To love too much -- by Sapfarah (sapfarah@geocities.com)
"Too much love will kill you in the end" - Freddy Mercury and the Queen
At fastening her second earring, Annette regarded herself into
the mirror. She had been beautiful once. Not the beauty or the femme
fatale, but she could proudly go to any fancy clothes shop and make
green faces out of other shoppers when the satin, over the knee
dresses she tried showed a fine figure and the reason she rejected
them was because they didn't match her shoes or better still, her
eyes.
She sighed tiredly. How bored was she of those business
meetings she had to attend to. But it was important for William and
so she would have to endure it. After all, it was his work that
brought food to their table and not just the food of the day. She,
who was a middle class girl, who during university years lived in an
apartment of two rooms and a shared bathroom, going about with her
loud ideas, knew she couldn't give up the rich life she grew
accustomed to, with the pass of time. Which reminded her she had to
call for the new furniture she wanted to get for the living room and
ensure they would bring wood for the fireplace...
She realised the woman in the mirror had a tired face and her
hands dropped at her lap. Her hair were perfect in place; cost her
thirty bucks and lasted her two good working hours. Well she couldn't
be a scientist and a belle, that was clear, so she sacrificed two
hours for her husband's sake. He had to take his wife to the
gathering, didn't he? She couldn't show up messy and unkempt. And yet
she looked tired. You can't wipe tiredness from the face, no makeup
can hide despair inside the eyes. When William entered in his tuxedo
and shortly glanced towards her way, she was embarrassed to even
having considered asking him if she looked good.
"Can you give me a hand?" he said, holding out his tie and she
got up, without even a smile.
He wasn't changed, he still was hopeless in fixing his tie...
then why were things not the same? Was it because her beauty had
faded or were they true to say love fades from routine? Thirteen
years were a long time but they hadn't divorced yet, so wasn't this a
sign?
'No, it wasn't...' she sighed inwardly, her fingers making a
perfect knot. William didn't even thank her as he made for the
bathroom and she didn't look back. She didn't have to look twice to
know that the zealous young student she had fell in love with was
gone for good. She heard the hiss of the spray and his cologne stung
her nose. Damn she hated that perfume of his...
Their relationship had been almost too typical. They shared
courses in the university, he was the brightest student and she was
an active one too. They met and spent hours in long talks about
everything, from politics to music, oh those blessed subjects that
untie the tongue! So he wasn't exactly prince charming but he had
shimmering brown hair and a healthy face that begged to be called
cute. Before she knew it she got familiar with him, she got to
anticipate talking to him and next thing, she was in love, or that's
what it passed like. But then, that was the same way she fell in love
when she was twelve, then fifteen, then twenty. She no longer sought
for the real love because all of them had been real. What made her
love for William 'realer' was the reciprocation. So she was
contented.
Once they both graduated, they got married. Oh those years!
They had nothing but a roof over their head and though they both had
their degree, William with better marks though, they almost starved.
They had given up hope, William grew melancholic for not getting the
chance to go for a master degree, until they met doctor Abel and they
first heard of Umbrella. Spite first came between them but it wasn't
until much longer it showed...
William had seen this announcement in the newspaper, asking for
young, enthusiastic biologists, such as himself. At the moment she
was unable to work, she was carrying Sherry; surely not a condition
to risk exposure to dangerous substances. William applied for the job
and he returned with a beaming face, the first after so many days and
a bouquet of roses for her. The years of destitution were over.
She was overwhelmed, especially as William assured her he would
find a way to help her take a position befitting her there as well,
after she gave birth. The next months, their life changed in leaps.
Soon they had better acceptances that could afford a bigger house.
William got back his confidence and Annette never forgot that day
when they both walked together in the streets, planning the
furnishing of their daughter's bedroom, while he spoke excitedly
about the ventures of his new job and how exciting it was working
with such an ingenious man as doctor Abel.
Sherry came to life soon afterwards. A month later, Annette
declared her decision to find a maid and get to work. Yet, William
stood against her to it. He sounded over protective, and yet, to her
it didn't seem so. It was as if he was forbidding her to work, with a
weird, outdated fancy... or even... envy...
Could this really be?
A year passed by like that, in which troubles made themselves
show. She lived under his shadow and he didn't seem to really ask her
opinion... in one argument, he blatantly stated that he, as being the
house's only working person had the right to make the decisions...
and Annette knew she wouldn't permit it anymore.
She hired a maid, Maria was her name and with the household
left to someone else, she applied for a job to Umbrella. After a
couple of weeks, she was accepted but in a place lower than what she
might have expected. She wouldn't permit the thoughts to herself but
she couldn't cease that voice inside her, like a devil hissing that
William's rise to the board might have had its influence to that...
All the same, she had herself a job and soon she acquired the
so much needed recognition... but had it been for the best?
"Honey, are you ready?" William's voice snapped her from her
thoughts.
What had she come to? A woman estranged to her husband and...
Sherry...
There really wasn't much place for her in her busy life, was
there?
The more her position climbed among the scientists of Umbrella,
aided by Abel himself who had by then been transferred to another
program, even if with the impersonal way of approving her work and
acknowledging it, without William being able to forbid it, she became
engrossed to it just as much as her husband. What mattered was the
improving of the chemicals she was working on. That didn't leave much
time for Sherry...
She had hoped that with fewer worries for the daily living she
could devote more time to spend with her family...
She picked up her jacket from the wardrobe and she was ready to
go.
Rosalinda, her current housemaid smiled at her as she helped
her put on her jacket. She walked past her and stopped at the door,
looking inside.
Connected to the Playstation, the 45 inch television danced
with colourful images and Annette stood some time absorbed in them,
fascinated almost, but still not as much as her daughter was. She
took a moment to envy her capture in that trance, watching the
screen. What was going on? It seemed peaceful, there was a girl
praying, she had big green eyes and then something came down fast and
to her disbelief she saw that this something was a man with
impossibly long white hair, dressed in black with a large black cape
flying around him, who dived from the sky and impaled the praying
girl with his sword...
She felt as though the blade went through her and then saw the
eyes of the man, the same unnatural green colour but, even if only
drawn they radiated so cold, especially when a snicker of
satisfaction came to his lips... What sort of a game was her daughter
playing, one of such cold blooded slaughter?
She looked at Sherry, only to notice she was holding the keypad
loosely, pressing a button once in a while. At studying that ritual
she realised that at the moment, her doing so only resulted in the
disappearance of dialogue boxes and the appearance of new. The
graphics had now changed, were more like cartoons instead of the
almost alive ones she had witnessed seconds before. One box said
"she'll never laugh... cry... be angry..."
