Tomb Raider:
The Adventures of Lara Croft
Book 1-Curse of the Scorpion
Chapter 36- Hiding Something…
"Just… keep reading.". Alex urged, suddenly not wanting to stay too long in this place of death and decay. Those who came here before them didn't seem to of had much luck just sticking around and he no intention of letting them become this place's next victims.
Silence.
Looking up from the page, "That's it.".
"What? No but… it says nothing else? Nothing of any use or…". Puzzled, Alex leaned in closer to see where the words at the end of a tattered page. "Oh… ripped apart like everything else down here huh? Things don't seem to keep as well in sealed underground death traps as they used to." He smirked, though there was nothing amusing about it.
"Actually… this looks more like it was ripped off…". Lara stated, inspecting the edges a little more closely and with great care. "Whatever it once said… someone didn't want anyone else to read it.".
"NOT comforting.". Alex muttered, "So what now? We just keep looking for bits of things we can read until we find something with a lead we can go on?".
"If you've got a better idea," Lara motioned to the scattered ruins of all there was around them, "I'm all ears.".
He didn't. Instead of responding, Alex just sighed and picked around corpse to inspect for clues of some kind. Lara doing the same.
So they searched, they examined and they read. Every scrap of every bit of paper that remained on the corpses… or what was left of corpses anyhow.
There had to be something.
There was always something.
They read aloud the fragments of text, just in case one of them would stumble upon the continuation of any part of it.
Time seemed to stand still down in that little dimly lit room… as if the dust floating around in the air preserved everything in a continuous state of slow movement and lack of result.
"Hmmm… this is interesting… it might explain the idea about cannibalize a bit more.". Lara suddenly spoke after what seemed an eternity of quiet.
"What'd you find?". Alex questioned, continuing to shuffle a few scraps of paper around on the floor. The paper was the same color and the writing relatively similar. Perhaps if he moved the bits and pieces around he'd find something they could use. Or at least, that's the idea he was going with at the moment.
"… apparently some of them just… attacked eachother. Suddenly and without any previous signs of any illness or violent nature…". She paused.
"You mean they just up and lost it?". Alex's full attention now on Lara's reading.
"Apparently… but…". She frowned, why did she suddenly have a feeling of déjà-vu? As if she somehow already knew it to make sense even if it didn't. As if there was a logical and well merited reason to such sudden brutality… only, for the life of her, she couldn't place it.
"But?". Alex urged her on.
"… it doesn't make sense. If they weren't trapped. If they weren't dying. If they weren't ill or gravely injured to the point of utter madness… why would they stay here? Why resort to such a horrible end if they could just get up and walk back out? If they could just send but one of them for help even… Why?". Lara stared at the remaining bones of a corpse with a curious sadness in her eyes. What could have made them turn on eachother?
The curse maybe? She didn't remember hearing that it could do such things. Then again, perhaps one who was cursed could validate going to such extremes when faced with the shocking truth that there was nothing they could do to change their plight. There were many stories… perhaps too many and too vague to actually have anything solid to go on.
Lara grew silent as she tried to think back, having spent so long trying to block out the string of memories she couldn't help but swear under her breath. Why did this seem so familiar? Why did it somehow make perfect sense and yet… she couldn't place it at all.
"I'm not sure I want to find out…". His voice heavy, his mind filled with horrific thoughts that he would not have wished on anyone. They needed more information… they needed answers… but so far they seemed to keep coming up short on both counts.
As they continued their search of the entrance room, they found more stray pages about people just going crazy, killing others or disappearing into the darker reaches of the ruins. Lara managed to piece together a few pages referring to passages from THE journal… but nothing that seemed to be originating from the journal itself.
Still… it was something.
"It's almost as if whoever made it out didn't want those who came after to find what they did. Everything ripped up and scattered about… some wouldn't have thought to piece fragments together.". Lara commented, aligning the relevant fragments of paper on the floor in some form of order she'd discerned.
"Or maybe the dying did it… one last attempt to conceal something they found that should have stayed buried…". Alex spoke, having meant it to be a thought to himself that just managed to escape.
