"Chino?", the redhead whimpered, "Chino! I be'd having a bad dream. Can I get cuddles?".
The teenager felt too groggy to open her eyes, and that was strange because she didn't remember having such a difficult time waking up before.
From half a dozen steps away, Wesker was dressed in a white lab coat and examining a metal medical tray that contained several surgical supplies when he heard that she was awake. So he looked up from his current fascination in the direction of the stainless steel bed. On it, he saw that the redhead was trying to open her eyes, still oblivious to the fact that fortified metal plates around her upper and lower chests, her stomach, her thighs and her ankles were keeping her immobilized against the surface of the bed itself.
"Consider what I'm about to prove you to be, did I just hear you say that?", the Umbrella scientist uttered from behind his sunglasses.
Shakahnna's eyes popped open wide because she knew that the voice which greeted her wasn't supposed to be there as she woke up either at Chino's apartment or in her bedroom at the mansion.
"We… Wesker? What?", the teenager tried to sit up, realizing for the first time that she could not.
"I don't like this surprise", she told whoever may be listening as she knew she had to remain lying down against her wishes.
Not bothering to give her a reply, the scientist merely walked over to where the bed was, casually placing the medical tray a few inches away from her feet.
"It has indeed been a long and frustrating effort to bring you into this current situation", Wesker addressed her at long last, knowing that she was listening to every word he said, especially if she truly didn't know who and what she was, "You're not leaving here till I get to prove what you are. Nothing personal, I assure you".
"Does any part of that involve me being allowed to get up?", the redhead tried hard to keep the fear out of her voice, in case this was the older man's idea of a twisted practical joke, though what she could see from her surroundings made the chances of that pretty small.
This place was unlike anything she had seen before. It definitely wasn't part of the RPD headquarters, either new or old, nor was it anyone's home. So how did this police captain appear so comfortable here, after knocking her unconscious and strapping her to some place that he treated like his natural environment?
"Wesker, let me be up! I don't like this. Let me up!", she blurted out.
No visible reaction from him, just the pair of dark shades watching her facial and bodily expression, and never saying anything as he calmly stood next to the surgical utensils.
After a few seconds, he looked away from her, but only to stare down at the tray before picking a scalpel off it with his right hand.
Shakahnna thrashed with as much strength as she could afford, pushing her shoulders back to try to break the bars that were over her upper chest while trying to pull up her arms and legs in an attempt to loosen the lower restraints. It was all without any success as, whatever this metal was, it was made to pin down creatures who were even stronger than her.
"These are standard tyrant operation tables", the scientist laughed to himself as he approached the bed, "They're able to withstand a small explosion, so I promise that you _will_ only hurt yourself further if you insist on trying to test your body against them".
Wesker came up to the head of the bed, looking down at her face from a yard up, that scalpel always in his right hand.
"Besides, you wanted to spend more time with me, did you not?", he inquired in a voice that was calmer and colder than any she heard him using before, "We'll have a lot of fun here, or at least _I_ will".
With that, the older man used the scalpel to cut a four-inch long incision on her face, drawing a thin trickle of crimson fluid from the wound which ran down the side of her face before it dropped onto her shoulder.
"In case you're wondering, there was no purpose behind that. It was done simply to show you that I could", he smiled, enjoying the fact that she didn't pull her face away.
"Weskie. Weskie, please, don't be doing this", Shakahnna whispered, constantly staring through the shades and into his eyes.
Her pupils were dilated, so the original green of her eyes almost couldn't be seen. She was barely done talking when the older man used his left fist to deliver a punch to her jaw, forcing her head to snap back before the back of her skull met the hard metal behind it.
"Don't call me that!", the Umbrella scientist barked back.
"I won't say sorry", she had to fight hard to hold back tears as she re-adjusted her head so she was looking straight up towards the ceiling with the white lights, "I didn't do anything wrong".
"Well, dear, I believe you're mistaking both me and my employer for people who care", the shaded scientist answered.
The teenager wasn't having any of it. She turned her face away from him and closed her eyes shut.
"This does not be happening. I'm not here. I just need to wake up", she whispered to herself only.
"Have it your way", Wesker was ready for her reaction as he reached for a piece of cloth that was drenched in chloroform.
Reaching over her shoulders, he pressed the cloth over her nose and mouth, just as he had done a short while ago.
But instead of seeing her pass out within a few seconds, all he witnessed was the redhead turning her face back to look upwards towards the ceiling, and a pair of angry green eyes staring back at him.
"What in the world…?", Wesker thought out loud as he kept pressing the fabric against the lower half of her face, but still didn't get the reaction he expected.
After approximately half a minute, the older man finally withdrew the wet cloth, sighing as he carefully brought it to within a few inches of his own nose to make sure that he wasn't mistakenly using a wrong substance.
True enough, the liquid that dampened the material was chloroform, except it wasn't working at all when it came to knocking the test subject out this time.
So the scientist kept the cloth in his left hand as he used his right grip to point the sharp tip of the scalpel against the bottom of her chin, forcing the girl to raise her head until her eyes were staring into his.
"You really _are_ exceptional, aren't you? What are you planning here?", he demanded.
"I be'd about to ask _you_ that", she hissed, "I'm the one who be's strapped to a bed with a nutcase holding a knife over me. What kinda fucked up planning did you think I be'd doing?".
The scientist didn't waste time by thinking of a comeback. Instead, he returned to his medical tray and placed the scalpel back on it while dropping the fabric with the chloroform into a nearby waste basket. He then eagerly withdrew a pen and a memo pad out of his lab coat and began writing down notes.
"Test subject's immunity to substances begins after first exposure", he thought out loud as he wrote those words down.
"You really are some actor, Weskie", she tested the limits of how far she could lift her head in an effort to look at his back, "I really fell for that act of yours when you pretended to wanna help those around us".
The teenager let the back of her head rest against the hard surface again as tears were beginning to form around her eyes.
"I really thought we were friends", she finished.
"Well, live and learn", the older man chuckled to himself as he turned back around to face her direction while putting the pen and memo pad back where he had originally retrieved them from, "Just a member of the RPD. Talk about a lack of ambition on that idiot's part".
She heard him coming closer to her area again.
"Well, sweetheart, we're going to achieve so much more than that, between you and me", he uttered.
"I preferred it when you were acting, then", she insisted on looking back at him even through the haze that the tears brought when they couldn't be wiped from her face.
"I didn't", he shot back.
"So this is what? A money thing? A sick psychotic fantasy that makes no sense to anyone else thing?", Shakahnna inquired, "Or do… do you just hate me?".
"Oh, no", Wesker shook his head, "I assure you. If anything, it's the opposite. I have the highest fondness for you. I've wanted you like this for a _very_ long time".
"I really hoped that's not supposed to calm me down", she thought out loud, not being able to stop her entire body from involuntarily shaking.
The teenager wasn't even being given the ability to curl herself into a ball in an effort to protect herself from this ever more frightening situation. She was alone and vulnerable, two of the qualities she detested the most. So she was starting to lose her ability to think rationally.
"IF YOU'RE SO FUCKING FOND OF ME, WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WHY WON'T YOU LET ME GO?", she yelled out, her arms and legs thrashing and kicking uselessly against the powerful steel restraints.
Granted all that energy on her part wasn't doing anything useful when it came to helping her situation, but Shakahnna felt that it was still better than just laying there and doing nothing while he did whatever it was he had planned.
"This is what I get for trying to be nice by putting you under before you're cut open", the scientist sighed to himself as he prepared a sedative inside a syringe.
He ignored her violent reaction while pressing his left hand on one side of her face, thus forcing the opposite side to lay flat against the surface of the bed.
