Chapter 1: Eden

“Get up, Eden. Get up!”

The voice screamed in her head as she laid helplessly on the ground. A sudden rumble of the ground around her awoke her from her semi conscious state. A large semi had driven down the dark highway as she laid hidden on the side of the road. It was cold, dark and Eden could barely see the stars through the thick dense tree line that covered her like a blanket.

Eden rolled over onto her back. She had been running for hours. From what, she couldn’t say. She had only seen bright purple lights and yelling from a distance. Angry yelling that sounded as if they wanted to hurt her. So she ran as fast as she could away from the bridge she had been walking along.

“So this is the deep cavern,” she whispered to herself. She laid quietly on her back and her eyes wandered across the gaps in the trees above her. The lights in the sky were beautiful from what she could see. She hadn’t seen lights like that in years, not since she was a little girl.

Growing up Eden was always the forgotten child. She grew up with two older siblings. A brother 5 years older who had made his way into the battle. His name was Henry. She and Henry were never more than 5 feet from one another until she was 13. He left for the battle when the two continents started the first war. That was 15 years ago.

Eden spent most of her teenage years hiding from her second oldest sibling, Zara. Once Henry left, she knew she was in trouble. No one to protect her from her crazy overbearing older sister. Zara was only 2 years older than her, but she knew how to get her in trouble. Throughout schooling Eden would pretend she had nothing to do with her sister. She hid in bathrooms, ignored hearing her call her name as she walked home from school and locked herself in her room at night from Zara. Zara was a monster to her. When she turned 20, Zara left the island and took all of Eden’s family possessions with her. She was left with a trundle bed, a box of photos and a flower pot in an empty house. Zara’s last words to Eden were “You’ll figure it out, E.”

Eden hadn’t figured it out. She hadn’t figured anything out and laying there in the dirt wasn’t helping her at all. After a few more moments of quiet contemplation, Eden finally decided to get up and start walking down the highway. The purple lights were gone. There was no more yelling and her body wasn’t as tired as she had thought. She had to get back to the home on the island. She knew it wasn’t safe out in the open at night.

She had been walking down the highway for 20 minutes when she finally saw headlights. She started waving her arms in the air to get their attention.

“Blue lights,” she said to herself. “It could be a Ranger.”

The headlights started to slow down and the sound of gravel beneath the truck tires slowly died down. A man sat in the drivers seat, his head and hands covered with a knit covers.

“Are you part of the Ranger group?” Eden asked through the open window softly.

“I am,” the man said without looking at her. He stared straight ahead as to not draw too much attention to Eden or even try to get a glimpse of her face. “Do you need a ride back to the island?”

“I do. I’m so sorry, I got distracted on my walk and I’ve gone a little too far down the highway,” she said almost convincingly. There was still an air of uncertainty in her voice.

“Hop on in, Eden,” he said. “I’ll take you back to your house.”

Eden hopped into the truck and as soon as she sat down she realized that the driver had said her name. She grabbed the small light she had in her bag and shined it into the driver’s face.

“John, you asshole,” she yelled. “Why didn’t you tell me it was you? You scared the shit out of me. I didn’t even recognize your truck. The only reason I stopped you was because of the blue lights. I thought you were a Ranger.”

Eden was still shining the light at him when he took of his beanie. Soft brown hair came tumbling out and he combed his fingers through them to brush it out of his eyes and he looked straight into the light, his green eyes shining brightly. Then he blinked a few dozen times and started to swat at the light source.

“Eden, if you don’t get that light of my eyes I am going to go blind,” he said as he grabbed the light from her hands. “I just wanted to scare you a little bit. What in the hell are you doing out here anyway?”

“I saw those purple lights again on the bridge, John. I can’t tell you what they were doing or who they were, but I swear I saw them. I think they were coming from the caves? Do you think there are people down there? I heard yelling. Really loud scary sounding yelling. I could barely make out what they were saying so I just ran. I started running over the bridge away from the island and after whoever knows how long or so my legs just gave out and I ended up on the side of the road.”

She looked over to him. He was staring at her and it made her feel uncomfortable so she slowly looked down at her feet waiting for his response. Instead of a response, he put a hand on her hand, started the truck and they drove back towards the island.