Lara Croft: Origins

Chapter X: Reunion

Chapter X:

     The bear trap was definitely a problem. Pain fired constantly through my nerves. I snuck a glance at my foot. Blood, a lot of it. I grabbed it with my hands and tried to pull apart it's metal teeth. It was rusty. It was going to get infected. I couldn't pull apart the trap. Don't these things have a button or something to undo them? Apparently not.

I grabbed a wooden plank that must've been from the bridge when it was being constructed. I shoved it in between the teeth of the trap and used it as a lever. Little by little the teeth parted my bleeding leg. I pulled my leg out precariously. If the plank slipped, I couldn't imagine the pain. The plank was cracking under the pressure. I mean the trap was meant to hold a bear.

I was just about to finish pulling my leg out when the plank broke and crushed my leg a second time. Just kidding that time. My luck wasn't that bad. I pulled my leg out successfully leaving the plank at the mercy of the trap. The plank exploded into splinters.

My leg had a nasty gash through my khaki pants where the trap had cut me. My leg was going to infected if I stayed on the island more than a couple of days, not good news. Infection leads to swelling then I won't be able to walk and I'll get a fever and without medication or antibiotics, I won't be doing so great.

I forced myself to get up and away from the dead Alpha. I headed toward the torch lit bridge. Again it was dead silent. It bothered me actually, the silence. Back in the United Kingdom, the streets are always buzzing and people around walking on the phone or with a friend. Now I had no one, there was no one. The only consistency with home was rain.

The bridge came into view around a thicket of trees. I couldn't see from where but on the other side, light was visible. I liked that. It could mean another pathway, a group of survivors, the Endurance crew. I crossed the bridge carefully and safely.

I continued on, straight ahead from the bridge then around vegetation and trees. A second clearing, and after the last one I'm not so eager to see what's in this one.

It's a temple. Like straight out of Indiana Jones. It seemed unreal, but everything else did too, so all words signifying a variant in normality was dull like a well used blade.

Braziers of fire lit the corners of the ancient structure. Markings filled it's walls, or rather, the wall. The temple didn't seem to be a temple, but actually a wall that blocked progression past this point. The wall dug into the neighboring hills that were unclimbable by any unskilled climber such as myself.

Off to the left of the wall lay a crevice in the rocks of the hill. Inside, away from the rain, was a campfire. The idea of a fire to keep warm and dry from the torrents of unforgiving rain seemed almost heavenly. Until something, no, someone caught my eye...

Sam.

• • • • •

Forget the fire, Sam was more important to the survival of my sanity then the fire was to my body. Someone to talk to, someone to relate to, someone to go insane with on this damned island.

She didn't notice and she wasn't facing me either. I recognized her by her hair and body structure. She was sitting, tending to the fire precariously, as if it might erupt into flames and turn her to ashes like a phoenix.

I considered surprising her, but after all I'd seen it couldn't possibly be taken the right way. She'd be scared out of her mind, like me.

"SAM!" I called out to her through the torrents of rain and thunder which, by the time my voice reached her ears, was probably diminished to a whisper.