The story begins with a business deal. Victor Sullivan is in the office of a mansion discussing a business deal with a man named Thomas Jameson.
Sullivan asks Jameson, “So…tell me more about this little trinket that you want us to acquire?”
Jameson casually answers, “It’s just that. A simple little trinket.”
Sullivan isn’t convinced. He’s seen more than one deal go left because they weren’t given all of the important information. So, he says, “Hey, you and I both know there aint nothin ever simple in this business. If it were simple, hell, you’d do it.”
Jameson says, “True.”
Sullivan says, “So what is it that you’re not telling me? What kind of surprises should we expect?”
Jameson says, “Well, it is in a cave…in the middle of a jungle. There’s nothing atypical about the jungle but the cave..the cave is…an unusual cave.”
Sullivan says, “In what way?”
Jameson says, “For starters, there are traps in the cave.”
Cut to:
INT. Cave – Day
Inside a cave, barely holding on to the edge of a ledge is Nathan Drake as he struggles to climb up. His brother, Sam climbs up behind him. Once they reach the top, they both lay on their back to catch their breath.
Nathan out of breath says, “Booby traps. I hate booby traps.”
Cut to:
INT. Mansion Office – Day
Sullivan says, “You mean booby traps? Ahh hell that’s just part of the job. Tell me something I don’t know.”
Cut to:
INT. Cave – Day
Sam and Nathan walk down a hallway in the cave. There are tree roots down both sides of the hallway. The roots are strange. They’re deep dark green in color with scales.
Sam looks at the root closely and says, “Is that a root? It looks like it has scales.”
The air from his voice makes the root move ever so slightly. Nathan and Sam both see the movement and step back.
Nathan says, “That’s not a root.” He takes out his flashlight, flashes it on the root and it wiggles. He follows it with his flashlight all the way to the ceiling and sees it has a spider for a head. The ceiling is full of spider heads and the walls are covered with their snake tails.
Sam notices that they move with a ripple effect. When one moves, others move with it. He says, “Nathan, turn off the light.”
Nathan says, “Why?”
Sam says, “They’re sensitive to the light. Look at them” He points to the ceiling.
The ceiling is slowly waking up to a cluster of crawling spider heads.
Nathan says, “Let’s go back.”
Sam grabs Nathan’s arm, pulls him to the ground and says, “Get down!”
The strange creatures lower their tails in an attempt to reach the light.
Sam says, “Shit.”
Nathan turns down the light to a low dim and the snake creatures calm down.”
The entire ceiling is covered with these creatures and they can’t go back now that the entrance is covered with snake tails.
Sam asks, “Do you want to know what happens when you touch one of those tails?”
Nathan answers, “No.”
Sam says, “Neither do I, so don’t touch their tail.”
Cut to:
INT. Mansion Office – Day
Jameson doubts Sullivan’s confidence and asks, “Are you sure? It’s rumored that there are strange animals living in those caves.”
Sullivan confidently says, “All we need is a little gasoline and fire. Most animals will either burn or run at the sight of fire. Either way will get rid of them.”
Cut to:
INT. Cave – Day
Sam and Nathan slowly crawl on the ground avoiding the tails. Unfortunately, as they move with the light, creatures drop their tails closer and closer to it. Nathan and Sam and Nathan continue to crawl lower also and eventually are belly crawling.
Sam asks, “Why did Sully tell us to bring gasoline and matches again? I’m confused.”
Nathan answers, “Just shut up and crawl.”
They continue to crawl towards the end of the hallway. There seems to be a clearing at the end, unfortunately the spider snakes are also getting larger and more restless with the light even though the light is dim.
Sam asks, “What are these things?”
Nathan answers, “Face rapers.”
Sam says, “That’s not funny.”
Nathan says, “It’s a little funny.”
Sam says, “Not right now it’s not.”
A tail drops so low to the ground that it almost touches Nathan’s flashlight.
Sam says, “Shit. That was close. You’ve gotta get rid of that flashlight.” Sam looks back down the hallway from where they came from and says, ”Slide the flashlight back down the hall.”
Nathan says, “Good idea.” He slides his flashlight back down the hall as far as he can. On its way, the flashlight hits a rock so that skips up and touches one of the tails. Then a group of spider snakes fall from the ceiling onto the flashlight.
The swirl of crawling slithers cover the flashlight. They make a clicking sound as they try to destroy it. There is no escape for the flashlight. Nathan and Sam stop and stare in horror at the sight of them. Then they crawl as quickly as they can to the clearing at the end of the hallway.
Cut to:
INT. Mansion Office – Day
Skeptical, Jameson says, ”Brute force doesn’t always work.”
Sullivan says, ”I agree, but my point is-“
Jameson finishes his sentence and says, ”You have a plan.”
Sullivan says, ”Always.”
Cut to:
INT. Cave – Day
Safely away from the spider snakes Sam expresses his extreme irritation with the cave. Pointing back towards the hallway, Sam says, “That was bullshit. What kind of sick demented mind would create a booby trap like that?”
Nathan says, “You mean other than your ex-girlfriend Crissy?”
Sam says, “Yeah…I mean…hey, she was alright. Just misunderstood.”
Nathan says, “Really?!”
Sam says, “Can we stay focus? We are looking for a treasure, right?”
Seemingly unbothered by their previous predicament, Nathan looks at a map and says, “It shouldn’t be too far”. He points at the map and says, “There. Straight up ahead.”
Nathan and Sam come to a wall with small tablets attached to it in a block format. Each tablet has strange markings written on it. Nathan reaches in his back pocket and pulls out his journal. He flips through the pages until he finds a drawing matching the strange markings.
Nathan says, “This is it. The key should be on the other side of this wall.”
Sam says, “Ok…so, how do we get past it?”
Nathan says, “You see these markings?”
Sam says, “Yeah?”
Nathan says, “It’s part of a riddle. This says:”
Nathan points to the picture in his journal and says, “‘The beautiful light will guide your way’ and the 2nd half of the riddle says, ‘but bitter darkness will seal your fate’.”
Sam says, “Doesn’t take much to figure out what that means.”
Nathan says, “Yeah…but look. The markings are almost identical to each other. It’s almost impossible to tell them apart.”
Sam says, “Ok, then how do you know that this way means ‘The light will show the way’ or whatever?”
Unsure of himself Nathan says, “I have a feeling?”
Sam says, “That’s not good enough.”
Nathan says, “Well…” Nathan reaches out to touch one of the tablets on the wall “maybe if we just-“
When he touches a tablet, it triggers another booby trap. The walls on both sides of the cave start closing in on them.
Sam yells, “Oh shit! What did you do?”
Nathan says, “I touched a tablet.”
Sam says, “Never mind that! Just solve the damn riddle and get us out of here.”
Nathan slides the tablets around like a sliding block puzzle. He constantly looks back and forth from his journal for confirmation.
Sam says, “Nathan! Hurry up! These walls are getting mighty close.”
Nathan says, “I’m going as fast as I can.”
Sam says, “I’m gonna try to brace the walls with something.”
Sam finds rocks and tries to jam them in the crevice of the closing walls. It has no effect. Then he grabs a branch and tries to brace it against the closing walls. The walls crush the branch.
Sam says, “Nathan! We’re running out of time here!”
Nathan says, “Almost got it.”
Sam says, “Almost will still get us killed!”
The walls are closing in when there’s a loud clicking sound.
Nathan says, “Got it!”
The front wall opens from the bottom, but the side walls are still closing in.
Sam sees the opening and says, “Quick, get under the wall!”
They both scramble under the wall and make it to the other side.