Tomb Raider

Into the Underworld

 

A dawn is breaking; far and wide across the eastern skyline I feel the beauty and serenity of the sun god rain across my skin. Although the light fills this place, I feel a blackness in my heart, I blackness of proportions so vast, it would send even the coldest of men into a fever. This blackness I speak of is one of loss; she is my loss. The trees seem to dance in the light of the rising sun almost welcoming the beckoning day. The hum of life dies away, all I hear is the silence of thousands of years, the echoes are like none I ever heard before, one of solitude, the blackness seems nearer than even I could imagine.  You seem surprised and curious my friend, who is my loss you ask, the one I speak of so fondly and yet so sorrowfully?  I will not speak her name as long as she is lost to me, only at the ends of the earth and beyond will I find her. This is not my story, it is hers, I stand this day and past chapter of my book opens and I drink in this moment like a perfect vacuum of time. Perfection so sweet and consolation so dear that I even weep to think of it.

 

But I know I bore you with my feeble sentimental views, but then again I have always been entranced with the promise of beauty and emotion in its purest form, the shattered reminisce of history, is what I seek, ancient civilisations lost under the crushing fabric of time and tyranny. The sun continues its gentle descent into the heavens, casting its glow across the ruins, shrouding there murky depths in sunlight. I am Lara Croft, Archaeologist and Adventurer, one of the wealthiest women on earth; my father’s fortune was passed onto me at the time of his passing.  I have travelled the world, seen things no other moral eyes have seen, I have endured more than other mortal has had to endure, my riches and property are meaningless; the pain I endure every single day is so great that nothing matters to me, beauty, truth, history and knowledge are worthless to me now. The loss of the only ones, who cared for me, burns a precipice in my very soul. But there I go again with my sentiment, the day breaks over this scene and my goal is not yet fulfilled.

 

Before me lies in wait a gaping Underworld, a world of infinity and terror, the temple reaches up upward with elegance and grace; the finest craftsmanship in Thailand over the last millennia, it is so very striking. As I stare down into the Abyss, the blackness reflecting that of my own heart. All my life has lead up to this moment, the moment where I reclaim what was lost to me all those years ago and where I reclaim what was taken from me. With a steady hand and foreboding sprit a take my first steps down the stair case into this black oblivion, no more is my fear, no more is my anger. I step now into a journey through this darkness, I will reclaim her, precious as the deepest sapphire pool. My cautious steps become a run and wildness takes me as I let out a scream of sorrow and madness. I continue to run until I am engulfed in this blackness, the howling of a thousand lost souls surrounds me, but my madness has taken me.  The sun god is no longer seen as I press harder on into the Underworld.

 

My footsteps ring around the walls of this prison, my voice whispers out around the spider’s webs and crumbling stone work. My steps halt; I see a light of glowing emerald before me, its glowing illuminates my path, such beauty I have never seen, as I look deeper into this portal, I see a paradise; a promised land of green rolling hill sides and snow caped mountain ranges as far as the eye can see . A breeze seems make even the smallest blade of grass sway poetically in this oasis. The striking comparison to the murky depths of which I had just travelled through, made even I stop and look in awe inspired wonder. The sun of a new world beckons me forth.

I leave this story with a heavy heart; this chapter of my tale is swiftly coming to a close.

I am Lara Croft, and today my sorrowful isolation ends.