The Exiles (Book 1 of the Exiles Series)

One

The first thing I felt of my new home was sand. I awoke on a warm, sandy beach, the water of an unknown sea lapping the shore and wetting just the tips of my hair. Sunlight streamed down to where I lay and prodded my eyelids open.

"Where..." I sat up quickly and glanced around. I had no idea where I was. Tall trees loomed over me, sprouting tall and unusually healthy from the short, lumpy beach. I smelled the piney scent of the trees and breathed in the cool wind. The smell tingled my nose familiarly, but I couldn't remember where I'd smelled it before.

My name is Talia. The thought sprang through my brain so fast I almost fell backward. "Where did that come from?" I asked myself, my voice sounding strangely distant, like I was hearing someone else. Where did I come from? It seemed like such a generic question that I almost laughed out loud. Yet I didn't know the answer.

I stood up in disbelief. How do I not know where I came from? My mind worked like I thought it should have. My senses were sharp as they took in my surroundings: seeing the beach and the trees, hearing the crash of the waves on the shore, tasting my salty, cracked lips with my sandpapery tongue. I knew I had seen trees before, and felt warm sand beneath my toes. I could see myself on a beach, but, try as I might, I couldn't remember who I had been there with or when I had been there. It was odd, like only partial memory loss. Experiences and people had only been erased from my mind. I seemed intelligent, I thought, but I didn't know anyone or recognize anything.

"Hello?" I shouted. The only response was my echo. Hello, hello, hello, hello.

Maybe this was just a dream. I fluttered my eyelids to see if I would wake up somewhere else, in bed, perhaps, in a house with my parents and even siblings. Did I have siblings? I couldn't remember. My heart began to race. I didn't remember my own family. That was really scary.

I rose to my feet and started to walk around. I didn't know where I was or where I was going. I just knew that I needed to examine my surroundings. Maybe something would spark a memory. Maybe I would find a way home, wherever that was.

I wandered towards a grove of tall pine trees. They were dark and loomed high above me like monsters. My heart pulsated loud and hard inside my chest, suddenly making me feel claustrophobic. I broke into a run and escaped, sweat trickling from my armpits and down my back.

Blood rushed through my skull as I moved along. Tall hills and mountains dotted the landscape. They were laden with boulders and gravel and were so monstrously sky-high that I couldn't see the tops without craning my head. Thick, pond-colored grass littered the landscape. A muddy creek trickled by my feet, really more of a glorified puddle. I leapt over moss-covered stones and piles of goop to cross the water. The thick grass and cattails stung my legs.

I slowed to a jog once I left the marshland and headed towards a desert-ish place. The sand here was darker than the beach and blew into a fog over the landscape. Cactuses grew a top great sand dunes, seeming too successful in their conquest and more than a little unnatural. My bare feet sunk into the sand until they were covered, making any progress slow and difficult.

Exhausted, I finally stopped as the sun was high in the sky. My chest heaved in and out and my side stung with each breath. I labored my way to the top of a sand dune and flopped down. My stomach grumbled loudly. I was famished, but I was too tired, confused, and sunburned to try to forage for anything.

Why am I here? I thought. I had no idea how I got here, so it was only fair that I didn't know why I was here. I glanced around. Just like before, there was no one around, nothing in the area that would tell me what the heck was going on. I groaned and kicked at the sand. A pile of the sand went swoosh and rose into the air as a cloud of tan dust.

Just then, I heard a noise. My senses kicked into action and I jumped up, my head swiveling this way and that. "Who's there?" I nearly shouted. I didn't see any movement around me, but heard the noise again. It was a scratching sound, like several feet were walking across the sand. Good, I thought. Maybe some people were approaching who could help me find my way. "Hello?"

I had no time to think. I was suddenly thrown to the ground by something huge, much too big to be a person. I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn't move, I was too surprised and frightened. Sand swirled around me like a funnel, smothering me. I couldn't even think, couldn't even feel. My lungs screamed for air, anything but the putrid whiffs of death and decay that I was being allowed now.

Whatever had thrown me screeched and threw all of its weight against me. All the air left my lungs, spots clouding my vision.

A huge, tremendously hairy body lay on top of me. Several spindly legs sprouted from the side of a wide, black abdomen. Glowing red eyes peered down at me and sent shivers up my spine. They seemed to say, "You're lunch." Strange pincer-like tentacles protruded from a narrow pit below the eyes that I could only assume was a mouth. No matter how unbelievable it was, a huge spider was attacking me. Sweat perspired down my neck.

I shut my eyes and tried to kick free. I remembered spiders, but I was almost positive that they were never this big.

Despite my best efforts, the creature never moved, just dodged my kicks and cried out in protest. Finally, it grew angry and lashed out. Intense, throbbing pain shot up my left leg. I heard a high pitched scream nearby. It took me a moment to realize that the screams were my own.

The spider struck again, and again. It bit my gut and arm. I wailed in agony.The pain was so terrible I was surprised I was still intact. My senses began to dull and I felt the pain winning me over. I was slipping in and out of consciousness. I was going to die. The spider was going to suck out my insides, wrap me in its spider silk, take me back to its web and eat me. And I was going to die alone, with no sense of time or place and not even knowing who I was.

The sound of running feet came across the sand. "Down! Get off of her!" yelled a gruff girl's voice. "I'm warning you..." I heard the zing of something being shot, an arrow, perhaps, and the spider screeched in fright and went away, allowing me to breathe again. This girl had to have been pretty scary to frighten away such a monstrosity. Sunlight shined on my closed eyelids. I tried to open them, but the pain was so great that I decided to lay low, hoping that the life would soon return to me and the unbearable pain would leave.

"Oh my goodness..." remarked the girl. I heard the crunching of the sand as she knelt over me, blocking the sun for just a moment.

Her cold hand slid behind my head and urged it up. A wave of pain shot up my neck. I was so close to blacking out that I was vaguely aware of the feel of her rough hands, instead relishing the coolness of being off the sand and air.

I felt my body be slowly lifted from the ground, and heard the girl grunt with my weight. "We need to go, now," said the girl, speaking to me as though I were conscious. "More will be coming soon. You're lucky to be alive as it is." I heard her footsteps and felt my body move upward. I could open my eyes just enough to see the girl for just a second. She was tall and had a thin face with sculpted cheekbones. Before I could get a better look at my rescuer, my eyes closed and the world faded to black oblivion.