"I am the let down member of the Redfield family."
Apparently, I've been on a roll since the beginning of September, but then I also got an extension for Google Docs to track my daily word count, and it's really helping me to push myself to hit that sweet sweet 250 words a day, though I almost always go quite over it.
Enjoy!
"Chris…please…I don't know what is happening to me…I'm scared, Chris, please…"
His footsteps stopped outside of Chloe's bedroom. Please Chris…
"Chris…please…let me out…help me…"
He loves to hate you, Claire
No he doesn't, he-
You loved giving him a-
Leave me alo-
He wants you dead so he can reveal his secret to Chloe
No, no he wouldn't want me to-
You love to hate him
I don't-
He wants you dead, hate him
"Chris I will fucking GUT you and strangle you with your own FUCKING entrails when I get out! Let me out, bastard!"
The room darkened and lit up and darkened again, it spun, it swirled, it froze and it burned. I heaved with each breath and staggered backwards into Chloe's room. My little girl's room. My baby. One half of my everything. My eyes darted back and forth to the sinister figures standing around me, staring at me, mocking me through scattered and abhorrent snarls. Every day, every night, every goddamn waking hour of my life. Too long, for far too long. Why? Why, I don't understand why this is still happening to me?!
"I'd never hurt you, Chris…" I whispered through tears. I fell to my knees and choked on a sob, gripping Chloe's soft pink rug in my fists. "I'd never hurt either of you...I could've never…I'm so sorry…"
You're nothing without him
You don't deserve to breathe
Fucking weak little Redfield
They both need to die
Kill your family like you killed Minnie
Like you killed me Mommy
Not worthy of the Redfield name
Pathetic human
"Please, stop…" I gritted through my teeth as the shadows slowly approached me, floating sinisterly over the carpet. My skin became colder, my vision blurred, and suddenly I became a prisoner in my own mind, thrust into a sharp, jagged seat in the back of my consciousness. I watched as I stood up and approached the photo of Chloe and Chris on her bed stand, snatching it up in an emotionless iron grip, and I observed helplessly as I reeled my arm back for a throw.
I fought back against the thrashing tide and howling storm in my mind and clasped my hand around my fist. My arm had moved painfully slowly, the whole world had almost ceased to move, my arm felt heavy, and my fingertips quivered as I fought back at…this.
"Fuck you, get out!" I groaned. "Get out of my fucking head! Out!"
My body suddenly was thrown viciously against the side of Chloe's bed and a hot, crackling pain ripped through my side. I gasped and sucked my teeth as my body was thrown to the floor like a discarded rag doll.
You'll need a lot more than a toke of-
"I haven't smoked that shit in years, now fuck off!" I shouted, fighting to push myself to my feet, and I placed the photo frame back down, stepping back into the centre of the room through the thickening air of hell. I looked at their faces. Chris and Chloe. They're happy. Without me, on their little trip to that festival, without me. They're happy.
Not anymore
This is your fault
They love to hate you
Why did you let me die, Mommy?
Minnie is dead because of you
Chloe could've been a little sister
You took everything from your brother and daughter
Kill yourself
After you kill them
Rot, you pathetic Redfield child
Kill all of you
End the Redfield lineage
"I'm not killing anyone, I'm not ending anything." I whispered. Focus on that photo, Claire. The voices don't matter. They never have. They never will. Chris and Chloe matter. They are all that matter.
"Mom."
I snapped around, and Chloe was sitting at her desk. She was casually but gently twisting her desk chair side to side, with one leg over the other. She limply held the jacket that Chris and I had gifted her on her birthday, she shot daggers of ice at me with her gaze, and she let the red denim slip from her fingers, landing on the floor in a soft crumple.
"You came home…" I smiled faintly, but she didn't return the same expression.
"Everything is fucked because of you. Everything." she said coldly. I flinched. I hated to hear her swear. There was no need, no need for a fifteen year old to use such profanities.
"Sweetie, no, please…"
"You tore this family apart." Chloe spat. Her coldness clamped my heart, a pale muscle held deathly still inside a frigid, sharp chunk of ice, but I tried to smile still.
"Chris is out there looking for you, tell him you're home." I pointed to her door, but she shook her head at me.
"Oh but I'm not Chloe." she smirked, and her eyes looked me up and down as she stood up. She wasn't taller than me, but my God she was catching up fast. "Not the Chloe that you know."
"What?"
"I'm the Chloe you fear."
"The Chloe I-"
"I'm the Chloe that you hope will never happen. The Chloe that hates your fucking guts."
