Recommended BGM

1. Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles - Floating Memories

2. Resident Evil (Remake) - Creatures of the Night

3. Dino Crisis (1999) - Underpass

Chapter 21

Chris Redfield was speechless. He just listened, quietly. The whole thing sounded a lot like a thriller novel, but the vivid details Frank gave him about the torture he endured, the experiments Umbrella had done on his team, the mutant dogs even existing over a decade earlier… It was all too much to digest. He couldn't even begin to imagine the pain he must've gone through all those weeks in captivity…

"I…" he couldn't find the right words to say in response. "I— …I mean— I figured that as a soldier, you would've gone through a lot of violence, death, and - well… not to this extent anyway. I'm… sorry to hear you had to go through all of that…"

"And that's not the end of it," said Woods as he continued. "When Mason went to radio for help, he told me the guy operating the radio sounded familiar to him, but couldn't tell because of the damn voice filter he had underneath his mask. Now that my memory finally came back, I suspect fuckin' Kravchenko was the one in the gas mask and Spencer was the one givin' him orders behind the damn radio. Serves the bastard right for taking out a friend of ours' eyeball way back. Eye for an eye, right?"

Chris nodded and chuckled slightly, becoming a bit embarrassed for not being able to hold back on it. "I guess if you put it that way, it kinda makes sense in the literal meaning."

Frank gave a burst of small laughter in response as he patted Chris on the shoulder.

"Ey, nothing wrong with givin' them a small taste of their own fuckin' medicine," he said, making Chris relax a bit for not taking it the wrong way either. "But on the bright side, that means if they had an underground lab in Angola, who's to say there's no underground lab right beneath our feet?" He stood up, still feeling a sharp pain in his back and a mild migraine, causing him to stagger for a moment. Chris hurried to help him back up, still feeling it wasn't a good idea to bring him along.

"I'm telling you now before you end up hurting yourself more; you should—"

"Hold back the pain and help look for the lab and find the last morbid mask?" He remarked. "This pain is nothing compared to the shit I went through all those years ago - no need to waste any more time worrying about me."

Chris opened his mouth to say something in return, but then immediately shut himself before a word could be said to him. The old man had gone through a lot and if he wanted revenge against the people in charge of Umbrella or this "Perseus" group he mentioned earlier before, he wasn't going to stop him any longer. At least now he understood why Frank and Alex have joined STARS, all due to the connections here with Umbrella being behind everything that happened to Frank before and now around a city that's been home to Umbrella for decades.

"Alright," he finally said. "Grab your gear and let's go back to the main hall. Alex may already be waiting for us there."

Woods nodded and with the pain still running through his body, he proceeded to put on his missing gear. Not long after, they went on their way to the main hall. Thankfully, no more zombies or other mutant creatures were waiting for them throughout their entire way, making it feel like a breeze through a now seemingly empty house.

Inside the main foyer, they saw Jill Valentine pacing in the middle of the crimson carpet under the spotlight of the giant chandelier above her.

"Jill!" Chris shouted at her almost full of excitement. "You have no idea how good it is to see you right now!"

Jill turned to the duo, her blank expression turning into something more positive than Chris and Woods had seen her since landing in this nightmarish hellhole.

"Chris! Frank!" She yelled out vividly as she ran towards them to give both of them a hug all at once. She then continued to say something to them after breaking their quick hug apart. "Even after what Alex had told me about meeting you earlier, it's such a huge relief to see you both alive right now!"

"Were you with him?" Asked Woods curiously. He expected Alex to be waiting for them in the main hall by now, but seeing Jill all by herself sent him a wave of concerning thoughts inside his mind.

"Yeah," she said. Her expression soon began changing drastically into a more concerned look. "Alex managed to find the last missing mask. We ended up fighting a crimson zombie that was found chained up inside the coffin. But the worst part was that there was no key inside at all. So I agreed to stay here and let you both know about our findings …or lack thereof, while he and Barry try to go back and see what we may have missed from the given clue at the main back door."

