Chapter 1:

All the way up to the very end, I didn't want to acknowledge that I was going to die. Who could put into words the sudden horrifying revelation that you must die so the world could live? Who could even stop the knee jerk reaction to cry and wail at the world and fight tooth and nail for life?

The revelation I had as I realized that in order to stop the Mayan apocalypse, to stop Kukulkan from destroying the world, a god must die. Of course a god was immortal so to kill a god meant that it's mortal vessel must die.

It just so happened that I ended up as the god, Kukulkan's, mortal vessel, my skin shone with his divine light and my being felt suffused with power. Dominguez had used the power to teleport and shoot blasts of what must've been solar fire. I felt that I had those powers too, but there was almost a film over my thoughts, ever since I rejected the perfect world. A membrane I would have to push through to utilize such vast cosmic power.

I dimly thought back to the choice I made a few seconds before, where I chose to move forward, accept the tragedy of the past. If I had known that the choice was either the perfect past or this uncertain future, I doubted I would have the strength of will to choose saving everyone again.

Crimson Fire, the priestess queen of the Yaaxil tribe barred her deformed and misshapen teeth into something similar to a grimace, or perhaps a smile of painful sympathy and held out a mask, the gilded mask of royalty, the crown of the Queen of the Damned. With shaking hands I donned the mask, allowing it to settle firmly across the bridge of my nose and turned away to stare out at the eclipse far above.

I had come this far, why should I falter now? I thought of the people my theft of the dagger had brought increasing destruction too. To the millions hurt by the floods, earthquakes, and fiery hail, and I steeled myself. Perhaps, I did deserve death, after all. All I had brought to the world, all I had brought to my friends and family seemed to be ruin and sorrow. Yes, I could amend my failings and exult in self sacrifice.

I climbed onto the sacrificial altar and reclined, not bothering to remove my weapons, the trusty bow and firearms digging into my back. My faithful weapons, so marred by blood and death, it was right for them to witness my end. I exhaled readying myself for the strike, as Crimson Fire raised the Key of Chak Chel into the air.

I closed my eyes, and finally dispelled the last idle fantasies of grabbing my pistol and shooting Crimson Fire, fighting my way out of the Yaaxil and saving the world another way. I knew this time, there was no other way. There was only death.

I heard the swiff of fabric and then a most terrible pain in my chest, I let out a pained gurgle, my eyes sought to fly open and then I felt a hand reach into the newly opened hole and then I felt nothing. One moment I was lying upon a stone table with a newly opened route to my heart, and in another moment I was suddenly underwater.

Being underwater was no strange thing, sometimes I felt like I spent more time swimming than anything else, especially when actively exploring. Of course, I usually didn't suddenly jerk into wakefulness several meters underwater. Which didn't actually even make sense, since if I was truly unconscious and underwater, I should've drowned. Instead my mouth was firmly closed, and since I hadn't opened it in shock, it felt like I had a full lungful of air.

I didn't stop and marvel at my impossible fortune but turned and pushed strongly upwards, where I could see light glittering above. The weight of my weapons and sodden clothes weighed me down but I was used to such weight after several years of tomb raiding, of which a significant portion were underwater. Or if they weren't underwater when I started my exploration, they were underwater by the end.

Honestly, sometimes my life felt like an Indiana Jones movie, lots of old sites and death defying stunts. I breached the water a moment after I let that thought sink in. Wreckage and flotsam surrounded me, I was in the middle of a city. A city currently being flooded. I felt the cold nagging grasp of despair well up inside me, not resisting as the surging waves swept me further into the city.

I must've failed then. Perhaps, I wasn't a worthy sacrifice? I smashed into a piece of wood, a wooden telephone pole, and instinctively grabbed it. My side burned from the impact, and I gingerly felt my side, yes, several ribs were probably broken. I took a deep breath in, letting the pain flare through my side and focused my mind.