What he said made sense. If you went on a search to find something only, once found, to realize that it was so dangerous, so horrific in nature that if it got out... the thought was just too unthinkable to bear. What if it was YOU who let it out? YOU who brought down the hand of pain and suffering on the unsuspecting innocent… could you really live with yourself had you made it out? Or would you rather take it to your grave and hope you were never found?… Hope that whatever found you would never find another?
It always came down to perspective in the end didn't it?
"Whatever the case… someone DID think this through. Scorpions aren't in the habit of ripping up things and scattering them about in the hopes that no one would think to piece things back together… Someone had to have done it.". Lara stated, getting up to look around at what sites were left to examine.
There was only one. Not counting the one Alex was just finishing up with. There was only one left. A single skeleton, or what remained of it, with scraps of torn cloth clinging to what once was there.
Slowly, Lara walked over to the remains. A single corpse, laying against the wall near what appeared to be a narrow corridor leading elsewhere into the ruins. Pitch black and unwelcoming, but the bones were there to greet her. She hadn't noticed it before, the room was too dimly lit to have known until they reached this point.
Crouching down, she gently freed a single page from the skeleton hands of the corridors guardian. It was almost as if he'd been waiting to be found.
Other than being stained with time and layered in dust, the page was otherwise fully intact and the writing… perfectly legible.
Her eyes widened as she read the words in her mind, turning them over and over, she'd found something.
Alex, certain that there was nothing more he could learn from his remnants of paper and bone, shifted his gaze over to Lara. "Find anything?". When she didn't answer or give any sign that she'd even heard him, he already had his answer.
Getting up he walked over to where she was, still crouched with her eyes reading and re-reading the same words. Crouching by her side, Alex looked at the skeleton. "What'd HE find?". Alex motioned to their "friend".
Silence.
"Lara?".
Silence.
He didn't like this. She was too drawn in. She'd found something he was sure of it.
"Lara?!". He asked a little louder, trying to snap her back to reality.
"… he found pages.". She stated, almost in a whisper.
"He found… pages?". Alex questioned.
Lara nodded.
"Pages… about what?".
She began to read the words, slowly as if trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together. The page stated that the holder had found various pages about the ruins. He described the scorpion guardians that they had seen, painting them out as protectors of the area.
"He then switches over to… the village…". She continued with a description of pages relating to a village. How the people acted when he first showed up, customs, traditions… warnings about the ruins. Then… "This isn't right…". Lara suddenly stopped reading out loud.
"What? What's it say?". Alex urged her to continue.
"This says that our friend here found pages from the journal. Pages describing the Village of the Scorpion. Accounts on meeting with the people and full descriptions of what the village should look like but…". She frowned, shaking her head. "It's not right…".
Before Alex could ask, "It tells of pages describing the REAL Village of the Scorpion.".
"Real?". Alex questioned, "Wait so… the one we came from…".
"It's not the true village. Kazar's village… isn't the Village of the Scorpion.".
"I knew it! I knew that bastard was hiding something!". Alex suddenly stated furiously. "Gah! That guy rubbed me the wrong way from the start! Wait'll I get my hands on him!".
"Well it's become fairly obvious at this point that our gracious host has been less than honest with us about this place… I wonder what else he's not been telling us?". Standing up, she stared down the darkened corridor. "But what could he be hiding… and why?".
Starting down the corridor with Alex right behind her, they wandered deeper in search of answers. The words carved into the stone cave echoing somewhere in the back of their minds:
They chased me all through the night
Arrived without us knowing
The scorpions grow larger each year
Filling our minds with dread and fear
I came here just like you
A traveller seeking a prize
Answers I sought out in a tomb
Here I found nothing but dread and doom
It's now too late for me
The poison will run it's path
The locals in the nearby village
Told me the legend of a cure
But even they have never found it
I'm slowly losing my mind
Those I came here with are dead
They all just went insane
The scorpion symbol
Drawn with their own blood
Didn't fade until they died
Leaving an unknown cause of death
I found out a few things though
Things you may want to know
My notebook was lost somewhere near the entrance
The artifact seems so close
But it's far out of your reach
Heed this warning from an old adventurer
BEWARE THE CURSE OF THE SCORPION
They wandered deeper in search of answers…
…only to find more questions…
*Aven*