"Weskie, don't! Weskie…", he continued ignoring her as he brought the needle closer to her neck with his right hand.
Wesker grunted once in aggravation since the teenager was making it difficult for him to find a vein to insert the needle into, as she continuously refused to stay still long enough for him to concentrate on the minor task.
"Weskie?", Shakahnna added one more time, adding to his anger.
So he finally got tired of his idea of the gentle approach and gripped her chin with his left hand instead, thus forcing the girl's face to look towards the ceiling once more. Not even bothering to look for a vein any more, the scientist shoved the needle into her neck and injected the contents into her system.
"Why do they always cry?", he asked himself as he withdrew the needle and spotted the tears that were running down her face.
"You wanna wait out here or come in, dude?", officer Chisholm looked over to his partner as he was about to climb out of the front passenger seat after he had been drive to his destination.
"I'm fine out here, dude", officer Donnelly sighed as he merely undid his seatbelt and placed the car in the parked position, "Just go in there and bring her out already. We've wasted enough of tonight as it is".
"I'll be back real quick", the rookie promised as he exited the vehicle and pushed the passenger door closed behind him.
Reaching the large front door of the Warrens' mansion, the young man pressed on the buzzer and waited for the intercom to be answered. He sighed in frustration because he felt that the ten seconds it took someone from the other side to respond was too long.
"Yes, can I help you?", a man asked.
"Yeah, it's Stephen Chisholm from the RPD. Can I come in?", Chino replied.
"One moment", another few seconds passed before a man who was in his 30's and dressed as a butler opened the massive front door.
"How can I help you, officer?", Bustleton asked, motioning past the entrance as an invitation for the younger man to come inside.
"I'm not here on police business, actually", Chino nodded as he stepped into the large lobby, "But thank you. I wanted to come by and see if the mayor's adopted daughter was home?".
"No, officer, I'm afraid not. She _was_ here, with miss Joanne. But you missed her by several hours", the mansion employee informed him, "She last told me that she was returning to her workplace, actually. I take it that you two missed each other?".
"Yeah, I've been waiting at her job for hours, and saw a note from her saying she was gonna meet me there", the young man informed him as the door was closed behind them both, "And I've been calling her phone here for ages, but keep getting her answering machine in her room".
"She hasn't been back here since she left, sir. I don't know what to say", Bustleton stated.
"I don't wanna be a pain here, but could you do me a big favor and ask anyone here who's still awake if they've heard from her? I'm not even sure if they're in bed or not, I know it's late and all. Just, this isn't like her".
"Mr. Warren's been asleep since 10, and Mrs. Warren isn't due back here till at least tomorrow, but miss Joanne's still here, and from what I know about the young lady, she almost _never_ sleeps", the butler chuckled, "Would you like me to call her?"
"Please", Chino rubbed his hair with both hands as he stepped towards a nearby fancy chair and sat down on it in an effort to give his body a chance to relax.
He wasn't sure if he had enough of a rapport with the Warren employee to simply sit down without asking for permission first, but the older man appeared to be alright with the cop's presence. Plus, his feet were hurting after eight hours of work, and the stress of worrying about Shakahnna only wore him out faster.
It only took a short time for Bustleton to hang up the phone that was situated on a nearby wall, an action which led to Joanne Warren climbing down the stairs from her upstairs bedroom. The blonde teenager was dressed in a not so casual fashion as she sighed and rolled her eyes at seeing who her visitor was while Chino stood up.
"Oh, god, it's _you_", she spoke first, allowing Bustleton to leave the area, thus leaving them alone.
"Hello, Joanne. As you can imagine, this isn't much fun for me, either", the cop gave a smile since he wasn't nearly as bothered by her presence as she was by his.
"Wadda you want?", the teenager approached him.
"Did you hear anything from or about Shak since she left here?", Chino asked, wishing for the first time that Donnelly had come inside too to deal with the annoying blonde.
"Why would I? She was going to see _you_ anyway", Joanne scoffed, "Although I wish she would take my advice and see that nice Mayfair boy instead. _I_ wouldn't have him, naturally, but he'd be fine for Shak".
"You're sure she hasn't called you at all?", the young man was disappointed to hear as he sat back down, feeling dozens of thoughts that ran through his head, none of them good.
"What have I been saying here? No, I haven't. Was that all you came here for?", the blonde didn't bother hiding the fact that she wanted to be somewhere else.
"Yeah, goodnight, Joanne", he half-heartily waved as he stood back up and headed towards the main entrance.
"Huh?", the teenager carried a confused look on her face, not that he saw any of it as he mindlessly opened the large metal door and stepped through it without looking back.
From behind the wheel of the car, Donnelly spotted the rookie officer exiting the mansion as the young man looked even more worried than he was when he went in. So the older man lowered the front driver's side window and stuck his head out of it.
"Dude, what's wrong? Where's the redhead?", the more experienced cop called out.
Without saying anything, his partner merely shook his head as he partly lifted his arms away from his torso before letting them slap on either side of his body in a frustrated fashion.
"What did her parents say?", Donnelly inquired as Chino climbed into the front passenger seat and closed the door behind him, not bothering to place the seatbelt on.
"They were asleep. Her sister and the butler guy haven't heard a thing from her since she left several hours ago to come meet us", the rookie stared ahead into the windshield.
"Ooookay…", the more experienced cop exhaled loudly, "Dude, she's probably playing more games, waiting for you under your bed for when you get home or something".
"It's not like her, though. Why wasn't she picking up _my_ damn phone when I kept calling her before we took off from work?".
"Maybe she's asleep there, like last time", Donnelly suggested as he looked behind him while driving the car backwards before turning it around and driving towards the outer gate.
"I hope she's there", Chino thought out loud to himself only as the vehicle rolled out of the Warrens' front garden.
"Seatbelt on, dude", his partner ordered, though the rookie continued not paying any attention to anything outside his own head.
"It's 4 fucking AM", Chino remained seated up on top of his bed, the inside of his dark apartment feeling exceptionally empty without the presence of the redhead.
"Eric says she's goofing around out there, that she'll call. So why isn't the damn phone ringing?", he rubbed his face with both his palms, "Of all the fucking times for them to change our shift, why did it have to be today? Could've been there with her when she left that note if some dumbfuck hadn't put me from 4 to freaking midnight".
There's no doubt that he wasn't about to fall asleep, as the tension in his body made his limbs feel like knots, and granted it had been only 24 hours since he'd seen her, but he couldn't remember doing anything without her since they met. But he just had no idea where Shakahnna was, and if she had gone somewhere without him, as his partner suggested before heading to his own home for the rest that he needed, then why had she left a note at work stating she planned to meet them there?
The only noise he heard since Donnelly had left was the sound of his own heavy breathing. To make things worse, he knew that if the redhead did not call him or hopefully drop by his apartment when the sun rose, then Chino didn't know of anyone to go to in an effort to ask for help in his attempt to find the lost teenager.
The phone that was located in his bedroom rang, prompting officer Chisholm to lift his head off the pillow.
"Wh…?", he looked on either side of the room, unsure what the source of the noise was.
The young man quickly sat up, realizing that the phone to his home was ringing even as it occurred to him that he must've fallen asleep sometime this morning before the sun came up.
Rushing off the bed, he staggered towards the phone, only partially noticing that it was just after 10 AM.
"Yes! Hello!", he blurted out as he placed the receiver against the right side of his face, hoping and expecting a female voice at the same time.
"Hello, sir, can we interest you in an exciting new career in the field of…", the man on the other end sounded like he was reading a script.
"What?! Who's this?", Chino interrupted him, rubbing his eyes with the left hand.
