x-x-TheBurnedMan-x-x - You should definitely give RE0 a try. I'm not gonna say it's one of the best in the classics, but it is definitely an enjoyable experience nonetheless. Loved Rebecca in that game, despite her major inconsistency with her overall character from then to RE1 within the timeline itself.
And you're fine! I myself am not good with puzzles that require a lot of heavy brainpower as I had to carefully study exactly how the whole cryptography from the numbers in the Black Ops series works with the help of an old YouTube video (there goes another hint XD). It's not exactly Cicada 3301 difficulty level though. Hell nah! I wish I were that good lol.

Adam Luck - Again, much appreciated! And honestly, I don't expect a lot of people to go through the trouble in trying to decode the whole thing, but I did so in order to offer up a decent easter egg many Black Ops fans would actually love and appreciate and to at least be able to encourage some people to read the novels for RE as well.
And noo... Those who say you're speaking pure sacrilege just because you look up how to solve certain puzzles are silly, at best. I'm sure many of us gamers at some point had to take a peek at a manual or strategy guide from a local store (not sure if anyone ever remembers this kind of thing back then) or website in order to progress a certain part of a game you were stuck on. No shame in that!
Ah, yes! I actually didn't really think of the whole Russian thing! As obvious as it may be, I don't know anything in Russian other than "privyet" (informal way of hello IIRC), "dasvidania" (goodbye), "da" (yes), and "nyet" (no). I am fluent in Spanish so, say, if Luis Sera or Raul Menendez were the ones talking, and giving commands in Spanish, I'd have no issue whatsoever lol. However, whatever quotes are spoken in Russian, they will still be written in English but in brackets, just like you said in the second part of your review. I will try to make it work that way. I never watched any of the Captain America movies except the very first one and Civil War so pardon me for not being "a man of culture" as some people may describe it lol. Neither with the Batman movies as well (never really liked Batman anyway).
As for David's love life, again, I can't promise you anything so I'll most likely be making it up as I go through the next story, see what sort of random ideas start popping up in my head by then. ;)

Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil (Remake), (1996), & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - Underground/The Underground

2. Resident Evil (1996) & Director's Cut (DualShock Ver.) - First Floor Mansion AGAIN/First Floor Revisited

3. Resident Evil (Remake) - Barry's Betrayal

Chapter 26

Barry was standing over his best friend's dead body, Wesker's map crumpled in one hand. He had just ditched Jill down in the depths of the underground with God knows what down there. Rather than look for the others or a route leading to the lab, he'd found himself unable to move or even cut his gaze away from the corpse of what was once a lively Enrico.

This is all my fault, Enrico… If I hadn't been so naive and helped Wesker, regardless of his repeated promises, you'd still be alive.

Barry stared miserably at Enrico's face, his conscience so filled with guilt and shame that he did not know what to do anymore. He knew he had to look for anyone else, keep them away from getting to both Alex and Wesker, but still, there was virtually nothing that he could do to force himself away from the corpse of his murdered friend.

He's got Kathy and the babies, Rico… what else am I supposed to do? Kill him and hope my family doesn't get murdered because of me? Plus, it's also Alex's son we are talking about here. He has all of them - taken hostages. If this was your family, what would you have done?

The Bravo leader stared back at him with soulless, unseeing eyes. No accusation, no sympathy, no nothing. Forever dead. Even if Barry continued to help the Alpha captain and everything else turned out the way it should've gone, Enrico would still be dead, no matter what. Everything that has happened up to this point has been a complete nightmare, something he knew he was going to struggle to live with, even if he were to go back to his family, safe and sound.

The door in the distance was heard being slammed open.

Alex?

Barry's attention was quickly snatched to his back, listening closely as to who it really was. He reached for his weapon automatically, the footsteps slowly growing ever so closely.

Maybe he came back with Wesker to tell me something more? Could it somehow be Jill to confront me about leaving her behind?

The footsteps grew closer.

No. That's not Alex, Jill, or any ordinary human being.

The sounds were bare, claws dragging against the rocky surface of the old mine.

Then a loud piercing sound came to life.

The green monsters!

Aiming his revolver towards the corner, he froze in place, waiting for the green humanoid reptile to appear in sight, his hands sweating as the footsteps now turned into a dashing sound. The creature was on the move, and fast.

A few seconds later, the monster was now in his view. The lights above illuminated its whole body, now being able to tell what it looks like when alive and standing up in the most bizarre way possible.

