Their Last Escape

by antihero276

Former S.T.A.R.S. Officer Jill Valentine unexpectedly meets U.S.S. Special Agent HUNK at the R.P.D., his extraction overridden. Pushed to their limits, they are forced to work together to survive. With only days to escape the T-Virus infested Raccoon City before it is destroyed, they are stalked inexorably from the shadows by a deadly Pursuer, intent on carrying out its mission.

24. Chapter 23: Elegy

zenqqy115: There there, it's not over until it's over. Oh they're badasses alright, but they're also human beings ;). Badassery has to be earned through struggle and conflict. All three of them at this point in the story have been brought to their lowest point, but where is the only direction a person can go from rock bottom?

Rock992: Chapter sizes will vary, for how much text I need to tell that scene, but there will be many of them. The turning point in the story is being reached for the heroes, you are correct about that. Glad you understand what I'm trying to accomplish with Carlos, his role in it all. The three of them are vital to tell the story, from such differing personalities and perspectives.

Akira Hayama: Much appreciated, glad you get what I'm striving to do with HUNK here. Although not the protagonist he is vital to this story and a driving force, the most complicated character, and important especially being the Umbrella POV, which is going to be very important down the line. The inner workings of the company will be told through his eyes. There's only going to be more delving into HUNK from this point on, that's for sure. It's tricky balancing his mysteriousness with giving him an identity/backstory, but I think I've managed to pull it off. And hope others will think so too. Most of the story to this point kept him more mysterious, which I wanted to do, not spill everything about him at once but build him over the story, and this next part of the story who he is under the mask will become more important, his past. Part of his decision making and baggage. The tug of war within, especially over Jill. He is a very unhappy, unsatisfied man, beneath the stoicism, and despite how he has it back at Umbrella. Legend or not. Really, because of the legend to a big degree, and what went down with Bella. And of course, who she is.

Spot on assessment for Carlos, he is going to start seeing more of the real man behind the legend, similar but different to the way Jill saw him earlier. They'll be working together a fair bit, their own dynamic explored further. Jill was vital as an outsider perspective on HUNK who doesn't know who he is, even about his legend or anything, just the man she sees in Raccoon City, no background knowledge. Whereas Carlos represents someone with some average Umbrella knowledge as a rookie working for them, who has heard the stories, and is now working with this company 'celebrity' essentially. Seeing that despite the legend around HUNK, it's more complicated than that. That there's still a man in there.

Thanks again ;).

Arkham Knight: Good eye, you're good at catching my references lol. Expect more, and thank you kindly.

Reptaliator: Every struggle has to reach the 'darkest hour', before they can earn their way back up. It's not over until it's over. The dynamic has mostly been HUNK and Jill, but HUNK and Carlos will get some time to interact going forward, I wanted that concern for him to sort of segue into that part of the story. Explore that dynamic between rookie, emotional young man and intimidating, stoic badass. Leader and subordinate. Company legend and company rookie. In short, an odd couple buddy cop movie. Not really, but you get the idea lol. And I do look forward to the short story as well, I am quite fond of the two characters it is about, and it will share things in common with this much longer story, and offer another perspective and situation in Raccoon City, that will tie into this story down the line, cross paths.

Braktz: HUNK and Carlos will have to interact for awhile from here, come to an understanding, as HUNK is with Jill.

Had to push HUNK to the edge for him to finally start confronting the things he knew deep down and was repressing. The doubts didn't start with Raccoon City, but it and Jill have helped bring them to the surface, to combat with his cold blooded killer/agent side. The man is still in there despite everything.

A very good and fitting summary of the three and their characters and dynamics, exactly what I was going for. Carlos is definitely the most normal and stable, grounded of the three, where Jill and HUNK are more traumatized, Jill wears her heart on her sleeves, is self sacrificial, HUNK buries it away under ice, basically hides his humanity as he does his face under a mask. Umbrella has been all he has known for a long time, for good and bad, they've bound him to the company, and it took a human like Jill against the company, time with her, to raise the doubts again. And to see first hand the scale of destruction of an entire city Umbrella was responsible for... more than that, destruction he knows he had a hand in causing.

Definitely agreed, slow build is the only way to do it in my opinion, fast pacing with relationships and dynamics just doesn't work as well.

Indeed so, invincible action hero characters just don't work for a serious character driven story. They never feel human, everything is unearned and easy, they survive things they shouldn't. A struggle is always important, especially for a grueling journey where all the odds are stacked against them like this. Jill should be a human first and foremost, vulnerable but strong, determined.

Thank you all for the reviews. I would say we have reached roughly the half way point of this story, or at least Part 2. Still quite a ways to go. And I think it's time we started to get to know a certain mysterious person a bit better, peal back the layers. On with the show:

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September 30th, 1998, 9:16 PM.

Chapel, Saint Michael Clock Tower, Northern Raccoon City.

He dreamt a decade old dream. One that had taken its toll on him more and more over the years since, as it had then. The sounds and images remained sharp despite the years and everything that had happened since. He dreamed of the moment he'd lost any chance of being something other than what he was now. A spy. An assassin. A hired thug. A company man. Everything people called him and more. At least that was assuming he'd ever had a chance to begin with, from the moment she'd first started visiting him... and when she had chosen him over all the others. It had been the happiest day of his life, when she had. He had thought it to be. Sometimes he still did. To be wanted, to belong to someone, to something. To matter. But he'd had time to ponder it all. Nothing but time, between missions. Between the gunshots and explosions. And most of all in his dreams and nightmares.

He dreamed of a deranged old man in a fine brown suit and pants, white dress shirt and yellow tie in a laboratory, working away busily. Hovering over a large, swollen up leech in a metal tray, syringe in one of his black gloved hands. Even at seventy years old he had still been spry, energetic in body... as Lord Spencer was not. His work seemingly keeping him youthful in spirit. The doctor was... had been the creator of the T-Virus its self, one the company's three original founders, even if Umbrella had done its best to remove him from their history. Starting that very night and continuing over the decade since. He had been playing violin music on a rotating gramophone over his experiments... lost in his own mad, far away world of theories, formulas and the limitless potential of his work. So engrossed in his research that he was left oblivious to the betrayal rapidly approaching just outside his own door, taking the form of Umbrella Security Service.

Him and his partner at the time had breached the area together and carried out their orders to the letter. He had never been told the other young man's name, as he hadn't been told his... they hadn't seen each other's faces either. The mission top secret. All he knew of the other agent was that it had been the only mission they'd ever shared. He could have been alive and departed from the company or dead by now... he believed it to be the latter, but hoped it to be the former. That he had found some way out of the life they had found themselves in. That someone could, as he could not. Together, in the U.S.S. uniforms and masks of the era... they had noisily stormed into the laboratory and filled the startled old scientist full of lead from two submachine guns. The roar echoing throughout the room over the music, pounding on his eardrums. It had been too simple... too easy... the old man so delusional, demented by that point in his life that he had little security in his labs or outlying areas. Neither many devices nor any staff remaining at what had once been a school owned by the company, secluded away in the Arklay Mountains. And after what he had become, what he had done to his assistants, it was little wonder. Even if he'd had more security devices, no doubt he would have been too preoccupied to pay attention to them. All that mattered to him was his research, engrossing all his attention... obsession with his own power and genius at any price.

He had been a traitor, through and through... betrayed Umbrella's true founder, and needed removing from the company at once. Bella had told him that, ahead of time... before she had sent him to do Lord Spencer's bidding. To prove to Umbrella's President she had chosen him for a reason, had been right to do so. For him to win his favor, and earn his place at the company after all the time and expenses on his training... the investment and attention put into him. It had seemed an honor, then. To be chosen by her again... and for something so important. To render a high service to Umbrella. She had briefed him privately the evening before... had worn white. He had wanted to make her proud... told her that... wanted to prove he had been worth it all. That someone as unimportant as him could be worthy of her. The naive romantic sentiment of a boy... but that had been him, hadn't it? Stupidly naive about what he was getting into. Romantic, instead of realistic. Now he was someone else altogether, for better and for worse. He was what she must have wanted him to be all along... he was certain of that now. Not that it had done anything for him, in the end. She had left eventually anyways.

The boy had grown from that mission forward... and the romantic dream he'd believed in was long dead and gone. But that night, he'd been a boy in mind and a young man in body... she had smiled brilliantly at him anyways, the way she did. The most beautiful woman in the world. His heart had felt like it had melted... the way she had done it to him since they had met... nothing else in the world had mattered when she looked at him like that. Not his mission, not his duty, not the founder he was being sent to murder, not the ethics of the situation. He still remembered her intimate, accented murmur in his ear. Her warm assurances there was nothing to be afraid of. That she knew he was going to make her proud. That she believed in him. Loved him. Her familiar, gentle touches relaxing him. His pre mission trepidation and doubts had evaporated quickly... she'd had that power to her... among so many others. She had made him feel like the most important person in the world... when everyone knew that had been her, not him.

He never forgot that memory. The tranquility of it. The night before his world had changed again.

But the old man's screams over the roar of automatic gunfire always shattered the peace of even that particular memory, as it had the glass.

