I am using these characters for a work of fiction and do not have any claim to their copyrighted character.
—
If the last couple of weeks had proven anything, it was that the world consisted of nothing but rain and mud.
Wherever Lara Croft turned, a curtain of thick raindrops greeted her; turning the world around her into a dull, grey mass that could very well be a mirror image of her own psyche after spending three weeks in the North Andaman rainforest. If it wasn't pouring, the moist heat threatened to suffocate her—and neither option ever gave her the opportunity to dry off. Hell, she couldn't even remember what dry clothes felt like.
Grasping a low-hanging branch with her right hand, the archaeologist cursed colorfully and pulled herself up onto the colossal root of the very same tree. There was a fine line between ambition and idiocy, and quite frankly, she had crossed it the second she had set out to find this be-damned artifact. Not only had there been no actual proof of its existence except for a few measly documents, the sheer notion of finding a temple in the midst of a lush rainforest was also bordering on the ridiculous. To put it nicely.
But it was too late to turn back now. Much too late, in fact. And while Lara hadn't exactly planned to wade through muddy streams for hours on end, she felt it suited her current mindset quite well. A mixture of grey and green and specks of blue, and the all-overshadowing nuisance that was her right ankle.
She couldn't fault Putai for doing her best to save the foot, of course. She had meant well and done a splendid job, both in healing her physical injuries and urging her to get off her arse the very second she had managed to stand without retching for the first time in months. However, that didn't take away from the fact that the bones in her ankle had been set poorly—or not at all, for that matter. And while Putai had went on and on about drawing strength from one's pain, about how useful it could be, Lara had passed the time thinking of ways to make her suffer so she could prove her words weren't as empty as they had felt.
As she continued to make her way through the underbrush, Lara subconsciously reached for the amulet around her neck. It had long since become a useless reminder of everything she had went through to get back on her feet; the cold pendant a dead weight around her neck, threatening to pull her down and under, and bury her beneath all the things she had turned her back on in order to do what was expected of her. Had it not been for Putai's voice in her head, she would have continued to ignore Werner's incessant begging—and looking back, perhaps she should have. Karel hadn't been her bloody issue anyway.
Not back then, at least.
Dropping the pendant, Lara shook her head and pushed onward. No matter how often she told herself that he was gone for good, she couldn't shake the feeling that she had missed something. Karel hadn't survived for thousands of years and managed to fool the Lux Veritatis into thinking he was just another one of Eckhardt's followers because he got lucky—just like she couldn't believe that she had actually managed to defeat him with a flick of her wrist. It just didn't make any sense.
But then again, what did? The Chirugai she had picked up in the arena, the only proof she'd had that Kurtis had been more than a mere figment of her imagination, had disappeared before she had been released from prison—crossed out from the list of her belongings, stolen, repurposed. Or, perhaps, returned to its owner.
It was the most plausible explanation, if the most infuriating one. If Kurtis existed—if he had survived whatever had caused him to leave his beloved Chirugai behind in the first place—why hadn't he bothered to contact her? Clearly, he must have known that she had been incarcerated or else he wouldn't have known where to search for his stupid disc. Then why had he not helped her, talked to her? She had trusted him, and he had repaid her with complete and utter indifference.
Or he had found her, and she simply couldn't remember. It was a possibility, considering the many days she had spent on the floor of her cell, paralyzed by whatever drug they had tested out on her that week; though if he had, she should be able to remember something other than the muffled laughter of the guards and the searing pain in her spine.
Remember.
The word burst through her mind like a red-hot flame, the sheer shock of it forcing her to double over. There was nothing pleasant about the female voice inside her head, nothing that she could have focused on to shield herself from the rush of pain that followed the initial burst. It wasn't the first time that someone had snuck into her mind in order to communicate with her, yet still, there was a difference between welcoming the conversation and having it forced upon you. Not to mention that Putai's voice had always reminded her of a gentle caress, a soft whisper—not a goddamn steamroller.
Remember.
Wrapping her arms around her head, Lara sunk to her knees and inhaled; reminding herself to keep breathing despite the burning pain in her skull. Whoever was penetrating her brain with their powers must have eavesdropped on her thoughts before—not bothering to notify her of their presence until now. She must have forgotten to keep her walls up after she had returned to England; or, perhaps, whoever was dancing on her frontal lobe merely knew how to bypass mental barriers.
Remember what? she finally screamed into the void, her entire body shaking with the effort of staying conscious. Yet instead of receiving a valid response, she merely felt the blinding pain crawl down her spine, lower and lower, boring into her kidneys until she couldn't help but curl in on herself.
Where are you?
Lara tried her best to suppress the disbelieving laughter that burned in her throat. India. The North Andaman Island. Hopefully close enough to you so I can rip your throat out.
The pain eased for a moment, and Lara instinctively braced herself for another wave—that never came.
Open your eyes. Where are you?
For a fleeting moment, she considered telling her just what she could do to herself, and to hell with the consequences. It was only when she realized that she couldn't hear the stream or the birds, or feel the rain on her skin, that she obliged; and yelped.
The rainforest had disappeared, making way for what looked like a Vedic burial chamber. Lit torches lined the damp, moldy walls to either side of her, flickering in a non-existent breeze and casting ghostly shadows onto the sarcophagus before her. Tiny streams of water passed by her feet, flowing into a seemingly bottomless pool that surrounded the platform the coffin was resting on on all sides.
Lara rose from her crouch, itching to reach out, to touch the cold stone and find out whether it was real or not—yet she remained still, her hands curled into fists on either side of her body. How did you do this?
What do you see?
Of course. The cryptic, bodiless voice wasn't planning on making her life any easier.
