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Old 20-03-10, 13:07   #131
Eddie Haskell
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Wow, just wow! Tremendous job, the both of you (Ashnod and Rai). And it's going to be near impossible to choose a winner in this contest, all are superb works. I am going to choose the story that grabbed me the most, I'll forgive all grammatical, spelling and other non-creative errors. However, I must say to Ashnod and Rai that your stories are as well written as they come. I am not surprised in the least, the both of you prove your worth day in and day out in this forum.

I really enjoyed reading all of the stories. It is very interesting to see how everyone sees Lara, and how they project her needs, motivations and reactions. And it is fascinating to see the various co-stars that are employed, and how they interact with Lara. Most interesting indeed.
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Old 20-03-10, 13:12   #132
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Rai and Ashnod: Brilliant stories!
I think I'm gonna agree with Eddie above me there

Damn it, missed this one ¬_¬
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Old 20-03-10, 13:18   #133
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Thanks for the kind comments, LightningRider, Eddie and Dan.
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Old 20-03-10, 20:21   #134
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The race against time

The last ray of sunlight had just disappeared behind the mountains that surrounded the Kenyan Rift Valley, when the world’s most famous Tomb Raider crawled out of the low hole that was the exit to the sanctuary she had just raided. Lady Croft stood up and stretched her athletic yet feminine body, while looking up at the sky. It would get dark soon.

Lara took off her backpack and searched for her water bottle. The bad taste of the poison was making her rather nauseous and she was looking forward to flush it away with the cool water. As she already knew, it didn’t help much, but it was better than nothing.

She glanced at her watch; it was time to go. Her jeep was parked somewhere near a bush, not too far away, and it took her just a few minutes to find it. From here, she was intending to travel towards the southeast, to the town of Isiolo, where she would rest a few hours before continuing her journey.

Little clouds of red dust surrounded the wheels of her jeep as she raced over the sandy road. She was tired, extremely tired, but the constant tension and feeling of fear that had accompanied her during the last couple of days kept her as alert as always. At this speed, there was a certain risk of hitting a wandering human being, a large animal or even another car, but those risks could not outweigh the risk of reaching her destination too late.

What if she didn’t make it in time? This question had swirled through her mind since three days now, preventing her from falling asleep, taking away her appetite. It had all started when she had learned about the location of the Amulet of Olapa. According to an ancient Masai myth, anyone who carried that amulet would have the life of eternal moons. It was also believed to cure any disease that the bearer might suffer from. Lara didn´t really know why she had been willing to risk her life to obtain this particular artefact, but hadn´t it always been this way? The hobby she loved so much was a constant defiance of fate, although this project was different from anything she had ever done in the past. She knew she would either leave with the amulet or perish in the pursuit, there was no middle way this time.

Lara forced herself to stay focused on the road while darkness fell around her, but she could not prevent her thoughts from straying away to the one thing that was her current obsession. She had been interested in the Amulet of Olapa for many years, ever since she had found out about its existence. All those years she didn´t have a clue where exactly it could be, but a sudden phone call of her good friend Nicholas Sheffield had changed it all. Of all the people she knew, Nick had probably the most knowledge of the African culture and myths, so it was no surprise to her that he had eventually figured out where the amulet was hidden. It had delighted her that his description of the location had not even been vague, but on the contrary, surprisingly precise.

Lara had not wasted a single minute after his call and had arrived on the location that Nick had pointed out to her the next day. It was a short distance to the south of the big Lake Turkana. With great joy she had steered her jeep through the beautiful area and she had even taken a small break to admire the wildlife. She had always loved Africa, it was one of her favourite continents. It hadn´t taken her very long to confirm that Nick’s coordinates had been correct and it became clear to her why it had been impossible for her to find it years ago.

The sanctuary had been hidden deep inside a mountain and the small entrance to the cave had been cleverly covered with some rocks and bushes; invisible to the untrained eye. Lara had entered the cave and had crawled through the dark tunnel that followed, holding a flare in one hand. The tunnel had brought her to a small chamber with several levers and a square door made out of stone. The inscriptions on the door had been written in an ancient language, but Lara had understood the riddle and had figured out the combination in which the levers had to be pulled to open the door. She would most likely have spent a very long time pulling levers in that cave otherwise.