Chris raised an eyebrow, his expression hinting at desperation for more answers.

"So… nothing in particular?!" He inquired.

Jill shook her head. "I know what you're thinking. If something as complex as a puzzle-solving mechanism is implemented within the mansion's blueprints, you'd think there'd be something of value inside, but apparently not this time…"

"Fuck that!" Woods exclaimed, turning his back on them for a quick moment as he began to contemplate how things couldn't get any worse for everyone trapped inside. He then looked back at Jill, his gaze piercing her almost deep inside her soul. "Mason seemed so damn sure about something being inside. Considering his behavior from earlier, there's somethin' he ain't telling us. I just know it!"

"Now that you mention it," said Jill, looking almost quite shocked, but worried at the same time. "Barry has also been acting a little flaky lately. I noticed it for a while now since we reunited after we first split up. Can't stop but think that they may have found out about something horrendous that none of them have been willing to tell anyone."

Woods slowly shook his head in defiance. "Doubt it. Mason's a brother to me. If there's anything that could put anyone on the team in jeopardy, he'd tell me right away."

"That's the thing," Chris responded to him, looking more concerned than before. "Barry is close friends with me and Jill. He'd do the same for both of us. He's one of the most honest, straightforward people I've ever known, but if what Jill said about Barry is true then…"

"What if…" Jill intervened but was afraid to express her blooming theory, not wanting to immediately start pointing fingers at either of their closest teammates. There was no other better thought so she proceeded to say it anyway, "What if both of them had found the key elsewhere and decided not to tell anyone else about it? Maybe for our safety or…"

"You don't know that," Chris shot back at her almost defiantly. "Barry would never try to…"

"Can't believe I'm gonna fuckin' say this but Valentine's right," said Woods, his lips thinning as a result of his distressing feeling about their teammates. "We can't continue to ignore the fact that Mason and Burton have been acting strange to us. If we want to get to the bottom of this, then we go to this shitty morgue's backdoor and confront them ourselves."

Chris and Jill nodded at him. They couldn't go on any longer without any straightforward answers from the mysterious duo, who happened to be known for their brutal honesty for as long as they could remember. If they had to pull off some answers by force, then so be it.

Now that Woods had his memory back and no longer felt any mild pulsating headaches, he proceeded to share some of the information he happened to remember from Angola to Jill and the mysterious connections between then and now.

"...and then days later, I was rescued from that place of death and decay," Frank finished off his summarized story as they had just finished going through the series of doors in the east wing of the estate. "One of the worst days of my life, besides tonight."

"Wow… I'm— I'm so sorry…" Jill responded in complete shock as she led the duo into the gate towards the back door exit. "I couldn't even begin to… imagine all the suffering you happened to experience at the time …just awful."

"My reaction exactly," said Chris, nodding. "I probably would've died there myself long ago…"

"Considering you survived this far in this fuckin' hellhole of a mansion, I'd think otherwise," said Frank, giving him a quick smirk before focusing on the depression beside the back door. "Well, shit… they already found the troublesome object."

"Wait, but …how?!" Jill inquired, confused as to when and where anyone could have found the emblem. "I mean we checked and there wasn't—!"

She couldn't believe it. They had already found the missing key for the back door exit. The main question was; who found it? Where did they find it? Could it have been one of the Bravos? Their captain? Or maybe…

"Whoever found it surely didn't bother telling anyone right away," Chris emphasized, rubbing his head as he began to shift his attention towards Frank. "What are you thinking?"

"Thinkin' it's time for some damn answers," said Frank, exasperated by the lack of any explanation for anything at this point, firmly swinging the metal gate open.

They were now met with two different routes inside a tool shed; the double doors in front of them were already slightly opened, while the door to their right was closed, but also a potential route anyone who wanted to hide their tracks could've gone to.

"You two should go on ahead. I'll take the right," said Frank with a voice full of confidence, showing hints of annoyance and anger behind his rough tone.

Jill looked back at him, her eyes meeting his troubled gaze for a brief moment.