A sorrowful music started, one that surged tears into her eyes
and matched the sad event. She remembered the days of the glory of
PacMan and Ms Ladybird. 'Graphics have improved but so much
violence... My little girl saw a man killing a _praying_ girl in cold
blood and is unaffected by it! What has the world come to?'
'Perhaps to a world where mothers have more time for the toxins
in their laboratory than care for their daughters, growing unaffected
to unadulterated violence... You really care about your daughter's
welfare Annette, don't you.'
'Shut up!'
That voice had more than once stifled her thoughts, whether
it concerned the bringing up of her daughter or her conscience knowing
that those technological advances were in truth bio weapons. That voice
fitted better the scientist she longed to prove herself to be. Whether
it was chemical weapons she was working on or not.
She wouldn't permit inconsiderate usage of them. She could
decide where and when her creations would be utilised... couldn't
she?
Only right now, she forced her thoughts back to her daughter,
so she wouldn't have to face the answer... Why, really...
"Sherry honey..." she said softly. "We're leaving..."
Sherry didn't even turn to look at her, only replied with a
nasal sound and her devotion on the game tore her heart.
"If you need anything, tell Rosalinda... you have dad's mobile,
don't you?"
"Mhmm." came again. She gave up hope.
"Good night, honey... don't stay up too late..."
It wasn't clear whether Sherry had actually heard her.
The car pulled along the row of parked expensive cars; all of
Umbrella's distinct employers were rich. Annette gazed outside her
window at the festively lit mansion, from where a band was heard
playing. Cars kept coming and a groom came to open the door for her
immediately as the car stopped.
Philip Spencer came to their greeting himself when they
approached the entrance. He shook her hand with a wide grin and a
flattery, then greeted William alike. Philip then lead them ahead, to
their company, each of them one of Umbrella's top scientists, some of
whom had a plate full of tasty looking hordeuvres and munched
nonchalantly. William exclaimed a greeting to the company and Annette
did her best to keep smiling, as she hung on his arm and a
photographer's flash went on very close near her and she questioned
whether to buy the picture at the end of the celebration or just
leave it to the photographer's mercy.
Raccoon City's major and honoured guest of the evening shortly
joined them and was pleased to meet Umbrella's most valuable
scientist and his wife. Annette shook his hand wondering if this is
what she should feel like for being the center of attention as the
wife of William Birkin, leading scientist to project Tyrant. But her
thoughts didn't stay to that for long.
The interruption wasn't the major's wife and their daughter's,
a true beauty of about twenty, fit to make her mother hate her. It
was the man escorting the two ladies. Albert Wesker, a man in his
late thirties of whom everything read militariness, yet Annette had
many times seen in a scientist's apron in the same room as her
husband and the team working on the latest project she was only an
assistant to, on this occasion not wearing his essential sunglasses.
The moment she came into his view, his eyes were nailed on her and
the restrained smile he directed to her as a form of greeting, didn't
imply anything good. William greeted him too and he talked to him
with ease but Annette couldn't find peace until after he excused
himself.
"A fine man this Albert Wesker," the major's wife said aloud
apparently directing her words to her. Annette couldn't muster an
affirmative nod to it, as it would have been appropriate, not even at
the hopeful eyes of the major's young daughter, begging for that.
It looked as though those men had nothing better to talk about
other than their fabulous masterpiece, project Tyrant. For Annette,
this whole thing was more than a harmful prolonged session. When the
team to work on it was chosen, they were all asked to compose an
essay regarding their views on many tricky subjects. Once Annette got
the requirements, she knew something was not right. What this paper
was asking in a few words was whether the applicant was willing to
ignore everything for science and progress. Clear mind and
progressive thoughts translated to her as an implore to forgo
fundamental morals, beliefs, things that Umbrella, the pharmaceutical
company otherwise presided for. They were asking indirectly whether,
for an adequate amount they agreed to go 'blind'...
Annette was almost repelled. She decided not to take part in
it. But William... He saw it as the ultimate quest for his abilities.
Annette loved her husband too much to try and convince him
otherwise. So, to be with him, she too took the test. Maybe, she
wasn't as good in concealing her true beliefs, for she barely made it
to the team of assistant scientists and not without luck as well,
since another scientist who didn't make it among the top rank,
withdrew in indignation and that left an empty space.
Annette became part of project Tyrant but she was the number
one unwanted member of the team. The high ups faced her with
mistrust, the other scientists looked down on her with scorn and even
William was ashamed at her cost. He didn't believe that her low
positioning was a result of an unapproved essay. "Heck, if it had to
be faking, you should have done it better!" he had told her. But she
didn't argue against it. After all, she only took the place to be
near him. If anything went wrong... she would be there.
And there was already something wrong. The tests of the T-virus
responded better than expected. They had created the perfect weapon
and purchasers would soon hoard. Very soon. Annette was left watching
time rolling before her, unable to hold back the inevitable. Her
creations slipped through her own hands, against her own will,
turning against her...
What should it matter to her? She avoided answering, since her
reply wouldn't be "concern for world peace", she couldn't care less,
she lived in the United States of America, what could possibly
threaten her? It was suggested to test those creations of them and to
do so, they would pit them against a fully trained armed squad.
Neither did she care about that either. They created monsters, if
they died, all the better and the SWATs were paid exactly for that.
But what of _them_?
Her, William, Sherry and all the other scientists of the
project.
Just like the nuclear bombs. The creators took the blame and
not those who threw them. Should anything go wrong and she could see
the hazard was very high, even the most of the team agreed to that,
then the condemnation would fall on no other than them. Her and
William and all the others working in the team. And as for Sherry she
would have to face the society as the daughter of two criminals.
More than her shared the same fears and yet William persisted
ignoring them. He was so obsessed with his creation, so in love with
it, one could say, he just wouldn't listen to her. Whenever she tried
to warn him, he would claim it was her jealousy talking and she would
still. There was no way she could convince him otherwise and the
subject dropped there. And there was Wesker...
With each day passing, Annette hated him more. He knew how to
manipulate her husband as though he was a string doll and even
everyone else in the team respected him, in the way they would
respect someone they dreaded.
Annette loathed him. He had no morals, no restrictions and
behind his emotionless face of a firm army officer, he was a war pig
who treated them as expendables. No more than the magazine for his
handgun.
