Prototype – Alex Mercer & Sarabelle Richards – "Forgetting Yourself"

Location: Abandoned Military Base, Midtown East, Manhattan, New York
2009
(After the nuclear bomb sabotage in Prototype 1)

"But-but-"

"No 'buts', Belle. You're moving in with me."

"Ha! Well, if you WANT me to so badly, how can I say no?"

Sarabelle Elaine Richards, after much struggle, managed to crack open her eyes. She was staring at a ceiling, but it was not her own apartment ceiling. No, when she sat up, she was not in a familiar environment. Wherever she was, it was an enormous room, with minor furniture like chairs and tables, all in horrid condition. This appeared to be an abandoned warehouse. But how would she have come here?

"Hey. You're finally awake."

Sarabelle glanced up and was face-to-face with her ex-boyfriend, Alex Mercer. With an awed expression, she never took her eyes off him as he knelt down in front of her. "Alex… Where are we?"

"It's okay. We're still in Manhattan. It's an abandoned military base in Midtown East. The Blue Zone. There's not an infected soul for miles. We're safe." Mercer said with a little smile, shifting his weight onto both knees.

"Uh God…" She then buried her face into her hands. "What happened to me?"

"You passed out. From blood loss," He told her. "Of course, that wouldn't have happened if you had told me."

She looked at him. "Well, I'm sorry. I thought I was fine." She continued to hang her head low.

"Yeah well, in the future, please don't lie to me. You're probably the only one who can help me right now." He said. "And um… Sarabelle, there's something I gotta tell you-"

"Ugh! What the hell?!" She clutched her stomach. "What's going on with me- AH!" Stretching out her arms, she watched in horror as… something black and red… like tentacles slithered from her stomach up to her chest and then down her arms before morphing with them. She almost had tears in her eyes at that sight. "What the- what the fuck?!"

"Sarabelle, calm down-"

"Alex, what the fuck happened to me?" She demanded to know, inspecting her both the top her hands. She noticed that there was something… glowing red on them. It was actually red bioluminescent and it was glowing in a pretty cool design. "Alex?!"

Mercer struggled to tell her this but… "Sarabelle, I'm sorry. I had no choice…! I… infected you with the virus."

Her deep green eyes widened as much as possible. "WHAT?!" She almost screeched. "ALEXANDER J. MERCER, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO ME?!" She slapped him on his chest.

"Sarabelle, come on!" He raised both hands in truce, hoping to calm her and explain his actions. "You were bleeding out. I had to save you somehow!"

"You could have redressed my wound, for better yet: left me to die!" She argued.

"Not with what's at stake."

She continued to stare at the bioluminescent on her hands. "What are you talking about? And why the hell am I not like one of those Walkers? Why am I still… me?"

"I don't know. I haven't done this to anyone before," He said honestly. "It was just a theory I had. If the virus reanimated my body, why shouldn't that same strain I'm carrying do the same for you? …I guess it worked. You look well now."

She doubled over, clutched her stomach. "Ugh, not entirely… and what the hell do you mean by 'reanimated my body'? What's at stake? What the hell's going on?"

Mercer knew his ex-girlfriend had many questions running through her mind. But he didn't know how to answer them without a few questions of his own. "There's so much I have to tell you, Sarabelle. Way too much. First off, I'm not Alex anymore. I'm the Blacklight virus. Nice to meet you."

He proceeded to telling her everything that he had experienced these few days, from the wakening at the morgue to the nuclear bomb sabotage. Sarabelle listened with much alertness and sometimes gave an occasional tear. Originally, Mercer was kneeling in front of Sarabelle while she knelt in front of him.

But now, they were still on the floor, but sitting together side by side. Mercer was just wrapping up the last of his story, causing the words to escape Sarabelle for a short time.

"Alex, this is… this is almost unnatural," She commented. "And you say that you lost all of your memories? Every little detail?"

He nodded solemnly. "Hell, I didn't even know I had a sister until I consumed that solider…"

"Well, if you forgot almost everything… then how did you remember me?" She questioned innocently.

He had the exact answer to that question. "It's because of this," From the inner pocket of his leather jacket, he brought out a familiar object – a light blue sketch book with white outlines. "It's a sketch book I found in my apartment, on a table under those framed pictures in my apartment. I was about to go through it then Blackwatch decided to blow up my apartment along with me in it. I didn't really get a chance look at it. I did, just a little, but those memory flashes… it hurt so much… And then once in the Green Zone… I saw you," He glanced at her, his silver-blue eyes sparkling at her. "In that art gallery and then it…"

"Triggered another memory? And it hurt?" She took a guess.

"Like a bitch…" He muttered. "I saw images of you flashing in my head. Then after I sabotaged the nuclear bomb, I finally got a chance to sit down and go through the sketch book. I'm about halfway there now."

Her eyes were fixed on the sketch book in his hands. "I didn't think you'd have kept it…"

"Sarabelle," He caught her gaze again. "I can tell by this book and all these memories that we were pretty close. How serious were we?"

She only had one answer for that. "We were engaged."

"Oh my God… are you serious? Really?"

She nodded at him. "You proposed to me on Valentine's Day."

"Well then, what happened to us?" He asked.

"Wait," She stopped him right there, wanting to ask a question of her own. "Before I go on, there's something I want to know. Why are you doing this?" She asked. "Why are you going through all this trouble, when you don't even know you can trust me? How sure can you be that I won't do what Karen Parker did to you?"

Mercer took a moment to analyze her question and looked at the sketch book in his hands. "Believe me, Sarabelle, I wish I could give you a straight answer but… this is the best I can give you right now: I shouldn't even be giving a shit about you, but I am. I am because all I can see are great memories with you. I see smiles, I hear laughter… I hear your voice telling me that you love me over and over again. Yes, I know I shouldn't be quick to judge… but I want to take that chance right now, especially when I really need someone in my life right now to help me understand how rejoin the human race once again. To tell me that I'm… still human…"

"Aw, Alex," She reached for his cheek, and then quickly pulled back, knowing that he might be uncomfortable. "Sorry… What makes you think you're not still human? You're here, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but that's thanks to the virus."

"Yeah but… you can still think. You can still make decisions. Hell, you still have feelings and you still have hope," She said to him in a gentle tone. "These and many other things make you human, Alex. Just because you now have superhuman abilities doesn't make you any less human."

Mercer glanced at his twiddling thumbs. "But somehow, I feel so… disconnected from the human race."

"Alex, look at me," She requested. "What happened back in Hope… those were the actions of other people. Those people? They don't know what it means to be human. You were trying to expose them all. And now? You've just saved so many innocent people from a terrible nuclear threat. If you ask me, that makes you even more human than you think."

He managed to smile just a little bit at her. "That's nice of you to say. Were you always like this?"

She giggled at him. "I'm an artist, Alex. I'm bound to be soulful."

They shared a little chuckle at that.

"So I've told you everything," He said. "Will you tell me about us so I can understand?"

Sarabelle smiled at him. "Well, before I start," She hesitantly took his hand and gave it a little squeeze. "I just want you to know that you can trust me fully. I would never do anything to betray you."

Mercer glanced down at their hands and looked up at her once again. "If I keep getting those painful memory flashes each time, then I know you're telling the truth," He said. "I just want another chance, Sarabelle, to be human again."

"Well then, I'll be more than happy to help you get that chance." She said with yet, another genuine smile that was slowly restoring his faith.