"We're Allied Tradesmen, and after a 6-month training session, you too can start in the exciting field of…", the caller continued.
It was all it took for the young man's frustration to reach a boiling point as he slammed the receiver down and haphazardly tossed the entire phone across the room, not even looking were it hit the hall and fell apart as he left his bedroom.
He looked at the wristwatch that was sitting on top of the TV set in the living room, realizing it was exactly 10:13 AM. Thus, he had almost six hours before he had to be at work. But since the silence of the apartment was almost driving him insane, he decided to head out the door, either heading towards police headquarters or Donnelly's home. He didn't know which one just yet.
Allot of people would be freaked out living so close to the base of the Arkney woods, Jodie Welsh though to herself. Not them, though, as they loved it here. Peter was upstairs tucking in Roy and, while the sun was setting, she felt a sense of calm that was rarely captured by anyone. The move to Raccoon City was the best thing that they had ever done. Here she felt like she truly belonged, despite believing that such tight-knit communities were hard for outsiders to break into, since they had been accepted with the greatest of ease. The people of this city were so nice, it was almost like she had discovered Nirvana.
Umbrella Inc had supplied jobs for just about everyone, so even financial problems that affected every other part of the country seemed to not be so bad here as people's work and income were stable and not in jeopardy. How Umbrella managed to keep its profits, and thus its large workforce, intact when so many other corporations had to downsize was a question that many people didn't bother to ask, as it was too much like looking a gift horse in the mouth. So it was left at that.
Sighing gladly, she walked over to the CD player and flicked the switch to turn it on, the system illuminating up. She sighed with contentment again as she stared out of the first floor window. They had decided not to remove the large glass patio doors as they were joined by the biggest windows that Jodie had ever seen. No way was she going to take away from the physical beauty of this house when it hadn't even seemed to be in their league at first. After having it become affordable with Peter's substantial pay rise at his new job, she wanted to be able to enjoy every square inch of the large home. She could see right down to the edge of the garden, past the 3-foot high fence and into the woods. It was perfect.
What was that? Jodie was sure she saw something move. She laughed at the thought. Of course she had. It was probably a racoon or something, there was a reason the city was named after those rodents, after all.
But no, that really looked like the silhouette of a person. Damn, even here, her mind played tricks on her. Jodie remembered that she had spent her whole life being told that her imagination was hyper active. It had always been a problem with her peers and teachers at school, and especially with her parents both during her childhood and afterwards when she was thankfully away from them. But the woods were so serene that she could not help but feel relaxed, finally thinking that she could put her lousy past behind her. Although that did resemble a person for a second, she also thought quietly, her mindset returning from the oneness she had been experiencing with nature to the current events. It couldn't hurt to turn on the light on the porch, at least, as it would simply prove there was no one there. But there was definitely movement. Behind the first shadow form, was another… And another after that.
"Peter? Peter come down here and see this!", Jodie felt an unpleasant sensation grip at her chest.
The sound of familiar footsteps coming down the stairs did quiet her fears slightly as she recognised them to be her husband's. The 24-year old woman just needed to hear that it was shadows and that she was being paranoid again as she knew that Peter was used to these types of questions.
"What's wrong, honey? You sounded worried", the young man approached her from behind.
"Just wanted… I needed to have you to…", before she could finish her thought, the clean-shaven man silenced her with a question of his own.
"Hey, who are _they_? I bet it's a bunch of drunk teenagers. Look at their posture. Turn on the porch lights, hon", Peter went on.
His wife walked over to a switch that was next to the side of the glass doors and flicked it upwards. The two powerful porch lights lit up on either side of the outside of the doors themselves, illuminating the entire garden and, to a lesser degree, the growing number of surprise visitors on the outskirts of the closed fence. The sudden light didn't seem to deter the currently half a dozen loiterers who were slowly swaying from side to side,
"Go get drunk somewhere else, losers!", Peter spoke up, though he was obviously too far away to be heard by anyone other than his worried wife, "Has it been _that_ long since our time in college that I'm wondering why they get drunk all day long instead of doing any studying?".
"Maybe they're just guests at a party from a nearby house, honey", Jodie offered, though she wasn't sure if she believed her own explanation, "They probably got drunk in the backyard and then wandered around to here".
The shakiness of her voice revealed how nervous she was at the current situation, made worse by the fact that there were now at least ten drunk individuals, all either leaning on the fence and facing towards her home, or staggering towards the fence from a few yards away.
"Hey, get lost!", her husband raised his voice as he proceeded to open the left half of the glass doors to head outside and confront the strangers when he saw two of the group climbing over the waist-high fence to make their way towards his home.
He and his wife saw the first two individuals land on the garden past the fence before they rose back up on their feet and started stumbling towards their glass door. While that happened, several others behind the first two began climbing over the fence also.
"No! No, hon, please, no. I don't like the looks of this", Jodie sounded more scared as she held on to his left shoulder from behind, "Something's _very_ wrong here".
"We can't just let them do this, sweetie", Peter replied as he looked back at her, his one hand still holding the left side of the door open.
"There's too many of them!", his wife exclaimed, pointing towards the garden in time to see that there were now five strangers inside the garden while half of dozen others were climbing the fence and two dozen others were slowly walking towards the fence itself, "I don't know who they are or where they're coming from. But this isn't right, hon!".
Peter said nothing for an instant, pondering about the situation for an instant.
"Just call the police, hon. They'll straighten this out", his wife urged.
The young man didn't take long to make up his mind, and he decided to do as she suggested. He closed the glass doors and locked them together before he anxiously walked towards the phone that rested in the living room. Picking up the receiver, Peter's throat tightened when he heard that the line was dead. He placed the receiver down before looking back at his wife, the worry showing on his face as he and his wife witnessed approximately fifty intruders, half of which were already in their garden and slowly but surely heading straight for them.
The first few individuals began banging on the glass doors, moaning incoherently in the process. Jodie placed a right hand over her own mouth to stifle her instinct to yell out, succeeding partially. But they could both tell that the back glass doors just wouldn't last much longer, as signs of strain already showed via tiny cracks on the surface that was constantly being pounded by dozens of determined fists and hands.
Peter gripped his wife's hand and quickly led her through the hall towards the front wooden door of the house. Unlocking it, he then tried to open the front door. It didn't move, so he tried to push his weight against it, only to find that it was jammed shut.
The couple didn't have time to wonder what could be making the only other exit out of the house stick like that, despite the desperate pushes and kicks that were repeatedly delivered against the wooden surface. Peter screamed as he used all his strength to send a front kick next to the doorknob and, even though the wooden fabric was bruised, the door still refused to open. It was clear that, for reasons unknown, the door was not an accessible option.
By this time, the windows at the front of the house were all broken and, although the moaning home invaders couldn't get in, their sinewy arms clawed and grasped inside the couple's home. A quick look around revealed that there were literally dozens of these individuals just outside each window as well as the transparent back doors. And whatever these intruders were afflicted with, they were certainly more than just drunk, lost and confused.
The residents within the house were trapped.
"Jodie, go upstairs and no matter what DO NOT come back down here until help arrives. Protect Roy. We don't have time to discuss this. You have to look after our son. I love you", Peter quickly instructed, trying to take charge of the situation.
Jodie felt her eyes watering.
"I'm not leaving you!", she sounded resolute, "You come with me and we'll get Roy and get…".
"No! _You_ get Roy in his room, I'm holding them back if they start coming through the windows and the doors", Peter proved to be as resolved as her.
"I'm not leaving y…", his wife raised her voice.
"GO!", Roy's father angrily ordered.
