Disclaimer: I don't own anything, everything belongs to Naghty Dog, Sony and other respective owners.
I am not an English-speaker, so if there are mistakes, forgive me, I am doing my best to avoid them.
Heat and dampness of the jungle burned her skin and air passages. She felt again that peculiar, slightly bitter smell of the primal forest, heard the screams of wild birds and the far sound of waterfalls. She has been driving along the bank of a high hill on slow speed between boulders and thickets. Whisked away swarms of insects with a hand, cursing the moment she left bug spray on Sully's plane.
Suddenly it seemed to her that she had heard something.
She stopped the car immediately and turned off the engine, listening intently. The air was filled with a flutter of wings of multicolored parrots and the noise of the wind blowing in the crowns of tall trees; she didn't recognize any sounds that may have come from human beings. Once she thought that she had misheard, sudden distant sound of gunfire and a thunder of powerful explosions reached her. She frowned and strained her hearing, trying to locate the source of the noise. After a few seconds and a quick glance at the compass she realized that until now she had been driving in the wrong direction – the sounds surely came from the north side of the old colony. She launched the radio.
"Come in, Sully" she said aloud to the device. "I can hear the thunder from the north. How it looks from your spot?"
A faint and understandable babble drew from the speaker. Elena took a deep breath.
"You're kindly asked to remove the cigar from your mouth when talking..."
"Yeah, sorry" answered her the voice from the speakers, this time much more clearly, slightly drowned out by the noise of aircraft engines. "…indeed, now I can see the smoke, Shoreline fired rockets, they're storming the colony, there's a hell of a mess. I think we have them, sweetheart."
"I'm heading this way. Over and out."
"Just be careful."
Elena shut down the device, turned the keys in the ignition and threw another look at the compass, then carefully turned back. After a few dozen meters she turned into the thicket, heading north. Drove for a few minutes continuously, breaking through the muddy gutter and a low bushes. As she approached the outer reaches of the colony, the bush grew less and less, and appeared a large number of overgrown by vegetation stone ruins. The sound of her car scared wild animals that bred in shelters provided by the remains of centuries-old buildings, no doubt once occupied by the colonists. Elena realized that she probably belongs to those few people on Earth who can actually look at this place after it had been forgotten for hundreds of years. She wondered why the colonists weren't here anymore; hence why did they leave since they'd created a paradise here? Suddenly the road finished on a small cliff, under which flowed a shallow, muddy river. She stopped the car and turned off the rowdy engine.
"Sully" she lifted the radio to her face. "I see more buildings, so I must be getting close."
Suddenly she heard the sound of the single shot. Elena heard it many times in her life and recognized, that it was a gun. But the silence that followed made it more ominous than the sound of all army's gunfire. The silence could only mean somebody's end... She waved away those bad thoughts, turned the engine on and slowly drove down from a cliff into the river. Before the car sank in the mud, she floored the pedal and slowly moved up the river, splashing mud and water on all sides.
A few dozen meters away, she finally discovered fresh tire tracks – a sign that Shoreline soldiers passed here before. From that moment driving a stolen car was risky; Shoreline couldn't be far away, and Elena could be easily spotted by the noise of the engine. After reaching next old ruins, she stopped the car behind the remains of a small watchtower. She took two pistols from the vehicle, the radio, and after checking in Sully, started the walk along the river.
After a few minutes she heard a second shot, and then the wind brought the distant echo... of someone's scream. She was sure it was a man's scream. That sound made her shiver, but she decided to not slowing down. She had to find Nate as quickly as possible.
The road was difficult and exhausting, Elena often fell into the mud or in the thickets, a few times had to slip from the high, muddy slope. She passed individual Shoreline soldiers on the way, before whom she hid in tall grass. She could feel trickles of sweat running down her back in the rising heat. Walked briskly, listening intensively for any sounds that might indicate Nate's position. It was an excruciating horror for her to realize, that time passed and she didn't hear any more significant sounds. She remembered, however, the direction from which came the sound of two mysterious gunshots and tried not to deviate from this course. The forest around her thickened and thinned, she crossed a few shallow rivers, here and there passed the remnants of buildings. It worried her that there were less and less of these – like if she has been leaving the colony behind. For a moment she even considered returning to the car, but the sounds of gunfire were the last sounds she heard – she had no other traces. Several quarters passed when Elena finally saw the light through the trees. She moved quickly in that direction.
After coming out of the thicket she looked around. She was on a shore of a vast flood waters area that came from one side to the high cliff. Elena pulled out a pair of binoculars – at the top of the cliff she saw colonists' buildings, behind which still hung the cloud of black smoke. There these noises had to come from… but the cliff was far too high for her to climb it.
