I don't think I was supposed to find it. Honestly, I hadn't even considered that the thing would have still been functional after everything. I mean, we were barely functional. But I suppose that's the price of having my hands so far into the film world; things stop seeming so real when you're looking through a glass lens, when you're staring at a little, flat versions of the ones you love.

I sit against my bed tiredly and just hold the camera for a while; we'd just had the remnants of our belongings mailed in from Okinawa, Lara with her many relics and journals, and me with my phone, my torn up jacket, and my camera. Out of everything we'd brought, our clothes, our supplies. Our friends. These were the items fate chose for us.

Lara would probably throttle me if I said that out loud. Well, not throttle, obviously, but just furrow her brow and sigh like I'd just punched her in the gut and give me that heavy, glassed over gaze. I hate that look, mostly because I know she's not into all that girly manipulative garbage so when she looks at you like that it means the cogs in her brain are actually thinking around the words you'd said. Lara's the last person that deserves to be hurt, and somehow, she's caught the worst of it in every way.

I flicked through the first five or six of the videos, recalling the footage from the Endurance I'd shot for filler. Whitman's face, freeze-frame and toothy, makes me cringe. That untrustworthy smirk, that terrible down-the-middle part in his hair. Looking at him now, I can't believe any of us bought his bullshit; he looked like the definition of a dirty scumbag. I exhale around a curse and turn the joystick to the right, watching a little too intently when his features twisted for a second and disappeared. I delete the footage of him with the fish, even though the filmmaker in me screamed in response.

The next to click into frame was my peeking in on Lara in her room, nose in her notes and maps. I feel my lips tug at the edges as I watch her bite the inside of her cheek and fuss over her own certainty. Oh, Lara. If only you knew how right you were the whole time.

As I come to the place I think the list would halt, I scroll through another dozen videos by accident. What the hell? I'm sure the last moment I captured on this particular device was Lara and Roth's 'penguin pajama' conversation; I remember because I'd teased her relentlessly for it. These ones aren't titled, and the timestamp is after the shipwreck swallowed the Endurance.

Hesitantly, I press down on the first of the alien additions. It loads up, and I hold my breath.

6:07 AM

Lara fidgets with the position of the frame and presses her intertwined fingers against her nose and forehead. Her cheeks are flushed and her skin is wet, smeared with dirt and maybe blood. She takes a long, shaky inhale before speaking, and she doesn't speak for a while.

"Sam would be angry with me if I didn't document this in her place."

I cover my mouth with an open palm as my eyes widen at the screen is disbelief. Lara…had taken videos on the island?

"I should start at the beginning. So much has already happened." She sniffs, scoots closer to a fire she must have just gotten going a moment ago to stock it, and wipes her eyes anxiously. Even on the small screen I can see how badly she was shaking.

"I…The Endurance has been shipwrecked. We were caught in a storm in the early morning, I think it might have torn the whole thing in half, I remember falling…"

I shiver as I recall the frantic shock of the wreck. I'd been on the same side as Roth when it happened, and he was a guy that always had a plan, but Lara and Jonah were trapped on the other end. Honestly, I don't know how we got to shore. I washed up away from everyone, and I'd figured they all found each other on the other side of the beach.

"I managed to get to shore. When I tried calling for the others, something struck me in the back of the head. I passed out, but I know I was being dragged somewhere."

I sit up in an alarmed way as she explains waking up in a cave, hung upside down and spun in a mouldering tarp.

"I had to light myself on fire to get out. I thought at the time it was a good idea, but I fell on something. A piece of rebar."

Her hand balls around a bloody corner of her abdomen and my heart thrashes with recognition. That wound.

"I didn't tell Roth I was hurt when I got him on the radio. I…don't want him getting into worse trouble trying to get to me."

Another long pause, punctuated with a quivering inhale. Slowly, she sits on her knees and lifts the hem of her singlet. I catch myself gasping, though I've seen the wound already. Only, when I saw it, Lara was different. This Lara was scared. She was lost, and alone, and desperate. She wasn't the Lara that could handle an injury that serious, not yet. She was still the Lara that giggled shyly and had trouble staying up late and couldn't stand B-pluses on papers. She looked absolutely terrified.

"I'm going to track down the others. I found Sam's pack, I think they headed inland. And I need to find food…" She looks at the ground for a long time, and speaks only after closing her eyes and counting to three quietly to calm herself down. "Alright, I'll…ehm…do another if I find anything else."

She reaches close, and the AV connection cuts.

Holy shit, this is…really important. And there's more. A lot more. I dig my nails into my palms and consider the implications of actually going through these without her present. I mean, should I be looking at these at all? She said she was documenting, since I couldn't…but what if that changes? Like she did?

