The first thing Leo registered was the sound. It wasn't the rhythmic beep-beep-beep of a hospital monitor, nor the gentle hiss of an oxygen mask. It was a monstrous, chaotic symphony: the roar of a thousand angry gods, the thunderous BOOM of a colossal wave slamming metal, and the high, terrified shriek of a woman.
Then came the feeling. A brutal, disorienting lurch that threw his body against something cold and unforgiving. He tasted salt and copper, and the air was thick with the ozone tang of a ferocious storm.
Wait.
He was supposed to be dying. That was the last memo his frail, failing heart had sent. His final memory was the sterile white of the hospital ceiling, his fingers twitching toward the controller he couldn't hold.
Now, he was standing. Shivering, but undeniably on his own two feet.
He blinked the stinging seawater from his eyes, and the impossible became horrifyingly, breathtakingly real.
He was on the deck of a ship. Not a cruise liner, but a rugged, ill-fated research vessel. The deck was tilted at an insane angle, slick with rain and spray. Above, the sky was a bruised, churning abyss, unleashing a torrent that felt less like rain and more like a physical assault.
And then, his gaze locked onto the source of the high-pitched shriek.
Clinging to a railing, her silhouette briefly illuminated by a crack of lightning, was a woman in a heavy, dark coat. Her expression was a perfect blend of terror and raw, unyielding determination.
Lara Croft.
System Notification!
A translucent blue-and-gold panel BLAZED into existence directly in front of his eyes, overlaid on the raging storm.
[Host: Leo]
[Status: Reincarnated (Bound)]
[World: Earth Prime-7: Yamatai (Tomb Raider: Survivor Timeline)]
[Primary Mission: Survive the Sinking of the 'Endurance']
[Time Remaining: 00:05:47]
Leo didn't scream. He didn't faint. The sheer, overwhelming absurdity of the situation short-circuited his panic and replaced it with a surge of manic, gamer adrenaline.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
He was in a Progression Fantasy novel! No, wait—he was in the Tomb Raider game world! And not just any part, but the absolute worst, most brutally unforgiving opening: the sinking of the Endurance. Five minutes and forty-seven seconds until his second death, unless he hauled ass.
He was wearing soaked, unfamiliar clothes—heavy denim, a thick, slightly oversized woolen jumper. He looked down, and even his body felt… different. His chest, where the faulty heart had once labored, felt solid, powerful. No pain. No weakness.
He tested it by taking a running step. His movement was fluid, his balance instantly adjusting to the crazy pitch of the deck.
My physical stats must have been standardized for the game world's 'normal' baseline, a thought flashed through his mind, cool and detached, the kind of logic he'd apply when choosing a skill tree. No more 'Leo, the terminal patient.' I'm just… Leo, the cannon fodder.
"Hey! We need to get inside! Below deck!" he yelled, pointing toward a companionway, even though the wind stole his voice.
Lara was busy wrestling with a coil of rope that had snapped loose and threatened to trip her. She glanced up, her eyes flicking to him for barely a millisecond, registering him as just another terrified soul.
A massive, sickening crunch echoed from the ship's hull. The lights on deck, already sputtering, died completely, plunging the ship into a terrifying, rain-slicked gloom, broken only by flashes of lightning.
System Notification!
[Sub-Mission Unlocked!]
[Objective: Establish a Base Relationship with Primary Protagonist.]
[Reward: Starter Skill Unlock (Quick-Time Reflexes)]
[Failure: Mission Failed.]
Leo stared. A base relationship? On a sinking ship? Are you kidding me, System?
He knew the scene. He'd watched the cinematic a hundred times. Right now, Lara was about to be separated from everyone and thrown into an isolated survival scenario. If he was going to leverage his meta-knowledge of the game, he needed to stick to her like static cling.
He launched himself toward her.
The deck shuddered again, and this time, the Endurance felt like it was finally giving up the ghost. The ship was breaking apart.
A geyser of water and steam ERUPTED from a mangled section of the deck only ten feet from Lara. The explosive force was incredible.
A heavy, thick beam of snapped metal, maybe two meters long, was flung through the air directly toward her head.
Time seemed to distort, stretching into a viscous, slow-motion nightmare.
Lara saw it. She froze, her survival instincts kicking in a hair too late, her body still tangled in the rope.
This is the moment! The Hero moment!
Leo didn't think; he simply acted. He executed a diving roll, a move his old body couldn't have managed in a thousand years, closing the distance between them. He slammed his shoulder into Lara's side, tackling her hard, driving them both to the wet, splintered deck.
The metal beam whistled over the exact spot where her head had been, impacting the railing with a deafening CLANG and sparks, then tumbling into the raging sea.
Lara was shocked, breathing hard, but alive. She pushed herself up on an elbow and glared at him, ready to fight.
"What—"
"No time! The hull is breached forward!" Leo gasped, hauling her roughly to her feet. "We have to get into a sheltered space, now! The boat's splitting!"
He pulled her toward the companionway he'd spotted earlier—the hatch that would lead them down into the belly of the ship, which ironically was the safest route to the main common area before the final break-up. His mind, the mind of a seasoned gamer, was calculating escape vectors in a three-dimensional collapsing map.
The lower cargo deck is where the explosion happens. The bridge will be torn off. We need the passenger galley or the mess hall!
"Who are you?" Lara yelled, struggling to keep up as the ship groaned and plummeted to one side.
"Doesn't matter! Follow me!"
