The Tomb Raider (lara) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-09-25 12:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, lara croft |
Who: Lara Croft
What: Hung out to dry and landing on rebar
Where: Dream!Yamatai Island
When: While asleep!
Status: complete
Rating: PG-13 for disturbing imagery
Triggers: Sacrificial imagery, violence, impalement injuries
Images and sounds battered around inside Lara’s head as she gradually came to. The sound of Sam’s voice teasing her, Roth backing her plan and Grim’s calm assurance that if it was wet, he could sail on it.
She lost her grip on the memory as the blood rushing to her head made her feel dizzy and nauseous. She was upside down, and as she tried to get her bearings she realized she wasn’t alone. She was wrapped in some kind of dry, brittle cloth, and all around her there were other people strung up like this. They were all dead, torchlight casting their faces in stark shadows.
Lara screamed, before she caught herself. She tried to slow her breathing, but nothing could help her heartrate. She looked at the torch, then shifted around in the fabric wrappings. She looked up at the hook she was dangling from.
“Shit. This is going to hurt.” She started to sway, back and forth, squeezing her eyes shut as she braced herself against the heat and the burning. The cloth caught fire and she cried out in fear, before she was suddenly free, and falling.
Twisting herself in the air, Lara tried to land on her back instead of her head. It would still hurt, but it was preferable to a concussion. If she didn’t already have one. What met her when she landed was a sharp shooting pain unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She screamed and rolled, holding her hand to the left side of her stomach. Blood pooled in her palm, and she could feel the wound going from her back to her front.
The world spun, and she sat there on her knees as she fought waves of nausea from the pain and the shock. Around her there were bodies, and bones, and what looked like altars with burning candles. Pushing the pain away, she struggled to her feet, stumbling a bit as she tried to find a way out of this cave. Every instinct told her she had to get out of here, she had to get to the beach, or she would die here like these other poor souls.
Each step was agonizing, but she pushed herself forward. She looked up as a figure came into view. It was a woman, strung up spread-eagled in front of an altar of some kind of woman. A sacrifice. “Oh god, Steph!”
She recoiled away from the Endurance crew member, and then stumbled towards a crack in the cavern. Then she hesitated, and returned to the alter. It took her several precious minutes, but she got the woman down, and folded her arms over her chest. With shaky breath, she bid her friend good bye, and resumed her escape.
In light of that, her wound and bruised ribcage were nothing to Lara. At least that’s what she kept telling herself, over and over like a mantra. She had to get out of here. She had to find Sam before her friend suffered the same fate. If that had been Sam strung up back there, she might have been simply unable to continue. But Sam, and Roth and Alex..she had to find them.
She was crawling under a rock when something grabbed her leg. A man pulled her back and she twisted around, kicking at him. He shouted something about saving her, and she got to her feet and ran. Lara ran into him once more before she got to the surface, but a falling rock narrowly missed her and crushed him. The entire mountain seemed to be shaking from the storm outside, and she scrambled up a steep, muddy incline before she made it to relative safety.
The view was breathtaking. The sun was rising over the sea, light parting the clouds as the storm suddenly calmed. She held a hand to her wound, panting for breath, and allowed herself a moment to relax and reflect. She had a distinct feeling of unease, unrelated to the madmen who’d killed Steph and undoubtedly would hurt her friends.
Lara felt like there was something unclean about this island. She dismissed that thought, and started to work her way down towards the beach. It was a long, painful trip, and she came across Sam’s pack on the way. The storm had picked up again as night descended, and it was by pure luck she found an old camp.
With her last match, she started a fire, and allowed herself a moment to think and to get warm. She tried the radio and there was nothing, and for want of human contact, she turned on Sam’s camcorder. Seeing the crew brought a pain to her chest, but also relief. She didn’t feel so alone.
There was a momentary feeling of peace when Lara opened her eyes, in the brief second before she felt white hot pain cut through her back and stomach. Screaming, she jerked out of bed, landing in a heap next to it as a slick, warm liquid poured out of a sudden puncture wound. Just as though she’d been impaled on rebar. She cried out again, and gasped for breath, rolling off the invisible rebar just like she had in the dream.