"What the hell is wrong with you man?" Justin yelled as he shoved Bryan to the ground.

Bryan simply cackled as he fell.

Justin couldn't figure out what had happened to what used to be his friend, but what mattered the most now was getting to Jill before Lisa did.

"Jill!" Justin screamed as he turned and ran away from Bryan back in the direction he came from.

Bryan simply stood up and dusted himself off.

"Wait up Justin," he shouted after his colleague, "I don't want to miss this."

-----

Jill walked up past the beaten down porch to the door of this dilapidated cabin. From what she could gather, this location seemed to have been quite livable at one point, many, many years in the past. When she placed her hand on the door knob, she was unable to turn it.

"Hmm," she thought, "must be a bit rusty."

She pulled out her lock pick, looked at it, and sighed as she placed it back into her back pocket.

"For once I'm taking the easy was out," she said as she took a step back from the door.

Next to her on the floor of the porch she placed the contents of her pockets, putting down her gun, flashlight, lock pick, and ID badge. She then removed a rubber band from her pocket and used it to tie back her hair.

Then with the swift tactics only a S.T.A.R.S. team member could produce, with enough power to match, Jill jumped into the air and placed a well-timed roundhouse kick to the center of the front door shattering it to pieces.

As the dust settled Jill gathered up her belongings and ventured in. She figured that in the long run, if whatever had been chasing them managed to eliminate Justin, she'd have a better chance at cornering it here, then out in the open woods. She clicked on her flashlight and began sweeping the floor to get a good sense of her new surroundings.

It was a small wood cabin, with only four rooms no more then ten feet wide by sixteen feet across. In one room was a set of beds and trunks, in another was a table and chairs, one room had a fireplace in it, and the fourth was completely empty except for the debris that had been stored up there well before the previous owners had abandoned it.

"Hmm," Jill thought, "brings back memories."

Even though it was the pitch dark of night, with the stench of death, and warm fog in the air, Jill couldn't help but see this place and think back to watching Little House On The Prairie with her father. She remembered eating up her dinner as fast as she could every Tuesday and Thursday night, then running upstairs, changing into pajamas, and flying down the steps like Speedy Gonzales all to land comfortably on her fathers lap in front of the tube. It was always the perfect seat to see from, and if she didn't understand the plot he was always there to explain it to her. In fact, the only thing this place was missing, in Jill's opinion was her father.

As she ran her fingers across the dust-caked mantel above the fireplace she ran across a photograph. It was apparently very old, tattered and worn with corners rubbed out, and it had turned yellow with age. On the back was a message. It read:

"My family, Lisa age 6, what have I done?"

Jill tried really hard to comprehend what a phrase like that could possibly mean. The family in the picture seemed very content, for what pictures were worth. Then she heard it.

SCRAPE

It sounded like nails dragging along a chalkboard coming from the floor underneath the room she was in.

"What in the hell was that?" She cried as she jumped back.

Just then the noise sounded again, except this time she could hear a creature wailing, so loud she thought she could go deaf.

"I have to get out of here, and quickly." Jill decided.

Just as she was heading for the door she felt the ground beneath her creak a little bit.

She stopped.

Jill knew the ground beneath her was soft from age and wear, and a decent amount of termite feasting. That, along with the scraping underneath, could cause the floor to go at any second if she wasn't careful. She slowly tiptoed three more steps.

BAM BAM BAM

There was someone banging across the porch.

"What the hell is it now" Jill sighed as she slowly raised her pistol.

Before she even had it at shoulder level a foot came crashing down and in stepped the huge boot of Barry Burton, panting and out of breath.

"Jill," he said, "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" Jill responded, "What's it to you?"

"What?" Barry said confused.

"You've been acting awfully strange tonight Barry, what's going on?"

"Oh, well, um," Barry started, "Jill listen you need to understand something." Barry began to take a step forward.

"Stop right where you are!" Jill shouted.

"Jill, please, listen to me." Barry tried to sound as calm as he could.

"No Barry, I mean it, stop where you are!" Jill shouted as Barry's boot came pounding down on the soft floor again.

"Jill, c'mon I'm begging you to give me a second, now put down your gun."

"No, Barry, I mean it, don't step anymore or the floor is going to—."

CRACK

It was too late.

No sooner then Jill could finish her sentence, the two S.T.A.R.S. members crashed through the floor and in a cloud of dust and wood pulp landed in a cold, dark wet cellar-like room.

