Alex trudged heavily up the stairway. His eyes felt like they were attached to twenty-ton anvils. Gripping the almost-destroyed banister, he forced himself to drag his weary body up the rest of the steps. He had never in his life been so exhausted, and never had he slaughtered so many people. West tried to shake the images out of his head, but he knew that they would reside in his mind forever.

-- Previously --

Alex stood over the ten men that Lara had so smartly crippled. He watched as Simon began doing his duty, bashing their heads together and occasionally cutting someone with his saws, splitting flesh and rupturing veins. Hillary had joined them, and he started disposing of the men as well. Alex thought that he had never seen the neat-freak butler in such a rage. It was a disgusting sight to view as Hillary, with his shotgun, shot in close range.

Alex felt his stomach lurch inside of him as he watched the gruesome sight before him. He had never been one for anatomy, and in this single day, he had seen more of it than was necessary. It was almost like his sight had returned, and he was just now witnessing what he was doing- what he had done.

Soon, each crippled intruder had fallen, and there was complete silence. Alex dropped his gun and took in what he had just done. In the room where he couldn't escape, he felt no emotions beside anger. Pure hatred ran alongside his blood, and he cared for nothing but killing everyone who threatened him- who threatened Lara, Bryce, Hillary. The thoughts of his friends dying were more than he could handle. To him, they were far more grotesque than the scene that lie before him.

Now, his vision seemed to return to him, and grief washed across his face like a plague. He knew, inside, that what he did was the right thing. All of those men wanted to kill them. He had to protect himself. But a lingering thought in his mind would not go away. It whispered to him in the tiniest voice. Brushing the irritating thought away, Alex watched as Bryce ran up to him.

Bryce tried not to look down at the massacre as he faced Alex. His face showed the utmost sympathy. He hadn't wanted to witness this bloodbath either, but it had to be done, and they both understood that. Bryce touched the command pad for Simon and disengaged him. No one spoke as they intently watched the robot, which had surely saved their lives, as he sank down. His claws reached his feet and he shutdown. A simultaneous sigh of relief escaped the lips of the three men as they realized that the attack was over.

They had won, and everyone had survived.

Bryce surveyed his surroundings quickly. "Where's Lara?"

His question sunk into everyone as their thoughts became frantic. Hillary was the one to spot her.

"There!" He shouted as everyone ran to the spot where she lied. Each man kneeled down to her as Hillary checked her pulse.

"She's still alive," he breathed in relief. "But she's lost a lot of blood, we must get her bandaged up quickly."

Alex watched as Hillary scooped up Lara into his arms and made his way for the same room where he had been taken when Lara shot him in the leg.

Bryce stayed with him. "Alex," Bryce said, shaking some of his nerves. "We couldn't have done it without you. Maybe you should try to steal from Lara more often!"

Alex smiled at him and shook his head. "No, Bryce. You know as well as I do that Simon kicked, rather, shredded everyone's ass in this house. I was just helping."

West looked down at his feet and heard Bryce's voice again.

"Well, I don't know about 'ass-shredding'," Bryce smiled, "but you certainly gave a few goons new makeovers." He grimaced as he remembered Alex coming in and pumping numerous bullets into the intruders' faces. Alex smiled in return and put his hand on Bryce's shoulder.

"You're one hell of a tech." And with that, Alex made his way towards the stairs. His head spun, and he needed to sleep.

-- Recent --

Bryce made his way back to the Tinkering Room and skipped over several corpses towards his computers. The monitors were completely smashed and small pieces of "a", "k", and "r" from the keyboards were scattered around the floor. Bryce sighed heavily. At least it was only the monitors and accessories that were broken; the memory would still be intact- thank god. Bryce quickly went to the opposite side of the room and unlatched a tall, silver cabinet. Inside were assorted monitors, keyboards, disks, etc. Bryce picked a monitor and keyboard out, pushed the old ones to the floor, and hooked them up.

"Ah," he mumbled as he sunk into his chair, which had stuffing coming out of it and half of the back missing. He quickly booted up the system and searched for information on The Amulet of Ilse.

Bryce connected to the Internet. "Ah, the good 'ole Internet! There's nothing that it can't do."

Bryce quickly typed in his object of concentration and pressed 'Enter'. Many sites came up, but not what he was hoping for.

"Bloody hell! I didn't ask for Kelsie the stripper!" Bryce growled in frustration. It looked like it was going to be a long night.

Alex finally made it to his room and nearly collapsed then and there. He would have if he didn't remember that he was completely soaked in blood. Stumbling around in the dark, he made his way to the bathroom and flicked on the switch. Carefully, so as to not upset his head, Alex removed his blood-soaked clothing and discarded it on the marble floor. With a couple turns of his wrist, he turned on the shower and let it envelope him. He made it hotter.

He turned the knob again; it stopped, as it couldn't go any further. The water was now boiling, but West sunk to the floor of the shower, unnoticing. Small drops of sweat mixed with the steaming water dripped off of his face as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes. He tried not to let them, but the thoughts came and burned even more than the scorching water that poured over him.

Bryce looked under every search engine he could find; nothing showed up for his query. He scratched his head in deep thought and mumbled to himself over and over again:

"Ilse, Ilse, Ilse..." The name was familiar to him, but how? Where had he heard it before? He wasn't even sure that he had, but some nagging thought gave him an idea. Quickly Bryce searched under a new category. This had to be it. He clicked on the first link that he saw and navigated himself to where he needed to be. He furrowed his brow as he saw the definition:

"Gods word?"