"Chloe, I know you will never hate me." I whispered reassuringly. Did I know that though? Did I know for sure that the only baby I could keep alive would never hate me?
"l fucking hate you, Claire. I don't even want to consider you my mother. Even your fucking name tastes like shit in my mouth. Look what you've done to this family!" she shrieked at me. She appeared before me in a thick dark cloud dripping of sinister hatred and malice, and I felt her fingers around my throat, squeezing. "Chris is more of a parent to me than you'll ever be!"
My mind shunted back to the passenger seat and my body thrashed out against my will, striking Chloe in the head. I cried out but no sound blew beyond my paling lips.
Don't hurt her!
Why? You happily would!
It's not me!
Your family hates you and you will never be able to explain why!
I don't know the explanation!
"You think that I'd never find out the truth?" Chloe sneered, but her voice distorted through my ears, "I had every right to know, and you kept that right from me! Why did you think that hiding it from me would make it all ok?! Why tell me not to tell lies but then fucking keep up with the biggest lie ever?! At least Chris had the balls to tell me!"
Chloe's grip suddenly became far tighter, and a wave of panic washed through my body, icy yet scorching, unforgiving. What was I panicking about? My physical peril or her knowing the truth? My eyes hurt, my lungs burned and my throat began to crush under the unbelievable strength that Chloe should never have possessed.
This was my fault.
I knew how she possessed this immense strength.
This was my fault.
I weakly opened my eyes, and through the wisps of the dark void I could see my parents standing by the desk and door, scowling at me, judging me. They looked disappointed. My father held a baby girl and my mother held a baby boy.
My two stillborn babies..
You didn't have to go out in the car that day
You wanted ice cream for your cravings
Corey died because of your greed
I viewed my family; Chloe, my parents, my dead babies, and I crumpled to the floor as my breath escaped me.
I'm the disappointment. I'm the let down member of the Redfield family.
Thunder rumbled and rolled nearby as Chris jogged down the street behind Thor, trusting in the boy's nose, but the further they ran down the street, the more Thor began to meander on the sidewalk, losing Chloe's scent the more distance they covered. Defeated and dejected, Thor stopped and whimpered at Chris, his big almond shaped eyes staring sadly at him.
"We'll find her, boy, it's ok, you did good." Chris rubbed the boy's hackles down, and looked up ahead of him. If they followed this road, it would take them out of the city. Was it possible that she was bundled into a car? Why? Why would someone snatch a teenage girl from her own balcony? That was far too much effort for a…
Chris swallowed and dismissed the disgusting thought as he wiped his sweat on the back of his hand. He reached into his pocket with the other hand and gently lifted out the little heart pendant bearing Chloe's name. God, where was she?
He should call the police. She was a missing person, after all. He turned briskly on his heels and began to walk home, taking out his phone and tapping in 911. But he paused before hitting the call button.
They'd want a blood sample from Claire, right? Possibly him too? In case they found a…
Fuck.
That would be the worst fucking way that the truth would come out, and would definitely wind up with the pair of them getting arrested, after all this time. But what if one of the neighbours saw it and called the police? He shivered as a breeze dusted his stubble, though it was quite warm still. No, it's very late, and on a work night, no one would have seen anything. And there's no cameras on the fire escape or in the private yard, so nothing would've been caught by the onsite security. What a waste of money, uniform and an office! He dialled a different number, and it rang several times.
"Hi Chris."
"Rebecca." Chris panted and coughed as he slapped his palm against a defenceless lamppost, "Are you at home right now?"
"I'm in the gym, is everything ok?"
"Ah. So you wouldn't have seen what had happened. Chloe's been kidnapped. Right off the balcony."
"What?! Oh my God, Chris! Have you called the police?!"
"I can't, can I?"
"Why not?! She's been kidnapped!"
"DNA." Chris explained. "If…if the worst happens to her and they have to take her DNA, I'm screwed."
"Why?"
"Rebecca." Chris lowered his voice, "You know why. And there's blood on the balcony. If the police analyse it, and it turns out to be hers, you know what will happen."
Rebecca paused as more thunder clapped in the distance, drawing ever closer to the city. Chris could feel the air becoming thick with the storm, and he nervously glanced up at the ever darkening sky.
"Ah, shit, of course. But still, Chris! You can't just do nothing!"
"I'm not going to simply do nothing. I'm going to find her myself."
"Do you even know where to start?!"
