Yeah... I know it's been awhile. But I'm all geared up for the release of the fourth movie. My apologies and junk.
This isn't that good, but it is what happened. I apologize in advance for any suck that might occur.
The journey to Alaska was arduous.
Alice could have taken one of the many choppers she and the clones had commandeered, but Alice did not want to deprive them of a single resource. Instead, she took one of the monster Jeeps they acquired from an abandoned National Guard armory.
She wanted the time that driving from Nevada to Alaska would grant her.
The drive to Alaska would take two days and sixteen hours given that she did not run into any major obstacles along the way. Finding the survivors would not be terribly difficult; Alice found that if she probed her mind, tested it like working a loose tooth with her tongue, she could sense vague snatches of Claire and the others.
It seemed as if a lifetime had passed since her first encounter with the Infected.
And now she had roughly three or four days before it was over, before she left it behind for the frigid wilderness of the north and her lover.
Five years since the T-Virus infected the Hive. Those that she had watched die there were the first victims of Umbrella's apocalypse, although she hadn't known it at the time. She remembered all of it as if it had not happened to her.
Her past self seemed so young and naïve now when Alice thought about it. She was no stranger to death, even then, but what happened in the Hive was not death, but absolute horror. Alice remembered the tang of fear she had felt then, the shiver of terror at the sight of the Infected. She remembered the desperation and pain when Raine had been Infected.
She remembered smoothing Raine's hair from her face, reassuring her even as the Virus ravaged her body, sapping her of strength, perverting her flesh. "No one else is going to die." Alice had promised her, cupping Raine's cheek with her hand. And Alice had truly believed it.
She had believed it because she could not imagine a world where her lover could die. That reality simply was not possible, despite everything she had witnessed in the Hive. They had the anti-virus. This would be a brutal, vicious chapter of their lives, but it would end. Raine would be fine; they would all be fine once they reached the surface.
Alice had promised her lover that she would not die.
It was a promise she had broken.
The world, her world, had ended when Raine had died. And the nightmare never ended.
Until now.
Alice watched the desert roll anonymously away in front of her, gradually giving way to a sparse scrub forest as she headed further and further north. Eventually, the scant bushes became fuller bushes and eventually trees. Suddenly, the road crossed into a dense forest. Untended trees hung their long limbs over the road that was cracked and pitted with five years of neglect.
Raine had not been the last person she failed. There was a litany of others, named and unnamed. So many had died that Alice could not remember them all, sometimes she could not even remember their names. But Rain had been the watershed for all that followed. After that, after Umbrella began tainting her humanity with their experiments, after Raccoon City, Alice ceased to recognize herself.
She had been the one to kill Angela Ashford, the child they had rescued from the Raccoon City school. She had trained her sidearm at the young girl's face, and pulled the trigger. The bullet had torn through skin, smashed through cartilage and bone, ripped through soft grey matter. The back of Angie's head erupted in a tangled mass of brain and blood and hair and shards of bone as the bullet punched through the back of her skull. It had not been to spare the girl Infection. It had been murder.
Alice had killed Angie, shot her in the face at point blank range.
She knew in her mind that it had not been her fault. Umbrella had activated their satellites and seized control of Alice's body, and she was powerless to stop it. The hand holding the sidearm rose no matter how hard she struggled to lower it, no matter how loudly her mind screamed for her to stop. She had not pulled the trigger, Umbrella had. Alice had merely been the puppet.
But Alice had still been close enough to see the confusion, then fear, register on the child's face. Despite her struggling against the mind control, Alice could still feel the recoil in her wrist as the weapon fired, still feel the warm splatter of blood on her face. She could still smell the acrid tang of gun smoke and blood in the air, still see the faceless child's body crumple to the concrete.
After crossing into the forests of Canada, Alice saw no signs of Infection. Nor did she see a single human. But the forests were far from being lifeless. Wild life flourished. Plants and bushes grew into the road; deer lifted their heads from grazing only to give her Jeep a cursory glance as she drove past. Squirrels and rabbits and feral cats skittered in front of her, causing her to slam on the brakes more than once. Life had survived here.
After killing Angie, Alice hid. She found a way to avoid Umbrella's satellites, avoid all other human contact. She wasn't safe. There was no one she could trust, least of all herself.
Until Claire.
The younger woman had reignited something in Alice that she had not even known she had been missing.
