Blessing in disguise

"Where am I?"

Amber sat up and looked at her immobilized lower body. One of the legs was splinted with two wooden planks tied together by a cord at each side, the other one was wrapped in bandages while several minor wounds were treated with plasters.

"So that's why my whole body hurts like hell, but where is everyone?"

Looking at the cupboards and other items around the room it appeared to her that she was kept in a room, probably restored, of the late eighteen ninety's.

"Brian?! Matthew!? William?! Anyone?!" She couldn't stand up let alone move, so screaming was her only option.

There was no immediate response to her calls, letting her lose all composure as a feeling of unease spread in her. If no one of them is here then who treated her wounds? Throughout this adventure, questions kept piling up and she seldom found the respective answer which really started getting on her nerves, nothing is more frustrating to her than unanswered questions.

Finally, the door opened and Brian came storming in with a worried look on his face.

"Amber! You're fine thank god. You really had me worried there for a second."

He sat down on her side and grabbed her hand.

"How are you feeling?"

"Well, given the circumstances I'd say I'm doing fine. Everything hurts like hell and I can't really move much but at least I feel refreshed after finally getting some decent sleep. Say, is my leg broken?"

A broken leg could be fatal in the situation they were in so she hoped for the best.

"To say the truth, I have absolutely no idea, to me it looked more like a simple sprain but I didn't want to take any risks."

Amber only now noticed his hand wrapped around her's and slowly tried to wind it out of his grip, it was slightly embarrassing to her.

"That's good, I don't want to imagine what would've happened if I broke my leg in this situation. Did we leave the desert or rather where are we, and where are the others?"

"You really can't remember what happened? What is the last thing you remember that happened?"

"Let me think... I remember waiting for you and the others to arrive and then sitting down in the helicopter and closing my eyes, that's the last thing."

He nodded.

"The moment we picked you up those gangsters showed up again and started shooting at us relentlessly until we were out of their reach. Thank god no one was hit but the heli took a lot of damage and that's why we crash-landed here in the Mojave. When I woke up some parts of the destroyed heli started burning so I quickly tried to save everyone from the flames but I could find only you. There was not a single trace of where the others are or what happened to them."

A short pause created an ominous silence.

"I then dragged you here to this strange abandoned town but for some strange reason, this building looked fairly new amidst all those ran down houses, I just hope that there are no ghosts here."

"Ahaha... chough, cough. The great adventurer Brian fears ghosts, what's up with that. But..."

Her voice suddenly turned into a serious tone.

"I hope Matthew and the other guys are doing fine, they gave us so much help after all, without them you probably would be killed and I lost somewhere in this fucking desert."

"They'll be fine. I didn't see any blood there so I wouldn't worry too much about them, even though it is strange, how can they just disappear?"

"I don't know about that but we should leave this place as soon as possible, I have a bad feeling about this... Wait did you say an old town?"

"Yeees why?"

"How many buildings?"

"I... I don't know exactly why are you asking?"

"I asked how many just say it."

"Uuum there are four on each side I think, so around eight."

"Ahaha, what a coincidence ahahah."

"What is it Amber I'm starting to worry, that you might be hurt after all."

"No that's not it. Brian, we are at an old town from the wild west period called Goldenbend, and according to the documents found in the museum, that's where they found your amulet."

A bright smile showed on Brian's face.