"Jake, what are you doing?" I asked quietly while he stood behind Chris and I, shoving his machine gun against our backs as we walked.

"You'll see. Wesker has a surprise for all of you."

What the hell? Why didn't we check this kid out earlier? Chris shot me a look that said, "I'm going to kill you the next time we're alone" But really, it wan't my fault this time! I think...

We continued down the hall, and then several floors down, and Jake opened a door.

"I'm sorry." I said to Chris as we were thrown into a dark room.

"About what?"

"Everything I've ever done since the day I met you. I'm still a reckless nineteen-year-old punk...I can't help it. It runs in the family."

"Really?"

"I couldn't be more serious."

The room went from pitch black to blinding in a matter of seconds, and the moment was ruined by the large Umbrella symbol that we stood on. Wesker and Jake appeared in front of us.

"How did I not guess this was going to happen?" Chris whispered.

"What'd you expect? You already figured, which is why they wouldn't have sent me here with Jill if it weren't for Excella giving your people orders right now." Jake said.

Total shit-storm. It happened faster than I thought it would.

There was so much to say, but Chris hit it on the head when he asked about Jill.

"You'll see her soon, along with a few others."

What did that mean? I looked past Wesker and saw a switch. I didn't know what it was for, but I'd try... I looked at Chris for a second before I walked towards Wesker, "Y'know, you're a pretty good actor...you should start going for an Oscar every time you fuck up someone's life." I said as I felt him wrap his arms around me and I began walking him backwards.

I put my hand on the wall until I found the switch, and finally hit it before he could say anything. Alarms went off and I smiled at Wesker, "My hand slipped." I worked as best as I could to get out of his grip, and eventually did enough to hit him and knock him out. We wouldn't have time to do anything right now.

Chris grabbed Jake and I got his machine gun off the floor. "Where's Jill?"

He didn't answer. I almost didn't, but I shot his leg. "C'mon."

"Through that door."

I tried to open it, but I noticed a keypad. "What's the code?" I asked him.

When he didn't say anything I could see Chris' grip tighten.

"69521" he barely said.

"Thank you." I said in a sing-songy voice. "You wanna bring him or leave him here for now?" I asked Chris.

"Let's leave him."

"Good choice. Hopefully he'll bleed out before we get back..." I said under my breath. But it seemed like they both heard me because they gave me very scared looks.

Everybody would have to deal with me being hostile for a while, though.

Past the door, everything was white (one reason why I hate labs). The hallway was bright as hell, but eventually I got used to it since it was SO EFFIN' LONG.

The first couple of doors we came across had various dead experiments in them. Next, there were rows of double-doors. I looked inside the window of the first one and knew I must've been losing my mind. "Chris... You see that, right?"

"Yeah..."

I blinked a couple times just to make sure I was dreaming. I wasn't. Carlos was on a stretcher in the dark room. I backed away and looked in the other ones. There was Billy, and then Rebecca. They were all dead. Which I'd made peace with a long time ago, but seeing them brought back memories.

Of Carlos and I getting together for some one on one Mexican time. Arm wrestling with Billy because at the time I was stronger than him, and he didn't want to accept it. Arguing with Rebecca about medical stuff until finally giving up because we were annoying the living hell out of people. It was all too much. But why did he keep them down here?

I finally noticed Chris wasn't with me, but I looked down the hall and saw one of the doors open. I walked in and Chris was standing in front of one of the stretchers, not moving. I came to his side and there was Jill. Dead. I didn't believe it until I looked at him. Jill and Claire were the two most important people in the world to him, and I didn't ever want to think about the day one of them was gone. And oh, God... Amy... What would happen when she found out? This would perminitely fuck everyone up.

"Chris?" I said, trying to tread lightly.

He turned towards me with half-lidded eyes, "I need to sit down."

I responded by sitting him down on the ledge that slightly came out from the wall outside of the room. We sat for a long time in each other's embrace, both of us not moving or saying a word.

I decided to break the silence, "I won't leave until they pay..."

"I'm not risking anyone else. We have to get back to HQ, okay? We need to find a safe way out of here..." he tried to mantain his voice, but it was almost a whisper underneath the cracking of it. I didn't protest and got up, taking one more glimpse at Jill.

As Chris tried to contact HQ, all I could think about was Wesker. I knew it would end up like this one way or another, but I still gave in. I hated myself for it, too. For what I'd been reduced to for the man that I was supposed to hate. Until now, there was no actual reason as to why I should hate him. Yeah, he'd done things to my friends, but nobody ended up like Jill. The guy saved my life countless times and never did anything to hurt me personally. Hell, he even put up with me for years after Rockfort Island.

Why was I still trying to justify everything, anyways?!

Maybe I just wanted him to be the Wesker in my head. But it's true...people don't change.

"I can't get anything but static down here. We need to get back to ground level." Chris said, still not finished pacing.

I felt something. Like someone - maybe something - was watching us. "You go, I'll catch up with you in just a minute."

"No. Stacy-"

"Go!" I practically shouted at him, though he was only a couple feet away.

"Be careful. Please..."

When he left, I did an about-face real quick and then went back into the room that housed Jill's dead body when I thought about my theory that there were doubles being made for Excella, and God knows who else.

I looked her over, and finally saw something. There were faint scars on the sides of her face, showing signs of facial reconstruction for the making of a double. And Jill's boobs are NOT that big, which means they didn't finish the job. But why make a Jill out of Excella? Especially since she - Excella - has apparently taken over our HQ so Jake would get dispatched... Maybe they switched them out. But then Jill would have to have been controlled by someone (Wesker). What if they made doubles out of everyone else, too?

Besides that distinct possibility, it just didn't make sense. Not to me, anyway...

I heard Wesker's boots on the ground behind and I turned around. I wasn't in the mood for talk, and I decided to test out my theory, so I shot him in the head. For Wesker, this wouldn't even matter. He'd shake it off like I'd thrown a pen at him, but this time he fell to the floor and died. I walked over to him and looked at the side of his face. I was right, this wasn't Wesker. One thing you can't duplicate is his virus.

Should I get back to Chris? No, he'll be fine. I want to figure this out before it starts to eat away at me. He claims everything is a conspsiracy, so I know he'll absolutely love this.

(Dramatic music is playing right now)

So, I've had several ideas about the next chapter, so it may take a while for me to get everything straightened out. Well, I did until I started thinking again!