Behind the door had been another small chamber, but this one had been different. As far as she had been able to see in the light of her flare, the walls were richly decorated with paintings in beautiful bright colours. It had amazed her that these paintings, which had to be very old, had been in such a good state. However, she had been more interested in the object that had been placed on top of the column in the center of this chamber. It was a chalice, made out of pottery so it had seemed, nicely ornated with engravings. This chalice had contained a peculiar liquid with an eerie greenish glow. The engravings had been very clear: the amulet was not meant to be taken by just anyone. Only someone with great devotion and persistance would be worthy enough to carry it and this had to be proven by going through three tests. In each test, one had to drink the contents of a chalice. This was a magical potion that would show the one who dared to drink it the location of the next test, but would also take this person’s life exactly 24 hours after it had been consumed. The only way to prevent this doom, was to arrive on the location of the next chalice and drink its contents within this fixed time period, whereafter the race to the third chalice would start. There were four chalices in total, and Lara had assumed that the Amulet of Olapa would be near the last one.

The Tomb Raider had hesitated for a few seconds; was this even worth risking her life for? But the green glow of the potion had hypnotized her in a strangely overwhelming way and she had not been able to resist. Before she had realized it, the poison had already found its way towards her stomach. A sharp pain in every inch of her body had brought her down to her knees, while the exact location of the next chalice was being displayed before her eyes. The combination of the flashing images and the awful taste of the poison had made her vomit, and cold sweat had erupted from her skin when it finally became clear to her what she had done, but there was no way back.

Lara Croft put her focus back on the road when she suddenly spotted two headlights which were approaching her with a dazzling speed. She pulled the steering wheel to the left without a second thought and barely missed the truck that passed her in a flash. This sudden event forced her to pay more attention, if only for a short while.

She was so tired. The sanctuary she had just visited had contained the third chalice. There had been only about four hours left when she had found the potion which was the antidote to the poison from the second chalice, but was also going to kill her if she didn’t reach the next place in time. The location of the final chalice had been revealed to her, but it had not been the same as the previous times. Either the fatigue had prevented her memory from working properly, or the flashing images had indeed stopped with a picture of Mount Kenya. The previous descriptions had been much more precise, and this was troubling her. What if she didn’t make it in time?

Lara slowed down when she saw that she had finally reached the town. The sun was already starting to rise by the time she had found a place to rest. She collapsed on the improvised bed and closed her eyes.

The sound of a crying baby woke her up a few hours later. After she had quickly checked the time and convinced herself that she really needed more rest, she closed her eyes again and returned to the realm of dreams.

It was already late in the afternoon when she woke up again. She rushed out of the hut and almost forgot her backpack. When she reached her jeep, she jumped in and hurried off towards the mountain without a single look back. She had a long way to go, and there was so little time left!

Lara drove through the forest that surrounded the mountain for hours, but there was no sign of a possible entrance. Again, she glanced at her watch. Only two hours left.

A short while later, when the jeep had started to slow down, the horrifying fact that she had forgotten to refill the tank struck her. She stopped the jeep, jumped out and started to run until she couldn’t take the burning pain in her sides anymore and fell down on her knees. Lara was panting heavily and felt a burning sensation in her eyes. Was it the poison? No, it wasn’t, it were tears of pain and disappointment. She felt too weak to fight them, so she screamed and let them go. This had to be the biggest mess she had ever gotten herself into. What had she done?

After she had calmed down a bit, she crawled towards the nearest tree and sat down. She leaned with her head against the warm tree bark and looked up. It wouldn’t be long now until dusk. She closed her eyes and for the first time in days she felt peaceful. She wouldn’t mind if it all ended right here and now, in fact, she didn’t care about anything anymore. It was too late to care, she had failed to avert the fate she had caused upon herself.

A sudden sound in the distance caught her attention. She opened her eyes and looked in the direction she thought the noise had come from. A small boy was cautiously approaching her. He was wearing a red cloak, the colour of the Masai. After a few minutes he had reached the tree Lara was leaning against, and his dark eyes met hers. Since Lara had lost any sense of time by now, it could have been a few seconds or even hours later when the boy suddenly turned around and quickly walked away. After he had taken a few steps, he turned around and looked at her again, while nodding with his head in the direction he was heading.

“Do you want me to follow you?” It struck her how weak her voice sounded. How much time did she have left? There was no response from the Masai boy, he just kept staring at her with those dark, mysterious eyes. The adventurous fire within her flared up again, even if it was just a small flame, and she decided to follow him. It took all the strenght she had still left in her body to get up from the floor and steady herself while holding the tree, where after she forced her legs to start walking. This exertion induced a droning noise in her head and her vison became blurred, but she could still distinguish the boy’s scarlet robe from everything else that was green. It was her beacon, her last chance on survival.

They had been walking for what seemed like ages, when the boy finally stopped and pointed at something that Lara could not see yet. When she was close enough, she saw that they had reached a small ravine. Inside this ravine was a hole that seemed to lead to a cavern. Without a second thought, she slid down the slope and walked towards the hole. It was indeed the entrance to an underground tunnel. “This is it!”, she exclaimed. “Dear Lord, this is it!”