She had seen him like this only a couple of times in their lives together, so she knew better than to waste time arguing with him over a point that she was sure he wouldn't relent on. She reached forth and kissed her husband on the lips.
"I love you, honey", she blurted out loud in an effort to be heard over the ever-louder moans that surrounded the house.
"I love _you_", he replied before turning his attention at whatever part of the house he believed the creatures were coming in from with the largest numbers.
Jodie ran upstairs, as was her husband's plan to protect their child. The thudding from downstairs grew louder and louder as she could hear those inhuman things rattling away as they tried to get in. She didn't have time to ask herself what it was they wanted as she was more concerned with getting the three of them out of there alive and unhurt. Any worries as far as losing their home would be a distant second to that objective.
Upon reaching the 8-year old boy's second-floor room, she saw that Roy was already sitting up on his bed, scared and alert, his Pokemon pyjamas ruffled and dishevelled. The sight of his mother running through the doorway to his room was definitely a welcome sight, even as both mother and son heard glass breaking downstairs. The child was crying to himself, possibly because he already suspected that there may be something about this particular scary situation that even his parents couldn't correct and make better like they had done with every other event in his life so far.
Jodie was nearly by the boy's bed when she heard her husband screaming from the first floor, a sound which prompted her to momentarily stop and turn around as she looked back towards the staircase that she had used to come up here. Her mind was trying to consider her best plan of action, whether that'd be to pay attention to Roy, who was younger but not in trouble yet, or to Peter, who was older but whose life was most likely in peril. Not wanting to take long to decide, the young woman turned back around and addressed the young boy who was still seated up on his bed and kept instinctively clutching the blanket that covered his legs.
"Roy, honey, I want you to put your arms around mommy and don't let go now, you hear?", the mother reached for him with both arms, "You're gonna hang on to mommy real tight and we're gonna run downstairs and find daddy and then we're all gonna get out of here and go find help, OK?".
The boy's only response was to point behind his mother with his right index finger as his eyes and mouth widened in a mixture of surprise and fear. Jodie didn't even have time to turn around to see what he was fixated on before she heard her son screaming out "MOMMYYYYYY!".
The young woman twisted around to face the area that was behind her, ready for whatever may be there, or at least so she thought. Her heart felt like it skipped a beat as her mouth dropped open and her eyes widened due to seeing a creature whose general physique looked to be human, but the similarities ended there. What she could only describe as a monster whose overall flesh was decayed and whose head was more of a skull than a face had climbed up the staircase and was entering the room after her. Its arms were stretched out as it slowly but eagerly tried to touch her with its hands.
It didn't occur to Jodie that there were now probably dozens of these things all over the first floor of her house, or that Peter was probably dead due to the creatures' invasion of her home, or that she wasn't sure she could survive a confrontation against a single one of them, much less against several of them together. None of those thoughts entered her mind because she had to protect Roy first and foremost, so she instinctively grabbed the only lamp that was a few feet away from the boy's bed and swung it in a downward vertical arc with her right arm. The bottom of the lamp crashed into the side of the intruder's head, smashing into several pieces and forcing the two-legged monster to sway to one own side as its legs temporarily buckled. Unfortunately, the creature didn't fall down, and its legs prompted it to stand back up to its full height despite the large gash that appeared on the side of its face.
"Roy, get out of here!", was the only instruction Jodie could give before she hurled herself forward in an effort to push the monster out of the bedroom before hopefully closing the door in its face.
Her push shoved the intruder three slow steps backwards until they both reached the open doorway, but it was there that her antagonist stood firm, placing both its arms around her torso as its fingers dug into her own upper arms. The standstill continued for a few, intense seconds, neither human nor monster being able to push the other away, before Jodie spotted two more inhuman creatures following the first one on the staircase. That was all she got to see before her adversary reached down with its own face and bit her on the side of the neck, sending a wave of pain through the young woman's body before her legs gave out and she felt herself collapsing towards the floor.
Roy had no choice, he had to jump out of the second-floor window. He could still hear his mother screaming in pain behind him, and he knew he had to get away or the bad men would get him. The small child opened the window and looked out, seeing that it was a long way down. He took several seconds, which felt like forever, before he leapt out of the window, screaming with fear until the deafening thud his legs made upon impact with the ground below. The top of his knee jutted out through the skin, pure white cartilage glistening as the blood gushed from the open wound, his new screams ringing loud and clear in the night air. He did not care that the attackers who were infesting the entire house and all its surroundings would notice him, the pain in his legs so great that nothing could silence him at the moment while he kept his small mouth open, constantly showing off the little, white teeth.
The badly decayed walking corpses didn't hear the boy's screams, as they were starting to rise from the still body of his father. They moaned gently, as almost like a prayer of thanks, as if they were groaning that Roy could not hear their noise over the sound of his own cries. So Roy roared his lungs out, the tears pouring down his little cheeks and onto his pyjamas after blood had already soaked its bottoms after the poor youth soiled himself with fear, urine running down the insides of his legs. At first, only one figure staggered towards the nearly broken figure of the young boy, but soon, ten or more large hulking figures descended towards his frail body. The new attention was explained because the flesh was now stripped from his father's bones, meaning that Peter's remains had lost any appeal to the ravenous men. But yet they could not be men, as their flesh was peeling and dropping from their bodies, the wounds wriggling and squirming with maggots and pulsating, unlike their festering hearts. Their eyes void of life, staring blankly at their prey, their arms were held out limply in front of them as they stumbled forward, their rotting feet providing just enough support for them to remain vertical. Even though one leg might've dragged and scraped along the ground, hindering their movement, they could still catch up to the 8-year old boy because of their constant persistence.
Despite the pain searing through his body, Roy turned so he could use his little hands to pull himself forward, his tiny eyes full of concentration. He could hear them behind him, gaining on him, so his features contorted with the panic he was feeling, the bottom lip quivering without encumbrance. The slow moaning from behind him begged him to give up, to stop fighting, and continued despite Roy wishing that he could block out their wailing and their horrific cries. Fresh tears climbed down his face and soaked the rough ground underneath him, and were then scraped away by his stomach with each inch he moved. Each precious inch of ground he gained caused him to scream out in pain, pieces of dirt and stone embedding themselves in his skin, the smell of his blood causing those stalking him to become wild with anticipation.
The monsters' stumbling became more hurried, filling Roy with a greater sense of urgency, his breathing becoming more focused. Some had fallen and were moving on their hands and knees, almost similarly to him, but despite the pain he was in, he moved quickly. His little heart lurched with hope as he could finally see people, and real ones as opposed to the undead ones who followed him, at the end of the garden. The real people who were just beyond the garden were watching him from behind the fence, so if he could just get to them, he was sure they'd save him. Maybe mommy or daddy got away! Maybe they were with those people right now, just waiting for him to make it there too. These thoughts were running through his head as he became concerned only with making it to the end of the garden and to the safety of his parents' protective arms. The hope rose like fresh air into his lungs, his little arms crawling and pulling faster, his chest heaving, gasping at taking in air.
The hope of escape glimmered in the child's ravaged body, but he also wondered why those people were just standing there. Maybe this was just a bad dream, so he whispered a silent prayer to Jesus just like mommy had told him to do. Jesus would save him, after all what had mommy said? The lord helps those who help themselves, so he knew he had to get to the end of the garden even if the pain was nearly causing him to pass out, the lids of his petite eyes overly heavy.
The human being at the end of the garden could indeed see the young child's plight, but no one could obviously be allowed to live through this and recount what happened. So the man only watched as Roy actually managed to reach him yards ahead of the nearest zombie. The boy worriedly reached up and grabbed the front of his right leg, marking it with his fresh blood.
