Uncharted Time

With a loud explosion, a stone wall crumbles on to ground. As the dust settles, a tall, well-built figure walks through the newly blown-out opening.

"That was easy enough." Seeing a torch on the wall to his right, he pulls it off the wall and reaches into one of his jean pockets to pull out a lighter.

"Thank God for Sully and his smoking habit." With a flick of the lighter, the flame ignites the reside on the torch. The torch immediately gives off enough light to see twenty feet in every direction around him. Everywhere he looks he sees stone blocks for the walls and ceiling and stone tiles for the floor. "Well, whoever made this was consistent...or just lazy. I hope this place has something a bit more...shiny."

The sound of his footsteps bounces off of the stone as he traverses deeper into the temple. The darkness continued to be consistent, except for the area around him that the torchlight shined upon. I must have walked half a mile already. The darkness slowly starts to chip away at his collective, calm attitude.

"Nate, what have you gotten yourself into this time?" He does not have an answer for himself as he rounds another corner in the temple. He suddenly stops himself before he walks straight into a solid stone door. Nate leans forward to study the markings on the door. Seeing patterns carved into the door, he reaches out to touch them. Instead of running his hand over the door, his hand goes through it instead.

"Whoa!" Nate pulls his hand back and attempts to touch the door again. Once more his hand goes through it like it isn't even there. "How the hell is this possible?" Nate cautiously takes a step closer to the door. Either he attempts to walk through the hypocrite door or he goes back the way he came in...empty-handed.

"Well, here goes nothing." His addiction for adventure and the discovering the unknown drives him to walk through the fake door in one, elongated step. After giving the fake door a backwards glance, Nate finds himself in a large room, judging off of how his footsteps took slightly longer to echo and that he could not see any walls near him or a ceiling above him. He slowly walks away from the fake door, being mindfully of where he places each footstep. I hope there aren't any pressure plates in this place.

If Nate knew what was directly ahead of him, he would have gladly taken the pressure plates for whatever trap was set for it.

As the continues stepping towards the center of the huge room, he notices something standing on the stone floor, just out of the lit-up area that his torch is revealing. As Nate keeps his eyes on the object before him and reaches for his 92FS-9mm pistol from his shoulder holster, the object slowly starts to lean backwards into the darkness. Nate quickly draws his pistol and points it at the moving object. Before he can fire off a shot, the object suddenly throws its upper half forward into the lit area of the torch, revealing a rotting, grimy, bandaged face. The vile creature lets out a scream that pierced through the stale air as though long fingernails are scratching across a chalkboard. Nate pulls the trigger...only in his mind.

I...I can't pull the trigger? He attempts to readjust his aim but finds that he can't move his arm. I can't move! Why can't I move?! Nate's adrenaline levels spike as he watches the bandaged, undead mummy slowly shuffle towards him. The undead creature's mouth widens as the creature is a couple of feet from Nate's pistol.

Come on, Nate! Snap your body out of it! Focus on just pulling back on the trigger! Nate keeps his eyes on the ReDead but has all of his conscious thoughts on pulling back the trigger. He imagines his finger slowly pulling back on the metal and sees the hammer slowly leaning back to fly forward and-

BANG!

Nate flinches at the sound of his pistol going off. He had willed himself to snap his body out of paralysis so that he could pull the trigger. The ReDead lets out low, labored groan as it falls forwards onto the floor, its head crashing off to the side of Nate's well-worn sneakers.

Nate breaths out a sigh of relief. "Glad that's over and that I didn't get bitten. I would hate to be a zombie that lurks around a corner in a horror movie." Nate sweeps his torch in the air, left to right, as he continues walking through the huge room. "I hope there are no more of those things in this place."

After walking a good twenty feet from his encounter with the ReDead, Nathan reaches another door. "Please be another fake door." He reaches out and sure enough his hand goes through it. "Thank God." Nate wastes no time in walking through the door. However, his eagerness to leave behind the room with the ReDead keeps him going too far. He sees the large hole in the floor too late.