It so seemed that her anticipation was returned alike for
Wesker showed his cold side to her evidently. Not only in the way he
gazed at her, it wasn't something she might have come up with. He was
genuinely disliking her and showed it in every chance he took...
Especially when she would pose a debate on their project, as it had
happened only days before...
"You shouldn't be here on your own, away from your husband..."
Annette snapped back to the voice directed to her and she was
showered in fear. There he was with a mask for a face, neither
smiling, nor frowning, as he demanded her attention.
"What do you want, Wesker?" she mustered and yet she didn't
meet his eyes.
"Just a few words. Please, come with me," he offered sternly
but still went as far as presenting his arm to her. Annette naturally
refused it and she walked on, by his side.
They came out in the front porch, staring ahead in the lighted
night.
"I have been really happy with your assistance in our work..."
Wesker begun. His voice run a chilling warning up her neck.
Involuntarily, she rubbed at that area. Then, not wanting to show
weakness, she turned her lucid blue eyes upon him.
"You have a great share in our achievement, however minimal you
consider your part in it."
More of the warning crept up her spine. Was the irony in his
voice... or in her head?
"I thank you for your praise~" she begun. She was cut short by
Wesker's interruption.
"Thanks to the team work, Umbrella succeeded in winning the
impressions yet once more. There has been interest in our researches
and many would gladly be our sponsors..."
Annette couldn't help getting wide eyed as she looked at him.
"You mean..." she started but choked on the words she was
struggling to say. "You - there have been purchases?"
"Now why are you so shocked about it? You didn't work days and
sleepless nights over this to keep them in the closet, did you?"
Annette heard his questioning voice, shocked. Her worst fears
were coming true... So they _were_ planning to sell the weapons all
along. So they _were_ used. Deceived...
"William is speaking with a few interested businessmen..."
Wesker's voice echoed again. "His wife ought to be by his side... not
turning her back on it..."
Turning her tiredly angry eyes on him, Annette would later wish
she had told him so many things, that she had yelled at him and swore
at his calm face. But she said nothing then and so he was settled as
the winner of the confrontation...
"You didn't ask for my opinion before proceeding. You left me
uninformed and now you demand that I should be there and pull an act
on something I haven't even been told about and might need some time
to think over?"
"Are you walking out of it, Annette?" he coldly asked. His face
had a stony expression. Annette felt nothing but loathing and need to
go away as fast as she could, just by looking at him. What heinous
things did he imply? She knew she didn't exactly count as valuable in
the team... Was Wesker - and at this point she couldn't help her eyes
widening - was he threatening her?
"What are you trying to tell me?" she muttered.
Wesker didn't hurry to answer. It seemed he enjoyed this.
Annette would swear he had pulled his face to a grin...
"I'm only suggesting that if the scientist's wife is not at his
side when she is in the group, it will appear that she is left in the
dark... or maybe... tries to state an opposition..." he said. Annette
wouldn't be wrong to believe he had stressed out the last words...
So he knew... he _was_ making a threat... a suggestion.
"Do you have any idea how much this will cost to William?" he
then added. Annette thought she lost her senses. She felt her breath
abandoning her... she knew she was dealing biological weapons, so she
was essentially in dangerous grounds... but to face blackmail... so
soon and so off-handedly...
"How dare you!" she steamed at him. And she knew at the same
time that he knew he was having the upper hand.
"Annette... you are a clever woman... Act like one." he said
icily. His words being said, he left her in the front porch and went
back into the mansion where the feast went on, where the guests were
pretending to laugh sincerely at the jokes exchanged and somewhere
there, William was boasting about the greatness of their invention,
like a lamb striding among a flock of wolves...
"William stop! Listen to me!" she tried once more.
"Don't you try to tell me what to do, you're not even there to
know!" William shouted as he threw off his jacket, striding to the
bedroom. Annette followed him.
"What is so hard to figure? They are selling them and they
don't even ask! Isn't that using you, or not?"
"OUR end of the job is to manufacture those things and what
they are to do with them is THEIR business! We get paid for our
brains, not for our opinion!" William blurted out.
Annette gazed at him, confusedly. Why was he being so harsh to
her? Why did he refuse to see things her way?
"So you'll just let them have their hands on them and turn them
against helpless people? Can you be happy with yourself?"
"MY creations," he shot angrily back at her, the stress on the
possession stabbing her, "are not meant to be weapons! They are meant
to help mankind! We created stronger, better tissues~"
"It's weapons and you know it!" Annette screamed in frustration
"And we are the ones to make them, but we're only their hands!
William... they're using you!" she finished her outburst in tension.
"That's nonsense!" he shouted.
"They are using your intellect but if something goes wrong, you
will be taking the blame, not them! They'll run away clear, you'll be
the evil scientist who created the weapon and they will have Nothing
to do with it!
"That will never happen!" he said, throwing his hands in the
air.
"How are you so sure of it!" she yelled. "People who make
weapons don't care for any number of lives they have to spend and
yours might be one of it!"
"That's your stupid precaution talking! If you carry yourself
around as a scientist, try to act like one!"
And to his words, Annette felt stiff, as if he had splashed her
with icy water, so cold that it froze her. Only hours before Wesker
had talked to her in the same way but hearing it from the lips of her
husband, made Wesker's insult seem niggling.
"How can you say that!" she gasped at him. "How can you think
it is about competition?"
"YOU said it!" he returned, his tone having risen.
"That's so unfair of you to say!" she demanded but he returned
with angered amazement to her.
"Oh now I've hurt your feelings?"
Trying to compel her shaking, she looked away from him.
"Stop it, William," she steamed.
"Me stop it? ME stop it?!?" he said, taking a step forward,
hitting his palm on his chest for emphasis.
"I don't want Sherry to hear us fighting." Annette said in a
last act of despair. They had been shouting quite a lot lately and
she was worried about her daughter finding out, even though her heart
and the face of Sherry told her that she already knew...
William's face grazed at her.
"Now don't you~" he begun but she didn't let him finish.
"I don't want Sherry to hear us fighting!" she said more
decisively and turned her eyes on him.
William stopped before her seriousness but it wasn't because he
complied and Annette received his irony as she lifted her eyes on him
again.
"You're so damn jealous, you know that?" he said in a tone
searing. Annette gaped at him. He shook his head nearly grinning with
sarcasm.
"You are so jealous that Sherry likes me better than she likes
you, aren't you!"
