Disclaimer: I do not own anything from Resident Evil (weeping)

I know it promises Wesker-y awesomeness, but I had to start from the ground up, so we'll get to him later. Please review.

Advance Warning: Some swearing

*RE*RE*

When I was a little kid, my dad would run my toy trains off the bendable plastic tracks to illustrate the need for progression and the consequences of too great a leap in knowledge. I just laughed and made train noises. The typical five year old, I assure you.

Me parents told me they named me Alena for my bright, intelligent disposition as a child. I merely found it amusing that my initials were A.D.D., as I was nowhere alert enough to earn that title. Alena Davis. The girl who could never do anything right.

I wasn't physically perfect. Not even close. I was two sizes bigger than my friends, always the girl who built chunky muscle instead of graceful lean legs that seemed to stretch forever. I couldn't hold a job for more than a couple of months. I wasn't finished with med school, where I managed to hold onto a meager B average, so no hospital wanted to hire me yet. I couldn't stay in a relationship, finding that no one wanted to stay with the girl who was different from her cohorts. I was too short (5'4'' to be precise) or too thick bodied, or perhaps I was too aggressive, or not social enough. Then again, letting your boyfriend take… advantage of you and coming home to find him screwing your best friend might put things in perspective.

It was almost a relief to come home.

Almost.

While on break from school, I visited my parents, unhappy as I was to have to spend two weeks with them or, and I quote, "You'll find yourself lacking in tuition funds". Living in a small town on the very edge of the suburbs of a medium size city of no real importance, my parents house had never been my ideal place to grow up. I wanted sun and palm trees, not Victorian style houses and perfectly manicured front lawns in the mid-eastern US. However, the break from my hectic, disconnected college life came as a Godsend.

It wasn't two days before trouble cropped up in the unlikeliest of places.

At first there was the news of Raccoon City being overrun by… something. It was all the Umbrella Corporation's fault. My dad told me to keep taking my pills anyway.

A personal note. I had been prescribed medication to take every day, twice a day, since I could remember. My parents had fed it to me before that. As the pharmaceutical monopoly of the day, Umbrella's red and white rosette was prominent on the back of the medicine bottle. The bottle, my parents, and my doctor told me it was for my cardiovascular and neurological systems. Apparently, I had had heart troubles that had led to brain troubles in the womb blah blah blah. I just shut up and took the pills.

Anyway, it was all Umbrella's fault at the time. Then it was a hoax in order to bring down the largest medicine supplier in the world by some rouge STARS agents. Some guy and his lady friend. I really couldn't have cared less at the time. It didn't affect me in any direct way. It wasn't until the riots started everywhere that anything got suspicious. Communications with major cities were lost. People disappeared. Animals went berserk on owners and passerby. I stayed with my parents even after term started. My mom had gotten breast cancer, genetically inherited of course, and my dad needed help with my little sister and the daily running of a suburban house. I grudgingly stayed behind, glad for the slightly depressing distraction.

When the riots started in the next city over, my dad decided we had better hit the supermarket for canned goods before the crowds started rushing in. Kira, my white and gold mutt, tagged along, curling up next to me in the back seat and whimpering the entire time. So much for the "killer guard dog" her name implied. My dad drove.

He was twitching the whole drive. I didn't question anything, as he had had several nervous breakdowns already. It wasn't until he started swerving without noticing that I got nervous. I told him to hit the brakes, which he did… sort of. Although the car was still going forty miles an hour, I leaned forward between the front seats to check on him. As I opened my mouth, he let go of the steering and turned sharply towards me, wrapping his hands in a chokehold around my neck. Gasping for breath, I saw him open his mouth, an odd hissing and growling erupting from him. Even through my watering eyes, I was stunned by the dead, white film in his eyes. His vein were protruding oddly, an ugly brown color against his slowly graying skin. My dog snarled and bit his arm, forcing him to let go of me in order to pay attention to the dog. Unfortunately, this meant no one was paying attention to the road.

