Whisper of Hell
A/N: This completely disregards Extraction Point and Perseus Mandate. Just thought I'd get that out of the way before I get some people confused. This means Jin and Holiday are quite alive, and the weird Alma stuff in EP and PM never happened. K? K.
Disclaimer: I don't own F.E.A.R. Any of it. At all. Except my copy of the game.
Prologue
Recollection
-
He had seen her.
That was no illusion. It couldn't have been. Even Jin and Holiday felt the shudder.
So why was it was overlooked? They considered it a hallucination; something that was a result of the traumatic experience. "Alma is dead," they would tell him. "Nothing could survive that."
But Alma Wade was far from nothing.
John Davis, current point man for a F.E.A.R. team that didn't even exist anymore, knew what he saw. He had seen the ghastly figure of his mother, eyes filled with hate, as she climbed into his helicopter. That was when everything went black. The next thing he knew, he woke up in the medical wing of F.E.A.R. headquarters with the worst headache he had ever experienced.
And four hours later, he was still there, asking and answering questions.
"Davis…I'm telling you, no one was there." Betters stated for quite possibly the millionth time. "Alma is dead. The helicopter screwing up was probably from some weird electrical problem. Nothing survives a nuke." Davis remained silent. Betters sighed, and began to stare at the ceiling. "Alright, honestly, screw all the other questions. I just want an answer to this one."
The F.E.A.R. team coordinator sat down next to Davis's bed, looking him straight in the eye. "What the hell happened in the vault, soldier?"
John closed his eyes, leaning back onto the wall. What happened, indeed. "Alma was released. Harlan and Alice Wade are dead." He muttered after a few moments. Betters was silent, and Davis obviously knew he wanted more. "I…killed Fettel. Bullet between the eyes."
"Well, that's one good thing I've heard so far."
"He wanted me to do it."
"…What?"
Davis remembered it all very vividly. His eyes would never forget coming upon Paxton Fettel cannibalizing the remains of Alice Wade, unaware of his presence. But soon enough, that turned sour. Actually, it was worse than sour – when Alma phased through the wall and John's vision went white, one would say it had gone straight to hell.
"You still don't know, do you? What you are. Why you're here."
At the time, John knew what the answers to those questions were. He knew everything about the incident. He knew he was the point man of an elite response squad to combat the supernatural or otherwise out of the ordinary. He knew he was here to stop Alma from being released, and to kill Paxton Fettel.
But after he found out who Fettel really was…and, as it turned out, who Alma was…he also found that he didn't know the answers to them anymore. He did, however, have answers to several more questions.
"What's the first thing you remember?"
There was none.
"What's your given name?"
Nothing.
"Where were you born?"
Nowhere.
"You have no history."
The fact paralyzed him then. So much he almost forgot to pull the trigger on his weapon when Alma's nightmares rushed him. He couldn't remember anything. He was nothing.
John Davis? Where did the name even come from? It came from nothing. John Davis was essentially no one.
"You and I were born from the same mother."
It wasn't until an hour later, trapped in one of Alma's freak hospital visions, that he realized what this really meant. Alma was his mother. Fettel was as close to a brother as it could have possibly been. And he, John Davis, was the firstborn – the failed first prototype of the Origin project. Despite this, his conditioned mind required that the threat be dealt with, and he fired upon her when he was able to.
"…There was no resistance." He told Betters. It wasn't a lie; not really. Fettel hadn't stopped him from blasting his brains out. He didn't know why. He presumed he never would.
The coordinator looked like he was hit by the broad side of a truck. He seemed to be searching for what to say as he stared at Davis for what seemed like an eternity. "…All that, and he let you kick his ass like a ride at Disney World?!" he finally screamed. It didn't make much sense, but it was all he could come up with.
"There's one other thing you should probably know." John continued. "Three, technically. One, Harlan Wade is dead because Alma killed him."
"Figured as much."
"Two, I believe I filled Alma with about two to three entire clips from an SMG. And she was still walking."
"…Okay…" Betters really did not like hearing that, but he convinced himself if was just because Alma screwed with his point man's mind too much.
"And three, Alma was dead."
Betters breathed a sigh of relief. "Finally, you understand. I thought you'd never…"
"That's not what I meant, sir."
Davis's superior froze, and cocked an eyebrow. He was waiting for a response now. No reason to let it linger.
"Alma died six days after they pulled the plug on Origin, sir." He paused. "In case you don't realize what that means, she was dead before any of this started."
With that, Betters felt a bead of sweat run down his face. He'd dealt with a lot of paranormal activity, but it was never as high as military clones, a psychic commander, and a creepy little girl. As of three seconds ago, that became creepy little dead girl.
John stared into Betters' eyes – something that made the coordinator twitch visibly, somehow. "So I suppose you are right. Alma Wade is dead." Betters blinked. Wade? "She's been dead. She died when she was fifteen." And then, by a stroke of hatred, he uttered, "My mother died when she was fifteen."
The outside world seemed to come to a halt when Davis said this. There was no noise but the sound of the medical equipment around him. "You…your…what?" was all Betters could say.
Davis would have replied, but something moved out of the corner of his eye. As his head jerked to the side, Betters snapped back into reality. He followed his point man's gaze, and almost immediately wished he hadn't.
She was there, sitting with her arms hugging her legs on one of the occupied beds. As she turned to look at them, she had a slightly amused expression on her face. Davis twitched. She was showing emotion. She's not supposed to do that. She never did that.
She held up her right hand to her mouth, and her index finger extended. As if she willed it, even the medical equipment went silent.
With a smile, Alma whispered, "Ashes, ashes…we all fall down…"
Davis's vision blackened shortly after he heard explosions above ground.
-
…Yeah. I'm not TOO happy with this, but it serves really as a prologue more than anything. I suppose this could be a "Project Origin" adaption, but since it isn't out yet, all I can say for sure is that the city, wherever it is, is screwed. First foray into actual full-fledged FEAR fiction.