XXVII. The Apocalypse Is Happening


'I never meant to start a war. I just wanted you to let me in. And instead of using force, I guess I should've let you in.' — Miley Cyrus, 'Wrecking Ball'


All had gone better than she had expected after they jumped out of that window, Sheva knew as she brought another chain to the doors and wrapped it around the handles on the latch from inside the tornado shelter. She heard Chris give a loud huff as he took a seat on one of the many wooden benches, clutching at his injured arm. Pulling a first aid kit from her belt, Sheva took a seat next to him. She held her hand out for him, waiting patiently so she could inspect his arm and start her work on him.

"Let me see," she told him. When he shook his head and leaned against the wall behind him, she sighed and grabbed his arm, causing him to hiss slightly.

"You could be gentler, you know," he stated, watching as she cut his arm sleeve to his shoulder and revealed gruesome and ugly scratches all along his bicep. She gave no reply, going straight to dab clean cotton wool on the injured area. They both looked when the young boy they had rescued walked over to them, getting a better look at Chris's injury.

"How'd you get that?" the young boy asked, seemingly interested with the gore.

It was quiet for a small moment as they observed each other, Zoe soon standing by the young boy's side. The young boy pulled off his backpack and dug his hand inside, retrieving a snack pack of fruit gummies and handing it to Zoe. She tore open the pack and happily ate her fruity snack.

"What's your name?" Chris asked, putting off the story of the Licker that attacked him.

"Aaron, this is my sister Zoe," he looked to the girl at his side, patting her golden blonde hair. The resemblance between the young siblings was obvious. They had matching blond locks and sea green eyes. Zoe stepped closer well popping more and more fruit gummies into her mouth.

"What's your name?" she queried as she crawled onto the bench next to Chris. The tears she had cried earlier stained her cheeks pink and her bright colored eyes contrasted with the red surrounding the iris.

"I'm Chris," he said, turning slightly to her but stayed enough in place for Sheva to still work on him. "This is Sheva." Zoe smiled a toothy grin at Sheva, leaning over Chris to see what she was doing. Sheva kindly declined when Zoe offered some of her fruit snacks.

"Want some?" she asked Chris, pulling out a blueberry flavored gummy for him. She placed it in his hand before he could decline, so he accepted the snack not to upset the little girl. "Blueberry's my favorite," she announced, smiling big at him. He couldn't stop the small smile grow upon his lips as Zoe watched Sheva's hands wrap bandages around his arm.

"So how did you two survive? How did you hide from the monsters?" Sheva inquired, pulling an antivirus injection pen from her belt and quickly injected Chris with the cure just in case the scratch from the Licker infected him. She wanted to take every precaution she could with his injury.

Aaron tossed his bag to the floor and laid down to rest his head on the backpack. He turned on his side while yawning to face the adults. "Well, when this all started, the teachers and principle brought all the kids into the cafeteria. We were in there for about an hour until Megan Adams in the third grade took a chomp out of Principle Collier." Aaron held his hands up and made a circle shape, trying to show an example of the size of the bite the student had taken from the principle. "Everybody started freaking out and then more biting happened. Me and Zoe got out pretty quickly and grabbed as much food and meat from the kitchen before we locked ourselves in Mrs. Armstrong's room. I only took unperishable foods with us, though. That's what they do in the TV shows. And in The Walking Dead, Rick and Glen put zombie meat all over themselves when they had to go out in the crowds of zombies and the zombies couldn't smell them because they stunk so bad from the meat they put on themselves that they didn't smell like humans. So I used the lunch meats from the kitchen and tossed it outside the classroom to let it rot and keep the people from the cafeteria out."

"It smelled so bad," Zoe mumbled, climbing between Chris and Sheva to rest her head on Sheva's lap and her feet laying on Chris's. Aaron said without request that Zoe warmed up to people easily, which he claimed wasn't good when the "apocalypse is happening".

"That's smart of you," Sheva claimed, referring to the rotted meat trick.

"And dad says watching all that TV would do me no good," Aaron proudly said. "So we hid out in the classroom and used the school's intercom to send messages. I was glad the message got through. Though, it took longer for you guys to get to us than I expected."

"Hey, kid," Chris called sternly. "We were almost out of here when we finally got your message. You should thank Sheva otherwise we would have already been gone."

"Well, thanks," Aaron closed his eyes, ready to sleep for nights after hiding out in a tiny classroom for nearly 18 hours. "But still, when the apocalypse is happening you gotta be quick."

"The apocalypse is not happening," Chris replied firmly. "It won't ever happen."