The shards had flown everywhere like the lead, along with the streaming brass shell casings raining against the ground. The blood soaked old man, riddled with bullets, had dropped to the floor unceremoniously along with his experiment, miraculously clinging to life there after the onslaught. Eyes wide with shock, probably not even knowing what had hit him at first. Though not for long. It had hit him too, even if the rounds hadn't. He had felt a coldness within at what he had done, had to will his hands not to keep shaking, gripping the MP5K tighter, unable to look away from the body. Watching the old man struggling to breath. Seeing what he had done. Feeling his face begin sweating profusely beneath the balaclava. His heart beating rapidly in his ears. It had been real. Not something he'd read about in a book... not ancient history of wars and battles. It wasn't one of Bella's stories... and it wasn't his years of training and lessons. It had been real... and he had done it with his own hands. All it had taken was one pull of a trigger. The blood was everywhere, staining the counter he'd been working at, his suit, and the floor, pooling there and running. The leech he had been experimenting on had slid down from the tray and landed at the doctor's side.

As he and his partner had silently watched the gasping old man bleeding out, two more men who had been awaiting the ceasing of the gunfire had arrived soon after... two faces he knew and hated, even now. Especially now. Though admittedly one of them more than the other, of late. He had stepped hurriedly back against the laboratory door, clearing out of their way and standing at attention while his partner remained down on his knee, looking to them, before rising as well. They had been placed under the command of the two recently promoted Umbrella employees... the first time he had had to defer to the authority of scientists. Though it had not been them and their ambitions he had done it for. He had caught the contemptuous sneer on one of the men's lips as he arrived. The cold, glinting amusement of the other, ever wearing his sunglasses. The two youthful scientists and friends in long white lab coats had gone over to the elderly, dying scientist, their former mentor... to gloat over his body, mocking him... one of them outright laughing at him. The old man had become so detached from the rest of the world outside his lab and dilapidated school that he had never suspected his two favorite students. Had never suspected that Lord Spencer had made them a much better offer.

"Time to die, doctor."

"I will take over your research!"

"Wesker... Birkin...?"

The blood had poured from his mouth, choking off the dying old man's horrified realization and words. He had tried to reach up to them, but his strength had faltered and failed him. Each of the two young scientists were as cold and pitiless as the other, but Birkin had especially reveled in the sight of the old man. After gloating over his body, the old man gradually falling unconscious, the two ambitious men had turned to them and casually ordered them to dispose of the body and the leech he had been experimenting on, before continuing their exploration of the lab. Speaking to one another in hushed, conspiratorial tones, poring over the old man's research notes while he lay dying behind them, the gramophone record still spinning. Together, him and his partner had picked up, carried and dumped the old man's body along with the leech down in the sewers beneath the research facility, leaving the two scientists and music behind.

He remembered watching the still, barely alive body begin to sink. As he had, the old man's eyes had opened a final time when the water touched him, regaining consciousness just in time to die... reaching up his hand towards them, towards the light above the sewer. Grasping his wrist before he had managed to shake its weakened grip off. Falling back in the water, the scientist and his experiment began to vanish into the murky, leech filled depths. He watched the blood spread through the water... and gradually fade away with the current. And that had been the end of it. At least... that should have been the end of it. It had only been the beginning... to this... to everything. And to the man he now was. The old man hadn't been the only person to die that day, down in that sewer... he was more certain of that now more than he had ever been.

The boy had died there too.

He remembered looking down at his gloved hands, stained in the old man's blood. It had never really washed away, and many others blood had joined it. The scientist had been the first of many men and women he would kill directly or indirectly... his first assassination and cover up... and it had been different from the others. He had told his partner to go ahead, to go back up to the lab and stand watch over the scientists. Assured him he would rejoin them quickly. After he had gone, he had removed the uniform's cap and balaclava and had retched and thrown up, unable to repress it. Taking his time to try to recover himself, the coldness spreading within and without, hands trembling. When he had been done, he hid his shame and cowardice away behind his mask and cap again, grateful she had not come with them... had not seen him like this. Then he had left the sewer, closing the door behind him... but was unable to shut out what he had done.

The old man had not been an innocent... what he had done to the test subjects... he remembered finding the rotting remains with his partner, the corpses... of children, and of past assistants, after they had assassinated him. The ones they could find, at least. Remembered the scent of rotting flesh... having to hold back a surge of more vomit in his throat, while Birkin and Wesker had merely studied it all with cool interest. Still murmuring conspiratorially. Searching for further files and notes, testing data. Marveling at it, impressed by the old man's breakthroughs over the past ten years. In the meantime, for the rest of their time there, he had tried to think of Bella, the night before... to hold it all at bay, as he forced himself to watch and remain silent. Tried to think of her awaiting him, when the mission was over. Her comfort. But it hadn't worked, as hard as he tried. The old man had almost certainly deserved what they did to him... deserved worse... but that didn't change how it had gone down. What he had done.

And he had done it without even knowing about the old man's victims. Regardless of where the orders had originated, he had done it for Bella. Not for Lord Spencer.

His reward for accomplishing that mission... being honored for an assassination by the one who ordered it... had tasted bitter. He remembered that summer evening at the Spencer Mansion, that gathering of so many not long after, when he had truly been brought into the world of Umbrella. Completing the initiation that had began in that lab. He could never forget it. As he couldn't forget watching the old man vanishing slowly down into that sewer water... sinking beyond sight. Drowning, gurgling, bubbles rising to the surface... as his bloody, broken body still clung to life. He was drowning too, with him in that sewer. Above, he saw Valentine... pale, bruised and blood stained... watching him through cool judging blue eyes. And why shouldn't she judge him? She was good... a cop... and cops arrested bad people. Protected civilization from people like him. From criminals. But they were also merciful... as he had not been through most of his life. Maybe, she had mercy to spare for even something like him. Sticking by him as long as she had... asking him to work with her in the first place. They had helped each other this long already. He had come to be able to depend on her... in a way he'd not expected himself to. He reached up his hand out of the water for her to grasp... to pull him out... to save him.

But she didn't take it.

She wasn't alone in that either. Shapes forming, appearing above him and around her, staring down at him pitilessly. Oliveira and Captain Viktor stood beside her, flesh burnt, aflame, smoking and rotting. All the faces from the S.T.A.R.S. photograph were there standing with her too. The Chechen and Mujahideen rebels as well. The Bosnian and Croatian troops. The employees of Umbrella Plant 57. The West African citizens from the neighboring infected village. The Communist and Jihadist rebels in the Philippines. The FAZ troops and White Legion mercenaries in Zaire. The passengers, employees of the Ecliptic Express... as well as U.S.S.'s Delta Team. The 1st Investigation Unit. The Umbrella employees of the Arklay Laboratory. The NEST's scientist, maintenance and security staff. Alpha Team... especially GOBLIN 6. Each iteration of Alpha Team he had lost. The many webbed up assorted hosts inside the worm's nest he had destroyed. Every employee, executive or corporate spy he had assassinated, captured or executed personally when the order came. Be them of Umbrella or one of their many rivals. TRICELL Inc., The Family, Shén Yā Pharmaceutical, Saurian Corporation, Akembe Chemical... among others.

It didn't matter who... one day Umbrella's interests could be aligned with the other companies, the next day they were bitter enemies, depending on the back room deals and squabbling politics of the Board of Directors. The wishes of the Inner Circle. Marcus was there looming over him with his dead eyes, body bloated and dripping with the water... hundreds of writhing leeches clinging to most of his body, parts of pallid flesh it exposed in his tattered suit. The Queen Leech above all, from that tray in the lab, impeded now within his brain. And over a hundred thousand dead men, women and children of Raccoon City. And others, of course... there were always others. Too many missions. A sea of the dead, the result... consequences of every mission he had partaken in for Umbrella.

Regardless of his role in them or orders. Wherever they had taken place and who had ordered them. Directly and indirectly. The responsibility was ultimately his, as Death.

And then there was the little blonde girl in the white and blue school uniform he'd left for dead... forced Jill to leave for dead... Sherry Birkin. Staring at him accusingly again... with fear and hate. As much a victim of his as she had been of her terrible parents. Not having any choice in what had happened to her, who she had been born to. The world her parents... and himself... had helped make with their actions. He tried to reach for her hand, as he had for Jill's... she ignored it. All of them did... and he gave up. Accepting their condemnation. Deserving it. Deserving worse. Bella wasn't there to save him this time... nearly five years gone. Even if she had been, he knew she would have let him drown too. He had disappointed her, after all, for her to have abandoned him. He just wished he knew what it had been. What he had done wrong in her eyes. Her hands had been stained with blood too. The bloody sewer water rose up over his helmet, and he sunk down into the abyss, hand slipping beneath the water last. He floated now, helpless. Feeling it gradually breach the gas mask and fill it, seep into his lungs. Bloody leech infested water, the Queen Leech and its offspring burrowing down his throat and into his entrails, biting and twisting all the way. Burning. Consuming him. The light above vanishing as he sunk into the cold, still darkness.

Water. He tasted it. It drowned him, and it woke him at the same time.

Rain.

The sound of it. It was the first thing that brought HUNK back to consciousness. Drew him from the abyss.

He could feel it on his lips... could hear it pattering, a constant recurring noise from down the corridors of his mind... muffled in the darkness, from somewhere distant. Muffled... in a way his breathing was not. He breathed fresh, unrecycled air, drawing in one mouthful after another... but the moment he did, a shot of stinging ran through the interior of his midsection, and he held back a coughing fit with effort. Steadily, he regained control of himself, remaining entirely quiet and silent throughout... and steadily his senses began to return to him. A light returned, just beyond the darkness. He heard something else, over the rain outside... just as muffled... a thumping, pounding. For a moment he thought it to be thunder emanating through the night... echoing in the space around him... but that low, familiar moan seeped through as well... of insatiable hunger, moans of contradiction. Telling him quite clearly he had been pulled fully back into the nightmare world he thought he had been done with. Freed from, in death.

