EDIT: Please accept a huge 'THANK YOU!' to everyone who reviewed, those who favourited, and everyone who read. I have been continually amazed by the fantastic response I have received, and I am very pleased to inform you all that the response has been well recognised in that I am going to puplish a L4D series. I know a lot of you were hoping for this, so here I am confirming your hopes! :D I have yet to decide whether I should make a series of one-shots (which I know have been done on numerous occasions for L4D), or if I should write a linear series that focusses on the campaign run throughs. One thing I am certain of, however, is that it will be focussing on the original L4D cast. :) Thanks again! :D
Hey, thanks for checking out my fic.
I thought of the idea for this fic whilst playing The Sacrifice DLC on single-player (I always play maps on single-player first, to get a feel for them). As I am a girl, I always choose to play as Zoey - also one of my favourite characters (then again, I absolutely adore every single one of the L4D characters, they're all so lovable in their own unique ways. Even Francis. XD). Since I was playing single-player, I had to be the one to sacrifice themself for the others, as Zoey. The seeds of inspiration were then sown and I created this AU fic which deviates from the canon of Bill's death to see what it would be like if Zoey had been the one to die for her new family.
Also, the main focus of Bill came from his death being canon, of course, but also because when Zoey sacrificed herself the one voice I could hear above all others in the group was his agonised yell (No, kid, Goddamnit, NO!). :C It actually quite badly hurt me to hear that much pain in his voice, so I felt the need to make the fic focus on him to kind of disippate some of the sadness I felt I shared with him. Such a fangirl am I.
Disclaimer: You all know the drill. Me no own-y. Unfortunately!
BE AWARE, this fic contains spoilers for The Sacrifice DLC. Just to make sure you know that. :P
Erroneous Sacrifice
Cries of pain echoed unrestrainedly around his agonised mind, regardless of his anguished efforts to repress them. No matter how hard he tried to stop them, the screams continued to resonate in his thoughts, crowding and pushing, punching and kicking in the midst of the titanic accumulation of conciousness that jarred harshly in his head. They fluctuated dramatically and unreservedly in volume and pitch, switching instantly from the low, demonic howl of a lost soul pained by their circumstance, to an unearthly screech like that of a frenzied banshee screaming in sheer fury. Guilt was all he felt, saturated with painful, torturous regret.
Why, kid, Goddamnit, why did you do it, why?
Travelling across a dock, their ragtag group of a family easily ripped through the small crowds of zombies, facing minimal difficulty. They had just begun to believe that all of their hardships were over; they would get to Keyes, as planned, and they would start to forge new lives of comfort and safety - albeit with a slight permeation of loneliness stemming from the necessary isolation from all others beside like-minded carriers. Still, they would finally be able to live again, not just survive. All was going extraordinarily well – so, of course, it was only going to be a short while before their newly crafted pillar of good fortune collapsed and brought a plummeting tonne of inevitable backwash falling about their heads.
There emerged a snag: a bridge, which they needed to raise in order to free a sail boat and begin their journey to the islands, was lacking in the power it required to rise and fall freely. The only way they would be able to climb to its height and gain access to the vital override switch that would clear the hindering obstruction was if they started up the nearby electrical generators. So, they did it. It was, as they had believed, only a slight hitch - an easily ironed out wrinkle in their carefully pressed plans.
It wasn't.
Why, why, WHY?
The worst thing possible happened.
The horde came to them - the biggest mass of the monsters he had ever seen, infiltrated with countless, gargantuan Tanks.
And then the generator stopped.
No image appeared before his drooping eyes other than her face. Every single detail, every tiny, minute freckle that she retained from her so recent childhood, every smudge of dirt or blood from the battles they were forced into facing in order to survive, and every glistening tear of agony she tried so hard to hide from them on those nights where she suffered – as all of them did - when memories of her fresh past haunted her just as she was haunting him now. Her smile, the radiant, toothy and glowing grin she always used to try and cheer them up with if her fellow youngster couldn't.
Her young, excruciatingly beautiful, so heartbreakingly departed eyes.
