Author's Note: Date Updated 07/09/15

Episode Six: Abandoned

Chapter Two

At around noon, Bella finally stopped walking and shakily sunk down onto a nearby rock. She felt quite upset as it had finally hit her that the Doctor wasn't coming back. If he had really been her friend, he would have never left her with that vile man on this horrible planet. The Doctor had broken the promise he had made in the Amazon. He really had abandoned her, just like almost everyone else in her life.

She let out a pain-filled sob despite her hardest efforts not to and covered her face in her hands, her right having healed hours ago. This was the first time she had cried properly since her very first night on Nealon and it was probably the most she had ever cried in her life.

It took her a while to realise over the noise of her sobbing, that she could hear singing. Becoming suddenly silent, she wiped her eyes free of tears and looked around the small clearing that she was currently sitting in. The large trees surrounded her and the soft orange sunlight filtered through the golden leaves. The forest floor was littered with dead leaves and tall mushrooms and weeds and grass grew up around them. She frowned and wondered where the singing was coming from. She stood up and began walking around in circles a few times until the song became louder. She followed quickly, looking out for any sign of who was singing. Suddenly a large, gaping hole appeared out of nowhere in the ground.

Bella cried out in surprise and grabbed hold of a bush beside the hole as she slid into it, her feet dangling as she held onto the bush for dear life. Panting, she managed to pull herself out again, to sit staring at the hole. It looked like some kind of human-sized animal trap. She leant forward and looked into the deep, smooth-edged hole, noting that she had not been the first person to fall into it.

"Are you okay?" she cried out, seeing the person's legs move slightly. "Can you move? If you can stand up I'll be able to get you out of there!"

The person in the hole rolled over, making Bella gasp quietly; it wasn't a person, it was an alien. She could see how one could get confused however, because apart from the alien's head, everything else looked human. The creature's skin was a greyish brown colour, its eyes were slanted at a forty-five degree angle and its nose looked like the tentacles off a squid.

"Help... me..." the creature gasped painfully, a small, white, round ball lighting up when he spoke.

Bella gasped again and jumped to her feet. "I'll find something that you can grab onto, hang on!"

She ran to a tree near her that had a long dead branch and pulled it along the ground and eased it into the hole. "Grab the branch and hold on," Bella said quickly. "I'll pull you out!"

Once the creature had grabbed the branch, Bella pulled it backwards until she saw a gloved hand emerge. She moved forward and grabbed the creatures arm and pulled him up. Bella stumbled a few paces backwards because she was now holding the weight of the creature before they both fell to the ground.

Bella held him as he held onto her left hand, not daring to let go as he shook violently. He rested his head on her right knee as her eyes took in his strange appearance and she wiped black blood of his forehead, which she noticed seemed to calm him down.

"You're alright," she said softly. "I've got you now."

The creature's slanted eyes opened slightly and he gazed at Bella, who realised that the singing had changed, and that it seemed to be within her own head.

"I don't know where you come from, so I won't be able to take you home until you're better." Bella told him. "So you're going to have to come home with me."

She waited for an objection, a waiver of mistrust from the strange creature, but she got none, so she helped the six foot alien to his feet and began to half drag it back to her hut.