Green skin. Piercing, orange-white eyes. Hunched with huge talons on all four limbs, its elongated arms almost touching the ground.

The humanoid monster screeched and hissed; the most horrible, squealing cry he's ever heard in his life. Barry did not think twice after that.

His finger squeezed the trigger and the piercing shriek that sounded like nails on a chalkboard came to a sudden change of a deep gurgle, choking on its own blood as the .44 magnum round tore violently into its throat, knocking the creature down on its back.

The abomination flailed its limbs wildly like a dying spider. Blood squirted out from the smoking hole around its neck. Barry heard several more bubbling from the creature, trying its best as if it was still trying to scream. Its arms continued to flail, the sharp talons scratching against the rock on the ground itself with a couple of them snapping apart.

Barry didn't know what to do but to watch the creature writhe in agony for a whole minute as it spasmed violently before trying to turn around and stand up back again.

Before long, however, it seemed as though he needed to shoot it again since the first shot should've blown its entire head off from its neck. That is until the creature finally stopped moving and froze in place, having already formed a dark pool of its own noxious blood. The green humanoid had apparently bled to death while it was still conscious, an agonizing death that Barry did not have any sympathy for towards the hideous creature.

Umbrella's experiments, huh? No matter what happens, you and Umbrella will go down. I promise you that, Wesker.

Walking past the dead creature, he made his way back to the elevator room he had used to leave Jill behind, not wanting to see the lift in which he had committed his betrayal directly against her.

Taking a look at the map, he followed a trail that led him to the corridor that Alex and Wesker had gone through and stopped at what seemed to be a dead-end with a smashed boulder that had been there since he, Wesker, and Alex had arrived. The map showed that there was a secret route that he could use to trace his steps back to where Jill may end up going if she were to find the last required emblem to unlock the gates leading to the underground tunnels below the mansion's main foyer.

Putting the crumpled paper away, he decided to go through with it and crawl underneath the boulder to the other side, which housed a ladder leading further underground. His priority was to search for the others and delay their actions long enough for Alex and Wesker to reach the labs first, but knowing what he had done to Jill, he wasn't at all comfortable with the idea of having left her behind and acting like he was a selfish, cold-hearted person towards her. As of right now, she may already be at the mansion, angry at him for stranding her in a strange place where someone or something dangerous could've been inhabiting the area. He hoped she had already made it out.

He had to get to that part of the mansion through here first before Jill would arrive and the fastest route was the one he was going to follow.

Forgive me, Jill. My family's on the line here. If you knew the situation that me and Alex had gotten ourselves into, you would understand why.

The mansion seemed as quiet as ever, and the smell of death itself lingered just as much as it did before.

With both octagonal-shaped emblems now in hand, Jill and Frank were now headed back to the main hall, ready to search the underground tunnels that were initially inaccessible to them. Making sure they didn't lock out anyone else from the mansion, they tested the locking mechanism of the metal door itself, and much to their surprise, it could open from the outside whether the emblem was inside the depression or not. The only thing that prevented the door from opening was the knob from the inside, which would automatically trap any potential intruders; something that may have seemed smart for Umbrella to do in case there were any trespassers and use them for their cruel experiments.

In the dark corridor where Jill had shot a couple of zombies when passing through the first time, the corpses were not in their original positions. However, one of them was slumped against the wall to their right, blood sprayed across the plain wallpaper while the other was on its back, lying on the ground further ahead, both of which seemed like they had turned into their crimson variants, but were completely decapitated.

"Who chopped their heads off?" Woods inquired as he crouched and gazed at both of the crimson, headless corpses. "Seems like they were cut clean."

Jill shook her head. "I don't know, but I'd say we should get moving and thank whoever did this, or else we would have even more problems on our hands."

"Couldn't agree more," he replied back as he stood up and moved closer to the double doors ahead…

…until the doors suddenly burst open and a green reptilian-looking creature got the jump on Woods and knocked him down to the ground, its piercing scream sending a wave of chills to a surprised Frank as he tried wrestling his way out, trying to hold the creature at bay from giving him the worst massage of his life. Its huge talons on both hands were covered in flesh and blood as though it had recently hunted not long ago and was now bloodthirsty to hunt again, this time, to kill him at all cost.

"GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME YOU—!"