No... not death. Life. Such as it was beyond the dreams and nightmares.

It took awhile for each of his senses to return... he felt some dizziness, a throbbing in his head... throbbing everywhere. He braced himself to the soreness and pain to return inevitably, heart beating in his ears... and slowly he opened his eyes, to find himself staring at a high risen ceiling, with criss crossing boards overhead. A light on the ceiling as well. The details of it all were a bit hazy as he regained consciousness... but he saw enough... and moreover, it wasn't even the first thing to startle him and make him regain his focus. It was the fact that when he opened his eyes, they no longer resided hidden behind the partially red world that was his tinted lenses. Color and detail returned, and in sharper focus as the moments passed. Instinctively, he rose a hand to his face and felt it... to find as well his gloves were removed. He ran his hand across his face, through thick, bristly stubble... then he let his hand move back down to his side.

Yet, despite most of it all returning, sensation and feeling, his thoughts did not at first... he felt almost blanked of thought, and memory. He knew he still had them, that it, everything would come back somehow and that he would get the answers for why he was still alive... but it was all distant, and tranquil. It was an emotionless state of mind and being, one of the only sources he ever had to depend upon, to be comforted by. To rely on. A rare peaceful moment of comfortable numbness, where there was nothing at all, where even he barely existed. The rigid coldness of his mind and thoughts, following orders, the mission... it ascended even those things. Nothing in the world mattered.

It was perhaps similar to how amnesiacs felt. Who knew, for all he knew maybe he was one. Despite how much he remembered. He'd survived a lot, up to this point... maybe there were terrible things he'd had forgot to maintain sanity and rationality, where so many others failed. Maybe through sheer control of his mind, he was still alive, when by all accounts he should not have been. He had... seen things. Lived through things. Not... not lived... just survival. He wasn't sure if he had ever truly lived. He had been trained, yes... very well, and by one very important to him... one he was not allowed to feel what he did towards in a combat zone, on a mission... and therein lay the contradiction. War... War had trained him. Loved him. War was his purpose... War was his life. Feelings were a weakness to one like him, like them, men and women trained to be a weapon... an agent... duty took priority above all else.

There were times, only in the early hours of the morning, where his programming wasn't on... where his mind was quiet like this... and he could think. Yet... he felt a stranger in the contours of his own undisturbed mind, walking past rows of books in a library, alone. As he had long been, even around others. The silence the only thing he had. He only felt he belonged with his programming, his duty... a cause, no matter which. Something to use his skills on. Doing the only thing he was good at. He felt... shame. For feeling shame. For being who he was outside his mission. Even he, Umbrella's so called 'model agent', their example... could not live up to what was believed about him. The stories. The legends. He did think... he thought for himself, at times like this. Perhaps that was why he was on his way to outliving his purpose. Umbrella wanted unthinking individuals to serve them... or at least beings they could control as they saw fit.

The Tyrants... The Pursuer... they were that pinnacle of obedience. Colonel Vladmir's sons. Designed for a purpose... not merely raised and trained for one, mentored, as he had been. No matter how well he had been. And then there was the Undertaker Unit... the Trashsweepers. More easily disposable living biological weapons primed to try to replace him. Even dissolved upon death. Cannon fodder that was far less expensive than Umbrella Security Service. He was on the road to being obsolete. The writing was on the wall if it ever were. It was a matter of when... not if. Nothing lasted forever. Yet, he was still alive... and he managed the pain that had been inflicted upon him... taught to sustain worse... to resist outright torture. She had made him strong... and he had made himself stronger. It would pass... this moment of tranquility, in the face of near death... and he didn't want it to. If it were an option, he wouldn't have let it... stayed in the blissful high, separate of his responsibilities. But given he was still alive, it was no more an option than stopping a tide from coming in. He remembered the tide, at Rockfort Island... watching the sun come up that one morning. The taste of salt upon the sea wind. He wished he were back there... back home, instead of where he was. And wherever he was going next.

HUNK savored every second of that memory, peering up at the ceiling... simply breathing. Then, he gripped the hard floor beneath him, his right hand digging into a marble surface, his left into a soft, warm material, and he rose slowly up to his feet, remaining silent as he did so. The moment his boots touched the ground, the world rising up around him once more, another wave of vertigo threatened him... but it threatened him with nothing more than he had already lived through. His vision dimmed around him on all sides, one thing became two, and two became four... but he didn't close his eyes or blink the dizzy spell away. He stood entirely upright, ignoring the combined pain and dazed sensations... he merely focused, intently, and sure enough little by little it began to evaporate... and his surroundings returned to focus. He was... lighter. Unencumbered... and looking down at his form, he found the reason at once. His mask and helmet weren't the only things gone... his body armor, all the pouches, belt and weapons were missing.

All that remained on were the stained dark grey undersuit beneath the armor, along with his scuffed up and scratched metal elbow pads, knee pads, and worn combat boots. Under ordinary circumstances, this would be alarming, shock him into alertness... but here, and now? It didn't. It should have, and it didn't. He didn't care right now... he didn't care about much. There was no mission... it would come back like everything else. There was no hurry right now. He slowly looked down to his left gloveless hand... the watch remained there at his wrist as well, still functioning. Then, looking over to his right gloveless hand, he pulled back the material of the suit sleeve down his wrist. The Comtesse's private tracer device remained intact and where it was, fastened there to the pale flesh. Flipping open the safety catch, the light within remained lit, the signal still activated, monitoring his position for her and her tech team in Paris, via the Umbrella Satellite Network. He closed the safety catch then pulled the sleeve back down over the device again, concealing it. At last, hand tightening, he looked up from the full body U.S.S. undersuit QUARTERMASTER had designed and blinked slowly. And although everything was present around HUNK, he still observed it all with that same mental distance and calm, as though none of it were truly real, even as he knew damn well that it was.

He looked ahead of himself, along the walls, and the door... although he had never been there before, he knew the room in question almost at once. It was a chapel, of all things. A long red carpet ran all the way up towards a heavy, locked door on the far end, where the echoing thumping and moaning emanated from... but the heavy, locked up doors didn't budge in the slightest under the weight of undead bodies beyond... and if they hadn't gotten through by now, HUNK doubted they ever would. There was a light on the wall on the left of the door, illuminating the details of that section, which included a small book shelf littered with thick tombs on the right hand wall. Further down the left side of the door, a large, closed storage container of sorts was connected to the wall as well... a familiar sight, during the course of his time in the city... and not the only one.

A typewriter sat on a small desk beside it, closest to the light and entirely illuminated, right down to the parchment protruding from it, and several ink blots. The light wasn't the only source of brightness in the chapel... a lit candle resided on a shelf behind the sealed storage contained... and in unison with a few more lights around the room, it shone up the pathway back towards HUNK. On either side of the carpet were two rows of wooden pews, and HUNK's eyes swiveled over each of them... beyond that, for a chapel, the far end near the door had little in the way of religious icons and ornaments. Of course, turning a slow, half turn on the spot, that observation was flatly contrasted by the other side of the room.

Assorted stain glass windows, displaying Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and other Bible scenes occupied areas along the wall... and despite the number of shadows in the chapel, each one was clearly visible, from all the lights. HUNK was reminded of Comtesse Henri's family castle. The chapel in it. Albeit this one was much smaller and more simple, less elaborate. She didn't put it to much use herself, of course, but he went in there for some quiet at times, among others of the estate's many rooms. Especially during some of the parties she threw at Loire Village. When he was able to escape, at least. Only being out of France on a mission tended to get him off the hook from having to attend with her, or needing to write reports and day to day operations at the Paris Facility. It hadn't been that way with Bella. She hadn't shown him off to the world, the rest of Umbrella, more than necessary. And never as though he were a bauble on her arm. She had spared him the quagmire of politics. But then, many things had been different with her.

When she had taken him out places it had always been discretely... just the two of them, dressing down in appropriate outfits. Restaurants, movie theaters, concerts and the like... simple things and simple places, not the extravagance Comtesse Henri insisted upon. Bella had taken him to London's Rock Garden several times, he remembered... seen numerous smaller rock and punk bands perform there and other places. One band's show in 86' had been her favorite, he recalled, Salvation Sunday... a song of theirs reminding her of him had particularly amused her. Though Blondie, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Cyndi Lauper had always been among the favorites of hers. She'd even dressed like Blondie on certain outings, down to the short shorts, studded belt and ripped black and faded yellow Vultures T-Shirt... looking better in them than even she had. That had been her era. His favorites, among others, had been Black Sabbath, The Rolling Stones, Metallica and Nirvana down the line. She had liked his tastes, even if they weren't her generation. He remembered watching MTV Unplugged Live in New York... but she had been gone by then. He'd watched it alone, in what had been their quarters on Rockfort Island. Remembering her. She had always liked getting away from Umbrella... from all her colossal responsibilities when she could, and always with him. Sharing that peace together. The time she could feel normal. And when he had been normal.