"Whatever. All I know is that in the shows, it always starts in the small towns and then grows over the country, then the world. It's the apocalypse, I'm telling ya."

"Those are just shows," Sheva butted in before Chris gave the kid a full blown lecture about how an apocalypse would happen. "Once we get out of the town, men will come and clean this place completely. Then we'll be safe and free of zombies. No apocalypse, though."

As if on cue, dragging feet could be heard on the horizontal doors of the shelter, the zombies roaming the field in hopes of finding the prey that had escaped; them. Sheva instinctively grabbed for her handgun, Aaron sat up and watched the doors carefully, and Zoe began to quietly cry. Chris was quick to calm her down, combing her hair with his hand and telling her it was alright. Zoe moved to sit in his lap and hid her face in the curve of his shoulder, wrapping her tiny arms around his neck and muffling her cries on his shirt. After a few moments, the sound of the dead became low and repetitive, revealing the infected were just in fact roaming and had no clue to look inside the tornado shelter.

"Do you guys have any parents?" Chris asked after everyone had gone back to their previous positions except for Zoe. He stroked her back and rocked her slightly, hearing her breath become heavier as she was starting to fall asleep.

"We have a dad. He owns the tool shop down the street. He haven't heard from him…" the boy trailed off, his voice going to a whisper as he thought of the sensible fate of his own father. "Anyway," he quickly started again, pushing any negative thoughts away. "We have a mom that lives in Florida. We go to see her for two months every summer."

"We'll contact your mom after rescue gets us out of here," Chris told him, not daring to speak a word of the boy's father and what had probably become of him. Aaron nodded and brought his arm to cover his eyes, drifting off into a heavy slumber.

Three minutes later, the only awake were Chris and Sheva. Aaron had quickly fallen asleep and Zoe had minutes before in Chris's arms. Sheva stood and went to the cabinets on the far part of the room, finding blankets and pillows for the children. She spread a blanket over Aaron and set a pillow on a bench for Zoe. Chris brought the young child to lie down, resting her head carefully on the pillow. As he was about to stand, Zoe tightened her arms around his neck, waking up when she realized she was being let go.

"Don't go," she called out with a whimper, her face frowning to think she'd be left alone.

"Hey," he murmured, crouching to get eye level with her. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll be here, just sitting over there, okay? Get some sleep, kiddo."

"Where are my fruit gummies?" she looked around. When Chris told her she ate them all, she said a simple "oh" and turned over, falling back asleep fairly quickly.

Sheva laid a blanket atop her too, tucking the fabric under chin. She rose with Chris and smiled at him. When he asked her what that look was for, she told him the truth. "You'd be a good dad," she stated, not really thinking of the tough subject behind that all. When his entire being seemed to slump, she wished she could take it back. "I'm sorry," she quickly added, hoping he wasn't thinking about his inability to conceive. But let's face it, that wasn't something you could forget.

He shook his head. Trying to keep his expression straight, the reminder that he could never have children of his own fell hard on his shoulders, bringing him down to the low state he resided in often. Not wanting to sit and sulk over the shortcomings in life, he went to check the doors and the chains locking them tightly in place. He remained quiet, not bothering to respond to her previous comment. She followed him to the doors, watching him closely as he closed himself off.

"Can I ask you something?" she inquired. He hesitated but nodded after a second or two. "Why didn't you and Jill ever adopt?" The personal aspect of this question was deep and not a territory she should really be on, but it's something she wanted to know. And seeing they were going to be in here for a while until rescue came, she'd take any type of conversation, even if it was melancholy and slow.

The throbbing in his arm became the only thing he could focus on. He gave up the task to check the locks, using exhaustion as an excuse. He slid down to the ground and sat with his back against the wall and his legs flared out in front of him. As he began to talk about something he rather not, but the subject had already been on his mind, he answered as she sat beside him.

"Jill always wanted to have her own kid. I think she was afraid she wouldn't be able to love a kid we adopted. She was afraid that she would be cold to him without meaning to and the child would hate her, making her think the kid would have a worse time with us than someone else. That's what she'd say at least."

"And what about you?" Sheva asked. "Did you want to adopt?"

He stared at the wall opposite the one he lean on. Suddenly the bricks that made up the walls in the shelter became incredibly interesting, keeping him from answering her question. When she apologized for asking, he gave her the answer she'd been waiting for.

"Yeah, I did. I mean, it wasn't really a big thought until I found out…you know," he stumbled on his words, trying to work around directly saying his infertility. "But after, it became my main focus for a family. Jill wanted her own biological babies, though. Not that I'm blaming her, but adoption is something both parents should want."