A sudden loud thunderous blast overcame his screams of shock and terror as the creature flew against the wall to the left in an agonizing sound of pain, shrieking back at its attacker before another blast of Jill's shotgun punctured its green-scaly skin all over with several pellets destroying a part of its face and one of its eyeballs. Blood spurted out quickly as the creature spasmed in pain before seconds later, dying out of its own blood loss.

Jill lowered her shotgun, her expression showing full disgust for the same kind of creature she, Alex, and Barry had fought earlier underground.

"Not… today! You alien-looking freak!"

Frank stood up, his shoulder hurting from the fall he took when the creature knocked him down by surprise. He looked down at the thing responsible for the possible decapitations that the crimson heads had suffered.

"What the hell…!?" He quavered in confusion and disgust, seeing the humanoid monster closely, something he has never seen before in all of his 68 years of his life. "What the hell have they made?!"

Jill swallowed nervously, not knowing the right words to describe the monstrosity that was in front of them.

"That thing… me, Barry, and Alex fought something like it in the old mines. Seems like these Umbrella researchers made more than just a virus. And I'm guessing, these things had somehow sensed us and now they are out to prey on us."

"No shit," said Woods, shaking his head as he looked back at the dead creature that almost managed to kill him. "If these bastards are capable of kidnapping and experimenting on people, there's not a single doubt in my mind that these green critters could've been former victims or something far worse."

Jill nodded in silence before pointing the door at the back - the way they needed to go.

"Come on, there's a shortcut here to the main hall. We cut through and hope to God there's no more of these things waiting for us out there."

Woods nodded in agreement and both of them proceeded inside the gallery room, which once held the seemingly domesticated infected crows. All of them were now gone, possibly due to the fact that they were able to fly out of there, living whatever life they now had, or they might've flown away to safety from the relentless reptilian monsters that have now seemingly invaded the mansion grounds.

Nothing else was inside or outside as they stepped out into the mansion's cemetery. The howling dogs were nowhere to be heard again, making the duo feel more relieved, but also quite unsettled since that could mean two things; they were either dead by the invading green critters, or have found their way inside the mansion somewhere and somehow...

...and just when they thought they were safe, two of the same green monsters had jumped over the tall fence that surrounded the cemetery, squealing cries that made their skin crawl and hearts beat loudly in a sudden dread of panic.

"More of'em!" Woods yelled out, taking out his shotgun before he felt Jill's hand on his arm and a forceful pull from her grasp yanked him away from his aim to the closest one that began closing in on them.

"Inside! NOW!" Jill hollered in a blinding panic, as she led them upstairs and onto the door that led back to the main foyer. As the duo ran to safety, Jill took a misstep and began to stumble toward the door. Woods got to it first, opened it, and shot his custom M3 shotgun at the scaly monster closest to her. Just as she took a closer step inside, the second reptilian humanoid managed to jump over at an incredible height and get close enough to scratch Jill's left thigh with two of its sharp talons, making her squeak in pain for a brief moment before Woods managed to pull her inside and shut the door behind them, shoving his own body against the door as he locked it in place. The scaly monster shook the door for a few moments before it finally gave up and wandered elsewhere.

"Fuck those things to hell!" He said angrily before he shot a worried look at Jill, seeing her visible injury through her blue ripped pants underneath. It didn't look fatal, but it definitely looked as though it'd hurt like hell. "How you feelin'?"

Jill groaned in pain slightly as she sat on the ground, taking a full grasp on her visible scratches.

"Just a couple of scratches. They don't look deep though."

She ripped a part of her right sleeve, not worrying about the repercussions of destroying her uniform, and began using the ripped fabric as a tourniquet in order to stop some of the bleeding.

So much for taking care of my uniform... Why would it matter now of all times anyway?

"Here, let me help you with—"

"Thanks, but I think I know how to handle a simple wrap," Jill quickly dismissed his offer but was still feeling grateful nonetheless.

Woods slowly smiled at her. "Never said you couldn't."

Just after Jill finished treating her injury, Woods offered his hand and Jill took it, quickly standing up as the pain became a lot sharper than before, but immediately began to subside afterward.

"Can you walk?"

Jill was still feeling some of the pain, but it wasn't half as bad as it was before now.

"So far, so good," she said calmly. "Looks worse than it is, really."

Woods nodded. "Alright, then let's get going."