The reverie of the past faded away again and his surroundings returned, pulling himself out of that dazed journey. There was one window larger than the others, straight ahead of his position. While the main desk of the priest, with a pair of candles on its surface, and candle holders on the floor beside it, along with a chapel organ and a small confessional booth with a red cloth draped over the openings, were positioned in front of, and to the left of and to the right of the altar respectively. HUNK did not examine these particular details, beyond a cursory glance... he didn't need to, he understood the place well enough. Even if he had never been one for it. For spirituality, religion. He hadn't been made for such things... neither caring for or condemning them. At least this chapel had been clearly put to use before the outbreak, not wasted like its extravagant equivalent at the Henri Estate.

Yet, his eyes did drop slowly, to the spot he had seen from the corner of his eye, at last acknowledging it. As he did the fact that the fugue he was feeling was going to recede very soon, and the present situation would take its hold. He looked to the alter... there was a closed door against the eastern wall opposite it leading elsewhere in the chapel... but the alter its self was all he really saw. Laying atop the alter, spread out on a blue sheet on top of it, resided an unmistakable injured and quite unconscious young brunette woman. She was stained with blood, but her bruised face had been cleaned and for the most part the bleeding had stopped, courtesy of freshly changed bandages, not only on her shoulder where the Pursuer had struck her, but her leg as well. Along with new band aids on smaller wounds on her face and shoulders. With a particular bigger bandage on her forehead, where he remembered she was cut falling into a sewer.

The blue sheet beneath her, like the blue outfit she wore was stained with dry blood, and some of it was even smeared past the edge of the sheet, on the wooden altar its self. Her right gloved hand lay on her stomach while her left arm lay flat on the altar. The hand on her chest rose and fell, with quiet yet visible breaths. He knew full well her situation, remembered what the Tyrant had done. Knew that she would not last... but like him, she was alive despite the odds. She had, for the moment, survived their encounter with the Pursuer. All the same... the sight of her as she was troubled him. Brought him back to the state of the world. She was pale... too pale... as though she were ethereal... and still she clung to life. A pale, sleeping, dying beauty in blue atop an alter. He closed his eyes tightly and opened them again, hoping this part was still a dream, a nightmare... but reality betrayed him... and she remained where she was. Just as she had been before he woke.

Dying.

There was no way around it. With effort, HUNK ignored the pounding rhythm of his near excruciating headache, jaw tightening at the troubling sight before him. His eyes slowly lowered from her injured form reluctantly, and down to the other occupant in the room... who he had given up for dead in the helicopter's destruction and crash. Had written off, underestimated... and had been wrong about. The very much alive Corporal Oliveira knelt before the alter, with his rifle down at his side in his right arm, while his left hand rested comfortingly over top of her own, watching imploringly over Jill's critical condition. His head remained bowed forward grimly. His lips moving silently, as if trying to silently will her to wake up, to rise from her wounds and heal. He barely blinked as he watched her, so wrapped up in what looked like his own world, that he hadn't even noticed HUNK regaining consciousness. Didn't even seem to hear the moans and pounding on the doors any longer. His expression was wracked with a plethora of emotions... terror, sorrow, and guilt, among others. HUNK could see it as clearly as daylight, in the candlelight. The young man looked terrible, and older in the eyes than he truly was. Nothing less. A broken man. His thick hair was unkempt and unwashed, his face had developed thicker stubble than before, and he almost looked as sick as her, a bit paler than he should have been. Stress of the past days taking its toll, as he maintained his vigil over them.

That, and without the gas mask, HUNK could smell properly... and regardless of both HUNK and Jill having lay in a sewer... it seemed Oliveira had joined them in unpleasantness. Not that it particularly mattered... they had all already reeked of death, since the beginning of the outbreak. Rotting flesh and stains. Smoke and gunpowder. None more than himself. He looked back to Jill, noting that everything, her shoulder straps, bandoleer, radio, knife, flashlight, handcuffs, side packs and pouches, and belt, like his equipment, had been removed from her person. All but her clothing, gloves, bandages and the glinting metal of the dog tags she wore. His moving eyes picked them up laying on the ground in a pile, close to the nearest pew beside Oliveira, on that side of the chapel. There was one other pile of items, beside Carlos... belonging not to Jill, but to him. Medical supplies... ranging from assorted colored herb leaves, first aid spray bottles, rolls of bandages and more.

The old, bloody bandages had been removed from her as well and cast off to the side... the whole area in front of the altar was littered and messy... there were even some cans of food, and other rations... but most of it looked quite untouched and unopened. It was about during that time, HUNK noticed something that had slipped his attention before... Oliveira's bulky olive military backpack was missing, and nowhere to be seen. In its place, Oliveira instead displayed the prominent, and all too familiar red and white U.B.C.S. Umbrella logo on the back of his vest with the crossing swords and shield on it. Colonel Vladimir's idea, naturally, separating it from both Lord Spencer's primary company one, and the black and white umbrella Bella had chosen for the U.S.S. HUNK watched it, Jill, and him for a time from a few steps away, expression remaining calm and distant, looking between the young man and woman... and before long, necessity, grim necessity reared its head. His eyes hardened slightly, yet noticeably upon the Umbrella logo... and both bare hands tightening, the soldier returned with his duty, and everything that was their present situation, making his state in that present known.

"Oliveira. You made it."

Carlos's trance was broken, at the sound of his own name... but he did not whirl around at once, nor was he startled by the suddenness of the voice... regardless of how caught up in his self loathing he was. It could only belong to one man. He finished his silent prayer, tucking his crucifix back into his uniform. It was strange hearing that voice, without the muffling factor of his mask... Carlos was still getting used to it. As hopeless as he felt... hearing the true consciousness of at least one of them... up again, meant more to him than he could ever tell the older man. How Carlos had gotten through it this far, on his own... even he didn't know... he didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think much about anything... but he hadn't been able to block any of it out, especially the pounding on the door... he had heard it all, and began to lost himself, in his isolation. He had not considered leaving, doing anything but staying in the chapel after all this time.

With the destruction of the helicopter... he'd given up on escape, and had done all there was left possible... which was close to nothing. They had lost, and were finished. It was all hopeless. He swallowed hard, and drew in a breath, as he used all the effort he had left to keep his panic... to keep everything he now was in check. To hide the broken down man he was certain he had become. He was... at the breaking point... or as close to it as he ever had been... he knew he couldn't hold it back forever... but he did all he could to keep it back as long as he could. His weakness... inadequacy, had cost them all enough already. It took just as much to force himself to speak, and when he did, a voice emerged that was no longer his own... but that of a stranger... and a stranger he did not want to get used to.

"More or less. About now... I'm inclined towards less... to tell you the truth."

Carlos's low, quiet tone seeped out almost lifelessly at last, a stark, barren. No longer the voice both HUNK, and he himself were used to hearing, all the life and energy usually in his accented tone. Carlos looked over slowly at HUNK from where he knelt, studying the tall, broad shouldered agent's exposed, serious face. As he had removing the agent's damaged mask. Carlos only went to bat for fine ladies of course... but was comfortable enough to silently admit whichever smitten girl had come up with the agent's codename had not been altogether exaggerating. Injuries or not. Was no mystery why the Umbrella chicks seemed to throw themselves at him, in addition to his reputation... at least according to the stories. The muscles, body hair and scars already on his form Carlos had glimpsed probably didn't hurt either. Carlos had mostly forgotten what the man had looked like, the one time he'd seen him before on the Leviathan had been in passing, through other onlookers, and he had moved on quickly. He wished Jill could be conscious enough to see her mystery man as well, for the first and last time... before she... he forced aside the dark, troubling thought, shutting his eyes a moment and clearing it from his head. Squeezing her hand tighter.

But the thought never truly went away... he had to go on, to rise... even as it weighed him down like an anchor.

At last, the Corporal too rose back to his feet, reluctantly letting go of Jill's hand on the alter, but remaining close beside her as he turned to face the agent, at long last slinging his rifle over his shoulder. His arms hanging loosely and lamely for a moment as though he didn't know what to do with them. Before absently stroking a hand through his messy, dirty hair. The other man's rugged features looked especially weathered and rough... his jaw tightening, as he had sleeping, wrestling with his nightmares. His demons, from what Carlos had heard escape his lips. Looking older than he was... even if he was already older than Carlos. But the steel and resolve had returned to his steely, hardened eyes for the most part. Still, there was something sluggish and a bit distant to him and his manner, his posture.

Considering what HUNK had survived, it was a damn miracle he was even on his feet again. That he didn't collapse right back down to the floor.

All the same... in spite of his injuries, his lack of weapons and body armor, gear... Carlos couldn't imagine anyone suicidal enough to cross the agent... the way he was staring at Carlos. Standing there like a sentinel. It was good to have him back... that he pulled through. His authoritative presence. Even so... the odds remained what they had been from the start, stacked against them. At last, he found his voice again, speaking over the beating on the door, the moans and the rain outside. Putting some life back into his tone, as much of it as he could... exhausted as he was., greeting him properly.

"Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr Death. Hope you plan on staying. Might want to take it easy, take a seat. You've been through it."

"I remember. I'll stand. How long?"

"Almost two days.", Carlos answered his firm voice tiredly, closing his eyes tightly and rubbing them with his arm. The exhaustion came and went, sometimes vanished, the rest of the time hit him full force, in the form of eye strain and headaches. The aspirin was doing fuck all for him at this point. He was running on edge, and through willpower alone. He hadn't been able to get much in the way of decent sleep. Especially since the pounding on the doors started up. "You've been in and out of consciousness that whole time... you might not remember much. I got you some water, and what little you would eat. You... both of you, were talking in your sleep..."

