Chapter Eleven - Sharp Edges

"Oye!"

"Oye, Rolo!"

"¿Está dormido o muerto?"

"No voy a mover el cuerpo."

"Oye! Carlos!"

Carlos snapped awake to a finger poked roughly into his ribs and a bemused face hovering above his.

"Ey, he's alive. Yo, David, put the shovel away, we good."

"Oscar?" Carlos grumbled.

The remnants of sleep clung to him, singing him a tale of darkness and terror, but only for a moment. Fragments of images and memories swirled in his mind, consumed by a fog that chilled as much as it obscured.

"Good dream?" Oscar teased.

Carlos grunted.

"Bad dream," he said. "Something about, zombies, and..."

A girl, pale and wounded. He clung to her like he knew her, troubled by a fear he could not quite understand. She was pretty. No, she was beautiful. She had…blue eyes. Yes, the brightest blue eyes.

"That look doesn't say bad dream to me," Oscar teased.

For a moment, Carlos wondered which images represented the dream – the girl or Oscar. Both felt equally odd and unsettling. But the dream had placed him in a city, then in…a lab? The city reminded him of his Stateside home, of the loud chaos that was New York City. That was very far from where he was now, and why would he ever go back?

Carlos pushed Oscar and he fell away laughing. Letting the dream fall from memory, he pulled himself out of the truck, aching in places a twenty-one-year-old shouldn't ache, and looked out into a scene that brought a familiar comfort.

"Well, I dunno about you," said Oscar. "But I am finding the strongest, coldest liquid they have here and pouring it down my throat."

Carlos chuckled.

"Just water for me – you idiots get to sit back and relax now; I ain't so lucky."

They had been here many times before, often for business, sometimes for pleasure. A small village; the kind nobody ever left, not necessarily out of lack of opportunity, but rather love for their home and loyalty to its people. Generations of farmers and craftsmen had plied their trade here and would until the day they died.

Wooden buildings surrounded the central square and market stalls were already set up for the day. David had wandered over to one, peered down at the layers of fruit upon wooden planks, clutching his rifle still. A little further down the way, Cristian was conversing with an old man, smiling and laughing. Nobody batted an eyelid at the men in their olive fatigues and heavy boots. If anything, their presence was welcomed, like a visit from a close relative.

"Big Diego!"

Carlos turned, missed the blur barreling towards him, and almost fell to the ground when something small attached itself to his legs.

"You're here! Mama said…mama said you were coming!"

Shaking off the momentary shock, Carlos smiled and reached down to ruffle a mop of dark hair as unruly as his own. A small child detached themselves long enough for him to lower himself to his knees and match a wide, happy grin with one of his own.

"Hey, Little Diego," he said. "Look at you! Not so little anymore, huh?"

The child grinned, all chubby cheeks and missing teeth. He was five- wait no, six now. Carlos distinctly remembered him having more teeth when they had last met. Less hair too.

"Are you staying?" Diego asked.

There was such hope in his voice that it brightened a darkness that had taken up residence in Carlos's chest as of late. The kid had a habit of doing that, and this was coming from a guy who'd never much had an opinion on kids.

Big Diego, he called him. Because he was Little Diego and kids latched on to the silliest things.

"Not this time, big guy," Carlos apologised. "I'll be back through in a few days though, might consider it then."

"Oh, oh…mama said to bring you!" At this, a small hand grabbed his and yanked him forward with surprising strength.

"Hey, Big Diego, we got an hour!" Oscar called. He wore a knowing smirk and Carlos scowled at it, shook his head, and then picked up the child running beside him and carried him kicking and giggling beneath his arm to the inn behind the market.

"Yeah, yeah, kick and scream all you want, I got you now."

A bell rang somewhere nearby as he elbowed open the door. As soon as they were across the threshold he lowered Diego to the floor and the child ran off down a long corridor behind a small desk and out of sight.

To his right, the clink of glasses drifted through an open door. Carlos turned and saw a large room filled with empty tables before a bar devoid of patrons, a single older gentleman rearranging the stock behind the bar. A large eatery for such a small place, but it did the best damn sancocho he'd ever tasted, his mother's included – his mouth watered just thinking of it. A chef like that would make a killing in the city but, as with everyone in this place, they were comfortable here, didn't want for anything. He envied that.

"What did I tell you about bringing guns into my home?"

Carlos was sure he felt his balls retract into his body, but he could not fight the smile that followed.

