A Chronicle to downfall

by Sapfarah

Claire Redfield, survivor of Raccoon City, must visit the corrupt Sutacora Sassa and prevent the revival of the Nightmare.

2. Life, Death or somewhere in between - Pa...

A Chronicle to Downfall
by Sapfarah ( sapfarah@geocities.com )
http://www.geocities.com/sapfarah.geo/chronicle.htm


Chapter 2 - Life, death, or somewhere in between: Part.2

I didn't know of the conspiracy then, not that knowing would
make any difference to me, praying to leave this godforsaken realm of
horror as neither had I even believed that I would have to deal with
it in the future... All that mattered was getting away from all the
madness, away from Irons and back to safety.
I found myself back outside the corridor, not taking any
decisions. I only walked on reaching as far as the wreckage. It still
steamed and smelled of ash and cinder. That was when a door opened
hastily and slammed back...
I knew it was the door of the corridor I had come in but I
didn't offer myself the margin to think further, instead I run past
the wrecked helicopter and hid in the shadows... right as I did, I
saw what it was that had startled me.
Sherry.
She was running with all strength her little feet carried and
headed right towards Irons' office. I snapped at the perception but
by the time I realised, she had run past me and made it to the
office...
"No, wait!" I shouted. I didn't want her facing chief Irons and
the sight of a slain girl on his desk. I rushed after her but she had
entered before I reached so I was forced to once again storm into the
office, gun at hand just in case...
I forced the door wide open and halted back in total surprise
not because of what I saw, rather what I didn't... there was no one
in the room. No Sherry, no chief and no dead body lying on the
desk...
I walked inside, pushing gently the door behind me. I called at
chief but I received no reply as I paced on... It was as though there
was nobody in a range of kilometres and whereas the zombies were an
actuality, I had the scars to prove it, I doubt what I had seen was
an illusion or even a holograph. I knew I had seen chief Irons and
there was no way he had just escaped through a room with no exit
other than the door I entered, unless he was a ghost and walked
through walls...
I thought I had found my answer as looking back I spotted a
door I couldn't have seen before, both because I had retreated on my
back but because it was in the far end behind, very close to the
corner, nearly hidden by a library adjacent to the wall before it, at
the same level as the door whence I came in. Sure that Irons had gone
through that door, I headed for it as well.
I was greeted by a very dimly lit corridor where a cold drift
was the only thing wandering. No sound reached me, either of anything
dead or alive but I really wished for more light... I halted at the
sight of a stuffed tiger, never thought tigers were that big...
Fortunately it was only a stuffed animal or I'd have it badly. Still,
the stuffing was very skilfully done, so perfect was the capture of
the movement I expected it to leap alive on me at any moment and it
wouldn't surprise me... I gripped at the grenade launcher but the
glassy eyes of the amazing beast told me it could no longer move.
I stopped despite the urgency of the time and padded upon it...
stuffed. The fur was still beautiful...
'Sick' I thought and really struggled to strain out thoughts of
Belinda's ending as I moved on. The tiger's real eyes, somewhere
behind bore upon my back as I walked but when I got to the end before
a closed door, I wasn't sure I wanted the comfort of that option...
Still I walked in... and had my heart rattling. Footsteps
startled me as someone was running...
'Irons!' I thought and my heart came to my mouth. Heartbeat was
in my ears, I remember it as I remember my knees shaking while I run
towards wherever would be closer to the running steps, closer to
making the dreaded meeting occur and end the suspense once and for
all...
I never had a discerning ear as far as picking direction of
noises goes. In that fright I couldn't tell anything more about the
owner of the footsteps, other than it was someone living and...
hiding from me... neither was I in position to evaluate these facts.
I ended up in Irons' private collection room, well that had to
be it. It was a plain, square room with shelves on every wall and
exposition benches in a miniature copying of the frame the walls
indicated to which they were parallel, all loaded with priceless
items... there even were knight armors in one wall... I don't know
how much all these cost but the feeling, under the dim light was
just like the castles of horror in Count Dracula movies...
Gun at shoulder level I run, tracing as best as I could the
source of the footsteps. In fact I feel I somehow went the opposite
way, until I met a gaping door and I knew whatever it was, had been
there.
I looked inside but couldn't see anything... In a hurry I
searched the wall for a switch, staying in the dark was the last
thing I wanted, praying all the while in a heartbeat that no licker
or worse would jump to my face, although I don't see how the darkness
would have prevented it... I hit the switch and in a slight relief I
saw light. Bright light. And then... Sherry.
She had crouched in a corner, shaking among her knees, behind
her hands... Our eyes didn't meet, she didn't dare look at me as with
a scream she jumped up and relied on her speed to get past a zombie
she had believed to see in me...
I was faster and as she tried to go past me I grabbed her by
the hand. She screamed and tried to pull away and it was hard to hold
her, even if I'm relatively strong, even if she was only a little
child... Fear has this ability to amplify strength...
She screamed to be let go and in a voice as assuring as I could
I talked to her, telling her that I was not a zombie, something not
very easy to notice if you're a small girl, tired and scared out of
your mind... in fact nobody would have noticed the detail anyway...
Depending on how far the mutilation has advanced, at early stages
zombies don't differ too much from a healthy human...
Struggling to hold her and make her hear me, finally I caught
her attention... She stopped for a little and looked up to me...
She had blue eyes and a healthy even if very well off face that
showed fatigue and fright only too clear... Our eyes met and as I saw
she wasn't struggling, I let go of her hand...
I...
I assured her she was safe and then.... she run to me on her
own and wrapped her hands around me, weeping in relief...
I've never been exactly fond of children, I've never been moved
at the sight of healthy infants or chubby babies like the majority of
girls... but when Sherry held on to me in what I can only ascribe as
reliance, when she asked for my protection without words, trusting
her fright on me... something changed...
I still don't know what it was but I only held back at her,
stroking her short flaxen hair and I knew that I would sooner die
than permit harm to her. Even to this day, my feelings haven't
changed.
My hand brushed at the hair of the weeping girl, sensing
through her tremors the horror of running among the walking death in
a hostile city that used to be her playground, afraid, tired and
possibly having seen more horror than anyone could bare. I had to act
fast if that meant both of us would remain alive.
Immediately I radioed Leon. With my mission accomplished, I had
to meet him and leave this place together...
