F.3.A.R.: Bound in Blood

Disclaimer: Hello FEAR fans. It's been a while since my last once-believed-to-be-oneshot fic entitled Sympathy for the Devil. Well, much to my surprise, everyone came at me for a sequel. Well, it wouldn't be much of a sequel per se, rather a different take on the 3rd FEAR game itself. Now while I did enjoy the game, there were some parts that I felt could be changed and some that didn't need to be there at all. ... Like Jin's character for instance. There will be a difference from the 3rd game, though still maintaining some 3rd game qualities based on what I feel as a fan could have been there.

I do hope you read and review.

"Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us, and the prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, and beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison."

-HEINRICH HEINE, "Lutetia; or, Paris," Augsberg Gazette, 1842

"No one becomes depraved all at once."

-JUVENAL, Satires

By: VampireQueenAkasha

"It's the way of men to make monsters, and it's the nature of monsters to destroy their makers."

-Harlan Wade

Interval 06: Perdition

In 2002, the U.S. Army formed a secret unit dedicated to combating paranormal threats to national security. The unit was named First Encounter Assault Recon. In the year 2025, most of the team was lost to enemy commander Paxton Fettel and his Replica Forces. F.E.A.R. operative known as "Point Man" believed to have escaped from Auburn District shortly after the destruction of Armacham's Origin Facility. His location as well as the location of F.E.A.R. operatives Jin Sun-Kwon and Douglas Holiday are currently unknown.

O

"And on her forehead was written a name of mystery:

"Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth's abominations."

- Revelation 17:5

"Still Island..."

The helicopter slowly made its way toward the nightmarish storm that hovered over the former Armacham facility. As they drew closer and closer, watching with uncertainty and fear, they equally felt a pressure in the air; an intense hatred and pain. It was so powerful, even Stokes and Manny felt the change without even being psychically attuned to Alma's influence. Beckett was shaking with fear and anger, torn between two wills; his own and Alma's. Fettel seemed excited, however. He leaned toward his brother.

"Do you feel her power?" he whispered, "Do you feel how strong she has become?"

Manny shuddered as they drew closer to the island and he slowly began to realize that what littered the shores were not empty sand, but remains of various air transports. "Fuck me ... " he whispered, stunned.

They landed silently onto a bare spot on the shore and climbed out, their weapons at the ready. Manny took a moment to investigate a fallen gunship. He scaled around it to check for insignias and noticed the Armacham symbol, scratched and tattered in the hull of the ship.

"Shit, these fuckers tried to get here," he said, "I don't think they stood a chance."

Point Man studied the terrain briefly before he locked eyes with Stokes. She frowned up at him. "You're with us, aren't you?" she asked him, "This bitch isn't your mother anymore. She's something else. She's ... a monster."

Point Man looked away, deep in thought. Fettel approached with a disgusted look.

"There they go again, putting the blame on mother for something that THEY did to her!" he snapped, "It's the same everywhere you go, brother." He looked at Point Man with an almost sympathetic look that could be confused with irritation. "What are you thinking? Do you really want to kill mother and the child? Our new sibling? A being who had nothing to do with any of this?" Fettel snorted at his constant silence. "Will you kill your own kin once again to save these weaklings?"

Stokes gestured for the group to follow her. "Let's move," she ordered, "Stay together and shoot enemy's on sight. I don't want any more surprises."

Correction: She didn't want anyone else to die.

They made their way up toward the facility and they realized that its appearance had all but degraded completely; the walls appeared to be moving all around them and seemed to be sticky with a disgusting, damp tissue that almost looked like blood. It was a nightmare of flesh, fire and shadow; a living monument to Alma's pain and hatred. The air seemed heavy with these emotions and the smells were just sickening.

"Good God, look at this place!" Stokes exclaimed.

"I feel like I'm in hell..." Manny whispered.

Point Man looked around and he noticed Crowe's blood apparition standing by a ventilation shaft; the massive blood stain on her stomach and the gushing blood on her forehead was an unpleasant reminder of what had happened to her back at the airport. She stared back at him with am empty, yet sorrowful look before disappearing into a puff of black ash like the rest of the apparitions were known to do. Her parting words came out in a desperate plea.

"You can't," she whispered, "You can't do this."

The group moved forward and Beckett suddenly doubled over with a groan of pain, holding his head. Stokes bent to his side.

"Beckett!"

He winced and gritted his teeth, struggling against the will of Alma and his own mind. He blinked and could see two apparitions staring him down, hard. Fox and Griffin. They were covered in blood and their eyes were cold and accusing.

"You're going to forget about us?" Fox whispered with contempt, "What about my daughter? What about my wife?"

Griffin shook his head with dismay. "I really hate crybabies, Beckett," he snapped, "You gotta do this for the rest of us."

The apparitions disappeared and around the group, Replica containers were suddenly opening.

O

The Replica's emerging from their containers had no masks, but they also appeared to look different than what Beckett remembered when he had arrived at the facility so long ago. Their armor appeared to be rotting into their flesh and their distorted faces were filled with razor - sharp teeth and flaring red eyes. Their nostrils were pulled back in grotesque fashions that made their faces appear demonic rather than human.