"Just the small ones?" he replied.

He turned to find her standing by reception, her arms folded across her chest in a manner not unlike that with which his own mother had greeted him far too often. Trouble was, she couldn't maintain it, and a smile pulled at her own cheeks before she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his neck in a way that was perhaps a little too loving for greeting an acquaintance.

"Welcome back," she said.

Carlos shouldered his rifle further onto his back and wrapped his arms around her in return, placing them too low, then too high, then somewhere in the middle. She pulled away with an amused smirk and he was sure he felt a blush colour his cheeks.

Marina was beautiful by anyone's standards, with soft brown eyes and thick waves of dark hair. She had stolen the hearts of many of his men on their travels, but she'd never given time to anyone but him. They had met not long after he had left the army, when he was nineteen and full of hope, and she was run down and exhausted, carrying plates and drinks to their group with as much skill as she fended off their advances. Carlos had sat with his head down for much of the night, but a nineteen-year-old left to their own devices in a new place that didn't care how strong the alcohol they served him was or how much of it he drank, had far more energy that the older men he followed and so he'd sat in a lonely corner of the bar long after they had retreated to bed.

That was when he met Diego. A tiny four-year-old clutching a raggedy blanket, padding into the bar to look for his mother. Their men passed through often enough that the locals knew them, but here was a new face and Diego wanted to know more. When Marina had found them soon after, Carlos was telling him some stupid story his father had told him when he was younger, and Diego was giggling on his knee.

The child had fallen asleep in his mother's arms at that same table as they had chatted. She was older than him, mid-twenties, and widowed. Her husband was with FARC, she had explained; one of the few men to leave the village and join the cause directly rather than be content in offering support. It was just who he was, she had said, with a weary kind of sadness. One day, he hadn't come home, and suddenly she was alone with a child and an inn to run, and…sorry, he really didn't want to hear all this. But he did. And now, he would take any assignment that directed his path past that village, even the ones of dubious and downright questionable morality, to hear more.

It bothered him more these days, the kind of man he was becoming. Here he was, playing with a kid and making eyes at the mother when they had enough cocaine to start a war boxed up in the back of their truck. The trip wouldn't kill anyone, neither would they, but he had spent the latter part of his teenage years in New York, had seen what the end result of that transaction would be, how many lives it would destroy. But that was another country's problem, another people's, and he had sworn to fight for the freedom of his own at all costs.

"You just passing through this time?" Marina asked. Carlos placed his rifle on the reception desk and stepped away from it, edging back into her space.

"'Fraid so. But, depending how long this takes us we may have a few days on the other end, if you've got room?"

She laughed, and it sounded like angels singing.

"You know this place," she said. "There are always free beds. For you, especially."

Carlos raised an eyebrow and she smirked back before waltzing away behind the reception desk with light steps. This was what they did – flirted and laughed and teased, said their goodbyes and the whole cycle began again.

"Well, you know I've been eager to stay," he said. "You know I'm still holding out on you letting me buy you that drink, too."

Marina, who had been looking for something beneath the desk, rose once again from behind it, her expression fallen just a little.

"Diego-" She caught herself, looked around, then when she realised that they were alone: "Carlos, you know I only have eyes for one man."

As she said this, the man in question thudded back down the hallway, clutching a folded piece of paper in his hands.

"What you got there?" Carlos asked, crouching to greet him. An exchange was made, the crumpled, crayon-covered paper shoved into Carlos's hands by a pair much, much smaller.

It was a card, he realised. A stick figure waved from the front, a soccer ball at its feet and a cape at its back.

Feliz cumpleaños, Gran Diego! read the lettering on the front.

Carlos laughed and ruffled the little guy's hair.

"Can't keep any secrets from you, huh? Thank you. You're a real artist in the making."

"Mama said you're twenty one! That's old."

Marina's laughter drifted over the desk.

"Yeah? Well, you're six – you'll be twenty-one tomorrow, then who'll be old?"

Diego pulled a disgusted face, a stubborn refusal to believe that anything existed beyond childhood. It was a denial Carlos remembered all too well, and he knew just how lucky this kid was to still be able to cling onto that. His own innocence had been lost with his father, and that path had led directly to where he was today. Maybe Diego had been too young to fully understand his own loss, but that's exactly why Marina had erected a fence between herself and a man she obviously cared for. She wasn't protecting her own feelings – she was protecting the kid. Her strength, that infallible armour she wore, was the kind only mothers knew.