Careening out of control, the car made a now sixty mile an hour beeline for the side of the road. Without thinking, I grabbed Kira and rolled over the middle row of seats into the far back, curled up in an extremely uncomfortable position with my dog, which was now snarling and growling madly.

The next thing I remember was a jolt so hard that, when my head hit the next solid object, I went temporarily blind. There was a rush of heat and light around me, as well as a strangled squealing, before everything went back to a crumpled, jumbled mess. Gingerly, I raised my head, holding down the need to puke as the world spun around me.

When I came completely to, all that remained of the car was a skeleton of charred metal and the remnants of a few rows of seats and undercarriage. I hadn't thought cars were quite this flammable. My father was a black lump in the driver's seat.

A strangled sob escaped me as I tumbled out of the car, my quivering dog leaning against my legs. No cars passed us. I was alone, but only a few blocks from our destination. Feeling bruised and slightly burnt, I began staggering in the direction I assumed led home, sobbing madly and pulling at my frustratingly curly and badly singed red-brown hair.

I had only gotten a mile or two, huffing and clutching at my sore, possibly cracked, ribs when the thing rushed at me. I recognized whatever it was to be one of the town council members, Mr. Campbell.

"M-Mr. Ca-camp-bell," I wheezed, relief flooding me. The thing staggered forward oddly, hissing and growling much like my father. It was then that I realized that no matter what I said, I would get no response from this thing that was slowly approaching me.

With nowhere else to go but backwards, I stumbled once, and ran down the road, my dog trotting next to me passively. Upon seeing the store, I sped up, gratefully wheezing as the glass doors opened onto a gleaming, empty supermarket. Elevator music echoed weirdly up and down the deserted aisles.

I whipped out my phone, shakily dialing my home phone number. Soot stained fingers left fingerprints on the softly glowing numbers.

"Aly?" a thin voice screeched.

"Evy? Evy, what's wrong? Are you all right? Where's mommy?" I stammered into the speaker, hands shaking. Evangeline, my six year old sister, was sobbing into her end of the phone.

"She's outside my door Aly. She won't listen to me and looks funny. She all gray and-" I heard a crack and a little girl's scream. The same gurgling, hissing noise my father had made crackled through the speaker. "No mommy, please sto-" A screech and sobbing as a wet, sucking sound echoed through the hone before it cut off with a snap. I dropped the phone from my numb fingers. What was going on?

Sinking against the wall, I stared directly at the shelf in front of me. Kira whined, pressing her wet nose against my cheek.

"They're gone Kira," I murmured. My parent's perfectly ordered world was crumbling around my ears and my own stained and cracked existence was cracking farther, leaving something changed inside my mind and heart. I had to survive. I had to move.

Confused and dazed, I did what my instincts told me to. I grabbed a light weight hiking backpack from the first shelf in the camping aisle, ripping off the tags as staggering onwards. Filling it with rope, bottled water, several bottles of iodine, gauze bandages, splint sticks, burn ointment (which I used on my own burns first), and disinfecting gel, I went to the clothing lane. Changing outside a private room seemed odd, but I ignored my red cheeks and continued to snatch the necessary items off of racks and hangers.

Food came next. I packed the least perishable items on the bottom, pausing only to grab a can opener from a shelf. Kira followed me silently, claws clicking loudly on the linoleum floor. Sniffing at a raw chicken breast, she grabbed it from the bin and ripped through the paper to devour the contents in minutes. I stopped to grab canned spam for her without thinking.

Still not sure why I was doing what I was doing, I wandered mindlessly into the hunting section of the store. My only excuse was that, as my father was definitely not crazy, nor was he physically ill, whatever he had become wasn't the end. Although I didn't know it at the time, I was spot on.

Bush machete, throwing knives, whetstone, it all went into sheaths and pouches, which I then strapped to my thighs, forearms, and waist. Guns. I hated guns. However, I knew that I would inevitably regret not taking one. Two pistols (with silencing additions) and a shotgun. I couldn't bear to touch any others. Extra bullets and shot guns shells went into the pouches of my backpack.

