Title: The Night Jill Valentine Died
Author: Shawn's Pineapple
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil, blah blah blah.
Author's Note: I know I have a bunch of other stories in progress but I've been having a severe case of writer's block. This is something I wrote a while ago and never had the time to upload. But *drum roll*, here it is! :D
Dreams are extremely complex things. They can feel as if they last for hours, yet they pass as quickly as a human being blinks. Some are vague, often not remembered upon waking, while others you can hold on to for a lifetime.
My dreams were like that.
Except they were seared into my brain more so because of the horrors they held.
In my dreams, I was vulnerable. Weak. Pathetic. Scared.
Trapped.
That horrible night would forever be etched inside my eyelids, always straining to reach the surface. I didn't want to relive that night, let alone even acknowledge that it had had happened.
All our lives, we're prepared for death. We know it's inevitable; it's only a matter of when and how. It's the "how" part that haunts my dreams. People die in strange ways, some natural, some not. But everyone dies. No one is supposed to die and come back. No one.
And that's exactly what I kept telling myself when I actually saw it happening.
Over and over again.
The first time, it felt like someone had reached into my chest, wrapped a strong hand around my heart, and squeezed, stopping the blood flow and rendering me frozen. When the iron vise had finally subsided, the blood finally cascading back through my veins and reaching the vital organs, I had just enough time to run. And I did. I ran back toward my comrade, Barry, another unfortunate person whose soul was now scarred. After Barry expertly gunned down the…creature, the dead yet still functioning creature, we both knew that moment was the turning point; life was never going to be the same. The first gunshot rings heavily in my mind still, leaving me to cringe as the memory repeats itself. It isn't alone in its torment of my mind, however, since it wasn't the last gunshot I would hear that night.
As I lay down to try to sleep every night, I can still smell the horrific, toxic, vile smell those hallways held. I can still hear the slow steps of the decaying, still hear their almost pleading moans of hunger. Behind closed eyes, bloodstained walls flash before the grisly, half-eaten faces of ghosts, of the soulless, that smile at me from rotten mouths forever stuck in a permanent grin. I still feel the slimy, crusted, pungent hands sliding over my arms, looking for purchase, hoping to make my flesh its next meal.
Nothing seems to help me escape these tortures. I haven't spoken to anyone about how the mansion's left me, not Barry, not Rebecca, and especially not Chris. I don't want them to start babying me, afraid that I'll shatter into a million little pieces because my psyche is beyond repair. It's not that I don't want them to know how I feel, especially since I know they're just as damaged as I am, it's just that if I say it, if I speak it out loud, the protective cloud I've developed will dissipate because it'll be confirmed that it was real, that maybe, just maybe I didn't just make up the whole thing.
Tonight, I'll sleep with the light on, a practice I haven't done since I was six, and hope it'll lend me some comfort against the shadows that lurk in the dark, and in my own subconscious. In my heart, I know I'm safe, I know it's over. The mansion is gone, Wesker is gone, they are gone. In time, I'll remember that my dreams are just that, dreams, images my mind puts together to sort out its day. They're nothing to be feared; dreams can't hurt me. It sounds good in theory, even seeing it in writing is a reassurance, yet somewhere in the pit of my stomach the fear lurks, digging itself into a hole that I will never be able to retrieve it from.
Tonight, in the eery silence of the dark, I remember my friends, the ones we lost, the brave members of S.T.A.R.S who fought to the bitter end. In retrospect, they may be the lucky ones. Yet, in one form or another, that mansion claimed all of us that night. Maybe I left a part of myself there or maybe the person I was died completely...but there's still something here, something that's trying to survive, something that wants to carry on. I'm alive. In every aspect, I live. I breathe, I move, I...dream...I exist. I live. Is the fear stronger than my will to survive? My heart shatters from the realization that I was left, and maybe, just maybe, I deserve the dreams, maybe they're my punishment for not saving the others...
No...
No...
The darkness will not overtake me...
Tomorrow will be better, I can always remind myself. There is nothing left out there to hurt me. My nightmare is over. What happened will never happen again, I'll keep telling myself.
And maybe by tomorrow I'll believe it.
Nightmares have to eventually come to an end, whether they exist on in your head, or they've actually stood before you, with lifeless eyes that will never know the feeling of sight again, and a decomposing body that thrives on one thing, and one thing only.
Fear is strong but so is faith.
And right now, I believe, I hope, my nightmares will end.
Tomorrow will be better.