It's odd that I was so confident he would pick up my call... to
think about it, I had no clue as to how he was doing and only now I
think of the dreadful possibility... Yet Leon answered back at me and
with all sorted out, I kneeled before Sherry and trying to sound
calm, I asked her about what she was doing here. Her answers were too
simplistic, too confused, as would be from a child less than her age
and she kept her eyes down, even though at that time there wasn't any
need for being formal to strangers... She said she was out to find
her mother who had instructed her to come to the police station...
She never mentioned her parents' names but they wouldn't mean
anything to me then. I still thought it was odd that anyone would
advise their child to go out in a night like this as it stroke me on
why they had insisted she headed to the police station... I was more
or less convinced by then that whatever went on, the answer was in
the RPD... Sherry spoke about her worries about her father whom she
searched... and I think I can reconstruct the situation now...
The incidence in the lab. A worried Annette calling at her
daughter, doing her best to sound assuring, asking her to come to the
RPD, k n o w i n g that her chances at home were slight... Sherry
understanding something is wrong, somehow discerning that her father
is in danger...
The more Sherry talked, the more impatient she turned... and
then...
I should be glad the roar heard was distant then but that was
by no means a comfort. It was a feral sound, very loud as to make one
shudder by the mere echo of it and somehow it still wasn't
mindless... It still held one emotion: vengeance and desire to
slaughter and in this wild wail, it directed a heinous call to its
victim...
I don't know if Sherry was simply ignorant or brave beyond my
grasp or hers alike but at the sound of it, she protested about
having to find her father and sprinted away from me, so fast as was
impossible for her little feet and her tiredness to carry her and I
couldn't even halt her...
I had lost her to her ultimate dedication to her father, a
father who evaluated her less than his creations, even if I find it
hard to accept but who had showed her compassion enough to urge her
seek him despite the dangers... maybe hoping he would be a shelter
she could rely on...
I hadn't met Sherry until a lot later. By that time I saw more
than I wanted of the corrupt building. I had found the way to the
basement and to more zombies, more lickers and dobermans kept in the
police department, only loose and infected with that virus that
instructed mindlessly attacking and endeavouring. I saw death more
than once coming before me, at my dizziness or in the form of the
walking cadavers. Yet I survived. I was always at attack's readiness,
always armed, always ready. Not for a minute did I let fatigue
overcome me. Not that I had the margin of choice either.
Only one thought persisted, that of finding the escape, that
from what I had already realised, had to be through the sewers, or at
least, that's how the last survivals planned to leave the city. It
was too late now, the sewers were most certainly infected but I was
armed and the knowledge that they were the only possible escape made
it look like a joyride. Fortunately I was in the Police station where
I found plenty of ammo to replenish my resources. Now if only I could
get there...
I had thoroughly explored the basement and there was no way I
could get there through it. Yet the fortress of the RPD surely had
some hatch leading there, one that possibly wasn't very obvious, like
every secret escape ought to be, one that only the high-ups would
know...
And the thoughts rushed into my mind in less than a moment.
A passage that high-ups could control ~ Irons a high up ~
vanished from his office mysteriously~
Irons' office!
It was absolutely clear to fasten and there was no other
option. I had to re-examine it, certain that I would be rewarded...
A sharp sound of breaking glass told me that the sooner the
better. I was on the ground floor and from windows in a room not too
far from where I was, shattering and groaning told me that soon the
hideout I had selected wouldn't be safe much longer. I went through
the external staircase, rushed past the turn to the crow's passage
and directly to the corridor of the wrecked helicopter... Right into
the other hidden corridor towards Irons' office.
That was where I found Sherry again.
I don't know how she had made it but I'm only glad she did. She
was there and this time, she even showed she was glad to see me...
boy, I was too... I wouldn't leave the building without her. I'd
sooner die than leave her behind...
Ignoring her for the time being and for the best of both of us,
I went to the desk, looking for a handle of some sort, perhaps a
pencil container that when you flip to the side reveals an opening, a
secret key, a rotating object... I only found some more cartridges,
which I more than eagerly took.
Now what was the other most common way of unlocking doors?
Pictures. And there was a picture behind his armchair...
It had occurred to me that Irons was a collector of art, only
his taste surely had a very odd feeling. A particular one he had was
a real work of art, depicting in great detail a fine body of a hanged
person, most certainly a man, because the naked figure had no breasts
but was too lean either, still a hanged person in such a morbid
background is by no means art. Art is supposed to soothe the soul,
isn't it?
The picture I gazed upon was blunt brushwork to what might have
been a girl in a growing jungle... Nothing that looked like a code
was depicted on it...
Looking at it, I noticed that there was something odd about it.
A fine layer of dust on its frame had four oval shaped disruptions at
one vertical side and four more in even distance at the opposite
side...
Sherry came closer, watching me as I tried to unhook the
picture but it wouldn't budge until accidentally I pushed it to the
side... It slid and revealed the pattern.
It was an odd board of carved stone with three inlets that were
very befitting to the collector: One for a sacrifice, one for the
pouring blood, the last for the acceptance of it, in the form of
endeavouring by a savage animal... The inlets were in the shape of
rectangular stones that when put, closed a circuit that in turn
supplied the mechanism with the power to reveal the door...
Looking to my right, among stuffed animals, I saw indeed the
three stones in question, the ones I hadn't really marked the first
time, thinking, or rather not considering to, as they blended with
the whole decor... I took them and noticed the inlets at their
base... I placed them in the order and to my surprise, indeed a
portion of the wall shook and retreated inwards to then slide behind
the rest of the unmoved wall. Bingo.
I poked inside. The area was cold, smelled with dampness and
only an elevator was at the end of that small, unpainted fraction.
Surely the perfect dungeon.
I told Sherry to wait for me to return. I had to clear the way
before bringing her with me... She complied and yet her eyes were
doubtful, full of so much worry... but it was for the best and I know
it now.
The elevator screeched infinitely as it went lower down below.
At least I was heading the right way. When it stopped and in all
precaution I pushed the door away, I knew I hadn't been wrong. A
proper medieval dungeon greeted me, dark and lit with torches on its
walls built of thick brick... Maybe there was a ghost in that mansion
afterall.
I walked, hoping that I would be fast enough to see whatever
would attack me in these corridors when I was startled by a rough
roar. I knew it was the same I had heard earlier while in Irons'
exhibit room. I looked around but the commotion nearby was not at
sight. I heard a human scream, shouting and things banging, then
another roar, this time deeper and the banging of a large plate of
steel... The roaring seemed more distant and the corridor wasn't
reverberating anymore.
A grenade launcher was hanging at my shoulder. I had one last
cartridge and wouldn't admit as much as one round go astray.
A perfectly appropriate door was at the end of the way ahead, a
rough wooden one with iron decorations and rivets. There was no other
option to go by, so I entered.