He began to walk downstairs before Jill paused for a brief moment, overlooking the mansion's main entrance, thinking about just how much they've all been through in one whole night and the amount of death and decay they all had to face since. She wanted to take a moment to grieve for the deaths of her teammates but knew that drowning in her own emotions won't do them any good for their current mission of survival. She'd have to bury all those emotions inside a small box and leave it for later until they manage to escape out of the hellhole they are in. The struggle of keeping the wave of emotions from erupting was excruciating for her.

"Jill?" Frank's voice suddenly woke her up from the brief moment she had for her inner thoughts to come flowing in and out. His footsteps echoed as he climbed upstairs once again, stepping closer to a distraught-looking Jill. "You doin' okay?"

Jill sighed, ignoring his concerned gaze as she kept her head up, looking past him and onto the doors that led them to this terrible nightmare they have been in for so long.

"So much has happened in one night… Kevin, Joseph, Kenneth, Enrico… how many more have to die before it's our turn to escape or…die trying?"

Woods took his gaze elsewhere, looking back in the direction Jill was staring at. There really was a lot that happened in one single night; Bravo going missing, Vickers ditching them, Sullivan dying in front of him, the giant snake, Speyer coming back from the dead, sudden memory flashes, Lisa, the green reptilian humanoids…

"You're not wrong…" he said sullenly, turning his gaze towards Jill, whose gaze now met his own. "But we have to keep going. We can't let Umbrella get away with more shit any longer."

Jill nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you're right. Let's go."

Both of them quickly began climbing downstairs and down into the tunnels, where two gates required one emblem for each depression on each gate in order to open. Jill's injury sent sharps of pain for each step she took, but it was at least bearable and not at all impairing.

Jill and Frank put the emblems they had on each gate, hearing a small click as a response, a sign that the gates were now unlocked.

A familiar low moaning voice erupted soon after. It was the same sound that both Jill and Frank have heard before.

Lisa…

"Ready, partner?" Said Frank, raising his Beretta with both hands. Jill nodded in silence as she did the same and on Frank's mark, both of them opened the gates and began rushing through the long hallways in the tunnels downstairs.

The path was long and somewhat tedious. Step after step, they ended up deep below underground once again in the same stone environment, Jill remembered from back in the old mines. It almost looked like the whole underground network connected from the courtyard, to the cabin and mansion itself.

The long pathway led to a metal door and Woods creaked it open, making sure that Lisa wouldn't be there, waiting for them by surprise. How a degraded mutant like her would even remotely have the capability to be here without the required emblems, they did not know.

They entered a room filled with more lit candles, most of them looking as though they have been lit recently. Frank knew exactly where they were stepping into as this was also one of Lisa's conquered territories. She must've found another way through here someplace else. He turned his head around to Jill, giving her a silencing gesture as the creature could be roaming around somewhere, and Jill quickly understood, both of them on guard.

As they descended further down a rocky slope, they found out that there was another door up ahead, confirming their suspicion that there may be another way around this place. Just underneath them was a grating with a ladder descending further down, revealing a much larger room down below.

Jill went in first, sliding down via the ladder as Frank followed next.

However, she saw someone standing near what seemed to be a large sarcophagus in the center of the large room. It wasn't Lisa, but…

…Barry?

How did he even get down here? Better question, how did he even know there was another way around?

Jill did not say a word to him. Instead, she just stared at his back in disgust, upset and furious about what he had pulled earlier, an act that was the final straw for her suspicion about him.

As Frank hit the ground slightly louder than she did, Barry's head quickly jerked back around, seeing the duo now standing behind him, his expression showing that of a devious, surprised person.

"Jill, Frank!" He said almost nervously. "You're both alive!"

Jill and Frank continued to stay silent as Jill slowly walked towards Barry with disgust on her face, knowing that Barry was being full of himself once again, acting as though he didn't almost send Jill to her death with the monster in chains from earlier. Frank knew people's tactics when coping after they've been caught in their lies, having experienced this many times during his time in the CIA. Jill knew almost just as much as well, especially as someone who was raised by a career criminal almost her whole life and after spending the last couple of years catching criminals since she first signed up for STARS.

Barry continued, his attention now shifting towards Jill, his tone suddenly changing to a normal voice, continuing to act as though he was concerned about them profusely.

"I was worried, you know? Because I thought you were…"

Barry immediately took out his revolver, but Jill reacted fast enough to disarm him and now she was the one aiming his own gun straight into his face, her tone dark and bitter, something Frank had never seen Jill do since he first met her.

