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

eyes were as wide as saucers. "I know what I saw." The look on his face left no doubt that he firmly believed it. 

"It chased me and I ran from it. It's feet never touched the ground." He glanced up, "It moved through the trees moving through the air and screeching at me."

"A bird maybe," Caleb suggested, but Milo shook his head

"No, it moved like a man." he insisted and stared off into the distance. "Wings," was all he said. 

He's delirious, Caleb thought again but now isn't the time to argue with him. He glanced down at Milo's leg and gripped his leg around the ankle feeling for the break. He found it at last and Milo confirmed it by wincing and squeezing Caleb's arm. 

"How did you break it?" Caleb asked. 

"Running." Milo said. "I feel over there," He pointed toward a small earthen wall. "The ground just gave way suddenly and I didn't notice in time."

He looked ashamed. The drop could have only been 4 feet in height. "I've never been very athletic. I landed awkwardly." He paused to gesture over to a grove of bushes at the base of the wall. "I crawled over and hid there until the man in the trees went away."

Caleb ignored him and squeezed his ankle none too delicately. Milo stifled a moan and dug his head against the back of the tree. 

"I'm not an expert, but I think we need to reset the bone." Caleb declared. 

"What?" 

"We'll need to reset the bone back into place. If we don't, it won't heal properly. The doctors did the same thing when I broke my wrist in grade school."

"How do we do that? Milo asked, fearful.

"I have to push it back into place. It's going to hurt."

Milo clinched his eyes shut for a moment and fresh tears sprang to his eyes. "Fine, just do it, but be quick about it before he comes back."

Caleb nodded and pressed his palms on opposite sides of Milo's leg. Using one hand to brace and the other to push, he shoved as hard as he could on the skewed bone. With a sudden pop and a grunt from Milo it was done. 

"Hopefully that's right." Caleb said.

Chapter 4: Brie

The stranger made no effort to slow down for her. Every so often he would turn his rippled shoulders back to Brie to see if she was still following him but his feet never stopped moving forward. He kept his face forward but every so often he would glance up into the branches warily. He had spoken English, Brie was sure of it but he made no effort to respond to her.

      “Hey, what was that?” Brie called after him but he paid her no mind. He was moving at a brisk pace, just short of running. She struggled to keep up with him, tripping over the exposed roots that he avoided deftly. Suddenly, she remembered Caleb and wondered whether the native was leading her in the right direction.

“Stop!” She called and this time he stopped. She came face to face with him but he refused to meet her gaze. His almond eyes were still scanning the trees looking for signs of danger. She reached up to grab him by the arms but he jerked back violently and for a brief moment his passive face showed signs of fear or was it repulsion?

“I need to go find my brother” Brie said, trailing off at the last word. It was the first time she had ever said it out loud and the word felt odd coming out of her mouth. The native stared at her blankly. Had she imagined him speaking English earlier?

“Bro-ther.” She repeated, gesturing next to her in the air, pointing first to herself and then to the empty space next to her. He cocked his head slightly, but then returned his eyes back into the canopy above them. Brie sighed and dropped her shoulders.

“I know you don’t understand me, but I have to go.” She pointed off in the opposite direction. “I don’t even know if he’s that way, but that’s where I came from…I think.” Her voice trailed away. “I came from that direction, so he should be back where we came from.” She turned back to him and sighed. “I have to go now.”

Brie turned to go, but winced when she felt a tapping on her arm. She looked down to find the butt-end of the native’s spear pressing down forcefully on her arm. She followed it up to meet his gaze. He shook his head from side to side slowly, just once.

He doesn’t understand. “I have to go” she said, brushing him off and turning away from him.

She fought the urge to look back. If she turned around she might stay with him. It was foolish to leave him, even if he didn’t understand her. He was her best chance of survival, but if she went with him, she might never find Caleb again. It was just another reason to hate her brother. Hopefully she would live long enough to find him and yell at him for it.

It only took Brie a few moments to realize that she had no idea what she was doing. The sun rises in the East, and sets in the West, she thought, but when she looked up it was difficult to tell exactly where the sun was due to the thick umbrella of leaves above her. Even if she knew exactly where the sun was, she had no idea which direction she needed to go. She hadn’t paid attention when she was following the native, or even if he was moving in a single direction. In the end, she decided that she would head East, or what she thought was East, hoping she would find a source of water.

