Uncharted: A Thief's Legacy

Chapter I - Wrecked

Something was beeping incessantly. Sam blinked, blinded by a harsh white light. For a split second he wondered if he was dead, and he reached up to rub his eyes. His arm felt heavy and instead of meeting his face with his hand, he hit himself with something rather hard. When he tried to move the other arm, he felt a sharp pinch and immediately relaxed it.

He squinted and slowly opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the light. When his vision focused, he found himself in a hospital room. The pinch in his arm had been an IV line that he'd disturbed, and he had hit himself in the face with a cast.

Something still beeped, and he glanced around until he noticed the cardiac monitor off to his left. The beeping appeared to be his own heartbeat.

What had happened?

He laid in silence for several minutes until a nurse came in the room. She smiled brightly at him and said something in Thai.

"'scuse me?" Sam replied. She continued to rattle on in the other language for a moment and busied herself checking his vitals. Just before she left, she said, in English,

"Wait." Sam could follow that instruction. Just a couple minutes later, another nurse entered.

"Samuel Drake?" she asked.

"That would be me."

"You must have questions," she said.

"Yeah...how did I get here? Where is here? My- my friend!" Sam shot upright, but he gave a cry of pain and gingerly lowered himself back down. "Goddamn...where's Sully? Victor Sullivan? Is he here, too?"

"You are in Bangkok," she replied. "You were in an accident. Another car hit you, but they were not there. You were the only patient they brought in from that accident."

"Did they take him somewhere else?" Sam asked. The cardiac monitor's beeps increased in frequency. "Why isn't he here?"

"You were the only person they brought in," she repeated. "There were no other survivors."

**********

Cassie buried her head in her hands and sighed loudly. Her final history paper was due in about four hours and she had been editing and rewriting for days, but it didn't seem to flow right. With the clock ticking down, now she only hoped that her grades from the rest of the semester might make up for the one she would likely receive for this essay. Exhausted, she skimmed through it one last time to make sure it read coherently and feeling more frustrated than relieved, she submitted it to the online drop-box.

At least she wouldn't have to think about it anymore.

She went out to the living room and found her parents watching an old movie on TV. She slouched down next to her dad and laid her head on his shoulder.