Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil or any songs used in the titles. They all belong to their respective owners.
Chapter Ten: Dream Evil Dio
I had lost track of the time that had passed from when I had left the hardware store till now. The night seemed perpetual, and the sounds of the dead roaming around were unrelenting. In the distance I could hear high-caliber gunfire, a few blocks away by the sound of it, so I made my way in that direction. At this point it could mean anything, but it couldn't be the B.S.A.A. quite yet. They would've only been able to make it into town via helicopter and I hadn't seen any fly overhead. I guess it wasn't too much to hope at this point.
Walking towards the gunfire I kept a low profile, staying away from the center of the street and more towards darker storefronts and yards all while being careful to avoid running into any walking cadavers. The street had only a few zombies on them, but we all know how quickly that can change. In my current state I had to avoid all confrontation that I could.
The bite I had received earlier wasn't making things any easier and it felt as though it was getting worse. I could tell that the infection was spreading and it was making its way down my arm. It didn't feel like it was spreading much anywhere else, yet, and I was glad for that.
Slowly, I made my way to a lighted alley and decided to take a rest. I leaned my back against the wall of one of the buildings flanking me, but remained standing in case I had to move quickly. I took into account the old brick structures that still stood and the fire escapes that were grafted to the sides of the buildings just in case I needed to reach an elevated position should I be swarmed.
For the time being, however, there was nothing after me and the only interesting sound nearby was the sound of the distant gunfire I heard earlier. I sat and listened for a bit, but upon doing that I noticed something odd. There was smaller arms fire mixed in with that of the heavier sounding weapon. What made that odd was the fact that the lower caliber weapon's sounds were beginning to thin out. Reloading became out of the question when several moments passed and no more joined in. I seriously doubted that anyone who willingly came into this mess would've brought insufficient ammo. Someone was picking them off.
"Or something." I thought to myself, slowly pushing away from the wall. I had to find out what was going on now with that new revelation and help whoever was in trouble. The gunfire wasn't far away now, maybe just across a street or two, so I made my way as fast as I could. I was able to move my arm, but doing so caused pain to move up and down the extremity. At the moment, however, I had to ignore it. I had to reach whoever it was that was in trouble, they may know when the B.S.A.A. is set to arrive.
My mind suddenly went back to Wesker's orders of killing Chris and Jill, filling me with more hatred for the abomination of a man. How did he expect me to eliminate them anyway? They were both highly trained and would probably sniff out my motives quickly, but at the same time I'd almost rather spill the beans and risk dying of a pureed heart than kill them. Every step I took reminded me that Wesker needed to be stopped, and heading towards the gunfire was one milestone closer to that goal.
I finally made my way to an alley that emptied into a street that held the current skirmish and I began to slow down, getting my gun at the ready in case of any surprises and keeping it in front of me. There were fires in the street in front of me that were throwing eerie shadows about. Funny how nothing else was drawn to the sound, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. As I began to approach the end of the alley the gunfire stopped, noticing this I stopped as well. This had begun to make me extremely nervous, but I slowly pressed on. As I neared the end of the alley, about thirty feet or so to the end, I saw a large shadow appear on the wall. A split moment later a deep, menacing laugh came from whatever was left standing in the street, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I had never in any way, shape, or form, heard something so disturbing as this creature's laugh.
Whatever it was, it was massive and deadly, and my puny little M9 with roughly half a magazine wasn't going to do didly-squat to it. I had to think of a strategy. I could either sneak my way into the street to see what it is and hopefully find a weak point, or I could just back up and find a way around all-together. Whoever was fighting against it was most likely dead, but the lingering thought that someone had survived somewhere ate at me.
Suddenly though, before I could make a final decision, my head began to pound almost instantly. The pain was strong enough to bring me to my knees. It was far worse than having a migraine with congestion in a loud room while banging your head against the floor. The terrible part was that it was getting worse, but I dared not cry out in pain due to the threat in the street. As I brought my arms up to steady and support my head I instantly noticed something about my left arm; it had black veins running through it. This really raised my worry of the bite's effects on my body. I didn't know at this point whether I was going to die and reanimate as a mindless corpse, or as something worse. At these thoughts the pain began to intensify even more until finally I collapsed on the ground, just lying there and hoping that it would end soon. Someone seemed to have heard me because after a few more moments of agonizing pain, I had slipped into unconsciousness.
