Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of Lara Croft, Samantha Nishimura, or Richard Croft.
Author's Note: Thanks for being patient, everyone! Now I'm back at school there will probably only be 2 chapters per week (one on Wednesday evening and one at the weekend, BST). If I do end up having a lot of time on my hands on weekends, I might be able to upload one on Saturday and one on Sunday. Thanks for sticking with the story and I apologise for the lack of updates. Please read and review and most importantly, enjoy!
The contact request was from a person with no name, only initials: SM. Yet again this meant nothing to Lara, but none of it ever did. That wasn't her main concern right now, so she put it to the back of her mind. She had to see what all of this was about. Lara confirmed the contact request and SM was online only moments later.
SM: Hello Miss Croft. Care for a video call?
Lara Croft: My pleasure.
Lara had butterflies in her stomach. She was apprehensive about calling SM to say the least, but she was reminded that this wasn't about her or her feelings. It was about playing the game by the rules so that's exactly what she did; when the video call popped up moments later, she answered without hesitation.
As she answered, the screen displayed a small picture of Lara in front of a large blue screen with a loading sign whirring round in the middle. Lara tapped her fingers anxiously, silently urging the screen to load. This seemed to pay off as, in a matter of seconds, a man with apparently no face appeared in place of the blue screen. It shocked Lara momentarily, but she soon realised the man was wearing a white mask that clung to his skin. There were no eyeholes, but Lara assumed he could see through the mask.
"Hello Miss Croft. Can I call you Lara? Is Lara okay?" the man asked, his lips moving up and down behind the mask.
Lara recognised the voice straight away. It was the same booming voice she had heard in Sam's loft. Lara suddenly realised that this voice was the result of a voice changer. Cow Blood wanted to stay anonymous.
"What do you want? Where's Sam?" she asked, not bothering to answer his pointless question.
Lara could see his smile beneath his mask.
"Why, she's right here," he smiled. He leaned to his right and gestured behind him with his left hand. Sam came into focus. She was sat on a wooden chair, similar to the one in the loft. The room was also similar, but there seemed to be more objects around. Lara could just make out a table to the right hand side that seemed to have shapes emerging from the top. She guessed that they were ornaments, but she couldn't make out any details. An open book sat by Sam's feet and she was looking down at it nervously. Her lips were moving slightly and silently, informing Lara that Sam was reading, and perhaps reciting, the book. To Sam's right, a man wearing a black balaclava was pointing a handgun at her head.
"Sam!" Lara exclaimed.
Sam suddenly looked up from the book. Her eyes lit up hungrily when she saw Lara.
"Larayouhavetogetmeoutofhere!" Sam yelled, desperately. It all came out as one linear word and she leaned forward to get a better view of Lara. The man with the gun violently pushed her back by her collarbone.
"Get your filthy hands off her!" Lara screamed, slamming her hands down on the table in front of her.
Cow blood moved forward again so Lara could no longer see Sam. He was still smiling.
"You sick bastard. Give this up now or I'm calling the police like I should've done a long time ago," Lara warned, brandishing her phone like it was a weapon. She could hear Sam's sobs from behind Cow Blood.
"Do that and she dies. It makes no difference to me," he replied, his deep voice making her speakers crackle.
Lara said nothing.
"You see," he went on, "at the end of this game, Sam is going to die anyway. I will accept my punishment and go to prison, unless you have other plans."
"And what if she doesn't die? What if I play the game and I get there first?" Lara asked sourly.
"Hm... Good question." He thought for a moment. "In that very rare case, I shall hand myself over to the police. That will be your winning. So if I were you, I wouldn't call the police. Like I said before, it wouldn't make any difference to me. I would go to prison either way. It would be your loss."
Lara scowled. "This is absurd. What is the point in any of this if you're just going to be arrested, regardless of the outcome?"
Cow Blood barked a laugh. "Now now, that would be telling, wouldn't it?"
Lara snarled quietly to herself. He was a piece of work.
"Right. Well what do you want me to do now? I'm here to save Sam. Just tell me what I have to do next," Lara ordered, folding her arms angrily.
