Christina screamed midflight, but before she made impact with the wall of stone a body stepped between her and the wall.
Matt was free and I ran for the crumpled up pair on the floor of the cavern. Christina was unconscious but alive. I slung her over one shoulder as I tugged upward on a groaning Jim, who looked to be both in pain and out of breath.
Matt yanked on his other arm and together we had him on his feet. I left him for Matt to help as I turned for the stairway taking them two at a time in my dissent downwards.
It appeared as if I was abandoning my friends and in a way I was, but I knew they understood my reasoning for doing so. Matt, Jim, and I were all in our early forties. We had lived and experienced life. We'd had our tragedies and our good times, but Christina had only had sixteen years in which to experience life and that by all accounts hadn't been that good.
It was more important that Christina live to celebrate her seventeenth birthday than for any of us has-beens to have another year added to our lives. Christina needed to meet a boy, fall in love and have children of her own yet.
I'd only known her for less than two weeks and yet like Jim I had adopted her as a daughter and I would gladly die if it meant she'd go on living. I was pretty sure Matt felt the same way about things.
The group of worshipful hopefuls screamed out in rage at the escape of their prey and made to chase after them when the voice of the giant boomed out over all of them.
"Leave them! Finish the rite of inhabitation so that you can become strong and mighty even as you see that I am. When we are fully realized in greatness then we shall go out and reclaim Atlantis and feast on the flesh of mankind! Now sing and dance and welcome my brethren into your hearts so that you may be transformed and understand the secret knowledge, with its bountiful pleasures that we have in store for all of you who seek to be gods of and in yourself."