When he unknowingly clenched his hand in a fist out of frustration to be talking of such things, he held be the need to yell out and hissed quietly as the pain went up and down his arm, sending waves of heat along his chest. He was certain the virus wouldn't infect him, but the pain was harsh and consistent. Sheva was immediate to sit straighter and grasped his arm extremely carefully.

"Are you alright? Are you going to be okay?" she quickly asked, seeing the blood on the bandages spread slightly from movement of the arm. "I can look around in here for some medicine."

"They probably don't carry anything more than antibiotic cream and band aids, much less Percocet. I'll be fine," he claimed, not wanting to be looked at as weak.

"You need to be more careful, Chris," she told him seriously. "I'm going to need to change the bandages soon if you keep moving."

Instead of rolling his eyes like he felt the need to, he just looked to her to find her eyes concerned along with something else. Sadness? Her expression was familiar. It wasn't a way she had looked at him before, but the way she had looked in Kijuju when she and he had walked upon the "graveyard" of all her fallen brothers in the dead of night. Their bodies lay scattered about with no more life in them. She collected their dog tags with the expression on her face that she had now. Maybe it warmed his heart, but the bitter he felt was more evident.

He was so tired of this girl caring then hurting him. She played a cruel game with him and for a while he had played along, but he had grown tired of her antics. Real or not, the sympathy she gave was not wanted. This is why he had avoided her for three months since New Year's. The requests for forgiveness and the need to rekindle friendship was hardly something he simply wanted to think about. He had grown a resentment of her. It could have been many reasons why he had, but it was mainly because these few times, save for New Year's, she seemed so unbothered by what had transpired between them. As if she didn't have the time of day to consider his feelings, wants, and needs in those moments. She'd babel her apologies and pleads, but they sounded like one dull note after another to his ears. And to see her pretend like she cared for his wellbeing made him grind his teeth together. He no longer wanted to be controlled by her and her every choice, and he wouldn't be controlled.

"Stop," he muttered, pushing her hands away with his good arm. He didn't have to look at her to know that look of confusion on her face.

"What? Did I hurt you?" she searched, trying to look at his face but he didn't turn to her.

In more ways than one, he thought to himself referring to her question. "Stop acting like you care."

"What?" she repeated. "Chris, what are you talking about?" She turned to sit in front of him, trying to look at him. Part of her expected he'd look away, but he didn't. He looked decisively in her eyes and reaffirmed his statement.

"Stop acting like you care so much," he said with surprisingly no emotion. "I'm not buying it."

"I don't know what you're talking about, Chris," she declared, sweeping her bangs off her face. "How could you say I don't care? That's a terrible thing to say."

"Because it's true. You know exactly what I mean, Sheva. You know what you do."

"No, I don't. Do you want to explain to me what I apparently do to make it seem like I don't care?" She crossed her arms over her chest but her face said she was confused and hurt by his comments. He sat up a little straighter, moving his arm awkwardly, causing a bolt of pain to rush through him. Sheva reached out to check his arm, but he held his hand up defensively to block her. She growled under her breath. "Why are you being so immature about this?"

He ignored her last question and went right to the meat of it all. "You act like you care, but you don't. You're constantly playing with people. Whether it's intentional or not, you play games on people, Sheva. And it's a shitty thing to do. Shitty and shady."

"Have you gone insane? What kind of person are you to call someone shady? You're so quick to point out flaws, Chris, in anyone. But you don't see your own," she angrily retorted. What a jerk, she cared more than he knew. More than what was healthy for herself.

"Now you're being a hypocrite," he scoffed. "I take blame left and right for people. I take full responsibility. I know what kind of person I am."

"Oh really? So you know you're a selfish, self-centered, thick headed dick? If so, then good job, Chris. You're a real role model."

"That's bullshit! I may be thick headed, but I am not selfish or self-centered," he exclaimed with a raised voice.

"Yes, you are!" They both stood at the same time, Chris holding his injured arm close. "You have such tunnel vision that all you focus on is what you benefit from."

"You're lying!" he almost shouted. "Give me one example how I would only do something for my benefit."

Sheva parted her lips. Not only did words not come out, but no example came to mind. She had no explanation or back up for her word. When Chris's face turned to a look of superiority, she wanted to scream. "You are! You are selfish and you know it."

"You're describing yourself when you say that, Sheva," he so proudly said. "You don't care about others. Maybe at one point you did, but you don't anymore. All you do is hurt people. You—"

"Stop!" another voice shouted in the shelter. They both looked to Aaron who was now standing with clenched fists at his sides. Zoe was awake as well, holding her pillow to her chest with a frightened look on her face.