"Holy shit!" Manny cried, stunned, "I never thought that they'd get uglier!"

The Replica soldiers poured out after them, armed with their weapons of choice; some wielded shotguns while others brandished sub machine guns. They started opening fire on Stokes and her group to which they retaliated with much difficulty.

"Kill them!" a Replica soldier screamed, his voice horribly distorted.

Point Man's gaze was as cold and pitiless as ice. With a snarl, a Replica charged at him, moving at near inhuman speed. Point Man drew out his pistols and fired, taking out the Replica in a single shot. Then, he fired in multiple directions. Several of his shots contacted the skulls of the Replica's with expert skill. Manny was behind him, wrestling with a Replica soldier. He drew out his combat knife and cut the soldier across the face, earning a furious hiss.

Manny smirked nastily and tilted his head at the gushing slash mark on the Replica soldier's face. The soldier snarled and showed his sharp teeth. "That's a sexy look for you, fuckhead!" he hissed. "Maybe I'll give you another to match!"

The Replica bellowed with fury and dove at him. The tackle knocked Manny to the floor and the Replica started delivering punch after punch to his face. Manny reached up and grabbed him by the head, twisting until he snapped his neck. The soldier collapsed lifelessly on Manny's body and he grimaced in pain before pausing to sniff the Replica. He winced in disgust at the horrible smell and shoved him off.

"Stinking ass freaks!" he spat.

Stokes fired her weapon into a Replica to which it punched a fist - sized hole through the soldier's chest. She continued firing and then the click of her empty magazine made her cast aside her useless weapon and rush toward the fallen Replica soldiers to seize one of their own. She made her way toward a set of double doors that led to a stairway and looked back at the others.

"Come on! Move it!" she shouted. "Hurry!"

The group quickly followed her with the remainder of the Replica giving chase.

"Don't lose sight of them!" a Replica shouted.

They poured into the double doors and Manny lingered behind. He smirked and rushed for a fallen Replica soldier lying on a pulley surrounded by several tanks filled with explosive compounds. He smirked and aimed his gun directly at them.

"Manny, what the hell are you doing?" she demanded, "COME ON!"

Manny squeezed one eye shut and waited until the proper moment when the Replica were close enough ...

Then, he pulled the trigger.

The tanks erupted and sent both live and dead Replica flying through the air. Manny immediately ducked behind the double doors as the blast lurched him from his spot. Stokes helped him up and laughed softly.

"Nice one, Manny," she remarked.

Fettel shook his head with dismay. "The woman is naive," he muttered, "There is no doubt thousands more waiting for us."

"We need to get to the Vault," Stokes continued, "Alma's probably still there."

Point Man shook his head and gestured toward the sticky, disgusting walls around them. Stokes frowned at the gesture and immediately caught on to what he was trying to say. "No. We haven't been here in some time, so we have to go by whatever memory we have," she explained, "Beckett, Manny and I will have to work our way around the perimeter because I can guarantee that most of the elevators and power's down everywhere."

That was true; it was difficult working their way around the facility with only the use of their flashlights.

"So how do we get through this place?" Manny asked.

Stokes thought about it before she reached to take her radio. She tuned it a few times before looking up at him. "We'll split up into two's," she said, "Two of us will take one half of the facility while the other two work the other half. When we find the Vault, we'll make contact."

Manny nodded. "Okay. So who's going with who?"

"I'll go with Beckett," Stokes told him, "You go with him." She gestured to Point Man.

"Gotcha."

The two teams split up and walked in separate directions. Fettel drifted calmly at Point Man's side.

"What will you do if we find her first, brother?" Fettel asked.

As always, his brother was silent.

O

"They left her in darkness. They left her to die."

Redd Jankowski's bloody apparition dissolves into ash as Beckett and Stokes passed him standing behind closed door, watching them coldly through the circular window. His chest and stomach were gushing blood and sick, green fluid; a horrid image of the day that Beckett had found him dead.

Stokes looked at her friend worriedly. "Beckett, what happened in there anyway?" she asked, softly.

Beckett looked at her and his gaze was cold, hard and tormented. "I saw Keegan," he told her, "Only ... It wasn't Keegan anymore. He was ... " He paused in his words and looked momentarily pained. " ... He was insane. I fought him off before he begged me to kill him."

Stokes looked stunned. "Beckett ... "

"You're a fucking bitch."

Beckett paused and stared down a corridor. The failing lights above seemed to twitch on and off. Each time they did, it appeared that a shape was getting closer and closer. Beckett recognized the color and design of an ATC uniform soaked in blood. Beckett shook his head with a moan and Stokes watched him, confused by the man's fright. She couldn't see anything - Alma must have been showing Beckett something that only he could see - something that was on his conscience alone.

The apparition's head was lowered and his clothes torn and bloody, slowly coming up toward the man. His movements were jerky, like that of a marionette. The apparition's limbs made sick, disgusting creaking noises with each twitch.

Beckett recognized the distorted voice of the apparition.

"Vanek, no ... " he whispered, "You're dead."