"Start. Talking."

Frank decided not to intervene, though he still kept his guard up as he was now hearing chains being dragged from somewhere, holding his weapon tight with both hands as he kept scanning the environment around them.

Barry became hysterical and protested, his voice becoming even shakier in between his sentences.

"Calm down! I didn't wanna do it. Believe me! I can explain!"

"DON'T LIE TO ME!" Jill raged, becoming even more furious at him with each passing second. "You have been acting suspicious for a long time. You even left me to die by that monster in chains down there! How could I even trust you anymore!?"

Barry simply froze with his hands raised, slightly backing against the sarcophagus as much as he could. He simply couldn't find any words to say anything in response at all.

Then something large came crashing down from the rock ceiling in front of a closed gate.

"Shit! It's her!" Frank shouted out as he ran closer to the tensed duo, aiming his Beretta at the monster that was now across from them.

The hunched, mutated Lisa turned to face all three of the Alphas, ignoring the fiasco that was going on between them as she violently crushed both statues that were beside the closed main gate leading elsewhere in the tunnels. She had now trapped the trio with her as the ladder behind them snapped away as a result of an activated trap that the statues held for the ladder itself.

Jill and Barry turned back to look at the monstrosity that had now interrupted them. Lisa began to yell and scream in a high-pitched sound of pain as tentacles began to erupt almost all over her masked body, preparing to kill all three STARS members that were now underground, trapped with her.

Barry, becoming even more scared as he saw the same monster that he had ditched Jill with, pleaded to Jill as Lisa slowly walked around the sarcophagus towards them.

"Jill, please! We don't have time to talk right now. Hand me my gun!"

Jill hesitated for a moment, thinking in the tiniest amount of time she had left before deciding whether or not she should give in.

So far, it didn't seem as though Barry was the real traitor and from what Jill could tell, the scared and worried look in his eyes seem to be a sign of regret that she's known him to have any time there was something that bothered Barry.

Or maybe it's just that monster that he's afraid of…

Even if that were the case, there's no hard evidence that Barry may be linked to the traitor himself as everything has all been circumstantial.

Without trying to think about the future repercussions, she finally handed over his magnum back, hoping that after dealing with Lisa, she and Frank could have a more thorough chat with him afterward.

Barry quickly grabbed his magnum back and aimed directly at a shrieking Lisa, who was now rushing in their direction.

"Thanks, Jill," he said roughly as he fired a magnum shot at the mutated woman in front of them.

Lisa staggered backward, the shot tearing a fresh visible wound through the multitude of masks around her left hip close to her back, bleeding for a moment before it suddenly stopped, having begun a regeneration process that shouldn't even be possible for a normal human being to have, shocking Barry profusely. As she regenerated lost tissue, she turned away for a brief moment, revealing a weird-looking eyeball located around her back, something that made Barry almost throw out bile just by the sight of it. In a feral rage, she squealed yet again, turning back around and did not let any incoming shots from the trio stop her from coming closer to them.

"Out!" Woods yelled out as he ejected his gun's magazine to put in a new one, but not before Lisa suddenly jumped in front of him and shoved him almost directly into the chasm below.

Frank stumbled and grabbed onto the ledge of the concrete ground, holding himself with one hand as he struggled to climb back up again.

"Dammit!" He screamed in panic as Lisa inched closer to him, preparing to finish the job by throwing him out to his potential death.

"FRANK!" Jill and Barry yelled out in unison.

Jill quickly grabbed her shotgun and began firing at the creature in close range as Barry hurried to grab Frank and pull him to safety.

Every shot that Lisa took would tear up her clothing and masks more and more, each time revealing more horrors that Umbrella had done to her through the many experimentations she's endured over thirty years in confinement.

However, with each shotgun shell that was pumped, she would barely falter and almost looked as if she was becoming more resistant to gunfire, making it seem as though she was immortal with nothing being able to stop her in her tracks.

"Nothing is slowing her down anymore!" Jill said frantically, panic almost becoming her driving force. "What the hell do we do now?!"

Frank remembered what Lisa wrote in her old diary entries, talking about a "hard stone box" with four stones attached with "steel ropes".

He quickly looked around the environment once more, noticing there were actually four stones, all chained up as they held the sarcophagus' lid in place.

"The stones!" He yelled out to his team. Both Jill and Barry looked back at him for a quick moment, confused. "The fuckin' stones! Push them into the abyss!"