"That's not true and you know it!" she snapped back, but her
sentiments nearly flooded her, for in truth, William spent more time
with Sherry than she did. William was welcome to share the
Playstation with her, he was the one she would run to in the hour of
need and to whom she sought comfort when she needed it. Annette was
only her mother. The one who prepared her breakfast, took her to
school and dressed her.
"I can't believe you would use Sherry again... You always used
Sherry to excuse your deficiencies~"
"Stop it, William!" she shouted.
"to claim you couldn't cope because you had to take care of
her, you always saw her as an obstacle and you demand that~"
"I've had it up to here with you!" she yelled and blinded with
tears, she run to the bathroom, wherein she locked herself and
slamming the lid down, she sat on it and cried behind her hand, the
mascara etching her eyes.
After a while, when her sorrow wasn't enough to prevent other
things to her attention, she heard the wardrobe opening. William was
hanging his clothes...
She waited for a long time, even after she heard the click of
the switch and the light didn't pour in under the door. William had
fallen asleep and she just sat there, thinking of nothing, just
hoping she would be wrong, trying to silence her subconscious praying
the exact opposite so she would be proved right...
One week later she would have hoped she had never even thought
about it.
Inside her chest, her heart was beating but the fear leading
that heartbeat was above her exhausted lunges, as she run through the
empty, grey corridors of the laboratory which was the secret of the
mansion that only days before hosted a feast as a celebration to
their success, the reason of Annette's horror. She saw it with her
own eyes when she went to the dormitory to check on doctor Conrad,
the new associate in charge of project P-42 held in the basement. The
man hadn't been feeling well and she was taking care of him... he had
been missing for two days and she had been ordered to check upon
him...
A new wave of vomit threatened to choke her at the memory of
that... that...
It wasn't even a human being but it looked so much like doctor
Conrad, even as it was bent over the body of his roommate, hungrily
plunging its head into the bleeding guts, sucking blood and flesh
alike from a hole it had carved with its very teeth...
Annette trembled again upon her running feet, nearly falling
down but the doctor chased her and would never stop pursuing her
mind, just as he slowly stood up from his meal, skin and blood
dripping from his face that was slowly crumbing away, the echo of a
reminder of his voice swarmed inside her head as he stood up, his
breath smelling like rotten hell as in a snappy motion he turned and
tried to land upon her...
Annette never knew what forgotten reflex pulled her the
rescuing step away but she would ever feel the impact of a vacuous
head on her foot, a skull about to break and let a stoned mind roll
out, a memory stuck upon her like the retch that poured on her feet
from a deteriorated mouth...
She run with the doctor's moans inside her head, crying and out
of breath, only mechanically making her way to William's laboratory.
Maybe it wasn't just in her brain, maybe she was right that the moans
were coming behind doors she run past, behind her, around her,
everywhere...
She pushed away the door to William's laboratory, blind from
tears and out of breath, her feet hardly holding her. She looked at
her husband but found no relief. He was sitting on his desk, bent
over his scrambled papers and his hands were thrust in his oily hair,
the desk lamp being the only light in the room...
She staggered inside, weakly pushing the door behind her.
William didn't look up at her but when she heard his voice, it was
one more blow into her heart.
"You were right, Annette," he merely said.
And into that disappointed voice Annette found the only
consolation she could hope for.
She made it to his desk and pulled a stool, sitting next to
him. In that difficult moment, they only had each other. Annette run
her hand on his head, hoping his touch would absorb her tremble.
William had only now realised his powerlessness and he still had to
recover. Annette had to be strong for both. It always is so, she
thought. Women have to be strong for both...
"We'll get away from it all, William..." she said compelling
her voice to a somewhat steady utterance. "Come on."
William looked at her and Annette saw something she hadn't seen
in a long time... gratitude. Like when they were equal, in the
University when she would share her solutions with him, when her
fresh ideas would light the bulb of his tired mind.
He caught her hands in his and held them tightly, even though
his palms were clammy and shaking.
"God knows where I would be without you, Annette..." he said.
"William... have you seen~" Annette attempted but it seemed
like her husband didn't realise the seriousness of the situation.
"We'll go away... you and I. And Sherry. We don't need Umbrella
or anyone else, just us!" he said, deliriously.
Of all the times, it was the worst for such declarations of
passion... This wasn't the scientist Annette had come to know so well
and there she realised that...
Whatever this T-virus was, even though it hadn't affected them
physically, at least not yet, it had contaminated William's spirit.
He turned into a deranged man, crazed from failure and passionately
loving whatever could hold him... or he was still under the shock.
That was it, wasn't it?
Moans echoed in those corridors. Annette had to act fast. Once
they would get out of here, it would all be better...
Jumping up, she grabbed the car keys from William's desk.
"Come on. Let's leave now!" she urged.
A worried gleam passed by William's eyes.
"William?" she urged him once more.
With stunning energy, her husband leaped to his feet, grabbed
his coat but instead of the exit, he rushed to the far end, where was
a sterilised chamber. He opened it and grabbed a small vessel from
within and transported it to a portable container...
"William, what are you doing?" she almost whined with agony.
"The G-virus!" she heard him mutter and she was sick worried at
how he run around like rabid, opening file drawers and grabbing
folders under his arms.
"The G-virus?" she pleaded.
"I haven't told all, have I!" he declared and the enthusiasm in
his face was frightful. "No! They took one away from my hands... but
they won't take my masterpiece!"
Annette faintly remembered having seen some of her husband's
notes which she soon realised it wasn't on what they were working
on... Oh no, William... how much had they corrupted him? Wasn't he
realising what monster it was he was making?
"William, why don't you just leave it all behind?" she pleaded,
tears streaming through her eyes.
"It's my only legacy, don't you see?" he yelled with zest. "I
won't go without it!"
Annette watched desperately at him running around, knowing she
would either have to leave him or take him with her, crazy as he had
become... When he handed her some of the folders he had collected,
she compliantly took them. Soon they were ready to go, running as
fast as they could, away from that disaster, away from the monsters,
carrying William's project like a baby in their hands.
Annette felt her load pulling her down, sitting heavily upon
her throat. But she wouldn't drop it. Maybe, with something to keep
him active, her husband would eventually be back to the man she had
loved. Even if that something was a biological weapon, she would
still cradle his child of death for his sake. Because she still loved
her husband. Perhaps, like always, a little too much.
-- The End --
Doctor Abel: Scientist mentioned in Tekken 3 who supposedly re-
animated Bryan Fury.
Sherry plays Final Fantasy 7. Scene mentioned is Aeris's death.