Nate falls forward. He quickly lets go of the torch as he tries to grip onto the edge of the hole. His fingers scrape the edge but do not get a sturdy enough grip to stop him from descending into the hole. "AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Nate tries to prepare himself for the sudden stop at the bottom of the hole. He feels his back hit the floor, feeling the floor stretch and give under him. He feels himself...bounce off the surface?

"Huh?" After a single bounce off of the surface, Nate stands up and checks himself over to make sure he isn't dead by pinching the inside of his lower arm. "Ow! Okay, I'm not dead." He looks up to see the hole he fell through. The light seeping through the hole is enough for Drake to see that he is standing on a tan-colored surface that has some give under his body weight. He taps his foot on the unusual ground and receives a low, hollow echo from underneath him. "It sounds like a drum of some kind."

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!" Nate looks up to see another person falling from the same hole. Nate dodges quickly to not be crushed under the stranger. As Nate rests his right hand on his holstered pistol out of caution, the stranger adjusts himself to the new area while keeping Nate in his sights.

Nate observes the stranger, while the stranger does the same to him. Drake immediately notes that his guy is wearing a green tunic, with leggings and sturdy-looking boots. Another major characteristic he notices is that the guy has long, pointed ears, like that of an elf. However, this guy is nowhere near the height of one of Santa's helpers. He reminds Nate more of a "Lord of the Rings" type elf. Nate's sight follows the guys left arm, which is grasping a blue-handled sword behind his back. Drake knows that his oddly dressed stranger is trying to figure out who he is as well. He decides to try to clear things before they lead to a potential misunderstanding.

"Hey. Just wait a moment, alright?" Nate slowly removes his hand from his holstered pistol. "I don't want a fight here."

Flying out from behind the green-clad stranger is a bright, light blue ball of light, which quickly flies in front of Nate's face. Nate soon realizes that this sphere of luminescence has a high-pitched, slightly agitating voice.

"Hey! Listen here you strange, obviously up-to-no-good temple looter! First off, who are you? Secondly, how did you enter this place? You couldn't have used the only entrance and manage to beat us to this room. Third, if you even think about harming Link in any way, I will make you wish you had never been born!"

Nate furrows his eyebrows at the pesky, talking light sphere as he tries to swat it out of his face. However, it flies back over to Link before Nate can backhand it.

"Aren't you just a sweet, lovable...thing?' Nathan sarcastically asks. "Anyway, you're name is Link?"

Link silently nods as he removes his hand from the hilt of the Master Sword, that is resting on his back.

"My name is Drake. Nathan Drake."

Link opens his mouth to say something but he and Nate suddenly bounce off of the unusual floor. They both land on their feet while giving each other a look of slight fear and confusion. They both get launched into the air again.

Then, both Link and Nate see it. A huge hand. Then another hand. Two hands hit the floor in turn, causing the Hero of Time and the treasure hunter to jump up and down on the huge bongo drum. As the duo land once more on the bongo, Navi once again adds her two rupees worth.

"Link, use your bow to shoot the hands! The shots should hurt this creature's hands enough for it to stop banging on the bongo for a short period of time."

Nate looks over to his right to see that Link is holding a bow, with an arrow nocked and ready to let fly. "Where in the hell did you get that from?"

Link completely ignores the question as he lets the arrow fly, striking one of the creatures huge hands and rendering it useless for the time being. He whips out another arrow nocks it then quickly pulls back, aiming for its other hand.

Nate is a little quicker.

"Eat lead." He pulls out his pistol from his shoulder holster and takes aim, pulling the trigger back. The bullet strikes the palm of the huge hand, stopping it in its tracks.

A sudden smack of the huge bongo that both Nate and Link are standing on vibrates immensely as if the rest of the monster, that is invisible, crashed onto it. Nathan wants to finish this enormous creature off yet has no idea how to do so.

