Lazarus
Summary: "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." (Character un-death)
Fandom: Biohazard/Resident Evil: Code Veronica X
Date written: September 20, 2011
Rating: T
Word Count: 507
Disclaimer: CAPCOM owns Biohazard/Resident Evil; I do not. I make no profit from this fanfiction.
Pain blossomed through the right side of his chest like some horrible flower's roots stabbing through his flesh, twisting and turning through the meat of his muscles until they had firmly anchored themselves around his bones, so that the process of digesting him for nutrients could begin. A shriek began in his foggy brain, but his numb jaw would not move; nor would his body convulse in pain, for his muscles would not twitch.
As the moments passed, his heart transitioned from slow and painless beats to savage, actually painful pounding, as if a Hunter's clawed, scaled hand had ripped into his chest and seized the organ, forcing it to beat through ever faster and more vicious squeezes, curious as to how much punishment the muscle could tolerate before bursting in a shower of gore. In contrast, the faint whispers in and out of his lungs maintained an inhuman regularity, despite the best efforts of his disoriented, panicked mind to inhale sharply and scream.
Agony radiated outward from the inferno in his chest, burning its way down his limbs and then through his extremities; his muscles gave a single weak spasm, but, aside from that, remained unmoving. He became aware that, even were his muscles responsive, they wouldn't have been good for much; even clawing his way across a floor would be an undertaking requiring colossal willpower. His mind collapsed into sobs of delirious indignation, feeling that such insult added to injury was simply too much.
He didn't even know what had happened to him; he didn't even know what was happening. It hurt so much. Why did it have to hurt so much? Was this the T-Virus? No, no, he didn't want to be a zombie, he didn't want to be dead –
A moment of clarity burst through the pain: he was dead. Or should have been dead. Not due to the T-Virus, though; he remembered bleeding out, his body cooling and numbing and brain shutting down even as he forced it to… to… he couldn't remember precisely what… The fog of pain threatened to swallow his mind again, but he fought to focus. If he had died, then how–
Once, long ago, Alexia had spoken to him of life and of death; he struggled to recall her exact words, harder even than he had struggled to keep up with her at the time, and a fragmentary but clear memory of her voice came into his mind:"-so long as the brain remains sufficiently undamaged by lack of oxygen, the consciousness can theoretically be restored, provided that oxygenated blood flow to the brain can also be restored. Nothing is mystical about death, brother; it is merely a system's ceasing to function-"
But who had done that?
And whose gloved hand gently stroked his hair, and in whose lap did his half-delirious head rest?
As if in answer, a voice familiar from dreams and fantasies, but gone from life for fifteen years, began to sing:
"There was a friendly but naïve king, who wed a very nasty queen…"