"I'll start by having you analyse the blood. If it's Chloe's then we know she's in serious trouble, not to mention putting us into a dead end straight away. If it's her kidnapper, then we may have something at least."
"Alright, I'm leaving the gym now, I'll be up in five minutes. I take it Claire knows?"
"She does but, er, I've had to lock her in a room."
"Oh no, did she have one of her episodes again? Chris, her behaviour seems an awful lot like Mia Winters' back in Louisiana. Are you sure that she's only been infected with t-Phobos previously?"
"I'm starting to think something else is at play, yeah. She's been cleared of every mental illness except the usual suspects that have plagued her and myself. But as far as I'm aware, she's never been around the Mold, and it's been going on for far longer than Louisiana and the Village, so it's not like I could've picked it up and unknowingly infected her."
"And it's only been getting worse? It might be worth running some test on Claire, Chris. Just in case."
"Yeah. It's been getting worse over the last few years at least, but I don't know, we've always put it down to possible mental deterioration." Chris scanned the road for traffic before darting across. "I can see the apartment up ahead. I'll be back in a few minutes."
"Alright, Chris. I'll wait at the door."
"Thanks."
He slipped his phone into his back pocket, and tightened his fist around Chloe's pendant, and the sky lit up with the white hot flash of the approaching storm.
Chris climbed the last steps with beads of sweat on his brow, unable to stem his heat from the failed pursuit, and Rebecca worriedly smiled at him as she waited outside his apartment. She had (rather quickly from the looks of it) gotten changed, and her white t-shirt and green slacks reminded him of his first meeting with her nearly thirty years ago. Shit. Thirty years at the end of the month. Was the Mansion Incident in Raccoon Forest really that long ago? That spray that she hit him with upon entering the Medical Storage Room in the mansion fucking stung his eyes something horrendous yet it was still something they both joked about, even now.
"Thanks, Rebecca." Chris breathed as he rubbed the sweat from his hair.
"No problem, Chris." she replied, and she held up a metal case.
"That your blood sample stuff?"
"Yeah." she nodded, and lifted the case towards the door. "Shall we?"
Chris gestured his head to the door and pushed it open, allowing Rebecca in first, and Thor excitedly followed her. He studied her face as she stepped past him and down the hallway, and he couldn't help but smile to himself. Even after all of the shit the surviving S.T.A.R.S members had endured, none of them had aged badly, even Barry Burton was looking good for a 68 year old! Saying that…Chris glanced at the other apartment door on this floor, to the apartment that Rebecca shared with Moira Burton after Neil Fisher's dumbass plan fell through. Moira had spent a lot of time out after Barry was diagnosed with bowel cancer, but he had caught it early and was doing just fine. He closed the door and looked for Rebecca, but she was already out of sight. Thor had hopped onto the couch with his paws on the backrest, wagging his tail wildly at Chris. He smiled at the Shepkita.
"You have hope, don't you, boy?" Chris pointed at the dog and winked at him, before mentally slapping himself. He fucking winked at a dog, a dog! Maybe he was starting to go as crazy as Claire!
Speaking of Claire…
He slowly approached Chloe's bedroom door, listening out for her, but heard nothing except for the clicking noise of Rebecca opening her case. Claire didn't fucking knock herself unconscious again, did she? Maybe he should check on her. He approached Rebecca on the balcony, and she was already busy with medical gloves, a glass slide and a swab, rolling the end of it in the blood.
"I need to go check on Claire." he said bluntly. Rebecca replied with a simple chirp, and he left her to it. She was the scientist, after all.
He removed the wall artwork from behind the door handle, but not without noticing it was slightly bent and damaged; Claire must've really tried to bust the door open. He cautiously lowered the handle and waited for a reaction from within the room.
Silence, not even her loud hyperventilated breaths after such an episode, and it worried him. He pushed the door open more, and Claire was lying face down on the rug with her arms tucked underneath her torso.
"Shit, Claire, not again…"
He threw his hulking frame to the floor beside his sister and gently pushed her, where he saw that both of her hands were clasped around her throat. He quickly breathed out, keeping his panic at bay, and he ripped her fingers away from her pale neck.
"Claire, come on, not again!"
He roughly slid an arm under her back and propped her up, he pressed two fingers to her jugular and paused, watching her chest. Alright, so her pulse existed, and she was breathing, thank fuck. Not a fucking horror story this time. He lay her back down and repeatedly slammed his fingers into her collarbones.
