Nathan Drake awoke with a start. Eyes wide open, seeing nothing but darkness. Ears straining for unknown sounds that would not betray themselves. He sat bolt upright, the bedsprings creaking beneath him, and he turned his head from side to side as he took in the scene, trying to orient himself.
He was still in his bedroom, in his bed, under the covers. Ambient light from street lamps toward the front of his apartment building spilled through the window blinds and into the room – a dim, soft light, slatted with the blinds' shadow, giving the room an ethereal, ghostly glow. He held his breath as he listened for whatever sound might have pulled him so abruptly from his slumber. A dog yipped in the distance. The slow, steady drip of the toilet filling. A police siren wailed in some distant part of the city, just reaching his ears. And… nothing else. Yip, drip, wail, and nothing else but silence. All mundane, far too ordinary to disturb his sleep. But something had.
What had he been dreaming before he had awoken? A nightmare or some particularly exciting dream that had been the impetus for his sudden awakening? Perhaps it was merely something in the dream world that had disturbed his slumber? No, he would have remembered that dream, or the last part of it at least, upon returning to his conscious mind. But he remembered nothing of his dreams tonight.
He yawned, an open-jawed eye-scruncher of a yawn. He had to get some more sleep. He reached over to his nightstand and fumbled for his phone, his eyes still trying hard to focus. Laying hands upon it, he pressed a button to bring up the backlighting. 1:47. He'd only been asleep two hours? As he set the phone back on the nightstand, its light still providing additional illumination, every muscle in Nathan's body suddenly tensed. He could not explain why, for no audio, visual, or other sensory stimulus seemed to have caused it.
His mind immediately flashed back a burning Château, a year ago. He and Sully were running past flames that threatened to engulf them. A preternatural tingle of fear permeated both their bodies. They looked at one another, the ash obscuring their faces but able to see each other, nonetheless. Only by sheer luck and teamwork had they been able to escape with their lives.
What Drake had sensed that day was death approaching. He hadn't felt that way before or since – until now. And that frightened him tremendously.
Finally he heard something. A creak coming from the living room. It could have been the building settling, water in the pipes, a noise from a different apartment, a figment of his imagination, or any number of other things, but Nathan was knew better. He looked around his room, eyes darting from place to place in search of something, anything, to use as a weapon. Of course, he thought as his eyes settled on his choice.
His Beretta 92FS had served him well over the years, and he prayed it would continue to serve him well. Actually, as long as he was praying, he wished that whatever agent of death seemed to be approaching would just disappear without the need for an altercation.
Nathan slipped from his covers as quietly as he could, and padded barefoot on the threadbare carpet to the gun's case atop a small bookshelf. Drake crouched behind his still-closed bedroom door and waited. And waited. Not daring to turn on a light to check his watch, he had no idea how much time had passed since he had first grabbed the gun and begun waiting by the door Had it been one minute or twenty? The creak could have been any number of things, and his inscrutable sense of death approaching… could that have simply been the product of an overtaxed mind? He hadn't heard anything else since that solitary creak, and the muscles in his legs were growing sore, his feet numb from crouching.
Drake stood up, slowly, and exhaled deeply but quietly. He waited for another minute or three, gripping the Beretta loosely by his side. Nothing.
He had just lifted his right foot to begin walking back to bed when he heard the doorknob begin to turn. He froze. Drew his foot back, and stood at the ready. Instantly his mind flashed through a dozen possible plans. The door began to open toward Nathan. A shadowy torso, started to snake into his bedroom. The shadow was halfway through the gap between the door and the frame when Nathan shoved the door with all his might, shouting a "Yah!" as he slammed into it. The shadow grunted and slumped slightly against the doorframe, but seemed to quickly recover.
"What do you want?" Nathan screamed as he slammed into the door a second time. Nathan immediately followed up with a blow from the hilt of his pistol grip to the intruder's head. The shadow fell to the ground. "What do you want?" He screamed again.
The shadow rolled over onto its back. A pair of black eyes, blazing with indignation. Then a third eye, black with a slim silver iris, appeared near the shadow's chest, pointing right at Nathan's head.
"Solo esto," came the things voice at last. Only this.
The third eye's pupil flashed white. The sharp sound of a report.
And then – nothing but darkness.