She could feel how the strength returned to her body when the adrenaline rushed through her veins. No, it wasn’t over yet. Lara turned around to thank the stranger who had mysteriously managed to help her, but he was gone. With a concentrated look in her eyes and a cunning smile on her face, the brave adventurer determinedly stepped inside the dark cave. She had always loved the challenge of a race against time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you for reading!
I didn´t have much time to work on it, because I decided to join this comp really late (like yesterday ), so my apologies in advance for any mistakes!
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Old 20-03-10, 22:49   #135
Lemmie
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Tomb Raider: Pretty Poison


The roar of the helicopter’s rotor whipped the long grass of the dunes. Sand blew along the wide curve of the beach and intermingled with the pounding waves. Lara was pushed bodily out of the helicopter, and flopped into the sand. Sun streamed in a red blaze through her eyelids.

After what seemed like a small eternity of lying in the soft heat of the sand, she felt a gloved hand on her upper arm, then another on her face. Fingers prised her eyes open and shone a light into her eyes.

“Come on,” said a voice, barely audible over the noise “You’re not about to give up now…”

Lara blinked sleepily and opened her eyes. A helmeted head with a plate-glass visor was wrapping the Velcro sleeve of a sphygmomanometer around her arm, and began to pump the inflatable ball, watching the digital display for her blood pressure.

“What’s going on?” she mumbled.

“Don’t you already know?” the man ripped off the Velcro and checked the dial again. “Your blood pressure’s normal. I’m just going to give you a little something.”

Lara, making an enormous effort, reached up and grabbed his wrist.

“Take off your helmet.”

The man paused with his hand in a backpack. Then he unstrapped the back of the helmet and laid it on the sand beside him. An ordinary face, surmounted by thick eyebrows and bristly stubble was revealed. But in his eyes, was a spark of sympathy. And perhaps, hope.

Then he fished a hypodermic out of the backpack and plunged it into her arm. Lara gasped and tried to sit up, but he pushed her gently back into the sand.

“Take a moment. I’ve just given you a shot of adrenaline to get you going.
As to what else is going on,” he held out an old cassette player “This should help.”

Lara looked about her “My guns…” Her holsters were empty.

“You’ll find them. In fact, you’d better. Good luck.”

He patted her on the shoulder with one hand while he fastened his helmet with the other. Then he swung up into the helicopter as it began to take off. Lara lay back until the noise had diminished to a distant hum. Then, she sat up and looked around her.

It was late morning, she could tell that much. The sun was almost directly overhead, making her uncomfortably hot; sweat was already trickling down her neck. She picked up the cassette player and walked stiffly over the dunes, stopping to sit in the long grass. The cassette player was an ancient, clunky machine, and there was already a tape inside the deck. After a few moments, Lara pressed play. A voice, distorted and reedy, crackled into hearing.

“Good day Lara. I don’t know whether you remember our meeting some hours ago; however, it would serve you well to regain your memory quickly. To begin with the most salient points – you are on one of the outlying uninhabited islands of Papua New Guinea. You have been poisoned. You have about a day before your body succumbs to the venom completely. But you have a choice. You can choose to die in this paradisiacal place. Or you can choose to live. But if you want to live, then you must enter into my bargain.”

“What do I want? I want to offer you further employment. But I must test your mettle before we conduct any further business. An antidote will cure you completely, and one is located somewhere on the island. You must follow instructions and use your wits to find it. With the antidote is a two-way radio and supplies of fresh water and food. Find the antidote, cure yourself and radio my people who are on standby not far away.”

“I’m sure you will come to remember more of me as you continue on your journey. Don’t waste your time hating me. There is little enough of it as there is. There is an abandoned American air base some distance north by northeast of your drop site. Better hurry…”

The message dissolved into static. Lara stopped the tape and replayed the message in her head. The voice was familiar, but for now the identity of her enemy was a mystery. It would come. And the choice that was hers to make? Well, that was easy…

She stood up and turned to face the sea that boomed onto the beach. Then she drew back her arm and flung the cassette player into the water – it spun over and over before landing with a subdued little splash in the surf.

“I will not die here.” Lara said stonily to the air “This is not where I end. And when I get the antidote, I will not be working for you, whoever you are. You’ll get what you deserve, and that’s a bullet in the chest. At the very least, this is not how I conduct business. You’ll learn that soon.”

Feeling suitably angry, she stalked off into the jungle.

