Two

DARKNESS, ENDLESS DARKNESS AND A RUMBLING ALL around him.

Jacob's eyes slowly opened and his mind entered something closely resembling consciousness as he tried to assess the extent of his injuries.

Head…throbbing…right shoulder…stinging, bleeding…stomach…

"Fucking empty…"

He smiled weakly to no one in particular as he leaned back in the not so comfortable chair of his truck.

Wrecked truck…

He glanced around himself, the truck was totalled, the front of it wrapped around a rather large tree, the windows smashed and the passenger door clean off the hinges, there was smoke slowly emanating from its engine like an ominous tower of destruction into the sky.

He didn't event bother to shake his head at it, knowing that it would just make him more nauseous and right now he needed to stay alert. Or alert as his still rather rattled mind could be, but first he needed to work out just how he ended up in his current predicament.

Driving…well trying to drive up the mountain road…blizzard hits…everything turns white…tree…

"That's about it…"

He winced as a sharp pain shot through his right shoulder again, turning his head to glare at it angrily. From what he could tell when the windshield shattered on impact the glass must have slashed into his shoulder which right now was just a bloody mess, his good white t-shirt ruined by his own blood.

"Probably not as bad as it looks…mostly just torn cloth that got stained…hopefully"

He summarised this and then realised something much more important than his rather badly scratched shoulder. The blizzard had stopped, and as he looked out where the passenger door used to be he could see a village not twenty meters from where he had crashed.

He moved to remove his seatbelt. With any luck he could find someone to give him a ride out or at the very least give him directions to a way out of the mountains that didn't lead back the way he came, maybe give him a change of clothes and a warm place to sleep for the night.

"Maybe even a McDonalds, I'd kill for a Big Mac around about now"

With that he finally removed his stubborn seatbelt.

Probably jammed from the crash.

And then went to open his door, which he found wouldn't budge no matter how much muscle he slammed into it. Deciding it a lost cause he leaned over and climbed out the passenger side as well, nearly falling as a wave of dizziness flushed over him like a bad hangover.

Finally regaining some composure he began to walk in the direction of the quiet village, but that's what started to creep him out, it was very quiet.

Deathly quiet.

"Wait a minute, I've seen this movie before"

It had taken a few hours but Stephen currently stood at the far edge of a small deserted looking village, small compared to his hometown but not small as in he could easily see the other end. He could see the other end, but he even with his glasses he could only make out the blurry image of what he guessed was an Inn with a rather large tree behind it and…

SMOKE!

"A fire? Or a crash? But how would anything get up here and who would be stupid enough to risk it…"

He became ghostly silent as he realised that he was one of those people stupid enough to risk his own life and the life of a close friend for no good reason.

He decided to derail that train of thought before he started to slip into his old depression, so he focused on something that was slightly more disturbing.

The place was inanely quiet, eerily so. There wasn't even any wind; it was as if the entire place was dead and for some strange reason the cold air felt different. It felt as if it were sticking to his exposed skin, and the whole scene made him feel as if he were in some kind of old horror movie.

"If a chainsaw wielding maniac with a bag over his head appears within the next twenty minutes I'm out'a here"

The bad joke wasn't having its desired action of lightening his moods, if anything it didn't seem like a joke and more like he actually meant it. But he just swallowed the lump that had appeared in his throat and pushed on, only one thing was important right now.

You better be alive Dean, or I swear to god I'll kill you myself.

With that he turned to the shabby looking log cabin to his right and started to slowly limp towards it, hoping above all else that he'd find his friend or a way to call mountain control, or at the very least something to brace his leg with.

He stopped at the door, noting the lingering smell of decay in the air, like fruit that had been left out for a month and gone stale. It caught in his throat and he had to cough loudly to clear it as he raised his hand to knock lightly on the door. He waited several moments, but there was still nothing so he tried again, this time with more force.

Still it remained as deathly quiet as ever so he tried again with even more force, shaking the door on its hinges with his voice joining his fist.

"Is there anyone in there!"

Soon the anger and frustration that had been boiling within him for the past few hours since he had lost Dean in the blizzard finally found its way out as he struck the door in one last angry blow, and nearly fell through it as it rather creakily slid open, leaving him confused and not the slightest bit dazed.

What worried him more as he began to limp uneasily into the building was that inside just as it was out was ghostly quiet and seemed to be completely dead. A cold shiver soon ran up his spine he closed the door self-consciously behind him and then stood to take in the room.

It was simple really, the same dark wooden interior as its exterior, a plain dark brown rug laying in the middle of the room with a comfy but rather worn looking chair sitting next to a stone fireplace that was strangely enough still burning, there were several pictures atop its mantle as well. To his right was a large bookcase, dust had already settled on it and the door next to it was slightly ajar.

His curiosity peaked as he slowly limped towards it, and soon a strong coppery scent filled the air as his cold hand clasped the doorknob and slowly eased the door the rest of the way open.

And then he stumbled back, falling over onto his ass although he only registered that in the back of his mind as the rest of it fought wide-eyed to tell him just what he was seeing.

There covering half of the floor in the room which he now knew was the kitchen was a dark red liquid, which he knew was giving off the strong coppery smell that had filled the entire cabin now, and he knew all too well what he was seeing and smelling.

"Blood…"

His voice was coarse, his throat dry and the colour now completely drained from his skin. He knew there and then that there was something very wrong with this way too quiet and secluded village.

"I gotta find Dean!"

Alicia watched from her confines in her security room, the screens around her showing the events transpiring in every room, in every building of the village that currently sat at over a mile above her head. She smiled at the carnage her father's virus caused, at the sheer power of such a small thing. She loved to watch as the virus took its toll on its carriers turning into something that wasn't quite dead but not quite alive either.

But soon her smile faded, there were new faces in her town, and she already knew they were after her father's perfect virus. A tall man with a bloody shoulder, a short man who was limping and another who carried a large rucksack. She thought briefly that they might be here to save the girl that was currently running around her village, or maybe to save the daughter of the man who helped kill her beloved father.

She shook her head, it was obvious they were after her father's virus, they all were and she would make sure they didn't leave her village alive. They would just become more test subjects for the virus, for her father's perfect T-Virus…

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