"Too much love will kill you in the end" - Freddy Mercury and the Queen
At fastening her second earring, Annette regarded herself into
the mirror. She had been beautiful once. Not the beauty or the femme
fatale, but she could proudly go to any fancy clothes shop and make
green faces out of other shoppers when the satin, over the knee
dresses she tried showed a fine figure and the reason she rejected
them was because they didn't match her shoes or better still, her
eyes.
She sighed tiredly. How bored was she of those business
meetings she had to attend to. But it was important for William and
so she would have to endure it. After all, it was his work that
brought food to their table and not just the food of the day. She,
who was a middle class girl, who during university years lived in an
apartment of two rooms and a shared bathroom, going about with her
loud ideas, knew she couldn't give up the rich life she grew
accustomed to, with the pass of time. Which reminded her she had to
call for the new furniture she wanted to get for the living room and
ensure they would bring wood for the fireplace...
She realised the woman in the mirror had a tired face and her
hands dropped at her lap. Her hair were perfect in place; cost her
thirty bucks and lasted her two good working hours. Well she couldn't
be a scientist and a belle, that was clear, so she sacrificed two
hours for her husband's sake. He had to take his wife to the
gathering, didn't he? She couldn't show up messy and unkempt. And yet
she looked tired. You can't wipe tiredness from the face, no makeup
can hide despair inside the eyes. When William entered in his tuxedo
and shortly glanced towards her way, she was embarrassed to even
having considered asking him if she looked good.
"Can you give me a hand?" he said, holding out his tie and she
got up, without even a smile.
He wasn't changed, he still was hopeless in fixing his tie...
then why were things not the same? Was it because her beauty had
faded or were they true to say love fades from routine? Thirteen
years were a long time but they hadn't divorced yet, so wasn't this a
sign?
'No, it wasn't...' she sighed inwardly, her fingers making a
perfect knot. William didn't even thank her as he made for the
bathroom and she didn't look back. She didn't have to look twice to
know that the zealous young student she had fell in love with was
gone for good. She heard the hiss of the spray and his cologne stung
her nose. Damn she hated that perfume of his...
Their relationship had been almost too typical. They shared
courses in the university, he was the brightest student and she was
an active one too. They met and spent hours in long talks about
everything, from politics to music, oh those blessed subjects that
untie the tongue! So he wasn't exactly prince charming but he had
shimmering brown hair and a healthy face that begged to be called
cute. Before she knew it she got familiar with him, she got to
anticipate talking to him and next thing, she was in love, or that's
what it passed like. But then, that was the same way she fell in love
when she was twelve, then fifteen, then twenty. She no longer sought
for the real love because all of them had been real. What made her
love for William 'realer' was the reciprocation. So she was
contented.
Once they both graduated, they got married. Oh those years!
They had nothing but a roof over their head and though they both had
their degree, William with better marks though, they almost starved.
They had given up hope, William grew melancholic for not getting the
chance to go for a master degree, until they met doctor Abel and they
first heard of Umbrella. Spite first came between them but it wasn't
until much longer it showed...
William had seen this announcement in the newspaper, asking for
young, enthusiastic biologists, such as himself. At the moment she
was unable to work, she was carrying Sherry; surely not a condition
to risk exposure to dangerous substances. William applied for the job
and he returned with a beaming face, the first after so many days and
a bouquet of roses for her. The years of destitution were over.
She was overwhelmed, especially as William assured her he would
find a way to help her take a position befitting her there as well,
after she gave birth. The next months, their life changed in leaps.
Soon they had better acceptances that could afford a bigger house.
William got back his confidence and Annette never forgot that day
when they both walked together in the streets, planning the
furnishing of their daughter's bedroom, while he spoke excitedly
about the ventures of his new job and how exciting it was working
with such an ingenious man as doctor Abel.
Sherry came to life soon afterwards. A month later, Annette
declared her decision to find a maid and get to work. Yet, William
stood against her to it. He sounded over protective, and yet, to her
it didn't seem so. It was as if he was forbidding her to work, with a
weird, outdated fancy... or even... envy...
Could this really be?
A year passed by like that, in which troubles made themselves
show. She lived under his shadow and he didn't seem to really ask her
opinion... in one argument, he blatantly stated that he, as being the
house's only working person had the right to make the decisions...
and Annette knew she wouldn't permit it anymore.
She hired a maid, Maria was her name and with the household
left to someone else, she applied for a job to Umbrella. After a
couple of weeks, she was accepted but in a place lower than what she
might have expected. She wouldn't permit the thoughts to herself but
she couldn't cease that voice inside her, like a devil hissing that
William's rise to the board might have had its influence to that...
All the same, she had herself a job and soon she acquired the
so much needed recognition... but had it been for the best?
"Honey, are you ready?" William's voice snapped her from her
thoughts.
What had she come to? A woman estranged to her husband and...
Sherry...
There really wasn't much place for her in her busy life, was
there?
The more her position climbed among the scientists of Umbrella,
aided by Abel himself who had by then been transferred to another
program, even if with the impersonal way of approving her work and
acknowledging it, without William being able to forbid it, she became
engrossed to it just as much as her husband. What mattered was the
improving of the chemicals she was working on. That didn't leave much
time for Sherry...
She had hoped that with fewer worries for the daily living she
could devote more time to spend with her family...
She picked up her jacket from the wardrobe and she was ready to
go.
Rosalinda, her current housemaid smiled at her as she helped
her put on her jacket. She walked past her and stopped at the door,
looking inside.
Connected to the Playstation, the 45 inch television danced
with colourful images and Annette stood some time absorbed in them,
fascinated almost, but still not as much as her daughter was. She
took a moment to envy her capture in that trance, watching the
screen. What was going on? It seemed peaceful, there was a girl
praying, she had big green eyes and then something came down fast and
to her disbelief she saw that this something was a man with
impossibly long white hair, dressed in black with a large black cape
flying around him, who dived from the sky and impaled the praying
girl with his sword...
She felt as though the blade went through her and then saw the
eyes of the man, the same unnatural green colour but, even if only
drawn they radiated so cold, especially when a snicker of
satisfaction came to his lips... What sort of a game was her daughter
playing, one of such cold blooded slaughter?
She looked at Sherry, only to notice she was holding the keypad
loosely, pressing a button once in a while. At studying that ritual
she realised that at the moment, her doing so only resulted in the
disappearance of dialogue boxes and the appearance of new. The
graphics had now changed, were more like cartoons instead of the
almost alive ones she had witnessed seconds before. One box said
"she'll never laugh... cry... be angry..."
