Author's note: Sorry, I was busy updating Lucky Lara and Fond and Fatal and all that. I have realized I only have an audience of 3. (._.,) No matter. You guys are the best. :  ) Thanks for the support.

My prelims of the big nasty exams are over, thank goodness. Still, the real things are in October, gulp.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything but the storyline. Stephanie Sun is still very much alive. I'm sorry to the fans out there, but after listening to "We will get there" about a million times and doing the Fundance nearly every day I just HAD to take it out on someone. And I like Dick Lee for too much to be so very cruel.

Some bits are a bit nauseating. That's a warning.

I DO NOT MEAN TO INSULT ANYTHING OR ANYONE.

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"Tell me then," I replied, "What exactly do you love so very much that you just had to bomb half the world?"

"I didn't bomb the world."

"No, you just screwed up everyone's mind so they did it for you. And you didn't answer my original question either."

He stared pointedly at me. "I thought it was blatantly obvious."

I raised an eyebrow. He let out a short bark of laughter.

"I am a raving lunatic, Lara." Chills immediately drenched my spine. It was as if he had read my mind.

Had he?

I was aware that my knees were turning to jelly on me but I ignored them, taking a few steps back and sitting on his desk, conveniently scratching the polished mahogany. "That still doesn't give you an excuse."

August 7th

Lara Croft surveyed the damage. Extensive. Smoldering trees were strewn everywhere, as the ironic remains of the Garden City. Some were even still on fire, slowly burning away at the bare, straggly branches.

Poor little – very little – Garden City. So many bodies were piled up now it seemed as if they had all been crammed in that little space. Which might jolly well have been the case. No resources were at hand – no water, no food, no weapons, an island – and the first to be cut off by the war.

Singapore had fallen amongst the first of the great Asian nations. This was simply because there was nowhere to run, and nowhere to hide.

Orchard road had been the heart and soul of the little city, a long, broad avenue lined with designer shops and malls, always jammed with people, and the latter had held true when the American bomb had been dropped. It hadn't been nuclear but in this tiny zone had caused something of a crater with a diameter greater than the original road. Lara had only gotten there two days after the bombing on August the 1st but until today, many were still picking hopefully through the rubble for survivors – or remains.

Lara was wearing the bloodstained, dusty white uniforms of your typical emergency volunteer worker and fighting the urge to throw up, pass out, or perform any such phrasal verbs that would defy her purpose of being there, to say the least. Only a handful of others remained now, clearing away piles of glass and metal fruitlessly.

Funny. There was another clump of workers on the other side of the road (which is no longer a road, she corrected herself automatically). Lara crossed, carefully avoiding the sharper pieces. They'd found a man. Alive. He was only the third whole man today, alive or not.

Two were feverishly pushing aside mounds of rubble while three were carefully tugging him out of it all. It seemed unusually difficult. The man didn't seem that heavy. He was screaming incessantly now, in words no one seemed to be able to make out. Quickly Lara stooped down and dusted off some of the grease and dust on his lacerated, bleeding body. As a qualified medic she gingerly removed some of the glass stuck into him, blanching – most of it was deep, possibly fatal if not well treated immediately.

Suddenly the man came free. His right leg was horribly mangled and bleeding, but his left leg wasn't even there. Between the blood and the blackish stump he was clutching a woman's head.

Lara had to clap her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming and to quell the fierce desire to run off and vomit. The woman's teeth were all missing and her mouth was practically gushing deep, rich blood. Her eyes were punctured, and all her hair had been burnt off.

Even then, she helped dig up his wife's headless corpse and three children, while the man himself screamed and flailed. He watched his eldest son die in front of him. One of the medics trying to remove a nasty steel splinter from his side fumbled when he squirmed.

One last agonized shriek – that was all it took to welcome Death. Perhaps you can find some sort of peace now, Lara thought sadly, as she watched two very brave men carry the family away with mounting looks of trepidation.

How could war be so cruel?

Especially here, mused Lara, shakily walking down the perilous stretch to where she'd parked the car she'd 'borrowed' – simply a quick jerking of the latch, a gentle shove, and a stretch to reach the floor pedal from the passenger's front seat had done the job.

My mum wants me in bed now. You'll see the next bit fairly soon, I hope. Don't bank on it – big nasty exams.