Hoping I wouldn't have to use the weapons I had grabbed, I was just about to leave the store for good when something caught my eye. Hunting bows. Crossbows and long bows alike, they hung tantalizingly close by on the wall. Chewing my lower lip, I crossed my arms, finally deciding to give into my whim. A golden brown compound bow was now slung across my shoulder. A quiver of goose feather arrows hung at my waist. I turned, convinced to leave without turning back, when I caught a glimpse of myself in the wall mounted mirrors. A wide-eyed girl of twenty and four years stared back.

Blushing crimson, I walked away, staring adamantly at the ground. I thought I looked like a little girl playing dress up in an action movie costume closet. I was dressed in all black, cargo pants and leather jacket making me reminisce about all the fantastic action flicks universally panned by critics. My long, black, unruly hair was pulled back off my face in a frizzing braid, showing the long cuts on my cheeks as they scabbed over. Dirt and soot smeared all over my visible skin. I hastily scrubbed a palm over my face, hoping to clear the last traces. As soon as the glass doors slid open onto the seemingly deserted streets of my little "Mayberry", the hissing and growling of hungry masses reached my ears.

What had been a quiet, empty street was now a street teeming with neighbors and friends, some dead and others… not so much.

In the time that I stood, frozen in horror as I watched sweet old Miss Montgomery chase down a little girl, my mind went into overdrive. My heart went became numb, no longer caring, but instead, cold and calculating. I couldn't afford to care about the people around me. To do so would be a certain death sentence. My mom and sister were no longer my concern; they were dead or infected, as I would be soon if I didn't get out of here immediately.

Kira snarled and butted my legs with her thick head, pushing me back into reality and down the sidewalk. I managed to get twenty yards before Miss Montgomery, having moved on from her previous meal, turned her glassy eyes on me, mouth overflowing with the life-blood of a human.

As she shuffled towards me, I clicked the safety off the pistol at my thigh and aimed with cold calculation, trying not to think of the times when she had invited me in for lemonade and cookies as a child. The bullet smashed through her head, throwing her skull back from the force of the point blank shot. She crumpled to the ground and I turned, careful to avoid touching the blood of scattered bodies. Some were beginning to stir lazily. Soon they would be hungry. I'll do anything to keep my heart cold as ice. Anything to keep me from feeling ever again, I thought harshly. This time I ran, ignoring everything expect my dog. Only her, I promised myself. I would care only for her.

I ran until I started seeing spots caused by mental and physical fatigue, then I collapsed into the loam and pine needles of the country land, having made it out of hell and into a place I was not trained to survive in. I would have to learn uickly, without human aid. If I failed to fight, I would die and become the brainless, hungering beast I had encountered. If I failed to survive, my body would lie in the open air, a convenient meal for a passing animal or zombie.

My newly emotionless heart allowed me to forsake the grieving stage in lieu of the survival stage. Tears and sadness would come later, when I wasn't in danger of getting my throat ripped out. I had to keep walking, that I knew.

It wasn't until later that I remembered my medication, sitting forever more on top of the dresser in my parent's guest bedroom. Considering I immediately didn't die of a heart attack, stroke, or seizure within twenty-four hours, I put it out of my mind.

But my story doesn't get interesting until later, after I had picked up the trade of living it rough. I could hunt, and having a dog helped immensely in finding the critters… or the infected. I could avoid the zombies by keeping away from big cities, but the occasional need for unavailable goods overrode that knowledge every so often. I stole what I couldn't find, I took what wasn't claimed, and I moved every day, never staying anywhere for longer than one night.

A crank radio I had found after a couple of months alerted me to the presence of an infection free town called Arcadia. No infection, food, safety, a home for the wandering soul… it sounded like a Utopia in this dystopian world. That became my goal. Having a goal put all other distractions out of my mind.

However, I never found Arcadia. Instead, I found a place called Paxsalus. I figured out the irony of such a name later. Peace and safety. A crude running together of Latin in order to trick the human race. We were nothing but chattel to them. We were told Arcadia had been lost to militants who wished for violence and an end to peace for the human race. AS if that hadn't been destroyed already! And yet we believed them, at least for a while.

