She is gone. All that remains of her is intensely red streaks in the air, much like the aftershock of an unexpected camera flash. I shudder. They were everywhere on her legs, like she¡¯d put them in a pencil sharpener. I blinked quickly a few times, and my vision returned to normal.

It¡¯s a long way down that slope ahead of me ¨C rough and creased by the ages, slick with rainwater. It looks like someone¡¯s brown paper lunch bag, crumpled and spread out half-heartedly down to an unknown deep void.

I take a deep breath. And then I jump.

The forest rushes up to meet me and the trees fade to the edges of my vision, going so fast that they appear to be swiping at my face. There are two pits of spikes, followed by a safe plateau ahead. I¡¯m approaching the first one.

Jump, I tell myself, jump. A wave of stiffness hits me, like meeting a brick wall face on. My limbs go rigid. I try to move, but it feels like every fiber in my body has been stretched taut, strained, sprained. I feel my feet slide off the edge into the pit-

-I stand now in a desert. There is dry sand under me, packed almost rock hard by aridity. A few desolate twigs of shrubbery stand stock still and small, as if ashamed to be seen.

A sleeping rattlesnake curls up under the meager shade of one such bush. Rattlesnakes were not known for their geniality, and this one could prove a problem later on. I advanced towards it, drawing my guns.

Just as I approach, the snake snaps up, like cracking a whip, with enough to break its own neck. Its hiss resembles a fizzling kitchen appliance of a sort. A drone. Perhaps it was dehydrated.

It¡¯s too close for comfort now, and definitely poised to strike. I watch it calculating its next move with a practiced, experienced plan. Definitely unusual to a desert creature like this who had probably seen few humans. I try to take a step back.

Stiffness.

I fight down a scream as I watch its jaws open, watch it dart out like a arrow ¨C

- empty darkness under my feet, studded with gray dots ¨C

- and suddenly I¡¯m back, my guns in my hands and the rattlesnake limp under the bush, dead.

What just happened?

Discomforted, I reach into my backpack for my bottle of water. It seems lighter than usual. Peering in, I find a small medicine pack gone. Not that the loss is so great, but where could it have disappeared to? A quick scan with my eyes tells me I¡¯ve not dropped it anywhere near.

Movement overhead catches my eye. I barely have a chance to look up before a great beating of wings and screeching descends on me ¨C

- back in the bottomless barrenness, and I¡¯m across me again. I¡¯m ¨C that woman who looks like me and has my name, my voice. Gashes across her thighs that look like open mouths, leering at me.

¡°Lara Croft, aren¡¯t you?¡± said the woman evenly, staring me down.

¡°Aren¡¯t you?¡± I replied. It was like talking to a mirror with a mind of its own. In fact, I¡¯ve always wondered what a mirror with a mind of its own would say to me. Mirror mirror on the wall?

Her lips twisted into a smile, somewhat more of a grimace. ¡°No, we are not the same.¡± The smile disappeared. ¡°I envy you, you know. Which means you must have something that I do not. Or maybe you don¡¯t have something.¡±

I drew my Desert Eagle and cocked it at her head. At the same time, I felt the cool metal of a gun barrel touch my temple. Satisfied, I lowered my weapon.

¡°What was that for?¡± She too lowered the gun.

¡°We do have the same abilities. Just in case you were wondering. And by the way, you have a bit of my trust now, which isn¡¯t easy to come by these days.¡±

¡°Your vanity, Lara Croft, will always be your downfall.¡±

She disappears.

I¡¯m in some sort of prison, with a flat bunk that looks like an ironing board and lasers beams across the window. The walls and floors are of corrugated sheer metal, and the door, of course, is barred heavily. My pack is gone. It might as well be.

- tbc in chapter three -