"The chained stones?" Barry echoed. "What would that even—?"

"JUST DO IT!" He commanded fiercely.

Jill and Barry nodded.

"Hey, Lisa!" Jill called for the creature's attention. Lisa turned to look at her, the eye on her hideous face widening in a fearsome rage as the eye on her back began to visibly open and close in response to the strong emotion. "Come and get me!"

Jill took the job as bait to get Lisa's attention, knowing that she'd be the main priority to be murdered by her as Lisa seemed to be obsessed with skinning women's faces off and adding it to her own personal collection as seen both on her and in the cabin she and Frank went through from before.

Burton and Woods began the process of pushing the stone closest to them. The stone was brutally heavy to push and using all the brute strength both of the men had, they slowly scraped the ground as the stone inched closer to the ledge, until finally giving in. The chains quickly snapped apart from the tension it received as a result of the heavy stone falling into what seemed to be an endless chasm below their feet.

"Three more to go," said Barry as he immediately looked across from their position, seeing Jill struggling to keep Lisa at bay.

"Need some backup! I'm completely out!" She yelled out as soon as the clicking of the M97 was the only thing heard from her gun.

"I'm on it!" Barry shouted as he took her place and began to distract Lisa.

"Think fast!" Frank yelled out as Jill quickly caught a small box of shells before she immediately started reloading her weapon as fast as possible.

As Frank began to push the other stone that was right behind them, Barry managed to make Lisa lose her balance with a couple of magnum shots just enough for her to now be hanging onto dear life on the ledge of the concrete ground. Having bought themselves enough time, Barry used the opportunity to help Frank push the next stone off into the abyss, snapping the chain apart across the other end of the sarcophagus lid.

Just as Jill finished reloading her weapon, Lisa's tentacles managed to hit her hard enough to send her flailing helplessly toward the closed gate, hitting her back as she yelled out in pain, her scratches suddenly hurting more than before.

Goddamn that hurt!

"JILL!" The men cried out in unison, both of them now focusing fire on Lisa, who had now jumped back onto the ground, giving Jill enough time to slowly stand back up again.

"You okay?!" Woods exclaimed.

"Might've broken a bone or two, but… I'll live," she said, touching her back in pain as she switched to her Berretta and fired a few shots directly at an enraged Lisa. Frank fired his Berretta a couple more times, hitting the eyeball on the back as it burst into a squirting bubble of brown and dark crimson liquid, causing her immense pain. As a result, she fell to the ground on the cold concrete floor, still bleeding from her regenerating wounds as she began to writhe and scream in pain.

"Is she…?"

"Let's not wait and find out," said Woods as he and Barry went towards the third stone and began using all the strength they had left to push it off to the endless chasm.

Jill wasted no opportunity to do the same on the fourth stone while Lisa was on the ground, still moaning in pain. The stone was surprisingly easy to push as it was almost completely off the ledge of the ground, maybe about a few more inches to push at most. The push did manage to hurt Jill's back and injured thigh even more, but the adrenaline she had made the pain more bearable than she had imagined, giving her enough strength to push the entire thing on her own, snapping the final chains apart.

After the last of the chains snapped apart, the lid of the sarcophagus immediately gave in and fell to the side, revealing a skeleton of someone who was buried inside.

Not long after, the main gate in front of them quickly rose up, opening a path that seemed to take them elsewhere in the underground network.

Lisa slowly stood up, having healed all of her wounds from the previous battle that had ensued, and walked towards the sarcophagus, now completely ignoring all of the STARS members around her.

"...mo…ther…!" Lisa cried out the very first word she had ever said in front of them. The sad, longing tone of Lisa's pained voice sent shivers to all three Alphas, somehow feeling more sympathy for the creature that had tried to kill them all just seconds ago. The skeleton inside the sarcophagus was none other than her own mother, Jessica Trevor.

Lisa picked up her mother's skull and just seconds later, threw herself into the dark abyss underneath them, potentially saving the trio from dealing with her ever again.

"Well, at least that's over with," said Barry after taking a deep breath, seeing the chasm in which Lisa had fallen in.

The stench of the now-opened sarcophagus flew around them, making them gag for a brief amount of time.

Jill grew closer to the sarcophagus, seeing that the skeleton held something in its hands.

"I think I found something here," she announced. Barry and Frank turned and walked towards the center, covering their nose with their arms due to the heavy stench of the decomposed body.

