Lexa Croft - The New Tomb Raider

Chapter 3

A dull ache throbbed inside my head as I recovered consciousness. My vision was too blurry to see anything and it took me a while and frequent squinting to discern any outlines of my surroundings.
Light colours. Orange, red and yellow intertwined. A campfire.
Then darkness and a face right next to me. Half lightened, half hidden in the shadows. Short dark hair or put into a pigtail.
The more I blinked the more I recognised the face next to me. It was Raven and she stared right back at me. Damn creep.
When I looked at her face more closely and recognised a very angry look, I immediately wished I never woke up.

"Great." She mumbled as I tried lifting myself up. I groaned as soon as my headache worsened and the throbbing became unbearable.
"Now that you're awake.. please tell me you didn't lose your mind and you've got a plan. Cause this is getting out of hand."
"Not so loud!" I whispered to her.
"Fine! Fill me in now!" She hissed back.
Well what was my plan? I had no plan. I never had any plans or strategies.
"C'mon Lex. We're up shit creek! You've got to trust me now."

Trust? That word didn't even exist in my vocabulary anymore because trust was nothing else than an illusion and intrigue people would use to hurt you. Trust used to be something you'd have to earn in a long hopeless battle to eventually change that someone else's life into the better by letting them count on you. But that was long ago.
Nowadays you couldn't count on anyone except a few exceptions of course. For me it was Octavia and Raven who had always been there for me but still I couldn't manage to let them in because someone else took my trust and shattered it into pieces.
Love, another and probably the worst illusion people had invented to detect vulnerabilities and subsequently making someone's life a living hell. That used to be my life.

It was true. I was blinded by an illusion and dream that hit me without warning. It came too fast and too hard to escape or dodge. 
She was beautiful, as beautiful as the sun, the stars and the whole galaxy combined but she was also poisonous, more poisonous than monkshood and I swallowed her poison within a heartbeat.
This death was bound to happen once I realized she fooled me.
Her poison weakened my heart at first and made it hurt like millions knife stabs. Though, I could have survived it but she just left me there to die and her poison finally sucked out what was left inside my heart.
Her name was Costia.

"Earth to Lexa." Raven waved her hand in front of my eyes. I daydreamed again.
"I neither have a plan nor do I need one. I just want to find out what they want and who they are." I sat up and leaned my back against the wall behind me. I noticed our feet were tied against each other.

"No plan? Are you serious Lexa? What's going on with you. Seriously, why are we even here?!" Her voice raised in anger.
I sighed. "Where's O?"
"they interrogate her."
"Then we'll fill her in later. But promise me to shut up when people are around."
Raven pinky promised and shuffled closer towards me. My lips were slightly brushing her ear as I whispered.
"My mum's diary contains information about a jewel hidden in some secret room inside this temple."
"I know, that's what you told us before we left England." She cut me off.
"Yes. That jewel is possessed by dark forces and is a threat to the humankind that we need to stay safe."
"Dark forces? Doesn't that only exist in Star Wars?"
I rolled my eyes. Of course she was a geek and knew every scene of these movies.

"Well yeah Skywalker. They do exist and you should take it seriously."
"Do you think they're after the jewel?" She frowned.
"Guess so. Why else would they be in a temple that's completely looted when it's not for the jewel?" I paused. "I surrendered because they needed to believe we're not a threat to them."
"So we can find out their true intentions." She finished me off.
I nodded. "Exactly. I want to know where they got the information about the jewel from and what they plan to do with it."
"But how are we gonna move on from here?" She looked concerned.
"Well we'll have to wait and ask for a cooperation. Pretending we're here for science not for the jewel. When the time's right we'll take over and turn the tables. Until then, we have to pretend being on their side regardless what they're planning to do."