Epilogue

Natalia couldn't stop crying. After the wine bottle exploded, everyone had been busy trying to put out the fire, saving what could be saved from the living room and making sure the others were okay. No one got hurt, the damage turned out to be not as severe as it had seemed at first, and there had been no time to blame anyone.

But that time was going to come faster than Natalia could find an excuse. In fact, there was no excuse. There was only the truth, and that she couldn't tell her family.

She was sitting on a bench on the porch, wrapped in her blue cardigan like a present nobody wanted, holding Lottie in her arms and watching the house on the opposite side of the empty street. Her neighbors had three children as well, one of which was even the same age as her, but she was pretty sure that boy was not crazy like her. That family was celebrating Christmas as it should be celebrated, not having to worry about the youngest member turning batshit crazy and trying to blow them all up. That was something only the Burtons had to put up with.

The door opened, Natalia quickly wiped the tears off her face and got ready to be yelled at, to accept her punishment. The others must have figured out by now that the exploding bottle and everything else that had gone wrong this evening was her doing. But to her surprise, the person who came out wasn't Barry, Kathy or one of her sisters. It was Jill, the woman with the BOW aura.

"Hey, Christmas Girl!" she said in a soft voice. "Aren't you getting a little cold out here?"

"No... Why are you calling me that?"

"Christmas Girl? Well, I thought it was fitting."

Natalia didn't think so at all. She wasn't Christmas Girl. If anything, she was Christmess Girl.

"You know, Natalia sounds a lot like Natale, the Italian word for Christmas," Jill said, sitting down next to her. "Sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

"It's okay. When you put it like that, I actually like it," Natalia said. "So you speak Italian?"

"A little."

"How did you learn it?"

Maybe this conversation was just what she needed right now. To get her mind off things.

"That woman, Excella Gionne... She was Albert Wesker's partner in crime, so to speak. Has Barry told you about Wesker? And what he did to me?"

Natalia nodded, even though she only knew half of the story.

"In those three years I spent in Wesker's captivity, I became something like... a toy for Excella," Jill said. "I had to do whatever she asked, but sometimes she had a little too much fun giving me orders in Italian, her native language, that naturally I couldn't understand. And then she punished me for not following her orders..."

Natalia rolled her eyes. That sounded an awful lot like something Alex would do.

"Anyway, I picked up a few things, and when I was finally able to break free from Excella and Wesker's influence, I decided to delve deeper into that language. Those three years in captivity were so terrible that I don't even want to remember them most of the time, but they're a part of me now, and learning Italian helps me come to terms with that. It's the one good thing that has emerged from the darkest times of my life... And it's not like I had anything better to do during my therapy anyway."

"Why did you have to do anything that woman told you to?" Natalia asked.

"Because I had no choice. Wesker had developed that... mind-controlling virus he used on me."

"So he basically decided what he wanted you to do, and you had to do it, whether you wanted to or not?"

"Pretty much, yes. And the worst part is: I was fully aware of everything I did under his control. And I did some truly horrible things that I would never have done of my own free will. But I couldn't stop myself. My body was nothing but a puppet with Wesker pulling the strings."

That sounded familiar. In fact, it sounded so familiar that Natalia was toying with idea of telling Jill something she had never told anyone else before. Something no one else might ever be able to fully comprehend. No one but another person who had been abused by a Wesker in a similar way.

"I have this... voice inside my head." The words came out of her mouth before she could even think them through. "It tells me to do things I don't want to do. And sometimes it becomes more than just a voice. Sometimes it..."

"... takes over?"

Natalia nodded.

"I thought so," Jill said. When the little girl then looked at her with wide eyes, she asked: "It was you, wasn't it? You swapped the names on the presents, poured alcohol into the turkey and prepared the bomb that set the tree on fire. But at the same time, it wasn't really you. It was that other you."

"Please keep this to yourself! This family is everything I have, I don't want to lose it. Coming here has made me happy for the first time since my parents died, and I don't even want to think about returning to the orphanage. So please, you can't tell anyone!"

"I won't. Not if you don't want me to. You know, I understand what you're going through. As I said before, Wesker forced me to do things that made me despise myself. Things I haven't told anyone about, not even Chris, even though he's the closest thing to family I have left."

"Wouldn't he understand? If you're that close?"

"Of course he would. But," Jill said, pausing significantly, "so would Barry if you told him."

Natalia lowered her head.

"I know," Jill said. "There's nothing to justify. Sometimes it doesn't matter if people would understand or not. Some tales should just never be told, simply because you're uncomfortable telling them. Because some things might forever change the way people look at you, even if they deny it."

"But what should I do?" Natalia asked. "Is there even anything I can do? How did you break free from Wesker's control?"

"To be honest, I didn't. I managed to fight the influence every now and then, but couldn't get rid of it entirely until Chris freed me of the device that was keeping me prisoner. But that device could only do that because it was continuously injecting me with a chemical that made me susceptible to manipulation. Once the chemical was gone, I was free. And now you must find your chemical. It doesn't have to be a chemical in the strict sense of the word, but the thing that is making you vulnerable. It could be an emotion, for example. Find out what it is that allows this voice in your head to take control every now and then, and fight it!"

Jill was right. Alex wasn't always there, sometimes she was even gone for quite a long time, sometimes she took control, and sometimes she didn't. There had to be a reason for that, some kind of trigger.

"But I don't know how to do that," Natalia said. "Will you help me?"

"Of course I'll help you! I will think about this, and together we will come up with a way to fight the darkness inside you. Don't ever let it beat you!"

