Interval 1 – Insurgency
His room back home was completely bare, with the exception of a bed and a sink. A bare bulb, sunken in the ceiling, high out of reach behind steel meshing, had been his only lighting, although sometimes a rare ray of sunshine managed to find its way onto the walls through tiny, dirty windows near the ceiling. At those times, he stood on his bed when no one looked, hands curled on the sill, too far below to see the outside world, but close enough to feel the presence of sunshine on his pale face. It had been like that for as far back as he could remember.
But today… today was different. Even before he opened his eyes, he could feel that something was different. The bed he was lying on was different. The sheets covering him were different. Sunlight was warm on his face. Impossible. He opened his eyes suddenly and, unaccustomed to the bright light, tried not to blink.
Where was he? Furiously, he ripped the IV from his arm and the oxygen from his face. He sat bolt upright and looked around. His bed was in a large room bathed in bright sunlight, with large windows for a wall. Beside his bed rested two folding chairs. There was an unoccupied bed parallel to his; between them were two nightstands. He saw a book on the nightstand next to the other bed - it was Shakespeare. Slipping out of the bed sheets, he put his bare feet on the cool, tiled floor and walked around the room.
His clothes were gone. In their place, a thin, blue, gown-like implement, short-sleeved and backless, fluttered with his every moment, creating an illusion of modesty.
He made his way gingerly to the windows. Finally, he could see the sun shining and he felt relieved. At last, the nightmare was over. That night's hell was over. No more would he need to turn in trepidation at the slightest sound and find the horrifying images waiting for him in his mind. He was safe. Safe from her. Gunfights and Replica Soldiers, blood and pain, all this he could handle. There was only one thing, one person who could make him feel fear.
"Fratricide… matricide…" a voice suddenly admonished in a whisper. He felt a shiver run down his spine and he turned around slowly. Within a second, he remembered the helicopter lift out of the ruins of Auburn. He wasn't safe yet. She was still out there.
That's when something caught his eye. The door was open. They never left him sleeping in a room with the door open. Something was wrong. He crept to the door, pulled it open and peered out, looking to the left, then to the right. Two interminable lengths of sterile white corridor stretched away on either side. He glanced to the right again, and his breath caught in his throat.
A little girl, an emaciated figure whose face was hidden beneath a tangled veil of long black hair, stood, unmoving, at the end of the corridor. The beams of sunlight that escaped the curtains shrouding the windows beside her never touched the dirty crimson of her dress.
He moved beyond the doorway, walking toward the ghostly figure that never moved to escape or intercept her son. A few steps away from her, he broke into a run. She vanished as soon as he got close enough to touch her clammy hands, bursting into a million putrid shards of charred flesh. He crashed headlong into the wall as the last bits of Alma melted into the air.
Immediately, he was up again, but she was gone. He heard her sobbing quietly, and followed it left around a bend in the corridor. Every room he looked in was empty, although they were all furnished in the same manner as the one he had awoken in. He continued along the corridor and soon found himself in an open area.
The outer end of the room, a protrusion from the general geometry of the building, was encircled on all three sides by large windows and a nice view of city edifices beyond it. Many plastic chairs were aligned toward two televisions hanging from the ceiling on either side of the opposite wall. On the other side, between two elevator doors, two beings were sitting behind a counter. There was a protruding logo on the auburn wall, but he didn't bother to read it, because as he approached, he quickly realized that the two beings weren't humans.
They were Alma's meat puppets, putrid reanimated corpses of rotting flesh with glowing yellow eyes as the only indications of the existence of life within them. A bubbling rage filled him. Had they brought him here to continue to suffer this mental torture? Hadn't he suffered enough? He ran over to the counter and leaped over it. The two rotting corpses noticed him at this point, and were backing up on their swiveling computer chairs to avoid him.
He gave the nearest meat puppet a solid punch in the face and pushed both to the ground. Angrily, he kicked it in the midsection once, twice, three times. It disintegrated in a burst of intangible blue fluids. The other meat puppet was getting up from the carpeting and was fleeing, while making screaming noises. He caught up with it as it attempted to call an elevator to the floor and crushed it against the door.
"What do you want?" the meat puppet screamed, clutching at his arm. He turned it around and broke its neck. Screaming began to fill the room, a pulsing cry of despair and fear. One more meat puppet appeared at the opening of the corridor and he pinned it down before killing it quickly. He pushed away from the limp corpse. His anger was dissipating – he was eager to escape from this place, and return to F.E.A.R. HQ.
He searched the floor until he found a knife, killing another four meat puppets with ease, then he returned to the large waiting area, called an elevator and took it to the ground floor. He watched the door open and drew in his breath sharply as he saw that he had emerged into another large region teeming with meat puppets. Some of them were sitting down. Others were walking around busily. A group had surrounded the elevator and cried out in horror as they saw him walk out.
As they saw him, the crowd began to mill about excitedly and run in all directions to escape him. But four weren't fleeing like the others. They approached the elevator with practiced calmness, drawing their hands back as though to strike.
He hit the first one so quickly it was still moving as it was blown backwards by the blow, innards flying like banners in its wake. He stabbed the second through what remained of the cheek. The other two hesitated for a second and he came at them. He caught the third in the throat, kicking the fourth to the ground. As he struggled to free the knife, the fourth meat puppet tried to escape. At last the knife came out of the throat with a squelch, and he let the dying reanimated corpse drop to the floor.
He got to the last meat puppet as it tried to escape through the front door, but he tripped and it got away. He pushed through the door, and emerged into the sunlight outside. Momentarily blinded, he closed his eyes and swayed dizzily.
"Freeze!" a voice shouted. "Don't move!"
"Drop your weapon!" another yelled.
"On the ground, now!"
He opened his eyes hurriedly. Men – one and a half dozen, maybe more, dark uniforms, huddled around six cars, pointing their guns at him. He froze. They weren't Replica Soldiers. They hadn't seen the meat puppet. They were aiming at him. He was terribly confused – what was going on?
"Drop your weapon!"
He looked down at the knife and stared at his crimson hands. He stared at himself: he was covered in blood.
"Drop your weapon now!"
They outnumbered him and they all had guns. Glancing around, he saw several people huddled around an injured security guard sitting on the ground.
"Drop it now, or we'll open fire!"
One of the people looked up. He recognized her immediately. The young Asian woman stared back at him with wide, frantic eyes.
"Jin!" he cried, panicked.
"Wait!" she screamed, holding her hand out to stop the guns from firing.
As he prepared to call back to her, he was shot in the leg. He staggered from the sharp pain in his thigh, dropping the knife on the ground. He pressed a hand to the wound. Instead of feeling warm blood, his fingers brushed the feathery end of a tranquilizing dart.
His eyes were wide for a moment. He shook his head vigorously before collapsing onto one knee. Jin Sun-Kwon ran up to him, shouting to the police officers not to shoot him. She grabbed his shoulders and eased him onto his back on the ground.
"Don't fight it," she murmured quietly, stroking his short hair. She watched as his face relaxed and his eyes unfocused and closed slowly.
The Commissioner walked up alongside her, holding his tranquilizer gun limply in one hand.
"Thank you, Rowdy," Jin said, looking up.
One of the officers approached, carefully examining the F.E.A.R. point man. "All clear!" he yelled to the others.
"What are we going to do now?" Rowdy Betters sighed.