"You sure you're gonna be alright on your own out there?"

"Still alive, aren't I?" He shot back at her. "Just go. And if you happen to stumble upon this place's lab, be careful."

Chris shuddered. "Wait! But what about—!"

Without any further response or interaction, he had already closed the door behind him, leaving Chris and Jill on their own, still having shocked looks on their faces.

Chris looked back at Jill, his jittery expression now meeting hers.

"I really got a bad feeling about this…"

Frank was feeling all kinds of emotions inside. He was worried, and concerned, but also aggravated and resentful.

Alex… is it true that you're really hiding something from us? …From me, your own best friend?

It would be hypocritical for him to point this out as he had also hidden his past recurring visions and nightmares from him. With his memory mostly restored, it probably would be hard for Alex to swallow and digest everything he had gone through before his arrival in Angola; before the last straw bloomed within the already strained relationship between him and his son. He knew Mason already suspected a lot of things about him, but he was too nice of a guy to even bother confronting him about it.

He now began to feel an immediate punch of guilt and remorse.

I'm so sorry to have broken up any chance to keep your son close to you, brother… my fuckin' fault … damn you too, Hudson.

Hudson was also partly to blame. If it wasn't for him going all the way back to Fairbanks directly to Mason for help after he had already said he retired for good, he could've still had a chance with David; a chance to fix their bent relationship. Many times after that fateful day, Mason kept rambling about the many things he could've done with his kid, even things Alex's own father wasn't able to do with him due to being drafted and wounded in battle in World War II.

Clearly, that's been thrown out the fuckin' window. Guess I also didn't help matters as well either…

Clearing those heavy thoughts out of the way, Woods simply wanted to focus on finding Alex or Barry and have them do some explaining. The least he could do was give them the benefit of the doubt.

The Arklay Forest was as still as it had always been. The open space around made Frank keep his guard up at all times since he didn't want to become another meal for the cerberi that inhabited the forest. The only thing that kept the winding path from being touched upon by the wilderness all around was a small, but fragile picket fence. It looked as though it had been severely affected by the humidity and weather of the area, long enough for it to become brittle and unstable. No one seemed to have bothered fixing or replacing the fence in a long time. The route was like a steep hill going down. He almost lost his footing at some point after trying not to step on fallen rocks and the huge muddy puddles all around.

After hiking down through the narrow path, there was a pair of rusted metal gates, with two statues of the same hellhounds they've encountered, except these were actual depictions of the mythical Cerberus with three heads, all of whom were facing away from the main gate.

If this shit doesn't scream death, I don't know what does…

Woods shuddered at the thought of what could be all the way back here away from the mansion. Could it be hiding something of value? Maybe another stashed crimson zombie, like what Valentine said there was inside that coffin?

The muddy path hadn't had any footprints at all so it was now highly doubtful that anybody would've gone through here. However, his curiosity had now peaked and with almost no hesitation, he entered through the gates of another cemetery, albeit a smaller one compared to the other one he'd been to earlier. There were a few crows in the area, sitting on top of the gravestones, acting as though they were the guardians of the dead buried inside, staring at every step he was taking. Their piercing stare was chilling enough to make his back become enveloped with chills and his body hair stand up in response, making him feel rather uncomfortable. It felt as though death itself was carefully watching him silently and menacingly as a way of getting back to him for escaping death multiple times before. Their dark, bloodied beaks and small, bloated bodies meant that they had fed not so long ago. If that was the case, it meant that he was probably safe …for now.

And maybe if I'm lucky, they may have feasted on all those mutant dogs. Probably won't have to worry about them anymore.

Seeing the results of the violence these crows were capable of doing against Forest himself, he didn't want to find out the hard way how to deal with the small, hungry flying beasts. The last time he even contemplated doing so, a whole flock of them flew almost as fast as flying planes above him and Chris.

