Exposed
Prologue
The dust settled in a forgotten land.
Nothing.
Nothing was expected. Nothing came. For ten years she had waited for her friends to come back unscathed. Yet nothing happened. She sent her gaze to the cloudy, yet warm sky and closed her eyes.
I've been patient, she thought quietly to herself. I'm lost, when will my I find my way through the shattered memories and visions of the past?
She jumped to her feet.
"Why?" She screamed to no one but the sky. "Why have I been doomed to stay here and wait? What kind of sick game is this?"
Still nothing occurred.
"No one will ever tell me," muttered she as she resumed her seat on the dry, yellow grass. She still lay there, considering whether or not to just end it all or wait patiently for her friends. She suddenly burst into tears.
"I'm a fool," she whispered between tears.
She hadn't felt more weary in her ten years of waiting. With defeating thoughts in her mind, she drifted to sleep.
A bird. Fast, swift, deadly, and yet beautiful. It flew with amazing gracefulness with its golden feathers and a red tail. It flew across the bright blue sky, somehow inviting her to join it.
< come on, > it said.
< come on, > it urged.
She woke with a start. It had been such a wonderful dream. Or had it been? Her eyes found a tall silhouette above her. At that very moment, she found what she had been searching for for all those years.
"Tobias!" She shouted gleefully.
"Rachel," he replied with love and deep respect.
Rachel jumped to her feet and stumbled into his arms.
"I've been waiting for so long," she exclaimed, with stars in her eyes. "Where are the others?"
"The others?" Tobias inquired, "Rachel, I don't know how to say it, I-" he paused. The earth seemed to sink.
"I can handle the truth," she remarked sadly, the stars gone from her eyes.
"So much has happened after you got sick on that summer evening when the yeerks revealed themselves. I don't know where to begin."