Resident Evil: Return of a Nightmare
Chapter 13
By Windra
3...
2...
1...
BOOM!
There was a sudden burst of light and heat, and the roar of the Cougar monster inside was silenced. Debris from the Umbrella facility shot off in directions, leaving burning pieces of metal and wood, various dismembered bodies, and destroyed equipement lying on the ground. No one would be able to find out what the equipment was, or what had happened to the people, as everything had been fried completely...lacking any evidence of Umbrella's experiments. A tall, ominous mushroom-shaped cloud began to form over the burning wreckage, concealing what was left of the weakly supported roof, the helicopter sitting on it, and the black clad man standing beside the chopper.
Raven shuddered as she led Brad, Rachel, and the young child, as well as her team, to the van, where Clarice was taking care of Rowan. Brad had refused to be carried, although his bullet wounds had punctured his left leg and lower abdoment and were bleeding excessively. But he was still weak from the blood loss, and Rachel was now helping him limp away from the explosion. Sherry was running along Raven and Sebastian, but quickly sprinted ahead of them, anxious to get to the van and see how her friend and soon to be 'sister' was doing. She reached the van first, and pulled the door open, jumping inside to see Clarice leaning over the older girl's body, on a gurney in the back that was strapped to the floor of the van, placing a wet clothe on her forehead.
Sherry nodded to her and walked to Rowan's side, sitting by her head and looking down. Raven and the others piled into the van quickly, knowing that the police would find out about the explosion and arrive soon, and Rachel and Brad strode over to where the older child lay, an anxious look on their faces.
Rowan looked like she came right out of a steam box. Her face was red, and her eyes were closed, rolling behind her eyelids as if she was seeing something in her dreams. Her head moved as she made weak moans, and occasionally opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound would escape. Her body twitched as the ice packs under her back and head tried to cool the boiling, feverish blood inside.
Rachel and Brad took seats beside Sherry, and Raven headed to the front of the van, starting the engine while the others took their seats, and the van began to move. Sebastian looked at Clarice, who now moved over to Brad to dress his wounds.
Nobody noticed the helicopter take off from what remained of the roof of the building, or saw the billowing cloud of black smoke scatter slightly as the blades rippes through them...or saw the roof collapse as soon as the helicopter flew off of it. There was a small rumble as it collapsed, that deafened the sound of the chopper...and all was silent as the machine took off to the horizon.
**********
"How high is it?" Sebastian asked, reffering to Rowan's temperature.
"One hundred five point one degrees," was the response from Clarice. "Going down slowly but surely."
After a few minutes of checking Brad's wounds for broken bones or damaged organs, she shook her head. "Bullets missed the organs, no broken bones, no internal bleeding..."
Brad looked about ready to collapse from the loss of blood. Rachel responded by pulling him up from the seat he was at and leading him to the floor and getting him to rest against the wall of the car, where he slowly began to drift off. Clarice looked at Rachel with a concerned look, and started over, but she shook her head.
"I'll be fine...," Rachel whispered, sitting beside Brad and looking at him with a concerned look.
Clarice nodded and moved over to Sherry to check up on her.
There was a low moan heard from Rowan, and her mouth moved again, murmering faint words. Her eyes were still closed, and she was still unconcious, but...
"...Mom...Dad...?...Can hear...you...but can't...see you..."
**********
[i]It was cold beyond freezing, yet there was warmth...
It was dark beyond midnight, yet there was light...
A void, black, yet lit somehow...it couldn't be explained...
Voices...some familiar, others beyond recognition. Some stood out clearly, but Rowan could hear two the clearest. She heard the two very clear voices whispering something, but no words were audible, just noises...and the owners of those voices never appeared...
"Mom...Dad...?" Rowan whispered.
Her voice was distant, and echoed through the empty void, although there were no walls for her voice to bounce off of...
"I can hear you...but I can't see you..."
For a long moment, there was silence, and Rowan grew helpless. She bowed her head to stare at her feet, and let a small tear roll down and off her cheek and into the emptiness below.
"Even in death...I lost them...I failed..."
"You are not dead, Rowan...and you have not lost us..."
That voice...
Rowan's head shot up, and her eyes widened. Her mother's face, staring at her, transparent, yet heavenly. Bright green eyes...long brown hair...Susan...her mother...
"Mom..."
Another pause, and another face appeared next to her. A man's face, short, brown hair, tinted gray...blue eyes...Reid...her father...