*

Six hours earlier

Lara was strapped to a shining gurney which was being wheeled through blank white corridors. Four men in short sleeved uniforms not unlike those of hospital orderlies were pushing it. However, unlike an episode of ER, they weren’t asking her where the pain was or to ‘stay with them.’ They were hulking, bearded and covered in tattoos.

Long fluorescent lights flashed overhead. Lara squirmed slowly, testing the restraints. However, the experience was quite an interesting one. Despite the embarrassing fact that she had been ambushed and kidnapped in the business district of Singapore, effecting entry into one of the many skyscrapers – where the CEO of a corporate bank had stashed a particularly interesting set of ceremonial statuettes – she was looking forward to this.
She hadn’t been kidnapped in ages. Doubtless she would have to teach
someone a lesson, but that was par for the course.

“Keep still,” grunted one of the lackeys, planting a splay-fingered hand on her shoulder roughly. As he withdrew his hand, it slid over her right breast. Lara pursed her mouth in disgust.

A set of doors were flung back and warm air rushed in. The gurney bumped and rattled over the lip of the doorframe, and was wheeled around. The men unstrapped the restraints and lifted Lara bodily, each taking a limb, and took her to an upright frame with more straps and buckles. With military precision, they pushed her against the frame and strapped her in again. Then, with just as much haste, they left, taking the gurney with them.

Lara, shaking off her affront, looked around her. She was in what seemed very like a large arboretum or greenhouse. The ceiling itself was made of six huge panes of glass, through which the light of the rising sun streamed. There was the hot, heavy funk of tropical plants, and trickling water
resounded from somewhere nearby. Her frame sat on the thin band of white tiles that ran around the edge of the room, and beyond this, the earth, sand and rocks of the little jungle began.

The sounds of clicks, whistles and hisses abounded in the ait. A brightly iridescent beetle hummed past her face, hovering for a moment and then zooming off towards the fans of a palm tree. Despite herself, Lara was entranced.

The vegetation shivered slightly. A huge swathe of leaves shivered as something pushed its way through. Then Lara saw who it was. A young woman, bare-foot but at least six-foot four in height was undulating through the foliage. She was strikingly pale, and long dark hair was bundled carelessly on top of her head and spilled over onto her shoulders. As to what she was wearing – well, Lara knew that her regular working gear left little to the imagination, but even she was outdone in this respect.

The woman didn’t seem to have noticed her; she was bending down among the flowers and shrubs, talking, laughing, reaching in her hands to peer closer. Lara watched her coldly. She wasn’t remotely impressed by the Earth Mother act. Talking to flowers was one thing, but kidnapping someone so that they could watch you do it was another.

When the woman had progressed to within a few metres of the tiled border, Lara decided that she couldn’t wait around all day. She cleared her throat.

“Sorry! Don’t want to interrupt your little conference among the flower fairies, but could you see your way clear to telling me what the hell is going on here?”

The woman straightened up from an involved conversation with a group of orchids and seemed to notice her for the first time. Then, she walked forward, leaving dirty footprints on the white tiles. She stopped in front of Lara and seemed about to speak, but then only smiled. With one hand, she delicately pushed the great mass of her hair off her shoulder, revealing one of the largest scorpions Lara had ever seen. The woman let it scuttle on to her hand, and then knelt down so that it could make its way back to the undergrowth.

She turned back to Lara and said softly “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Her accent was Australian.

Lara had been transfixed by the creature, but her anger burned her bemusement away. “Well, long story short; having been kidnapped, I now have several questions.”

“Certainly,” the woman said as she stroked her hair absently “What would you like to know?”

“Well, an introduction would leave on us equal terms I think. I presume you know who I am, but who are you?”

The woman brought up a pale hand to Lara’s cheek and leaned forward so that Lara could smell her unwashed hair, and whispered in her ear.

“My name is Belinda Hale.”

She withdrew and turned back to the vegetation. As she turned around, Lara caught sight of a huge tattoo that spread from shoulder blade to shoulder blade – the intricate design of a cobra rearing with its hood flaring and fangs bared, drawn in blue ink. Lara stared after her as she sauntered back to the vegetation.

“So! Belinda, eh? From the Italian bella, meaning beautiful, and the Germanic word lind meaning serpent or snake. Appropriate.” she called out, after a moment’s thought.

“Very clever Lara,” Belinda murmured vaguely “But is it not also possible that the second element of the name could come from the German word linde, meaning soft? It doesn’t matter, I prefer your interpretation. Herpetophilia – that is, my love of reptiles, snakes in particular – has been a feature of my life from a very young age.”

“Though as I can see, you don’t limit yourself to snakes.” Lara said drily.