Something heavy thudded on the desk above him and he pushed himself up. A small wooden frame sat upon it, four bottles of a familiar beer sitting within.

"Marina…"

"Happy belated birthday," she said, and leaned across to place a chaste kiss on his cheek. His skin burned, and something in his gut tightened. "I know how much you like it, so I got my brother to set a few bottles aside on the last batch."

This beer was available only in that small village – it was more a hobby for her brother than a business venture, but it was Carlos's favourite brew by far. He wasn't sure how much of the reason for that was how much it reminded him of this place.

"Steady now," Carlos said, though he knew his gratitude was written quite plainly in his expression. "People might start talking."

She said nothing, and for a moment he thought he saw a hint of sadness behind her smile.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" he exclaimed. He shoved a hand into one pocket, then another, then remembered that he had stashed his target in one of his pouches. "I have something for you, little guy."

Diego bounced on his heels in anticipation and squealed when Carlos, down on one knee again, held out the gift. It was a small wooden charm, carved in the shape of a bear, on the end of a long leather cord.

"We passed through a village a couple weeks back and there was this real talented lady there. I saw this and thought you'd like it."

"A bear! It's a bear, mama! Look, a bear!"

Marina had joined them and laughed at her son's energy as she took the pendant, doubled the cord and slipped it over his neck.

"What do you say?"

"It's a bear!" he shouted at Carlos, and all three of them laughed.

"You're welcome, kid."

They ate together in the bar next door with the rest of his guys and a few familiar faces. They had to leave pesos on the table, the owner was so adamant that they didn't pay.

Marina left him with a kiss on the cheek, the same she did with the others, but his lingered just long enough that the others ribbed him mercilessly when they climbed into their truck.

As Carlos pulled the vehicle away from the waving crowd, smiling at the child attempting to run after them until he was held back by his mother, the radio hissed away from its choppy music, whining so loudly he had to turn the volume almost all the way down.

Oscar, in the passenger seat, didn't even flinch, and the conversation of the two men in the back trickled on without interruption. It set the hairs on his arm upright and he shivered despite the heat.

"…sorry," hissed a distant male voice amidst the static. It spoke in English, bearing an accent his brain placed somewhere in New York state. Against the Spanish conversations around him it felt jarring in an almost preternatural way.

"…understand that Umbrella…"

There it was again. That chill. A familiarity he couldn't quite place. Umbrella… He knew that name. From a dream, perhaps? Wait, no…they were a pharmaceutical company. Didn't have much of a presence in Colombia but their shit was all over the shelves in New York.

A red and white logo, text curved around the circular shape, on an embroidered patch on the sleeve. It beat the Army regalia he was used to, that was for sure. And it was different for all of them – some wore vests with simple lettering, others displayed a larger logo, crossed with swords and a shield in the centre. He'd been given the option of an olive shirt with one of these black vests, but he'd opted for the standard black and the olive plate carrier.

A wind pulled the trees outside, the conversation within the truck dying.

"….know you didn't do that for me either but, Jill-"

Jill…

Blue eyes, brown hair, pale skin, a smile that would melt even the coldest heart. Had melted his…

The voice grew stronger, chased away the hiss and buzz of the radio.

"…get through this, I'll man up, I'll apologise-"

Pain, blood, a different kind of pain. She was crying, he wanted to. Wasn't this how it always happened? A strong woman would make eyes at him, he'd go nose over tail and his heart would end up broken when the updraft didn't catch him. You'd think he'd be used to it by now, but with her it was different…

Anger, hatred, cold grey eyes…

Mercenary. Lost soldier. Terrorist.

Carlos slammed his hand against the radio, shut it off completely.

"Hey!" cried Oscar. "Little less of the homicidal rage if you're driving, please."

The wind dissipated, the conversation drifted back into his ears, and he pressed his foot to the pedal, biting back an inexplicable wave of anger, and an even deeper rivulet of hurt.

They were discharged the next morning with clean bloodwork and little more than bumps and bruises. The headache that had been haunting Chris finally seemed to be on its way too, and at long last he felt able to think straight again.

He'd tried to go home, he really had, but all that awaited him was a sofa and television that failed to distract him. Claire had retreated to her room immediately, Leon had been swept away with a promise to return later, and the others… They sat in a silence so haunting he wasn't sure leaving the hospital had been the win they had all expected it to be.

