Chapter Three: All Coming Back
1344 Words
Kat has returned from the hospital with Helen after the doctors were able to treat her in the best way they could. They had given them brochures and guides in picking the right hospital in Miami which was the closest city to them.
She looked at the woman she had come to call her mother as she laid in bed sleeping and Kat shivered. If she died she had no idea where she would go from here. She loved her so much because she saw Helen as no one else but her mother.
Helen coughed and Kat quickly took a glass of water from her bedside and gave it to her.
She sipped only a little and smiled at Kat.
“My dear Kat…you look sad” Helen managed to say.
“Of course I am sad Mom..” Kat replied while trying to keep the fear out of her voice.
“Don't be, I will be fine”
Kat tried to be steady, but soon her eyes betrayed her and got filled with tears. She tried to speak.
“But, you are not …we need to get you to the city…we need money too…” her voice kept breaking.
“Kat… you worry… too much…”
“Mom…let me worry”
“Easy child ..let me rest and we will talk about this later…
“But mom…”
“Please Kat…” Helen said gently and smiled at her.
She held out one hand and Kat moved closer to her. Helen used one hand to smoothen Kat's hair and tucked a loose strand behind her ear.
“I am glad that the sea brought you to me…”
With that Helen gave her a kiss and closed her eyes to rest.
Kat couldn't take it anymore, she ran outside from the house, and kept running till she got to the beach where she could cry freely without the fear of baring her emotions in front of her sick foster mother.
Suddenly she heard a noise above her, initially it sounded like it was far away but then it started coming closer by each second, getting louder and louder.
When she looked up to see where the noise came from, she was shocked to see a helicopter slowly losing control.
Kat froze, she didn't know what to do
Klaus knew he had to do something, Nora was in the helicopter, asleep and he couldn't afford to lose her.
He looked out the window, they were getting closer to the ground, his survival instincts kicked in, his grandfather had paid for private training for him when he had said he wanted to be a pilot.
He had taken a few flight classes before he lost interest and inclined more to learning about his grandfather’s corporate business instead.
Swinging quickly into action, he took the reins and started to punch in the controls he could remember, he leaned while trying to stay off his unconscious pilot.
7,000 ft above the ground, he still hadn't been able to take control.
He tried a few more clicks…. And the helicopter took a nosedive. Nora got bumped out of her seat, her eyes opened from her sleep straight into panic.
5,000ft…. Klaus felt like he would run mad. The chopper rattled and Klaus could hear the panic in Nora's voice
“Daddy…what's happening?” She asked with fear.
2,500ft, they were going down fast… Klaus glanced quickly at his daughter.
“Honey…daddy will take care of everything”
1500ft….
1000ft…
800ft…
Klaus grabbed the pitch stick and entered the last few control options he could.
“Melanie, please help me” Klaus muttered, then he pulled the stick with all his strength.
From where Kat stood, too terrified to move from the helicopter that was crashing down fast towards her, her body began to pump adrenaline but she still couldn't move.
Her mind told her that she was in danger but she was too scared to move.
As the chopper dived in her direction, the wind from the rotating blades blew Kat off her feet into the air and threw her against a rock. She hit her head and blacked out.
Unexpectedly, the aircraft gained control and took balance.
It transitioned from rotating without direction to slowly gaining stead and finally, it slowly landed.
Klaus was glad to have been able to take control. He breathed a “thank you” to whoever was listening and paused to catch his breath.
He thought himself extremely lucky to have been able to land safely and felt even more grateful that he was able to put his child Nora out of harm's way.
Nora looked at her daddy, the fear in her eyes were gone. She smiled at her daddy.
“Just like a rollercoaster…” she said
“Yes, like a rollercoaster,” Klaus replied.
He was extremely happy that Nora didn't think much about their near-crash. He didn't want his daughter traumatized.
He suddenly remembered his pilot and examined him. He was relieved to see that he was still breathing… What could have happened?
He got out his phone to call an ambulance but to his surprise he got no service.
“No service, I'm not surprised. This is a dead area anyway”
He looked out from where they had landed and saw a little house on the rocks not too far from them
“Maybe they have a landline,” Klaus said while looking at Nora.
Nora looked back at him with a confused look.
“Nora, let's get you out of your seatbelts because we need to take a hike towards the house over there” Klaus said and pointed to Kat & Helen's house.
Nora nodded excitedly, she was having a good day with her daddy.
He unbuckled her from the seat and helped her out of the helicopter.
They started to walk, hand in hand through the beach sand towards the rocks.
Suddenly, Nora bolted out of Klaus' grasp and ran towards a lady who was getting up from a lying position into a sitting position in the sand
Kat opened her eyes, her head hurt. She had to blink several times before her vision cleared. She remembered a helicopter generated wind that threw her against a rock.
She remembered Helen, her foster mother who had cancer.
She remembered spending two years with Helen who took care of her because she had nowhere to go…
She remembered that she was now called Kat…
She remembered her name was actually Katniss and not Katherine like Helen and her had chosen…
She remembered running in the bush path in the night while being chased by two men who wanted to kill her…
She remembered she had fallen off a cliff…
Suddenly everything came back, her past life, who she was before she washed ashore on Helen's beach, everything.
She sat up and held her hand to her head. It hurt badly.
While she tried to sit properly, a child suddenly appeared from nowhere. She was a cute little thing, about five years old.
She ran straight to her and gave her the biggest hug she had ever received.
“Mommy…” the little girl said, “ …I missed you”
Did this child just call her mommy?
Of all the memories that came back to her, none of it was about her being a mother.
Still taken by shock of the accident and retrieved memories and now the hug of a child, Katniss could not react quickly enough.
Ahead she saw a man run to them, he had been trying to catch up with this little girl.
He stopped in her tracks when he saw her.
She was about to ask if he was the little girl's father when he stopped dead in his tracks.
Katniss watched his eyes open wide and she saw the colors wash off his face like he had seen a ghost.
“Melanie?” Klaus said looking at the lady whom Nora’s little hands had squeezed tightly in a hug.
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