Woods slowly marched forward, his hands sweating and tightened on the grip of his Samurai Edge, ready for any hostile move from the cawing crows themselves. He kept a steady pace, not wanting to agitate any of the dark birds nearby, his breathing almost slowing down to a halt in order to keep his pace as steady as possible, his heart pounding at every move. The crows just stared at him fiercely, cawing every time he got closer to one of them, but Woods kept moving without giving a single flinch. After having reached the other gate, he opened it, creaking louder than the last, but the crows stood their ground.

Taking in a deep breath, he finally sighed, relieved none of them decided to alert one another to begin their next hunt of the night. Without looking back, he continued forward onto the same, narrow path, surrounded by brittle picket fences. The thick foliage of the forest and rooting of the trees themselves had already begun to take over this part of the path, making it somewhat difficult to navigate through.

"Ooouughh….uuuooouugghh…."

There was some loud distant moaning somewhere deep inside the forest, followed by the sound of rattling chains, and Woods quickly drew his weapon, aiming at the direction he thought it came from.

What …the fuck was that?!

It didn't sound like any zombie he's ever heard so far. So what could've made that sound? Some infected prisoner? Another different type of zombie? He couldn't tell…

With his weapon still drawn in front of him, he continued down the long path, aiming in almost every direction he could, not wanting to be caught by surprise. For a long moment, there weren't any more of those unnatural sounds. The only sounds were that of nature itself, with crickets and cicadas chirping all around. Woods wasn't the superstitious type, but the entire place felt haunted, almost as if a ghostly figure could pop out of nowhere and scare the living crap out of him.

As he moved deeper inside the forest, his Beretta still firmly gripped in his hands, there was a silhouette of a small building nearby, something they may have completely missed when escaping the group of infected dogs running after them.

Inching ever so closer to a fork, it finally stepped into view.

It was a small cabin, and it seemed… abandoned.

Determined to check it out, he took the passage leading up the hill and directly into the front door of the abandoned building. The only light source outside of the cabin was a hanging lightbulb with small flying insects circling around it. The windows were so dirty, that there was no obvious hint of whether or not there was anything lit inside the cabin.

Here goes nothin'...

He turned the knob slowly, meeting up with the satisfying clicking sound of a retracting bolt, and quickly burst the door open, aiming his gun forward inside.

It smelled like rotting wood and fruit inside. Dust covered the entire ground. Cobwebs were all over every corner he could see through the dim light of some sort of fire elsewhere inside the cabin. Small thin-legged spiders could be seen through the fire's light on the abandoned gardening tools further upfront on the choking corner of the cabin's entrance.

On the left side of the wall were some old, but dried-up pumpkins inside a basket. Next to it was another basket, filled with half-eaten peaches and oranges, though most of it was all filled with mold. From the looks of it, no one seemed to have been here in a long time.

That is when he turned around the next corner and saw the fireplace, freshly lit up with pieces of thick wood still actively burning in place, barely charred.

'Kay, someone's definitely holed up here.

He kept his guard up, still checking his surroundings as he looked up at a pair of hanging bandages and towels, all covered in some sort of dried brown stains, most likely blood.

Woods quickly threw one of the towels to the ground and what he uncovered was something out of a terrible nightmare.

There were masks made of many women's faces, all of whom were seemingly skinned alive as there was so much blood covered in almost all of them. Some of them were sewn together with the scalp of their remaining hair, almost making Woods throw up in the process.

Jesus Christ! What fuckin' psycho would even do this?!

He staggered back, finding his way up near the small set of stairs, preventing himself from looking at the grotesque collection of women's faces any further. War and monsters were one thing, but a deranged human being committing these acts on individuals, especially against the vulnerable, was something that made him extremely sick to the stomach.

Inside another part of the cabin was a messy crude bed next to a window facing the entrance and a small, dusty table, containing a lantern and an old broken typewriter, all of which were covered in layers of filth. Everything else inside was filled with cobwebs all over, making Frank wonder if the spiders inside the place were even infected with whatever virus the creatures outside had. He hoped it wasn't the case since one single bite from any of the small arachnids could potentially be fatal.