They had waited long into the night for the winds to change, for something to give and the noise of the world to creep back in, but when they had stolen what little sleep they could, it was to wake to the same silence that had lulled them to sleep.

Unable to bear it any longer, Chris persuaded Barry to drive him back to the hospital after breakfast and they sat in silence for most of the journey, the droning tone of a Spanish newscaster humming over the car stereo.

"I'll wait," said Barry at long last, when the engine died and the angular concrete building loomed ahead. Neither man had acknowledged or expressed reasoning for the trip, but somehow both were still acutely aware of what had drawn Chris on that journey.

He responded with a stiff nod and set out across the parking lot and into the building. The hallways here were unfamiliar and he had to ask for directions twice, but he soon passed a large blue sign stretched out across the wall reading 'Unidad de Cuidados Intensivos' and approached the first nurse's station he saw.

A young nurse in a grey uniform tapped away at a computer and looked up with a start when he caught her eye.

"Hola," she greeted uncertainly. "¿Cómo puedo ayudar?"

Chris blinked at her, wishing not for the first time since his arrival that he had paid more attention in high school.

"Uh…ver…amigo," he tried. "Oliveira?"

The nurse's eyes widened in realisation.

"Ah!" she said. "The…American. Si, uh…this way…please."

They passed rooms both big and small, some filled with staff, others empty. It was quieter here, the sound of machinery louder than that of human life. He didn't like it. The whole idea of sitting around waiting to die; it shook him something bad, always had. The nurse led him to a room near the end and held open the door.

The room beyond was small but bright, with a long window along the back wall illuminating the single bed within. The décor was minimal in a room designed purely with functionality in mind, but it was cosy in its own way, with wooden paneling at the head of the bed breaking up the otherwise drab off-white walls. The machinery that had been present in their quarantine wing was here too, some of it still in a state of dormancy. Carlos looked no better, but no worse, so he supposed that was something. More than that, against the white sheets, surrounded by tubes and wires and covered in cuts and bruises, he looked nothing like the interloper that had once lurked in Chris's mind. He just looked like someone far too young to be skirting so close to the final curtain.

In a large chair to the right of the bed snoozed Jill, legs curled beneath her. She looked like shit, to put it bluntly: dark circles beneath her eyes, hair unkempt and greasy. For a moment, Chris contemplated leaving her be, turning on his heel and making his apologies to their friend outside. But he'd seen this before, and it frightened him more than anything else in this place did.

With soft steps, he approached her, knelt down to her level, and gently nudged her awake. It took a few attempts for her eyes to open, like a kitten blinking against the light for the first time. She pawed at her face, rubbed those eyes until they were red and she was seeing stars, then looked at him.

"Chris."

Before a reply could form on his tongue, she looked to the bed urgently, relaxing only when she saw that the scene before her was exactly as it had always been.

"How are you doing?" It was a hollow question, but someone had to express the concern they all felt and direct was the only route he knew.

Though she had settled back into the chair, her eyes had not yet left the figure on the bed.

"His oxygen levels fell overnight," she said, dryly. "Or something like that. I don't know what that means but I don't think it's good. They've tried a few things to bring him round, but nothing is working. They…just have to keep his body going however long it needs to wake itself up. If it can even do that…they don't know. They're treating it like a coma."

"Jill," he said softly. "I asked how you were."

She blinked, tore her eyes away from the man on the bed.

"Oh, I…"

She rubbed her cheek, eyes drawn once again to the bed, and Chris sighed.

He saw again how she had stared blankly at him in that corridor then snapped back, like a rubber band. He'd seen it back in July, in the aftermath of the mansion incident, had spent the following weeks watching that tension weaken until she'd crumpled beneath her trauma and they'd both had to admit that they needed help. He saw her slipping back to that place and he wanted to grip her tightly enough that if there was no stopping her, then she took him with her. Anything so that she didn't have to face it alone.

"You need to take a break," he told her.

"I can't. I have to be here if- when he wakes up." She sounded panicked, half-alert, and her words began to run together. "You saw the files, you read the notes, he can't be alone when he comes out of that, he can't, and I promised, Chris, I promised we'd always face this stuff together and I can't- I just can't…"

He saw her fighting the tears, but they came anyway, and she attempted to push them away with the heel of her palm.

