The Forgotten Pharaoh

The Forgotten Pharaoh - Chapter 10

For the second time on the day, Lilliana didn't know what had happened. It was so fast she didn't even have time to understand what was going on. Suddenly, she was in the dark, surrounded by dust and with a harsh ache on the leg she had landed on. She was trying hard to adjust her pupils to the darkness and coughing the huge amounts of dust that was getting into her lungs.

- Lilliana, are you hurt?

She looked up to see Seth staring down at her from a hole. His lantern helped make sense to what had happened. The ground was unstable and a hole opened when she stepped on it.

- I'm alright. - she said coughing. It was hard to breath down there.

- Can you stand up? I can help you out.

She noticed the hole she fell in was around a meter and a half deep, so it would not be hard to get out. Before she could respond yes, she put her weight into her leg to get up and felt an excruciating pain. She couldn't help to whimper loud and her eyes filled with tears. Damn it! She let her weight down again.

She was trying to figured it out how to stand up without hurting her leg more, when Seth jumped down into the hole next to her.

- What are you doing? - she asked desperate. It would be much harder for them to get out now.

- You're hurt. I told you to mind your step.

Before she could argue that she only fell cause he upset her, he lifted her up in his arms, as if she weighted nothing, which she knew wasn't the case at all. She held on to his neck, out of breath while he looked up.

He maneuvered her until he could grab her by the waist and lifted her up until she was sitting on the ground that was still solid. And then he lifted himself up with his arms as if he was leaving a pool. And took her in his arms again.

- I can walk. - she said, but her voice didn't sound convincing while she was trying not to cry from the pain irradiating down her leg and the dust in her eyes.

He walked until they were out of the cloud of dust that had lifted up and put her down at a rock, sitting. He knelt before her, investigating her leg, it was cut and bruised but it didn't seemed so grave, when he reached her ankle she bit her lip not to cry out.

- I think it is broken. Why couldn't you be more careful? Why didn't you listen to me?- he sounded infuriated, but when he looked up at her and saw she was crying, his heart melted. - it's ok. Don't cry.

- It hurts a lot.

- Let me see.

He took her boot out, while she whimpered in pain and saw that her ankle was already very swollen. He picked her up again minding of her injuries and carried her out.

- My God! What happened? - Mr. Parker was at the entrance together with all the team. - We thought it was going down so I evacuated the team.

- No, I just fell on a trap. - Lilliana said while he put her down on the stairs. - I wasn't paying attention.

- You need to go to the hospital, this ankle looks ugly.

- I can take her.

- I'm not going the the hospital.

They both said at the same time.

- I'll just go to my tent and put some ice on it.

- Where will you find ice? We are in the middle of the desert! It's turning purple you need to get it looked at.

- But...

- Don't be difficult. It's out of discussion. - Mr. Parker used the tone with her. That tone that let her know when he was imposing himself as her father figure.