Lara Croft: Origins

Chapter I: Boarding

Chapter I

I quickly threw my things into a tote bag with a design of three interlinked triangles. It had belonged to my mother before she disappeared with my father and the rest of the thousands of dollars worth of equipment they had onboard. I couldn't hold it in anymore, the sadness, the emptiness in my stomach I've always felt since my parents disappeared. It had always been an ever present storm of emotions: anger, loss, regret and a lack of closure. I was usually a very independent person. At the age of sw16 I'd had dealt already with a flurry of harsh things; heartbreak, the loss of my parents, and physical injuries but I had held in the pain just past my breaking point and I had had enough.

I sobbed and yelled curses inside my head at the world for its harsh ways. Then I threw a pillow, yelled into another and then kept crying into a third one. It could've been 30 minutes or 2 hours but later Samantha Nishimura came in. Sam was the friend everyone wished they had. Sam had always been there; when I broke my arm at the park playing with her, when my German Shepard died, when I won the spelling bee, the list goes on and on, but for now Sam and I sat on the bedroom's bed together and that was all that mattered. "Lara it's okay, it's gonna be okay." Sam said quietly. If only I could believe it.

• • • • •

     It was a windy day with little sunlight when I boarded the Endurance, the ship my professor Dr. Whitman had managed to get. He'd bribed the only captain crazy enough to take us there. He was also rich, a world renowned historian, and was quite egotistical but that was beside the point (at the moment). The ship had two floors below deck and one above with a radar spinning on a tower at the very top of the Endurance. My mom's bag had some headphones, my iPod and some basic first-aid along with a survival kit with a bunch of wilderness related stuff like matches etc.

Dr. Whitman had gotten my friend, Sam, a seat on the Endurance, and I was glad. Perhaps I would have been a little more happy if he hadn't had only done it for the publicity of having me onboard, the daughter of a world renowned archaeologist. I wouldn't have gone without Sam. She loved archaeology almost perhaps more than I did and she wanted to be on this exploration trip along side me.

Uncle Roth (though he just goes by Roth) had a specific set of skills that would make him useful on the ship. He was also my only family and I was not gonna let him miss my first time out of London. "Come on Lara you've got a room all to yourself," he said with that heavy British accent that was stronger than any of the other people (except maybe good old Grim) onboard did. Roth was in his mid 40's and had a white, subtle beard, no longer than an inch but gave him much personality. He had some hair on his head that was also white, but I knew better than to think of Roth as old. I knew that Roth was a healthy, athletic person with training in the British armed forces and could take down 5 guys down in a bar fight. "Your room's the last one on the left down the stairs by the command center, go on girl," he said to me with a chuckle noticing my rush of excitement to be on the Endurance.

I rushed downstairs skidded into the wall turning left, but continued into the hallway dimly lit by the sun setting outside and the light bulbs above. I grabbed the wooden knob to my door and I thought about my own tragic history. "It doesn't matter how bad it's been," I said quietly to myself but very forcefully. I meant what I said and then I said something else, "You're going to do what your parents couldn't and you will be their legacy." I pushed open the door and stepped into the last comfortable place I would be in for two days before the story in which I did not know would change me began. Little did Lara Croft know that the trip she was on was a suicide one.