Frank stretched out his hand inside and grabbed what seemed to be a written letter. He showed it to Jill and Barry and the trio began to read in silence.

To my Lisa,

Day by day I can feel my consciousness drifting further away. The shots given to me by men in white clothes made some of mommy's itching go away. Today they gave me another shot saying it was "nutrition".

When they give me the shots mommy can think straight, but mommy's shocked and sad because mommy's unable to think of you all the time.

Mommy's afraid. Afraid of forgetting everything, especially the memories of you and daddy... What your faces look like, how we used to be together... They're all starting to disappear into somewhere dark in my mind.

Oh, Lisa, I wish I could touch your face and hold you in my arms right now so that I can hold on to our wonderful memories of you and daddy.

Lisa, we can't stay here any longer, We have to escape!

Listen to me, Lisa. Our chance to escape is the next time when we go to that lab together. We'll both pretend that we are both unconscious and when that man in white clothes is off guard that will be our chance.

When we're on the outside, let's look for daddy together. Okay, sweetie? Be strong, Lisa.

Nov. 13, 1967

Jessica Trevor

Barry stumbled back, his breath almost completely out just by reading the letter and seeing the fates that had befallen the poor Trevor family. He was visibly shaken up and Jill could see that he was already having trouble keeping it together after reading that letter.

Jill felt saddened at the thought that the Trevor family's end had no happy ending. All of them were one of the first victims of this mansion and Umbrella themselves from the very beginning. And to imagine this happening to Barry's family or even her own, it almost felt as though she understood why Barry was feeling the way he was feeling, and Jill could not blame him for it at all.

Woods just stared at the skeleton inside the sarcophagus, the stench being quite unbearable, but not bothered by it. The image of the young girl and her family on the photographs he'd seen earlier played over and over again inside his mind, and then the horrors that were committed by Kravchenko and Umbrella against him and his team. He thought about all possible scenarios of what exactly happened to the Trevor family; the awful acts that Umbrella may have done to them, especially Lisa since all she ever wanted was to be with her family, and after all this time, it seemed as though she was never aware that her mother and father were already dead, until now.

Frank clenched his fists as hard as he could, taking out his Beretta and quickly deciding to move onwards.

"Let's go," he said almost furiously.

"Wait!" Jill looked back at him, not sure whether or not they should continue on with or without Barry. Frank did not stop walking. "What about—?"

"You two go on ahead," Barry reassured her as he reloaded his weapon. "I have a feeling we aren't out of the woods yet with that Lisa girl. The least I could do if she is still alive is to put her out of her misery, that poor thing."

As Frank disappeared inside the tunnel ahead, Jill looked back at Barry, hesitating for a moment before finally nodding at him in silence and hurried to catch up with Frank. Jill struggled with what to make of Barry's recent actions, but seeing that he played no tricks on her or Frank this time, it was hard to tell which side he was on. However, if Barry was still the same person she had first met, she knew he meant no harm and is probably playing the double agent for someone else who's potentially the real double-crosser. There was no way of telling anyway.

She finally caught up with Frank, who was already waiting for her on a round-shaped elevator that led back to the surface.

"Burton's not coming?" He inquired. His tone was firm but also gave a subtle hint of concern as well.

"No," she said, tiredly. "Said he was gonna stay behind in case Lisa comes back to stalk us again."

Without another word exchange, Frank pushed the only button that pointed north and the elevator immediately hovered them back to the surface outside in the dark woods yet again.

However, the entire area was completely fenced off by a small limestone wall, separating them from the wilderness of the Arklay Forest.

There was another elevator across from the one they'd taken. The battery for that elevator was on the ground just below its empty battery slot.

"Someone must've not wanted anyone else from using the other elevator," Frank concluded as he lifted the battery and put it back in its place, lighting up the buttons of the control panel itself as it made a quick snapping sound of life given to the elevator's machinery.

Jill looked around and saw there was some sort of circular giant well in the center of the area to their right. Walking closer to it, she saw a circular set of stairs, leading to an elevator that was further deep underground. The complex pathway surely had to mean something.

"Frank!" She called out to him. Woods quickly jogged to her location and saw what she was looking at. "How much do you wanna bet this is a secret entrance to someplace certain people don't want us to find out about?"

Frank gazed at it profoundly for a quick moment before slowly smiling almost gleefully.

"Only one way to find out."