Disclaimer: We don't own Lara Croft and Kurtis, sadly. Both characters and their original stories belong to Core Design, Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix respectively.
A/N: This is a story written by Cris and Lena. Lena is writing the odd chapters. Cris writes the pair ones.
CHAPTER 1: The awakening
Cold. There was nothing more Lara could feel, only the cold, almost freezing wind on her face. For a second she thought that she would be at home, thought that she forgot to go inside after sunbathing so that this breeze was only a result of the upcoming August night, the water on her face only rain.
But reality was much more dangerous. Upon opening her eyes she noticed a small torch on the opposite site of the room, the flame upside down on the wall, as if someone hung it up upside down – but as her mind got clearer, as her heartbeat suddenly got much faster, she realized that fire would never burn towards the ground, it was not possible to fire a torch upside down. And that only left one conclusion.
She was the one hanging bottom up.
No wonder it took her that long to figure out that there was something wrong. The blood that flew in her head gave her a bad headache and dizziness, making it almost impossible to get a clear thought. But now, while the adrenalin outweighed the cold and her unclear thoughts, it downed on her. She was not at home, not even in Great Britain or Europe. She was in Asia, countless miles away from the save walls of her home, all alone. No one was here, no one would get her out this time, no one would save her.
'Are you sure you want to go there?' her father had asked her only two weeks ago, worried that she might never come back. 'It could be dangerous. I won't be around to help you, dear.'
And what did she tell him? 'I'll be okay.' Nothing more. She did not even bother to tell him that she loved him before she got on the ship. And now she might die within a giant cocoon that pressed her arms to tightly against her body that it felt as if a few rips were already broken. Tears were burning in her eyes, tears she would not allow to flow down her face; or up, in this case.
Again, she felt a cold breeze on her skin and looked up, trying to figure out what this room was all about: Torches were placed all over the walls, even near the ceiling were she was hanging. The ground was full of dirt, bones and blood – and at least for the last one she could see where it came from. Beside her, in another cocoon right next to her, hung a young woman approximately in her age, the head swinging loosely in the wind, the face red with dried blood that obviously must have come from the huge cut right below her chin. Her hair was still reflecting the light of the fire no more than a few steps away from her, as if she was only - …
'Fire!', Lara thought, glancing at the red flame not far away. 'I could burn this cage down!'
Maybe it was not a good idea after all, but she was left with no other choice for the moment. Yes, she could still feel the knife that she had always carried in her shoe since one of the men on the Endurance drunkenly tried to rape her, but she could not even move her hand more than half a centimeter. And if she was sure about one thing, even though being not capable of making hard decisions due to the blood in her head, it was that she would be dead by morning's dawn if she would not get going already. The fact that no one was around at the moment was enough luck, no one could keep her from running away now – but still she felt that she could lose her consciousness any second.
"I gotta get out of here!", Lara murmured, trying to keep herself focused, and started shifting her weight back and forth until her cocoon touched the one of the dead woman, forcing it to move with hers, again and again. The movement resulted in her feeling sicker than ever before, probably because she had been upside down for an unknown amount of time; but she stayed strong, swallowing every five seconds while she was still moving herself towards the corpse. If she was lucky, her cocoon would burn down within seconds – for the cloth they were wrapped in seemed to be dry – and the fire would spread onto her own 'prison'.
Unfortunately, that she would be falling about six feet down onto the ground without knowing what might be there downed on her a few seconds too late. Immediately she gasped while the fire destroyed layer after layer of cotton, tried to grab an intact part of the cloth – and burned herself so badly, she reflexively let go.
Her scream must have woken up everyone that might have been near this cave, but she could not care about that yet. Her luck seemed to have disappeared when she fell down for she landed on a spear, piercing her waist and resulting in enormous blood loss when she finally brought herself to pull it out of her flesh – which not only made her feel very dizzy but also mixed up hallucinations with the horrible reality. As soon as she stood up, tremblingly holding the wound to hold back the blood, she saw her father standing right in front of her, watching her with this disappointed glance he was best in. It was easy to ignore that, though, because she knew that he could never be here – he was probably sitting at home with a whiskey in his hand or planning out his next big treasure hunt.
It was by far harder to walk right through Kurtis. She had not been the most liked person on the Endurance; in fact, no one noticed her for she was not a soldier, only a young archeologist. No one but Kurtis smiled at her and sat with her during the midday meal. He was quite attractive with his long dark hair and those ocean blue eyes that never stared at her cleavage, the obvious muscles he always hid with an oversized shirt and a jacket, even though there was no need to. And then there was this scar right beneath his left eye. Lara had caught herself often enough wanting to touch it out of sheer sympathy; almost as often as she woke up screaming in the middle of the night noticing his warm body right beside her, his strong arms holding her in order to calm her down. He never said a word about it to anyone, he just stood up when he thought that she was having a nightmare again, lying down next to her waiting until she fell asleep again. After a few days, Lara was not even able to sleep until he came over from the other side of the room where his bed had been; but he never even asked about her dreams, never tried to kiss her as many other men had, not only on the ship.
Maybe it was because of his little sister Annabelle. He had told Lara about her after the third night, when she had dreamt too worse to get back to sleep, when her pulse was going way too fast and the only thing that kept her from freaking out were his warmth and his arms around her.
'She had been seven when the nightmares began', he had murmured in a soft voice, 'and she always came into my bed, waking me up around midnight. At first I was annoyed by it – as a sixteen year old boy I always wanted to have my privacy and didn't care about my little sister – but after a while I started waiting for her. It was always the same, every night: She came in with her tiny stuffed animal, tears flowing down her face, asking me if she could sleep next to me. I guess, in the end, I just wanted to protect her since my parents had died a long time ago and I knew that our new foster father was abusing her. But when I finally had the chance to stop him from touching her, he pulled out a gun and just shot her.' At that point, Lara had reflexively grabbed his shirt, trying to hold back the anger his story had caused within her. But he only stroked her back. 'It was as if he was killing the only thing that I had have left, my family. And she was so innocent… Her blood on my hands, when I gave up shaking and trying to wake her, made me feel not only helpless but I also came to the conclusion that I had nothing to lose anymore – so I made him let go of his pistol and beat him with a lamp until I was completely sure he wasn't breathing anymore. It wasn't the right thing to do, of course not, but he deserved it for raping an innocent little girl, leaving her with nightmares and pain.' She had known that he had been watching her for some time now, but as she stayed silent he only pulled the blanket a bit higher and placed it neatly over her shaking body. 'I ran away after that, before my foster mother called the police, and did the only thing I could do: I went to the foreign legion, changed my surname and tried to forget about the psychological pain I had to deal with, so I myself ended up having nightmares, just like you do.' His voice had suddenly lost that kind of bitter sound it had always had. 'If there is anything you need to get off your chest, you can tell me. I won't tell anyone about it, I just … sometimes it helps to have someone to talk to. Maybe it would help you to get more sleep.'
But she had stayed silent and counted his breaths until she fell asleep again.
Right now the memory didn't actually help her, she was still somewhere in Asia without food, water or an idea of what was real and what was only illusion, but seeing his face calmed her down enough to go on. Maybe he was already dead. Maybe his death had been fast and painless. For more she could not hope while she grabbed one of the torches, took a deep breath and went in the only direction possible. Out of this cave. Down to the ship. Or whatever was left of it after the crash.
