Contains a major spoiler for the Underworld storyline. Though I think by now everyone should've played it, heh.
It's also pretty sad and my first attempt to write a story in English. When I got the game and this peculiar cutscene came up, I sat there completely dumbstruck and at loss for words. And since I love writing depressing oneshots... yeah, go figure. Also, I think Alister is a really, really underrated character. I like how he and Zip provide some sort of comedic relief throughout cutscenes and headset dialogue, unlike most of the tomb raider forums, apparently. :'D
Erased
Blur. Then darkness.
Alister tried to open his eyes, but somehow they refused to do their work. Instead, an enormous urge to cough started burning up his throat until he finally gave in.
He got the metallic taste of blood all over his mouth as a reward.
„Lara...", he gasped, because Lara had been the first and last thing his eyes had looked at while stumbling into the main hall of the burning manor. Again, coughing, for smoke and fume being everywhere in his lungs. And with a duplicated Lara right in front of him.
Lara 1 had seemed overwhelmed and despaired, while Lara 2, twitching her mouth into a mean grin, had cocked her gun into his very direction... and fired. Just fired, just a short movement as her grin changed into a delighted smile. A casual and dismissive gesture had been the only thing needed to knock him off his feet.
Like he was some enervating fly which, stupid as it was, had just landed on an inappropriate place and at the same time been terminated by a fly swatter.
'How very much undignified', he thought as he coughed again.
With the help of a seemingly unbelievable amount of willpower he managed to open his eyes eventually. It didn't make that much of a difference, though. Everything he saw seemed to be hidden behind some grey veil. Behind this veil, directly above him, a person was kneeling.
"Lara", he gasped out again, recognizing the outlines of her face. Worried. Full of terror and fear. Without an evil smile.
She was saying something, at least he was aware of her voice, flowing over him like a sheet of silk or satin and then disappearing again as soon as it came. A quiet breeze without any recognizable words or phrases.
Suddenly he knew that he was going to die. That he was going to vanish from this earth, unless he decided to pick a random vision of a kind of afterlife in some mystic dimension during his last few breaths. Last-minute belief. How distasteful, to do it just to make sure that he wouldn't just change into a lifeless, soon decaying body...
Then the obvious crossed his mind.
The enlightenment.
Lara's endless search.
Didn't she always get what she wanted in the end, always find what she had been searching for...?
Avalon.
Yeah, why not.
"I...", he began as his vision began to blur even more and Lara's shapes became memories and ghosts. "I see..."
Again, he could hear her voice and again, he wasn't able to understand a single word. He guessed that she knew it was too late for him, and that everything she said now was only for the sake of keeping him calm. Him as well as herself. Without a chance of change and hopeless, with just the last tiny bit of repression that didn't happen to be ridiculous yet.
But it didn't matter.
'Are there really two different Laras? Where's the double Lara?', he found himself asking in his thoughts. Slowly. Like in slow-motion. His synapses didn't work as fast as usual anymore, and he felt tired.
So very tired.
"See... see you in... Avalon", he said with a tiny glimpse of hope and all his remaining strength before his eyes shut one last time.
"Damn it!", he heard Lara's voice from far away.
'Undignified...', he thought again as everything in his head became impenetrable fog.
Darkness put a thick cloak around him.
He felt himself succumbing to his weariness, finding deliverance at last.
