The Lost Explorer (An Atlantis Fanfiction)

Chapter One: Saved

Chapter One: Saved

With a shaking hand Helga pulled her flare gun from her back pocket, she had landed awkwardly on it, simply adding to her injuries from the fall out off the balloon. He had done this to her, betrayed her, plotted against her, after he had promised to keep her at his side...

"Nothing personal." She whispered repeating the very words he had used against her, using the last of her strength to pulled the trigger. The kickback caused the gun to buck savagely against her, and with a cry of pain the gun fell from her hands.

She heard shouting around her, no doubt because that thing was about to come barreling on them, Helga turned her head to the side, she didn't want the last thing she would see to be a burning inferno of twisted metal and melting rubber.

Her eyes started to drift closed and time slowed down, suddenly two brown legs came into her foggy vision, she tried to turn her head to see exactly who it was, but she couldn't, she gave a low moan of pain, at the same time a sharp vibration shuddered the ground, well it had crashed. Then everything went black...

Helga was brought from the darkness by a pair of voices talking back and forth above her. Through her pain dulled mind she could hear them speaking English, this surprised her, until she remembered they spoke just about every language.

"She is in bad way son."

"You should have left her."

"But she saved the Princess."

Helga moaned, slowly opening her eyes. She saw three figures all hovering above her, as her vision cleared she saw an older woman, she had kind eyes, and at the moment was looking at her with a concerned expression. Directly next to her was a younger version of the woman, but this girl had hard, piercing eyes, and she looked down at Helga with contempt.

On the other side of wherever she was laying there stood the third figure, this was a young man, his white hair cropped roughly, and he looked at her with a mixture of worry, and caution.

"You two, leave. I will see what I can do." The older woman said, the man left quickly, but the girl stayed until her mother pushed her out with a light shove. She pulled the cloth across the doorway before turning back to Helga.

"You are very lucky." She observed, reaching into a bowl of water and extracting a rag, carefully she dabbed away the soot and dirt from Helga's face.

"Who-who are you?" She managed coughing as she spoke, her chest hurt everytime she breathed.

"You may call me Natala." The woman said, moving to the foot to the pallet and studied her form.

"Many bones have been broken. You are lucky the volcano's ash cushioned some of the fall." She commented, reaching down to unlace Helga's boots. Helga's back arched off of the pallet when the woman tried to pull the boots free.

"Well, at least your spine is unharmed." Natala said, the faintest hint of a smile coming to her face, but then she turned serious.

"I will have to cut them free. I need to be able to set the ankle."

Two painful hours later Helga was breathing hard from attempting not to scream, Natala had immense healing knowledge, she had found and set every broken, and fractured bone in her body, cleaning the few cuts on her body, and washing her down with soothing oils.

Finally she covered her over with a blanket

"There, we will complete the healing tomorrow... Now I will leave you to rest." And with that she was gone. Helga shifted until her body protested. She had been ready to die, but now what? There was no way for her to get back to the surface. If any of her party had survived at all they would have fled by now... And here, here she had helped almost wipe out an entire civilization. They would not welcome her.