Next to a series of cobwebs on the lone table was a pair of old, crumpled papers. Surprisingly, they weren't covered in a thick layer of dust like everything else in the small area. Wiping any remaining dust, he began to read what they said.

Nov. 14, 1967

I feel dizzy after the shot they gave me. I don't see Mom. Where did they take her? She promised that we would escape together. Did she escape alone and leave me behind?

"Shit…" he cursed out loud. "Was she one of the many victims from the psycho as well?" Woods felt his emotions grow into a state of rage, forcefully trying not to read it any further. But as much as he tried, he couldn't. He wanted to know more about what happened to the poor victims, wanting to make sure what exactly he'd be avenging them for.

He continued on, filled with a growing bitter feeling.

Nov. 15, 1967

I found Mom. We ate together. I was very happy.

But she was a fake. Not my real Mom. Same face but different inside.

Have to find Mom. Have to give face back to mother.

I got Mom's face back. Nobody can have my Mom except me. I attach her face to me so she doesn't go away. Because Mom sad when I meet her without her face.

That last paragraph changed everything. It wasn't some random psycho, but someone else who labored under the delusion that someone had stolen their mother's "face" and most likely ripped their faces from their flesh.

This whole thing just gets stranger and stranger…

Nov. 17, 19 7

from inside box, scent of mommy. maybe true mother there. stone box hard. It hurt. steel rope in the way. can't see mother becuz 4 stones.

19

momm atached

iNside reD and sLimy whiTe and haRd

not true moM wheRe

dunno dadd found mum again

when atachd momMy she moved no more she screaming

why? Jst want to b with her

4

mom where?

I mis you

Frank put down the papers in place, still wondering what the hell happened to whoever wrote these diary entries. It was hard to tell whether the person who wrote these entries was a victim themselves, or…

God, how long have they been experimenting on people?

The progressively worsened handwriting was a subtle hint that they may have been infected and began to lose their sanity in the process, their ability to write becoming hindered and slowly wiped out. The worst part was that the papers were dated in late nineteen sixty-seven, just a couple of months before he and Mason were deployed to Vietnam in search of Soviet involvement, which meant that these Umbrella experiments may have been rooted all the way down from its foundation.

Now having a renewed determination to look for more answers, he ventured further inside the cabin, leading him to a dead end. However, at the end of the other side of the cabin was an opened hatch with a ladder leading deep underground.

Could this lead to the lab?

Feeling confident about his recent discovery, he descended all the way down, which felt like it could've been a few hundred feet below the surface, possibly more. It began to smell like a raw sewage system, the air around him becoming thicker and moist for every second he spent sliding down the ladder. Finally managing to hit hard ground, he turned to his right and saw that he was now in some sort of underground cave system, lit up by a multitude of candles that may have been recently set up by someone.

The ceiling was all covered in cobwebs, though at the far end of the passage was a set of old barrels and another dead end. As he got closer, there was another ladder going down into a room that had been completely turned into a personal bedroom. Scanning around the environment, it felt like he had just invaded someone else's privacy as something in his gut was telling him that not long ago, someone had just been in here and had been living down here for a while now. The place was a mess, but compared to the cabin on the surface, it looked conspicuously cleaned and well organized.

On his left was a bookshelf filled with worn-out dolls, some of them looking creepier than others. There were also some old family photographs laying in between the dolls. From what Woods could gather, it looked like a happy family. One particular line of framed photographs showed the uprising of a young girl. He picked the last one standing on the right and in that photograph, the mother was smiling as she looked down at her laughing daughter, while the father looked at the camera with a huge grin as he held his daughter in his arms in front of him. Frank flipped the frame over, revealing something in someone's bad handwriting.

mOMy nd ddY

MiS u mCh

Frank felt his heart sink to the lowest it's ever been. The girl in the picture didn't look any older than twelve years old. He felt extremely sympathetic about the bad circumstances that may have happened to the poor family. If his own men suffered many atrocities at the hands of Umbrella and Kravchenko themselves and saw what they were capable of doing firsthand, he couldn't begin to imagine the types of horrors the little girl and her parents must've gone through.