She walked for hours or at least what passed for hours with every tree and rock looking the same as the one before it. But even though she had been walking in the humid wood all day, she didn’t feel any worse for wear. Her breaths came fresh, her footsteps were light and she hardly felt the sweat.

She placed one foot in front of the other absent-mindedly, contemplating her next move. She tried to ignore the nagging feeling that she might never find Caleb. If it came to that, she would need to start thinking of getting off the island alone. It was that thought that put a black pit in her stomach. What if no one ever found her? She glanced back casually over her shoulder. Maybe it wasn’t so wise to leave her only friend after all, especially if those things came back. The men with the wings.

Her hand drifted suddenly to the gun tucked in her waistband. She pulled it out and examined it. It was a great form of protection she realized at once, but for how long? It took her a few moments of fumbling, but she popped open the chamber and counted the bullets. There were six bullets in the chamber. She would need to spend them wisely. If she was going to survive, then she needed to find another way to defend herself.

It took a while of searching, but she finally settled on a branch that had fallen around that was straight-ish, thin at the handle and fat on the end.

This will have to serve, she brooded. The gun weighed heavily in her waistband, but she tried to push it away in her mind. It would only be used for emergencies she decided. Hopefully she would remember it was there when the time came.

She used her new stick for walking for a short time, but tired of it quickly. It was too short to reach the ground without leaning her shoulder down, which was more of an inconvenience than she had expected. She elected to carry it like a caveman would carry a club, barely long enough to drag the ground behind her. It was more cumbersome than she had anticipated and she began to wonder if it was even worth dragging around.

The sun began to fall from the sky at the same time as Brie reached the end of the tree line. She found herself on a cliff, overlooking even more timber below her. She walked closer to the edge and sat down, throwing her legs over the side and leaned out over the edge while the sun set. The land went on for as far as she could see with a singular mountain jutting out from a body of water in the middle of the forest.

How big is this island?

The sun melted away beyond the trees faster than she expected and the bright jungle dimmed to the color of a bruise. But to Brie’s surprise, the wood below her seemed to be glowing. She rubbed her eyes, just in case she was fatigued, but the more she looked the brighter the lights seemed to get. They were simple orbs, casting a sapphire light, like the stars in the night sky were reflected in the earth even though the stars hadn’t come out yet. The lights weren’t steady, but pulsating as if they were alive. She turned around and gasped. She same sapphire orbs hung behind her and she saw that they were moving. She ran close to the nearest one and froze.

It was a small box, like a birdhouse, dangling from a thin thread from a thick branch. The lights were bugs, giving off the blue lights periodically but there were hundreds of them hovering around the box. They gave off a low humming sound, like they were vibrating with electricity. What is this place?

A grunt from behind startled her and she turned to find a jungle cat, with white fur and smoked stripes cascading down its back. It was short and squat, muscled and thick. It’s lanky tail switched angrily behind it as it rooted at the trunk of a nearby tree. It rubbed its nose against the bark roughly. The bark split instantly and fell to the earth like dead flies. Water spewed from the wound in the tree and leaked to the ground where it pooled around the roots. The cat knelt instantly to lap at it.

Brie gulped, suddenly craving for nothing but the taste of water. The cat’s ears perked and it froze mid drink. It turned to look at her and Brie gasped. Two small horns protruded from the cat’s onyx nose and Brie could see why the bark on the tree had ripped apart so easily. The cat crept forward, turning it’s full attention to Brie. Her finger’s flexed instinctively for her club, but she realized too late that she had left it near the edge of the cliff. Instead her hands found the gun in her waistband, just as the cat pounced.

Her hands fumbled and the cat landed on her chest, scratching at her arms and biting at her throat. She brought her knee up to head-butt it but the cat was too strong. It’s jaws finally wrapped their way around her throat just as she went to scream. Just before they closed, the cat groaned as two massive arms wrapped their way around its belly and heaved it off of her.

Brie scrambled up coughing