Resident Evil 4: Alternate Reality
Welcome to a "reader-insert" version of Resident Evil 4! You were kidnapped instead of Ashley Graham, and you must survive the horrors of Los Illuminados! Fortunately, Leon Scott Kennedy is on the case - you just need to survive long enough for him to find you.
Rated M for language, gore, survival horror content.
Chapter 1: Prelude
The sun hangs low in the sky and crisp air snaps against your skin as you step out into a cold autumn evening. Thick cloud cover swallows what little sunlight did manage to warm the downtown of a small urban sprawl housing your office building.
You pull up on the zipper of your long, insulated coat, tugging it tighter around your neck. It's overkill for a chilly autumn day, but after a long summer you have no tolerance for cold. University students breeze by, a bounce in their gait and laughter in their wake, the colors of your alma mater blazing on their sweaters and hooded jackets. They're off to coffee shops and happy hours after classes. You, a recent graduate, are off to shop for groceries after the typical nine-to-five.
The short heels on your boots click smartly as you walk towards a bus stop and you tug up your hood. The bus is packed with fellow office fodder and commuters, and you sway in the aisle clutching a flimsy overhead handle for the twenty-minute ride. You step off of the bus in front of a squat grocery store jammed awkwardly between a maze of residential properties and a struggling commercial district. The store is a dingy branch of a chain and long past its time, but it is your lifeline, never mind the occasional used needles you step over in the parking lot or the lack of fully functioning carts.
Somehow you always get a cart with a rogue spinning wheel.
You weave through the parking lot crammed from rush hour, disliking that the sun sets so early this time of year. Shadows loom large and dark in the lot's scant lighting. You hear a dull click just ahead as someone opens the door of a black SUV. As you approach the back of the SUV, something bounces against your boot- an orange rolling away from the car's owner. You can barely see the large silhouette of what must be a man on the other side of the ajar rear driver's side door, but you do hear his rumbled annoyed huff. You crouch and grab the orange and shimmy between the SUV and adjacent car. "Excuse me," you call, "you dropped this." Crisp leather and circulated air perk your senses with a delicious "new car" smell pouring from the wide open door. You can't see the man at all, you realize, as the windows are tinted to pitch black.
"Hey, thanks," grunts a voice familiar enough that surprise lances down your spine. It's deep and gruff, cutting yet expressive. So familiar, from years ago, yet you can't place it.
You hold out the orange and a chill creeps up from your toes, uninvited- but it is unsettling, the darkness at this time of evening and the heavily tinted windows, the terribly familiar voice, and now you can hear that the car is running-
The door blocking your view swings partly shut and a large hand reaches out to grab the orange you hold. Now you can see him, barely: A tall man with neatly cut blond hair wearing a boot-length black duster and gloves, and his face slashed with a long scar reaching from his left eyebrow down through his lips.
You pause in shock while he grabs the orange from your outstretched hand. He is impossibly familiar.
But perhaps not so impossibly.
Because true to character, Jack Krauser plays the villain.
His hand crushes around yours and he pulls you forward, swinging his other arm up to your neck. A sharp jab, and you collapse. Your vision blurs and darkens but you feel and hear everything. The sting of the needle sliding out of your neck. A sharp yell across the parking lot as a mother chastens her child. The chill of the leather seat as your limp body slides across. A deafening thump of the door closing. The lurch of the car rolling backwards and then flying out of the parking lot. A terrible hush as you fade away from this awful impossibility into nothingness.
A loud whine pulls you back out from unconsciousness. Your senses come back to you painfully, your head aches and your limbs are lead. You swallow thickly with a sandpaper tongue. You lift your head, fighting nausea for a look around. Everything is stark white washed bright gold. You're seated upright and strapped in tight to a cushioned chair, and zipties keep your wrists jammed into your lap and bind your ankles together. A small window to your left is covered by a blind, but you see other windows, evenly spaced and round, open to a stark blue sky and golden morning sunlight.
Your heart drops; you're bound in an airplane and have traveled through the night. But to where?
"Huh. You're awake." That gruff voice is is just over your shoulder. You still can't believe it, even looking him in the face- Jack Krauser. Cutting blue eyes, jagged scar, sneering lips and all, looking down at you and sending chills thrilling through your body. Krauser no longer wears the concealing jacket; he is clad in familiar, even stereotypical cameo pants and a tight athletic shirt. A red beret perches at an angle atop Krauser's cold stare.
He glances up and down at you. "I guess you're thirsty."
You blink. You realize that Krauser was more or less asking a question. Your throat is painfully dry, and you slowly nod.
Krauser walks up the aisle of what you observe to be a small plane, private- and within moments returns with a paper cup filled with water. He pauses, holding it in front of you. "Try anything," he grunts, "and I knock out your teeth. You won't need them where you're going." Krauser raises the cup to your lips. The water is cool and revitalizing and gone in an instant, some of it dribbling down your chin after you'd gulped in earnest. It occurs to you too late that Krauser might have slipped another drug into the water.
He crushes the damp paper cup and tosses it onto another seat. "You're getting a bathroom break." He leans forward and unbuckles your seatbelt. "Get up." You hesitate. Krauser grabs your arm and yanks you to your feet. The zipties around your ankles cut into your skin and you lose your balance, buckling; Krauser pulls you upright and hauls you into the aisle, half-dragging you behind him as you hop and hobble to keep up.
All of this effort makes you realize how badly you do need this bathroom break.
You reach a restroom at the back of the plane, next to the flight attendants' area. It is vacant.
Krauser releases your arm and you wobble to keep your balance. "You've got two minutes."
You lick your cracked lips. "...I can't do anything with these zipties."
"The zipties stay on. Get in there or get back in your seat."
You don't have time to think, Krauser is counting the seconds and you really need to relieve yourself, so you just move. Opening the door is easy enough with your wrists bound, but you wobble with your ankles tied. You hop into the tiny bathroom and fall forward over the sink. The door slides shut behind you- Krauser's doing, you figure- and you fumble for too long against the zipties to unfasten your pants and sit down. It's a slow and terribly awkward process to pull your pants back up and get to the sink. As soon as you push a button to start the water, the door behind you slides open.
"Out." Your hands shoot for the hand sanitizer next to the faucet, and you pump a giant glob onto your palms before two large hands shove under your armpits and haul you out of the bathroom. The sanitizer oozes between your fingers as Krauser shoves one hand against your back. "Let's go. Sit down." You look up to find your seat when Krauser's hand pushes hard on your shoulder. "Just sit down." You lose your balance and buckle into an adjacent row of seats. Krauser nudges your legs out of the aisle with one black boot, and then leans forward to fasten a seatbelt over your lap. He stands back, regarding you for a moment.
"You know, I expected you to be more talkative." You look up at him, at a formerly fictitious video game character. He regards you with a steely, almost curious stare. "Being a woman and all. You haven't asked any questions."
You glance out of a nearby window to your left to see an endless blanket of clouds far below. You look at Krauser. "I don't think you'd answer them."
He smirks. "Feh. You'd be right." He reaches into a pocket and produces a small plastic case. He pops it open, pulls out a syringe, reaches for your arm. You watch the needle push into your muscle. "Time to go back to sleep. When you wake up..." Krauser slowly pulls the needle out, and you look up at him as feeling leaves your limbs, "...you'll start getting some answers."
You blink as your head falls back against the seat and Krauser blurs in front of you. He pops the syringe back into the case. "I don't think you'll like them."