“As I have matured, I have grown more and more fascinated by particular aspects of my little friends. Especially…”

“Venom.”

“How did you know, clever girl?”

“Oh it wasn’t difficult. You’re about as predictable as a second-rate Bond villain.”

“Oh?” Belinda walked back until she was a few feet from Lara. On her left hand, tiny poison-dart frogs clung to her fingers, like jewelled rings. She turned her hand backwards and forwards in front of her face. “I was a trained toxicologist, did you know that? But always, unconventional.”

“It’s a veritable menagerie in here! They’re all native species are they?”

“Oh no. These specimens,” she waved her hand idly “Originate from three different countries. The gene pool here was far too shallow.”

“Gene pool?” Lara’s brow wrinkled.

Belinda nodded “I was going to say that as well as toxicology I began to study genetics, although I did not qualify in the end…”

“Too unconventional?” Lara said sarcastically. Belinda smiled to herself.

“But when I came out here I continued my experiments. And extremely successful they were too.” She lifted her hand to her mouth and kissed one of the little frogs on its back.

“I wouldn’t do that.” Lara interjected. “I recognise that species from Guatemala. Their poison is deadly.”

Belinda licked her lips. “Don’t I know it. But you see, these creatures are more than friends. They are…family.”

“Oh please.”

Belinda fixed Lara with a steely stare. “It is absolutely true. Every creature I have bred shares some of my genetic code. I am immune to their venom.”
She put her hand to the floor and the little frogs hopped off onto the dirt. Belinda licked her long fingers. “Every single one. And I picked up a few tricks from them as well. Look.”

She began to scratch at the top of her left arm with her fingernails. The skin tore neatly all around the pale limb, until a good amount floated loose and light from the tear. In a series of quick, fluid movements Belinda rolled it down her arm…and there it was, complete as a glove – the top layer of skin of her left arm.

Lara felt her stomach stir uncomfortably at the sight. “You…shed your skin?” she managed to say weakly.

Belinda examined her arm, the skin of which was deathly white and gleamed wetly. The translucent skein of skin in her other hand fluttered in some imperceptible breeze.

“That’s only the start of what I can do darling.” she whispered proudly.

*

Lara’s legs pounded as she jogged at a steady pace through the jungle. So far, so good. After her initial lack of energy, the run had helped get her body warmed up for the trials ahead. Of course, there was always the consideration that she was helping the venom speed around her system, but
by this stage she was counting herself lucky that she was still standing.

On the whole she felt positive. She’d been left with her hiking boots, protecting her from biting insects and reptiles. The vegetation wasn’t so thick as to be impassable, and was on a pretty level gradient. This could be a breeze.

Or not. She skidded to a halt as the trees petered out to a steep ravine some hundred and fifty feet high. Some rocks that she had disturbed tumbled and crashed far below. Lara decided this would be a good time to take a breather.

The rift had carved a wide stripe across the island; she could see a cliff face opposite some miles away; to the east and west, the rift was encircled by white sandy bays. Beyond was a small range of mountains surmounted by a volcano. Lara scanned the jungle below to see if she could see the American airbase that the voice on the tape had talked about. Yes, there it was; the long grey stretch of tarmac surrounded by pre-fabricated huts and command centre. A break in the tree line indicated a road or path running east to another bay. She fixed the direction in her mind and then looked around for a way to navigate the cliff face.

Long creepers spilled over the cliff edge, and Lara inspected them carefully. They seemed tough, and were probably capable of taking her weight. Deciding that they were her best option, she wrapped them around her right arm and began to abseil slowly down the rock.

So far she felt she was making good time. It could only have been a little over an hour since she was dropped on the island, and already she on the way to her first goal. Slowly, the ground came up beneath her feet, and finally she hopped off the vines and into the ferny undergrowth.

The only problem now was that she could no longer see the Dutch encampment, but she thought that the clearing had been large enough that she would be able to tell after a mile or so whether she was close to it.

Down here in the ravine the trees were much closer together and tangled with creepers and fungi. Lara set off through the trees, sometimes having to climb up into the branches to get around obstacles. It was as she did so, that she began to notice that the ground of the jungle was dotted with large brackish pools – up to ten or fifteen metres across. It was while she was crawling over the collapsed trunk of a fallen tree that she saw one of these pools used.

Initially, she had not noticed the ripples on the surface of the pool. But a loud snorting noise made her freeze and look towards the pool. Water and steam spurted in great jets into the air, and splattered onto the trunk and Lara herself. Deep inside the fountain, Lara thought she could see the line of a jaw, teeth, a glinting eye…

Suddenly the water subsided and the steam hissed into water droplets that fell back to the jungle floor. All that remained were the ripples that sloshed over the lip of the pool.