"That would be too easy, Lara, you know that. I will, however, give you a few hints. Unless you're too proud for that and you'd rather work it out by yourself."
"I'm not proud at all. Give me the hints."
"You didn't seem to be short of pride when you were snogging Sam in her car outside Dale Meadows," Cow Blood smirked.
"Give me the hints," Lara repeated through gritted teeth.
"Patience, young Croft. Patience is a virtue, after all. Didn't your father ever teach you that?"
"Don't talk about my father. You're trying to wind me up but it's not going to work. You might as well just give it up."
Lara was lying. The mention of her father had hit a nerve, but she knew she couldn't show it. Still, she suspected that Cow Blood would be able to see through her mask as well as he could see through his own.
"Very well. I'll get straight to the point," he murmured, turning so Lara and Sam could see each other once again. "Samantha. This is your cue."
Lara looked intently at Sam. Cow Blood smoothly pulled the camera- it was presumably on a laptop- towards Sam. It seemed to be on a desk or table that had wheels on the bottom of it. He pulled it until Lara was close enough to see detail on Sam's face, but far away enough to see the entirety of her body.
Sam was shaking but not crying. She nodded down at the book and looked at Lara.
"It stinks, Lara," she murmured.
Lara followed her nod and noticed that the book had bright red writing in it. It looked wet and fresh. Fresh from a cow.
"Read the damn book," ordered the man next to her, jabbing her arm with the handgun. He was American.
Lara gasped but said nothing- she knew not to say anything that could get Sam hurt like last time.
Sam swallowed. "I hope you enjoyed your skydive-"
Lara cut Sam off with another, much louder gasp.
"How did you know about that?" Lara asked, her eyebrows raised and staring around, even though Cow Blood was no longer on the screen.
"Shut up and let the girl talk," the gunman muttered, glaring at the camera.
Lara did as she was told.
"I hope you enjoyed your skydive I watched it with great pleasure and amusement, Lara," Sam continued.
Lara nearly cracked from the sadness in Sam's voice as she said 'Lara'.
"Unfortunately you were wrong. And then you were wrong a second time. But you finally got the answer. You always do in the end. This time though, your message is given verbally. There's no capitalisation or underlining for you. You have to work it out all by yourself. I think that's the best part, personally. It's the best part of the game. Some people like to play games with instructions or walkthroughs- not me. Not you either, apparently. You're young, but you know yourself. You know who you are and you know who you love. You know how to play the game but do you know how to solve the puzzles? Can you handle that?"
Lara looked down disappointed, thinking that was the end of the message because Sam had stopped. However, she looked up and noticed Sam was looking at the camera desperately.
"What? What is it?" Lara mouthed, without speaking.
"Record," Sam whispered before getting a hard punch to the collarbone.
"Read the book! Don't say anything else, this is your final warning!" the gunman yelled, giving Sam a shake and poking her with the gun.
"What? What did you say?" Lara said, pretending she hadn't heard. At the same time, she pulled out her phone and started to record the call.
The gunman relaxed. "You're lucky she didn't hear you. If she had, the call would've ended and you would've kissed goodbye to your precious Lara ever finding you. And that's what will happen if you say anything like that again, do you hear me? The boss said you're not to give anything away. So don't."
Lara sighed. "Just read, Sam."
Sam looked down and followed Lara's instruction. "There's a game for everyone in this world, but some may be in other worlds entirely. My games may be different to yours, but I will wait for you. I will stay with my victim until you reach my level. We will stay in my game, in my place, on my level. This is my home. Enter if you please."
Sam looked up at Lara and nodded to tell her that was the end of the message.
"I love you," Lara said before it was too late.
"I love you t-"
The call ended, cutting Sam off mid-sentence. Lara shouted a loud, sharp groan and slammed the laptop lid. That was the end of it. That was all she had to go on. More importantly, her time speaking to Sam had been very limited. Thinking about it, the message could have included several clues, but Lara hadn't listened very well- she had been too busy listening to Sam's voice. She was thankful for the recording heads up.
Lara stopped the recording and laid back on the sofa. It looked like she was in for another rough night.