Disclaimer: I own nothing besides my own characters. In no way, shape, or form am I making any profit and this is purely for entertainment purposes.
I wake up to see meat cooking over the fire, and it was very evident to tell that it had stopped raining. Lara had a look of sadness on her face as she watched the meat cook. "Is it deer?" I ask lightly as she just barely nods. I check to make sure it's cooked and take it off the fire, eating some food. I notice that Lara had a bow wrapped around her body and there was an extra one lying next to her with what looked to be about twenty arrows.
"I found these. I thought they would be useful." I smile at her and put it on the same way as she did, attaching the quiver to my back so that I could easily reach the arrows. I tighten my ponytail to keep it from falling down anymore and watch the fire intently since I had nothing better to do. Suddenly, I heard the radio start to go off, and I could immediately tell that it was Roth. "Roth? Is that you?!" Lara yells, causing me to perk up quickly.
"Lara? Ashton? Where are you guys?! Are you safe?" We answer his questions as he tells us that we need to start making our way over to him. I really wish that he could have came and gotten us, but we were not the only ones that needed him, and we were more than capable of making it back all by ourselves, something that I was definitely sure about. I sigh as we both stand up to make our way over to the smoke that we saw in the distant. We were guessing that's where the others were. I hope that we were right.
We make our way out of the forest slowly. I didn't want to alert anyone. I knew that we were not the only ones that were inhabiting this island. There was music coming a little shack, which led down to a sewer underneath the ground. The door slammed close, so there was definitely no way to go except down, even though it was a really bad idea.
There were strange markings on the ground and skulls lining the walls. As we moved closer, the music got louder and louder and we found some pry axes that we could use to open the door that was jammed shut. The only bad part was that the pry axe was stuck in some meat, and I am really hoping that it was deer meat and not what I'm thinking it was.
We make it through the sewer and make it out of the forest. There was path leading uphill, and I could already hear Sam and some random guy that came from nowhere. We sneak around the wall until Sam spots us after she was finished talking to Reyes over the radio. "Lara! Ashton! Are you guys okay?" She sees that we noticed the strange man and speaks up for him. "Look, he bandaged my foot."
"It's the least I could do." the strange man says. "I'm Mathias. I'm a teacher. I guess you could say that I'm not really cut out for island life." he says as he chuckles at himself. We both shake his hand, me with a lot of hesitation. This guy shows up out of nowhere, and I'm supposed to just immediately trust him? Either way, I still lay on the grass almost immediately and drift off to sleep as I listen to Sam, Mathias, and Lara speaking about Yamatai and Himiko. Bad idea, guys, bad idea.
I wake up to Lara shaking me awake violently. "Ashton!" she yells. "I think Mathias took Sam!" I immediately sit up as I notice that the campfire was put out. Everything was dark, and both of them were gone. It was really eerie. Lara and I decide to split up and start looking for her. We start yelling her name as loud as we could. I hear Lara gasp in pain and wolves howling in the distant.
I quickly grab my bow, running over in her direction. I could tell she was in a bad situation. She had one foot stuck in a bear trap, and wolves were quickly approaching. I stand a little bit away from her and sniped them from the side as they appeared while Lara tried to frantically get her foot out of the bear trap.
When I knew that no more wolves were left, I quickly run over to her and help her try and free her foot. We hear Reyes in the distance and I call out for her, hoping that she could hear us over the terrible thunderstorm. Thankfully, she did, and Jonah comes running up behind her. Reyes shoots the trap loose and Jonah pulls it apart so she could get her foot out. Thank god for that.
I notice Dr. Whitman, Grim, Riley, and Alex running to catch up with Reyes and Jonah. As soon as I see Riley, I immediately rush over to him and give him a huge hug, which he gratefully returns to me. "I'm so glad you're here." I say, directing it towards everyone. "Have you seen Sam? She was with us but that guy Mathias took her somewhere. I knew we shouldn't have trusted him! We have to find them."
Dr. Whitman interjects that we also need to find Roth, and Reyes decides we need to split up. "One of us goes with Lara to find Roth, and the rest of us will look for Sam." Alex volunteers to go with Lara, but Dr. Whitman is quick to interrupt, again, and takes that spot from him. "You know how to use this?" Reyes says, handing him a pistol and giving him a threatening look. He gulps and nods yes as Lara and Dr. Whitman leave us. I personally did not want that slime ball anywhere near my best friend.
I had very mixed emotions about not having Lara with me. I was happy to be able to spend some time with Riley, but I was also nervous about not being with Lara. There isn't much that we haven't done together. I grasp Riley's hand as I watch Dr. Whitman help Lara to sit down for a moment before we started splitting up to look for Mathias, and hopefully he had Sam with him. He better or I swear I will throw the man off a cliff myself.
Riley wraps an arm around my waist carefully as we start looking anywhere and everywhere. I found a torch randomly attached to a tree, so I handed it to Riley to light my own so that we both had one. Since there was a torch in the middle of nowhere, there had to be something around here somewhere. If there was, then there is a great possibility that Sam and Mathias were nearby.
I find footprints in the mud, and it was obvious that that was the direction in which we needed to go. I'm pretty sure it was not one of us that made the prints. The mud was not very fresh, even though it was raining. It was covered over by leaves, so the footprints were fairly dry, meaning it was not one of us. Riley and I follow the footprints a little bit down the path before finding a shack that was much like the one Lara and I found earlier, but I knew it was not the same one.