"Come on, Claire, wake up!" he barked at her, still roughly tapping her collarbones. Her face contorted weakly, and he expected her to come around slowly, yet she abruptly sat up, gasping, her eyes wide and fearful. They frantically flicked about in a craze before finally settling on him.
"Why, Claire? Why do you do this to yourself?!" He placed a finger under her soft jaw and tipped her head to view her neck, and his heart fell. Thick red lines marked her pale skin. Again. Again she had tried to strangle herself with her own hands. She shuffled backwards on her ass, shaking her head hurriedly.
"Go…" she uttered at him.
"No, Claire."
"Please…"
"I'm not leaving you."
"I'm a danger to you…"
"No, you're a danger to yourself and you're scaring the fuck out of me." Chris crawled over to where she pressed herself against Chloe's bed, and she clasped a hand over her face.
"Go, Chris…"
"No."
"This is all my fault…"
"What is?"
"Chloe…running away…she knows. She knows, Chris. You told her…"
"I…what? Claire, I haven't told her."
"She told me you did…just now…"
"How many times have I told you that your hallucinations aren't real? She doesn't know, Claire. She's none the wiser."
"It's all my fault…" Claire slapped herself in her face and pulled barbarically at her hair, and Chris moved in, dragging her arms down and pushing them into her chest.
"Stop." Chris commanded. She tried to wench her arms from his grasp but he failed to let up.
"Everyone hates me, she hates me…"
"Claire, listen to me-"
"Make it stop…"
"I couldn't find Chloe."
"She hates me."
"Claire."
"She hates me she hates me she hates me SHE HATES ME CHRIS!" Claire kicked out at him, but despite his age he moved quickly, and her kick harmlessly passed by his ear. He momentarily let go of her arms to restrain his sister, but the impact of her body into his chest told him that he had no need to. She threw her arms around his neck and roughly grasped his sweat dotted shirt at the back, coughing and gasping and weeping uncontrollably into the crook of his neck.
"You…you don't know h-how many times I…keep thinking that I should…," Claire sobbed, and her grip on his shirt became tighter as he felt her nails through the fabric. He enveloped her in his own arms and returned his own, albeit looser, grip.
"Sssh…don't tell me again, Claire. I don't like hearing it, you know that."
"I'm sorry…I'm a horrible person, Chris…I shouldn't be here anymore."
Chris clenched his teeth at the sensation of her nails now truly digging into the skin of his shoulders, but he didn't care for the pain. Give me your pain, he would always tell her, ever since he accidentally let her slip into his biohazard hunting world in 1998. A clap of thunder startled Claire in his arms, and he held her tighter.
"Chloe doesn't hate you, and she didn't run away. I'm sure of it. Thor lost her scent on the road leading out of the city. If she went on foot then we definitely would've found her."
"Why aren't you trying to find her still though?"
"Rebecca is on the balcony right now taking that blood. It's either gonna be Chloe's or the kidnapper's blood." Chris explained, but his statement was merely rewarded with an annoyed snort from Claire.
"Why haven't you called 911 already?!"
"You want the cops to have her blood sample on file?"
"But they'll find her that way, won't they?! They have more dogs to track her with, a bigger force!" Claire protested.
"Yeah, but that's not the only thing they'll find." Chris retorted, and Claire immediately understood. Her facial expression said so. Another flash lit the evening sky outside, and rain gently tapped at Chloe's bedroom window. Chris watched the drops serenely flow down the window in wavy tracks, but Claire shivered in his arms at the sound. A metallic click sounded in the living room, or dining room. Chris wasn't sure, but he was sure that it was the sound of Rebecca setting up her equipment.
"We're not what we used to be, Chris…" Claire breathed into his cheek. He sighed and twisted his head into hers, kissing her hair. He smiled; she still used the same fruity shampoo that she grew up with. Some things were still what they used to be, he thought. He should probably not tell her about those silver hairs he could see near her scalp, though.
"No, we're not what we used to be but," he smoothed a hand over his sister's short ponytail, still secretly counting her ageing strands of hair "despite what is happening to you, you've done amazing. Chloe is a flourishing, smart and independent girl. I know she gets bullied for being different, but it was a decision that she made, and continues to stand by it. She barely cares for what people think of her style, her wit, her intelligence. She's brave and resilient, just like her mother. You haven't raised her to be a dumbass and-"
"I want her back in my arms, Chris."
"She will be." He tried to sound as reassuring as he could within this chaotic predicament he was finding his niece and sister to be in, "But I need your cooperation. Getting cops involved will muddy the situation. You've said ever since her first Christmas that it was one of your biggest fears." He kissed her again, this time on her forehead, and under his lips he could feel the soft wrinkles of her age. Or stress. It was one or the other.
