Eden Emerged by Seth Benjamin (fiction novels to read .txt) 📕

He declined his head slightly at almost a bow. "Of course, Brie Mori."

Brie frowned, recognizing the word from the previous night. "You may call me Brie, Horus."

Horus nodded and with a twist of his head, he gestured in the direction of a dense patch of forest. "This is the way we came yesterday. We will find your brother there."

They marched at a rapid pace, with Horus leading the way several steps in front of Brie. She did her best to keep up with him but found it hard considering she had lost sleep the night before. Her fingers absentmindedly found their way to her throat again where the scar had all but disappeared. Skin like fresh linen had sprouted up in the same area that the wound had been the night before. It made little sense and Brie had racked her brain trying to come up with a reason for why a wound would heal so quickly. At first, she tried to convince herself that the cat's giant fangs hadn't cut her nearly as deep as she thought, but then she remembered the blood that had caked her hands. She had only to look down to see that her hands were still caked with faded blood mixed with dirt from the cave floor. 

Her mind drifted next to the bandage that Horus had placed around her throat. She was in a foreign land and that meant that there were new herbs and plants to help with healing. Surely Horus had placed a salve on the bandage which helped the healing process along rapidly. She questioned him about it and he laughed abruptly.

"The paste only helps a wound from turning black or yellow," he told her. "A wound like that would still take a long time to heal."

Frustrated, she even considered the notion that she had been unconscious for many days, with Horus keeping a close guard over her but when she confronted Horus about this, he only grunted and kept them marching on. After a time she stopped dwelling on how quickly her injury had healed. Even though she hadn't been able to come up with an answer, the beauty of the forest made it easier to pry her thoughts away. She had been too busy tearing through the forest the day before to really take in the alien beauty. The trees grew thick around the base and towered above her so far that it hurt her neck to view the top. At one point, she had stopped abruptly to embrace a nearby tree, amazed to find that her arms didn't make it even halfway around. Horus had doubled back quickly when he noticed that she wasn't behind anymore. He crested the nearest hill, his face showing shades of worry, but when he saw her measuring the tree, it quickly turned into a look of annoyance. She could only giggle before relinquishing the tree and moving on. 

The forest stretched on forever in front of them as the sun passed overhead. Each patch of land in front of her looked the same as the next althought that wasn't to say that the landscape was dull. Brie was lost among the bright array of tropical flowers blossoming on the vines and along the floor bed. Birds of all colors flittered and chirped high up above them, but they were too swift for Brie to even attempt to identify them. The jungle had been dead when Brie had arrived but now it was alive with insects and animals lurking in every shadow. She did her best to keep up with Horus, but it was hard with the distraction of the jungle. Brie found herself amazed and annoyed by his stamina. He moved relentless through the jungle floor, only pausing to check on her for brief moments before pressing on. It was only when the sun had passed its highest point that he stopped and sat down on the nearest rock he could find. 

"Hungry?" He gestured toward her when she finally plopped down in the dirt around him. 

She hadn't considered hunger all day. And now that she sat down, she didn't feel the familar pangs of hunger. They had been travelling at a brisk pace for at least several hours. She stared up at the sun and tried to guage the time. Was it 1 o' clock, 3 o'clock by now? 

"Mom made me sign up for Girl Scouts when I was little," She told him. He looked back at her blankly. 

"It's a group of girls who bake cookies and go hiking in the woods. She attempted to explain but he only continued to stare back at her. 

"You don't understand anything that I say do you?" She said, unable to supress her laughter. "All I'm trying to say is that I should have paid more attention. I have no idea where I am. I've forgotten everything that would be useful."

Horus snorted and pulled a length of rope from his bag. "I will protect. Follow me. Do what I do." Brie watched him wind the rope deftly around his hands and produce a snare. "You eat. We use this" He said. 

"Can you untie that?" Brie asked. Horus looked confused but did as she asked, loosing the snare and producing the rope again.

"Tie it again." She ordered again and the look of annoyance again returned to Horus face. For a moment, he looked as if he would put the rope away or chide her, but instead his hands moved again. The knot he wound was intricate, but Brie followed every movement with surprising ease. Time slowed down and she saw every movement of his fingers and every pull of the rope. When suddenly it was over, she reached a hand out and grabbed the rope from his hands, already beginning to pull it apart as she pulled it away. She spread her hands wide when it was untangled, stretching the rope as taut as it would go.

And then she was tying it, twisting twine around each other, creating loops and pulling ends through and after many unfamiliar moves she reproduced the snare. She glanced up to look at Horus, surprised to find that he looked impressed. 

"Needs bigger. You know the knot?" He asked.

Brie shook her head. "No, I've never done that before. It needs to be bigger?" She questioned him and he nodded. 

She untied it again and then retied it, faster this time, but it still didn't suit Horus's needs. It took two more times untying and retying before the snare was big enough to be satisfy him. 

He took it from her hands and laughed. "It's good. Very good. You learn fast."

He was up quickly, tying the thin rope around a small sapling to the ground. He snapped sturdy stick in half and set about carving interlocking notches at opposite ends of the stick. With one end, he fashioned a stake and stuck it into the ground. He tied the other stick along the rope of the noose and rejoined the sticks together like a puzzle. The sapling bowed beneath the pressure but remained strong, waiting to snap at the slightest provocation. He arranged the noose on the ground securing it in place with loose twigs along the ground, careful not to rebreak the sticks and send the noose flying.

"Is that all?" Brie asked when he had finally finished, seemingly satisfied with his work. 

Publication Date: 12-12-2013

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