In fierce agony I felt the coldness of the room and along the
stench of death I'd by now recognise anywhere. Bending over a corner
of the room was chief Brian Irons who at the sound of the door stood
up and...
It was his private room where he did the taxidermy business of
his... Now that I remember, there was no trace of Belinda's corpse
anywhere and it stroke me as bizarre, even in such an inappropriate
moment...
He huffed from tiredness and was apparently under shock, after
having fought against an abomination and sparing his life for some
more...
I gazed blankly at him and this time he didn't bother with
pretensions... He started chuckling and his words were a bizarre
complement, congratulating me for my success, then turned into
raving, proclaiming my doom... I tried to talk some sense to him but
he cocked his gun at me instead and the memory of Belinda attacked me
as I backed away.
Babbling insanely, whimpering even as he talked of the demise
of the town, his town as he had the nerve to call it, he advanced and
knowing I was as good as dead I asked him. I demanded to know it all,
everything about what happened, the mutilations, the disasters, the
zombies...
...and I learned. I found out about Umbrella, the
pharmaceutical company specialising in biological weapons, concealed
by government factors as well. I found out what it was to hunt Chris
when he vanished and what was that had destroyed my town... but I
also found out about Sherry, who was the daughter of the ones
responsible for the catastrophe...
It was from Irons I first heard the name of William Birkin, the
creator of the G-Virus and one of those who worked on completion of
the first mutagen, the T-Virus, an essential substance for project
Tyrant, Sherry's father. I was meant to find out much more about him
in the future, but that day, as I heard about him, I never thought I
would get to meet him so soon...
It surely wasn't a meeting to be happy about.
Once Irons blurted everything out, his gun pointed at my
forehead once again. I remember his eyes glistering fervidly as his
hand shook from anger but surely wouldn't miss from so close. I felt
the sickening coldness of fear as I backed away, my back being
blocked on the wall and the barrel of the gun almost touched me...
Then came the roar once again and I realised it was very
close... nearby below...
A hatch was next to where I stood, over where Irons was bending
when I had entered but I didn't see it, until the lid was forced away
by a violent shove that in horror I knew was one conscious, as
neither did I see the ugly hand that was shot from inside there and
from some twisted luck missed my leg and hauled Irons' instead...
Irons vanished from my sight and I backed away, watching the
hole endeavouring him and then all I heard were his desperate cries,
grisly roars and sounds of... being torn apart...
I moved hesitantly, pointing the launcher at the hole but the
hollering ceased very soon... I bowed, trying to see into the
darkness below and, once again, I was dreadfully lucky...
Something shot up through the fallen metal covering and as I
backed off at time, I saw...
What forced the metal plate away was nothing else than Irons'
maimed upper body...
I nearly threw up.
He was ripped apart by sharp protrusions that came into his
abdomen and pulled his pelvis apart from his stomach. He was covered
with disgusting fluids that I don't even want to know what they were
and the piece of meat he now was continued bleeding...
Again I knelt over the opening, I saw nothing. Carefully I
bowed and then I noticed the ladder... I had made it.
Overfilled with pride and cognisance that I had some of the
merit Chris jocularly called 'the Redfield bug' which he claimed had
been our leading instinct to safety, having entirely forgotten the
roar and Irons cut in two body, I descended the ladder to find myself
underground. It was even colder and I landed on a griddle but... I was
not alone.
It looked like a human, or rather what the hunchback of Notre
Damme should look like. It had the hunch for sure, covered in a
dirtied white shirt, his legs, still wearing the comfortable flat
shoes matching the trademark, studiedly disordered dressing code of
scientists, had the limping that might have been tiredness, most
certainly from difficulty to manipulate the new body he found himself
into. Or rather, inability to adapt to the changes he went through.
Ingenious as he might have been, he was paying for his folly now. The
G-Virus, however powerful as it makes the 'host' is a very unstable
organism. It has extremely fast growth rate but it's life span is
about three days. It has to propagate to another 'host' to continue
living. That, William Birkin didn't know when he injected it to his
body, perhaps not even as he was slowly transforming to a living
corpse, a degeneration of himself, deranged and doomed. And even if
he did, he was no longer fit to evaluate it. He was a slave to his
own creation and became the monster he created. This is how I saw him
that day.
The moment I landed on the platform, I saw the man in the
distance, walking away in the slow, tired pace of his, with an iron
rod at his hands, upon which were stuck bloody pieces of intestines,
most certainly what had once been the guts of chief Irons... I knew
better than call out at him, for either mutated beings or even
unharmed didn't make sense any longer, but he sensed me and halted...
The G-Virus accents the senses, among other things...
He looked in a mess. But I had seen worse. And would see worst.
One of his shoulders was disproportionally bulged to the other, it was
already elongating... half of his face had turned to the colour of a
rotten apple and the eye left untouched by this transformation, had
turned under the lid and the iris was invisible.
I had thought it was another zombie but if not the increase of
body mass he had instead of lessening and the fact that he wielded an
iron bat didn't prove otherwise, then certainly the eye that opened
in his arm, surely did. The G-Virus acts funny, completely messing
the generating factors of the organism but then, seeing a proper eye
looking at me from a man's unnaturally huge arm didn't exactly
frighten me. It was mostly the staggering yet steady approach, the
blind intention to tear me like he had done with Irons and how, after
I shot him once to end up his misery, he still kept coming...
'It cannot be!' I thought as I fired another one, knowing for
sure I was before the owner of that groan that echoed everywhere in
the RPD. I just kept firing, his pace slowed more and by the time my
cartridge emptied, he had folded in two... but he was very close to
me. I thought he'd fall but instead...
He leaped on his feet and threw all of himself behind the bar
that hit me right on the head.
I fell banging down on the platform, too stunned to even shout.
Fortunately, and I mean that, all this momentum he had used, threw
him over the reef and down below. As I opened my eyes, believing I
would never again see the world, I was deafened by his roar as the
void below swallowed him...
I resumed myself, my head swelling awfully, looking for my
launcher. I was alive, armed and ready. My head killed me but I was
still alive. I had survived the beast and would survive Raccoon
city... Then as my clear sight was restored, I took a better look
around...
The stench, the humidity, the meagre supporting
constructions... Those were the sewers and I was there. I had made
it!
Such was my joy that I nearly leaped up the stairs, thinking
only of getting Sherry. Again as I got to the wagering safety of the
empty perverse room, I took a breath and a view of my surroundings.