Located along the coast of northern California, I arrived in Paxsalus before it had been filled to capacity. It had been openly established by the Umbrella Corporation, whom everyone had already concluded to be the source of the infection. People were skeptical at first. When those desperate enough to finally seek aid arrived and were admitted into the settlement, more and more of what remained of American humanity trickled in. No one died when the gates opened. A simple test for residual infection and kapow, you were taken care of for the rest of your miserable, fucking life.

After spending several days observing the growing area, I decided that whatever lay inside the heavily fortified walls of Paxsalus couldn't be worse than what lay in the cities tens of miles away. I took the test. I passed, although they made Kira take it, and me once again after hers. After waiting for what felt like hours in a stark white "reception" room, I was admitted with a smile and a set of new clothes, which I accepted, both grudgingly and (secretly) happily. It seemed weird to me, both the behavior and, as my dazed and dead tired mind reminded me, that I was now a small in most clothing.

A personal side note: When I began my solo journey across America, I had been… thicker bodied. Not fat, but not thin. I was a runner, but not the stick and bone runners that were often my competitors. I had muscle, but a layer of fat I lovingly referred to as my "blubber". It used to keep me warm in the winter before the desert had reclaimed the planet. But life couldn't be stopped and soon even that had passed, this time with wildlife naturally immune to the T-virus. When I began to ration my food, I had lost a significant amount of body mass. I now had the body I had always wanted, and, ironically, I hated it. Being leaner than I had ever been before reminded me that everything had gone wrong. That nothing ever went right.

I was given a dormitory assignment and told to meet in the general hall at 0800 the next day. I was asleep before I hit the pillow, only pausing to put out my last tin of spam for Kira before falling onto the first bed I'd slept in for the past four years.

*RE*RE*

Dressed in my new duds, a fitted white, long sleeved shirt, new underclothes, and my old black cargo pants, I pushed open the swing door to what was labeled "General Assembly". Armed guards had stood outside, ensuring order as what seemed to be the entirety of Paxsalus filtered in through the doors. There were few open chairs, as the population of Paxsalus had almost reached its limit. I choose a seat to the far left of the auditorium, more towards the back than the front. I slouched in my seat, earning a few disapproving looks from some of the older men and women sitting around me. I stared back with a blank face until they looked away.

I twirled the end of my carefully plaited braid around the end of my finger. My wavy, black hair, now fully grown back, had reached a length I found both ludicrous and comforting. I was careful to keep it back and keep it clean.

I heard a few people shushing others as the light on the podium grew stronger. Crossing my arms, I fingered the point of the knife I had stashed in the arm guard of my left forearm. I had allowed the gate security to take my shotgun upon arrival, but I had managed to hide most of my knives and my two pistols during the pat down. Cleavage was a marvelous thing, almost like having an extra pocket that no one was perverted enough to search. Curiously enough, they had let me keep the well-worn bow and arrows, probably deeming them too primitive to do much damage against their automatic weaponry.

A pretty blond stalked confidently to the podium, a purple jumpsuit defining her near perfect frame. I couldn't help but be envious. Giving the large crowd a once over with serious hazel eyes, she spoke into the microphone softly. She needed no speakers; her voice was authoritative enough to keep an audience quiet even in the most raucous of times.

"Day 213 since the founding of Paxsalus. No trace of infection. No sign of shortage in food stores. Keep up the good work," she said flatly, as if reading off a list. "Two new residents," she continued. Oh, fuck, I thought to myself, trying to slide lower into my seat. "Miller, Marcus. Please stand Mr. Miller."

On the other side of the room, a balding, middle aged man stood quickly, nearly knocking over his chair. I snorted quietly, earning a few more looks of disapproval, which I stubbornly ignored.

"What are your talents?" the woman snapped in a business-like manner.

Stammering nervously, the man, Marcus, muttered something as his face turned beet red.

"Speak up." She ordered, her tone implying that she normally got her way.

