FOREWORD: I do not really know where she got the compass, I changed that bit, so I don't own the compass, I own *this version* of the origin. I have no idea what an avalanche is like, due to the fact that I have never been in one. Duh. Also, the only experience with severe cold that I have had recently was when I hurt my knee playing Netball and I had to ice it. Not very cold. So please forgive me. (also I totally suck at describing mountains I have learned!) Oh, I own Rebecca as well but nothing else in this fic. Sorry once again about the mountain!

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(Lara)

She's dead. They're dead. You're not. You didn't do anything because you couldn't. There was nothing you could do anyway. Even in my mind the words hurt. And they felt stupid.

I was so thickly wrapped in clothing (pinched from various people) I resembled- pick one: a) Luciano Pavorotti or b) a walrus (a pink one). I vouched for Pavorotti.

The mountain we had landed on was conveniently shaped like a) blocks stacked up, the numbers growing smaller towards the top or b) a rectangular pyramid. A very odd mountain. I decided b. The plane had crashed on approximately the third out of fourteen layers.

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                                                The mountain is something like this, except with 14 layers. Sorry it looks so weird!

I had taken Rebecca's compass because- pick one: a) it would give me direction or b) of sentimental reasons. I hoped it was more b than a.

In all of ten minutes, the little pleasure I had found in my life was gone. How could I even call it a life- how on earth was I meant to get down this mountain?

Things then inexorably began to go wrong. Everything goes inexorably wrong in my life, doesn't it? The ground shook and slid beneath my feet as the snow rolled down. In a wet spray of mist I was drenched from head to toe and shivering. The mountain had several 'ledges' on it, and the wall of mine was just slightly higher than me. Like an enormous ladder, with its rungs jutting out and me standing on one of them. Snow was pouring over my head like it was a waterfall and I was standing in some cave set in rock. Icy sleet was shooting over my head and in that cold, thundering, trembling cave I felt a twisted sense of peace. Freedom.

The plateau above me was giving way, I knew. The plane had long ago been buried in snow but I had  glimpsed a sunken hand before it disappeared into the snow. It had Rebecca's watch. She was saying a final goodbye, after all.

Daddy couldn't help me (like he would). Money couldn't help me. Rebecca couldn't help me. Only I could help myself.

And heck, yeah, I would.

I jumped up and seized the ledge behind me. I was blasted instantly with a freezing jet of snow, snow so cold I wondered for a split second if I was already dead and this was hellfire instead. I held the ledge firmly. The sea of snow brought debris of all kinds: twigs, rock, glass (the plane), metal, fabric, even human and animal carcasses. A wave of nausea washed over me as a bloody wolf's paw knocked my shoulder. The shock caused me to release the crumbling rock, and I tumbled backwards, in a directly downward cacophony of noise, panic and fear.

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                      / ||||||||||||||||||||||||| \  Mountain now looks a bit like this (also with 14 layers however), with / and \ representing the snow flying off. Sorry once again, I know this is really weird!! The . is supposed to represent where Lara is approximately, before she releases the ledge.