I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then, realizing I still had the blanket attached to my boot, used it to scrub my hand clean. I looked into her—my—face.

She looked…vacant. There were no wounds to indicate what had killed her, only the corpse cold grayness of her flesh to hint that she was no longer there.

I waited for the flash, the enlightenment of the memories to tell me what happened here, but I got nothing.

"Come on, come on," I whispered raggedly. I had to remember something, anything.

Nothing.

I slammed my fist into the floor, creating a small fist-sized dent in the tile. I looked at the me on the floor, so peacefully decaying, and for a moment, I envied her that. I had seen so many people die, faces contorted in terror and pain, faces that my brain couldn't even remember but my soul would never forget, etched into my being. I was so tired of waking up alone, with only the empty eyes of corpses to witness it.

But a selfish part of me didn't want to die. A stupid part of me wanted to go back to the years of light and life and people. A naïve part of me believed I still could.

I arranged the other Alice's limbs around her and covered her with another of the blankets underneath her.

Which was why the sword whistled above my head and not into it.

"Fuck!" I half whispered, half snarled, launching myself away into a dive roll. I spun around to face my opponent…which was also me.

One of these days I was going to meet someone who did not share my face.

That day really can't come soon enough.

The other Alice eyed me coolly, assessing my stance. She flashed her sword, slicing it up then down again, more to show off than for any defensive maneuver.

"You missed." I said, easing my own newly-acquired short swords from their sheathes. "Guess they don't make clones like they used to."

"What makes you so sure you're not a clone yourself?" she said, spring towards me. Her comment caught me off-guard than her physical attack. What if I'm not really Alice? Her sword sliced through my shoulder and decided I could figure it out after this was over.

I parried her next attack, bringing it to the floor and slammed my elbow into her face. I used the momentum to carry her to the floor, but she rolled away before I could bring my swords into her mid section.

She whipped around me, trying to plant her sword in my back, but I ran forward, accelerating so I ran a few steps up the wall and landed behind her instead. My next attack sank into her side, not serious enough to kill, but enough to slow her down.

In such close quarters, her sword was useless, so she tried to force a knife inside my ribs instead, but I sent her blade flying behind me instead.

She ducked underneath my next attack, and flew out the door. I sprinted after her into the hall, sliding a bit even in my boots.

The passage seemed vaguely familiar to me, like the halls in a house lived in long ago: I remembered them, but I was still surprised when she abruptly dodged through a door and into a large warehouse.

I stepped into the room and jerked to the stop as the memories took over.

Rows of blue bubbles holding versions of me. Helping one of the new clones out of her shock, three others clones standing around her. A needle in my arm, slowly drawing blood from the vein. Cells eating each other underneath the microscope lens. Rows of cots filled with Alices.

My opponent's punch prevented me from remembering much more, forcibly jerking me from the past into the present. I was still dazed when she landed on top of me, straddling my torso and one of my arms as she locked her hands around my throat.

I used my one free arm to aim at her eyes, but she lifted my head from the ground slightly and slammed it back into the floor, making it almost impossible to concentrate.

Matthew, his blue eyes widening in pain and horror as they carted him away. Watching as they held me down, forcing the blue liquid into my veins. Running down white halls from infected dogs. Rocks floating in the air, men dying with blood in their eyes, crowsflamesdyingDEATHrunRUNRUNdeathRUN.

Carlos.

I came back to the present with precious little air supply left. My vision was filled with blue-black dots now, and I barely had enough strength left in my limbs to struggle. My stomach clenched as it felt unconsciousness and death looming closer, and I had a vision of the Alice in the cot room, the emptiness that death had brought to her.

Fuck that.

If I was going to die, it was not going to be at the hands of another of the Umbrella Corporation's creations. If I was going to die, it was going to be while I ripped out the spinal column of each and every board member.

I was not going to die when I couldn't even remember why I was dying.

I reached into the core of me that I normally strayed away from—the part of me that only awoke when I was asleep of desperate.

Suddenly the world sharpened, and I could sense every artery, every pulse, muscle, fiber, cell in the other Alice, and they seemed so fragile to me, so breakable.

She didn't notice that her nose was bleeding, but she jerked a hand up once her eyes started to bleed. She released her hold on my and looked in horror at her hand as her blood poured over it. Then she looked at me.

"I'm sorry." I whispered, tears running down my own face as she slumped over, the life in her gone.

I stared at her corpse—my third one today--and I couldn't help it.

I threw up everything I had left of my stomach on the polished tile floor.