-An undetermined amount of time later-
I slowly began to awaken from the darkness, not being able to fully open my eyes yet. I quickly became aware of my resting position. I was laying down on my stomach with my arms at my sides. I still couldn't fully open my eyes, much to my disappointment. It was almost like when you're sleep deprived, take a ten minute nap and then try to open your eyes. While I was trying to regain my vision I began to bring my arms towards my front so I could push myself from the ground. During this I became aware of other things as well such as a medium breeze and distant sounds.
That's when I noticed the ground's texture, it felt grainy and almost exactly like sand. I tried harder to open my eyes and with some willpower and conviction, I opened them. Being able to see I could confirm that I was laying on sand. This alarmed me.
"Wasn't I just in town?" I thought in a panicked manner, trying to remember that night's events and where I was when I last held consciousness.
As I was trying to lift myself from the ground I noticed someone step out from the right of my vision. The first things to come into view were a black pair a tanker boots. Tucked into those was a pair of black cargo pants with various combat equipment pouches and holsters strapped to the legs. I noticed a 1911 in the holster, still with a shine to the metal. As I looked further up, dread began to set in.
The individual that stood before me was somewhere between human and something nearly demonic. While they wore a simple black t-shirt over their torso and a watch on the right wrist, the other features were what stood out. The arm that the watch was attached to was mostly normal except that the hand was beginning to develop claws, two to three inch protrusions from the ends of each finger including the thumb. The left arm was much worse. While the arm was toned, the skin was darkened to almost a jet black. There were dark red veins coursing through the arm, but they looked almost like they were on the surface of the skin. Upon a longer glimpse I could tell that the skin had hardened into an armour of sorts. There were small growths of armoured skin where the first knuckles of the fingers were as if more for punching than protection. The hand on this arm was larger as well with the claws on the fingers reaching four to five inches long.
Slightly higher I could see something behind the person. It looked as though they were standing in front of some sort of arched wall, but after letting my vision focus I could see that they had large black wings protruding from their back.
As I looked further up I finally caught sight of the entity's face. I had almost screamed from both shock and horror.
It was me.
Standing there, before me, was me.
It was impossible. How could that be me? Maybe it was just someone really close in resemblance, but in my years I had yet to see someone who had looked just like me.
After a brief silence, the creature spoke from its standing position, eyeing me as it spoke.
"I see you've finally decided to wake your ass up." my mimic spoke, almost as if in a calm tone. I was still in too much shock from what I had seen to speak. It was beginning to be too much.
"Come here, I want to show you something." The figure said as it reached down with its larger clawed hand and grabbed my neck roughly, dragging me from the ground and into a kneeling position, then took a place standing behind me. Once it had pulled me up and stepped out of my view, I finally noticed my surroundings.
I was on top of a large hill overlooking an empty field overtaken by sand. The wind was blowing mildly, causing little drifts of sand to blow by and around the hill. In the field were tiny dunes starting to form, much like subtle waves in an ocean. There wasn't much foliage to speak of except for a few bushes and dying or dead trees dotted across the landscape. Out further in the distance I saw the remains of a city.
The city was in ruins. Some of the major buildings that could be seen from afar were mostly reduced either to rubble or the simple framing they were based on. The neighborhoods that I could see from our vantage point were beginning to disappear beneath the sand. Though I wasn't able to see very deep into the ghost town, I could tell that the damage was catastrophic. Taking into account the outer surroundings, I would say apocalyptic.
"What…..what caused all this?" I asked in more shock than I had been in before. Sure, the sight of seeing a demonic version of myself was bad, but everything within my field of view totally destroyed took the cake.