I can't kill it in its hands. It has to have a weak spot somewhere. Keeping his gun pointed in the general area the monster could be, Nate glances over at Link, who has shifted his bow to his right hand to hold another object in his right, some type of purple magnifying glass with three points on its top. "Okay...seriously, where are you storing all of that? In your ass?"

Link's fairy companion immediately flies towards Nate and begins to smack him as hard as her little fairy hands can muster. "How dare you question Link with such foul language?! Do you even know the concept of respectability?" As quickly as she started smacking Nate, she stops and flies back over to Link. "Link, find the creature's eye and stab it with the Master Sword! That should finish the job."

"This is insane. Just wait until I tell Sully about this." Nate keeps his gun pointed at the monster, just in case he has a chance to shoot that it.

Pulling back his left arm, Link gives out a shout as he thrusts the tip of the Master Sword into the creature's huge eye. The monster's invisibility fades as its cries of agony pierce the air and shake the flexible "ground" under Link's and Nate's feet. The room around them becomes brighter and brighter as the creature's body and hands dissolve into orbs of blue light as they ascend then dissipate near the ceiling of the room.

As darkness falls upon the room Nathan and Link walks towards each other. Since the foe had been vanquished they finally have a chance to talk without a deadly interruption.

"Any minute now the circle of light will appear. We shouldn't waste our time with this no good, temple raider." Navi lands on Link's right shoulder.

Nate rolls his eyes. "I'm not a 'temple raider', light ball. I'm an treasure hunter."

"Same thing, temple raider."

Link faces Navi and raises his finger to his shut lips. Once Navi silences herself, Link looks Nate over in a caring, good natured way. He smirks at Nate and outstretches his hand.

Nate smiles at the man, clad in green, with pointy ears. He takes Link's hand and gives it a friendly shake. "You wield that sword well. Thanks."

Link opens his mouth, about to say something in return; but he stops short as he sees the light blue circle of light appear on the bongo, out of the corner of his left eye. Link and Nate take back their hands.

"I guess that's your cue."

Link nods to Nate as he walks towards his exit, the exit to the Sacred Realm and another meeting with the Sages. The Hero of Time sets into the middle of the circle. He turns and waves at Fortune Seeker and Treasure Hunter.

Nathan waves back at him as he is encased in a blue light. It quickly builds in intensity and Nate attempts to shield his eyes from the blinding light.

~Jamaica. Two Days Later~

"Kid, have another beer." Sully pushes an freshly poured beer in front of Nate, only to have him push it right back.

"Sully, I know what you're trying to do. I don't need another drink. I'm not crazy. I know what I saw."

"Listen Nate, you were probably jet lagged from flying all the way to southern Argentina. A man can see a lot of strange things from losing sleep. That along with your usual excitement in finding a "lost temple" made you experience this elf man-"

"Link." Nate pulls out his leather-covered journal from his back pocket and flips nearly halfway through it. He nearly shoves Sully's drink from his mouth with his journal. On one of the pages, Nate had drawn Link in perfect detail from memory, from top to bottom. "And he had this fairy with him, who called me a 'temple raider'. I think her name was Navi."

Sully sighs before he pushes the journal away. "Kid, how old were you when you tried to pickpocket me in Columbia?"

"Fifteen."

"Right. And do you remember what I said about the drawings in your journal?"

Nate become slightly frustrated at Sully. "To perfectly quote you, 'Damn Kid, these drawings look better than some of the artists from hundreds of years ago'."

"Right. How do I know that you didn't hallucinate this whole story you've told me?" Sully pulls a pre-cut, cheap cigar from his pocket and strikes the last match in his paper pack.

Nathan can't help but default to his cocky smile and smartass attitude. "Because while we were shaking hands he gave me this." Nate opens up his left hand to reveal an orange jewel that had been cut into an oblong hexagon.

Sully's cigar nearly falls out his mouth upon gazing at the jewel. "Well, you know what they say." He picks it out of Nate's hand and holds it up closer to gaze at all of its edges.

"There is some truth hidden in legends."