The Lost Tribe: Maliha the Wanderer (Book 1)

Of Light

Maliha's lungs burnt as the rivers current sucked her to the bottom of the bed. Sand and dirt rising around her in a fog of dismal colours as her body was dragged along the floor.

Her pale green eyes fluttering beneath wispy lashes as she was viscously ragged by the raging and unforgiving current. Her arms and legs kicked out, hands waving as she tried to push to the surface, but the heavy material of her dress weighed her down. The pretty red and blue patterns constricting around her chest like chains that anchored at the bottom of the ocean.

Long green reeds wrapped around her frantic feet, halting her body until the pretty material that had clenched around her chest, now floated above her head like a film of fire.

The world above her was slithers of darkness, distorted sounds and visions, as the water shifted above her. Her eyes fluttered earnestly as small bubbles of trapped air floated around her face. Her chest throbbed with the need to expand, eyes burning until she could no longer hold her breath.

She was drifting

Aloft in the churning current

Body bobbing back and forth.

Lips parted and eyes wide as the current shifted. The strong waves pulling Maliha back and forth. The current snapped around her, water churning in a viscous whirlpool of twisting waves.

She was chocking, asphyxiating as the water rushed down her lungs. Body jerking as her head became lighter and lighter until she was floating. Time moving spasmodically as consciousness slipped through the fringes of her mind. Reeds clinging to her skin, sinking into her lips and wrapping around her nose. Slithering along her body like the cold scales of a snake, they coiled around her. Moving and growing until they encumbered her upper body in a tight vice.

Her eyes fluttered back open as air rushed into her lungs. Her world spinning as the whirlpool yanked her body from the reeds that had kept her trapped. Twisting and turning until she was spat back up onto the river bank, vines slithering along her skin as water splashed at her knees and gushed from her mouth.

Her nails scored into the ground as she struggled for breath. Light dancing behind her eyelids as a sharp ringing noise filled her ears. The ground beneath her fingers shook, grass blades parting as the vines that clung to her wrists extended along the riverbank and disappeared into the vivid green.

Maliha was panting, gasping as the hot sun bashed down along her wet body. The world didn't make sense. Her head was spinning as she tried to coincide what had happened to herself and how she had ended up here. Along the riverbank gasping for breath. It was as if the water had forced her out. Had seen her dying, had felt her essence and forced her from its tumultuous clutches.

She didn't know. Nothing made sense but the burning of her throat and the salty tears that glided down her cheeks and blended into her slick skin.

What had happened?

Fatigue set in and all thoughts of her existence faded from her mind, drifting back into the water.

Her eyelids shuttered closed as her head collapsed down into the grass. The cool blades tickling along her face as the green vines that were found at the bed of the river, climbed around her. They slithered like grass snakes, wrapping around her arms and chest, forming an armour that protected her even from the suns rays.

Unconsciousness claimed her mind as the rocking waves of the river churned along her feet.

Light disappeared from her mind, the vivid colour exploding into pelting flames of darkness until the light was smothered by black.