As usual, I own nothing except for Ella and my own storylines. The rest belongs to the very creative and wonderful people at Lost.
The Heart of the Island
Chapter Two: Inevitable
It was amazing just how quickly the island could lash out at you when you were doing something that as always, inevitably she didn't seem to like. This is what Ella had come to think over the years anyway. What was happening at this present moment just couldn't be a coincidence, there was no possible way and she would never be convinced otherwise in the future to come.
They had barely been up in the sky and flying across the cerulean ocean, which she noted was stunningly beautiful from this perspective, when she heard Sayid utter the words,
"What's wrong".
"We're losing fuel".
Ella suddenly felt mildly sick.
"Look outside, tell me if you can see anything" Frank yelled, seemingly pretty calm, despite his tone.
Must be a pilot thing she figured vaguely before her mind turned towards more important things.
Everyone stuck their heads outside the aircraft looking for the problem. Sayid, leaning out from the cockpit door spotted it first, followed by everyone else. There were a serious of bullet holes in the side of the chopper, she had known this from her inspection earlier however now she could quite clearly see that one had pierced the fuel tank and was gushing out fuel on her side of the chopper. Elle bit her lip. She had never even imagined at the time that a bullet would have breached the fuel tank, the thought had never crossed her mind. She felt a small amount of guilt at her stupidity. She more than anyone, should have known better.
"We've got to get every ounce of extra weight off this chopper now", Frank's voice resounded over the whooshing, grating noise of the helicopter.
Immediately Ella responded, grabbing the tool box from under her seat and hurling it over the side. When every un-needed item had been thrown overboard Jack turned to Frank.
"Is that enough?"
The pilot's response wasn't exactly encouraging; in his opinion they were still too heavy.
Ella looked out of the side again, leaning down to get a closer look.
"Well, can't we plug the hole?" she asked.
"Can you reach it?" came Frank's reply.
"I... I think so, let me try, Hurley, grab my legs. Don't let go yeah".
Hurley took a firm hold of Ella's legs and with that she leant back over the side and proceeded to try and reach the hole.
"I can reach it" she cried out. "I just need something..."
Removing her shirt, leaving her in just her vest (which wasn't exactly an easy task to accomplish whilst hanging upside down), Ella took it and tore a strip from its hem. Scrunching the strip up, she stuffed it into the hole, pushing it in as deep as she could manage.
"Ok, erm, I need something sticky, some tape or something" she shouted up to the others.
"Looks like it's your lucky day there Ellabelle".
Sawyer's head popped over the side as he handed her down a strip of tape. Using the tape Ella covered the cloth holding it in place.
"There" she yelled. "It's done, hopefully it will hold".
Ella was just reaching for the edge of the helicopter to pull herself up when her legs slipped from Hurley's grasp. With a shriek, she fell back, smacking her head on the landing skids, but managing to grab hold of one, halting her decent. She cried out in pain flailing for a second, then much to Hurley's relief managed to gain a more solid grip. Jack was there immediately.
"Are you alright Ella" he worriedly called out to her, leaning over to try and reach her hand.
Ella let go of the rail with one hand to try and grasp his, but to no avail.
"I'm just great Jack, thanks!" she replied breathily, struggling to crane her neck to look at him. "It's no good, I can't reach you" she added giving up and going back to holding the rail with both hands so she wouldn't fall.
She pulled her legs up and wrapped these around the rail also clinging on.
"Well just hang on ok?"
"Yeah, no problem", she scoffed, scowling at the doctor.
Hurley's head popped over the side.
"Sorry dudette!" he exclaimed.
Ella gave him a weak smile.
"Look, the freighter" Sayid pointed out to Frank.
"Yeah I see it" he replied. "She alright?" Frank called out to the back of the helicopter tossing a look over his shoulder; he couldn't see her from where he was sitting.
"She's ok" replied the doc.
"Great, well tell her to hang on tight 'cause I see the boat up ahead".
Jack turned back to Ella.
"Ella, we're nearly at the boat, hang tight".
Ella hung on as she saw the freighter come into view underneath her. As Frank began to lower she chopper to the boat, Desmond of all people came rushing towards them on the boat, yelling something. Ella couldn't make out what he was saying and uncurled her legs ready to drop to the floor when she was close enough. Dropping down, Desmond steadied her as she landed.
"Ella! What the hell are you doing here." He questioned in astonishment as soon as she was down.
They moved out of the way for the helicopter to land. As soon as it landed, Desmond grabbed hold of her hand in his and started dragging her back and pushing her into the aircraft, not giving her any chance to question him as to what was going on.
"We've got to go now" he yelled at Frank. "There's a bomb on the boat, we have no time, you've got to get off the boat right now".
Sayid and Jack at Frank's instruction immediately went about pumping some fuel into the craft and Ella jumped out and grabbed the life raft nearby throwing it onboard. After several minutes of rushing around the chopper was ready to go.
"Everybody on board now!" ordered Frank as he began preparing to take off.
Jack pulled Kate, who had run off to find Jin, back to the helicopter, ignoring her protests.
"We can't go without Jin" cried Sun desperately.
"Son of a bitch" cursed Sawyer, before hurling himself back off the helicopter. "I'll go get him, we can take one of the life crafts" he said to Jack.
Jack nodded at him.
"Freckles, I'll see you in a bit". He gave her a swift kiss, yelled at Frank not to wait for him and he was off.
Frank began to take off, pulling away from the freighter. There was still no sign of Sawyer, Jin or Michael. The helicopter gained some height and then all of a sudden came the huge explosion they had all been anticipating, yet still it came as a shock. Too close to the boat, the shockwave hit them alongside a blast of heat, but Frank managed to pull them out of it. Gradually after recovering from the shock, the horror of the situation began to set in. That was when Sun gave a bloodcurdling, heart wrenching scream. It took a few moments of her screaming for her husband and pleading to go back before she was finally quiet. She went limp and fell back against the seat Ella wrapped her arms around the ghostly pale shaking woman and held her tightly.
The chopper turned back towards the island, and Ella closed her eyes, blocking it from her view. It wasn't going to let her leave, it never let her leave. It was an ongoing unstoppable force. A sob bubbled up in her throat but she held it back for Sun's sake. Opening her eyes she looked at the people sitting around her. They all looked like her she supposed, shell shocked. That's when she caught sight of it, the bright light gradually rising up from the core of the island.
"Oh god" she choked out pointing frantically, "He's moving it".
The others turned to her, confusion filling their faces as they turned towards the light. Suddenly it clicked in her mind what was about to happen. Pale and shaking, she released the Korean woman and lunged across the chopper towards Frank.
"We need to get to the island, now!" she urged panicking.
"We're not getting there any faster than this" he replied grimly, throwing a glance at her pale face.
The light grew so intense that they had to look away and then...
It was gone.
"It wouldn't let me leave" she murmured to herself. "It wouldn't let me leave but now it's left me."
Ella felt herself begin to fill with a sickening dread.
How could she leave me.
With a lurch Ella came back to herself as Jack shook her.
"Ella, we're going down, put your life jacket on".
She felt her stomach shoot up into her throat as the helicopter began is swift decent, she didn't even have time to put her jacket on before they smashed into the water, and then there was nothing.
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Ok guys well that is the end of chapter two, sorry I had to basically replay a few bits of the series there (not to mention swap a few bits around), but needed to do that to get to the next part of Ella's story.
I've changed the format of my writing, so hopefully it all reads a bit easier now.
Really hoped you enjoyed that chapter. Thank you to the lovely lady who reviewed the first chapter for me. If you will just stick with me, all will be explained in future chapters :D.