Notes: This fan fiction is based on S.D. Perry's novelization of the "Resident Evil" series, and as such will follow her timeline. This story takes place during the novelization of RE2, known as the book "Resident Evil: City of the Dead," and the novelization of RE3, written as "Resident Evil: Nemesis".

Disclaimer: All recognizable characters and events are the property of Capcom.

Resident Evil: Hell on Earth

This isn't happening.

"Unnnnh!" There was another one, lumbering out from one of the smaller alleys, a portly-looking man with a rounded belly. His skull gleamed in the sickly white light of the streetlights, the skin falling off in ripped pieces. A chunk of skin fell over the man's left eye, obscuring his vision. He was bloody, so bloody, and pale, and sick-looking…Beth forced down the bile threatening to rise in her throat and sped past him, her hiking boots crunching down on asphalt and broken glass—

—there!

There it was, in full view—the Raccoon Police Department, surely she'd find somebody there, somebody sane, someone who knew—

"—Brad!"

And Beth Takarai froze, automatically throwing herself against the wall and peering around to see through the bars of the gates—

—ohmygodohmygod—

There was a brown-haired man dressed in a yellow vest with something sticking out the back of his head, something slimy and fleshy-looking, and it moved, it fucking moved, and then it vanished, the man was flying to one side, landing brokenly on the ground, and Beth realized that he was dead, he was dead and bleeding out on the ground—

"Starrrsss…"

Beth's head snapped up, and she saw something she hadn't noticed before.

Oh my fucking God, no way, this isn't happening!

There was a…a something dressed in black, something that was too tall to be human, with a bald, scabby-looking head and impossibly broad shoulders, and it was talking, no way in hell is it talking—

"Starrssss…"

Beth moved. She couldn't stay there, no way, she had to get away, get out of this crazy town…

She forced herself to run, passing the gates and the freak in black, and she passed by safely—

—just in time to find herself in the too-bright beams of a vehicle—

"H, hey!" Beth shouted, stopping and raising her arms above her head, oh thank God I'm safe everything's gonna be okay—

—and the lights swerved away, and Beth blinked, watching as a large truck took a turn before it managed to get to her.

What…! No!

"W-wait!" she gasped out, and she couldn't fight it anymore, the intense feeling of hopelessness that inflated inside her chest like a balloon. She felt the tears prick at the corners of her eyes, and all she wanted to do was hunker down in the middle of the street and cry, cry her heart out for everything that had happened in the past three days and for everything she had lost.

This isn't happening…

It was a nightmare. It just had to be.

Raccoon City had been normal just…what? Three days ago? Everything was fine.

And now…Dad…

Everything had gone to shit just three days ago. Raccoon had been having a series of weird, unexplained murders, Beth knew at least that much. They were being called "the cannibal murders," but beyond that, the citizens of Raccoon were told nothing else. It was fine, the mayor had announced in the morning news. The police would get right on it.

Except they haven't.

The city lockdown happened just two days ago. Beth and her father didn't know why. First, things were normal and then, next thing they knew, they couldn't leave the city, couldn't write to anyone, couldn't phone anyone…

…and then the cannibals appeared.

Beth wasn't sure when exactly the whole town had been reduced to sick cannibals. But just two days ago her father had told her not to go outside anymore, so she didn't. She stayed in the house all day, and yesterday, her father had left.

"To go to city hall and talk to the mayor," he'd told her, before planting a kiss in her hair and walking out the door.

He hadn't come back.

And just this morning, when Beth had woken up, she knew something was wrong.

The Takarai home had been outfitted with some astounding security devices. Living in Beverly Hills had made Neji somewhat paranoid about burglars, and so their home in Raccoon City had been outfitted by a tough security system that made it hard for anyone to get in. Beth had been awoken at some ungodly hour in the morning because someone was trying to get in the house.

She had heard the alarm go off, and had gone downstairs to check things out. She looked through the window facing the front porch—

—and saw her father beating at the front door. Except something was wrong.

Neji Takarai turned, as if sensing his daughter's eyes, and faced Beth.

Beth had screamed.

Her father wasn't her father anymore, because her father had both eyes, and his lower jaw couldn't be hanging at such a weird angle, and he wasn't supposed to be covered in blood like that. And Beth had screamed, and screamed, and screamed, even as the dead-looking man that looked like her father shuffled over to the glass, and started pounding.

Beth remembered running up the stairs, into her father's bedroom, and grabbing the handgun that Neji always kept under his bed. It was a 9mm semiautomatic handgun, a Beretta—Beth knew this because it was her father's favorite gun, and Neji was one of those gun nuts who had gun magazines and all sorts of things…

…and there was the sound of breaking glass, and Beth knew that her house had been invaded.

She remembered standing at the top of the stairs in her modest, two-story house with the white fences, and shouting at the weird cannibal-monster to stop, to turn around and leave, she had a gun and she knew how to shoot, her father taught her, but the thing didn't go away, it started to try and clamber up the stairs after her and Beth had fired twice, screaming—

—and the second shot blew through the forehead and out the back, spraying brain and blood all over the Takarai's plush cream carpet.

Everything after that was a blur. Beth remembered trying to call the police, but the phone lines had been cut, and so had the electricity, and Beth knew something was wrong, very wrong, because horror films always started out with the phone lines being cut. So she had dressed—a pair of scuffed, steel-toed black hiking boots; her favorite pair of Levi's; and a plain white baseball shirt with black, three-quarter sleeves. Everything was fitted, because Beth knew that stupid girls in horror films always got their clothes caught in doors or whatever. And she had taken the gun, her father's gun. She had raided his room for extra ammunition, too, storing it in black messenger back that she wore across her left shoulder and rested on her right hip. She knew that she had to leave. That was all she had planned for.

She had made it to the police station, sure that someone would be there to help, but now, after she had seen the kind of monsters hanging around the place, Beth had no idea what to do, and it seemed that there was nothing she could do, except wait in the middle of the street and wait for death.

Because that's what was coming for her. Death.

She couldn't survive in a helltown like this. Hell, she was only eighteen.