Lara took a deep breath. She was sure that the creature in the pool hadn’t seen her. Still, she waited a few moments before moving on. So, the island had a large species of animal on it in the pools that dotted the jungle. Whether it was a herbivore, a carnivore or anything else was unimportant, at least until Lara regained her pistols. She was beginning to miss their comforting weight at her side.

After about twenty minutes of climbing, walking and crawling across the forest floor, the trees separated out into a long clearing. Shading her eyes against the afternoon sun, Lara could see the heat haze roiling up from the tarmac of the airstrip, and the few buildings clustered around the simple hangar. Lara jogged over to them to investigate.

The windows of most of the buildings were shattered, and when Lara looked in she could see that they were empty except for some old bedsteads and rubbish. The doors were firmly locked with shiny new padlocks. She turned her attention to the main building with the stubby control tower on top of it. This was the only building where the door was left half open for her, and she peered around the doorway to look inside.

Banks of outdated radar equipment stood dark and lonely, with headphones trailing in the dust and electrical wires ripped out of the machines. Lara surveyed the devastation levelly, her boots scuffing up the dust on the floor. A spiral staircase led up to the control tower where light flooded through the wide windows from above. Cautiously, Lara headed up the stairs.

The control tower offered panoramic views of the surrounding jungle of the valley, showing that the airstrip was right in the middle. The beaches at either end of the valley were visible as crescents of bright blue, the beach to the east much closer. From this vantage point, she could also see the wreck of a ship listing in the water in the eastern bay.

Here there were more machines and equipment bleached by the sun and grimy with dust. But one thing stood out; a sleek leather suitcase sat on top of the main control desk. Lara approached it carefully and flipped up the lid.
There was a single sheet of paper there, covered in a drawing of a rearing cobra, hood outstretched, fangs ready to strike. Lara caught her breath in surprise. She knew that she recognised the design, but from where?

She flipped the drawing over, and saw that there was a single word on it. She said it out aloud in confusion.

“Surprise?”

Beep.

Lara dropped the piece of paper on the floor and looked around in sudden terror.

Beep…Beep…

Looking down into the suitcase, Lara could see an arrangement of wires, dials and lights. A digital display was counting down fast. Lara turned and ran for the staircase, stumbling as she reached the head of the stairs.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Lara tripped as she reached the bottom of the stairwell; she tucked her legs up and rolled on the dusty floor away from the staircase.

Beepbeepbeepbeep

The glass in the windows shattered as the sonic bomb exploded. Shards of glass tinkled down the staircase, but Lara couldn’t hear them as the roaring in her head wouldn’t subside. She curled up, squeezing her eyes tight shut and her hands clasped over her ears.

After a few minutes, the re-echo inside her head had calmed enough. Lara stood up shakily and headed up the stairs again. The control tower was covered in slivers of glass which crackled under her boots, and the tarmac glittered with shards.

There was a screech as a loudspeaker crackled into life. Lara looked up at the device as a voice, tinny and rasping, began to speak.

“I hope you were not too alarmed by my little gift Lara. No, I’m sure you were not too surprised; but you may be in just a moment. Watch the jungle.”
Lara scanned the landscape around the airstrip, looking at the tree line.

There was a distant drumming from somewhere beyond…and then something crashed through the trees. Lara ducked as the creature scattered splinters of wood and leaves as it galloped into the centre of the tarmac. At first she couldn’t see it clearly; then, as it halted and snorted on the airstrip, she could see a blunt head with heavy jaws, round shoulders and powerful legs tending down to a flattened spade-like tail. It sniffed the air, stamped and let out a strange ululating call. Iridescent scales glowed in the sunlight.

Lara peeped over the windowsill and watched the creature pawing around and sniffing the ground. “What is it?” she whispered, forgetting for a moment that there was no-one else there.

“You may be wondering what they are,” drawled the voice “Well, no one is sure, but I have a theory. They are an absolutely separate species of venomous reptile, perhaps descended from some kind of dinosaur. However, they are different in that they are also amphibious – they can swim very quickly and run just as fast on land. However, their eyes are almost useless – but they use smell and sound to detect prey.”

Lara’s heart pounded. She had noticed that the creature was swinging its head to and fro, zeroing in on the sound, the sound of the loudspeaker coming from the control tower. It padded backwards and forwards for a moment.