"cave in." Jill said, finishing her sentence.

-----

CRASH

"What the hell was that?" Justin exclaimed.

"Eh, probably just Lisa, you know she could be hungry by now." Bryan said with a smile on his face.

Without a seconds hesitation Justin hauled off and once again cracked Bryan across the face.

"You know," Bryan said, barely flinching, "I am really getting tired of that."

He turned towards Justin and punched him in the gut.

Justin saw stars as he flew up in the air and back about 10 feet.

"What the, what the hell are you?" Justin asked as he crouched on the ground coughing up blood.

"You know, honestly, I wish I knew." Bryan said. "I think it has something to do with that vaccine we got awhile back, the test one; I think it was something beyond our ability to comprehend Justin. The only question is,"

"Why didn't it do anything to me?" Justin finished his sentence.

"Precisely." Bryan replied. "I had been having secret attacks and convulsions for months now, and after each and every one of them I seemed to get more keen, stronger, more powerful and aware of my surroundings, and as they got worse I got better. You however, did not. Go figure."

Bryan slowly began to close in on Justin.

"What?" Justin said, "Should I stand up and applaud? You're no better then any other of Umbrella's monsters, you're just another experiment to them Bryan…a number, a number in a book of numbers that will do nothing but get more people killed and you know it.

Justin rose to his feet.

"You're better then this and you know it." He said.

"Bravo, braaaavo." Said a voice from the darkness.

Both Bryan and Justin spun around to see where the voice had come from as Wesker slowly stepped into sight.

"Mr. Baker I must commend your ability to incite the masses, Umbrella could use a speaker like you behind the scenes." Wesker said as he clapped his hands slowly.

"Fuck off Wesker," Justin replied, "This shit has gone too far, Umbrella has hurt and killed too many people, and I have allowed it to happen for too long."

"So now what, exactly, do you plan to do about it?" Wesker asked.

"I'll go public, I have documents, formulas, emails, all saved in various places, as well as memorized. I can make a T-Virus sample with my eyes closed in the right setting. Give me time, and this whole company will go down." Justin said.

Justin knew revealing his entire plan was completely detrimental in his current company, but beyond Bryan, nobody knew about Jill and Justin's rendezvous, and if she had gone and found her team then he would never actually have to go public himself. It was an ace in the hole.

"I see, I see." Wesker said. "What do you think about that Richardson?"

"I…um, I….I" Bryan stuttered as he glanced back and forth between Justin and Wesker.

"Bryan, tell him, you know what the right answer is." Justin yelled.

"Anytime you're ready Richardson…time is precious. You've been a great asset so far, and I can see you doing great things for Umbrella." Wesker said calmly.

"Umbrella is my life, sir." Bryan replied.

Justin watched and in an instant saw whatever bit of the Bryan he knew disappear before his eyes. He was gone now, a shell of what he had once been, all that was left was an empty, greedy heartless soul, void of human compassion, but not of life-force. It was then that Justin realized the only real zombie he had seen tonight was the new man standing in front of him now.

"You son of a bitch!" Justin screamed as he ran at Wesker, wound back and unloaded on the man with an uppercut to the jaw.

Bryan watched on in astonishment as the man he admired was knocked back onto the ground, his sunglasses flying off and landing in the dirt next to him.

Wesker spit blood out of his mouth and jumped to his feet.

"Richardson, kill him." He said sternly as he picked up his sunglasses and ran off into the darkness.

Justin turned to face Bryan, panting for breath.

"Bryan, don't do this, you know you don't have to do this." Justin said.

Bryan slowly raised his pistol.

"C'mon man, Wesker is using you as a tool, remember, numbers in a book, that's it, that's all this amounts to, the death, the monsters, everything is just numbers." Justin was trying everything in his power to win back his friend as he heard the pistol click and watched Bryan put his finger on the trigger.

"Think about Ingrid man; think about how much she lov—."

BANG BANG BANG

The shots echoed off every mountainside, every building in Raccoon City, and every single solid surface across the face of this plant and beyond, or so it seemed to Bryan. He tried to make the ringing stop, but all it did was get worse as he watch the body of his colleague and friend slump to the cold ground in a bloody heap.

"Goddamn you Baker….GODDAMN YOU!" Bryan shouted as he unloaded the rest of his clip into the dead body.

The firing finally stopped and then the ringing slowly faded in Bryan's head.