"Dad..."
"We'll be with you...," her mother whispered.
"Always...just remember us...," the father said.
Rowan blinked, then walked towards them. "I will...you'll come back...won't you?"
"We can't...," her mother whispered, closing her eyes. "We never can, Rowan...we have passed on..."
"And our time is short...," her father whispered, smiling softly. "We must leave, my daughter...We cannot stay...you are stirring..."
"Stirring?"
"Yes...you're body is waking up, and so are you..."
"Remember us...," the mother sighed. "Always...keep us in here..."
Her mother's hand materialized, and pointed at Rowan's chest, at her heart.
"Remember us...," the father nodded. Her mother sighed and kissed her lightly on her forehead, her father did the same.
"We'll be with you...," they both spoke in usion. "Always...just keep us in your heart..."
"I will...please don't leave me!" Rowan cried out, reaching for them. "Don't leave again...!"
"Goodbye..."
Their voices faded away, as did their faces...her parents were gone...for good...?
"I will remember you...," Rowan whispered, and felt a jolt of pain pass through her body...[/i]
...And suddenly, there was light. In front of her eyes, enveloping her body. She winced as dizziness took over, and she groaned softly, turning her head away from the light, turning her head to the side, and staring at a familiar pair of eyes. Brown hair, brown eyes...they belonged to a familiar man, who smiled softly. Brad? But he was shot...he fell to the ground...but she could see the blood stains on his clothes, and the bullt wounds...
"Rowan...you're awake...," he whispered, wandering over and kneeling beside where she lay.
"Barely...," Rowan whispered, forcing a grin.
She noticed that it was too quiet. Nobody spoke. She could see Rachel and Sherry looking at her with small smiles, but they looked worried...It was too quiet...too ackward of an atmosphere.
"Brad...is somebody sick?" she whispered, her eyes burning. She seemed to have forgotten about the fever, yet it lingered in her mind, which was now somewhat scrambled, as if she was delirious.
"Yeah...somebody's sick...go back to bed, okay?"
Brad sounded worry, too.
"Am...[i]I[/i] sick?"
A pause, then, "Yeah, you're sick...Go back to sleep, okay?"
Rowan's body complied, and her eyes closed. She was dimly aware of the movement of the place they sat in, as if it was a car, but she didn't care as she dozed off into a restfull sleep.
**********
When she woke up again, Rowan was in a bed, staring at the ceiling of a room. Her mind was a bit clearer, but she still felt tired and sick, and a little delirious. The world spun slightly before stopping. She blinked a couple of times to get rid of the burning sensation in her eyes, and she turned her head to look at her surroundings...
A small table to the left of her bed, with an alarm clock sitting on it, which read 1:30 A.M., a dresser by the left wall, a closet to her right, beside the door...a gray and white kitten curled up at her feet.
[i]Felix?[/i]
[i]My room?![/i]
Rowan immediantly bolted up, and regretted doing so, as she fell back onto the bed, clutching her stomach as it began to stir. She gulped the bile back down, and everything memory seemed to click together, then fall apart again...
[i]Maybe it was all a dream...?
Too real...
Where's Brad? Where's Rachel? Sherry?[/i]
A pause, and she shook her head lightly when she got no response. She froze, however, when she heard footsteps...
And familiar voices...
She looked about as frightened as a rabbit. What is she was seeing things? What if she was daydreaming she was home, but was still in the Umbrella facility? Everything was scrabmled in her mind...she couldn't remember...
There was a blur as a young child ran in, grinning madly. Blonde-brown hair, red hair band, red tee-shirt with a a black one under it, black skirt, black socks, white sneakers...
[i]Sherry?[/i]
She blinked and watched as the girl skidded to a stop at her bed. Sherry grinned widely. "You're awake! You were right, Rowan!"
"Right...?" Rowan blinked. "Right about what?"
"Your aunt said she'd let me stay here as part of the family!"
A blink, and Rowan remembered what she had said to Sherry in the facility.
[i]"If you want, when we find my friends and get out of here, you can live with my aunt and I."[/i]
Rowan grinned. "I'm glad."
"So am I," the younger child stated as she sat down beside the bed, leaning against it. "You feeling any better?"
"Sort of...feel like I've been hit by a truck..."
"Welcome back to the land of the living," whispered another voice. An all too familiar man stepped into the room and up to the bed. Brad.
