Back to The Crash Site

Tomb Raider: Back to the Crash Site

"Story inspired by Tomb Raider: Adventures of Lara Croft, an action adventure video game published by Eidos and released in 1998"

"This story is the continuation of the adventures in Pacific islands, and this is how I imagined the final scene of the game level to be like..."

The scene opened to the Sun sinking in the horizon, casting a hot orange glow in the sky that faded to ink blue above the climbing palms native to Papua New Guinea. The breeze gushed over the calm Pacific water to the shore and gently rattled the palm leaves. Down below, a prominent figure of a woman, standing five foot eight inches, was stepping out of the temple and squirming through the dense vegetation. Luckily her long but well braided auburn hair smoothly swept through the bushes without getting tangled.

Her bare arm could still feel the sting of evening chill but the sweat on her forehead and back urged her to go on further to catch some fresh breath of air. And there, Lara Croft, daughter of Lord Henshingly Croft, made it to the coast.

Lord Henshingly, who was once world's most renown archaeologist, left by his death bed number of extraordinary work and excavations that stretched far to Ghana and Himalayas, and top of all a mighty adventurous soul Lara Croft. Since her first juvenile adventure to Cambodia, she grew more inspired to be an adventurer and archaeologist, just for sports.

Lara glances up and down the coast, then found an ignition in the distance. There was a campfire surrounded by few men in blue uniform, and they were unmistakably the remaining Australian soldiers. After experiencing huge casualty in the darkest parts of the island, they had no choice but to heed Lara's instruction and head north.

One of the soldiers stood up and contently greeted Lara for her safe return. As Lara looked to count the soldiers, the soldier solemnly pointed out that the commander got perturbed and couldn't make it.

"We radioed our position. Just waitin' for Adelaide to pick us up," was the good news Lara finally heard. To her surprise, the soldiers were already barbecuing strange lizards they hunted down in the village. Lara politely nodded to one of the barbecues and only sat beside the fire.

In few hours, the S70B Seahawk helicopter from the HMAS Adelaide picked the soldiers.

"Ye'll be fine?" another soldier asked.

"The frigate will be here in one hour." Lara smiled, and the soldier warmly bid her farewell.

Lara watched the Adelaide flying further up until a swish of yellow flame popped out of the engine. She also caught something else like a bird soaring out of the helicopter and struggling with fire that caught its wings. As the strange flying entity was diving, it managed to stretch out its enormous wings, and disappeared behind the trees. Lara couldn't help but cover her mouth with hand as the helicopter plummeted in the water with a loud crash. As she watched it burning, she decided to turn to the vegetation where it would lead once again to the crash site. The soldiers suffered to find their way out from there, so did Lara. But her urge to explore more took over her limbs.

It was utterly dark from where Lara left Puna's temple. Lara anxiously but willingly accepted a battle against him and his power granted by Ora Dagger, that meteorite artefact she and a Scottish archaeologist Dr. Mark Willard were seeking together with reference to Darwin's expeditions. Luckily not only did she defeat him but she also retrieved the artefact. Based on Willard's assumption, the Ora Dagger and the three others Infada Stone, Element 115 and the Eye of Iris held incredible power. And Lara got recruited to assist in such mission. On these thoughts, she drew her pair of pistols; she had three more trips left to Nevada and London and Antarctica and didn't want unpleasant surprises to ruin her journey.