This is the first book in a trilogy, called One of Them. It is centered around the Others, because I love them so much. Don't worry, Julia does meet up with the Oceanic survivors later in the story. Please don't "hate" on it, but I love respectful critisizm.
Table of Contents
1. An Unexpected Friendship
2. Bound Woman
3. The Trade
4. A Pact
5. Petals Of Flame
6. Niches and Bumps
7. The Shadow's Heart
8. The Life and Lies of Julia Vang
9. Lillian Matthew Logan
10. Crystal Clear
11. My Betrayal
12. Unwilling Guardian
13. Why
14. Captured Spirits
15. Jacob
16. Hot Doors
17. Exile
18. Home Sweet Home
19. The Reuniting
20. Daniel Faraday
21. The Left Choice
22. Flashes Before Your Eyes
23. The Dharma Initiative
24. The Beginning of the End
25. A New Friend
26. The End
CHAPTER ONE, BOOK 1: AN UNEXPECTED FRIENDSHIP
The first thing I noticed was the breeze. It wasn't the strong, roaring wind from the boat, but calm, cool, and gentle. My blue eyes snapped open to trees towering above my head. I slowly stood up, stumbling under my weight, and put two hands on my belly to steady myself. I was dazed...and where was Matt? I shook my head to clear the fog that threatened to overwhelm me. I got unsteadily to my feet and, stumbling, I tried to find my way back to the boat. How did we get from the middle of the ocean to here? All I remembered was Matt and I getting on a boat and it taking off. Images flashed through my mind, dark skies, a storm...a four-toed foot in the middle of nowhere? I shook my head harder. It must be the hormones. I must be hallucinating. I reached back to scratch my head and felt something...wet? I pulled back my hand and almost got sick. It was blood. I felt light-headed...I stumbled and fell to the ground, but jumped almost four feet into the air when a shot rang out by my knee. Staggering, I got to my feet and jumbledly raced in the direction opposite the blast. I didn't get far however, before my vision began to blur and I seemed to drown in darkness.
When light finally reached my vision I felt like I was emerging from a deep pool. I gasped for breath, trying to rub my aching forehead, but I couldn't move. I was strapped onto some kind of metal bed, with wires attached to my forehead, chest, fingers, and toes. A woman was standing over something, asking me questions in a language I didn't understand.
"H..Hello?" I asked warily.
"English?" The woman said in an accent that was thick with overlaid French. "You are one of them?" It was not a question, but a prodding statement.
"One of...what?" I asked, blinking hard. A whirring sound started.
"Do not lie to me! Where is she? Where is Alex?" I suddenly got very nervous.
"Look, lady, I just crashed here on a boat. I don't know who Alex is or whoever these "them" are, but if you'd let me up I can explain!"
"Stop lying!" She roared, and flipped a switch. Jolts of electricity shot through my body, wrenching my limbs with pain and making me so stunned I couldn't move.
"Stop!" I screamed, cried, pleaded.
"Where is she!" She roared.
"I don't know!" Tears were rolling down my cheeks. She flipped it again. I don't think I could take another one.
"Stop! Please, please stop! I'm pregnant! I'm pregnant!" This time her hand faltered on the switch. She came up to me and stared me in the eye, her face inches from mine.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" I was sobbing now, her face blurred by my tears.
"I'm six months pregnant. I crashed here with my boyfriend, Matthew Logan." She raised her eyebrows.
"Is it a boy or a girl?" I shook my head.
"I don't know. I think it's a boy." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Please, just don't hurt my baby." I whispered. She sighed, and closed her eyes, tears racing down her cheeks to cut thin, waving lines in her dirt-caked face.
"I have been on this island for almost sixteen years." she said solemnly. "I was eight months pregnant. There were other people living on this island. We were together for one week, my baby and I. Alex, was her name. Then they came in the night, and they took her." Fear made my heart seem like it would explode out of my chest.
"W-Will they t-take mine too?" I asked, my voice quivering. I don't know what I would do if I lost my baby. I wasn't even sure if it was still alive after all that. She released me from my straps and I placed my hands over my stomach protectively. I sat up quickly, and moaned with pain at my aching limbs and the oddly freshly-bandaged wound on the back of my head. I guess she didn't need me bleeding to death. She didn't answer my question, just looked at me sadly. "Thank you." I said quietly, before swinging my legs over the side of the table, and slowly lowering myself to the ground. She looked at her feet.
"My name is Danielle. Danielle Rousseau." She nodded at me.
"Julia Vang, but you can call me Julie," I said, nodding back at her in return. Our awkward greeting didn't last long. She smiled at me, a sad smile, speaking of years of torturous loneliness. Something sparked in me. I then made a promise to myself that I wouldn't leave her. Not willingly, anyway. She needed me. And in this scary place, where guidance was not only accepted, but embraced, I need her, too.
A flash of white seared my vision between the branches of the bush I was crouched in. Danielle put one finger to her lips and aimed the rifle into the bush and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out, loud and clear, scattering the birds in every direction.
"Did you get it?" I asked excitedly. She hurried over and picked up a small rabbit, dead with a clean wound in it's neck. "I've been doing this for 16 years, Julia. I know what I'm doing." Before she could loop it to her belt to carry it back to the shelter with the rest, a loud noise rang out. It sounded like a mixture of a machine and some kind of freakish dinosaur, and it hurt my eardrums. Whatever it was, it sounded huge.