"Hey...," was the response from Rowan. She shook her head. "So it was real? It wasn't a dream?"
Brad looked confused for a moment, but nodded. "It was real...all horribly real..."
"Where's Justin..."
The ex-S.T.A.R.S. member stared at the ground, shaking his head. "He...didn't...-"
"-make it...," the girl finished, shaking her head softly. She remembered what she saw in her dream...that she saw Justin, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide and glazed, mouth agape, and a bullet wound in the center of his forehead. She gulped. "Then...what about the building...?"
"It's been destroyed," another voice, female, said as the familiar woman walked. Rachel gave a weak grin, although her eyes showed that she was tired. "Everything...gone. No evidence of Umbrella's work..."
Umbrella...
How she despised that name.
The thirteen-year-old winced lightly and sat up slowly, trying to hold down her upset stomach and talk at the same time. "Then...Wesker? Where is he? What happened to him?"
"Wesker...?" Brad asked, looking up, his eyes shimmering with disbelief, although he already knew he was alive. He sighed and spoke. "Damien said he left the building after he found you..."
Rachel filled in the rest. "We haven't seen him since...Either he was still in the building when it blew...or he got away..."
"What about the other people?" the older girl asked.
"They left right after we brought you here. It was too dangerous for them to stay, Umbrella could easily find their van..."
There was another figure that stepped into the room. Gartha, Rowan's aunt, whose eyes were red, as if she had been crying. She smiled weakly. "Don't. Do. That. Again. Ever."
Rowan flashed a grin, "Ah...I'll try..."
Gartha walked beside her bed and sat beside her, kissing the girl's forehead lightly, watching her. "I was worried about you and Brad...don't do that again, please?"
"I can't promise that," Rowan responded solemnly, shaking her head.
Gartha blinked, then cocked her head. "Rowan...how come...?"
"Cuz...I promised...," she stammered, struggling with the words, both from her delirious state and from the hurt of the memories she wanted to lock away...memories of the city of the damned. "I...vowed to...help end Umbrella...back in Raccoon. I promised to help...end them..."
No more words were said, there was no time for them to be said. Rowan's eyes fluttered, and she collapsed back onto the pillow, falling unconcious for the fourth time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Last chapter! Expect epilogue soon!
Chapter 13
By Windra
3...
2...
1...
BOOM!
There was a sudden burst of light and heat, and the roar of the Cougar monster inside was silenced. Debris from the Umbrella facility shot off in directions, leaving burning pieces of metal and wood, various dismembered bodies, and destroyed equipement lying on the ground. No one would be able to find out what the equipment was, or what had happened to the people, as everything had been fried completely...lacking any evidence of Umbrella's experiments. A tall, ominous mushroom-shaped cloud began to form over the burning wreckage, concealing what was left of the weakly supported roof, the helicopter sitting on it, and the black clad man standing beside the chopper.
Raven shuddered as she led Brad, Rachel, and the young child, as well as her team, to the van, where Clarice was taking care of Rowan. Brad had refused to be carried, although his bullet wounds had punctured his left leg and lower abdoment and were bleeding excessively. But he was still weak from the blood loss, and Rachel was now helping him limp away from the explosion. Sherry was running along Raven and Sebastian, but quickly sprinted ahead of them, anxious to get to the van and see how her friend and soon to be 'sister' was doing. She reached the van first, and pulled the door open, jumping inside to see Clarice leaning over the older girl's body, on a gurney in the back that was strapped to the floor of the van, placing a wet clothe on her forehead.
Sherry nodded to her and walked to Rowan's side, sitting by her head and looking down. Raven and the others piled into the van quickly, knowing that the police would find out about the explosion and arrive soon, and Rachel and Brad strode over to where the older child lay, an anxious look on their faces.
Rowan looked like she came right out of a steam box. Her face was red, and her eyes were closed, rolling behind her eyelids as if she was seeing something in her dreams. Her head moved as she made weak moans, and occasionally opened her mouth as if to say something, but no sound would escape. Her body twitched as the ice packs under her back and head tried to cool the boiling, feverish blood inside.
Rachel and Brad took seats beside Sherry, and Raven headed to the front of the van, starting the engine while the others took their seats, and the van began to move. Sebastian looked at Clarice, who now moved over to Brad to dress his wounds.
Nobody noticed the helicopter take off from what remained of the roof of the building, or saw the billowing cloud of black smoke scatter slightly as the blades rippes through them...or saw the roof collapse as soon as the helicopter flew off of it. There was a small rumble as it collapsed, that deafened the sound of the chopper...and all was silent as the machine took off to the horizon.