"You know what I think?" Chris said. "I think you've barely slept in two days, I don't think you've eaten anything since yesterday, and I know you haven't showered since that hose-down. Barry is waiting in the parking lot outside – go home, have a shower, get some sleep in a real bed, and-"

"I can't," she insisted. "I can't leave him alone."

"He won't be alone. I will stay here until you get back, however long that is. If he does wake up while you're gone, I'll tell him how bad you smelled, and he'll thank me for it."

Any other time, he would have got a laugh, maybe even a playful shove. But the fact that her usual stoicism had shattered so spectacularly after barely a prod showed just how fragile she was. He doubted she had the energy within her to laugh.

Jill looked to Carlos again, then sighed with a gentle shake of her head.

"A couple hours," she said. "That's it, then…"

"Then Barry will drive you right back here and we'll tag out. We're a team, remember? Partners. Now and forever."

"Thank you."

He offered to accompany her downstairs but she refused. Before she departed, pulling her cardigan tightly around her shoulders, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to Carlos's forehead, stroked his hair for a long second. Then, she was gone.

Chris removed the magazine he had shoved in his back pocket and took position in the chair Jill had vacated. This wasn't so bad, he thought. A bit of peace and quiet might be what he needed right now.

He looked over to the bed, and a chill ran through him. The subtle rise and fall of Carlos's chest was the only sign that there was still life in him. He couldn't look at his face, not with that damn bruise still colouring his skin with shades of purple and yellow. He could see scars, tiny ones along his arms, unlikely to take up permanent residence – memories of Raccoon City, etched into his skin. Jill still bore a few of her own, and those he and Claire had collected on their December adventure had barely settled from pink to white. Tribal markings. A shade away from war paint.

Shame thawed his veins, and he wasn't sure which he preferred: the fear, or the realisation that he'd been a colossal asshole to someone who in the end really hadn't deserved it.

"For what it's worth," he said. "I'm sorry."

It didn't make him feel any better, but there was a certain catharsis in letting the emotion free. So comforting was that which it left in its wake, Chris found that he couldn't put a stopper in it.

"You gotta understand that Umbrella…" No, he wouldn't make excuses. "Look, I don't handle shit like this well, I'll admit that. I do what I think is best to protect the ones I love, and that ain't always kind on them, or the people around them. I fuck up. I never even thanked you for saving her life. I know you didn't do that for me either but, Jill, she's…she's special, you know that. She really cares about you, and you don't know how rare it is for her to admit that. So…if you get through this, I'll man up, I'll apologise to your face, and I'll twist her arm 'til she admits that she's head over heels in love with you and you two can…I don't know. You can have however happy an ending as we can get in all this. Just…don't put her through this. Please."

The machines continued to whir, the line on the ECG monitor maintained its steady dips and falls. Chris sighed, and unfurled his magazine.

"Good chat."

Everything hurt. Two of his fingernails were missing, ripped clean from their beds. He could taste his own blood, checked with his tongue to see which teeth – none, thankfully – had worked their way loose. His left eye was puffy and sore, but he could still see well enough to drive and neither Oscar nor Cristian were in any fit shape to. Every so often Carlos would nudge the former as his head lolled against the window. Every time he did, his friend would hiss in pain, complain a little, and then snap himself awake. He needed medical care, urgently. They all did.

Together, they'd managed to lift David's body into the back, but in this heat the smell poisoned the air quickly and their stomachs rolled and twisted under its fetid presence.

Their captive in the back, curled against their friend's corpse, was rousing slowly, groaning as the truck rocked back and forth. Carlos was driving too fast, risked an accident on these roads, but he couldn't slow down. The wooden pendant burned a hole in his pocket and his vision was a dark vignette, hollowed down to a point. He saw only the destination, not the trees that whipped past, nor the dirt road their tires carved tracks through.

The radio hissed and spat, whining to a pitch that made his entire body ache, as though the resonance itself was working its way into his bones. He felt warmth spill against his arm, just in the crook of his left elbow.

"He asked permission the first time he kissed me, you know. Caught me so off-guard I didn't even know what to say…"

His foot eased off the pedal.

That voice…

She looked at him like she wanted him, and that was enough. But as the words tumbled out, he cringed at them. He didn't want to just go for it, you know? Didn't want to grab her and smack one right on her lips and have her slap him for being so bold. But he had never been so sure of needing anything as much as he needed her. So, he asked...

"Jill?"

"Being with him felt…safe. I felt safe. I'd forgotten what that felt like… Suddenly, I wanted something beyond revenge, and I didn't give that half the thought I should have."