My heart tightens up in my chest. I want to know what did this to her. I want to see, all of it, from beginning to end. She'll only tell me certain things, and even then, there are instances where I can tell she'd lied. To protect me, I'm sure, but I want to see her story.

With unsure intention, I drag the cursor to the next screenshot, hover for a couple of tense seconds and click on it.

This time, it's just black, audio only. Probably got turned on from all of the bouncing around on her belt; I've got to admire the microphone on that thing, even pressed up against rustling fabric and metal its picked up Whitman's gross, crackly voice. Lara's voice, on the other hand, is lower and not at all like that of a serial killer, so I can only make it out intermittently.

"…make sense, Doctor Whitman. People…murderers –hope-…"

"This is culture, Lara. When we finish our work here, you'll understand. We are standing on a gold mine!"

"…need to find our people-Whit-"

It cuts fast; the system must have noticed that the audio had been tapped with the cap on and turned itself off to conserve battery. But even then, only four hours after the first recording, Lara sounds thoroughly sick of Whitman and his capitalist idealism. I can't help but think that if they'd crossed paths now, with the way she's developed, she might just gut him on sight.

Without thinking further, I roll over onto my stomach and find the next one. She's set up again, looking very intent. Her eyes have begun to change, dark and tired, and she's decorated with a copious amount of blood. Her arm reaches towards me as she adjusts the focus, and then, for a long while, she just stares forward with her hands gripping harshly to her temples. It's dark, darker than before, and the light of the fire behind her casts some pretty fantastic shadows across her face and chest; I dare say she might have actually been paying attention to some of my droning during movies and nature shows.

She inhales, and holds it in her lungs for so long I actually begin counting the passing moments as they tick away on the stop clock. When she lets it go, it comes out as a harsh, choked sob that makes my throat close up and my eyes haze over. I knew what she was going to say before she did.

"I killed a man today."

She wipes at the dried mess across her cheek and neck and rubs the foot of her palm into her brow.

"He…hmn…He had me. Uhm, pinned." She talked as if distracted by something behind the camera, around her, in the brush. On the other side of the pit, I could just make out Roth, sleeping off a bad leg wound; she watched him absently before continuing. "My arms were tied, I couldn't get away fast enough. He's, uhm, he was going to…"

Her arms grip at themselves, scraping lines through the dirt. "I had to. I had to. He would have done worse. I had to do it."

He would have. Oh, Lara. Thinking about a guy doing that to her just makes me quake with anger, and even worse, things like that could have happened and I wouldn't have known. Of course I cared, but while we were there, in Hell, things happened so terrifyingly fast. We didn't have time to be precious, we didn't have the mental fortitude to keep getting up.

No, that's wrong. Lara did, more than any of us. She'd go off, come back with a new maze of cuts and twisted bruises, rest for minutes at a time and go off again.

"At first I was making these for Sam. Now, I…I'm not sure I ever want her to see this. Sam. God, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have fallen asleep. I knew I shouldn't have trusted that man."

She sniffs, and sighs.

"I'm going get her back. I've found Roth, and gotten the radio from the caverns. I had to fight some wolves for it." She kind of chuckles at herself in a frustrated way, but the smile dies fast. "Everything hurts. I'm going to try to get some sleep before Roth wakes up. Til next time."

Cut to black.

I was right. These were private, or at least, they were something she needed then without my being involved. I close the screen to the side of the camcorder and hold it to my chest, evening out my thoughts, and turning onto my side. Lara would be home from her appointment soon; she'd popped the stitches on her forehead while she was jogging and fortunately some poor lady had to stop her and direct her to the nearest hospital.

We could talk about this. I itched to watch the rest, her story, the parts her refused to tell, or that I couldn't have even guessed. After all of this, I felt like I owed her that recognition. She deserved for every moment, every scar and nightmare and memory to be heard, to be validated. That guilt, she let it weigh so heavily against her that sometimes I think she might be crushed.

The phone in my back pocket buzzes gently just as I'm getting comfortable against the pillow; it smells like Lara's shampoo, and Lara's lotion, and Lara, and even before Yamatai that earthy scent has always relaxed me. I set the camera on the bedside table and reach for it, tapping in my code and scanning the text quickly. The name at the top is simply, "The Nerd."

Be home in 10.

I prop my head on my hand and type with my free one, leaning it against the headboard. Yes, ma'am.

I giggle when I can almost hear her clear her throat indignantly at that title.

Could you order take away? I feel like I haven't eaten in weeks.

The usual?

No vegetables, please. Just the chicken and beef.

Carnivore.

Yea, yea.

I make the call right before I pass out, somehow exhausted and lethargic from a day of pure recuperation. Just as my mind gets fuzzy and dark at the edges, I see Lara shivering close to a fire, her torn and bloodied body flickering in and out of focus.