"Shit!" she swore, biting her lip. She should have reached that cliff from the other side. Elena realized how much time she lost... She turned on a radio.
"Come in, Sully."
"Got them, darlin'?" she heard a familiar voice in the speaker. "Long time no word from you."
"Sorry" she sighed. "I went in the wrong direction, I'm a level below the cliff. Colony is positioned higher. I have to get back to the car and drive to it from the other side. Wasted a hell of a time..."
"And did you hear anything?"
"Only two single shots..." she paused, recalling in her head the sound of a distant scream, but she didn't mention it to Sully. She wasn't sure about that sound.
"Nothing new from my side either. But I will be still circulating in the area. If something happened, let me know. I'll also report to you any news."
"Very well. Over and out."
Before she could take a step back towards the thicket, she saw something in a glimpse of an eye, that immediately caught her attention.
A few dozen meters from where she stood, in the shallow coastal water, laid a long, dark object. At first glance it looked like a block... but it certainly wasn't a block. It's shape was strange and unnatural. Elena started approaching slowly in the direction of the strange object with her eyes wide open, putting her hand on a gun. Moments later she suddenly quickened up her pace and started running… since she realized that she wasn't looking at the block… but a human.
Nate.
She reached him and fell to her knees beside him, full of the worst inklings. Nate didn't move; he was laying on his left side with outstretched arms, faced his back towards her.
"Oh my God..." Elena sighed, reaching her trembling hands towards him and shaking him lightly by his arm. His skin was alarmingly cool. "Nate...?"
As she slowly turned him on his back, she looked into his face. He was peaceful; his eyes were closed, mouth half-open, and on forehead above his right eyebrow he had a deep, bad wound. He was still slightly bleeding, staining the sand and water under his head in red. Like if he had been laying here for some time already… Elena got seized by almost panic terror, feeling a growing lump in her throat that interfered her breath.
"Hey, Nate!" she cried, patting him on his cheek. "Oh God no… Nate! Wake up, Nate!"
Drake, however, didn't react. Elena's heart galloped in terror, she had tears in her eyes. She leaned instantly forward and pressed her ear to his chest. After a few seconds, that seemed an eternity for her, she finally could feel on her cheek steady and calm beat of his heart.
"Oh, thank God...!" she breathed a sigh of relief, lifting her head from his chest and massaging gently the spot on its left side. She swallowed her tears, pulled the radio from her belt and lifted the device up.
"Sully! Sully! I found him! I found Nate!"
"Irreplaceable girl!" Sullivan answered her triumphally. "Where?"
"Beneath the cliff, he is unconscious and wounded..." she said, gently patting Nate on his wet hair. "Sully, we need to get him out of here."
"Damn, it's not going to be easy" Sullivan answered after a brief moment. At this moment Elena heard the roar of engines coming from above the cliff, and soon after she noticed a white silhouette of Sully's aircraft on a background of the blue sky. "I can't land here. You would have to go back to the shore. I'll seek the closest possible place to land. Meanwhile, try to gather him together."
"Sure. Talk to you soon!"
"Hey, Elena" Sully interrupted suddenly. Elena moved the device to the face once more.
"Yes?"
"Any trace of Sam?"
Elena swallowed and looked around. It was clear that Sam wasn't here and Nate has been lying here for uncertain amount of time – in water, unconscious, with a hole in his head, without weapon... What could have happened here? She bit her lip.
"He's not here, Sully" she reported. "Don't land on the shore, we have to wait until Nate wakes up. Then we will look for Sam, right?"
She could hear a strange noise from the speaker, like if Sully was chuckling.
"As you command, darlin'" he said. "Good to know that some things do not change."
"See you then, Sully" she said to the microphone, turning off the device. Sully's words sparked in her an involuntary smile.
She leaned over Nate and slipped her hand under his back, while putting his other arm around her neck. Grasping him firmly this way, she leaned forward, raising Nate to a sitting position. His limp head rested on his chest and a few drops of blood fell from his forehead on his shirt and pants. Without letting him go, Elena rose herself to a kneeling position, seeking for a perfect footing.
"C'mon cowboy" she whispered, then took a deep breath and tensed her muscles, lifting Nate up. She could feel painful pressure of his weight on her neck and arms. He was very heavy, in addition his wet arm was slipping out of her fingers. She clenched her teeth, turning with Nate towards the shrubbery. "God is my witness… after we'll be back home… if we'll be back… I will never let you eat those donuts again…" she sighed, pulling her unconscious and wounded husband out of the mud.