Motion
She can't stop.
If she stops she's dead.
Hot breath is on her neck, a cerberus at her heels as she crashes through the under brush praying to a God she isn't sure is real anymore.
Just please don't let me trip, please don't. Please dear God. Pleasepleaseplease.
The others are out there, Chris, Barry, and the Captain, but she can't care about them now. The world has narrowed to her boots on uneven ground, the air in her lungs, and the hot breath on her neck.
Later the guilt will make her search for Chris all the harder. Later she will see the scrapes and scratches branches left on her skin as she crashed headlong through the trees.
Now she doesn't have time to think.
The door is finally in sight, some kind of refuge from the hell hounds at her back. The hardwood door slams shut just in time on their snarling jaws.
Jill leans against it for just a moment. Slowing down for just a moment too long.
Oh God.
They are there. Joe Frost with his ragged flesh and teethmarked bone, Enrico Marini with the bleeding bullet hole Wesker left in him. Brad Vickers will live until Racoon itself is overrun but somehow he is here too, dead eyes white and filmy.
The ones she didn't save.
"Jiiiiiiilllllll..." The moans are her name, the accusation left unsaid. Why did you survive? What gave you the right? You belong here. With us. Jill.
Perhaps she does. Part of her has never left.
Her feet don't stop, not even when muscles scream and shake. If she stops they will get her.
You belong here.
If she stops...
The doors of the mansion are endless, the hallways stretching for miles.
Until a hallway has no exit, doors opening to bricks and mortar. The Mansion will never be long enough. Everything has an end.
Even her.
The shambling things are surprisingly fast, hot rancid breath forever on her neck. Her hands grasp the knob of the last door.
Please God.
The figure in the doorway wears an old blue S.T.A.R.S. uniform complete with ridiculous shoulder pads. Splotches of blood dot the material, beret still in place over matted dark hair.
You belong here.
Dull blue eyes in a once-pretty face stare back at her, mouth stained with blood. A face she knows so very well.
Her own.
The scream echoes in her living room, coffee cup crashing off the table to the floor. Jill whirls, grabbing for the gun she is never without, blue eyes dancing frantically from door to door.
Please God. Please.
Looking for the faces she knew so well, listening for the familiar shuffling gate. The small white doorways in her kitchen nook are empty, free of blood and the smell of decay.
Nothing. Thank you God.
Newspaper clippings litter the table, small red circles made around names and dates.
She had passed out at the table, face first in her research. Again.
Whenever she slows down they are waiting.
For years they will wait. The dead are patient.
She makes a fresh pot of the blackest coffee she can find. This Jill Valentine is a creature of perpetual motion; always searching, arguing, and fighting.
Running from a placed wiped off the map.
The Jill Valentine who secretly loved chick flicks and lazy evenings in her pajamas is still in the Mansion with Joe and the others. The Jill with hope bright in her eyes and happy dreams in her sleep.
She is dead. Her rotting lips are smeared with blood.
Please.
Slender hands shake as she ties her shoes, quaking so badly she almost can't make the knot. Tears she can't let fall well in her eyes. If they start she is afraid they will never stop.
You can't run if you can't see.
She cannot stop.
They are waiting.
She is waiting.
Always.
Please God. Please.
A/N: I was trying to write happy things. Didn't go so well.
One my reviews said this was a crappy sexless version of a fic called "Jabberwock". I don't know, haven't read it. I'm sure someone else has done the whole Jill-running-from-zombies-in-her-dreams-and-being-terrified-of-sleeping better than I have.
But do please try to be nice about saying so, yeah?
Thanks.