HUNK looked back at the young man silently for a moment, unblinking, merely watching as he rubbed his face. Two days. He couldn't imagine what he had missed out on in the world outside the clock tower... but knew it must have been a great deal. He waited for Oliveira to inquire about whatever he had spoken of while he slept... but the Corporal remained mercifully silent. Now was no time for such questions, nor to be answering them. He didn't seem to be all there... and it was unsurprising, given his limitations, and the situation they were in. While Oliveira was clearly distracted, HUNK looked down at Jill for a moment or two. Speaking in their sleep. HUNK never knew if he was that kind of person... but evidently, he had been. At least in this circumstance. What Oliveira had heard, HUNK found, he did not entirely care to find out.

It didn't matter... the young man was so distracted and his nerves were shot... he probably didn't remember much of it... at least in regards to HUNK. Oliveira had clearly been more focused on Valentine's wounds than anything the agent might have said. There was also the fact he didn't bring up the G-Virus... so his cover in that regard was likely secure. There was little chance Oliveira would keep quiet about it if he knew, from his less disciplined personality. Though even if he had seen it... he probably hadn't known what it was. He was prepared to bet the sample remained intact. Moreover, it didn't matter what he might have said in his sleep, because the mercenary did not have context... anything HUNK had said as he'd been in and out of consciousness, was for him alone to truly know. HUNK strained his memory, attempted to recall any other time he'd waken up in his current surroundings of the chapel, but he was damned if he could remember a single moment of it. Even what had happened in the courtyard was not a hundred percent there... he simply knew enough, and remembered what was important.

It would all come back to him soon enough... and yet... for how long he had been out, he found his exhaustion was scarcely relieved. It was worse in some ways... as well as the ache and pain. The throbbing did not cease, nor did he expect it to. Only by keeping his eyes narrow and intent, focusing on his surroundings, remembering the breathing technique she had taught him, did he hold back further waves of vertigo threatening him. His jaw tightened a little more, and he stood even taller, looking back over to the exhausted Oliveira.

"I'm going to need a full situation report."

HUNK told him firmly, voice hardening a bit, as he ignored the faint curiosity at what he had said in his delirious state. He forced it all at bay, and stayed in the none too pleasant present. Someone had to take charge of matters, and that was always going to be his duty.

"Starting from when Valentine and myself were rendered unconscious. How did you survive the crash? How did you move us? Pay attention, and remember."

Carlos shook his head slowly, lowering his hands, looking between HUNK, and the doorway at the far end of the chapel. Listening to the pounding of dead, clutching hands against it... watching some dust fall off the door. He felt the intense desire to look back to Jill, to not let her out of his sight, to resume his vigil... but HUNK clearly wasn't having any of it. He needed to keep reminding himself that it was ok. They were ok... for the moment. HUNK needed answers, to be brought up to speed... and only Carlos could provide that... he used the necessity as an outlet and focus... a clear objective. Something he could actually accomplish, where he couldn't accomplish anything more for Jill.

He listened for a moment, to the thumping, the rain, and the moans seeping and invading what should have been a safe and sacred place. The doors held back things born of hell... the hell that had become earth... and none of the religious surroundings... the crucifixes, holy water... even prayers could stop them. This was not a movie... not any movie he had watched... and how he had ever joked, been in good spirits, during any of this was surely a sign he had gone insane... that he had ever drawn comfort from joking about the unfathomable. At HUNK's command, Carlos at last paid attention, forcing himself to look back into the agent's cold, hardened eyes, and speak up again slowly, racking his brain all the while, and drawing back everything that was the pain and misery of the last two days, bit by bit, his hollow voice echoing through the chapel.

"I... well, I ran. To put it simply.", Carlos whispered shamefully as he brought the memory into existence and presented it to the agent. His tone grew more labored, words difficult, but with all he had, he continued on... and found himself unable to stop, once he had gotten started. "As soon as the helicopter crashed into the clock tower... I dived inside and... hit my head. I... missed the fight. In the courtyard... with the Tyrant. I'm... sorry. If I hadn't...-

"It doesn't matter. What's done is done. Go on."

"Right... I blacked out for a bit... but it was a bit too long, I suppose. I woke up after the two of you... after you had... well. Nobody knows better than you. I looked out through the smoke, and I saw some interlopers, more zombies... they broke into the courtyard after the battle you had with that thing, and came to clean up the remains. You... and her. I got down there just in time... I held them back, closed an opening they were pouring through... and took over the 'cleaning up' part for them. I... it took me a long time to move you both to the chapel. I didn't do it one after another, or anything. I was... I was too scared to leave either of you out in the courtyard alone. Who knows how many zombies and... freaks are still in the tower now. I quite obviously didn't do much of a job mopping up this clock tower of infected, if you couldn't already tell. I had to carry and drag both of you, across the courtyard, inside... through the piano room, and here into the chapel."

"It took me awhile, between your combined weight, equipment and what I was already carrying... I had to stop now and again... I was exhausted, and had to be sure there were no zombies waiting to bite me while my arms were occupied. Eventually, I did it... brought you here, sealed the doors and lay you both down. Then I had to check your wounds... and do what I could for Jill. As you can see. I worked on her first... she was still bleeding badly... if I hadn't done anything she... well. You know. I borrowed the surgical stapling gun in your medical bag... stitched her up, used some of the spray, herbs... I did everything possible, then bandaged her... it was touch and go the whole time. I was afraid she lost too much blood... but somehow, she's still alive. After I finished tending to her, I did what I could for you. I had to remove all your weapons and equipment, put them over on that pew, and I bandaged your midsection and head up. You weren't as bad off as her... but you could have a concussion and some internal injuries I can't fix. I'm no doctor... but I tried. Bought her some time... for what that is worth."

"You had a nasty cut on your forehead... I stitched it up as well, and hoped for the best. I've been watching over the both of you for awhile now... then those... things outside showed up. Only a few of them... leftovers around the tower. Figured out I was in here somehow, and they've been hitting that door for a day... I can't unhear their noise... noise... noise... I had to distract myself, focus elsewhere, try to do something else useful. but, I tried to get in contact with my radio to U.B.C.S. Command, to the Leviathan... to Umbrella, I tried all wavelengths and frequencies, put out alerts, SOS's everything I could... hell, I tried calling the local radio stations... I got nothing back. I doubt anyone's heard me. I also... uh. I used the radio in your suit and helmet. All the frequencies I could find on it."

"I tried getting through to your people, U.S.S Command... I thought for sure they'd pick up the line. I gave them a full report of the situation, what had happened, that you were here, that we needed backup, assistance, anything... and they never answered. There was no static on the line either... they just didn't pick it up. I don't know if they heard, maybe your radio is broken... but... I guess it doesn't matter. You're here now... you're up. Maybe you'll fare better than I did. I... half expected that Tyrant to come back. The whole time... I really did. To break down that door like a toothpick, or smash through the wall. There's no way I would have been able to... to fight it off. It would have... been over, then and there, for all of us. I've been... living in terror, if you call any of this living. But it hasn't come back... I haven't heard it out there. I guess you both did a hell of a number on it, from the aftermath I saw. I didn't know... I wanted... I didn't think...-

Carlos trailed off, stuttering as he reached the end... and finally took it as the cue to stop, and try, and fail, to recollect his spirits... to relax. He felt the anxiety rising with each moment... as good as it was to have HUNK back, it only shone light on how fucked they were... how hopeless things had become. Even between the two of them... what else could be done? He didn't know... he didn't want to think... he just wanted... he wanted things he knew he couldn't have again, in all likelihood. This chapel, while their safe haven, had become their crypt as well.

To say nothing of the entire city around it. Maybe even the country and world. Had it escaped containment by now, or did the Quarantine Zone remain intact? For all they knew, infected people were boarding planes, spreading it around the world. For all they knew they were in the center of the apocalypse, in Raccoon City.

Carlos closed his eyes tightly, and tried to drown out all the sounds, the guilt, fears and the memories. He succeeded about as much as he'd known he would. Not at all. He turned away from HUNK and back to where Jill lay on the alter, and gradually he opened his eyes again, watching her worriedly, hoping for some... any sign she would wake up. She continued to breath... but nothing more. She hadn't spoken or moaned painfully in a long time... though he was sure she was still having nightmares. He took her hand again and held it... though drew no comfort from the action, as his panic and fear started to grow ever higher.

HUNK, who had listened to the story intently throughout, remained quiet, eyes piercing Carlos's until the young man looked away... then his gaze dropped down to Jill as well. Lingering there for a moment, before turning back over to the pew closest to him, which Carlos had gestured to as he had spoken. Caught up in everything, in recovering and shunting out his discomfort and pained state, HUNK had missed it from the corner of his eye. Sure enough, all his gear resided on the pew... his battered armored vest stood out first, covered still in pouches, his black plate carrier and faded yellow combat harness, medical bag, slots, holsters... part of his radio component, his flashlight and his recovered gear. Laying directly beside of it sat his gloves, dented, jaggedly scratched helmet, and almost smashed up mask together, all the equipment had been spread out in a row... while further down the row were his primary weapons. At least, what was left of them.

