Chapter 3: Reprieve

"Happiness is: looking into a mirror and liking what you see."

The ground had changed. Ada had felt it. It had been accompanied by what sounded like an air-raid siren, and then it seemed that she had stepped from the solid concrete onto something rusty that squealed softly under her weight. She had looked down then, and had noticed that, along with the sun going down so suddenly, the ground had been converted to grating. Just to be sure, she looked behind her and saw that the ground there had also changed.

And Wesker was gone. She felt jarringly unsafe. She liked to think that she could handle herself, but Wesker's presence had a calming affect on her. It reminded her of another man from her past that she didn't like to think about. 'Feeling safe, because there's a man nearby.' She thought sourly to herself. 'How cliche of me.'

She reached into her fanny pack and pulled her gun from it, forcing herself to loosen her grip after hearing a particularly strange sound in the distance. She liked to think of herself as a somewhat scientific woman, but this sudden change defied all explanation. She wondered if maybe she had fallen asleep as was still in the car, or maybe they had had a wreck and she had hit her head and was dreaming now. Dreaming the dream of the soon-to-be-dead.

No, it was real. All of it. The paint seemed to be peeling away from all of the storefronts even worse than before. This wasn't just age. This was something else entirely. It was like the whole town was rotting.

"Wesker?" She cursed herself for sounding so insecure, then spoke up a bit louder. "Wesker!" Nothing. It was as if she had fallen into another universe. She couldn't feel his presence anywhere. All she felt... was alone.

She began to walk again, the grating groaning beneath her feet in a way that gave her shivers. What if it gave in? Where would she land? What if it never ended down there, and she just fell into blackness forever? What if this was Hell?

Something fluttered against her hand and she reached out and grabbed in, surprised at how the wind had picked up. It was the map that Wesker had been looking at before. On it, the warehouse was clearly marked. Part of her was glad, because she had an objective now, but part of her wondered how Wesker was getting along if he was in the same situation. Surely he would find her soon.

She forced herself to hold on to that hope. At the corner of a building was a broken mirror. It reflected her bloody heel as she walked past it.

- - - - - - - - - -

It had stopped following him. Wesker leaned back against the nearest wall and took deep, heaving breaths. He let himself slide to the ground. The pain, which had been pushed back by terror, now flooded back into him. Night had fallen. When had that happened? He had been too busy running from the demon of his past to see. He coughed into his hand and came up with blood. A lot of it.

Internal bleeding? Of course. But why was he still alive? When everything else suggested that he was fully human, how could he be surviving with an injury that only a tyrant could withstand?

More importantly, what had the monster he encountered been? It had looked too uncontrollable and pieced together to make a decent bioweapon, and the sounds had given away its position. Were there more of them?

'There are always more.' Wesker thought, and his mind went back to the mansion incident, although he willed it not to. It seemed he couldn't control his thoughts in this place any more than he could control his body. He closed his eyes, catching his breath, and it all flowed back.

- - - - - - - - - -

'---always more.' Another cerberus fell to his gun. There was no time to relax. Redfield gave him that look that he seemed to prone to. It was a mixture of awe and thankfulness. It was the look that all good guys had. It said, 'I would give my life for yours.' Wesker hated that look. They followed his orders without thought, because there wasn't time for thought. The dogs were almost close enough for you to feel their teeth at your heels.

They thought the mansion would be safe.

Only he had known. He and Bravo team. He hadn't enjoyed hunting them down, but it was necessary. So many things in life were necessary. So many things he had done had been necessary. Why couldn't they see that? Why couldn't they understand?

Jill's eyes, full of horror and betrayal. Chris's eyes, full of an unbelievable hatred that he could, in part, understand. Barry's eyes. Barry, thinking only of his family. So easy to control. So hard to understand.

The things that had been in that mansion, the Trevor girl in particular, were burned into his mind. He had seen Lisa before. She had fascinated him in a way when he had been young. But the creature that she became in the end was pathetic. Deplorable. Nearly mindless. How he had hated seeing her again. It left a bitter taste in his mouth.

He had betrayed them all, yes. But it had been necessary.

- - - - - - - - - -

Now the only bitter taste in his mouth was that of his own blood. He didn't have a map. Not even a weapon. The only thing he could rely on was the training he had had. He felt that stealth would be a good idea, considering his injury, but how to do that while bleeding so heavily? He had memorized the general landscape and the direction of the warehouse, but now everything looked completely different. To make things worse, some areas were blocked off by heaping piles of refuge. Before, he could have just jumped easily over them, but the climb would prove too difficult as a human, even if he did have considerable strength.

He opened his eyes and almost leapt when he saw something move. Then he realized that it was only his reflection. A shard of a mirror stood against the wall at the opposite side of the alley. He looked himself over, removing his shades so that his human eyes could adjust better to the darkness, and, for the first time in a long while, found that he wasn't particularly pleased with what he saw.

He was a mess. The thing that had grabbed him had gotten something on him and it was disgusting, but even worse was the blood. His stomach looked like raw hamburger. He began to have another feeling that he hadn't felt since his change... He felt nauseous.

Turning his head to the side, he vomited. It was mostly blood and it made his stomach feel like a ball of pain again, but it still somehow made him feel better. He had forgotten what it felt like to just allow your body to act on its own. To release yourself to instinct.

Slowly, carefully, he began to pull himself back to his feet. The wall felt cruddy and rusty and he felt some of it crumble away against his fingers as he stood. He didn't feel as wobbly as he had before, but his legs still ached from the running he had done before. He wondered if the bleeding would ever stop. 'A hospital would be good right now.'

There had been a hospital in Silent Hill.

Wesker forced himself to remember the map again. There had been two hospitals. One had been on this side of town, and the other had been a mental hospital. Either way, both were sure to have supplies that he desperately needed. He could follow the signs.

Not feeling much better about himself or the situation, Wesker started to walk again, forcing himself not to look back into the mirror shard.

Strangely, indescribably, he was afraid of what it might reflect.

- - - - - - - - - -

A/N: Terribly sorry I've made you all wait so long! I know that this isn't much of a comfort, but I hope you enjoy this somewhat short chapter. I do plan on finishing this story. Eventually. You may hit me.