Walking along the narrow path between the pool and the wall, Lara pulled the machete from the back of her belt and scowled, tempted not to reply at all. Inscriptions—thousands of them. Sanskrit, perhaps. Flowing water, but no source in sight; an altar to the back—filled with candles, herbs, parchment… She frowned, allowing her gaze to shift to the other end of the room and back again. No exit.
That could certainly be an issue.
Why are you here? What are you looking for?
It was all Lara could do not to give up on her carefully assembled restraints. She had come to the North Andaman to forget about her past; about Putai, the amulet, the Cabal… Not to be reminded of everything she had wished to leave behind. There had been no greater cause to her actions, no attempt to make sense of something she had failed to understand. In fact, she had not even expected to find anything.
Remember Prague. Why are you here?
Moving toward the sanctuary at the back of the chamber, Lara shook her head. All she remembered were the shackles around her wrists and ankles, the drugs, the infection she had almost succumbed to. Other than that, well—there had been a few seconds of clarity now and then, but even considering those fleeting moments, there had been nothing she would have considered abnormal or curious.
Except for, perhaps…
Why are you here? What are you looking for?
Someone had saved her. Shortly before she had been freed of all charges and sent back to England, someone had grasped her arms and talked to her—or tried to, for that matter. She could still remember his deep, melodic voice and the urgency with which he had spoken; his cold skin on hers, like water rushing through her veins, and the slight bulge beneath his black shirt. It had reminded her of something else, something important—though she hadn't quite managed to remember what.
Though frankly, she hadn't really cared either. At the time, all that had truly mattered to her had been her own sanity and survival; not a stranger's injuries or the bruises he had left on her arms. Even Karel had been nought but a distant memory, a possible threat she couldn't be bothered to evaluate further until it became necessary.
A horrible mistake on her part, apparently.
Why are you here?
Letting her gaze wander across the room once more, Lara shook her head and pursed her lips. She hadn't listened to the stranger back then, and even if she had, she highly doubted that she would have cared enough to remember his words now. Hell, she wasn't even sure if he had actually existed or if he had merely been a figment of her overactive imagination—…
Of course. The bulge beneath his shirt, covering a wound she had itched to taunt him about; the feeling of his powers rushing through her body to heal what he could in the little time he'd had; the command he had repeated over and over again, until she had snapped and slammed her shackles against his nose. His eyes. Hot anger had turned them a dark shade of grey, like a cloudy winter sky, though he had refrained from giving her a taste of her own medicine; except for the added pressure on her arms and the nagging migraine, perhaps.
But what had he said?
"I was told to come here," Lara whispered, furrowing her brows in an attempt to remember his exact words. He had mentioned the Andaman, Karel… France. Find it and come back to Paris.
What are you looking for?
He had not been able to retrieve it himself—not in his condition, at least. She had seen how much healing her had affected him, how it had deepened the lines on his forehead and robbed his skin of its slight olive tint. Assuming that he was everything but a hallucination and not as annoyingly immortal as Karel, the heat of the rainforest alone would have brought him to his knees; even more so considering the wound he was nursing. Hell, he had already bled through the thick bandage when he had first entered her cell, the dark blood glistening on the fabric of his shirt. And even though he had tried to ignore it, she had noticed his stiff movements and the odd posture.
Turning her focus back to the sarcophagus in the middle of the chamber, Lara tightened her grasp on the machete and risked a glance into the sheer bottomless pool before her. It wasn't particularly wide, though she couldn't tell if there were any nasty surprises lurking in its depth—and frankly, she didn't want to try her luck. Especially not if there was any chance Karel could have found out about Kurtis' survival and impersonated him once more to gain an advantage over the both of them.
Lara took a step backward and re-attached the machete to its holder before taking a closer look at the altar behind her. The herbs looked eerily fresh, which meant that someone had to keep honoring the gods in the deceased's name; though she couldn't say how they got in or out on a regular basis if there was no door of any kind. She really just hoped that Kurtis had planned ahead for that too.
Taking a hold of the wooden plate that held the herbs and parchment, Lara improved her stance and pulled. It didn't come loose immediately, forcing Lara to slam her knee against its underside to break off a piece; large enough to close the the gap between the platform in the middle of the room and the path she was currently standing on, but narrow enough to make it a task all on its own to cross.
What are you looking for?
She should have noticed the Latin inscriptions on the stone coffin long before anything else. Not only did they not fit in with the Sanskrit surrounding them, they had also been inlaid with a kind of silver paint that shimmered in the dim light—almost reminding her of the calm water surrounding the platform.
One hand grasping the hilt of the machete at her back, Lara approached the sarcophagus; her eyes jumping from the lavish designs encircling the Latin inscriptions to the water to either side of her feet. If there was one thing she had learned from experience, it was that one could never be too careful. Especially not when it came to reading inscriptions before releasing an evil Egyptian god from his tomb.
Lara only relaxed upon reaching the platform, though one of her hands always remained close to her belt—just in case.
What truly surprised her about the inscription wasn't the fact that it just didn't belong inside a Vedic temple, but the sheer condition of it. The paint inside the gaps looked as though someone had taken care of it all these years, touching it up whenever necessary—though considering the fact that most of what she could see around her was most likely just an elaborate illusion, she couldn't find it in her to feel too astounded by the craftsmanship.
"Transit umbra, lux permanet," Lara murmured, brushing her fingers against the cold stone. "A shadow passes, but light remains."
How fitting.
Stemming her entire body weight against the lid of the coffin, Lara pushed— stopping only inches before it would have toppled over.
What are you looking for?
Perhaps she had been wrong about Kurtis not wanting to retrieve the artifact because of his current condition; after all, the inside of the sarcophagus did not only hold the barely decomposed corpse of a Lux Veritatis warrior in full metal armor, the sword he was holding, the sword she had been told to retrieve, had also been engraved.
Konstantin Heisssturm, Veritas numquam perit.