A sorrowful music started, one that surged tears into her eyes
and matched the sad event. She remembered the days of the glory of
PacMan and Ms Ladybird. 'Graphics have improved but so much
violence... My little girl saw a man killing a _praying_ girl in cold
blood and is unaffected by it! What has the world come to?'
'Perhaps to a world where mothers have more time for the toxins
in their laboratory than care for their daughters, growing unaffected
to unadulterated violence... You really care about your daughter's
welfare Annette, don't you.'
'Shut up!'
That voice had more than once stifled her thoughts, whether
it concerned the bringing up of her daughter or her conscience knowing
that those technological advances were in truth bio weapons. That voice
fitted better the scientist she longed to prove herself to be. Whether
it was chemical weapons she was working on or not.
She wouldn't permit inconsiderate usage of them. She could
decide where and when her creations would be utilised... couldn't
she?
Only right now, she forced her thoughts back to her daughter,
so she wouldn't have to face the answer... Why, really...
"Sherry honey..." she said softly. "We're leaving..."
Sherry didn't even turn to look at her, only replied with a
nasal sound and her devotion on the game tore her heart.
"If you need anything, tell Rosalinda... you have dad's mobile,
don't you?"
"Mhmm." came again. She gave up hope.
"Good night, honey... don't stay up too late..."
It wasn't clear whether Sherry had actually heard her.
The car pulled along the row of parked expensive cars; all of
Umbrella's distinct employers were rich. Annette gazed outside her
window at the festively lit mansion, from where a band was heard
playing. Cars kept coming and a groom came to open the door for her
immediately as the car stopped.
Philip Spencer came to their greeting himself when they
approached the entrance. He shook her hand with a wide grin and a
flattery, then greeted William alike. Philip then lead them ahead, to
their company, each of them one of Umbrella's top scientists, some of
whom had a plate full of tasty looking hordeuvres and munched
nonchalantly. William exclaimed a greeting to the company and Annette
did her best to keep smiling, as she hung on his arm and a
photographer's flash went on very close near her and she questioned
whether to buy the picture at the end of the celebration or just
leave it to the photographer's mercy.
Raccoon City's major and honoured guest of the evening shortly
joined them and was pleased to meet Umbrella's most valuable
scientist and his wife. Annette shook his hand wondering if this is
what she should feel like for being the center of attention as the
wife of William Birkin, leading scientist to project Tyrant. But her
thoughts didn't stay to that for long.
The interruption wasn't the major's wife and their daughter's,
a true beauty of about twenty, fit to make her mother hate her. It
was the man escorting the two ladies. Albert Wesker, a man in his
late thirties of whom everything read militariness, yet Annette had
many times seen in a scientist's apron in the same room as her
husband and the team working on the latest project she was only an
assistant to, on this occasion not wearing his essential sunglasses.
The moment she came into his view, his eyes were nailed on her and
the restrained smile he directed to her as a form of greeting, didn't
imply anything good. William greeted him too and he talked to him
with ease but Annette couldn't find peace until after he excused
himself.
"A fine man this Albert Wesker," the major's wife said aloud
apparently directing her words to her. Annette couldn't muster an
affirmative nod to it, as it would have been appropriate, not even at
the hopeful eyes of the major's young daughter, begging for that.
It looked as though those men had nothing better to talk about
other than their fabulous masterpiece, project Tyrant. For Annette,
this whole thing was more than a harmful prolonged session. When the
team to work on it was chosen, they were all asked to compose an
essay regarding their views on many tricky subjects. Once Annette got
the requirements, she knew something was not right. What this paper
was asking in a few words was whether the applicant was willing to
ignore everything for science and progress. Clear mind and
progressive thoughts translated to her as an implore to forgo
fundamental morals, beliefs, things that Umbrella, the pharmaceutical
company otherwise presided for. They were asking indirectly whether,
for an adequate amount they agreed to go 'blind'...
Annette was almost repelled. She decided not to take part in
it. But William... He saw it as the ultimate quest for his abilities.
Annette loved her husband too much to try and convince him
otherwise. So, to be with him, she too took the test. Maybe, she
wasn't as good in concealing her true beliefs, for she barely made it
to the team of assistant scientists and not without luck as well,
since another scientist who didn't make it among the top rank,
withdrew in indignation and that left an empty space.
Annette became part of project Tyrant but she was the number
one unwanted member of the team. The high ups faced her with
mistrust, the other scientists looked down on her with scorn and even
William was ashamed at her cost. He didn't believe that her low
positioning was a result of an unapproved essay. "Heck, if it had to
be faking, you should have done it better!" he had told her. But she
didn't argue against it. After all, she only took the place to be
near him. If anything went wrong... she would be there.
And there was already something wrong. The tests of the T-virus
responded better than expected. They had created the perfect weapon
and purchasers would soon hoard. Very soon. Annette was left watching
time rolling before her, unable to hold back the inevitable. Her
creations slipped through her own hands, against her own will,
turning against her...
What should it matter to her? She avoided answering, since her
reply wouldn't be "concern for world peace", she couldn't care less,
she lived in the United States of America, what could possibly
threaten her? It was suggested to test those creations of them and to
do so, they would pit them against a fully trained armed squad.
Neither did she care about that either. They created monsters, if
they died, all the better and the SWATs were paid exactly for that.
But what of _them_?
Her, William, Sherry and all the other scientists of the
project.
Just like the nuclear bombs. The creators took the blame and
not those who threw them. Should anything go wrong and she could see
the hazard was very high, even the most of the team agreed to that,
then the condemnation would fall on no other than them. Her and
William and all the others working in the team. And as for Sherry she
would have to face the society as the daughter of two criminals.
More than her shared the same fears and yet William persisted
ignoring them. He was so obsessed with his creation, so in love with
it, one could say, he just wouldn't listen to her. Whenever she tried
to warn him, he would claim it was her jealousy talking and she would
still. There was no way she could convince him otherwise and the
subject dropped there. And there was Wesker...
With each day passing, Annette hated him more. He knew how to
manipulate her husband as though he was a string doll and even
everyone else in the team respected him, in the way they would
respect someone they dreaded.
Annette loathed him. He had no morals, no restrictions and
behind his emotionless face of a firm army officer, he was a war pig
who treated them as expendables. No more than the magazine for his
handgun.