Matilda still resided in her holster on his belt, his combat knife had been returned to its sheath on his vest, his MP5 lay spread across the pew... along with his modified W-870 shotgun and both broken halves of his modified TMP. At some point, Oliveira had collected them, and brought them back. The TMP its self was useless now... obviously, but perhaps Oliveira had thought along the same lines as HUNK... that there were still parts of it that could be salvaged. Everything that could be scrapped together was going to count now more than before. There was no doubt about that. From all appearances, at least, his things did not look as though they had been disturbed, or looked through by Oliveira, beyond the use of his radio. He knew damn well the message had gotten through to the U.S.S. Command... to the Leviathan... and knew as well why they hadn't answered the mercenary. It was simple. Regulations of the covert special forces unit.

NIGHTHAWK and FLY GIRL had stayed radio silent... it was no surprise. If an agent's radio was used by anyone but him or her, radio silence became necessary on Command's side of things. The U.S.S. Command would not risk communication with anyone outside of the operation. They knew at least that he was alive, and that the sample was intact. Other memories returned, as his weary mind turned to the G-Virus... despite his belief Oliveira hadn't accessed it, part of him instinctively wanted to check... but the rest of him knew better. Such a gesture risked drawing suspicion from the young man, even one distracted as him. He'd have to wait until he was alone... but for the moment, he didn't believe Oliveira had so much as touched the sample. There had been too many other pressing tasks that needed his attention.

And besides that... part of him simply didn't want to be bothered by the G-Virus anymore. Valentine's condition... the image of her pale, dying form on the alter... eclipsing his concern for the sample. The virus had caused him and everyone else more trouble than allying with Valentine or Oliveira had in the first place. He was already tired of it... had been down in the sewers and NEST, when he had doubled back to find it. He just hadn't realized it then. Or maybe he wasn't in his right head now... after what he'd survived. His thoughts couldn't be trusted. His doubts. There was no room for doubt. He had a mission... and couldn't forget it. For better or worse.

HUNK didn't move over to the equipment... in fact, he remained right where he was, turning from the pew, and watching the troubled mercenary standing vigil over Valentine again, talking to himself, or to her quietly, inaudibly. HUNK had seen mercenaries and soldiers stricken with PTSD, time and time again... even broken agents who couldn't handle what they had signed on for. Who had to be weeded out, either at Rockfort Island's grueling training or on a mission. He knew all the signs, and knew damn well it was starting to take its toll on the less experienced young man. It would have to be dealt with, as soon as possible... he needed to be snapped back to not just reality, but discipline. It wasn't over yet... Oliveira would be required, and with his head on straight. He would be even more of a liability than ever otherwise. Sure enough, before HUNK could do anything, Oliveira spoke again, that same disquieted fear etched in every syllable.

"Now what... HUNK? What the hell are we going to do, man?"

Carlos asked him quietly, not even looking at him. He barely blinked, and shook his head slowly as he watched Jill, his eyes tracing her wounds... feeling them in his soul, and in his heart. It was all coming back to him, all one after another... images, flashes, memories... not just of her, not what harm he was responsible of in regards to her, not just his guilt... but everyone, the others. The dead. The civilians he had failed to protect... the friends he had failed to help and save... the city that had fallen, because he had been weak. It was his fault things had gotten as badly as they had.

The U.B.C.S. had been assigned a mission, had arrived in force, and had failed to see it through. It didn't matter if the mission had entailed monsters, enemies they had never expected... a mission was a mission, and men, women and children... a hundred thousand of them were dead and gone, and would be nothing more than ash when the nukes started dropping. As he would be... as they all would be, by tomorrow morning. There was not only no escape left from the city... there was no escape left for him from what he had done... his failures. There was no mission or objective left to block it all out with... no reason and way to stay strong. He had been cooped up here, cut off from the entire world. He didn't have to be strong anymore... HUNK was there, and being a cold, rigid, unfeeling machine was what he was best at and cut out for... Carlos never had been. It was why he had always been a piss poor soldier. Why he had been forced to leave his old home, and sign on the dotted line with Umbrella... sign his life away. His hand tightened on Jill's, and he glanced his frightened eyes back slightly over his shoulder to HUNK as he continued, misery etched into his features.

"She's going to die, I know it, and it's all my fault. She's going to turn into one of those-... she's going to... no, she can't. We have to... save her, I know we can... we just have to...-"

"Oliveira...-"

"I know what you're thinking... but I can't do it. Can't do that. I can't... I just... look... I've done some bad things, very bad... but if you think I'm going to... she's been through enough... doesn't deserve to...-"

Carlos carried on, cutting across him, his voice picking up speed and force, babbling outright as the panic at last one out, and he allowed it to. He spoke, not truly hearing or seeing HUNK anymore, who grew dim and fuzzy in his vision as Carlos poured over the images racing through his mind, and only picking up more speed, letting go of himself. His gaze grew far away as they all came back to him. His friends, mangled and eaten alive... civilians screaming for help as hordes cornered them... shootouts in the streets... help he hadn't been able to provide those that needed it most... a city on fire, a man shooting himself in the head with a shotgun... the blonde girl... his Captain exploding, the infected monsters crawling and climbing through the rubble. He even saw the nuclear warhead at the end of the line burying it all into hell.

He wanted to die, he found... God knew he had thought about it over and over as the outbreak worsened... especially in here, trapped, behind the chapel door, those things pounding away fruitlessly. Just taking one of their weapons, and using it the only sane way left to use one. Mortal sin or not. To end the misery, to reject the horrible death he would get and die on his own terms, by his own hand. The clock was ticking by, every second drawing closer to nuclear apocalypse. And here they sat right beneath the red painted target on Raccoon City. No... he didn't just want to die... he wanted to trade his life for Jill's. Give her the chance to do right... to continue to, and succeed where he hadn't. He hadn't been strong enough... for any of it. Hadn't made any real difference, in the end. Not as she could have.

"I'm getting what I deserve by being here, all my screw ups... paying for my sins, but I can't do that. I can't shoot her. I killed too many people already. Failed everyone. How... how the fuck are we going to escape? How the fuck are we going to get out of here? Where can we go now? What's left out there? Nothing!"

"Oliveira..."

HUNK tried again wearily, rubbing his temple as his headache worsened with each word. He gritted his teeth beneath his tensed lips, the wound on his head stinging at the touch, his irritation with the young man's emotionalism began to grate at him already. His eyes narrowed, and he strove to ignore the pain and exhaustion, but found himself gradually reaching the end of his rope in regards to Oliveira. He'd put up with enough of him already as it was. He could have bypassed the U.B.C.S. altogether if he had skipped the restaurant and train yard... but no, he'd had to think taking on the idiocy of a mercenary was worth the help he might offer. When he got back to Paris, or the Leviathan for that matter, he knew he'd need to get his head examined. Have Doctor Radames check and double check it under an MRI. Among the other procedures she was like to put him through. Confine him to the medical deck for the trip back to Paris.

"That will be quite enough...-"

"WE'RE SCREWED! DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME?! WE'RE DONE FOR! IT'S OVER! THEY WON! IT WON!"

Carlos exploded, shouting back at him, cutting him off a second time, hating that eerily calm voice the agent always adopted. His shout echoed around them, throughout the chapel, raw and emotional, defying that calm. There was nothing human about it, it was one more hateful reminder of the calm Carlos couldn't sustain any longer, couldn't pretend to have. The inability to shunt aside his feelings and act like they didn't exist... there were times he wanted to rip them all out, along with his heart, and just exist, to be able to do things without feeling the near constant misery that he did. While his own pain was ignored by all but the Almighty... an Almighty who wouldn't even talk directly to him, who always had to 'move in mysterious ways.' He couldn't understand God's plan... how any of this could be considered a plan. Evil had won... they had lost. There was no way around that. There was no way out. As the images continued to flash in his mind's eye, his focus simultaneously increased on HUNK, as he shouted at the man. Shouted both at him, and the company that had gotten them in this mess, overtaking the sounds of the undead hammering at their door, and the rain beyond. His rage exploded, and it felt better than anything else he'd done or experienced in a very long time. A release of a pressure valve that had been building up the moment they dropped into Raccoon City. And he continued to shout at the company legend, unable to restrain himself any longer, even knowing the foolishness of it.

"THERE'S NO ESCAPE! WE HAD A PLAN AND WE BLEW IT! THEY'VE ABANDONED US! LEFT US FOR DEAD! SENT A MONSTER TO KILL US! WE OUTLIVED OUR USEFULNESS! NOW WE'RE DEAD WEIGHT TO A CORPORATION! COLONEL VLADIMIR KNOWS WE'RE HERE AND HE ISN'T DOING ANYTHING ABOUT IT! HE SENT US TO DIE! WE'RE SCREWED MAN! WHETHER IT'S SOONER OR LATER THOSE THINGS ARE GONNA BREAK IN HERE AND THEY'RE GONNA...-

"CORPORAL!"

HUNK barked back at the shouting young man, overtaking his rant effortlessly, his contempt and frigidness exploding in one go in the form of an anger that very rarely escaped. The pain in his head was so such by now that he let the thread of patience be snipped without the slightest regret. He took a single step towards Carlos, and the mercifully unconscious Jill, his right hand forming into a fist as his eyes grew dark and deadly. He had more than a passing desire to shut the boy up in a proper way... a quick jab to his trachea. But angry or not, he knew enough about leadership to remember hitting a subordinate was not often an effective method of establishing dominance. Whether he liked it or not, the Corporal was counting on him staying in control. Bringing back order to the chaos surrounding them, threatening to overtake what little they had left here. He had to restore stability, not fracture it further. His voice spoke again, though turned ice cold, and deadly quiet.