"Pwease save me!", the small boy looked up as he begged for help from the man who was dressed in a RPD uniform.
Roy's potential saviour brought back his right foot and then kicked the child directly under the chin, knocking Roy a handful of yards back into the garden that he had come from.
The back of the young child's head crashed against a relatively large rock, creating a bump that was the size of a golf ball at the place of contact. He passed out from the new pain, not even realizing that his leg was so twisted below the knee that it was only being held in place by skin. So in his state of unconsciousness, he also didn't see or feel anything when the first walking and rotting corpse descended upon him.
"Test A affirmative", Albert Wesker reported into a microphone that was attached around his head as he watched the boy's leg spasm while the youngster was being eaten, "It worked as planned. Now _do_ please send in my hunters to remove the evidence".
Shakahnna woke up, realizing that she had seen the entire event in her sleep, all the way from when the family's home was invaded by the monsters to when the last survivor, that being Roy, was kicked unconscious before being eaten alive. Albert Wesker was still dressed as a scientist while he was reading some charts near the steel bed that she was still strapped to. The older man thought to himself that seeing her wake up early should've surprised him, but it really didn't, not when he was dealing with a specimen that was in a class of her own.
"How _could_… How could you have done that?", the teenager groggily asked him, not able to keep the disgust from her voice once she knew she was no longer alone and recognized who the only company there was.
"Did what?", the scientist didn't turn in her direction as he asked, suspecting she was referring to the pain in her stomach.
"You murdered them! He was only a baby! You be'd killing that boy and his family", she lifted her face towards him, even as she noticed that some of her clothes were gone.
That at least got his attention as he put the charts down on the nearest table and turned to face her.
"How do you know about that?", the scientist demanded as he approached the bed.
"I _sawed_ you! You bastard", Shakahnna screamed back.
"How could you have?", Wesker followed through, talking more to himself than to her, "You were here all that time, completely out cold after I was done examining you".
He instinctively touched a long surgical scar that spanned from the extreme right side of her waistline, past her navel, all the way to the extreme left side of the abdominals. The gentle way he traced the outline of the scar made her jump as far as the restraints would let her.
"But regardless of what I found in surgery, this is still important", he informed her as he withdrew that pen and memo pad out of his lab coat again.
Wesker began writing more notes on paper about whatever he suspected might've given the girl the ability to see events when she wasn't actually there while they occurred, not caring that the redhead was watching him walk away and talking to himself at the same time.
"It's been surprisingly quiet here", captain Wesker thought to himself as he rested his right elbow on his desk at RPD headquarters and placed his chin within the right palm, "I wonder how I've been able to work uninterrupted for the last couple of days now".
"Something's off in this place, just wish I could put my finger on it", he continued talking to himself as he leaned back on the chair, placing his hands within two of the many pockets that were on his dark blue uniform.
"Of course!", he snapped three fingers from his right hand as he leaned back forward, "I know what it was. The lack of paper airplanes being thrown at the back of my head, no random voicemails left on my machine of growling noises that are followed by giggles, no constant hassles to meet for lunch that I need to turn down, and no one's been trying to hide under this desk, waiting to bite my ankles when I sit down. It all means there's a lack of our precinct's red-headed terror. Where has she been?".
The RPD official remembered not seeing Shakahnna at her desk for the last few days now. In fact, the last time he had seen her was at the STARS picnic. So more curious to find out the reason for her unexplained absence than anything else, Wesker picked up the phone that was a short distance away on the overcrowded surface of the desk. He already remembered her phone number, and thus didn't need to look it up before he dialed several digits and waited as the connection took place.
Wesker counted five rings on the other end before Shakahnna's voice greeted the caller via her answering machine.
"Hewwo, it be's me", he heard the teenager's recording say, "Leave your number and, if I like you, I'll be calling you back. And if I don't, I won't. Have a nice day, unless it be's Joanne or Donnelly, in which case, fuck you".
The Umbrella operative had to smirk as he heard the end of the greeting, despite having heard the message a number of times before, and then knew to start talking after a ~beep~ followed.
"Well, miss Warren, I've noticed your absence from work", Wesker spoke into the receiver, "You know my number at work. Get back to me when you have the chance".
He had just hung up the phone when his radio buzzed. It wasn't an urgent message from the police district as a general call was placed to any officers on routine patrol. He was informed of the occurrence, that being a phone call that was originally received by an emergency phone operator, and it was thus passed along to a patrol car within the vicinity of the city. It seemed a frantic person had picked up a payphone to reach the police. It was only by luck that someone as high in rank as a captain had heard about it while going about the usual duties for both his employers.
The distraught man had informed the operator that he found a body in a park at the corner of 5th and Carlton St, and a patrol vehicle was already en route to the area to investigate.
Such a call would not usually be a high priority with the average police officer who's on foot, bike or car patrol, much less for a higher-ranking member of the RPD. That's because about 90% of the calls received by the emergency phone operator that report a body being found or seen are actually a false alarm. The truth is that the alleged dead person is either a drunk who's passed out on the streets or a homeless person who's asleep. But there was something different about this call that caught the captain's attention.
The witness had stated that the victim appeared to have been attacked by a large animal, that there was blood everywhere around the vicinity of the corpse, and then threw up while the operator relayed the information. That by itself was enough to make this call a unique one.
Wesker's face tightened as he pondered the situation, even as he was seated at his desk and staring ahead in his office while ignoring the massive amount of paperwork in front of him. It was always possible that this case was an accident of nature, and that's assuming that it turned out to be validated by the patrol officers on their way to confirm or deny the significance of the call. Raccoon City was on the outskirts of a mountainous terrain, after all, and many predators lived in the wild hills around it as well as the forest just outside the city. It was conceivable that one of those animals, either a wolf or even a mountain lion, could've made its way past the borders of the city and killed someone. And the intersection of 5th and Carlton streets was on the edge of the city, just a couple of miles away from the beginning of Raccoon Forest. So such a theory would make sense.
Except Wesker knew more than the average citizen, such as his chief employer's residence and business within the city, as well as one of Umbrella Inc's facilities that was located right in the middle of Raccoon Forest itself. Umbrella also experimented on live animals, which he had witnessed with his own eyes as part of the company's security force. It was impossible to come up with creatures like hunters without depending on animals that nature provided initially, and the Umbrella scientists had sworn that such experiments were needed to ensure they were up to date with the many evolving strains of any given virus. So Umbrella had taken precautions to make sure that those beasts were kept away from people since they always acted much more violently and with more strength upon being introduced to some fancy virus or another.
But no security is without fail all the time. Wesker knew about that better than anyone. He had been forced to respond to more than a few instances of when a hunter or a dog broke out of its cage or restraints. Even in the few moments it had taken him and his colleagues from security to kill or at least incapacitate the animal, it had already inflicted major damage on the humans around it.
The result was never good. Hunters could kill a person with one swipe of their arms. Dogs would usually take a bit longer, but they too had the ability to pin an adult human under their weight before savagely dismembering them within seconds.
Of course, all creatures up to this point had been killed or restrained before too long, and definitely before they had a chance to leave the secret facility in Raccoon Forest. Wesker had never heard of any infected animals ever getting out to attack the population before. And he believed that he was simply reading too much of this situation anyway. Even if there was a dead body at 5th and Carlton, it was probably either a murder by another human or at most an attack by a regular animal.
The captain stood up, grabbed his RPD jacket and left the office in order to drive towards that intersection himself. Paperwork could always wait. He had to quiet down the nagging voice in the back of his mind that something may be seriously wrong.