Yes. Safe. That's what she felt like. Home. Like the nightmares didn't matter, because when he'd wake she'd be there and that's all he wanted.

Awake.

He was dreaming. Yes. The interrogation room. The plant. The spores. The sleep.

But this wasn't a dream… This was real, these people were real, this pain…

He pressed his foot to the pedal and the engine roared, tires kicked up a tsunami of dirt. The radio fizzled into silence once again, but the realisation and the clarity it had brought remained.

Yeah, he was dreaming, but hadn't he been here before? He had lived in this dream for months after the fact, repeating each detail over and over in horrifying detail. Each time, he had woken, wondering why those images haunted him so if he couldn't do a damn thing to change them.

This wasn't just a nightmare. It was the worst day of his life. What sick entity would force him to relive this? Why was he here?

Muscle memory kicked in and Oscar yelled as he pushed the engine as hard as it would go down the final stretch of road. The village loomed ahead, a right turn taking them-

Red.

Red everywhere.

Just a dream.

The stench of death hung in the air, but it would be months still before he knew to label it as such.

No, you've already been there. This is all in the past. Just a dream.

To this day, Carlos wasn't sure who had cried out first – himself or Oscar. Their captive guest was awake now, spewing Spanish curses at them. Cristian kicked him for good measure, then dragged him outside as Carlos stumbled out of the truck and into a scene of carnage.

He'd seen some shit, both before and after that day. Liked to think he had a strong stomach.

That strong stomach emptied itself onto the dirt.

"Dios mio," breathed Oscar. That was right. There was no English in this memory. That was his brain, wired as it was now to shunt his mother tongue to 'second language'. "What did they do?"

The market was in shambles, stalls in pieces, produce rotting in the mud. A single row of bodies awaited them, others dragged and dumped nearby, like a piece of art abandoned before the vision was realised. Some were missing limbs, others riddled with bullet holes. There were faces he recognised, torn to shreds, and others he didn't but mourned no less.

Above it all hung silence. The village had never been silent, not in the years he had been visiting.

The fear that had gripped him back in the cabin thrummed into a numbness that was all-consuming. It brought his eyes to the inn, and his legs to power him frenetically towards it.

What he saw within, he wouldn't describe. Not to Oscar when he asked, not to their camp leader, not even to himself after that day. He could still taste the blood on the air when he thought of it, still felt the way his soul left his body. He'd not cried, not there, not then. The rage was too potent, too all-consuming to allow any other emotion space to propagate.

A caustic feeling of loss coursed through him. He remembered it well, from the day his mother and his grandmother had been asked to identify a bullet-ridden body found in another market across the country. The day his father hadn't returned home. Perhaps the white lady would have wailed again had his blood not pounded so viciously in his ears.

When he limped outside, the wooden bear pendant no longer on his person, he saw his comrades by the truck. Their guest, the one whose neck Carlos had plucked that pendant from back in the cabin, was on his knees between them, laughing at their curses.

The ugly one, Carlos had called him, back when his actions amused him, back when he thought he could beat a confession out of someone as loyal as Carlos Oliveira. Yeah, he was ugly. Everything from his face to his voice, to the damn soil he knelt in.

The whooshing in his ears deafened him still. Oscar was shouting something at him now, but he didn't hear it. When no reply was offered, Oscar's face froze, what little colour remained draining from it.

The first thing he heard was the crack of a gunshot ringing out into the late afternoon, and the dull thud of the ugly one's body hitting the floor. He hadn't even realised the gun was in his hand until he felt the trigger bite into his finger.

Cristian stared down at the body, Oscar too.

"Fucker deserved it," the latter said. Approval? That wasn't what Carlos was looking for.

He looked at the man before him, dead by his hand, and felt nothing. Not even anger. Just the empty abyss of nothingness.

Yes, he had thought about this day a lot, wondered exactly what about it he would change if he could. He had tried to save them, so many times. Every single one, he had failed. There had been no hope of controlling that fate. It was always coming, if not then, then years down the line. Maybe when Diego was older and ran the inn himself, or when he chose his father's path and Carlos, if he was still around, held a different kind of regret. Maybe when Carlos had hung up his gun and promised Marina that he could be what she wanted, when this village was his home too. Maybe when she was married to someone else, someone she deserved, and he was warm and merry in a bar somewhere, or cold in the ground. The one thing that day that had been under his control was that moment right there, and the empty revenge he had taken.