"What was that?" I asked, turning to Danielle for an explanation, but she was shaking, her eyes huge. She dropped the rabbit and began to back up. "What is it, Danielle?" I took a step toward her and the tree to my right, which was thicker than me and Danielle together and taller than I could see the top of, was ripped right out of the ground by it's roots, flying into the air, and landed some yards away. The noise grew louder. Danielle spun around and raced back towards the camp at lightning speed. I never knew she could run that fast, but I tried to keep up best I could. Panting, I stopped at a tree to lean against. Funny, usually I can run very far. I was even on the cross-country team at my school. It must be the pregnancy, I thought again. The sounds had died away into the background, but even so, Danielle was nowhere in sight. "Danielle?" I cried, but there was no answer. "Danielle!" I cupped my hands and shouted into them. No reply. I wondered if I could make it back to the shelter on my own. I stumbled through the jungle for several hours, getting numerous cuts and scrapes on my arms and face from the trees. I finally stumbled upon the small clearing where our shelter lay. It was hidden by the forest itself, literally underground. I felt with my hands for the secret entrance and pulled up the latch, swinging down into our little hideaway. When I got down, her back was to me, and she was taking a screwdriver to a small wooden box with a man and a woman inside.
"It was a gift from my lover," she said. "It hasn't worked for a long time." I shook my head. What was wrong with this crazy woman? Didn't she just see the thing that tried to kill me? "It used to comfort me when that thing came around. I—and my people that came here with me—called it the monster. Don't worry. We're safe here," she added, when she saw the look on my face. She stood up and repositioned her pack. "We better go back for the rabbit, if there's anything left of it. The monster might have taken it. After that, we need to go to the Black Rock to get some dynamite. I'm going to lay traps around the perimeter of the shelter." I cocked my head.
"The Black Rock?" I asked confusedly.
"An old slaving vessel. It carried crates, filled with dynamite. I use it once in a while." I stared at her in awe. I'd heard about that ship! It had gone missing, never to be heard from again. I shivered. Did that mean I'd never be rescued?
"This...is the Black Rock." She said, gesturing towards a huge, towering ship that looked like an old-time y pirate ship out of the movies. I gaped in awe.
"Are we actually going in there?" I asked. The thought of going into that creepy, rotting, broken down ship that probably had dead bodies scared the crap out of me. I shuddered.
"I am. But you can stay out here, if you wish." She gave me a small smile. With a jolt I realized I was close to the same age as her daughter. No wonder she had taken a liking to me. I swallowed hard, placing one hand on top of my belly.
"N-No...no, I'll come with you." I took a deep breath to summon enough courage to take another step forward. Dead bodies scared me more than almost anything else. That, and spiders. And the unknown. Death, darkness, strangers. Stuff like that. I shook my head hard. If I didn't think about it, I wouldn't be afraid. We began making our way towards the ship.
"So what will it's name be?" She asked, looking down at the ground while she walked. I smiled.
"Matthew, if it's a boy," I said. "That's the name of my boyfriend. Matthew," I stopped suddenly. "We were going to get married." I said, and I stopped to sit on the ground, tears coming out of my eyes in floods no matter how much I tried to stop them. She sat down next to me and put her hand on my back.
"Don't worry," she said. "I'm sure he's probably still here, somewhere, surviving just like you. He probably thinks you're dead too," she smiled. "It's only a matter of time before you find each other." I hiccuped.
"Sure. But there's only one you," I said, looking at her sadly. "And I'm with you." She looked down.
"Yes, well, I lived on my own for quite a while, with no experience when I started. I learned as I went. I'm sure he's doing just fine." She paused for a moment. "What if it's a girl?" I looked at her puzzled for a moment, then gave a small laugh. I looked at her seriously, smiling.
"It's not a girl." She sighed, and stood up.
"That's what my lover thought too." She reached out a hand, and I took it, and she helped me up.
"Let's get going then," I said, eager to change the subject. Every step we took towards the huge boat made everything seem darker. It wasn't long before we were inside the boat. I had to swallow several times to keep down the bile that rose in my throat. I was going to throw up, I just new it. The whole structure had a rotten, moldy smell. Skeletons hung by their wrists in chains. I gagged. Danielle gave me a look.
"Yes, that was my first reaction too." She nodded towards the back. Vines and other plant-like material was going among the brittle wood, and one step I took sent the whole area around my foot cracking into splinters. I recoiled, and Danielle put a comforting hand on my arm. I shivered uncontrollably. We soon came upon some crates. She slowly lifted the lid of one, revealing dozens of sticks of rusty red dynamite. I gave a small cry. "Careful," she said, lifting one out by a finger on each hand. "They are unstable." she set it in the palm of my hand. I almost dropped it. Why would she freaking give it to me? I bit back a retort, and backed dutifully out of the ship, glad to be in the fresh air. I took a deep breath, eager to cleanse my lungs of that foul air. She emerged slowly, seven sticks of dynamite wrapped in her shirt. She jerked her head in the direction of the shelter. When she caught up to me, I turned to ask her a question.
"What did you say these were for again?" I asked.
"I'll explain when we get there." She cleared a throng of ferns with one arm, and our shelter lay in the small clearing, carefully hidden. She began to set them in the crooks of trees, attaching a thin wire on one end of each stick and tying the other to a tree across it.
"What are you doing?" I cried. She was setting a trip wire.
"If anyone comes, they will trip over it and set it off. They will not find our shelter." Our shelter. She said our shelter. I felt happiness, but it still didn't drive away my fears.
"What if we set it off ourselves?" I asked, still struggling with this matter.
"We won't," she said, with a wry smile. "We're the only ones who know where it is."
Not sure if I completely love where this ended, but hopefully i can update soon. ;) please R&R!