Disturbing stuff all over the place and what I passed for a table was
in fact a bench to lay down the corpses to be stuffed... Blood was
sprained upon it and once more I thought of Belinda lying on that
bed, probably not all dead either... I shook my head and thought how
appropriate it was for Irons to die in this room...
To think that taxidermy used to be his hobby... But not any
longer.
Resuming my courage, I left and made it for the exit, thinking
that behind me two evil people were wiped out of the range of danger.
I didn't know it wouldn't be the last I'd see from William
Birkin.

Nothing had changed on the way back and yet, with every step I
took, something inside me asked questions I didn't want to answer. My
chief worry was how to pass Sherry through the splattered viscera of
chief Irons. With all that foulness she had seen, here I was, worrying
about her having to see the savaged upper torso of a dead man... No,
that was not it.
The doubt didn't form as thought into my mind until I stepped
out from the elevator and in the complete silence I heard her anxious
footsteps coming at me. And along with her, the realisation came. It
struck me as she embraced me confidently and I mechanically stroke my
hand on her head, staring down at her flaxen hair in the same shade
with the tufts on the head of that abomination. In my mind I shouted
she was not the same but my frightened heart told me otherwise. And
all of a sudden, my hands were not clean enough to hold her. Would
she trust me if she knew that only little before I shot down her
father, however he had transformed?
Actually, if my father turned into a beast, I'd as soon shoot
him myself but some idiotic people stick to those bonds, even after
such changes... yet it wasn't my father down there so, what rights do
I have to speak? I still drove Sherry from me in reluctance and
pretended everything to be all right... In much of a hurry I radioed
Leon, still alive but so shocked I was to really talk to him that
only after everything passed and we reached safety I found out that
had he been able to, he'd have strangled me right then for taking
such a rash decision, completely ignoring him... Somehow though he
too understood my motives later on...
So it was that I took Sherry and led her through the corridors
safely to the sewers and to escape. It still was a long way ahead but
all the while, Sherry faced me in confidence and I held her trusting
hand in mine...
If she were my own daughter, I wouldn't feel any stronger about
protecting her.
There are times to day, when I question myself on whether I'm
entitled to love Sherry as much as I do and I know the feelings I
hold for her to be strong and genuine. Still, I feel I don't have the
right to. I say that I love her as though she were my daughter and I
doubt I could love her any less, yet I can't stop remembering I'm not
her mother and that I know things about her mother that I cannot tell
her, perhaps ever.
I cannot say positively whether by hiding harmful truths from
her I can still say that I love her, even though my experiences have
parted me from the commonly thinking crowd. So far, things have
worked finely. When the day of the reckoning comes, I'll deal with it
then...
Maybe I'm not exactly planning my actions in the best way to
leave a margin for the unexpected, but how can that ever be achieved?
How was anyone to suspect that going off to meet their brother would
alter their life and lives of the ones nearby in a nightmarish way?
I have learned to take life as it comes, knowing I cannot do
much against it and preserve a margin for more surprises. I don't
claim to have seen it all with Raccoon City. In fact, I know there's
more than lickers and rabid hounds to instil fear. In the few courses
in criminology, in particular victimology that I took during my
training to be a STARS executive officer, told me yet once more that
I hadn't faced all fear in Raccoon City...
Neither then though was I trusting anymore. It wasn't that I
hadn't expected the sewers to greet us with more horror, only this
time it wasn't in the face of a monster. Sherry and I lost each
other, right as we succeeded in getting safe away from the RPD...
We had just made it to the sewers, where, after all we had
seen, walking in these stinking waters didn't make an impression...
but what we saw looming over our heads certainly did.
The footsteps echoed clearly enough to make us turn and I
couldn't believe my own eyes, though I knew even then that I wasn't
mistaken. It would be impossible to be errant on so an apparent truth
but damn it, I had shot him only minutes before, I loaded his body
with grenade rounds, he had fallen down a ravine and he was back
again, walking as though nothing had happened?
Sherry embraced me frightened out of her mind and called my
name at doing so. Out of reflex I held her back but that monster
above had sensed us and in horror, I saw it looking down on us over
the shoulder... I still hope Sherry hadn't too looked up... I dread
at the possibilities of her facing what was there...
I very often wonder, did she recognise that thing to be her
father? But I guess that's one thing I'll never know. I dare not ask
her either... but I so much long to find out... I hope she doesn't
carry yet one more aching memory...
I had commanded Sherry to run. It was the sanest thing to do
with a spent grenade launcher and a beast that just wouldn't die and
still was Sherry's father. Luckily fear hadn't paralysed her and we
both rushed to the iron gate that, fighting all disgust, I forced
open and let us through.
The door pounded behind us, leaving us both in one of the
sewers stinking passageways but that treacherous quietness held far
worse for us aside. Thinking back, first Sherry was next to me and
the next moment, I heard her scream and felt the water drained with
force at my feet...
Sherry wasn't as lucky. She stood right before the lid and it
opened, as if only to suck her and she went down to a lower level.
It's not any less scaring thinking about it now, after all
these years.
She was very fortunate not to break her bones, get stuck in
that hole or drawn. It's not entirely impossible to drawn in the
sewers and luckily the level below wasn't much fuller than the one I
was, at least for the time being. I certainly lost my courage at
that...
Sherry assured me she would be all right and since I couldn't
go to where she was, I had to trust her and find another way to meet
her. She went ahead, that brave little girl with only a first aid
spray I had supplied her with when I met her again in chief Irons'
office... Suddenly all came to my mind. The transformed monster at my
hind, the zombies and Sherry, in the sewers. I had to rush and I did.
I met more indications of G-virus infection in the sewers.
Insects and awfully large spiders, spitting acid on me... no zombies,
no lickers, no hounds loose. I don't want to think how Sherry would
fare with her well off feet and totally unarmed against those beasts.
But I also met another human being that still preserved life within
it.
I was in a large platform and rubbed some herbs on agitations
caused from the acid of the spiders, when her footsteps startled me.
I merely looked up and saw her cocking a gun at me. Of all the times
to be caught with my panties down.
She didn't have to introduce herself. Irons tirade before he
died and how apparently she resembled Sherry, who had mentioned
looking for her, gave away her identity. She had the same blonde hair
like her daughter and perhaps, if I erased the circles and the
acridity from her stare, she had the same eyes. She looked rather
good for a scientist, compared to my physics teacher at second grade
who was both crabby and ugly as sin and perhaps if she took better
care of herself, she might have been a very attractive woman. If
Annette Birkin was a teacher, she could have been every schoolboy's
teacher-amour, only her methods had better been softer than a fifteen
shell beretta...