Five years of death and isolation had robbed her of whatever remained of her humanity, her feeling. Without even realizing it, Alice had surrendered her emotions, numbing herself to whatever emotion remained. What parts of her that Umbrella had not tainted with their experiments, she had suppressed in order to survive.
She had lost too many friends, too many loved ones to mourn anymore. She had beheld too much destruction and chaos to grieve. She had seen too much anguish and atrocity to hope. She could no longer remember what fear felt like. She knew that she had experienced all those emotions at one point, but could not recall what they had felt like. One day transitioned to the next without thought or feeling.
Until Claire.
Until Alice realized she was terrified of losing the younger woman, that the thought of her death immobilized her with a sickening agony. The numbness was shed, and she could feel again.
Small, warm hands on her naked shoulders, pulling her closer. Smiling lips soft against her own. The gentle weight of Claire's head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat. The soft silk of strawberry blonde hair in between her fingers. The warmth of their bodies against one another, the solace of human contact.
She began to hope again because there had to be a better place, a better life, not for herself but for Claire. Alaska.
The hours on the road passed swiftly. Alice gave little thought to her drive other than to occasionally stop and rest. She passed signs welcoming her to Alaska, but paid little attention to them. Instinct guided her down isolated roads, bringing her ever closer to Claire.
It had been the hardest decision Alice had ever made to let Claire and the other survivors take off in the chopper without her. The last glimpse she and Claire had shared as the chopper took off still haunted her; it was a pained understanding. Claire had always understood.
There were things bigger than both of them. Alice had not wanted to venture underground into that facility, but someone had to. Someone had to find a way to stop the Infection. If humanity were to have a chance of survival, someone had to fight for it. If Umbrella, the Infection wasn't stopped, even Alaska would not be safe forever.
Alice had wanted to climb in the chopper and let it be someone else's problem. She could have escaped with Claire and lived happily with her in the safety of the north, fell asleep next to her every night, woke up wrapped in her embrace every morning. But it would have been selfish. She had been willing to risk her own life, her life with Claire, if it had meant that Claire and the others would be safe, that they would have a chance.
Now, she had done her duty to humanity. Humanity would survive, and she could live. Three days drive, and the nightmare was over.
Alice nearly missed the brightly colored little sign on the side of the road as she drove past. Her eyes widened as she read it. "Abernathy, Alaska." She was almost home.
The town was meager at best. Most of the buildings were still standing and in decent repair. It did not have the feel of the ghost towns. There were people here, Alice could sense them, but she kept driving until she reached a small but obviously well-maintained cabin.
It wasn't much, but there was a small covered porch with an old rocking chair. A few crates were stacked beside the door, but there was no hint as to what was in them. Fishing rods leaned against the cabin wall next to the crates, and a variety of tools hung from nails along the left side of the cabin. The two windows that Alice could see were obscured by makeshift curtains: old t-shirts it looked like.
The door burst open before Alice could even turn the key in the ignition.
K-mart. Still a teenager, the girl looked stronger, more muscled than Alice remembered. And now she carried a rifle, carefully aimed at Alice.
Opening the door to the Jeep, Alice stepped down, felt the uneven gravel shift underneath her boots. A glimmer of recognition bolted across the teenager's face and the rifle fell to her side, but Alice's attention averted to the cabin door, which burst open again.
Claire moved with the feral purpose of fighter, butt of a rifle against her shoulder, cheek pressed to its stock, barrel pointed directly at Alice. Despite the damp cold of the air, she hadn't bothered with a jacket, and appeared much like she had the first time Alice had seen her.
Long strawberry blond hair tucked behind her ears, a ball cap with its brim pulled low over her eyes. Slowly, the stock of her rifle fell away from her cheek and her mouth opened slightly as her eyes registered what she was seeing.
Alice's pulse thundered behind her ears as she forced herself to step forward, until she was standing in front of her lover. With a slightly shaking hand, she pulled back the hood she wore to protect her face from the wind.
And their eyes met. The world seemed to fall out of focus except for the two of them. After surviving five years of Infection and death, after venturing into the underground Umbrella facility all by herself, Alice noted, with a start, that she was nervous. She forced a faint smile. "I'm back." She managed to say, and hoped it was louder than a whisper.
Claire hesitated and tensed visibly. She swallowed as if forcing her voice to work. "Are you?"