And all for fuckin' what?! Biowarfare? Profit?

But if someone has been living here just recently, who could it be? It couldn't be the mother since according to the daughter, she had already found her coffin, bound by four stones. Her father's whereabouts are still unknown and whether or not the girl survived her ordeal…

No.

He had to brush those terrible thoughts out of the way. Seeing all this just made his stomach turn to a dreadful knot, almost as though he was now suddenly realizing that the world they currently live in is the cruelest place anyone could ever know.

As if I hadn't known that for ages already…

Beside him was an old-vintage mirror, the same kind his own mother used to spend a lot of her time on back in the nineteen thirties. Looking back at his own reflection, he gazed at himself directly into his weary blue eyes, wondering just how much he'd been through all his life; the Korean and Vietnam Wars, Da Nang prison camp, Nova Six, Mason's numbers, Perseus, Operation: Greenlight, Angola, and this…

His whole life had been about fighting for the greater good; doing things others weren't willing to do as soldiers. But who was he kidding? His own government had him involved in many illegal missions as well, most of them even personally authorized by presidents like John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan. Maybe whatever's happening to him right now is a way for the universe itself to silence him for good. Sooner or later, both he and Mason will eventually be hunted down by the government themselves, regardless of their noble actions in Raccoon City. That is if they ever survive this whole mess…

Sighing, he fixed up his green bandana and proceeded to investigate his surroundings a bit further, still trying to figure out who had been living here underground. The untidy bed still felt warm, meaning the person residing here had been laying there not long ago. Next to the bed was a table filled with lit candles and a few scattered old dolls, as if it were a small altar. In the center was a bizarre-looking jewelry box. As he picked it up, something began to rattle inside. Thinking it could be something worthwhile, he opened it up and saw it was another of the same octagonal-shaped emblem key they happened to have already found earlier.

Then something clicked in his mind.

Well, I'll be damned! This must be the other missing emblem for the main gate underneath the staircase at the mansion's foyer.

If memory serves him right, the gate he'd seen underneath the main foyer was another secret entrance further underground, possibly hiding something important and secretive.

If he could somehow snatch the other one already in place on the mansion's backdoor and put the two emblems inside the depressions on those gates then that could mean—

Maybe another way to the lab itself?

He immediately began wondering why the emblem was even inside here, and in a fancy jewelry box of all places.

Wait, there's more…

Inside the box was another old photograph of the same family he had seen previously. However, this one looked much more worn out, their faces almost completely faded away. They were sitting on a couch, all of them seemingly smiling at the camera. The girl looked a lot younger here, around six or seven years old. In the back of the photo was an inscription.

Nov. 10, 1967

Progenitor Virus Administered

Jessica

Administered Virus Type-A

Plasmolyzing of tissue during cell activation.

Virus fusion: Negative

Action: Disposed

Lisa

Administered Virus Type-B

Plasmolyzing of tissue during cell activation.

Virus fusion: Positive, but delayed fusion.

Body modification: Observed constant results.

Status: Continue protective observation.

George

Action: Terminated (Nov. 30, 1967)

Progenitor Virus Type B…It was the same type of virus used to experiment on his own men in Angola. And putting all the pieces together, it became clear that Lisa, the daughter, was experimented with the same type of virus almost twenty years before his own team was subjected to those same horrors.

Could she be the one who survived, still living here, and…

No… this shit can't be real! Why would they—?!

He didn't want to believe an entire family was kidnapped and endured such a painful experience, and if it were actually true, then how many more families around the world had been secretly kidnapped and experimented upon by Umbrella since then?

Those bastards were going to pay. One way or another, Woods was going to do everything in his power to put a stop to all of this.

Before he could even turn his attention toward the ladder, an incredible amount of sharp pain hit him from behind. His vision became blurred and in a very short amount of time, everything was now black and he could feel no more as he fell to the ground in response to whatever had caught him by surprise with enough force to knock him out cold.