Evidence of the sun couldn't be seen anywhere, even though it was well into the afternoon. The sky overhead seemed to be a thick, gray carpet of clouds that hung ominously over the buildings, stretching as far as the eye could see from one end of the horizon to the other. Every structure that lined the many streets of Raccoon City and which blocked the skyline, whether it be large like a building of variable size or even small like a lamppost, was also surrounded by the same background. Besides the clouds that were so massive that they almost appeared to be a fog that melted away the edges of those structures to anyone who was looking at them from below, citizens also had to contend with a howling wind that accentuated a weather that was colder than usual.
He walked alone outside, making his way towards his parked car. And while everything around captain Wesker seemed to be enveloped in a dull gray color, his entire world seemed to be enveloped in light-colored black instead as he always kept his shades on his face, even now.
The drive towards his destination was a surprisingly quiet one as he made his way through darkened streets while eternally gray clouds blocked most of the light from the sky above. Not only did the radio in his vehicle not come on with calls, but the captain also didn't hear the citizens outside making as much noise as he remembered them to usually do during a typical weekday.
Having reached the intersection of 5th and Carlton streets within minutes, Wesker took his time to park the unmarked police car next to the sidewalk on 5th St. He could see the park that took the entire side of Carlton St as yellow police tape was already in place there. That at least confirmed that he was dealing with an actual crime scene and not a mistaken call of someone who was asleep or just drunk. Undoing his seatbelt and exiting the vehicle, he quickly walked towards the location after he hastily looked down the street to first look out for other cars.
"Sir", a patrolman greeted him as he approached the crime scene.
"What's the situation here?", Wesker asked the younger man, realizing that he recognized his colleague's face even if he had never spoken to him personally.
It didn't take him long to notice that the man's name tag identified him as officer Yuen.
Instead of answering his superior officer, though, Yuen placed his right palm over his own mouth, appearing as if he felt ill. Wesker only had enough time to step closer to him before the young man bent down and threw up on the concrete ground.
"Are you feeling alright?", the captain inquired, coming within an arm's reach of the man.
"I… I'm sorry", the patrolman coughed as he kept facing the ground and pointing behind him towards the yellow tape with his left hand, "Back there…".
Seeing that the younger officer wasn't experiencing anything worse than nausea, the Umbrella spy hurriedly made his way towards the other uniformed cop at the scene as the third man still had his back turned to them both.
"What's going on here, off…", was all Wesker got to say as he reached the man he recognized as officer Brenner.
He stopped mid-sentence because he ended up seeing the same crime scene that the Yuen's more experienced partner was looking at all along. Behind the police tape were the remains of a human being who had been savagely torn apart. Most of the victim's clothes were missing, though a few pieces of red shirt and blue jeans could still be found sporadically. While the majority of the mostly nude body was covered in blood and dozens of savage bite marks, Wesker saw that the cadaver's left leg was several yards away from the rest of the body.
Upon seeing the corpse, he couldn't help but instantaneously reminisce about the last time he had been working inside an Umbrella lab almost two years ago. The scene of a hunter's escape and subsequent rampage had produced victims that were as ravaged as this one before he had finally incapacitated the creature with seven rounds from his Desert Eagle.
"The youngster's not seen anything like this before, I'm afraid, sir", Brenner addressed his superior, "And neither have I, to be honest. It looks like a grizzly bear attack surprised her, sir".
"Does it really?", the captain went on, still eyeing the bloody remains.
"At least I _think_ it's a 'her'", Brenner followed.
"Have you called the crime scene unit yet?", the undercover operative turned his attention to address the patrolman as Yuen was approaching the pair, having finished losing the morning's breakfast.
"Yes, sir", Yuen answered on Brenner's behalf as he kept his left hand on his stomach and stood next to both men, keeping Wesker in between the cops.
"Will you two be OK till it arrives?", the captain inquired.
"Yes, of course", the older patrol officer replied.
"I have some place I have to be. I want you both to stay together till back-up arrives, got it?", Wesker ordered.
He heard "of course" and "no problem" from both men as he turned back to head towards his parked car.
Claymont had a lot of explaining to do.
"He's where?", Albert Wesker placed both his palms on the surface of the desk, his shades staring intently at the face of the younger woman who had the misfortune of sitting behind it.
"He's in a very important meeting with the senior partners, Mr. Wesker", the secretary didn't appear to be distraught as she met his gaze, "Mr. Claymont didn't say when he'll be back".
The Umbrella security guard guessed that her direct employer made it easy for her to not be intimidated by anyone who was working within this underground facility, as Claymont was well-known to aggressively deal with anyone who'd hassle his personal staff. But he also wasn't in the mood for such a delay, so the older man stood back at his full height as he crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Look, miss… whatever your name is", Wesker countered, "I've already had the pleasure of hearing our not so bright leader in there give that same overused excuse more often than I remember. Enough to know that he's in there while we're both out here".
He pointed past her desk and towards the only door that led in and out of Claymont's office as he finished talking.
"So are you going to tell me whether his door is locked now and spare us both the inconvenience of me having to kick it open and you having to call in a repair crew to fix it if you refuse to unlock the damn thing?", the undercover RPD employee followed through, "Because whether you explain to the big boss man that I got past you or whether I literally have to step on you to get there, I _am_ talking to him _now_".
The younger woman sighed.
"Your reputation for persistence wasn't undeserved", she picked up the phone and pressed one button to reach someone on the other end while she kept staring at the older man who was still standing in place across from her desk.
"Mr. Claymont? There's a Mr. Wesker here to see you. And he refuses to go away".
She waited for an instant.
"Yes, sir, he _is_ armed", she then said into the receiver,
Another moment of silence on her part.
"OK, sir", the woman hung the phone up before addressing the security guard, "You can go in, and no, it's not locked".
"Much obliged", Wesker nodded in a mocking fashion as he made his way towards the vice-president's office door.
Upon entering the older man's work area, he caught sight of two people who were in the office instead of just one. Claymont was seated behind his desk, looking slightly dishevelled as both his hands were hidden behind the desk itself, prompting Wesker to think that the Umbrella supervisor was zipping up. The guard's belief was confirmed when he saw that the second person there was a curvaceous woman, about the same age as the secretary outside, who was busy wiping her mouth with her sleeve as she headed towards the door to leave the office.
"Please get out", Wesker held the door open until the unknown female exited.
Upon closing it behind her, he was finally left alone with the older man as Claymont still hadn't managed to get past the post-orgasm blush.
"You could've at least tucked in your shirt for me", Wesker commented as he approached the vice president's area.
"What can I do for you, Mr. W…", was as far as Claymont got when it came to his standard, overly polite greetings.
"Talk", the spy-turned-cop ordered as he pointed towards his superior with his right index finger and stood in place on the other side of Claymont's desk, "I'm not in the mood".
"Now, don't go getting yourself all upset, youngster", the older man advised, "I take it you're talking about our little escapee".
"Of course!", Wesker's voice rose by a few degrees, "I just came from a crime scene where a citizen's been found gutted. What the _hell_ do you guys have running around out there?!".
"It's just a cerberus, just one. It got away from our holding cell", the vice president got to the point, "But our ground teams are busy locating it, Albert. I expect them to find it and bring it back in no time".
"Do I have to ask how your employees could've screwed things up this badly?", the younger man crossed his arms in front of his chest, always keeping his eyes on the seated supervisor, "But I digress. I don't have time to waste, like I said. Any ideas which side of town this dog of yours is now? We'll find it and put it out of its misery much quicker".
"No, no, it's too close for your boys in blue. Remember what your job is, Albert. You're supposed to be there to stop us from being found out, not _helping_ them find us out", Claymont countered, partly looking away from his associate's unnerving stare.
