A/N: How I was able to write this sad story on Christmas beats me. But enjoy this darker, twisted sense of how the apocalyptic world of Resident Evil could play out. Yes, this is an Alice/Claire fiction, and yes, it is dark and depressing. I warn you now. This is not fluff or sap. This is hard, nitty gritty stuff. Enjoy, and please read and review.

Closer

Chapter One: Flickering Hope

Alice:

What else was left here? There was nothing, no one left but me. The world was still an empty wasteland, barren of any other life forms besides the occasional crow, or dog. But even then, those were few and far between. I was the lone wanderer; lost in her own intentions. Why was I still here? There was no point. Everyone I had known was dead, or assumed to be dead. Everyone except…Claire.

I couldn't even think about her name without feeling a slight well of old emotions building up in the back of my throat. I had left for the simple reason that Umbrella was going to harm people in order to get to me. Sure, we had survived the attack on the Arcadia, barely, and had landed in Seattle for a while. I couldn't stay. Not after that. I was putting two thousand people in danger, and for what? A chance to be happy? A chance to love? No. Not in this world. I had already put Claire and the others in danger more times than I could count. I already had guilt seeping into my soul with every minute of my existence in the apocalyptic world. It was my fault. If I had been more careful, then Spence never would've been able to spy on us, and let the virus loose. Umbrella would've been exposed, but then, I never would've met Claire. Was it selfish to want it that way?

She was always the selfless one. Always looking out for other people, putting them before herself whether it was for food, or her own safety. The woman was dedicated, reckless, and strong. I missed her in so many ways. Even from the way she would glance at me across the fire, to the way we had made love. Hard and fast, just in case we were taken by surprise and attacked. I missed her touch; I missed everything about the woman. Step after step, I took them painfully, memories being the only things I could hold onto.

Day in, day out. Night came as always, the moon high in the sky among the stars. I wondered if maybe Claire was looking up at the same thing. I wondered if she even remembered me. She had just started to recall everything between us when we got to the ship. If only her brother hadn't been there by her side, we could've shared another moment together. I missed the days back in Nevada where we could stay the night in the bright yellow Hummer truck, lock the doors, and just have at each other like long lost lovers. Sitting alone in the cold wastelands, I kept my knees tucked to my chest in a pathetic attempt for self-comfort. I hadn't encountered anything in the past five years. The cities were picked clean of the undead. Whether it was from scavenging crows, or survivors who cleaned up well with limited ammunitions, I wasn't sure. Whatever the reason, there wasn't much left to do, and there certainly wasn't anything to find. Or anyone. The slight hope that I would one day find Claire was soon fading. It had been five years; if she was still alive, it would be a miracle. If she wasn't alive, which was more likely, I'd at least like to find her body. As morbid as it sounded, at least then I'd finally be at ease. The mere fact that her whereabouts were unknown was what drove me to the edge. I had to find her, I just had to.

Claire:

Five years. That was how long ago the incident on the Arcadia had happened. Two years ago, my brother died. He fell sick to something that wasn't the T-Virus, and died when we were living in Alaska in a colony that the survivors and I had founded and built. Six months ago, I walked into my cabin to find K-mart clutching onto my Glock-17, a bullet lodged in her skull. A part of me died that day along with her. All that time, K had been her happy, smiling self. I never suspected she wanted to die when she was doing so well, when we were doing so well. People had gotten sick with the flu and other illnesses that we didn't have vaccines for. There was nothing we could do but hope. The older people of the survivors had long past, and the young ones had grown up in five years' time. One couple even managed to have a baby. But, along with the others we had lost in the past, there was nothing to sustain them. Food was minimal, and sometimes the mere cold of the winter killed them. Death was ever present, looming over us in the grey Alaskan sky with his scythe, ready to take more lives from us all.

Five years. I couldn't believe it. I had buried every single one of those two thousand survivors from the Arcadia. If I had known that was going to be our fate, I never would've come back to Alaska. Everything but the infected was the cause of death among the colony. Graves littered the edge of the forest, marked first with crosses, but as more and more died, I ran out of things. Most are marked by stones, or plants even. K-mart…she was buried by a large pine tree so I'd be able to remember the spot exactly. She had been one of the last ones to survive, but after the small, young family perished from some disease, she couldn't take it anymore. She had made sure to use a magazine with only two bullets in the chamber. Maybe she had saved it for me. I considered it too. After all, there was nothing left. No one was around, and the world as I had known it was gone. But there was one reason I didn't blow my brains out; Alice.

I knew when she told me she was leaving that there was no stopping her. She was more stubborn than I was, and that was saying something. She knew she had to leave for the fact that she didn't want to see us get harmed by Umbrella because of her. We fought off the assault, barely, and lived to tell the tale to any other survivors we had found along the way up the coast. But as we hit Seattle, I watched her pack her ever present shotguns with rolled up coins for shells. She was determined to leave, and even as I tried to ask her to stay, she couldn't even look me in the eyes. I knew she was hurting, as was I. But that was how it went. That was how she had done it with Carlos back when the world had first ended. She came back eventually, and deep down, I had the hope that even now after five years, she'd still come home. It was weak hope, one that was barely keeping my sanity in check.

I sat on the porch of the cabin I used to reside in. After K-mart had ended her own life, I couldn't bring myself to go back inside, and instead slept in another cabin here and there, or if it was warm enough, I slept outside most nights. There was no wildlife to be heard, and only the wind sang occasionally. The stars shone bright, glittering in the azure sky. I wondered if Umbrella had ever caught up to Alice. If they did, what did they do to her? Kill her? Experiment on her some more? Or maybe she was out there. Maybe she was okay. Maybe she was looking for me. If she was alive, I had the faintest flicker of hope that maybe she hadn't forgotten me. Sighing, I curled up on the porch floor boards. Alone again. I was beginning to wonder just how much longer I could go on for. How much longer could I wait for her?