It so seemed that her anticipation was returned alike for
Wesker showed his cold side to her evidently. Not only in the way he
gazed at her, it wasn't something she might have come up with. He was
genuinely disliking her and showed it in every chance he took...
Especially when she would pose a debate on their project, as it had
happened only days before...
"You shouldn't be here on your own, away from your husband..."
Annette snapped back to the voice directed to her and she was
showered in fear. There he was with a mask for a face, neither
smiling, nor frowning, as he demanded her attention.
"What do you want, Wesker?" she mustered and yet she didn't
meet his eyes.
"Just a few words. Please, come with me," he offered sternly
but still went as far as presenting his arm to her. Annette naturally
refused it and she walked on, by his side.
They came out in the front porch, staring ahead in the lighted
night.
"I have been really happy with your assistance in our work..."
Wesker begun. His voice run a chilling warning up her neck.
Involuntarily, she rubbed at that area. Then, not wanting to show
weakness, she turned her lucid blue eyes upon him.
"You have a great share in our achievement, however minimal you
consider your part in it."
More of the warning crept up her spine. Was the irony in his
voice... or in her head?
"I thank you for your praise~" she begun. She was cut short by
Wesker's interruption.
"Thanks to the team work, Umbrella succeeded in winning the
impressions yet once more. There has been interest in our researches
and many would gladly be our sponsors..."
Annette couldn't help getting wide eyed as she looked at him.
"You mean..." she started but choked on the words she was
struggling to say. "You - there have been purchases?"
"Now why are you so shocked about it? You didn't work days and
sleepless nights over this to keep them in the closet, did you?"
Annette heard his questioning voice, shocked. Her worst fears
were coming true... So they _were_ planning to sell the weapons all
along. So they _were_ used. Deceived...
"William is speaking with a few interested businessmen..."
Wesker's voice echoed again. "His wife ought to be by his side... not
turning her back on it..."
Turning her tiredly angry eyes on him, Annette would later wish
she had told him so many things, that she had yelled at him and swore
at his calm face. But she said nothing then and so he was settled as
the winner of the confrontation...
"You didn't ask for my opinion before proceeding. You left me
uninformed and now you demand that I should be there and pull an act
on something I haven't even been told about and might need some time
to think over?"
"Are you walking out of it, Annette?" he coldly asked. His face
had a stony expression. Annette felt nothing but loathing and need to
go away as fast as she could, just by looking at him. What heinous
things did he imply? She knew she didn't exactly count as valuable in
the team... Was Wesker - and at this point she couldn't help her eyes
widening - was he threatening her?
"What are you trying to tell me?" she muttered.
Wesker didn't hurry to answer. It seemed he enjoyed this.
Annette would swear he had pulled his face to a grin...
"I'm only suggesting that if the scientist's wife is not at his
side when she is in the group, it will appear that she is left in the
dark... or maybe... tries to state an opposition..." he said. Annette
wouldn't be wrong to believe he had stressed out the last words...
So he knew... he _was_ making a threat... a suggestion.
"Do you have any idea how much this will cost to William?" he
then added. Annette thought she lost her senses. She felt her breath
abandoning her... she knew she was dealing biological weapons, so she
was essentially in dangerous grounds... but to face blackmail... so
soon and so off-handedly...
"How dare you!" she steamed at him. And she knew at the same
time that he knew he was having the upper hand.
"Annette... you are a clever woman... Act like one." he said
icily. His words being said, he left her in the front porch and went
back into the mansion where the feast went on, where the guests were
pretending to laugh sincerely at the jokes exchanged and somewhere
there, William was boasting about the greatness of their invention,
like a lamb striding among a flock of wolves...
"William stop! Listen to me!" she tried once more.
"Don't you try to tell me what to do, you're not even there to
know!" William shouted as he threw off his jacket, striding to the
bedroom. Annette followed him.
"What is so hard to figure? They are selling them and they
don't even ask! Isn't that using you, or not?"
"OUR end of the job is to manufacture those things and what
they are to do with them is THEIR business! We get paid for our
brains, not for our opinion!" William blurted out.
Annette gazed at him, confusedly. Why was he being so harsh to
her? Why did he refuse to see things her way?
"So you'll just let them have their hands on them and turn them
against helpless people? Can you be happy with yourself?"
"MY creations," he shot angrily back at her, the stress on the
possession stabbing her, "are not meant to be weapons! They are meant
to help mankind! We created stronger, better tissues~"
"It's weapons and you know it!" Annette screamed in frustration
"And we are the ones to make them, but we're only their hands!
William... they're using you!" she finished her outburst in tension.
"That's nonsense!" he shouted.
"They are using your intellect but if something goes wrong, you
will be taking the blame, not them! They'll run away clear, you'll be
the evil scientist who created the weapon and they will have Nothing
to do with it!
"That will never happen!" he said, throwing his hands in the
air.
"How are you so sure of it!" she yelled. "People who make
weapons don't care for any number of lives they have to spend and
yours might be one of it!"
"That's your stupid precaution talking! If you carry yourself
around as a scientist, try to act like one!"
And to his words, Annette felt stiff, as if he had splashed her
with icy water, so cold that it froze her. Only hours before Wesker
had talked to her in the same way but hearing it from the lips of her
husband, made Wesker's insult seem niggling.
"How can you say that!" she gasped at him. "How can you think
it is about competition?"
"YOU said it!" he returned, his tone having risen.
"That's so unfair of you to say!" she demanded but he returned
with angered amazement to her.
"Oh now I've hurt your feelings?"
Trying to compel her shaking, she looked away from him.
"Stop it, William," she steamed.
"Me stop it? ME stop it?!?" he said, taking a step forward,
hitting his palm on his chest for emphasis.
"I don't want Sherry to hear us fighting." Annette said in a
last act of despair. They had been shouting quite a lot lately and
she was worried about her daughter finding out, even though her heart
and the face of Sherry told her that she already knew...
William's face grazed at her.
"Now don't you~" he begun but she didn't let him finish.
"I don't want Sherry to hear us fighting!" she said more
decisively and turned her eyes on him.
William stopped before her seriousness but it wasn't because he
complied and Annette received his irony as she lifted her eyes on him
again.
"You're so damn jealous, you know that?" he said in a tone
searing. Annette gaped at him. He shook his head nearly grinning with
sarcasm.
"You are so jealous that Sherry likes me better than she likes
you, aren't you!"