Despite the fact that it was physically impossible for him to have seen her in such high definition as to meet her gaze at that nightmarish moment when he was stuck on the bridge and forced to witness the horror unfolding before him, wielding his SMG against the relentless horde of monsters and lacking a scope or superhuman eyesight with which to see her face, he was able to imagine. When he was a boy, playing with his friends - who would later become his lost war companions in Vietnam - his imagination had been beneficial and had served him well, allowing him to perfectly envision himself as a heroic war hero of legend; now, however, all it did was tear and infect an open wound, rubbing salt in and widening the bloody, scarring gash.
Thinking of her just sitting there, fighting with all her being despite her mortal wounds and utterly, frighteningly, resigned to her inevitable fate, dealt to him a bare-knuckled punch driven by nothing but an all-consuming rage. Head dropping to fall to his chest, eyes suddenly clenched shut, his teeth gritted brutally and animalistically, clamping so hard around the already worn cigarette held in his mouth that it was nearly sliced clean in half. Maybe he could have acted faster. Maybe he could have grabbed her, stopped her, pulled her back. He cursed himself.
Damn me! Damn my own old, godforsaken body that ain't worth a shit, damn my bum leg, damn my inability! I always promised you that I would protect you, come hell or high water, and I failed you, god fucking damnit, I failed you! When you came to me, crying about your family, I told you that we're your family now, and that I would be your father. All I ever wanted was for you to be safe, and I would have sacrificed everybody, everybody to have kept you that way. Even me. Especially me.
I should've been the one to go. I'm old, done for. I'm not gonna last much longer in this world. I knew that I would only ever get you to the Keyes, and that'd be it - but it'd be enough. You'd be safe, happy. You might've met someone - another carrier, a nice boy that could use a gun - fallen in love, started a family, lived like you deserved!
Instead of that, she had given up everything - just to save him from doing so; to stop him from making the ultimate sacrifice that she had always known he would. At the exact millisecond when the faltering of that damned generator became apparent, her glinting eyes had narrowed in firm, unshakeable determination. Jumping past them to sprint to the ground, resolutely ignoring their desperate, horrified shouts, easily bypassing their frantically outstretched grips which became preoccupied with holding back monstrosities, she pounded buck shot after buck shot into the horde, smashing through their broken, rotten bodies with the butt of her weapon.
Her strident, unwavering shouts reached them even through the cacophonous howl of hell on earth as she punched the control panel of the generator for the last time, "Keep going 'til you get to Keyes – forget about me! I love you all so much, I love you, I love you!" Throwing down her empty semi-auto shotgun, she pulled out her beloved, signature dual wielded pistols and began to shoot expertly at the relentless bastards she faced as the bridge began to raise again. It seemed as though they might save her, once the horde had died down, maybe.
Then a Tank grabbed her.
With every mighty, crushing strike, a rib was broken. Every pound, a leg, every blow, her spine, every hit, her neck, fingers, shoulders, wrist, ankle, nose, arm, everything, organs punctured, bleeding, crimson blood spreading, spreading, spreading everywhere, and it wouldn't stop, would not stop and it just wouldn't ever, ever stop as long as he lived. But she didn't stop bellowing to them.
"Please, go, go, go!"
A bloodcurdling scream.
"Go, go, go!"
Another.
"GO GO GO!"
A final, resounding scream that boomed up and down the street, reverberating and ringing in his ears, travelling backwards and forwards in its echo, catching bare glimpses of its old self, its shadow, and somehow rapidly gaining in volume on each layer upon layer until it abruptly concluded. A crash. A thump. A roar.
Nothing else.
From the sparsely moonlit corner he sat in, keeping watch over the other two as they feigned sleep in favour of just lying there and tormenting themselves over their collective failure, glistening wet drops began to fall unreservedly from his weathered, creased face for the first time in twenty-five years.
Zoey was dead.
And, if the cruel bastard in the sky finally listened to prayers, Bill would soon be joining her.
Wow, that was the most agonisingly, torturously sad thing I have ever written. If you think that this fic was alright, please do leave a review - even the tiniest, one-word reviews are fine, haha :D Also, I would appreciate it if you guys told me how I did with Bill's character - I didn't want to make him soft, but I always saw him as having a fatherly love for Zoey, and that she was like the daughter he never had, so I imagine he would be torturing himself over her death. So, please REVIEW!
Thanks for reading, everybody :3
...review...! ;)