Author Note: Continuation to Secrets & Flies that starts three months after the end. Love, betrayal, suspense and action are on the menu for this story as we watch our favourite band of Umbrella renegades give it their all too hopefully bring a final end to their hellish lifestyle. To do that, assistance will be required for some, unconventional characters...
I do not own the characters & this will be very different from any RE movie and/or video game plot (to date)
Please read & review as you wish!
B.
Update 12-Aug-2021: Minor updates / corrections based on changes to Secrets and Flies. Those passages in italics are lyrics to Plumbs song "I Want You Here". It is a great song and is very fitting for this chapter.
Calm Before the Storm
- 15 -
I fucked up and I fucked up bad.
A month has passed since the events at the Pentagon. The Red Queen's dead, her bio weapons became kamikazes after the fall of their creator. Wesker is also dead, either from the serum The Red Queen infected him with or the creatures she unleashed. The Umbrella Corporation ceases to exist.
So many of those close to me lost their lives; Angela, Luther, K-Mart, Claire. I never wanted the resurrection of the human race to come at the cost of so many I grew to love like family.
After I found Claire, I never looked back, not even once to see the anger in Chris's eyes or the sorrow in Jill's. I wonder if Ada finally shed a tear for the man she clearly admired, or if Leon finally felt satisfied with the takedown of Umbrella. Chris was right all along, I was a threat, a loose cannon, and now because of me, his sister was dead.
An ache so deep that I can hardly breathe
This pain can't be imagined
Will it ever heal?
Silence. That's all I'm surrounded by now, that and ocean waves lapping against the shore of a deserted Caribbean island I escaped too. The silence is more unnerving than the nights I slept with one eye open, listening for the groaning of the undead. A few stranglers still rustle the leaves surrounding my beach hut from time to time, mostly falling ill to the traps I've laid.
As desperate as I am to put down my weapons and accept the gruesome, poetic justice spewing from their diseased mouths, I cannot. Instead I slice and dice, fire bullets and stab with sharpened sticks because killing them is all I know, it's all I'm good for.
Your hand so small held a strand of my hair so strong
All I could do was keep believing
Was that enough?
I dream of you constantly. Every time I close my eyes, I see your electric smile and piercing green eyes. I remember meeting you for the first time, how apprehensive you were to add me to your crew, how fearless of a leader you were to those who needed it most. Maybe if you actually listened to your gut, you'd still be alive today.
I remember when we first said I love you to one another. I remember our first kiss, even the first time we made love, which was just as magical as our last. I wear the necklace you coveted, the one thing you were able to keep hold of from your life before this shitstorm. The pendant is always close to my heart, my way of keeping you alive for it's all I have now.
I wanna scream, is this a dream?
How could this happen, happen to me?
This isn't fair, this nightmare
This kind of torture I just can't bear
I want you here
I never saw any of them again. None of them bothered to hunt me down and kill me like the problem child I was. I don't know if I should be counting my blessings or not. One thing I know for certain is that if the human race has any chance in rebuilding, I should be as far away as possible.
You deserved better, you deserved so much more and as much as I wanted to be the one to give it to you, I was the one who took it all away. It pains me that our last time together we were both not ourselves. I want you to know that I could see you struggling, fighting the control that homicidal computer had over you. I could see the pain in your eyes, your pleads for me to silence her, to make her stop. It was an accident, but the guilt I feel for causing you such pain never leaves me.
There is only one way to get rid of it once and for all, one way for me to finally be free…
I waited so long for you to come
Then you were here and now you're gone
I was not prepared for you to leave me
Oh this is misery
One bullet. That's all I've loaded in the magazine to my trusty pistol, my best friend since the beginning of this nightmare. I can see the sun setting over the ocean. An array of red and orange streaks the sky, reminding me of your hair, especially when the sun hits it just right. The water's calm, gently lapping over my knees, the scent of sea salt strong in the breeze.
I was wrong to be a survivor for this long. I was wrong to be the one to try and save the human race. I should have died down in The Hive, I should have died in Raccoon City, Nevada, Japan, Russia, and finally Washington.
You will be the last person to take my spot on the chopping block. So many people, so many innocent, young balls of light have gone dark at my feet and for what? For me to survive, for me to rebuild the earth? That was never my job, that was never what I wanted.
All I ever wanted was you, and now it's time I join you there. It's time I finally come home.
An ache so deep
That I can hardly breathe
Fin
Like I've said from the start, I welcome all opinions, questions, comments, etc. on this chapter and the story as a whole.
It may not seem it from how this story ended, but I from the bottom of my heart, love Claire and Alice together. However, a fairy tale ending was just not what the characters were saying as the plot developed. As the author, I am just a vessel to give my characters what they want! :)
Thank you all for your support, for sticking with the story even if it was veering down a scary and sometimes sad path, and for provided me constructive criticism and ideas along the way. I write not only for myself, but for you guys too!
B.