This is my first Uncharted story and it takes place after all three games are over! I hope everyone likes!
ALL reviews are greatly appreciated!
Oh god, here it comes, I thought as the girl walked up to me. She's about to ask me a million questions and I'm going to have to dodge them all or lie. Great. Okay, don't freak out Natalie. Just chill.
"Hi," the girl said, flashing a smile full of perfect white teeth. "I'm Britney Robinson. What's your name?"
"Natalie Drake," I said.
"Did you just move here?"
No. Just passing through. Thought I'd enroll in school, I thought. "Yeah."
"What school did you move from?"
"I was home schooled because my parents and I traveled a lot," I said. So far, I could tell the truth, the whole truth.
"Oh," she said. Clearly I've ignited some curiosity with her. Great. "Why did you travel?"
Okay, dodging techniques. You know plenty of them. "My mom is a journalist," I told her. That was half true. "And my dad is an archeologist." Also half true. I was doing good today.
"Oh," she said. "That's … neat..."
She didn't care in the least. I knew that.
The rest of the day drug on forever. Nothing exciting happened. No booby trapped lockers, armed men chasing me, or discovering lost cities of gold. Nothing. The kids were boring and the classes were lame and for the most part, useless. I was nearly dead by the end of the day. I couldn't wait to walk home. In my case, I actually ran because I wanted to get as far away from that demonic prison as possible.
"How was school?" Dad asked as I came into the house.
I gave him a glare.
"That bad huh?" he chuckled.
"Worse. I don't want to go back. Don't make me go back!" I said. "It sucks. If I have to spend another day in that place, I'll lose my freaking mind!"
He sighed. "It can't be that bad."
"Dad! Why can't I still be home schooled? Why did we have to move here anyway?"
"I'm leaving that one for your mom. I think we've talked about this before," he said as my mom came into the room.
"Leave your mom to what?" she asked.
"Why can't I be home schooled? Why can't we keep traveling? I hate that place!"
She sighed, shaking her head. "We've talked about this Natalie. You've spent the last fifteen years gallivanting around the world with me and your dad and we decided that it would be best for you to start going to school like a normal kid, to be around kids your own age."
"But I like gallivanting!" I cried. "I like doing that kind of stuff. I HATE school! I hate the other kids. There's no one worth knowing there. They're dumb and narrow. They don't know anything! They aren't interesting and the classes are even more boring."
"It was one day," she said, sounding a little agitated with the conversation. We'd had it multiple times. "You haven't given it a real go yet."
"I hate it! I don't want to go back!"
"Well, you are Natalie," she said sharply.
I glared and then ran up the stairs and went to my room, taking extra care to slam the door loudly. There were still boxes littering my room that I hadn't unpacked but apparently my mom had come in during the day and made my bed. I kicked off my DC shoes and flopped face first on my bed.
I reached over the edge of my bed and grabbed a small photo album. I really wasn't one for photos and there was a lot that I couldn't talk about to anyone but my family because it could get us killed. That didn't stop me from taking pictures. If only to keep up with the events from my life. It was really crazy.
There were pictures from all different countries like Turkey, Nepal, Brazil, South Africa, and other places. There were a lot from different hospital stays too. My favorite being from when I visited the hospital after a three day stay in a Brazilian work camp. That was the most intense time of my life. It took a bit to figure out an escape but we managed and blew the place up.
I sighed as I flipped through them. I missed being able to go where ever, do whatever and explore. I was always a more hands on learner. I flipped through the rest of it and tossed it a side after a while. I pulled my blanket over my head and laid there for a while.
I heard my door come open.
"Go away," I said, not moving from my spot, thinking that the intruder was my one of my parents. "I don't want to talk to you."
"What did I do?" came the voice of my grandpa, Victor "Goddamn" Sullivan.
I sat bolt up in bed. The reason that my parents had ended up choosing Florida as our permanent home was because the man who raised my dad, my grandpa, lived there. I was always really close to him.