Despairing on what could've been is no way to survive this, Lara, get a hold of yourself! I slowly inched up the wooden beam, and laboriously pulled myself from the water. I noticed then that I only had the straps to my rifle and shotgun, the guns themselves were missing. With a grimace I stopped clutching them and let them fall into the surging water.

I rubbed tears from my eyes, that formed despite my soaked condition and attempted to quell the sobs that threatened me. I looked at the water, what had I wrought? I remembered the tsunami at the beginning of my South American hunt for Trinity, was this flood also my fault? Would the disasters continue until the world was remade?

I just leaned back and let the rain hit my face, and tried to reorder my thoughts. Of course the moment I was trying to forget the world was when the world decided to reintroduce itself, violently.

With a crack, the beam broke and I was face to face with a towering titan made of sinuous green flesh, it had long grasping arms and glowing green eyes set asymmetrically in its head. It regarded me for a moment with a long inhuman gaze. Everything felt quiet, I couldn't hear the rushing of water or the sounds of distant destruction.

I could hear the pounding of my blood in my ears, the shaky inhale that rattled my lungs and made my side send sharp jabs of pain up my side. The thing stared at me, almost seeming to evaluate me with its many non blinking eyes, I felt like I was under the gaze of a microscope, an ant suffering under the gaze of a bird. A hare staring into the eyes of a fox, waiting for the moment to break. Some indication of what direction to flee, the idea of fighting didn't even enter into my mind.

I heard a dull crack, of the sound barrier being broken and the thing lurched backwards, nimbly dodging a flying woman clad all in black with a tower upon her chest, the slight amount of exposed flesh around her lower face was tan and her eyes were hidden by a black visor. The water seemed almost to float around the thing that she was attacking.

"Leviathan at my position," She snarled into her armband before charging forward in mid air towards the thing, which was evidently called Leviathan. I leapt towards a nearby building, rising in a smooth arc from my sinking beam, my hand going to my trusty climbing axe, the right one of course, I'd never trust the left one. With the ease of long practice I swung the axe out and felt it catch on an outcropping on the building and swung myself free.

I felt a breeze at my back and then sharp pain, sparing a glance back I noticed that Leviathan was right behind me, and that his long claws had just barely graced across my back, leaving shallow lacerations through my Blue Heron tunic. It was already ruined before this, mud and dirt, twigs and blood, and a gaping hole in the front and it wasn't really salvageable.

I flung my left climbing axe out catching on my quick attachment rope, and threw the axe lodging it in another outcropping and allowing myself to swing away from this "Leviathan". I heard a crash and another boom behind me, and could feel more than see the impact of whan was presumably the tower lady into Leviathan.

I didn't spare her another glance but focused on hauling myself up the crumbling stone building. It was nice enough, nice handholds at least, but the moment I spent climbing gave me a chance to think. I had no idea why there was an actual water beast demon creature after me. Barring the few instances of ritual magic, I hadn't actually ran into anything that blatantly supernatural. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure I would've noticed, even as antisocial as I was if actual superheroes existed. Afterall, what else could the woman be? She flew, was super strong, and wore a super suit.

I reached the top of the building and hauled myself over the ledge, collapsing on the top of the relatively safe building. Almost unbidden my hand went to my radio, and I almost wept in relief when I was graced with the glowing green screen of the working radio. I pulled it towards my face, when the screen suddenly went dark. Abruptly. What?

"No, no, no." I murmured, turning the radio over. I spent a moment to console myself by disparately noting that I was nowhere near Paititi, so it was unlikely anyone I knew would pick up anyways.

I got to my feet on shaky legs and stumbled over the broken building top to stare down at the destroyed city, I spotted Leviathan again, this time facing a blue figure in what appeared to be power armor, a large humanoid bug watched from behind a piece of masonry as the armored figure drew a large halberd. I could hear him speaking as he struck forward at Leviathan, but couldn't make out the words.