I stood up, despite her gun pointing at me and the threatening
click of the revolver, yet once again. When Annette met me in the
sewers powerplant, she was far more scared than I was but like me,
she was playing all for all.
Anyone else at my place would have been shot at once I bet and
I know that what had in fact saved me was the magic echo in Sherry's
name. Once I mentioned I knew her daughter, her face melted to one
frantic and the reasonable woman gave way to an animal, following its
instincts when it came to her daughter. I swear, had she been told to
jump over to the other end of the balcony for Sherry's sake, she
would and probably succeed to. The feeling is not one I'm not aware
of...
I told her how I was trying to get both Sherry and I into
safety and she almost lost it when she heard how her daughter was
caught up in such danger. Knowing better than accusing her for
calling Sherry out in the first place, I said nothing. It's only now
that I feel glad the call was made, or else Sherry would have been
another more victim accounted for...
This isn't a better consolation either as I'm sure there were
more adorable people out there who unjustly lost their lives but
sometimes, knowing you have succeeded in saving even one of them...
it means so much...
I didn't know how Annette planned to protect her daughter by
instructing her to meet her in the RPD, but I have a feeling she was
following orders from her husband who, at the moment of the crisis
considered wiser to keep his daughter with him, lest his enemies or
anything else got to her. A pretty reckless decision in either way
but as I discovered, Annette was such a person that loved her people
only a little too much to dare judge them. So much she confessed to
me, not with words though...
I still don't know what had urged her to confide in me, I've
been told I have this 'gift' if that's what it can be called, for
inspiring trust... To think about it, indeed I have many times lent
an ear to those in need... only I'm not certain, having heard some
confessions, whether I can still call that a gift, for me at least.
Annette told me the unheard of tale of Umbrella and things I
used later in my investigation. What I picked out most vividly though
was the sadness of one family, especially a little girl's and a
woman's who loved her husband only too much... There were tears in
Annette's eyes when she told me how her husband injected himself the
G-virus toxin and ever after she knew his track from the trail of
blood he left behind, only hours before, perhaps right as I pulled
along that Diner in the borders of Raccoon City...
Annette was still in her proper senses to accept my suggestion
to look after Sherry instead of holding a pointless argument but she
wanted to go on her own. I think there were still things she needed
to settle. Judging it to be the best, I conceded and ran almost
eagerly, lest she'd change her mind.
At the other end of the platform, I reached the high compact
area, where the more I advanced, the worse it smelled. I was walking
upon a path of metal in a seemingly empty corridor, when I wisely
decided to avoid the metal, so to be able to distinct more sounds and
not be detected... and indeed, a sound I heard. It was heavy
footsteps striking upon iron bars. Ensuring I had loaded weapons, I
advanced to the end, where it seemed all the sewage was gathered...
It was beyond my expectations to find Sherry as I came before
the opening to the compact area... I almost run to her but then saw
in the far end the last of his legs as he was slowly climbing up an
iron ladder, the beast that used to be William Birkin...
I knew I was late and held back, only to avoid attracting his
attention, not wanting to have Sherry in the range of a battlefield.
She lied unconscious upon piles of trash and once I heard William's
footsteps no more, I ran to her, through the dirty water with my
heart in my mouth, and...
I saw a worm, a foul thing sliding from under her... the
incubating transferor of the G-virus...
I didn't have to know that to know it wasn't something good and
anxiously I shook her and called at her name...
What I saw was a nightmare that will never leave me for as long
as I live.
Her face turned at me, too weak to get up, pale with fever, as
if it was swelling and her eyes glistered, almost lifelessly like the
eyes of a zombie... She shook all over, her lips trembled and I felt
a sick warmth emanating from her...
I almost went down crying.
I couldn't forgive myself had Sherry died in my care, not to
mention having gone through so much... I still beat myself about
it... When I heard her calling my name with her voice so weak I
considered shooting us both and giving an end to it all...
Fortunately I maintained control of my actions.
Sherry complained about her stomach, poor girl... poor, poor
girl... I had to motion for her to get up. I had to persuade her to
keep on, and myself alike, saying that there was still hope... More
by instinct, rather than by knowledge I found the way to the trailer
taking to the major secret lab of Umbrella, where all the experiments
were started, where all disaster broke. Sherry and I went in, still
not knowing where it'd get us, except that it would be away from the
RPD and it was all that we wanted at the time being. In hope to get
to the exit or at least some aid for Sherry, we took it. Yet reaching
to the actual lab was a far more toilsome path.
Sherry trustingly stayed by my side and even when we met
zombies, on our way to freedom, she never left me. But all the way, I
went with a drumbeat at heart and that wasn't just because of the
zombies, that fighting them on my own was one thing and making sure
they stayed safely away from Sherry was another. It was in Sherry's
innocent eyes full of tiredness as she looked at me and in silence
followed me. It was in the way her face was paling and how she forced
herself to keep up to my already slow pace. I didn't pick her up,
wanting to be ready to fight and carrying her would definitely lessen
our chances. So I had her following me instead and dreaded that she
would any moment fall down on me and that when I'd run to her, she
would be dead...
I was getting sick out of my mind. It had been long since I
last heard from Leon, Annette was surely left behind for good and
Sherry was almost faded. Only one thing followed us and it was that
impertinent roar, pursuing us with impossible persistence...
I battled William once more, if that thing could be called
William at all, for it certainly wasn't even remotely human any
longer. What the G-virus does to human beings is horrible. Before my
eyes, head slipped down upon his chest, as if the scull had mollified
inside his body and he wore his face as an ugly reminder on his
chest, slowly mouldering to a disgusting blob and a new monstrous
head replaced the necessity upon the new shoulders in fractions of
seconds. I saw appendages growing from his mutilated body and sharp
fangs protruding through these limbs of rotten, short-lived but
lethal flesh. I saw toxic fluids oozing through his scars and smelled
the stench of sulphur in his being. If nothing else, Umbrella has
made some progress, as far as her transformations go...
We were attacked by the monster while we were in a transacting
platform, pulling us deep in the abode of hell, Umbrella's main lab.
Making Sherry lie down, ensuring her it would all be all right, I
checked my ammo and took all that I found on the way with me.
Cautiously I stepped from the cabinet and looked for the bastard with
mean vengeance. I had a child to protect.