"Then I'll shoot the damn thing and make sure it's never found! Anything you wanna bet says I can kill it sooner than _your_ boys can try to trap it".
"Albert, no, I have to put my foot down here", Claymont stood up an instant before he wished he hadn't as his untucked suit looked out of place when he had a tie dangling on top of it, "This cerberus will be back where it belongs before the day's over, I promise you that. But _we'll_ be doing that, not you".
"I'm coming back here tomorrow morning, and if this dog isn't in a cage or dead by that time, then this city goes on alert until the RPD takes it out", the guard instinctively brushed his hair with his right hand, "Count on it".
Without waiting for a reply, Wesker turned back around and exited the office, prompting the vice president to finally sit back down on his chair.
"_Gotta_ get that gun away from him", Claymont sighed to himself as he heard the door closing when he was left alone.
He picked up the phone that was nearest him and dialed several numbers on it, intending to contact the lab underneath the Spencer mansion. To his surprise, he only heard a whistling sound emanating from the receiver before an electronic voice told him that the number he wanted to call was disconnected.
Claymont's mouth dropped open in a mixture of surprise and fear as he carelessly hung up the phone.
"Oh dear…", he moaned to himself.
"Why, Michael, I never knew you cared. Yes, it _is_ my birthday", Wesker commented into his personal cellphone as he made his way through a hallway in the Spencer mansion, "I _do_ feel wary that I'm a year older now, but I had to remember that with age, comes wisdom".
"Captain, what the hell are you talking about?", the mayor of Raccoon City answered him through the phone.
"How did you get my cell number?", the RPD captain's sarcastic tone of voice changed to his usual one.
He was already changed from that ridiculous blue police uniform into regular clothes, after having already wasted so much precious time conversing with Claymont when he should've been with his precious specimen.
"I tried to get you at the RPD, but you're not answering the messages I leave", Mr. Warren countered, "Elena gave me this number of yours".
"You know what they say. There's no place like home, and not to mention that if you spent half as much time making money for the city as you did bothering me, we wouldn't be in this mess".
The younger man in the shades casually stepped over a bloody carcass that was half-sprawled against the wall. Wesker wasn't sure if the dead fellow scientist whose white lab coat was covered in tears and blood was truly deceased or if his body would be re-animated soon, but he didn't care as he passed the scene and continued heading towards his destination.
"What is this I'm hearing about you actually _expanding_ your STARS branch instead of dismantling it like you were told?", the mayor increased the tone of his voice before Wesker took the cellphone several inches away from his ear, "I report to my office and find that a _new_ officer, this Rebecca Chambers, is joining the RPD STARS? Which part of 'get rid of them' didn't you understand?".
"Well, you see, the problem is, Michael, that I don't take orders from an obnoxious rodent like you", the younger man couldn't help but grin, even as he came across movement from several yards ahead in the hallway.
"This is coming from _your_ boss!", Mr. Warren shot back while Wesker was too busy looking at a zombie who slowly staggered towards him as its arms extended forward.
The scientist with the sunglasses smoothly dropped his upper body so his head was under the reach of the monster's arms, and then twisted his body at a 90 degree angle so his back was flat against the wall. In that position, he quickly kept walking past the creature, putting several steps between it and himself by the time the zombie had even gotten to turn its head towards him.
Wesker didn't bother turning back around as he continued briskly marching towards his destination, confident that the walking corpse behind him couldn't catch up.
"But _I_ don't remember giving myself those orders, Mike", he then chuckled into the cellphone receiver after he re-placed the gadget against his ear.
"What the hell are you pulling at here?! I don't have time for this shit from your end when Elena's breathing down my neck and bugging me nonstop about…", was as far as the city's mayor got to exclaim.
"I'm sorry, Michael, you must be breaking up. I can't hear you very well", Wesker smiled, "Must be these damn walls. They're so thick, you know".
"Don't you dare. Don't you dare han…", Mr. Warren was interrupted as his younger antagonist disconnected the conversation and turned the cellphone off before placing it into one of the pockets in his lab coat.
He placed both his hands inside the lab coat pockets also as he eagerly continued walking. Being only another minute away from the room he was impatient to reach, he sighed in frustration as he caught sight of two more individuals who were jogging towards him.
He couldn't simply dodge these individuals because they had the distinct difference of being alive, and not walking zombies, which was what he'd encountered before this. He also recognized them as the two security guards who had initially tried to stop him from entering Area 157 during his previous excursions there. Wesker sighed to himself, as this was going to delay him even further.
"Sir! This entire place is going to hell", one of the guards addressed him as both men were fervently grasping their assault weapons, "So many of the technicians and guards are dead or have gone _insane_".
"If it wasn't for us, even more would be dead now. We don't even know where most of the survivors are holed up any more", the first man's partner addressed the scientist in his own turn, "Where's that back-up we were told was on route before the phone lines went down?".
"They're still above us in the mansion. I ran into some of them there", Wesker lied, "It shouldn't take them much longer to get down here".
"We need the help here. We're out of weapons", the first guard continued, "Rich and I here are the only ones who are armed, as far as I can see. We've had to shoot so many people so far".
"Not true", Wesker withdrew his Desert Eagle pistol, indicating that he was the third armed person present.
"Are we going up to the mansion to meet up with the rest?", the man called Rich asked him as he kept checking both sides of the long hallway every few seconds.
"Negative. We're better off staying put till the help reaches us", the scientist suggested, "We're less likely to encounter anything before the big firepower arrives".
"Yeah, yeah, good idea", the first armed sentinel nodded his head, still glad that the trio weren't seeing any creatures coming their way.
"This way. It's as safe as we'll get for the time being", Wesker retained his right grip on his firearm as he opened the nearest doorway with his left hand, twisting the knob and holding the wooden door open with the left hand.
"Gentlemen", he pointed towards the inside of the dark room with his right arm, "We should lock the door behind us. These things don't appear to be intelligent enough to get past such obstacles".
Rich went inside the pitch black room first, and instinctively placed his left palm over his nose and mouth as he gagged while making sure to hold on to his weapon with the right hand. His partner followed him second and quickly contorted his own face in disgust.
"Oh, man!", the second man in the room exclaimed as he held his breath, "What _is_ that? Smells like something died in here!".
Neither person noticed that Wesker wasn't following them inside like expected. Instead, the scientist raised his weapon at arm's length in front of his face and pointed it at the second guard's back.
"How astute of you", the man in the white lab coat answered as he pulled the trigger once.
A flathead round shot into the middle of his target's back, blowing a large hole through it as that individual dropped dead on the floor without making a sound. Even before the guard named Rich had time to turn around, Wesker calmly aimed the weapon towards his back and pulled the trigger for the second time. His second victim gave a short scream as he tried to turn around while staggering forward, before finally collapsing two steps away from his partner. The body crashed on the floor in the middle of the dark room and didn't get back up, but Wesker didn't see any of that because he was already in the process of closing the door by this time.
Shakahnna had been awake for quite a while, singing to herself to keep away the electronic hum of the neon lights and various machines she was hooked up to. She couldn't decide what was worse between the sheer solitude and Wesker, but either way, she had to keep listening to her own voice to avoid the risk of going mad.
She ultimately heard a door opening and closing, prompting her to believe that the relative peace was at an end. So it didn't surprise the teenager to first hear footsteps approaching her before she saw Wesker's face looking down onto hers.
"I'm not going to bother asking you what you were singing. Don't have to time for the reply", the older man stated as he then looked beyond her to some of the equipment and documents that seemed to be everywhere, "But things are happening outside my sanctuary, and I'm afraid I'll have a much tougher time protecting you if you're not moved".
