The Return of Atlantis

Chapter 6 - The Temporary Prisoners

"Where- where am I?" Matthew heard himself moan as his blurry view was only a shade of yellow, mostly green, but it became clearer to him when his sight started to clear the blurred view, he noticed figures surrounding him as trees blocked the view of the beyond. As his view finally cleared, a whole group— no— a whole tribe stood surrounding him. But he was not the only one they were surrounding. He found himself tied to a pole next to June, and next to her was Alexander. 

"Alexander!" Matthew gasped as he tried to struggled free, but it only made it worse.

"Matthew Leverton will you stop that? What do I look like, a rope-testing dummy?" Alexander groaned grumpily.

"Sorry..." Matthew said as he looked at June, "you okay?"

"Yeah," June nodded weakly, "where are we?"

She looked around as the tribe stood motionless around them. Matthew noticed something about these men. Every man in the tribe was wearing animal skin, some parts of their body were tattooed, including their faces. Some of the tattoos, Matthew observed, weren't tattoos as all; they were scars, scars from the past battles they had fought in, scars that were a sign of their combat, scars to show their victory and pride from every fight. All of their hair were long, but if not, they would be bald, or their hair would be shoulder-length.

Matthew gulped when he noticed the tribe slowly moved to either side to make way for the biggest man he had ever seen. This man was wearing the skin of a lion, his tattoos were marked across his chest and his left arm. He had a long scratch across his right eye which was a scar, and his brown hair was long down halfway his back, but his beard was only at the top of his neck. His grey eyes matched his menacing look as it was similar to the clouds that were a complete shade of grey. He was holding a long staff and was also wearing a necklace that had something Matthew thought was a tooth, but he noticed a symbol: that " tooth " had three, wavy lines on top of each other. Matthew immediately knew that it was the symbol of water.

"You," the man demanded. He had a deep harsh voice; he pointed at June. Matthew shot his head to the side to look at her. June looked terrified. And Alexander also looked just as shocked and worried as Matthew, but he had a slight smirk on his face. June swallowed as she couldn't peel her eyes off that beast. Matthew felt his heart thumping from his chest, so hard that he thought it was punching the rope he was tied to.

The men went to untie them, but two of the men's string grips caught Matthew and Alexander's arms, and June was forced to follow the leader. Matthew grunted and tried to break free but he couldn't. All he could do was watch June disappear within the crowd, and he was led to a small hut with Alexander where they were both tied to a wooden pole each. 

"Ah, great." Alexander grunted. Matthew sighed worryingly. He was already deeply wondering what they were going to do with June. He looked at Alexander who was staring down blankly at the straw-covered floor. Then the next thing that suddenly came to his mind, somehow, was that symbol he noticed on the leader's necklace.

"Alexander," Matthew began as he turned to look at Alexander, who looked back, "did you notice that necklace the leader was wearing?"

"Yes. What about that, now?" Alexander's reply seemed like he was annoyed, but Matthew carried on, "I noticed a symbol on the tooth. It seemed to be the symbol of water. Maybe he can help us figure out where Atlantis is!"

"Matthew." Alexander began firmly. "We just got knocked out by a bunch of hooligans, shown to a whole tribe for no reason, which got June ended up with that beast whom they call the leader, and now I'm tied to this thing stuck with you in this waste!... does this summary ring a bell, now?"

"Not really. I mean we did trespass into their territory, so they had the right to do this to us, I mean after all they were trying to protect their tribe, right? - come on, Alexander. They could be nice!... hopefully."

Alexander thought.

"Fine," he said finally after a few seconds, "but if we get our heads chopped off I'm blaming you in front of the Lord!"

Matthew nodded and used a survival trick he had learnt back in University and managed to break himself free. He untied Alexander and together they slunk out of the hut. 

"We need a disguise." Matthew whispered as they duck behind a bush to avoid getting caught by one of the tribe members walking past.

"Oh not this again!" Alexander groaned grumpily.

"What? We've never even done this before." said Matthew as he raised an eyebrow.

"No, but the last time this happened when your father -  I-I mean, Mr. Leverton was still around, and he made me go into a disguise which ended me up looking like a blobfish!"

Matthew sighed and shook his head slowly and ran his fingers through his shaggy, blonde hair. He looked around desperately and found a whole pile of animal skins nearby. A smile grew on his face.