Sometimes I still wonder how come I survived him... I felt the
cutting of the claws on my skin and more than once I saw my life
halt, in an agonising, merciless repetition, during a fight with a
virtually invincible agent of death. I had managed to shoot
everything I had on him and again, the lump of biological tissues
submitted... Once again the massive body fell from the rocking
platform down on the level below. A sense of dejavu alerted me but I
had hoped it was the end... I was so tired from that battle I didn't
care and since there was no way I could find and verify it was all
done, I thought it was all over. What mattered was staying alive and
protect Sherry. Therefore, I dragged my steps back to the cabin,
scarred but victorious.
Sherry was there, trembling in fear and fatigue. I forced an
assuring face as I walked to her, feeling her feverish forehead.
Trying to appease her, once the platform stopped, I took her in my
arms, for she no longer could walk and she wrapped her little hands
around me as we decided to dare our exit to wherever we had reached.
With Sherry in my arms, I walked outside, looking carefully
around. The construction around us was immense, to tell the least.
Based underground, made from concrete and stainless steel, simple as
it could be was the Secret Laboratory of Umbrella in America. The den
where all major experiments were conducted, where the mass production
of the T-virus begun, where project Tyrant begun materialising, the
core of Umbrella from where the RPD communicated with the mansion,
now overrun by beasts and I had to find a shelter for Sherry in it.
I found a cabin where a guard must have dwelled and ensuring it
was empty from moving things and could be safely locked, I decided to
leave Sherry there for a little more, until I could find a solution
to our situation. Sherry was beginning to shake and as if it would
help, I took off my vest and put it over her lean shoulders... I
really don't know why this had touched her so deeply as to confess to
me... It's so hard when everyone wants you to be strong... yet her
words at those moments and her bashful admitting when she was
suffering because of my negligence are the most pleasant burden I
carry ever since. I will be strong for Sherry, whenever she needs me,
I'll be there. Always.
I didn't want to allow myself to be sentimental, not when I
still had to fight, so I asked her to sleep and, locking the door
behind me, I armed myself right on time.
I had pointlessly roamed in the endless laboratory for a great
amount of time, worrying about them all, Sherry, Leon, Annette... The
place smelled medicine, foulness, however that is defined and mostly,
decomposition. I too saw the ugliest zombies there. The G-virus was
in much greater quantities in the laboratory, I even felt it
alleviating inside me, therefore it was only natural that the process
of putrefaction was faster to those. The deranged corpses walked
naked, having started attacking each other in seek of nourishment,
being more of walking skeletons with a little flesh on their bloodied
bones. It is horrendous to see what the human body could turn to with
the effect of the G-virus... Pieces of dark brown rotten meat hang
from these things, the areas where hair were pulled lacked skin
alike, they had large bite cavities and the stench was clogging... In
one occasion, where I was surprised by one in a corner and nearly had
to fight it in body to body combat, I saw thousand tiny _worms_
crawling upon it and particularly a nest on its broken skull...
I'm not that squeamish any longer but I haven't gotten over
that memory.
However fortified the secret laboratory was, it had submitted
to the G-virus. The toxins were so abundant there even were gigantic
plants eating up the building, pieces of it were torn off like hydras
and roamed in the corridors, detecting and attacking me... I'm only
glad all this went down in that explosion.
I struggled against stronger mutations of the species in this
building, where they were in advantageous environment, always in a
hurry. I had to take Sherry out and FAST. It also was the last time I
ever saw Annette again, while hoping for anything that could have
helped, but the encounter didn't soothe my fears or gladden me, for,
if not the virus, paranoia was beginning to overtake her. She walked
threateningly to me with mean eyes and a vial at hand, raving about
the G-virus, as her husband's legacy, as if it was truly some virtue
worth preserving. This time, mentioning Sherry didn't work, but...
the truth in the wild roar did.
I don't know whether Annette was cognisant enough to know this
was her husband or whether she dreaded for his well being but,
somehow I think she was aware of the effects of the G-virus she had
too helped into creating. So when the roar echoed, so distressingly
nearby, in a flash through her paranoia, his name came to her lips
and she run towards it...
As soon as I realised, I grabbed the grenade launcher I carried
and run after her but...
I was late.
I don't know if I could have prevented this. Although something
alerts me against Annette's perseverance to life, a part of me still
believes she should have survived, at least for Sherry's sake. But
there's nothing I could have done for her. Before I reached the
corner that her agitated speed carried her surprisingly fast, her
desperate wail tore through my ears and I only reached right as
Annette was falling at the slash of the top arm of that abomination.
Before my eyes stood a behemoth of nearly eight feet in height
with a hideous extrusion for head and four powerful clawed hands, its
body entirely formed from decomposed matter and toxins. Annette came
sliding at my feet, slashed open by a swing the hand had taken, right
before my eyes, right a second before I arrived...
"NO!" I screamed in frustration as I lifted the launcher to it
but it hadn't noticed me or I don't know why it didn't stay back and
fight, perhaps it still preserved some reasoning and c h os e not
to fight me, instead it hopped with frightening speed and strength up
and went through the ceiling above us.
I stopped there, hollering with fierceness for the fucker to
come back, wishing to slain him right there and stop the disastrous
advance of his, but there was nothing I could do for it. In agony I
came to my knees next to Annette...
She was no more than a dying, slashed corpse with blood
streaming from three sashes cutting through her body and bubbling
from her mouth as she spoke... She was gasping for breath, but it
seemed that with her life, she lost her madness... Regret and sorrow
were in her voice as she strained to give me details about my leave
and the recipe for the vaccine which she knew... but more than all,
she bestowed me the care of Sherry... a load I still don't know if
I'm fit to carry.
Annette's memory is accompanied with deep sorrow in my mind, as
a woman who was full of love for her family and never had the chance
to offer it to the ones concerned. She was a woman who suffered under
superficial values she had adopted and these only to preserve her
loved ones to her...
I don't know if I'm wrong to think of her like that but
somehow, I categorise her to that group of people who weren't strong
enough to admit to themselves what they did was wrong and were
victimised by their very hopes...
In shock I remained by her side as her last breath flied
through her lips and only then did I get at my feet, clasping a
bloody piece of paper with the recipe for the vaccine, to be
flabbergasted by a voice. A digitised announcement from every
megaphone of the forsaken laboratory, a lifeless playback of a
feminine voice, loud enough to cover any other possible sound as it
spoke.
The self-destruct sequence had been activated.
Although I didn't have the margin to figure out the cause of
it, I had thought that William-mutant had accidentally triggered the
procedure by destroying vital parts of the machinery. I didn't know
then, neither had I cared to list my options. I only knew my heart
that had skipped in my chest and my courage that slipped like steam
through my soul. My limbs were shaking in fear as then I heard the
repeated alert resonant sound. Shaking and with Sherry at my mind, I
forced myself do what I knew I had to do.