“Am I talking too much?” the voice said wickedly “I do hope they can’t hear me. These creatures are unused to the possibility of a predator larger than themselves, so they will investigate any significant source of sound. And I guess that’s what I’m providing…”

Lara’s gaze switched to the other side of the clearing. Two more of the animals waddled out, far more sedately than the first had done. A snort from somewhere behind the building alerted her; she ran to the other side of the tower and looked down – another was walking out of the trees, webbed scaly feet crushing the broken glass into powder.

“So I guess I’d better keep this short. Head east along the supply track – swim out to the ship and find further instructions there. Hopefully, all will become clear soon. Goodbye.”

The loudspeaker went dead with a crackle of static. Lara knelt down and peered over the lip of the window, watching the animals. If she stayed very quiet…the first animal greeted the others with a soft growl, and all four of them began to circle the control tower, swaying their heads and stamping their feet. Even from this distance, Lara could see their pearly, near-blind eyes and the sharp teeth in their mouths as they breathed. Lara sat there, frozen in horror. She could see it in her mind’s eye – any moment they would charge at the flimsy walls of the base, and shake her out of her hiding place. She tried her hardest not to breathe. She knew it was silly, but all eight blind eyes seemed to be staring right at her…

Suddenly, the leader, the one who had first appeared in the clearing and called for the others jerked its head up with a brief grunt. The others appeared to agree, and with a momentary hesitation, they followed. With a crash of tree trunks, they disappeared into the forest.

Lara waited for ten, fifteen minutes, fearful that the creatures would come charging back out if she moved. Then, moving as carefully as possible, she hurried down the steps and walked out of the building. She paused by the trees that lined the forest path, picked up a particularly long stick and snapped it in half, leaving a wickedly sharp point. Panicked for a moment by the pistol-crack the breaking stick had made, she balanced it in her hand and ran off down the path.

*

Lara looked at the gauzy glove on the tiled floor. Her stomach had not yet stopped churning. Yet, through the sick feeling of watching a woman peel her own skin off, was a certain scientific fascination.

“How is this possible?” she eventually managed to say.

Belinda cupped her chin in her hand; the moisture on the skin was evaporating slowly, making her skin look like a mottled pattern of wet and dry patches.

“It was only after years of experimentation that I hit upon the idea that the animals could be given part of my genetic code rather than the other way around – it was impossible for me to make myself immune to the venom of all my specimens. Do you know what it’s like having to take fifty doses of anti-venom a week, month after month and year after year? I was a physical wreck…”

“But you got better I see.”

“It was only a decade or so ago that I decided to attempt some new cloning techniques that had just come to the fore. Genetic manipulation within the egg, adding my own DNA strands and selecting a few of theirs that I could test on myself. Within a year I had a large population of snakes, scorpions and spiders genetically related to me – the principle was sound, and I could extend my process to a larger and larger number of species. Oh, baby,” she said, noticing a large tarantula scuttling along a plant bed “Come to mother. Literally…” she glanced at Lara with a smile.

Lara had been working something out “Wait – a decade ago? You made this breakthrough at what – seventeen? Eighteen? Surely that’s not right…”
Belinda picked up the tarantula “I look good for my age right?”

“So, what, you’re thirty-five? Not forty!” Despite herself, Lara was impressed.
There was a clang as a metal door was flung back, and a trolley was wheeled in by one of Belinda’s lackeys. A large oblong box was sitting on top of it, and a scrap of paper on top of the box. He brought it to a stop, turned without a word and walked out. Belinda had not acknowledged his presence, but went over to the trolley and picked up the piece of paper – a photograph, Lara could see now, from the way the light gleamed off it. Belinda flourished it, like a poker player displaying his winning hand.

“This,” she said “was me.”

*

Lara reached the beach, her makeshift spear still in hand. She had seen nothing more of the animals, but seeing their size and ferocity had made her anxious to get to the ship, which was lying slightly on one side, the waves breaking around it. Bright red letters on its side read USS Portland. Luckily it was low tide, so she would only have to swim a few hundred yards to get there. She threw the spear into the soft sand, glad that she hadn’t had to use it, and waded out into the water.

The heat of the day had abated, and now that the sun was setting the water was made a deep purple colour. Looking down into the water as she swam, Lara could see bright coral reefs and shoals of fish far below.

The anchor chain of the ship provided a set of handholds to climb to the top deck, and a gruesome sight met Lara as she landed with a ringing thump on the metal panelling. Whitened bones in ragged US naval uniforms were scattered across the deck, many were incomplete and had been cracked and broken. Moreover, the skeleton of one of the animals was also here, lying against one of the funnels where it had fallen. Close inspection of the bones revealed the pockmarks of bullets. Pistols and machine guns littered the deck, rusty with rain water and the salt air.