"Grandpa Sully!" I cried.
"Hey kid," he chuckled, hugging me. I hugged him back tightly. "I heard you had a rough day."
I sat back, giving him a surly face. I crossed my arms. "It was worse than worse. I hate that place. I don't want to go back. Ever."
"I tried to tell your parents that it wasn't good for your health for you to be tied down in that kinda place. I sure as hell wasn't ever going to force Nate into going. I don't see why in the hell they're doing it to you. It's like a goddamn prison there," he said.
"I know! The food was better at the prison in Saudi Arabia," I told him. "They may have only fed us well because they needed us to keep our strength up for work but at least they fed us."
He chewed on his stoogie and shook his head. "This shit ain't good for ya. I tried to talk 'em out of it. How about this? You tough it out for me, the rest of the week and if ya still hate it, we'll corner and make them take you out. Okay?"
I smiled. "Thanks Grandpa Sully," I said, hugging him again.
He kissed the top of my head lightly. "Alright. Your mom sent me up here because dinner's ready."
The next week drug on forever. Each day was more painful than the last. I wasn't sure what the worst part was, having to get up at some unholy hour, dealing with obnoxious and idiotic students, listening to holier than thou know it all teachers, or the dull classes and their even duller homework.
There was only one tiny ray of light. His name was Ryder Channelle. He was in my grade and we shared a lot of classes. He was the only one who I could mostly tolerate.
"Hey Natalie," he said on the Friday after I'd started school. "So, what's the verdict? Gonna stay or what?"
"I'm so not staying in this hell," I told him. "We'll just have to hang out outside of prison. I can't take being here anymore."
He chuckled. "I figured that's what you'd say," he said. "Too bad. This place was a little more tolerable with you here. So, you wanna go catch a movie tonight?"
"Sure," I said. "I guess." Then I remembered something. "Before that, can we go to the museum?"
Ryder looked at me skeptically for a moment. "Oh yeah, sure. I forgot that you're into all of that old stuff."
"It's much more than old stuff," I told him, rolling my eyes. "The past shapes our future. Contrary to popular belief, history doesn't repeat itself but it does have remarkable similarities. Besides, they have an exhibit that I'm interested in."
"Whatever," he shrugged. "I don't understand how you can be interested in anything in a museum."
"I don't understand how you can't be," I shot back, a grin playing across my face.
Ryder laughed. "Okay. I'll be by to pick you up at four thirty. Try to make yourself look decent, Nat. Okay?"
"Bite me."
"Sorry. I'm not into cannibalism," he joked. "Later Natalie."
"Later Ryder."
I went home. "I'm home!" I called, dropping my bag by the door.
"Hey Natalie," Dad said. "What's your verdict?"
"No way. I hate it. I'm not staying. We'll talk about it later," I said running up the stairs.
"Where are you going?" he called after me.
I took the stairs two and three at a time. I started digging through my room, tossing things out of boxes. I tripped over a shoe, landing with a loud thud.
"What are you doing up here?" my father laughed from the door way. "Are you in a hurry?"
"Kinda," I answered, returning to my search. "I'm looking for my book. There's an exhibit on Paititi at the museum. Ryder and I are going there to check it out before we go to the movies."
"Ah, Paititi," Dad said. "You're still on about that?"
"Don't give me any crap. You spent twenty years on Sir Francis Drake's trail," I told him. "I think this will give me a hint and get me a little closer to locating it. We'd be swimming in the gold."
"And if I remember correctly, I did find Ubar but all Sully and I ended up with was a handful of coins while we watched it sink into the ground."
"That was poorly played on your part," I chuckled. "Ah ha!" I held the leather bound book up in the air victoriously. I'd had it for a few years. It only contained everything I'd ever discovered about Paititi.
Dad laughed.
I turned to him. "Don't judge me," I pouted.
"I'm not. I'm not," he promised. "I'm glad you're finally excited about something."
"I'd be more excited if I was running through the Amazon," I told him.