Bryan turned and left, running off into the darkness.

-----

Jill and Barry slowly stood up and brushed themselves off in the darkness.

"Jill stand back, I'm going to try to light up a flare." Barry said.

All of a sudden Jill heard a scratch and then a bright spark illuminated and lit a flare which in turn caused the whole room to be bathed in a bright green light.

"I see some torches; I'm going to use this to light them." Barry said as he began to move around the room.

Jill watched on as Barry began to light the torches mounted on the walls around them. It seemed like they were in some form of medieval dungeon like room with chains on the walls and suspended torches. All the walls were stone, as were the floors and…

"The floor!" Jill exclaimed in her mind.

On the floor was Barry's Colt magnum, all by itself, if she could grab it then she may be able to get some real answers out of Barry.

"Jill…Jill? What are you doing?" Barry saw his partner had faded into some kind of daze when all of a sudden he saw what she was looking at.

"No!" Barry shouted rushing for the gun before Jill could get to it. Before he could get there she had kicked into another chamber and they both when scrambling after it.

"Jill what is wrong with you?" Barry asked.

There was no response.

He stood up and brushed himself off and all of a sudden the same astonished look fell over his face that Jill had on her own.

They were in some strange chamber, with a walkway around the perimeter and off of each wall was a thin walkway, which all met in the middle and in the middle was a coffin, with 4 chains suspending it above a pit. Each of the chains was connected to a boulder that sat along each wall. All other floor space in the room was basically a pit that neither Barry nor Jill could see the bottom of.

"This…what is this?" Jill asked tucking Barry's Colt into her pants.

"I'm, I'm not sure." Barry replied.

SCRAPE

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

"What the hell?" both S.T.A.R.S exclaimed as they spun around.

Just then, from around the bend, came a creature of unexplainable proportions. It was a hunchbacked entity, with long, snake-like hair, pale, limp, and skinny as a twig. Her hair was tattered and covered whatever was left of her face. The scraping noise that accompanied her were chains that were attached to a pair of almost wood-block like wrist-cuff she was wearing, and they dragged along beside her.

Barry and Jill split up and took different paths along walls of the room as the creature entered into the chamber. Jill whipped out her gun and was about to open fire when she noticed that the creature had turned and gone after Barry, who now was backed up against the coffin in the middle of the chamber.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" it wailed.

"Jill!" Barry shouted, "I need my gun, you have to trust me."

Jill hesitated, but she knew what she had to do to save her colleague. There was no reason to assume that he was guilty of anything suspicious, but then again there was no reason that he couldn't be either.

"Talk about déjà vu." Jill thought.

She reached into her pants and tossed him the magnum revolver.

Barry caught it and let loose a slug right into the face of this creature, it stumbled back just enough to let Barry through, but somehow was able to stretch out its arms all the way across the room, and brace itself against the wall to keep itself from falling into the pit. Whatever they were fighting was unnatural and dangerous, however it didn't seem to want to attack outright; it simply seemed to hover around the coffin in the middle of the room trying to protect it almost.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" the creature wailed yet again.

Just then Jill realized it. This creature had to have been the little girl in the photograph. Why else would her parents be so upset about what they had done. Jill just had a pit feeling in her stomach that this used to be a little girl, to young to understand what Umbrella had done to her, and now only she had the pay the price for their sick experiments. The only other logical conclusion would be that this coffin in the room was her mother based on her wails, and that this creature possessed enough naiveté to want to protect it with its life.

However, Jill's main concern was her own life, and she knew what she had to do.

"Barry!" Jill shouted, "Keep her busy, I have an idea, just make sure she doesn't come near me!"

"Her? She?" Barry said.

"Trust me," Jill said.

"You got it kid, do your thing, I just hope it works!" Barry replied.

Jill proceeded to run around the room pushing the boulders down into the supposed bottomless pit of the chamber, each one breaking off from its old, rusted chain, and causing the coffin itself to lower dangerously close to the pit it was hanging over. After pushing all 4, the coffin broke open, and dropped into the pit.

"Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" the creature yelled jumping into the pit after it.

Jill and Barry hesitated in the silence, waiting for another wail, or for the arms of the creature to extended and bring her back for revenge.

Several minutes passed but nothing happened.

Barry re-holstered his magnum as Jill let out a sigh and slouched up against the wall to recollect herself.

"We need to talk kid." Barry said approaching her.