Neither of them were getting any younger, and as fit and physically muscular he still was, his age was definitely beginning to show, not on the outside, but decades of lifting in the gym and constantly on the move and firing powerful weapons was slowly taking its toll on his joints.
"Chris? Claire? I, er…you might want to come see this." Rebecca's voice called out, and both Redfields looked towards the door. Chris looked down at Claire's hands, now on the front of his shirt, and he consumed the white knuckles of her grip with his palms.
"I'll find her, Claire. I promise. And you know what I say about my promises." He kissed her nose and she tried to fight that smile, but of course. Of course she couldn't hide it. She sheepishly twisted her finger into the shirt fabric.
"That you always keep your promises?"
"That I always keep my promises." He confirmed back to her before rolling his eyes to the ceiling. "Well, except for 2009. But that was a long time ago. Things have changed. We've changed." He stood up, still softly holding Claire's hands, and supported her to her feet.
"Chris…" Claire whispered, "Rebecca doesn't know about…Chloe…does she?"
"No. Don't worry." He didn't want to sound like he was going to hesitate.
But for a tiny, fleeting fraction of time he had considered it. He had considered revealing to Claire that Rebecca knew.
She had taken Chloe's blood sample when she was very young after he became concerned about the trace amount of t-Phobos flowing in her veins, and she had found unusual but very unexpected results. She had confronted him, she had literally locked him in a room with her, to demand to know how Chloe's bloods were how they showed.
Blood doesn't lie.
Unable to deny the unusually spiralled lines and confusing, conflicting numbers on Rebecca's screen, he had no choice but to tell her the reason behind the abnormalities, and he had to very swiftly dodge a flying hardback book, a pen holder followed by a shower of highlighters, blunt pencils and unlidded pens, and her raging tirade of insults. He had begged quite literally on his goddamn knees for her to remain silent about her findings, and he could only thank her profusely and pretty much offered to become her errand boy forever when she agreed to keep quiet. She even modded Chloe's BSAA bio file to hide the findings. Unless Claire had told anyone, she was the only soul alive that knew.
The siblings approached the dining table where Rebecca stared over the frame of her glasses, a frown bringing out thin wrinkles underneath her short, brown hair.
"What did you find?" he asked, trying to peer at the little screen.
"Is it Chloe's blood?" Claire butted in, also trying to see the screen.
Chris could see a green box with "MATCH FOUND" inside, and he twitched his eyelids. He could see an image of a person, but Claire had already shoved past him to look.
"Wait, so…the kidnapper is on file? What the hell?" he spat.
"Oh my God, no, what the fuck?!" Claire shrieked, and his ears rang from the noise.
"Yeah. This database is connected to both TerraSave and BSAA." Rebecca stated, and she glanced at Chris, "and Hound Wolf Squad."
"So this person is known to the NGOs?" he asked.
Claire slapped both hands on the glass table and marched across the room, shouting nonsensical words. After one lap of the living room she looked at Chris.
"Not just known to, but also employed." Claire snarled, roughly pulling her fingers through her ponytail. Chris looked back at her with soft eyes; he could see her own beginning to well up again, and he worried that she'd have another episode of hallucinations.
"Or formerly employed in this case." Rebecca carried on Claire's thought, and she waved to Chris for him to approach. He cautiously stepped over to the laptop, wondering but dreading who this person was. Someone he knew? Someone he had worked with, maybe? Someone he trusted?
He leant in and looked at the photo. It was of a man with a thin face, hollow cheekbones and wild, sandy coloured hair. Chris held his breath at the recognition. A flag of the United Kingdom stood out amongst the white page and black wording of the bio, the TerraSave logo stamped next to it but with a big red line through the letters, and Chris moved his eyes to the name he knew he would see. A crackle of shock rocked his nerves as thunder boomed outside, and he slowly looked back to Claire.
"Dave Brown."
The song for this chapter is Dead Memories by Slipknot.
Ok, I know I know, I said I'd never write in 1st person again, but I wanted you all to just know what Claire is really dealing with, and I figured that bringing her person over from Let Me Live would be a nice little addition, like a nice familiarity of "oh hey, Claire's baaaaack!"
But why is she still having these hallucinations? Why are they so much worse than what they used to be? Didn't they all start when she began taking drugs in 2009? Will we find out? (Probably lol)