"Matt?… Matt?" I could hear her voice enter my subconscious. The warm voice echoed off unseen walls in the darkness I'd been drowning myself in since the time of the mutation attack. "Matt?"… Was I dreaming? "Matt? Are you okay?"

Alice?… Where are you?…

Slowly, I regained strength… Enough to wake and open my eyes at least. I stared up at the bright lights casting down on me. I squinted against the pain the lights caused my eyes. I let out a groan, I felt so numb… So cold.

"Matt?"

Alice… She needed reassurance, I could tell. After all, she couldn't really tell if I were really dead or alive at the moment. I slowly turned my head to face her. She stared back at me, eyes wide with horror. Please don't look at me that way…

"I was… Afraid I'd lost you." She said, averting her eyes toward something else.

A weak smile appeared on my face. Was she really concerned about me? "Its alright." I whispered hoarsely, my throat dry and scratched. I was suffering from a bad case of cottonmouth, but yet I managed to swallow… something. "I'm not leaving you."

"Please don't."

She was genuinely scared!? No way… I couldn't take my eyes off her. Each time my eyes went unfocused, I forced them to cooperate and at least let me look into her face. "Don't worry."

"Matt… We have to find a way out of here. We have to stick together, understood?" Alice turned her eyes back to me. I watched as her eyes moved across my face, studying the grotesque features that now lined my entire face. I was still human for the most part…

I couldn't stand to look at her anymore, so I averted my gaze, catching a first glance at my arm. My arm looked nothing at all human. Was it a… a tentacle? No! Couldn't be! Could it? I bit my tongue and tried to flex the non-existent fingers on what used to be a hand. "Why!?" the question once again rose.

"They did this… Those bastards will pay for what they've done to you."

My head snapped back, face twisted in agony as a change began to take effect. Well… I wasn't numb anymore! I choked back a scream of pain and my body jerked. Would the pain EVER stop? I'm sorry, but this was getting old…

"Matt! Hold on!" Alice said in terror, then began screaming for help. "Will somebody help him!? PLEASE! Somebody help him!"

It didn't work, however… Nobody came. And yet… I knew someone was there, watching. There had to be someone behind that glass, laughing at my pain. Taking notes on how I did a horrible rigid dance while strapped to the bed, needles and tubes sticking out from every possible area in my damaged body.

My arm, yet again, popped and cracked. Breaking and reassembling. I could feel my veins bubble, popping from my neck and moving around under my skin. I hissed in pain, and tried to jerk my arm away from the leather binds. Alice continued to watch, terrified at what was happening. Somehow, I knew she felt this was in some way… her fault… But it wasn't and I truly wished she'd stop blaming herself for what was happening to me.

Finally, the pain subsided by itself and I allowed myself to relax. My arm had changed back into a regular arm, as if my wishing for it to become normal really made it work. But I could still feel the tentacle beneath it. A disgusting wormlike structure hiding beneath regular looking flesh…

"Please…" I prayed, looking to the ceiling, a couple tears streaming from my eyes. They mixed well with the beads of sweat, so hopefully Alice didn't see my weakness. "Please just kill me now." I pleaded, swallowing hard.

"No! You can't die Matt. We'll fight this. We can do it."

"Face it… We're stuck here for the rest of our tortured lives. We're lab rats… Lab rats for Umbrella. Nothing more! They have complete and total control over us Alice." I said in a harsh scolding tone. "This is why people have been trying to bring this company down for years! Look what they've done to us!"

I looked over at her, eyes filled with hate. She looked as if she'd tried to shrink further into the bed she laid upon. Was I really that scary? I just continued to glare. "What they've done to me at least… you look normal and me?" I looked into the mirror on the opposite wall. "I look like a monster. Some… modern day Frankenstein fantasy."

I was absolutely right. My face was withered and scarred. My hair was almost non-existent. I obviously hadn't noticed until now… But I had only one eye remaining… The other was graphed over with a shoddy stitch job. My upper lip was curled back menacingly… something I figured was caused by the tight stitches that currently held my face together.

"Oh god…" I shuttered and forced myself to look away from the horrid image that was myself.

"Initiate Test Sequence…" What was that? Did Alice hear it too? I looked at her for answers. When my eyes fell upon her, a grid appeared and began scanning her. Wait, this was all in my eye, wasn't it? Ones and zeros appeared. What did they mean?

What's this? It read: Target: Infected- Condition: Restrained- Threat: Minimal

I blinked, closed my eye and rolled it around in the back of my eyelid. "ugh… I don't feel so good." I muttered, looking back at the ceiling.

"It's going to be okay Matt." Alice whispered, trying to reassure me… But her words were lost as everything began to shut down.

"Hibernation Mode" I heard the voice again. It was inside my head? Once again I lost consciousness… funny, I didn't feel at all tired…