Her left wrist was bothering her. Lara looked closely at it and saw two small holes, scabbed over with dried blood and irritated by the salt water. What could they be? The wound throbbed painfully, but she tried to put it out of her mind as she explored the ship.

The pilot house was empty save for some old blood stains. Lara followed the scenes of carnage back out again, and down a flight of steps into the lower decks. A torch lay at the bottom, and upon checking that it still had batteries, she proceeded into the dark corridors. Many doors along the passages lay half open, revealing cabins all upside down with items of food, ammunition and clothes, while others were tightly shut and everything stank of death. Moreover, in the darkness she couldn’t tell where to go – the corridors all blended together in one confusing metal maze.

However, closer examination of the dusty floor yielded a surprise. Lara could see that as well as her own footprints, the corridor had been scuffed up recently by a whole group of people. That would surely show her the way to go for her next set of instructions.

The footprints led her to a large metal door, by the side of which a message had been spray-painted in red. Lara shone her torch on it and said it out to herself.

“Abandon hope all ye who enter here.”

Very foreboding. She tucked the torch under her arm, pressed both hands against the door, and pushed. The door screeched back with a horrible grinding noise, then swung back against the wall with a clang.
The corpses of about ten officers were sitting in various stages of putrefaction in the chairs around a long table. Lara had to hold her nose against the stench as she looked around. Empty food tins littered the floor, and in addition there was the stink of the end product in one corner. It was clear that the men had died of starvation.

Dusty as the table was, she saw that there had been a few recent additions. One was an old book, crackling around the edges and discoloured pages. The other was a photograph sitting on top of the book.

Lara picked the photograph, and looked at it closely. It had been taken outside the control tower of the airbase. There was the jungle and the cliff-face in the background, and about two hundred men in the sunlight, twenty or so commanding officers sitting on chairs in front of them. Clean-cut young Americans, eyes shaded by their caps.

And a woman. A tall, beautiful woman with long hair and glasses, wearing a lab coat and standing to one side of the men, and as she looked Lara felt another jolt of recognition, the same that she had felt when she looked at the sheet of paper with the cobra’s head drawn in blue ink. She bit her lip, folded the photograph into quarters and slipped it into her back pocket.
That left the book. Lara picked it up and carried it over to one of the unoccupied chairs. She brushed it clean, and sat down. She put her feet up on the table, opened the book and started to skim through it.

After about a quarter of an hour she’d pieced together most of what had happened. During the initial gains by the USA in the Pacific theatre of the Second World War, the island had been chosen as a location for an airstrip because of its size and the relatively flat valley. The USS Portland had been brought in to set up the airstrip and maintain a supply line. The island was called Ranguru.

The discovery of the carcass of one of the creatures had resulted in the arrival of Dr Erica Hale, an Australian herpetologist and toxicologist. Three days after her arrival and the subsequent autopsy of the creature, the base had been attacked by six of the animals. Those who had managed to escape to the ship could leave, as growing numbers of the creatures, ten, twenty, twenty-five swam out to the ship. A bloody fight on the top deck had resulted in the retreat to the lower decks, as the men locked themselves in cabins and staterooms.

But the creatures hadn’t left, they stayed up on the deck and prowling through the corridors, picking off the men as they emerged for salvage missions to the galley or the stores. Eventually, the last remaining men starved to death. Lara read over the final words as their writer slid into insanity once again.

Well. That had been illuminating. But something struck Lara for a moment. She took out the photograph out again, and looked past the lines of men to the shape of an aeroplane that was parked beside the control tower. But where had the plane been when she had been on the island itself? She looked at the woman in the photograph again…

This was all very well, but she was wasting time. However, she had a feeling that she was still missing something. She swept the room once again, looking closely…

How had she missed it! One of the corpses was holding an MP3 player, the earphones placed in his now rather fossilised ears. Lara walked over and picked it up, wiping the earphones careful with a disgusted look on her face. She slipped them into her own ears and switched the little machine on.

* * *


Phew! It's not finished, but this is the portion that I feel most happy with. I'll probably post the completed story on fanfiction.net. Sorry you don't get to find out how Lara escaped her fate, but I just had too many other commitments to handle. Apologies once again, and I look forward to the voting!

Last edited by Lemmie; 21-03-10 at 02:05.
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Old 20-03-10, 23:10   #136
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I'll leave this thread open for another few hours at least, but I think we've gotten entries from everyone who said they were entering

For the voting thread, is a week enough time for everyone to read all of the entries or should I make it two weeks?
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Old 21-03-10, 06:57   #137
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Voting thread is up

http://www.tombraiderforums.com/show....php?p=4459975
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