The Exiles (Book 1 of the Exiles Series)

Two

Odd dreams fluttered lazily into my head. In one dream, a horrible creature was chasing me. I couldn't see the creature, but it sounded just like the spider as it pursued me for miles. After that, I believe I woke up for a brief moment, because I saw my rescuer's face looming over me, intelligent looking brown eyes and straight, dark hair in a ponytail.

My eyes closed again. This time, I was spinning around and around, falling for what seemed like millennia in my sleep. I hit what appeared to be "ground" after several moments with a loud thud. Winged creatures flew above me, their faces merely smears of color, blotting out the sun and coming closer and closer to me with each passing second. They were yelling and whooping in gibberish that I couldn't make out, and as they advanced on me I screamed in frustration, the sound so loud it rattled me from slumber.

My eyes snapped open, and I shot up from bed in a cold sweat. My rescuer was sitting at the end of my bed, holding a burlap bag of a smelly green paste. I wasn't wearing pants. Some of the paste was smeared on my leg, and from my perspective, it looked like the girl had been in the process smearing the stuff on my leg when I had woken up.

"What happened?!" I shouted, shivering with fright, the images of my nightmares still vivid in my brain. I was lying on a cot, wrapped up in soft sheets in a small room with no windows. Beside me was a chest and a squarish nightstand with a flickering wicker lantern on it. The scent of earth surrounded me, cocooned me in its familiarity.

"Shush," the girl soothed, putting her thin hands on my shoulders. "Lay back down. You'll be alright now." Her voice was soft but slightly raspy, sounding worn and edgy.

Slowly and gently, the girl urged me back down into a reclining position. "What's going on?" I asked again, this time in a softer voice.

"You were attacked by a spider," the girl explained. "You were almost dead when I found you. I was afraid you were." I winced in pain as the girl rubbed some more of the paste on to my leg. Amazingly, after just a few seconds, the pain was gone.

"Wow," I remarked. "It feels much better now. Thank you." The girl gave a small smile and set the medicine aside. "It's a soothing paste, made from the fruit of some shrubs that grow nearby. I always keep some on hand," she explained. "And, you're welcome."

She stood up from the bed and started walking towards the chest. I noticed how long her strides were and how she walked: confident and calm. I noted her ease and subtle grace, something that seemed genuine. In just a few long steps, she reached the chest, knelt next to it, and thrust the lid open with a creak.

"You must be hungry," the girl remarked, absentmindedly rummaging through her belongings. "Would you like an apple?" I nodded yes. "Heads up." She tossed me the apple. I caught it and began to take ravenous bites from it. I didn't realize how starved I was until I began to eat.

"Thanks," I told the girl. She pulled an apple out for herself and closed the chest up. "What's your name, anyway?" I asked randomly, wanting something to latch on you, something to associate with wherever I was other than giant spiders.

The girl walked back to the bed and sat down again. "My name is Nicole," she told me. Something hit me just then: a memory. So vivid but so fleeting, fleeting, fleeting, that it was gone before I could latch onto it.

"You seem familiar," I told her. I squinted at her features with all my might, trying to remember more. I knew I had seen her before. It was a deja vu moment. I just couldn't remember where I had seen her before, and who exactly she was, in terms of memory.

"My name is Talia," I told her. My brain kept going back to the subject of Nicole, but I couldn't remember anything more for the life of me. I shed the memory and mentally filed it away, for later. So much had happened recently. First I had woken up in this strange place, been attacked by a giant spider, and then I had met someone who I thought I remembered.