Tomb Raider: Extinction
by Sarah Crisman
(scrisman@juno.com)

You did not see the blackening of the sky. The sounds of thunder that exploded through the air, rendering those even miles away from the impact deaf, you did not experience. The cloud of ash, dust and debris that covered the home territory and prevented the sun from shining down never choked your nostrils. The cries of the prey and the predator alike dying of starvation and thirst never reached your ears. The chill of the ice that later descends upon the home territory and strips it slowly of life once familiar is never felt upon your skin.
You were not there.
Though it happened millions of years ago, long before you were born, still a part of you understands. The memory of the event still resides within your cells. The death of your ancestors is indelibly imprinted within you, a residual echo of a past that should have ended your kind entirely. And yet it did not. Some survived in eggs, frozen for time incalculable, in places where the furred kind did not find and devour them.
In your mind, you understand that your kind no longer reigns supreme. And yet, in your mind, you also know that your kind will always be the masters of all they survey. You are stronger and deadlier than any other animal that walks the world. Every footstep taken causes the rocks beneath your feet to tremble. Every roar is a warning to all within earshot that you are hungry. It is a warning that you will hunt. You will kill. You will eat. You know this because it has been this way for all time. None dare hunt you, for you are more powerful. None can escape, because you are relentless.
And most important of all, you are not alone.
You have provided your mate with eggs. It was a difficult birth. Pain like you have never known. But in the end, they were yours. The pain faded into the past like your other memories. The circle of life continues.
Always two there are in this lush green valley. There is not enough food to support more. You will be careful and select from your hatchlings the two strongest, the two first to hatch. You will smell them, imprint upon them, ensure that one can mate with the other, and allow them to devour the others to become stronger. In this way, you will continue as you have for millions of years before. Time holds no meaning for you, save that which you understand to be “today” and “all else after.” The new ones will be born in the “all else after” time and it will be your job to see they are raised properly. That they are taught to hunt and stalk. To kill. And to remain after you can no longer see “all else after” for yourself.
So it has been. So it shall always be.