"That's enough."

Carlos froze mid rant the instant HUNK yelled back, shutting up, but his mouth remaining open, mid word, his eyes wide as the agent stepped forward... a step to which he drew one backwards. His heart was racing in his ears by now, and there was so much more he wanted to say... and found he could not, something heavy forming in his throat. Hearing the other man yell was something he never had before... but then, there had been a lot of firsts in the past few days. Including this time, being the first time he'd addressed Carlos by rank... he didn't miss that, even in his shock. There was something in his gaze that went beyond mere iciness, or calm... the calm and coldness had to be forms of self restraint... to keep back something much worse from emerging. Something that scared Carlos, even then, more than their circumstances, the zombies and the Tyrant out there. Even while knowing he was armed and the agent wasn't.

For just an instant, he was what the stories said. The Grim Reaper. And then it was gone as quickly as it had peeked out from behind his cold grey eyes.

HUNK's old stance returned, that of a statue, not an injured or tired man. The effect of his wounds seeming to recede. Carlos didn't doubt for a second the agent could and would kill him in a heartbeat, regardless of having saved his life, if it seemed the best thing to do, the logical conclusion. He was looking at the legend that had fought off a Tyrant... not to mention if even a quarter of the rumors about him were true. Few men had existed that scared Carlos... and he knew damn well HUNK was up there at the top of that list. The sudden injection of fear, a different kind of immediate physical fear, that he had gone too far... led to a realization that he truly had. He was... on edge. Too close to it... and not fit to be ranting, or making hasty decisions. Had almost lost it... and felt shame.

His wishes of suicide had been overturned, by the idea of this man killing him as horribly, and in as many ways that he could. Carlos... wanted to live. But not just because of that... he found, as moments passed... but because living was all he had left. Tired, stubborn defiance was all he could manage... defiance of death. Defiance of all this man, or any Tyrant, represented. Nevertheless... his mind was not blanked, everything was still there, every emotion that had led to his rant... the only difference was now, they were no longer unchecked. As they ran jumbled about HUNK elaborated and drove his point home... while Carlos's tightened grip on Jill's hand began to gradually slacken, and relax, as sense began to filter back like the adrenaline through him. A calm. Slowly breathing, and listening to the agent.

"I think you've forgotten the chain of command here, in all this chaos. In my absence. Well... I'm here now to restore it. I will remind you of it... and remind you only once."

HUNK went on coldly, his anger still coursing through his veins, but the coldness he was so used to taking charge and calming him effortlessly. He pointed his finger at the young man, and watched him unblinkingly, daring him to open his mouth again and interrupt the agent. Bait he now seemed wise enough not to take... his sudden shout enough to shock the Corporal's senses back to, if not normal, at least a trace of rationality. Enough to know the young man was listening again.

"Mercenary or not, outbreak or not, you remain an Umbrella employee. Have not yet earned your freedom from your contract... fulfilled the terms you agreed to and signed. Fulfill that contract, and you will live. Have your freedom. And my word on that. Breach it... and I will execute you for treason myself. In the meantime, you will fall in line. You will follow my orders. You will do your duty. And you will get your head together. Lose the histrionic panic. You're no good to me or Valentine going off the deep end. Especially now. However bad this situation has become... we aren't dead yet. It's not over until I say it is. I'll do what has to be done for us to survive. Make the decisions you can't. With or without your continued involvement. Command is my responsibility, not yours. Neither you or Valentine factored into my original mission, both of you merely happened to be in my path. I adapted to it, worked with you, as Valentine did... and as you must now. This situation is what it is, and will not change without actions being undertaken. You better just start dealing with it. Accepting it. You've wasted enough of my time already. I've had quite enough of your defeatist bullshit. This is war, Corporal. Survival is our responsibility. The only thing that matters. Colonel Vladimir is not in charge down here. I am the law here. Nothing has changed in that regard. Do I make myself clear?"

Carlos stared back at HUNK for a long time, wide eyed... and at last, he blinked, before looking away again shamefully. Closing his eyes, he drew in a slow, steadying breath that only helped a little... but helped enough, and he kept breathing. He really was Death. Mr Death... what everyone called him. It had been obvious before, watching the man rip through the infected... but here he openly displayed it through his commands. He couldn't die... not really... and perhaps being around him this long was the reason Carlos still existed. Maybe his good fortune on the battlefield rubbed off on others around him... it seemed as likely an answer as any other. The U.S.S. Agents didn't just live battles... they were battles. They were conflict, deadly, efficient... and constant. Cold, hard and unchanging.

Or at least... this one was.

He didn't know if the man meant well... at times, he seemed almost like a human... when he had been with Jill... but then there were the times like this, where it was hard to differentiate him from their Pursuer. Either way, if he were going to kill Carlos, he would have by now... and Carlos was through providing him reasons to. Through prodding a sleeping dragon. He was like a corporate demon on the side of angels... no, that was inaccurate. There were no angels in any of this. The innocent were already dead or dying, the first to go, as they were in any conflict. Only sinners like them remained. HUNK was like a reasonable demon bound by rules and restraints, in this hell, where none of the others were. Order to chaos. Even working for Umbrella. Both of them has made deals with the devil, in working for the company. Sold their souls. Carlos was no less guilty just because he was younger... he had chosen to sign the contract for illusory freedom. If he could do it over, he would have stayed in prison. Still... so long as Carlos cooperated with him... there was a chance, however slim, of coming through on the other side. Repenting for what he had done... making amends. On that, he focused, and on that he found a small degree of faith.

HUNK was many things... but a liar did not seem to be one of them.

"Yes sir.", Carlos agreed slowly, at long last, his voice growing a shade more steady than before, and now quieted. He adopted some more civility, respect and subordination, his role for the Captain before the Umbrella Agent had even turned up. And he tried, pretended to still be that man he had been a few days ago. A vestige of that figure... though he couldn't force himself to smile. Not anymore... not now. "I... I understand. I apologize. When you put it like that, I'll help any way I can, to... to fix all this. Do my part. What, if I can ask, should we do next?"

"You will do two things."

HUNK informed him without hesitation at his compliance, some of his coldness retracting, but the seriousness remaining, his fist gradually slackening. Good... he had the Corporal's attention. Rationality. Now he had to maintain it, give it a focus and outlet for his troubles. Anger was more useful than despair. A distraction from it. He glanced over to the pile of cluttered items and objects next to the alter, both the things that belonged to Jill, and what belonged to the mercenary, and then up to Carlos before elaborating.

"First, you will eat some of your rations. Get yourself back into fighting shape. Second, you will go outside and breath some fresh air and take your time out there. That means removing the infected out there, clearing the entrance first. You will do that on your own, and pull yourself together. It's going to be a long road ahead, and you need to be ready for what must be done. We are running out of time. See through all that, and the next course of action will be decided upon. By me. Do I make myself clear?"

"I... yes... yes sir."

Carlos trailed off a bit, his eyes widening, startled, at HUNK's orders. He wasn't so disquieted by the order to clear the entrance, as he was surprised by the order to eat. For a moment, he almost thought the agent might have some concern for his well being. The more likely answer was he just needed Carlos capable of pulling his own weight... especially considering back on the train he had told the Corporal to not waste his time eating. That he needed to get his head on straight again. The fact he showed any semblance of caring though... showed just how much of a corner they were backed up into... literally and figuratively.

"I can do that... not a problem."

"Then do so."

Lowering his head slowly, Carlos turned from HUNK, and from Jill's position on the alter, and he knelt down among the pile of items on the floor, running a hand through his dirty hair again. He began to rummage around, until he found a can of assorted rations. He rose back to his feet and moved over to the first pew on the right hand side of the aisle, sitting down slowly on the spacious seat, and leaning back against the wood. He sighed and breathed, forcing himself to balance out his heartbeat, and focus on his meal. He retrieved the swiss army knife from one of his pockets and popped the can open, before eating away freely, taking his time, stopping now and again to swallow mouthfuls of water from his canteen all at once. The effect was almost immediate, and surprising, regardless of his exhaustion on top of his hunger. Throughout the operation he hadn't eaten much... even at Central Street Station. He'd... almost forgotten what it felt like to be full, or at least to have a temporarily contented stomach... he'd forced himself to run on raw emotion. It had kept him going, where it should have been food and water.

Now and again... he forgot that... didn't eat as much as he should have in the field. HUNK's logic... had a point. As usual. Through it all, as he ate, although he didn't look over to the U.S.S. Agent at once... he could see from the corner of his eye as the agent gradually stepped away from the opposite bench across from Carlos, and took Carlos's original spot standing in front of the Alter, looking down at Jill's injured, unconscious state. At last, Carlos forced himself to look over at the mysterious man, and glanced at his eyes, before hastily looking away. The anger and coldness, darkness had been gone from them... replaced by a look he couldn't quite read. One that shunted out all emotion, as he took up the vigil over Jill. And yet, there was something about it. There was something deeper there, in it. Concern? Maybe... unlikely, but possible. The two of them had talked often, and what about, Carlos wasn't certain when they had huddled together privately. What the hell was it? He mulled it over in between eating, and reached the logical conclusion.