"That's not true and you know it!" she snapped back, but her
sentiments nearly flooded her, for in truth, William spent more time
with Sherry than she did. William was welcome to share the
Playstation with her, he was the one she would run to in the hour of
need and to whom she sought comfort when she needed it. Annette was
only her mother. The one who prepared her breakfast, took her to
school and dressed her.
"I can't believe you would use Sherry again... You always used
Sherry to excuse your deficiencies~"
"Stop it, William!" she shouted.
"to claim you couldn't cope because you had to take care of
her, you always saw her as an obstacle and you demand that~"
"I've had it up to here with you!" she yelled and blinded with
tears, she run to the bathroom, wherein she locked herself and
slamming the lid down, she sat on it and cried behind her hand, the
mascara etching her eyes.
After a while, when her sorrow wasn't enough to prevent other
things to her attention, she heard the wardrobe opening. William was
hanging his clothes...
She waited for a long time, even after she heard the click of
the switch and the light didn't pour in under the door. William had
fallen asleep and she just sat there, thinking of nothing, just
hoping she would be wrong, trying to silence her subconscious praying
the exact opposite so she would be proved right...
One week later she would have hoped she had never even thought
about it.
Inside her chest, her heart was beating but the fear leading
that heartbeat was above her exhausted lunges, as she run through the
empty, grey corridors of the laboratory which was the secret of the
mansion that only days before hosted a feast as a celebration to
their success, the reason of Annette's horror. She saw it with her
own eyes when she went to the dormitory to check on doctor Conrad,
the new associate in charge of project P-42 held in the basement. The
man hadn't been feeling well and she was taking care of him... he had
been missing for two days and she had been ordered to check upon
him...
A new wave of vomit threatened to choke her at the memory of
that... that...
It wasn't even a human being but it looked so much like doctor
Conrad, even as it was bent over the body of his roommate, hungrily
plunging its head into the bleeding guts, sucking blood and flesh
alike from a hole it had carved with its very teeth...
Annette trembled again upon her running feet, nearly falling
down but the doctor chased her and would never stop pursuing her
mind, just as he slowly stood up from his meal, skin and blood
dripping from his face that was slowly crumbing away, the echo of a
reminder of his voice swarmed inside her head as he stood up, his
breath smelling like rotten hell as in a snappy motion he turned and
tried to land upon her...
Annette never knew what forgotten reflex pulled her the
rescuing step away but she would ever feel the impact of a vacuous
head on her foot, a skull about to break and let a stoned mind roll
out, a memory stuck upon her like the retch that poured on her feet
from a deteriorated mouth...
She run with the doctor's moans inside her head, crying and out
of breath, only mechanically making her way to William's laboratory.
Maybe it wasn't just in her brain, maybe she was right that the moans
were coming behind doors she run past, behind her, around her,
everywhere...
She pushed away the door to William's laboratory, blind from
tears and out of breath, her feet hardly holding her. She looked at
her husband but found no relief. He was sitting on his desk, bent
over his scrambled papers and his hands were thrust in his oily hair,
the desk lamp being the only light in the room...
She staggered inside, weakly pushing the door behind her.
William didn't look up at her but when she heard his voice, it was
one more blow into her heart.
"You were right, Annette," he merely said.
And into that disappointed voice Annette found the only
consolation she could hope for.
She made it to his desk and pulled a stool, sitting next to
him. In that difficult moment, they only had each other. Annette run
her hand on his head, hoping his touch would absorb her tremble.
William had only now realised his powerlessness and he still had to
recover. Annette had to be strong for both. It always is so, she
thought. Women have to be strong for both...
"We'll get away from it all, William..." she said compelling
her voice to a somewhat steady utterance. "Come on."
William looked at her and Annette saw something she hadn't seen
in a long time... gratitude. Like when they were equal, in the
University when she would share her solutions with him, when her
fresh ideas would light the bulb of his tired mind.
He caught her hands in his and held them tightly, even though
his palms were clammy and shaking.
"God knows where I would be without you, Annette..." he said.
"William... have you seen~" Annette attempted but it seemed
like her husband didn't realise the seriousness of the situation.
"We'll go away... you and I. And Sherry. We don't need Umbrella
or anyone else, just us!" he said, deliriously.
Of all the times, it was the worst for such declarations of
passion... This wasn't the scientist Annette had come to know so well
and there she realised that...
Whatever this T-virus was, even though it hadn't affected them
physically, at least not yet, it had contaminated William's spirit.
He turned into a deranged man, crazed from failure and passionately
loving whatever could hold him... or he was still under the shock.
That was it, wasn't it?
Moans echoed in those corridors. Annette had to act fast. Once
they would get out of here, it would all be better...
Jumping up, she grabbed the car keys from William's desk.
"Come on. Let's leave now!" she urged.
A worried gleam passed by William's eyes.
"William?" she urged him once more.
With stunning energy, her husband leaped to his feet, grabbed
his coat but instead of the exit, he rushed to the far end, where was
a sterilised chamber. He opened it and grabbed a small vessel from
within and transported it to a portable container...
"William, what are you doing?" she almost whined with agony.
"The G-virus!" she heard him mutter and she was sick worried at
how he run around like rabid, opening file drawers and grabbing
folders under his arms.
"The G-virus?" she pleaded.
"I haven't told all, have I!" he declared and the enthusiasm in
his face was frightful. "No! They took one away from my hands... but
they won't take my masterpiece!"
Annette faintly remembered having seen some of her husband's
notes which she soon realised it wasn't on what they were working
on... Oh no, William... how much had they corrupted him? Wasn't he
realising what monster it was he was making?
"William, why don't you just leave it all behind?" she pleaded,
tears streaming through her eyes.
"It's my only legacy, don't you see?" he yelled with zest. "I
won't go without it!"
Annette watched desperately at him running around, knowing she
would either have to leave him or take him with her, crazy as he had
become... When he handed her some of the folders he had collected,
she compliantly took them. Soon they were ready to go, running as
fast as they could, away from that disaster, away from the monsters,
carrying William's project like a baby in their hands.
Annette felt her load pulling her down, sitting heavily upon
her throat. But she wouldn't drop it. Maybe, with something to keep
him active, her husband would eventually be back to the man she had
loved. Even if that something was a biological weapon, she would
still cradle his child of death for his sake. Because she still loved
her husband. Perhaps, like always, a little too much.
-- The End --
Doctor Abel: Scientist mentioned in Tekken 3 who supposedly re-
animated Bryan Fury.
Sherry plays Final Fantasy 7. Scene mentioned is Aeris's death.