* * * * *

Today, it is your turn to hunt as your mate remains behind to guard the eggs. So you stalk through the green for food. You ignore the buzz of insects in your ears, and the assorted smaller creatures that move away at the edge of your vision. They are not worthy of your time. You require something larger. And you will have it.
Already your nose has picked up the scent of large prey. They are nimble and quick when trapped in the trees, but when knocked to the ground they are slow. You can stalk and kill them with ease. They will provide good food. Your mate will be pleased.
So intent on the hunt are you that when the first snapping sounds reach your ears, you pay them no attention. But when your mate bellows in the rage you know comes only from an intruder violating the nest, your instinct to hunt turns off and is replaced by one more powerful than the acquisition of food.
Defend the nest. Defend the eggs. Defend “all else after.”
You turn. Your footsteps, once the quiet falls of a hunter, are now traded in favour of the rumble of an oncoming earthquake. Though every prey within your hunting radius now knows of your presence and will scatter, making it difficult to feed this day, you do not care. There is now only the eggs.
The snapping noises do not stop, but only intensify as you get closer. Your nostrils are filled with a smell that is not completely foreign to you, yet not known. The last time you smelled it, it reeked of sweat. Of fear. Of knowing that death was upon it.
This time, it is different. There is no fear. And you do not understand. You only know that if it does not fear you, it must be made to do so. It must be extinguished.
The snapping is even louder. It sounds like miniature claps of thunder in your sensitive ears. It is annoying. Bothersome. You will silence it.
Then comes the most terrible sound of all. Your mate roars again.
This is not a roar of defiance. It is not a roar of power. It is not the roar of a hunter that has caught his prey and is preparing to finish, to kill. No. This is a roar that you have never heard before. And yet the sound of it is imprinted within your memory from millions of years ago when others of your kind gave it with their last breaths.
It is a roar of pain. Of fear. Of finality. It tells you that for your mate, there will be no “all else after.” And though the ground shudders beneath your feet, as you move faster and faster through the brush, you feel a tremor yourself. It is single, sudden, final. Again, your memory knows this rumble though you have never felt it yourself.
Your mate has fallen and will not rise with the sun.
The nest lies unprotected.
And for once in your life, you know fear. So unfamiliar a sensation, it causes you to halt in your tracks. You are not prey. Why do you feel as such now?
There are no answers. But caution tempers your steps. How can you respond to this sensation?
Anger wells within you. You are not prey. You are predator. You are master. You are now the owner of this territory that is under invasion. This cannot be tolerated. Rage drips from your fangs. You have been violated. The trespassers will soon know of no “all else after” just like your mate.
You step into the clearing and sniff. The crackling noises, the miniature thunders, have stopped. Your mate lies, unmoving, in the middle of the valley. The smells that fill your nose are foreign. Sharp. Acrid. There is smoke. Another memory of the past from when the brightness above was turned to endless night. Your eyes scan the valley slowly, looking for signs of movement. There are none.
There is smell, however. And it leads you towards the cave. Towards your eggs. And then, the predator who killed your mate walks from the darkness. It is the same creature which came before, which died suddenly, smelling of fear and terror and excrement as you lifted it into your jaws and crushed it, feeling its blood on your tongue.
This one is not the same. It does not smell of fear. It has seen you, but it does not smell of fear. In its front paws are two shiny objects which it now raises towards you as it stops at the entrance to the dark cave it has just left.
The roar you unleash is louder than the roars made by the sky when it is filled with falling wetness and the flashes of light stab the clouds. It is a bellow of challenge, of defiance, of anger. Of hatred. And you take a step forward.
The small thunderclaps begin again. Small pains erupt up your front, but you ignore them as you do the insects that buzz around the carcasses of your kills when you eat. You step again, and again, and again, advancing on your prey.
It moves. You do not understand how it moves so quickly, but it is gone. The small thunderclaps continue. The pain now stitches up your side and into one of your forelimbs. It falls useless at your side.
You lunge for it, and it moves backwards, legs leaving the ground and propelling it backwards as the pains move again. Now they are in your leg as you step forward. More and more of them. They multiply like the bites of an uncountable number of small animals.
You step.
It moves.
You step.
It moves.
The pains continue. To your face. You cannot see from your left eye. Darkness begins to descend. Legs that only a short time ago propelled you through the dense jungle of the valley in search of your meal now can no longer support you.
You open your mouth in a roar of pain, and you feel chunks of your once-powerful fangs being thrown into the back of your throat.
You attempt another step and falter. This cannot be. You cannot move.
The pains return to your chest. More and more and more of them. Your heart beats faster and faster. The smell of your blood is all that fills your nostrils. Then it is joined by the smell of your own fear. Inside, you feel like sleeping. But you must hunt. You must fight. The eggs depend on it.
You remember your mate as a ferocious scream escapes your throat. It was a sound you have now heard twice. Fear. Pain. Death. The onset of the time of no more “all else after.”
Somehow you understand. Inside you stirs a new memory of the long-departed age. A memory of when your kind were…and then suddenly were not.
Then, the pains stop. You take a final step forward.
Your leg does not move.
You fall, beside your mate.
Darkness. Night during daytime.
Another breath…
Another breath…
Another breath…
Another…
There is no more “all else after.”

* * * * *

Lara Croft holstered her pistols and checked her backpack again. The small statuette she had found within the darkness of the cavern, nestled snugly amidst the clutch of eggs, was now fitted securely into her pack between two small medikits.
Unlike the first time she had encountered one, these two T-Rexes had proven to have no surprises. The dumb dinosaurs were all alike: all show and no go. They made noises, trying to scare her, but their bulk was no match for her speed or her guns. No challenge, really. And what on Earth were they doing here, in China, near the Great Wall of all places? It was a miracle someone else hadn’t come along and snuffed them out already.
She shrugged and headed towards the long climb up that awaited her. It had taken a few million years, to be sure, but extinction had finally caught up with the Tyrannosaurus Rexes. “Found greener pastures,” she murmured, placing her hands into the cleft of rock in front of her and beginning her ascent. “Good riddance. Stupid beasts.”
Her foot found purchase, and she hoisted herself further up the wall. Before long, her mind was back on the task at hand: the Dagger of Xi’an had to be found.

* * * * *

The idea for this story came to me as soon as I read a post from Akkon on the KTEB forums: a joking request to see the story of Tomb Raider told from the point of view of the T-Rex.
For some reason, something clicked in my head, and I saw a story begging to be told. Not of the first T-Rex encounter that Lara had, but the second in the valley near the Great Wall in Tomb Raider 2. Why were there two of them in the valley? Why did one only show up after the first one had been killed and Lara had raided the cave in the back for the statuette? What would two dinosaurs have thought of the interloper? After all, there’s a skeleton down there already. They’ve clearly had contact with a human before, and won.
There are all sorts of questions to be asked. What you’ve just read is not the official answers, but my version of them. I hope they satisfied you. Please send me an e-mail to let me know what you thought, whether positive or otherwise.

*huggles*
Sarah Crisman
12 August 2007