"Reyes!" I say to her since she was the closest one to me besides Riley. "Get the others! I think I found something!" She gets Grim, Jonah, and Alex to come over towards us. I take a step forward, letting go of Riley's hand. He pulls me back as quick as possible, however, and looks me straight in the eye with a concerned look.
"Ashton, this is not a good idea." he speaks with so much concern in his eyes and voice that it made me want to break down and start crying out of happiness. I smile at him, but just shake my head at him, and I knew he understood when he took a step forward with me. I mean, we did find the Templar Treasure and the City of Gold, and those might have been some of the scariest things that I had ever done in my entire life. And yes, Lara was there too, if you were wondering.
There was a rustle in the bushes as a man popped out of nowhere. He had a thick Russian accent and was in a very heavy coat. He had graying hair and a beard and mustache to match. He reminded me about Grim, by the looks anyway. Probably not the attitude. "Quickly, your friends are hurt, follow me."
Yeah, probably by him. Who did he think I was? Some kind of idiot? I hear more rustling and I can see a man out of the corner of my eye, and he had an arrow nocked, ready to shoot us. I don't think I was supposed to notice since the guy followed my eyes, and immediately pulled a pistol on me. Riley took a step in front of me as soon as he did that. Oh my god.
Reyes squints at the two men and drops her gun on the ground, giving me an unnoticeable wink. I knew what she was doing. She was going to make it look like she surrendered. I take my bow off my back setting it down on the ground while secretly picking up the pistol. Reyes slightly smiled when she realized I got the message. "Alright, we'll come quietly." I whisper while Riley was protesting against it.
I quickly give him a look and he shut up. The guy tries to put his arm around my shoulder to lead me to who knows where, but I jump back suddenly, kicking the pistol out of his hand and tossing it to Reyes. The guy with the nocked arrow takes a shot at Alex, but I push him out of the way, quickly rolling back up to my feet before shooting him in the head, killing him.
I felt sick to my stomach, but I knew what I had to do. I set my gun aimed towards the other man's head, but I was quickly tackled from behind. The guy takes all of our weapons from us, putting them on his person. I knew this was not the end for me or anyone else in our crew. He ties my hands behind my back before I had time to do any damage and pushes me forward in anger and frustration probably.
He gets us to an area in the woods. We looked to be in some kind village that they had set up or something like that. He gets everyone on their knees but me. "You are quite the troublemaker, girl." the man says, also having an accent, and he comes closer to me, way too close for comfort if you ask me. I kick him where the sun does not shine and he curses, pushing me back against the wall, causing me to smack my head very hard and fall to a crumpled heap on the floor like a ragdoll. "Let go of her!" Riley yells as the man continues to get closer to me.
He pushes me against the wall in disgust as another man comes in, dragging Lara and Dr. Whitman by the arms. "Lara!" I yell, wishing that I could hug her, but both of our hands were tied behind our backs. The man that was being rude to me comes up to her as well. He basically does the same process and that makes me want to kick him again. I would have had the guy behind me not been holding my wrists in a death grip. It was really painful.
"Who are you people?" I ask in a dire attempt to figure out our situation. "What do you want with us?! We didn't do anything to you. We're just trying to get off the island, just like you!" Apparently, the man mentioned before did not appreciate my comment since his grip on my wrist tightened and he dropped me on the ground with so much force that it knocked the wind out of me.
I try and sit up, coughing and trying to catch my breath, but he did not let me. He put a dirty and muddy boot on my stomach to keep me down, causing me to flinch. I'm guessing he is the one that left the footprints. Now that I think about, Riley is right. It was really stupid to try and follow them. This was probably a trap from the very beginning, and I was stupid enough to fall for it. Way to listen to your boyfriend, Ashton.
"If they give you any trouble, kill them all! They're not worth it." a man I had just now noticed says. I think they all had thick Russian accents. It's not something that you could ever miss. That's how obvious it was. I could tell that one of the Endurance captains were contemplating on something to do. You could either see the look of acceptance on dying or determination. Surprisingly, it was hard to tell which was which.
"Don't hurt them, please!" Lara pleads with the man. She had such an obvious layer of sadness dripping out of words that made me want to cry. He pushes her back up against a tree trunk, getting unnecessarily close to her, and that made even me uncomfortable. One of the Endurance captains moved out of the corner of my eye, and I knew I had to do something soon or I knew they were going to.
Unfortunately, I now understood what their look was as one of the guys makes a daring move to head butt one of the Russian men watching over them. This gets him shot in the head, getting killed instantly. Another one runs off, and he gets shot by the men over by Lara. Riley and Dr. Whitman both run off in opposite directions, and I send a quick prayer for both of their safety, even though I didn't particularly enjoy the company of Dr. Whitman.
Lara and I get pushed to the ground as they curse and threaten us, telling us to stay put and not move a single muscle. We look at each other and immediately know what we had to do. As soon as the perverted guy was out of sight, we get up, starting to make a run from it. We could tell where the men not on our side were since they were using flashlights stupidly to make themselves clear as day. Not the best idea on their part.
We duck behind rocks, moving silently so that nobody would find us, and we always make sure to stay out of their direct line of vision. We make our way through until we hear gunshots and see fire everywhere. We duck in one of the huts that was not on fire and make our way inside.
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