Would he have changed it? He wondered this as grief brought him to his knees and he screamed it out, the way he had that day, the way he always did.

Truth was, he wasn't any closer to knowing.

Chris didn't leave when Jill returned. He vacated his chair, the large blue comfortable one, but he'd pulled the small stiff brown one beside it as she began her new vigil and remained even when the conversation dried up.

They'd talked of old friends and new, of times far back in the years they had known one another, of the rivalry that had blossomed into a friendship. She'd told him, at long last, but in a moment that felt so underwhelming, that she had been lost without him in the days after he had left, when Irons tightened the noose and forced her out of the PD entirely and into a cell that looked a lot like what she had once called home.

Then, when the conversation turned to the final days of Raccoon City, he said something that set both her head and her heart spinning.

"Tell me about him."

She saw where his gaze fell, but still questioned who he referred to.

"You've always made it clear I refused to see the real him," he said, stiffly. "So…tell me about him. Tell me about the Carlos Oliveira you know."

Jill placed a hand on Carlos's arm, just above where the hair on his forearm peeked out beneath the soft bandage at the edge of the plaster. His skin was cooler now, his pallor a little paler but the doctors assured her that his condition remained stable.

"You want the NC-17 version?" she joked.

Chris met her with a raised eyebrow.

"Alright," she sighed. And she told him. Every moment, every thought, every feeling. She'd spared him the more graphic details, but always looped back to how Carlos made her feel: safe, at home, like there was nothing in this world she couldn't take on. Not a manufactured emotion like the ones the pills had encouraged, and not one borne from adrenaline. The Real Deal.

He wanted to apologise to her, in the end, but she pre-empted that.

"It means a lot that you're here," she said. "Thank you."

His hand caught hers and he squeezed tightly.

A beep sounded behind her.

Chris looked up, and her heart shuddered, like it had forgotten how to beat.

Another beep. She turned this time, saw the lines on the ECG machine shorten, saw a light which had previously held a steady white flash yellow. She felt a tremor against the hand that remained on Carlos's arm, felt the muscles contract and relax.

"Carlos!" she shouted, as his whole body was wracked with convulsions. Barely a few seconds had passed before the doors burst open and medical staff filed in, but those seconds were stretched out across an aeon.

Chris grabbed her shoulders and pulled her back as the staff shouted at one another, pulled back the bedsheets and reached for equipment wheeled in on a small trolley.

"Come on," Chris urged. "Let's get out of their way."

She couldn't have fought if she wanted to, and let him pull her out of the room as her heart fell through her stomach.

The wail stretched on too long to be his own. It was pulled to a peak then dropped, seemed to reverberate through the ground.

Carlos's head snapped up. The soil in the centre of the marketplace, moistened by blood, began to bubble and shift, and darkness spilled through, like a tear in the Earth. He watched, frozen in place, paralysed as a long, spindly arm extended out of the shadows, then another. Elongated palms pressed against the soft, wet, dirt and pulled a shapeless mass free of the blackness.

Nothingness. Not shadows, not darkness – Nothing.

Pain erupted at his neck as teeth sank into the flesh, tearing it wetly from bone. The spray of his own blood splashed upon his cheek as their ugly friend let out a guttural wailing moan. Carlos elbowed it back, popped it in the head once, twice, three times for good measure.

Thick red blood ran over his shoulder and onto a trembling hand. The bodies around him began to move, undulating like a living mass, some rising to their feet, some falling into the spreading Nothing.

The creature that had crawled out of the abyss wore a cloak of purest black, and it hissed and rattled, distorting the air around it as it clawed its way towards him. He couldn't get a good look at it, when he tried…

His hand trembled so violently the gun fell from his fingers. More teeth sank into his leg, tearing a chunk of his calf away. He couldn't even pull himself to his feet now, couldn't breathe.

Where were Cristian and Oscar?

The Nothing dripped from the creature's body, fell like tar to the zombies it crawled over, eyes that were bare pinpricks of light locked on to him, and it fed a rising wave of paralysing terror.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out. Tried to find his gun but it was lost amidst the bodies that crawled over him, jaws gnashing.

All he had was a grenade, one that slipped in his blood-soaked hands as he freed it from his belt. Another chunk of flesh was torn from his left arm as he yanked it out of the jaws of the living dead.

He was dead anyway; he couldn't even pull air into his lungs anymore. But he was fucked if he wasn't taking some of them with him.