**********
"How high is it?" Sebastian asked, reffering to Rowan's temperature.
"One hundred five point one degrees," was the response from Clarice. "Going down slowly but surely."
After a few minutes of checking Brad's wounds for broken bones or damaged organs, she shook her head. "Bullets missed the organs, no broken bones, no internal bleeding..."
Brad looked about ready to collapse from the loss of blood. Rachel responded by pulling him up from the seat he was at and leading him to the floor and getting him to rest against the wall of the car, where he slowly began to drift off. Clarice looked at Rachel with a concerned look, and started over, but she shook her head.
"I'll be fine...," Rachel whispered, sitting beside Brad and looking at him with a concerned look.
Clarice nodded and moved over to Sherry to check up on her.
There was a low moan heard from Rowan, and her mouth moved again, murmering faint words. Her eyes were still closed, and she was still unconcious, but...
"...Mom...Dad...?...Can hear...you...but can't...see you..."
**********
[i]It was cold beyond freezing, yet there was warmth...
It was dark beyond midnight, yet there was light...
A void, black, yet lit somehow...it couldn't be explained...
Voices...some familiar, others beyond recognition. Some stood out clearly, but Rowan could hear two the clearest. She heard the two very clear voices whispering something, but no words were audible, just noises...and the owners of those voices never appeared...
"Mom...Dad...?" Rowan whispered.
Her voice was distant, and echoed through the empty void, although there were no walls for her voice to bounce off of...
"I can hear you...but I can't see you..."
For a long moment, there was silence, and Rowan grew helpless. She bowed her head to stare at her feet, and let a small tear roll down and off her cheek and into the emptiness below.
"Even in death...I lost them...I failed..."
"You are not dead, Rowan...and you have not lost us..."
That voice...
Rowan's head shot up, and her eyes widened. Her mother's face, staring at her, transparent, yet heavenly. Bright green eyes...long brown hair...Susan...her mother...
"Mom..."
Another pause, and another face appeared next to her. A man's face, short, brown hair, tinted gray...blue eyes...Reid...her father...
"Dad..."
"We'll be with you...," her mother whispered.
"Always...just remember us...," the father said.
Rowan blinked, then walked towards them. "I will...you'll come back...won't you?"
"We can't...," her mother whispered, closing her eyes. "We never can, Rowan...we have passed on..."
"And our time is short...," her father whispered, smiling softly. "We must leave, my daughter...We cannot stay...you are stirring..."
"Stirring?"
"Yes...you're body is waking up, and so are you..."
"Remember us...," the mother sighed. "Always...keep us in here..."
Her mother's hand materialized, and pointed at Rowan's chest, at her heart.
"Remember us...," the father nodded. Her mother sighed and kissed her lightly on her forehead, her father did the same.
"We'll be with you...," they both spoke in usion. "Always...just keep us in your heart..."
"I will...please don't leave me!" Rowan cried out, reaching for them. "Don't leave again...!"
"Goodbye..."
Their voices faded away, as did their faces...her parents were gone...for good...?
"I will remember you...," Rowan whispered, and felt a jolt of pain pass through her body...[/i]
...And suddenly, there was light. In front of her eyes, enveloping her body. She winced as dizziness took over, and she groaned softly, turning her head away from the light, turning her head to the side, and staring at a familiar pair of eyes. Brown hair, brown eyes...they belonged to a familiar man, who smiled softly. Brad? But he was shot...he fell to the ground...but she could see the blood stains on his clothes, and the bullt wounds...
"Rowan...you're awake...," he whispered, wandering over and kneeling beside where she lay.
"Barely...," Rowan whispered, forcing a grin.
She noticed that it was too quiet. Nobody spoke. She could see Rachel and Sherry looking at her with small smiles, but they looked worried...It was too quiet...too ackward of an atmosphere.
"Brad...is somebody sick?" she whispered, her eyes burning. She seemed to have forgotten about the fever, yet it lingered in her mind, which was now somewhat scrambled, as if she was delirious.
"Yeah...somebody's sick...go back to bed, okay?"
Brad sounded worry, too.
"Am...[i]I[/i] sick?"
A pause, then, "Yeah, you're sick...Go back to sleep, okay?"