As they stumbled toward the hatch, the System panel flickered.
[Sub-Mission: Success!]
[Reward: Starter Skill Unlock (Quick-Time Reflexes) GRANTED!]
Leo felt a subtle, almost imperceptible shift inside his head, like a fresh software patch downloading directly to his brainstem. He didn't know what it meant, but he felt ready.
He ripped the hatch door open—it was unexpectedly heavy, but his new body handled it—and shoved Lara through. "Go! Go! Down the ladder!"
He slid in after her, slamming the heavy metal door shut just as a tidal wave of green-black water washed over the section of deck they had just vacated. The sudden, muffled quiet was deafening.
They were in a narrow, vertical service shaft. Lara was already halfway down the rusted metal ladder.
"Keep going! We need a central corridor!" Leo urged, descending quickly. He glanced at his System Timer.
[Time Remaining: 00:03:15]
Three minutes. He knew what was coming. The boiler room explosion. The final, spectacular split of the Endurance.
They reached a lower deck corridor. The air here was hot, thick with the smell of engine oil and fear. Water sloshed around their ankles, and the lights here were also dead, forcing them to use the emergency lights—dim red bulbs that only cast long, dancing shadows.
They heard voices. A small group of survivors huddled near a watertight door, led by a man with a scarred face—Conrad Roth, the ship's captain, judging by the character model.
"Roth! The forward hull is compromised! The ship is going to split in the next few minutes! We need to move to the escape pods now!" Leo shouted, his voice echoing in the narrow metal passage.
Roth, a man used to being in charge, looked at this soaking, unfamiliar young man with a mixture of confusion and irritation. "Who the hell are you? I'm assessing the damage. The lifeboats are—"
"The lifeboats are all destroyed or jammed! Trust me! We are in the final sequence! If we don't move now, we'll be trapped in this sinking half!" Leo pleaded, frustration bubbling up. They were wasting precious seconds on exposition!
"Final sequence?" Roth scoffed. "Son, I've been sailing for thirty years. No ship—"
A colossal, grinding SCREEEECH of tearing metal drowned him out. The floor beneath their feet dropped out suddenly, a bone-jarring, sickening fall. The red emergency lights winked out.
The ship was indeed tearing itself in two.
"See?!" Leo roared, instinctively grabbing Lara's arm and pulling her toward the opposite end of the corridor, away from the others, away from Roth and his ill-fated group. He knew this was the moment she got separated.
"Leo! What are you doing?!" Lara demanded, pulling against his grip.
"Saving your life! And mine!"
A wall of water, brown and frothing, surged down the corridor from the forward breach. It slammed into Roth and the other survivors, sweeping them away in a violent torrent. Roth's last visible moment was a look of grim recognition as the reality of Leo's warning hit him.
Leo and Lara were spared only because they had ducked behind a massive, bolted utility cabinet. But the cabinet was barely holding.
[Time Remaining: 00:01:00]
One minute. The boiler room was about to go.
"There! That hatch!" Leo yelled, pointing to a small maintenance hatch set high on the wall, near the ceiling. It led to the ship's ventilation system. The only way out of this section before it became a watery coffin.
Lara, finally realizing the depth of the disaster and the inexplicable accuracy of his information, didn't hesitate. She was a natural climber. She used a loose pipe and the cabinet to get a foothold.
"It's bolted!" she yelled, wrestling with the rusted latch.
Leo launched himself up beside her. His enhanced strength kicked in. He didn't bother with the latch; he just braced his feet against the wall and pulled on the hatch door with both hands—a raw, visceral effort.
The metal groaned, then tore free from its hinges with a horrible screech, falling into the sloshing water below.
A roar of compressed air and smoke billowed out of the vent.
"Go! Move!" Leo shoved Lara into the dark shaft.
He followed immediately. The space was tight, forcing them to crawl on their hands and knees over sharp, greasy metal. He could hear her scrambling ahead of him.
System Alert: Final Countdown!
The floor of the corridor below them gave way completely. A sound like a thousand freight trains colliding filled the air, the catastrophic BOOM of the boilers finally exploding.
Leo felt a massive pressure wave hit him from below. The vent shaft shuddered violently, and the world became a kaleidoscope of flashing red light and deafening noise.
He was thrown forward, tumbling through the shaft and out a grate that suddenly detached. He landed hard on a steep, slanted, metal surface.
He was outside again, but now he was on the ship's hull, which was pointing straight up at the sky like a broken finger. The air was colder, the wind more savage.
He slid, clawing desperately for a handhold. His fingers scraped uselessly against the hull's slick paint. He saw Lara just ahead, already gripping a jutting piece of rebar, her training and superior athleticism saving her.
"Leo! Grab my hand!" she screamed over the wind, stretching out a hand.
He lunged. Too late.
The section of the hull beneath him gave way with a final, heartbreaking sound. He plunged down, down, toward the churning, hungry black sea.
But before he hit the water, a new, blinding light flashed in his vision.
[Host: Leo]
[Death Condition Met: Drowning]
[Activating System Protocol: New Game Plus – Initial Load]
[Skill Acquired: Quick-Time Reflexes (Active)]
[Trait Acquired: Survivor's Luck (Passive)]
The icy water slammed into him, a physical shock that stole his breath and his consciousness. The last thing he saw, through the dark, turbulent water, was a final, chilling glow from his inner System.
[Mission Status: Primary Mission Failed. Survival Successful (System Override).]
[Chapter 1: End]