"Oh, whatever," he said, rolling his eyes. "Don't let your mom hear that. She'll punch the both of us in the face because I agree with you."
I laughed, pulling a beanie on my head. We weren't allowed to wear them in school and I felt naked without it. Just another reason why I hated that torture chamber. I grabbed my messenger bag and put my book and a pen inside. There were a couple other books in there as well, just in case there was something I found at the museum that was interesting. I had notes and sketches from all the adventures we'd had.
"Oh, your mom told me to remind you to take your pain medications before we do your therapy tonight so you're not up until midnight in pain."
"Okay. I'll take them before I leave."
"Knee hurt?"
"I think it's about to rain," I answered. "But whatever."
"Right." There was a knock. "Ryder?" Dad asked.
"Yep. C'mon," I said.
We went back downstairs. My mom had already answered the door and Ryder was in the kitchen talking with her. His black hair was restyled in his usual tussled look. He wore simple dark blue jeans, a white shirt with red splatters that said 'This is my zombie killing shirt', and red and black checkered Vans.
"So, what do your parents do for a living?" Mom was asking as Dad and I entered.
"They're in the stock market. I don't see them much," he said nonchalant. "They travel a lot and I'm usually home by myself. We have an iffy relationship at best."
"Listen to you," I snorted. "Angsty little rich white boy."
"Shut up," he said, rolling his eyes. "And I'm not 'angsty'. I'm okay with it."
"Let's go, Captain Angst."
We said good bye to my parents and headed to the museum. That Paititi exhibit offered a little information about the first traveler to even hear about it but not much.
"Hey, Natalie," came Ryder's voice. "How much do you know about Pandora's Box?"
I walked over to where he was standing. It was a small display displaying some paintings and ramblings about the mythical box. Then again, I was a myth chaser.
"Not much. I mean, I know the legend of Pandora opening the box and releasing disease and pestilence into the world. The only thing that was left was hope because the moron shut the box too soon."
"Do think it was real?" he asked, studying it.
I pulled out one of my notebooks and started taking notes. "It could be. It might have been exaggerated though the years and people back then didn't understand as much as we did," I told him. "Such as, giving angels wings. No where in the Bible does it mention angels having wings. That's completely of human invention to explain how they flew. It's been consistent with all religions who believe in flying beings."
"Good thing they didn't invent superman."
"He's an alien," I said, frowning at the glass. Something in the manuscripts caught my eye. It was probably a total coincidence that they were placed beside the Pandora's Box thing but it snapped a bunch of neurons in my brain. I scribbled down some more notes.
"Natalie Drake!" Ryder called. Apparently he'd been yelling at me fore a while.
I was jolted from my intense sketching and looked back at him. "What?" I half snarled.
"If we don't hurry, we're gonna be late for the movie," Ryder said. "Let's go!"
"Crap. Right. Coming," I called back, stuffing my notebook back in my bag and following after him.
On our way out, I bumped into some uppity man and his entourage of bodyguards. He had apparently been waiting a while to get to the exhibit and his solid brick friend caused me to trip and jack up my old knee injury. The main man, mid to late forties, average build, average height, nothing particularly noticeable about him unless you count the really fancy custom made Italian suit he wore, looked down at me. He didn't look irritated or insulted. Rather, he looked at me curiously and possessively.
I ignored the weirdness and went after Ryder.
Why in the hell would those kind of guys be interested in something like Pandora's Box? There has to be pieces missing. Something along the line. They have to believe it's real. And I have all the start information put together before they do. I could get a head start on them. For some reason, I don't think that they're looking to get the little hope angel out.
I know it was long and kinda went no where but I wanted to introduce the characters and kinda set up the scene. Paititi is an actual place. Google it. As for Pandora's Box, that was a real legend but I'm going to make it a real object. I hope everyone enjoys.
Thanks for reading and once again, you're reviews are greatly appreciated and I do respond to as many of them as I can!
