to be alive. He remembered hitting the water and being pulled under. He had always been a good swimmer, but the waves had been high and the rain had lashed at his face everytime his head broke above the service. He had kept his legs churning but struggled to become horizontal and ride the waves across the water. Every now and again a large piece of flaming debris from the plane would land near him. He remembered catching sight of land, illuminated by the glow of a distant fire before the tempest took him under again. From that time to now he recalled nothing more, leaving himself to marvel that he had managed to drift toward the beach. It was an incredibly lucky thing that they had crashed so close to an island in the middle of an expansive ocean. 

And suddenly he remembered his sister curling away from him in the night sky, reaching her hands out as he fell. He stood up instantly and scanned the ocean looking for a sign of the parachute floating in the surf but he spied nothing. He felt his heart rate begin to quicken as he looked down the beach but saw nothing there either. He turned fully to face the jungle and took off at a full run. Something was calling to him from the jungle, telling him that he would find Brie there. She had floated away from him in the direction of the island he knew, or at least hoped. 

The jungle swallowed up the sunlight and him in an instant. He ran without a purpose, making a straight line through the jungle, running past goliath trees and jagged rocks. He looked down briefly and realized that he had lost a shoe somewhere along the way, either in the ocean or on the beach. Everytime his bare foot hit pounded earth a twinge of pain shot through his leg. His foot snagged on an exposed tree root, sending him rolling into the ground, but he jumped up quickly and kept sprinting. He flitted his head left and right, searching for any sign of her, but all he saw was trees and darkness. He stopped suddenly when his lungs seized and he was unable to run anymore. He doubled over and put his hands to his knees. He started to shake as tears welled in his eyes.

She can't be gone. I just found her. 

When he stood up straighter again, he wiped the tears from his eyes and began to shout her name. 

"Brie!"

He turned rapidly in a circle and continued to shout her name to the emptiness. He was lost, he realized suddenly. Running into the jungle had been a stupid and careless mistake. The smart solution would have been to stick to the beach and wait for a rescue, assuming that they were on an uninhabited island and of course assuming that Brie had made it to the island with him. It hurt him to much to think about. He wouldn't accept that she was gone. 

"Brie!" He called out again and the cry echoed and died away in the jungle. He stood panting, listening for any sign of Brie. He turned in place, glancing back in the direction that he came or at least the direction that he thought he had come from. He would need to head back. If Brie had any sense, she would find the beach too, but he stayed rooted in place, listening for any sound of her. And then, when he finally put a foot forward to make his way back to the beach, he heard a call. He feet began moving in the direction of the voice before he could process the sound. He had moved several hundred feet without hearing the sound again so he stopped and listened. Had he misheard the cry or even heard his own echo?

But then he heard it again.

"Help me!"

The voice was crystal clear now and much closer than before. Caleb sped off quickly in the direction of the noise dodging low hanging branches and crashing through the underbrush. The voice had been male, Caleb realized to his disappointment. Maybe this voice had seen Brie. Either way, he was glad that he wasn't alone. He stopped suddenly when he found the source of the voice. 

Milo sat with his back against a large tree. Even sitting, Caleb could tell that Milo was favoring his right leg, holding it out at an awkward angle away from him. His eyes were red and swollen, evidence that he had been sobbing. His shirt was dirty and torn and he had managed to take his shoes off. 

Upon see Caleb, Milo began to sob all over again. He began to laugh, obviously relieved to see him. All Caleb could think of was the image of Milo illuminated by lightning and abandoning them by jumping out of the burning plane. 

"I am so glad to see you." Milo exclaimed. He raised his hands, palms upward toward Caleb. "I thought I was alone. I thought I was going to die here."

Caleb didn't move or speak. He could only stare at the man who had left he and his sister to die. He noticed a flicker of doubt pass over Milo's face and began to stammer. "Y-you can't be mad at me Sir." 

The old habit only made Caleb even more upset. "You're an adult, you're supposed to protect me. My Father pays you to look after me!"

Milo began to sob uncontrollably, guilt and tears streaming down his face. "I panicked. I wasn't thinking about all that." He gestured uselessly toward his leg. "I think it's broken. You can't leave me like this." He stopped crying abruptly and Milo looked up. Caleb caught a hint of fear pass over his face. 

"If you leave me, it's going to get me! It's going to come back and it's going to take me. I just know it will. You have to help me."

Caleb shook his head. He had hardly heard Milo through all of his stammering. "What are you talking about? Have you seen Brie?"

Milo cursed, "She's probably dead man, I don't know. I haven't seen anyone but the man in the trees."

He looked up again frantically, searching for something in the heights of the treetops. He was delirious Caleb realized. The pain was making him see things. Caleb didn't blame him. Standing still in the clearing, he realized just how alone they were. The air was still and muggy and the only sound he could hear was the sound of Milo sobbing and Caleb's breathing. But the canopy above them had holes where fingers of sunlight could poke through. The result was several moving shadows that made Caleb constantly double take to make sure nothing was nearby. 

He knew he shouldn't, but he found himself stepping forward and crossing the clearing. He knelt by Milo's leg and ran a hand along the bone. "You're imagining things, Milo. There's nobody here with us."

Milo's hand moved like lightning, and gripped him around the wrist. Caleb met his gaze and found that Milo's