His statement first got a confused look on her face. That was followed by a dry laugh on the redhead's part.
"I think the only thing I need protecting from be's _you_", she spat back, "And where the _hell_ do my clothes be?".
"You don't need to worry about them. I only remove them when absolutely necessary for my findings", the scientist continued, "There's no need for you to be shy anyway. But before I move you to a safer place, I _do_ need to take a skin sample from your leg".
The scientist first reached for and turned on a nearby Dictaphone before placing the electronic gadget on a table that was an arm's reach away from him.
"As long as you don't struggle, there is no need to have more discomfort than the procedure requires", the scientist advised.
His first act was to free her left leg from behind the metal restraints, so the left side of her body could be raised from the waist down for the first time in what felt like was forever.
The teenager yelped as the muscles in that leg jerked involuntarily several times, cramping as they did. The left thigh and calf contracted as she felt the Umbrella researcher taking a hold of her ankle with one hand as he reached for what she could only describe was a fancy potato peeler with the other. Wesker was busy examining her limb as he talked into the Dictaphone, too busy to notice the angry stare he was getting from his live experiment. While he did, the teenager's face was reddened as she watched him examine her leg like it was his idea of an exquisite work of art.
"The epidermal layer is unblemished. Translucent grey effect that usually occurs due lack of oxygen and takes place because of the absence of cells isn't present", the older man was talking out loud.
"Stop touching me", Shakahna hissed, bringing him out of his concentration.
"This really won't take long", Wesker quietly countered, disliking that the lecture for his Dictaphone was interrupted.
The fact that he didn't even bother looking at her face as he brushed off the protest might've been what pushed the redhead's mind to the point where she wasn't thinking clearly or with even her best interest in mind. So the teenager retracted her leg, ignoring the pain she felt from its days of inactivity, before she kicked the older man under the chin with as much strength as she could afford.
The blow sent Wesker staggering three steps backwards as his head was facing the ceiling and a trickle of blood emerged from his teeth. After the pair of seconds it took him to regain his composure, he looked back towards his aggressor. He also heard the metallic bed that Shakahnna was on being continuously rattled due to her efforts to angrily break the remaining of the majority of restraints.
"That wasn't very smart", the scientist calmly commented as he wiped the trail of blood off his lower face with a sleeve, "And all this after I've been going out of my way to make this experience as painless for you as possible".
"YOU THINK THIS IS GENEROUS?!", Shakahnna countered, her voice shaking due to having realized the possible consequences after losing her temper, especially considering that her situation hadn't improved due to her not being able to get out of the bed.
And how calmly the older man was staring at her was most worrying of all.
"But since you apparently have so much excess energy, I think that maybe we can proceed with an experiment I was considering for the future, and without the anaesthetic, seen your desire is to make this as difficult as possible for all involved", the researcher approached the metal bed before he grabbed her face under the chin, making sure he was out of the way of her left leg.
"You're my slave, miss Warren", he spoke a few inches above her face, "You just haven't accepted it yet".
Sighing, Albert Wesker walked away from the bed, even as his experiment kept thrashing, though he couldn't understand why, especially considering he hadn't carried out his plan yet. Stopping in front of a cabinet, he reached in and withdrew a glass bottle before going back in the direction that he came from. If this redhead wanted to play rough, then he could definitely do that. It's not like he was impatient to go anywhere else now that he was here. As far as he was concerned, he had all the time in the world.
"Let's call this here a lesson on how you shouldn't do anything stupid like that", the man in the shades approached the prone teenager.
With the same ease that he used to open a bottle of whiskey, he undid the safety cover for the small container before tossing the liquid contents on her left leg. The majority of that limb went red as it began to swell up and blistered due to the contact of the acid on her skin there. Shakahnna's eyes bulged as she bit down on her tongue, not wanting to give her tormentor the satisfaction of hearing her scream. The blisters popped, blood emerging from underneath them, while effectively shedding all the skin from her left leg and leaving that part of her body with the wet muscles exposed.
Despite her endurance, her body buckled as her hips went up and her shoulders were pressed against the surface of the bed, prompting her to press her legs back down against the bottom half of the bed. She didn't even see Wesker using that reaction to his advantage, springing to action with the reflexes of a snake as he placed the metal restraints over her injured left leg, thus returning the human experiment to her previous position.
"Shit, shit shit…", was all the teenager allowed herself to moan between repeated bites down on different parts of her own lip.
"Bet you wish you had acted better now", the man in the shades commented, a hint of the anger he must've been feeling for the last few minutes finally surfacing in his voice, "Because by the time we finish this, you _are_ going to learn to play nice".
Reaching underneath his lab coat, the teenager saw that he was gripping something in his right hand. She didn't wish to see what it was. She already knew it wasn't going to be anything good, as that aspect of her life had been put on hold quite a while ago, but suspected that the older man was bringing out a gun before he shot her. So Shakahnna turned her head to the side, tucked her chin towards her collar and closed her eyes tight.
Instead of a shot being fired, though, all she felt was the sensation of cold metal next to the side of her face. By instinct, she opened the eye that was closest to the metallic object and caught sight of a 9-inch long silver-colored hunting knife whose handle was outfitted with a brass knuckle extension.
That's not much better, she thought to herself. In fact, a damn gun would've been quicker. I don't want to die down here alone, she continued hearing her own voice in her mind only as she closed her eyes back. Whatever short life she could remember was about to come to an end here, and she hated thinking of that, because she would never get the chance to move in with Chino, or be a police officer, or dye Joanne's hair black, or even be accepted by Donnelly.
"Weskie, I don't wanna die", she was disgusted that she couldn't think of anything else to say when she was about to be executed by someone she trusted who turned out to be a complete sociopath.
But rather than a fatal wound that was delivered to her neck, the girl felt the sharp end of the blade lightly cutting her skin, barely enough to draw blood, from the spot next to her eye. It traced a path down her neck, past her chest and down towards her stomach, leaving a faint red incision. Shakahnna's chest was heaving as her breathing became erratic, especially when she then felt the older man force the tip of the hunting knife into the right side of her waistline, exactly where the scar from the earlier surgery started from.
The teenager didn't even have time to consider biting her tongue because she was screaming in pain as half an inch of metal went into the side of her stomach. Wesker then dug the tip of the hunting knife in a horizontal position, using it to tear her skin along the surgical scar. Even the time she was fighting with the RPD officers when she first woke up in the woods was less painful than having her stomach skinned while she was awake.
Shakahnna had no concept of time at this point because all she could hear was her voice screaming as loudly as she could manage since, even after the hunting knife had been removed, the intense burning sensation kept gripping the lower half of her body.
Unknown to her, the scientist in white had flayed a rectangular-shaped skin from her stomach area that was about a 12 inches long by 4 inches wide. As he placed the hunting knife back in its belt sheath, he proudly looked over his bloody trophy, feeling proud that he had been able to remove the entire thing in one attempt and without having to tear it into smaller pieces.
As blood poured over the young woman's underwear, Wesker ignored the gory mess as well as her screaming and thrashing while he withdrew a 3-inch long cigar cutter. He had no problem placing her right index finger through the gadget because she was still reeling from the previous experience. Roughly slapping both sides of the cigar cutter against each other, he heard a wet ~crack~ as the girl's trigger finger was separated from the rest of her hand. That led to Shakahnna howling once in pain as her entire body went through a muscle spasm even while he kept a hold of her bloodied right hand.
She didn't see the index finger falling on the floor or her antagonist retrieving a pair of pliers because she then passed out, her entire world being surrounded in darkness. But her incessant screams stopped there.