On my way to the laboratory Annette had directed me to
construct the vaccine, I had passed by the monitoring room where... I
saw Leon in one of the cameras...
Again, I had not a clue. But I sensed it, even though the
signal was so faint that it couldn't be identified as a warning. I
simply sensed something was wrong and my subconscious told me it was
a thing beyond the entire building falling apart, all over us. It was
something different than our lives about to come to an abrupt end.
Only it was so faint, so indefinite that I couldn't pick it up, so
fleeting as was instantly dismissed... not to return until the time
would bring it back again... but it was there and I had known it. It
was only after that I finally found out about it...
I saw Leon standing before what looked a metallic surface which
seemed like the inside of an elevator to me, from which I believed he
had made it and therefore I hoped I would soon meet him... He stood
there, lost and startled and... I had assumed he had lost it because
of the alarm he no doubt had too heard... But it didn't bother me. I
had no time to think of that so automatically the thought was pushed
on the back of my mind, as I told him about Sherry, begging him to
look for her... I had worried him out of his mind once more, yet he
conceded to my request, thankfully, and I rushed for the vaccination.
I left masses of creatures that never lived behind me on my way
with my heart drumming in my chest and yet, I have never felt
stronger than I did that day in my entire life. With the vaccine at
hand, I made my way to my only hope to the rest of my life, to the
exit I was hoping to meet Leon with Sherry...
My escape was through the power generation room. I run right on
time, hearing behind me the last gate shut with a pound like a door
of doom. With the annoying buzz of the warning I rushed to the
platform right opposite of me, straight ahead, almost greeting me
with open arms. I pressed the button to call it...
...but something different came to me.
I had completely forgotten it but it seems like it had roamed
over the ceiling looking for whatever it was and when, somehow
realising it was the end, it wanted to take me down with it, if so it
would be.
A pound came from the ceiling over me, then a second one and I
retreated, shaking my agitated head in horrified disbelief as the
roof crashed and it fell right before me with its arms dangerously
spread. An ugly mutation. A disgusting moving grossness, loathsome
beyond description, out for my blood.
Fear flowed through my veins but the adrenaline constructed a
more lethal cocktail. I was t h a t close to the end. Nothing would
stand in my way. I run at first, wanting to get a clear distance to
fight this mutation but I wouldn't let it get me. I wasn't fleeing. I
was fighting with equal ferocity. It was more than personal. It was
inhumanly violent and beyond reason. In that last battle against a
mindless opponent, there were two beasts in that room.
Running to get behind it and away from the menacing claws, I
shot at it whenever I could, having the time, mercilessly chasing
after me in mind. The mutagenic beast received my shots but instead
of dying, it transformed to a different form of weapon, using up all
its power in a desperate attempt.
It looked like a grizzly with a huge sharp toothed hole instead
of head, moving very fast howbeit awkwardly. It jumped upon the
machinery, looming over me. The ugly mouth grinned but, however crazy
as that was, I didn't run but instead I shot it. It hit and it reared
in a reverberating growl and I shot it again. And again. It pounced
on me and I run as it tried to munch me and turned back shooting...
It screamed in frustration as it reached out for me but I wouldn't
lose. Not now. Not when I was that close.
Some have questioned whether killing those subjected to these
biological weapons was a good thing. Jin had too objected, he had
said that perhaps by studying them we could find a way to cure
them... but idealism has never been me. 'If clauses' only hinder us.
What is the point of imagining situations that never occurred?
I do admit that the same questions crossed my mind from time to
time. And frankly, I don't think killing the beast that had emerged
from William Birkin's flesh was a crime. I doubt killing William
Birkin at all should be handled as a crime either...
Coming to think of it, would he have done so, had things been
otherwise? Had Umbrella not betrayed him, had he not been shot and
had he been recognised instead, for both his destructive inventions,
would he still have chosen to try his innovation on a human? Perhaps
not, perhaps I wouldn't be facing that beast then with a loaded
grenade launcher; perhaps I would be facing someone else; the father
of another child, the husband or wife of another person, or perhaps
someone else, unarmed even would be standing against it... His
creation was a weapon and Chris had once told me in the most accurate
way possible, 'sis, when you carry a gun, you can bet you will fire'.
William Birkin had created the G-virus to be employed as a weapon.
Eventually... it would find its use.
I never regret having shot William Birkin down, if there still
are people who would associate that abomination with a human being.
On the contrary, when I was fighting it, I was a beast myself,
fighting for everything I held dear and wouldn't let go to a mindless
failure of a dream. If asked to do it again, I'll point a grenade
launcher at him, like I did that night when I held it with all my
strength and fired. For Sherry; his own flesh and blood who's future
he never gave a second thought when he sacrificed himself to his
invention and whom he exposed to such danger, using her to propagate
his sick vision. For all those unfortunate special forces members who
risked their lives to protect the even more unlucky people from his
insane experiments, those who only wanted to wake up each day around
the ones they cared about. For Annette, who loved him to the end and
the end it was. And lastly, one for me and my brother Chris and all
of my hometown he had no right to destroy the way he and his team
did.
'Bastard!' is the only thing that comes to mind when I think of
him, exactly like I had thought right then feeling absolutely no
fear, nothing but anger. 'YOU are not standing in MY way!' I grunted
and pointed the launcher at whatever he had become. One grenade. And
another. And another. The launcher was pushing me back and I
struggled to remain to my spot. The cartridge was over and I still
remember my hands quavering as in extreme haste I discarded it to
refill... I shot again right at his face, or whatever that living
ravine could be called, again and again...
The ground was shaking as its lumpy body jerked towards me,
slowing down in pace but never in intention, until, finally... it
left a desperate whiz as it collapsed and moved no longer.
It was done.
Or so I thought...
I stood tiredly above the mountain of flesh, panting down on it
when the platform had reached my floor. The ding startled me. It was
the worst time to panic.
In fear that the monster might come to its senses, or worse,
something else getting me, if not becoming fireworks, I run like I
never had but even as my knees shook from panic, I was strong at that
moment. Weakness had left me for good and I dashed with a gun at
hand. Nothing, nothing would get in my way.
Nothing but fate.
When the platform reached to the bottom, as I run ahead to find
myself in a space scattered with unmoving dead bodies, I was dazed by
an advancing light... The escape train had begun moving as I reached
to the end, remainders of living corpses laying down before me. I
looked ahead horrified and then at the train in despair, then saw
Leon hanging from the window. Waving his hand he called at me and as
the train speeded to the start of the tunnel, he went in, lest he
lost his head from the edge of the wall.
