Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Ascension
Chapter One
"Lara... Lara... LARA!" Lara Croft was abruptly woken from a light sleep as the plane jolted to the side again. "Fasten your seat belt, darling, and must you have that thing so loud?" Lara's mother was referring to the Sony Playstation Portable that had fallen to the edge of the seat. The sound of the game she had been playing could be heard loudly through a pair of earphones that were still in her ears. "Honestly, you'll be deaf by the time we land, and you know I don't like you playing those violent games". Lara turned the device off and clambered over to her mother's side of the plane, strapping herself in. At nine years old, Lara was peacefully ignorant of the concept of danger, so when the plane bumped again she thought nothing of her mother's hand clasping her own and gripping tightly. "Come here", she said, and pulled her daughter in close. Lara thought back to when she got on the plane, waving goodbye to Winston. The man had worked with the family for as long as she could remember, and she knew that if he were here he would comfort her mother, tell her that there was nothing to worry about. Lara liked the bumps. They were exciting, like a ride. The plane was flying at low altitude over the Himalayan Mountains, the outside was lifeless and still. "It's pretty" Lara pointed out the window where the mountain peaks reflected the sunlight. Her mother looked up and followed her daughter's finger. As she opened her mouth to speak, the plane jolted again, except more vigorously than before. Lara noticed her mother's grip tighten around her. "What is going on?" she questioned. Taking another look out the window, Lara's mother suddenly gasped out loud, "we are flying far too low..." With a crash the entire plane shook and a red warning light came on. A beeping could be heard from the cockpit but before Lara or her mother could react, the plane shuddered and with an incredible screeching noise, like fingers down a chalkboard, the back of the plane ripped away from the main body. A terrible gust of wind blasted into the cabin, sending papers and glasses flying around. The beeping from the front of the plane grew louder, as if wishing not to be drowned out by the intense whining of the engines outside. Lara dug into her mother's breast, "I'm scared, mummy", she whispered. Her mother's hands were gripping the armrests so tightly they had gone white. "Shh", she whispered, "it's just a game, like one of your Sony things. It'll be all right. We will be all right". Lara looked up and then there was a flash of light.
. . . . . . .
Lara awoke covered in sweat. Rolling onto her side, she reached over to the table and switched on her lamp. The room lit up with a dull glow and Lara checked the time. The clock read 04:56. Lara sighed and slipped out of her four poster bed, pulling on an expensive blue dressing gown over her night dress as she trod lightly to a cabinet at the side of the room. Her feet sank deep into the carpet that covered her bedroom as she opened the cabinet door, taking from it a half empty bottle of whisky. This wasn't the first time she had dreamt about that fateful day. Grabbing a glass, she poured herself a generous measure of the drink and downed it. She placed the glass down with an uninvited clink that interrupted the silence of the room. Lara closed her eyes and sighed before walking out of the room.
The house was still, empty. Shadows lurked round every corner, a constant reminder that the house was too large for herself, Winston and her best friend Zip, even if half of it was still being rebuilt after the fire. Lara walked down the stairs. She had seen too much in her life to be scared of the shadows anymore. A computer set up in the corner of the entrance hall was a painful reminder of the friend she had lost when Natla had the mansion attacked, now just under a year ago. Lara continued down a long corridor, pulling open a large wooden door at the end. Flicking a switch to turn on the light, Lara was in a small room. In the centre of the room was a large red sofa, placed opposite a large television. The fireplace to the right was Victorian in design and the shelves to the left held an extensive collection of videos and DVDs. Taking a seat, Lara took the remote and flicked on the television. She wouldn't be able to get to sleep anytime soon anyway, so why not watch some TV. Lara flicked through the channels, eventually stopping on the 24 hour news programme when the live broadcast caught her eye.
"...the break in has been described as a 'terrible incident' by the police chief commissioner Henry Price. In the early hours of this morning police were alerted to the robbery when those behind the crime triggered security mechanisms inside the museum. Interestingly, only one item has been reported missing from its secure vault beneath the main exhibits; a Chinese artefact called the Talion, or 'key to the dragon'. The Talion has been dated back to the early medieval period when China was under the rule of Qin Shihuang. Its purpose is subject to much dispute among experts, though it is widely believed to be a key to one of the old Emperor's treasure vaults. Despite many searches conducted by believers, however, no such vault has been found. It was recovered and then donated to the museum by English archaeologist Lara Croft. The Museum of Archaeological Finds has one of the most extensive collections of artefacts from across the globe, and has recently completed a major funding deal with the Charles Canterbury Corporation. Police have closed the area down while they continue with their investigation and urge anyone with any information to come forward. In the meantime we are all left with a question: who stole the Talion, and for what purpose?"