Maybe…maybe this would be it. Maybe this was how he woke up?

"Carlos!"

"Jill…"

The creature shrieked, ceased its advance for just a moment. The head of a zombie moments away from tearing his nose from his face exploded outward, and then another followed, the dull pop pop pop of a distant weapon sounding over the din.

It was enough for him to force his legs to move and push himself out of the crush of bodies. Those legs were very unsteady, his right calf leaking blood as he moved. The voice…it came from inside the inn.

Cristian and Oscar were nowhere to be seen, nothing left of them to rescue.

Move!

Towards the inn? No. Not there, not again. He didn't need to see that, couldn't see it. Don't make him go in there.

So you'd rather die? MOVE!

With a growl, he limped towards the door, barreled inside as the creature howled and the earth trembled beneath it.

There was a door he had never noticed before, to the left of reception. Its position wouldn't make sense; it would lead back outside.

Something cold pressed down his throat, tripped his gag reflex. A horrible, scratching sensation followed, and he clawed at his skin. Then…air. It felt cold and fresh, but it forced its way into his lungs and he could breathe.

That's when he saw the scratches on the door. Curved lines, over and over again, forming a familiar shape. A biohazard symbol.

He reached for the handle, pulled it open and saw a familiar blackness. For a moment, he considered his next move. How would he know where he would end up? Would he wake up, or would he be thrown into another nightmare? Did this cycle have an end?

He closed his eyes, thought of Jill, thought of all the things he wanted to say to her, whether or not she wanted to hear them. He thought of his mother, and the promises he had made her, thought of Tyrell, of Murphy, and of Mikhail…and the vengeance he had promised them.

His work was not done.

So, he leapt into the darkness once again.

Twenty minutes. That's how long they were in there. It felt like longer. Jill clung to Chris for all of it, silent against the wall outside. They couldn't understand the shouts of the medical staff, but they understood the moans of terror – the first sounds he had made since admission.

She couldn't recall ever being so scared, not as that monstrosity in labs below the Spencer Estate bore down on her and Chris, not as the Nemesis hounded her through the streets of Raccoon City. Not even as she had stared down the barrel of Nicholai's gun, so close to freedom but closer still to her own end.

Eventually, the machinery settled into a familiar symphony and the staff filed out one by one. When the final one, a tall male doctor in a white lab coat, emerged, he noticed them standing there and offered a weak smile.

"He is stable," he explained.

"What happened?" asked Chris, when Jill's own words failed her.

"His oxygen saturation levels dropped sharply – he stopped breathing for a short while. We have him on a ventilator now, but we will need to monitor this more closely going forward. Does Mr Oliveira have a history of seizures?"

Chris looked to Jill, but she found herself scraping the corners of her memory for an answer she knew wouldn't be there.

"I…don't think so," she said. "I don't know, I've only known him a few months. He was armed forces until a couple years ago and I don't…I don't think they'd let him in if he had?"

Would they? She knew so little about the Colombian Army and its regulations, less even about Umbrella's recruiting practices, and she wondered now if medical history was something they ought to have shared with one another. She didn't even know how to contact his mother to ask, or how she'd go about obtaining official medical records – if he had any.

She felt her chest tighten as the doctor smiled at her in a manner intended to be reassuring.

"Is he going to be okay?" It was a question she had asked a thousand times, out loud and to herself.

"I'm afraid we can't say. His case is…unique. It's up to him to pull through this, all we can do right now is support him where we can."

Jill needed a moment to catch her breath when he left, and Chris waited patiently, still half-holding her. He didn't push, didn't suggest anything, just waited until she was ready.

When they stepped back into the room, she swallowed dryly.

A new machine hissed and clicked by the bed, this one connected to a tub that now ran between Carlos's lips, attached to a band that wound around his head and sat above his upper lip.

She didn't know if she wanted to run to him or run the other way. Blood, she could deal with. Viscera? No problem. But this…

A hand in the small of her back urged her forward and she moved, not to the chair but to the left of the bed, reaching for the hand that rested upon the blue sheets. Still warm. Still did not respond to her touch.

"Hey," she said. "You made me a promise, remember? Together. That's how we do this. Whatever this is, you can fight it."

His eyelids fluttered and for a moment hope seized her. No. Just REM. She sighed and returned to that blue chair, kept her hands to herself this time, and waited, with Chris still at her side.