Fear spurs impossible courage in a person, bringing out powers
one never believed he had. Right now, I'm glad I was triggered right,
for the moment I realised, I could only reach for the last entrance.
I run over the bars as well and jumped, like I had only in movies
believed possible, straight into the balcony of the last wagon of the
moving train, landing upon my shoulder and banging my back on the
bars of that balcony. The sentiment that overflowed me with the pain
was one I'd give anything to experience again... It was the knowledge
of success, accomplishment and complete safety, all together.
Right now I dread at the thought that it would take less than a
moment of hesitation to end up in toasted shards and perhaps an inch
to break the vaccine capsule. Fortunately nothing of the like
happened but then, I didn't even consider those possibilities. I
immediately got to my feet and run all the way to the first wagon to
find Leon and with him Sherry, still unconscious.
I run to her beyond my mind, completely ignoring Leon's rush of
questions and right as the balance of roles had shifted between us, I
once again cut him short, this time crudely too, as in haste I gave
Sherry the vaccine shot. Leon kneeled silently by my side and
watched...
I vividly remember her ashen face, cold as the wicked death
slowly became her, when her skin was glistering like that of a
plastic doll, her face was deformed in weariness... I never believed
I would ever see her coughing in bitter slobber as she was coming
round...
I think I cried when she called my name...
Leon left us alone as he locked himself in the pilot's cabin...
I didn't know why he did so, I thought I had offended him with my
behaviour... how selfish of me...
However, such was my relief to be able to speak to Sherry once
again, knowing it was all over for her that I didn't bother with
Leon... It felt odd knowing I had her trust offered to me and knowing
what a valuable thing I had the task to take care of... but it was
something I more than willingly took and when Sherry came to my arms,
I embraced her back and vowed to myself that I would never let harm
come near her again. Never.
I still don't know how to describe my feelings towards her. I
don't know if this is what they call motherhood but when I see her
happy, I'm happy with her and when something threatens her, just like
those days, I turn ferocious and ready to rip it all away...
I love Sherry. Because, in the long run, if something has
survived at all, if there's a reason worth fighting, that is her and
the ones like her. Those innocent who dream of a peaceful life. Those
who are dear to us and our power should protect and not destroy.
Those who make our life meaningful and give essence to it...
It was the end of our journey through horror. As the day was
slowly breaking and Leon joined us again, the train approached the
nearest city. In that trip I forced both of them to take the green
herbs I had with me and was confronted with familiar protests, such
as Chris and my father gave when my mother insisted they had to take
the medicine. Men... they're so sad when they claim to be okay to
avoid medical treatment...
The train was programmed to stop about a mile outside the city
limits, as it did... it was a bumpy halt but we were all safe, all in
one piece. Tired as we were, we walked to the city and made it to the
police station, under surprised looks of inhabitants, wondering where
from us three had come, looking as though we returned from a war.
We were received by the police who then notified the rescue
services, once they understood it was all about the blast of the
factory that had been noticed. We received medical treatment and
Raccoon city's demise was shortly made public. STARS members reached
the area and then underwent all the parts of the progress: the
questioning, notifying our families and that's where the fight truly
begun.

The Umbrella case was filed and concealed but it wasn't meant
to be for too long. Sometimes, even the most corrupt opportunists get
fed up.
For me, it was now personal. Umbrella was as much as my
business and Leon too avowed to devote his life to its takedown...
Access to Raccoon City was closed down for a good of four
entire months, in which much more were revealed about its foul
destiny. I finished my degree with a good average of 61 out of 100,
which is not bad regarding and then I made my papers and send them to
the STARS. Having had more than adequate experience and well, being
Chris's sister, who was among the outstanding members, the answer
came back very soon and positive.
Chris emerged long afterwards, nearly six months later. He was
alive and well, still with Jill and the same person I remembered;
unharmed by the corruption he was faced with, Raccoon City's most
wanted bloke with face of a baby and body of an ox, as I jeered him
often and never thought I'd get the chance to, ever again... He
showed up unexpectedly and when he walked through the door and
shouted my name before grabbing me in a strong embrace, I knew it
hadn't been all for nothing...
I was trained to become a STARS member. My degree in
engineering wouldn't be utilised much but I had other priorities. I
worked alongside Leon, Jill and Chris, starting ahead in the Umbrella
mission where I was unanimously selected to participate. I met the
rest of the team. Barry, a father of two wonderful daughters, the
guns expert and madly in love with his Colt Python Magnum that had
saved his life more than he would tell; which he did either way,
regardless; Rebecca, a girl younger than I was, expert in first aid
and chemistry, willing to run everywhere for the sake of the mission,
always having a smiling fresh, chattering attitude; Brad, the
helicopter pilot who would never make it within the battlefield but
was the sort of quiet person no team can do without and an excellent
cook; all of us entirely devoted to Umbrella's ultimate takedown.
One year later, as I had just reached the degree of sergeant,
the Umbrella headquarters in Europe was wiped out, thanks to the
courageous efforts of the remaining of the glorious Alpha and Bravo
team...
...
I don't know if I should say things are all right now. Umbrella
is gone... or so I thought. Or perhaps this is something totally
different. But I can't believe I will see the day when I'll be able
to say Leon's sacrifice didn't go for nothing...
Leon's and who knows how many more...
Sherry is now living with my family. She's attending high
school and she is more than brilliant; daughter of two scientists,
what do you expect? Mathematics submit to an enjoyable game and the
riddle of Physics is a mere open door for her. I'm sincerely happy
for her grades and seeing that she adapts well in her high school
community, despite my fears that she might turn to be a loner. She
has her friends and goes to parties like most every normal teenager.
But will there ever come a time she may go to bed and not have to
worry for nightmares to crawl in her head? And can I just sit back
and be certain that, along with her brains, that other streak of
ambition won't ever come out for yet one more raid of monsters?
I push those thoughts back with each day passing, hoping that
some things are perhaps a tiny bit too inhuman to come to life but I
have seen the worst and I don't know what I'm eligible to expect.
Each time I look at Sherry's face, even though the memory is slowly
abating, I still see the ashen colour, I see her unconscious as she
slowly develops the lethal embryo... And still, what if there comes
one day when she will forget those memories and similar aspiration
leads her to implant a malicious organism into another human? What if
there still is one dormant fracture of that curse within her body?
Sometimes, I still wonder whether she has fully recovered from the
G-virus. Sometimes, hope is just not enough.