Natalia was so relieved, she felt like she was going to cry again. She still had a long way ahead of her, but at least she wasn't alone anymore. Jill was there, someone who understood, someone who wouldn't tell anyone else about this until they figured out what to do. It was a start.

"By the way... Here's something to lighten up your mood." Jill gave Natalia a small present. At first it looked liked Moira's phone in wrapping paper, but it was square-shaped, not rectangular, and a lot flatter.

"What's that?" Natalia asked.

"Open it and you'll know!"

It was a CD cover. Inside was CD with Natalia's face printed on it, and an inscription that read The Sluice Master.

"It's a video game starring you as the player character, programmed by a workmate of mine, Quint Cetcham," Jill explained. "Barry commissioned it. To be honest, I have no idea what Sluice Master even means, I guess it's an inside joke just like the one with the sandwiches, but the look on your face tells me you know exactly what it means, and that you like it."

"I love it!" Natalia couldn't even find words to describe how happy this little disc made her. So that was the reason she hadn't found anything for herself in the storm shelter – her present hadn't even been there yet. But that game was certainly the best, most creative present she could think of. She could hardly wait to try it out.

"Let's get back inside," Jill suggested. "There's more for you, you know. We just didn't find the time to give it to you yet because of certain burning tree disasters."

"What are we going to tell the others about everything what went wrong?" Natalia asked.

"We'll figure something out. Let's go now, it's quite freezing out here! Just make sure you go to the bathroom first, do something about those teary, red eyes, or everyone will see you've been crying."

Upon returning inside, Natalia noticed that all the little accidents hadn't ruined the Christmas mood at all. Everyone had finally received the presents that were meant for them, and given back those that belonged to others. Well, everyone except Barry, much to the others' amusement.

"Dad, are you sure you don't need this beautiful football jersey we got you?" Polly asked.

"I will always need that jersey. But for now, I have this!" he said, proudly showing off with a certain pink designer purse.

Moira, finally reunited with her beloved phone, quickly took a photo of her father exploring his feminine side before he changed his mind, Chris was on the phone telling Piers about his comic books, Claire was eating chocolate while browsing through her book about motorbikes, and Kathy was wearing her shiny new jewelry. It turned out the sandwich maker was actually for Jill, and now that she could use it to make sandwiches for everyone, they didn't even need the pizza they had ordered anymore. Against all odds, everyone was happy.

Natalia did as Jill had told her and went to the bathroom before joining the others. Jill had been right about many things tonight, and Natalia's face was one of them: it looked too sad for the occasion, so she washed it in order to remove all the traces that she had been crying. But when she looked into the mirror again, what she saw was no longer her own face – or it was in a way, but different. That face belonged to her other self.

"So are you finally going to stop whining?" Alex asked. "It's your own fault after all. If you weren't so boring, this evening could have been a lot more fun for both of us."

Natalia wasn't going to have any more of this. Encouraged by her new positive attitude, she looked her dark mirror image directly in the eyes as she said: "I may not be able to stop you from swapping names on presents, turning the food inedible, burning the Christmas tree and speaking ill of my friends. You've already done all of that. But if there's one thing you're not going to ruin, it's my life with this family. No matter how hard you try, I can't even be truly mad at you because deep down, all I really feel for you is pity. Pity because you never got to know what it's like to have a family, especially now on Christmas Eve, a time of the year when everyone truly realizes that family and loved ones are the most important things in life. That there are people who will always understand and love you. That's something you will never have, and for that I am sorry."

She was expecting a biting reply from Alex, but it never came. The girl behind the glass just looked at her a little longer, then she disappeared, and all that was left was Natalia's own natural mirror image. For the first time in forever, she was able to genuinely smile again. That was a face she could definitely put on to join the others, and she didn't want to keep them waiting any longer. Neither did Lottie.

Alex was pleased as she watched Natalia celebrate with her new family. So she hadn't succeeded in ruining Christmas – but that had never been her real plan anyway.

This year's Christmas Eve was nothing but the chess board she had set up to ultimately conquer the king and the queen, namely the Redfield siblings. Four years ago, Chris had killed Albert and thus taken away the only person Alex had ever truly cared about, the man she called her brother even though they were not related by blood. And then Claire had killed her – not the part of her soul that she had successfully managed to transfer into Natalia, just her old shell after it had turned into a hideous monster, but it was the thought that counted. The right to be a god was hers, and hers alone! Who did that little Claire bitch think she was, assuming she could just kill a god?

But now Alex was going to return the favor by taking everything that Chris and Claire held dear away from them, just as they had taken Albert from her, and then she would kill them slowly and painfully, using the guise of an innocent little girl nobody would ever suspect.

One of her immediate goals was to drive Natalia so desperate she could no longer keep her condition to herself, and just as predicted by Alex, she had eventually poured her heart out to Jill Valentine, who had gone through a similar ordeal, and who was no stranger to Alex either. She had never met Jill in person before this night, but was very aware of what Albert had done to her, and now that the connection between Natalia and Jill had been established, it was only a matter of time until she was also introduced to Piers Nivans, Sherry Birkin and whoever else Chris and Claire had a friendly relationship with. Alex wasn't planning on letting any of them escape.

But she would take her sweet time picking them off one by one until only the two siblings remained, and then they would experience all the loneliness and despair they had bestowed on her. The worst was yet to come – and the world was going to be very afraid.

– The End –


Special thanks to Jen for listening to my ideas, encouraging me to write this story and proofreading it. Merry Christmas everyone!