That he didn't know, and probably never would. This was a very strange, dangerous man... and from what he had heard the agent saying in his nightmares, a deeply troubled one. For all his fame... or infamy, within the company... how sought after and in demand he was, living in a castle off in Paris with a drop dead gorgeous Countess... Carlos wouldn't want that life for himself. To be in a spotlight, and certainly not in Umbrella's. One that War had shone on the man to begin with. Where had she found him? When? Why had she picked him? This stranger with nicknames, codenames, titles... but no real name. Even devoid of his mask as he was now... HUNK remained faceless for all intents and purposes. A walking mystery. How much else and what else was he hanging on to that Carlos hadn't overheard? Most likely he would be better off if he never found out the answer to that. The man had too many secrets. They might have both signed up to Umbrella... assuming HUNK had done so willingly... but the agent was in too deeply. Knew and had done too much evil for his masters and mistresses. Not too much to ever redeem himself... nobody's soul was beyond salvation... but all the same, he felt not a drop of envy towards the company legend. And wondered how he thought and felt about it all, the world surrounding him. The golden cage he seemed to reside in at Umbrella. But as ever... he betrayed little to nothing of what was within.

Carlos felt his mind and calm coming back a bit at a time... his thoughts... enough of them at least. It occurred to Carlos to offer HUNK some of his rations... there were plenty to spare, and share for all of them if need be. Yet at the same time, he didn't want to break the stony silence. Zombies and the pouring rain outside notwithstanding. Didn't want to intrude upon HUNK's private thoughts. He had resumed command, could take care of himself now... he didn't need Carlos's suggestions on the matter. At last, Carlos finished up, and set the can aside on the ground, taking one more drink from his canteen, breathing at the rejuvenation of the meal and liquid, tucking the canteen back in its original spot, before rising up off the pew. The moment he did, HUNK looked up and away from Jill, and over to Carlos, meeting his eyes. Carlos felt as though his soul was being scrutinized, as he stepped away from the pew, and into the aisle, removing the SIG Pro pistol from his belt holster, and lowering it down to his side. He looked past HUNK, and to Jill's cut up face, and he swallowed hard.

In his minds eye... he saw the virus running its gradual, yet unceasing course... through her blood stream. The same purple fluid that had been outside, that had run through the Tyrant's veins. Depending on the severity of a bite, a victim evidently only lasted a matter of days at the most... while worse cases were in the hours range. With her... it was a bit different. She had not been bitten... at least he didn't think. He hadn't been there... but he had the feeling Tyrants were not programmed to bite as the primary attack... it just didn't feel like it made any sense. If that thing, with its gaping shark-like mouth had bitten her, surely she'd be dead from blood loss before he had managed to get to her. What the hell had it done to her? And what virus ran through its own sickly putrid blood? How different was it from any of the other freaks out there? Carlos didn't know... but what he did know, was that she would either turn into a monster, or die... from what that son of a bitch, that mad science experiment had done to her. He knew there was only one solution to the problem, but he felt sick to his stomach even calling it a solution... something even she, were she conscious, might agree to. He held said solution in his hand, which tightened around the grip instinctively, shaking a little.

He couldn't do it... and he wouldn't. He didn't have what it took... he'd done it to others who had asked him too, as their infections had neared the final stage... but he had been sick to his stomach... had barely managed it. He had vomited afterwards, killing people who didn't deserve it. Any of it. Mercy or not. He couldn't do it... but looking back into HUNK's steely, unblinking eyes... he didn't doubt that someone else in the chapel could. His guilt doubled, tripled... he didn't want to allow HUNK to do it... surely it had crossed his mind already, with that cold logic, if Carlos could have the same horrific idea. He didn't want to leave Jill alone with him... to put her fate in someone else's hands... but he also didn't want her blood, her death on his own hands, granting her a mercy. A mercy he himself would have demanded, in her place... if not doing it to himself.

He... didn't know how God could let a situation like this happen... not in the least, and what was right, and what was wrong. If he would damn himself by doing it, or damn himself for allowing it... but something needed to be done... and he couldn't... couldn't be that man. It wasn't just that HUNK was in command... it was that he wasn't strong enough. And, for better or worse, the agent was. Could live with himself for doing such a thing... had done worse things. After all they had struggled through, worked together accomplishing... Carlos couldn't kill her. Couldn't pull the trigger. Either way, he would be pulling the trigger... by standing back and doing nothing, walking away... just as surely as aiming his pistol at the dying woman's head and firing. He'd been surrounded by death for too long... didn't want to keep adding to it. And not her. Especially not her. Something formed in his throat again, looking between her and HUNK... fresh grief and pain, a burning. And in the presence of the man in far more self control than he was... he forced himself not to do the sane thing and cry. He held it all back, and could feel himself paling... wanting to openly address the matter, bring up the subject. Instead he found that, to his immense shame and self loathing at his weakness, all that emerged pathetically from his lungs danced around the matter vaguely... but he had the idea HUNK understood what he was trying to get at. At least... he hoped the agent did. He spoke with difficulty.

"I... we have to... something needs to be done about her, man. We have to... help her. Somehow. We... need to do something, maybe... find a hospital... we can't just... leave her like this. What are we... what are you... going to do?"

"What has to be. Make a decision.", HUNK replied at once, still with that toneless voice, free of hesitance, and free of elaboration. Letting him infer the meaning from it. He calmly looked away from Carlos and down towards the door on the eastern wall off to the side of the alter, gesturing to it with a nod. Returning his unblinking stare in the Corporal's direction. "Where does that door lead?"

"A short hallway, leads down to the washrooms, some supply closets... nowhere else. I checked it, it's all secure. No infected or corpses. No windows."

"Very well. Go, then. You have your orders. I have mine. Return when you are ready to."

"Yes... yes sir..."

What those orders were, Carlos couldn't even begin to guess... but even with the prospect of clearing out the zombies outside the room, he was too grateful to be ordered out. Shamefully grateful. After watching the suffering Jill for a long time, and looking to HUNK, he nodded slowly, the guilt only worsening, churning his insides to paste. He saluted the agent and backed away hesitantly a couple steps... and then reluctantly turned, attempting to drown out the voice screaming to turn back, to stay there. To refuse the order and not let him do what he surely was going to. Instead, feeling numb, and sick, he found himself stepping slowly down the aisle of the chapel, moving down towards the door, still clutching the SIG Pro firmly at his side as an outlet, hating himself, and all that he was. Retreating from the ethical dilemma... as HUNK would not.

Carlos knew what he was. A coward, leaving the bravest woman he had ever met... to die, unable to watch it happen, or stop it... too weak, too pathetic. Every step took something out of him, ripped something out of his soul, and yet he kept moving, followed his orders. He walked down to the door... and began to slide back most of the locks on it, one after another. Even with each of them drawn back, the zombies beyond were unable to move the heavy doors, or harm them... surely a sign that there weren't many of them out there. At least, that's what he hoped. He made sure by opening the peek hole latch on the doors... saw them out there first, and thankfully found their numbers limited enough. Closing the latch again. Finishing unlocking the final lock, gripping the door handle, he looked only ahead, not back, against every sane, rational impulse, and he pushed against the heavy door with all his strength. Knocking one or two of them backwards with the force, based on the thumping sound, the moan and staggering. He stood in the doorway, pistol at the ready in both hands, and he shot the first one through the head... then the next... then the next. One after another as they stumbled towards him, jaws snapping hungrily... some of which he blew off with a round.

They dropped, this way and that after the roar of each shot... leaking all over the place, and he shot one, a former young man attempting to stand up through the side of the skull, spraying brains out of the exit wound and dropping him. He held his breath throughout and focused on only them, saw only them. An enemy with a rotting face. There was barely over half of dozen of them, altogether, and they each truly died at Carlos's hands, falling back into the piano room. Brass casings clattered against the floor, among the puddles of blood and twitching, tattered and rotted corpses. He stood over them, teeth gritting with concentration, and he kept the pistol aimed at their bodies, from where he stood in the doorway, until they stopped, one after another, the moans and bloody gurgling falling silent. Leaving only the rain, out in the courtyard beyond, and the moans out there beyond the clock tower.

Carlos didn't breath after the executions... he felt immeasurably cold inside, with hate... not for HUNK... not even for the monsters, or the Tyrant that had infected Jill. But for himself. He felt no better, losing himself in killing the monsters for the span of time it had taken. And at a time like this... he genuinely wished he could draw satisfaction from it. That he could feel something, anything other than what he was. He looked back, feeling HUNK's hardened stare and met it for a moment. He watched as the U.S.S. Agent silently nodded, before turning and stepping away from the pews, past Jill upon the alter and marched out into the eastern hall beyond. Disappearing down out of sight from the chapel.

When the agent was gone from view, Carlos drew a breath, looking to Jill's slowly breathing body atop the alter. Turmoil continuing to clash inside him. Swallowing back a wave of nausea, hating himself... he fled. He stepped out of the chapel doorway, and closed it shut, and hard behind himself. Breathing with difficulty, the pain worsening inside, raising his sidearm again... he left for the courtyard, stepping past the bodies... retreating, before he couldn't. But it didn't matter, really. The truth followed him. Could never be evaded. His guilt. He had failed her. Her pale, still image burned into his mind. Dying. All of it for nothing, the struggle. And the last sight he would have of her would remain with him for the the rest of his life.

However long or short it proved.