Something I felt obliged to write after my extreme crush on Gerard Butler forced me to sit through "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life." I thought the ending was a total betrayal of Terry's character— if it was normal for him to go around hitting women they should have mentioned it earlier on. Anyway, don't lynch me— tongue firmly in cheek.
— He lay on the rocks, eyes half open. The amount of blood slowly congealing around him, as well as the fact that he wasn't breathing, proclaimed him irrevocably dead.
Or perhaps— not irrevocably.
While alive, he had been handsome, tall, Scottish, and stacked. He had a sense of humour and gave females something to stare at. Some stupid writer had decided he must die— probably out of jealousy. He shouldn't have died. He didn't have to die.
He wouldn't have even hit Croft if it hadn't been in the script.
He was dead.
But this was the Cradle of Life.
And the characters had passed, however briefly, into the damp, twitching hands of fan-fiction authors— one in particular.
Something happened—
Life flowed back. He breathed.
He breathed.
He choked on the blood in his throat, spat it out, sat up and wheezed.
His eyes, when he opened them, were blue that turned slowly to red as he thought over what he remembered of his death.
His teeth clenched.
"Croft—"
She had shot him. Everything had faded to black, there was a brief mental flirtation with a partial cast of Looney Tunes, and then the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, and then nothing. Death.
"Croft—"
He struggled to his feet and looked down at himself, the usual cadence of "God, I'm sexy" running unacknowledged through his reanimated mind. Apart from that, he felt nothing other than a burning desire for revenge.
Revenge against the writer who ordered his demise.
Revenge against the director who oversaw the whole thing.
Revenge against Croft who had carried out the execution.
He would have his revenge.
But first—
He looked down at himself again.
First he had to find some duct tape or something to bind the gaping hole in his stomach, lest he frighten the locals.
Stomach.
What a place to shoot someone. Especially when he had such a nice one.
Stomach.
He probably wouldn't be able to eat any haggis for at least a week.
Stumbling occasionally and murmuring obscure Scottish curses to himself, he began to make his way back to the real world.
So what do you think? Like it or leave it? Turn it into a Tomb-Raider-bashing farce or go away and forget about it? Or, possibly, rip it to shreds, burn it, and bury the ashes at midnight in a deep hole in the middle of a forest— anyway its up to you. Review and let me know.