Rowan's body complied, and her eyes closed. She was dimly aware of the movement of the place they sat in, as if it was a car, but she didn't care as she dozed off into a restfull sleep.
**********
When she woke up again, Rowan was in a bed, staring at the ceiling of a room. Her mind was a bit clearer, but she still felt tired and sick, and a little delirious. The world spun slightly before stopping. She blinked a couple of times to get rid of the burning sensation in her eyes, and she turned her head to look at her surroundings...
A small table to the left of her bed, with an alarm clock sitting on it, which read 1:30 A.M., a dresser by the left wall, a closet to her right, beside the door...a gray and white kitten curled up at her feet.
[i]Felix?[/i]
[i]My room?![/i]
Rowan immediantly bolted up, and regretted doing so, as she fell back onto the bed, clutching her stomach as it began to stir. She gulped the bile back down, and everything memory seemed to click together, then fall apart again...
[i]Maybe it was all a dream...?
Too real...
Where's Brad? Where's Rachel? Sherry?[/i]
A pause, and she shook her head lightly when she got no response. She froze, however, when she heard footsteps...
And familiar voices...
She looked about as frightened as a rabbit. What is she was seeing things? What if she was daydreaming she was home, but was still in the Umbrella facility? Everything was scrabmled in her mind...she couldn't remember...
There was a blur as a young child ran in, grinning madly. Blonde-brown hair, red hair band, red tee-shirt with a a black one under it, black skirt, black socks, white sneakers...
[i]Sherry?[/i]
She blinked and watched as the girl skidded to a stop at her bed. Sherry grinned widely. "You're awake! You were right, Rowan!"
"Right...?" Rowan blinked. "Right about what?"
"Your aunt said she'd let me stay here as part of the family!"
A blink, and Rowan remembered what she had said to Sherry in the facility.
[i]"If you want, when we find my friends and get out of here, you can live with my aunt and I."[/i]
Rowan grinned. "I'm glad."
"So am I," the younger child stated as she sat down beside the bed, leaning against it. "You feeling any better?"
"Sort of...feel like I've been hit by a truck..."
"Welcome back to the land of the living," whispered another voice. An all too familiar man stepped into the room and up to the bed. Brad.
"Hey...," was the response from Rowan. She shook her head. "So it was real? It wasn't a dream?"
Brad looked confused for a moment, but nodded. "It was real...all horribly real..."
"Where's Justin..."
The ex-S.T.A.R.S. member stared at the ground, shaking his head. "He...didn't...-"
"-make it...," the girl finished, shaking her head softly. She remembered what she saw in her dream...that she saw Justin, staring at the ceiling, eyes wide and glazed, mouth agape, and a bullet wound in the center of his forehead. She gulped. "Then...what about the building...?"
"It's been destroyed," another voice, female, said as the familiar woman walked. Rachel gave a weak grin, although her eyes showed that she was tired. "Everything...gone. No evidence of Umbrella's work..."
Umbrella...
How she despised that name.
The thirteen-year-old winced lightly and sat up slowly, trying to hold down her upset stomach and talk at the same time. "Then...Wesker? Where is he? What happened to him?"
"Wesker...?" Brad asked, looking up, his eyes shimmering with disbelief, although he already knew he was alive. He sighed and spoke. "Damien said he left the building after he found you..."
Rachel filled in the rest. "We haven't seen him since...Either he was still in the building when it blew...or he got away..."
"What about the other people?" the older girl asked.
"They left right after we brought you here. It was too dangerous for them to stay, Umbrella could easily find their van..."
There was another figure that stepped into the room. Gartha, Rowan's aunt, whose eyes were red, as if she had been crying. She smiled weakly. "Don't. Do. That. Again. Ever."
Rowan flashed a grin, "Ah...I'll try..."
Gartha walked beside her bed and sat beside her, kissing the girl's forehead lightly, watching her. "I was worried about you and Brad...don't do that again, please?"
"I can't promise that," Rowan responded solemnly, shaking her head.
Gartha blinked, then cocked her head. "Rowan...how come...?"
"Cuz...I promised...," she stammered, struggling with the words, both from her delirious state and from the hurt of the memories she wanted to lock away...memories of the city of the damned. "I...vowed to...help end Umbrella...back in Raccoon. I promised to help...end them..."
No more words were said, there was no time for them to be said. Rowan's eyes fluttered, and she collapsed back onto the pillow, falling unconcious for the fourth time.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Last chapter! Expect epilogue soon!