"I-I was a-a c-c-car mechanic, s-s-so I c-can…" he blurted out.

"Mr. Thomas, he'll be with you," the woman interrupted, looking directly at a man out of my line of vision.

A sudden prickling feeling ran down the nape of my neck. The small hairs rose and my gut ached in a way that I knew, from experience, meant that I was being watched. My eyes roved in a one-eighty degree arc, flicking back to certain points to check for any movement in my direction. Finding no one, I pretended to stretch, holding the back of my chair as I pivoted at the hips in order to "crack" my back. As I stretched to my left, I caught sight of a man in the last row, almost completely hidden in darkness, looking right at me.

The term "looking" would have to be used lightly, as he was wearing dark sunglasses, but I felt the eye contact in the fraction of a second before I whipped around again, the tips of my ears turning a definite shade of pink. He was quite attractive, with slicked blond hair and a ruggedly square jaw. Oddly enough, he seemed to prefer a wardrobe of black leather, considered ostentatious even in this backwards world.

"Davis, Alena," the woman barked, making my heart skip a beat as I physically avoided an instinctive flinch. I stood slowly, cautiously, before she could order me to, forcing her to eat her words just as she opened her mouth. She shot me an almost invisible look of annoyance before snapping, "What are your talents?"

Immediately I knew that this woman would have to be dealt with carefully. She was powerful enough that I couldn't overstep many lines, however, I was stubborn enough not roll over onto my back and display my soft, gushy, and, quite frankly, necessary innards to her. I eventually decided on toeing the line enough to make it clear that I was not one to be ordered around like Mr. Miller.

"Can you be more specific?" I asked, politeness dripping like honey from my tone. Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly.

"By talents, Miss Davis, I mean something, anything, you can manage to do without many errors," she said slowly, as if speaking to a child.

"Well, yeah, I get that, but you're gonna have to be more specific than that." I replied amicably. Her upper lip rose slightly, showing her obvious impatience.

"Explain," she demanded. I uncrossed my arms and began ticking off on my fingers as I spoke.

"Well, for one, I've made it all the way across the United States, or, at least, what's left of it, without serious injury and with a dog. That obviously means I can hunt, fight, survive, and, in general, fend for myself and another. If by "talents"," I said, using finger quotes, "you mean what I did before the shit hit the fan, then I was studying to become a doctor. That's what I mean by being more specific in what you wanna know." Having finished, I shifted my weight to one hip and crossed my arms, refusing to break eye contact with the purple clothed woman.

Smirking, she seemed to finally come to a decision. "Mr. Anderson," she said, looking at a man to my right, "she'll be in your patrol." I glanced over at the man she spoke to, trying to remember his face so that I might find him later. Sitting back down, I crossed my legs as the now familiar prickling feeling grew again and remained. My ears once again turned a bright shade of pink, but I refused to turn around this time. Luckily, she had little else to say as, almost immediately after she had assigned me to Anderson, a man in full military gear hurried onto the stage and whispered something into her ear. Looking grim, she marched off in front of him.

Murmuring, the crowd seemed to take this as a dismissal, and, following the flow of traffic, I wandered outside into the sunlight. A hand grabbed my forearm and, spinning in a quick reaction, I only barely kept myself from socking Mr. Anderson's nose.

"You're the Davis girl," It was a statement, not a question. Scowling, he said "You'll be with the Beta patrol team. We keep the woods clear of infected or Others. Meet at the front gates in exactly one hour. If you have any sort of protective gear or ranged weaponry, bring it, although I doubt Umbrella let you keep the good stuff. We'll provide you with anything you're missing," he paused, scratching his stubble as he looked me up and down. I looked him in the eyes, chin up to keep from turning red. He shrugged. "You either have to be extremely foolish or very brave, but, considering what I've heard from you, I'd have to assume both." He turned away and, hands in his pockets, walked down the street.

"What do you mean?" I asked his retreating back.

He turned and fixed me with a stare that would cow most men.

"It's a very bad idea to fuck with Jill Valentine."