Vanek laughed dryly. He still didn't lift his head up. "A fucking pussy like you forgot me already?"

The soft dripping sounds that followed made Beckett glance down briefly. There was blood dripping down at Vanek's feet.

"Look! Did you forget about this?"

Beckett lifted his eyes and they slowly widened in horror as Vanek raised his head. The lower half of his face was missing; his entire jawbone was gone and his tongue hung limply on his chest. He laughed dryly, speaking in a manner that should have been impossible.

"Forget about the face you fucking blew off?" he snarled.

Beckett gave a high - pitched scream that reached Manny and Point Man who were walking through the medical corridors. They had taken down many Replica soldiers in their path and the entire time, Point Man had made no indication that he wanted to associate with Manny.

"What are you going to do when we find Alma?" Manny asked him.

Point Man gave him a particularly unfriendly look, but didn't respond. They walked through the morgue and Point Man suddenly looked to his left and Manny disappeared in a burst of blood and gore. He knew that it wasn't real and that Alma was toying with his mind yet again. He watched the room flash briefly with horrible images of gore, body parts and shuddering bodies in body bags. It was momentary and vanished just as quick as it had come.

Just then, apparitions were standing in the room; victims of Alma's and Armacham's wrath. Some of which he didn't recognize and others he did. They were whispering over and over at the same time, words he could not make out immediately. He could see Harlan Wade standing among them, bloody and smiling. His glasses were smashed and dangling on his crooked nose. He practically looked insane, despite his death.

"She was a very disturbed child. Terrible, debilitating nightmares. Hallucinations. Hysteria. She never had a chance at a normal life," he whispered, "You want to destroy her, boy ... Don't you think she's suffered enough?"

Point Man frowned at him, not swayed by the presence of the ghost.

"Don't run from your past, boy," Harlan whispered, "It will forever haunt you."

He began to dissolve into a skeleton, just as Point Man remembered happening to him when he was alive. He looked around and the other apparitions began to dissolve in the same fashion, falling into a pool of bloody bones.

The illusion ended and Point Man was looking to the side at Manny, who was in one piece.

"What?" the man asked, frowning.

O

Fighting through hellhounds and Replicas left Beckett feeling weary about the end.

Did he really want to do this again?

Did he really want to face her again?

Stokes and Beckett made their way through Alma's compound where her tree and swing still remained. Beckett could still see the same doll lying on the ground, exactly in the same spot where he had last seen it. Alma watched him calmly on the swing in her child form. Her eyes looked heavy and sad this time, a far cry from her usual hateful stare.

"Please, don't go ... " she whispered, "Don't leave me."

Ahead of him, Stokes was already making her way over the gated fence. Manny's voice filled the air from her radio. "Uh, lieutenant? We have a lot of movement on our end! A lot of those fuckheads are waking up and we don't have enough ammo to deal with this shit!"

"Manny! If you can, don't face them!" Stokes warned, failing to notice Beckett no longer behind her, "I want you out of there!"

The sound of gunshots echoed back at her from the radio and Manny's fierce screams. Stokes' eyes widened in horror and she looked back, seeing Beckett on his hands and knees, sobbing quietly with frustration and anger.

Stokes immediately climbed back over the fence and moved to his side, bending down. "Beckett, come on!" she begged, "Don't give in! Fight her!"

"I can't ... "

"You have to!"

"I FUCKING CAN'T!" Beckett shrieked, glaring at her with a horrible, monstrous glow in his eyes.

Stokes looked stunned for the longest time before she held him close and snarled at the darkness. Luckily, he didn't fight her hold. "He doesn't love you, do you hear me?" she shouted, "He doesn't LOVE YOU!"

The air temperature changed and the sound of Alma's piercing scream filled the air.

She didn't sound angry.

She sounded absolutely enraged.

"Give him back!" she screamed.

Behind Stokes, a blackness was slowly lowering itself toward her from the top of the tree. Formless at first, but it started flowing and moving like that of a shape draped with black silk. Drifting down until the shadowy "head" was only inches from Beckett's now terrified face. The head turned, rotating toward Stokes. She blinked in stunned disbelief and opened her mouth, but no sound came out. Two eyes stared back at her, disembodied and filled with an intense rage.

Meanwhile, Manny and Point Man were making their way toward the Vault. It felt as if energy itself crackled all around them. Manny felt sick to his stomach and nearly fell to his knees, but Point Man seized him by the scruff of his vest and forced him back to his feet.

"Thanks ... " Manny grumbled.

The two men entered the Vault and were stunned at what they saw.

It had been completely altered to resemble a living, breathing womb. Sitting in a makeshift throne was the figure of Alma Wade herself, body swollen from pregnancy. Her arms were covered in blood and her long hair was draped over her face and pooling across the floor at her feet. Her hand and toe nails were frighteningly long and her eyes were filled with hatred and pain. She regarded both men like a mighty queen surveying the weak.

There was nothing of the victim that she had once been in those eyes. Her nailed hand roved delicately over her swollen belly.

"Fuck," Manny said, shocked.

O

Note - What do you think of my version of Alma? :)