"Time, neglect, weathering down by the elements…" the figure said while gazing out towards the picture of destruction, slowly shifting its gaze towards me, "...and you." It finally finished.
"Me?" I spoke with disbelief, not being able to believe that for a second, "How could I have caused so much destruction?"
"I can't give you the whole story," my mimic said as it released the back of my neck, slowly stepping to my right side while facing the horizon and keeping the jet black arm close. From this close proximity, I could see that the skin on the left arm was almost scaly, "but I can tell you that you were played from the very beginning by none other than Albert Wesker."
I almost scoffed at this. "Tell me something I don't know."
"Like I said, I can't give the whole story. I can say that while you and the two heroes whose lives you were meant to take are combing through the world and chasing false leads, Wesker sets his true plans into motion while using you to keep the B.S.A.A. off of his scent." It said while still looking out to the horizon.
"Then how does this all add up to you being here?" I asked as I looked up. I could see that it was still looking out at the city, like it was looking for something. "How is it that I become….you?" This seemed to strike something inside it, like I hurt it by asking that question, but it simply replied.
"You can look at me as what the combination of viruses have laid out as a blueprint for what is to come." It said as it looked at me. That's when I noticed that the left eye of the creature was a mixture of red and gold in the iris while the pupil was that of a slit. This made me move away just a bit from my kneeling position. It smiled at this. "And before you ask, as for this dream, just think of it as déjà vu, but déjà vu that can be prevented."
I was momentarily shocked. It was almost as if it read my mind. "How do I know I can trust you?" I asked suspiciously and for good reason, usually when the virus takes someone's body it takes their mind too.
It let out a small chuckle at this, "I guess you'll just have to trust me, I'm your only hope." It said as I began to stand. The creature quickly checked its watch and then looked at me.
"Well, I suppose we've chatted long enough" it began, slowly stretching its left hand claw out, "Time to wake up."
And with that final sentence, and before I could react, it lurched forward and drove its arm clear through my chest cavity. The pain didn't even register as I began to drift into unconsciousness, my body felling as though I was floating upside down and with that, everything went black.
I hope this chapter turned out alright. I'm a bit tired, sick, and as a result of being sick my eyes are tearing up constantly and drying up just as often. Keeps everyone away though because they all think I have pink eye….good times. I also realize that this is extremely late, but I like to write when I can or when the inspiration comes to me. Eerily enough, this chapter actually appeared in a dream I had. Hopefully no foreshadowing.
On another note; I still read stories on this site diligently. I even find myself going back to unfinished stories and reading them again just because they are that good. I hope to see updates as you guys keep me going too. Also, the reviews are nice as well. Makes me feel good to know someone likes the crap that crawls from my mind.
Lastly, I still plan on keeping the songs in at the end as well as some of the ones I pick go well with the chapter….or they're just awesome to listen to. (I'd have put Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Iron Maiden in at some point, but the lyrics would take up a few pages or so in the format I use. That's thirteen (13) minutes of awesomeness right there).
Hope you enjoyed and I will be reading your Resident Evil fics as well.
Lyrics
Dream Evil Dio
All's well at the midnight hour
You're ready to fly
Don't think about the darkness
Or the rumbling in the sky
Somewhere on the morning road
Just waiting for you
Some things that just could never be
Are calling up a spell so you can see
Dream evil
The dark that you find in the back of your mind
Dream evil, dream evil
Don't go to the edge of rainbows
Don't close your eyes
Like things that can't be real
The truth is really lies
Don't wish on a rising star you could
Open up the door
Where things that just should never be
Are calling up a spell so you can see
Dream evil
The dark that you find
Can come out of your mind
Dream evil
Take you away
Oh no it's the midnight hour
Don't leave me alone
Those things that just should never be
Are calling up a spell so you can see
Dream evil
Dream evil
Dream evil
Dream evil
Dream evil
Oh no it's the midnight hour
Don't open the door
Don't go to the edge of rainbows
Don't sleep any more
You'll dream evil
You'll dream evil
You'll dream evil
Dream evil
I do not own this song.