Sheva quickly wiped at her eyes that had watered considerably after Chris's last comment. She wanted to cry, she wanted to slap him, she wanted to hurt him too, but her nerves were taking over that she was becoming too jittery and shaky to argue.

"We're trying to sleep over here!" Aaron shouted even louder at them.

"Go back to bed," Chris ordered with a low voice, not even apologizing for waking them.

"I would if you shut up. Stop saying those things to her," the boy pointed at Sheva but stared at Chris with wide eyes. "You made her cry."

"I said go back to bed," he repeated, not bothering to look or acknowledge Sheva's tears.

Sheva wiped at her eyes again, trying to compose herself. "It's alright, kids. We'll keep it down. Go back to bed. It's alright."

Aaron stomped his foot, completely fed up with the male adult. First telling him the apocalypse wasn't happening, and then yelling at the lady who was the nice one. Aaron had to speak his mind. He changed his pointing finger to Chris and spoke straight at him. "You're a jerk. Yelling at a woman like that. I'm 10 and I treat ladies better than you. She called you names. But you don't tell someone that all they do is hurt people. That's not what people do to other people. Only jerks do that. And the apocalypse is happening!"

"Go back to bed," Chris growled at the boy, starting to really lose his temper. Aaron yelled again that he was a jerk, pushing Chris closer and closer to madness. "If you don't go back to bed—"

"Don't talk to him like that," Sheva intervened, disapproving with where that last sentence was going.

"I'm not talking to you," he uttered.

"I don't care if you're talking to me or not, you don't talk to him like that," she proclaimed, anger shaking her to the core. No one would talk to her like that. It was degrading and rude. She would not have that. "He's not your kid, Chris. You can't have—" And she stopped there. She wanted to retort to all his insults and accusations, but what she was going to say was too far. To rub in the possibly most sensitive subject that related to him would be the final blow, per se, to a situation like this. That's not how she wanted to end this fight. If she could, she'd like to work this out. She wanted to scoff at herself. Work out the problem with him. So typical of her.

Before she could muse over more how pathetic it was to want to work things out with him, he turned to her with an expression she unfortunately could read very well. It was a look of hatred. He took steps towards her, getting closer and closer to her. He was clenching his fist so hard, the pressure caused him to bleed more, a small trickle of blood trailing down to his fist. Soon her back hit the wall behind her, he had gotten so close. What a terrible position, she thought to herself.

"Say it, Sheva. I can't have kids. Go on, say it. That makes me less of a man, right? I can't pass on the Redfield name. Say it," he spoke so bitterly and lowly that it felt like flames on her skin. Soon he was standing right in front of her with eyes she couldn't look into.

"No, that's not right," she tried recovering. "I'm sorry, that was too far." It was quiet for some time, but she felt the penetration of his stare, the heat of anger radiating off of him. She still didn't look at him when he shouted.

"I trusted you! Dammit, Sheva, I trusted you! I opened up to you and judged me. You used it against me. What else are you going to use against me, Sheva? Hmm? Are you going to say that if it wasn't for me, Jill wouldn't have gone through what she did with Wesker? That Claire never would have seen what she did in Raccoon? That if not for me, my parents would still be alive?"

She looked up to him finally, scared for him after his words were spoken. "What? Chris, no. I would never blame you for that. None of those. Chris, I—"

"Just stop," he stated, his voice lowering again. "I don't want to hear it."

"Chris, do you blame yourself for all that?" she probed, stepping forward only to have him step back and away from her.

"Stop talking," he said, but it came out almost sounding like begging. The zombies outside must have heard their shouting because the next minute, there was scratching at the doors. He pressed his hands to his eyes, quickly pulling his right hand away when the blood that had trickled down to his palm smeared on his cheek. "Shit," he mumbled, using his clean hand to wipe away the blood.

Crying had stopped for Sheva. Now she gaped at Chris, worried for his physical and mental health. Did he really blame himself for all of that? He couldn't control what people around him chose to do, it just happened to be that it was happening to the people he loved. It wasn't his fault they chose to do what they had. Jill threw herself out that window because she wanted to save Chris, but she also saw an opening to kill Wesker. Claire went to Raccoon City to find Chris, but she also went through more than what she could have avoided to save Sherry Birkin. His parents died because that's the way fate had set it to be. He couldn't control what happened to people around him if it was out of his control. These were the choices and fate of the people he loved.

The zombies above ground were making her nervous, but her worries were now focused on Chris. She was only being sarcastic when she asked if he was insane, but it was certain he was unstable at least a little. To see what he had seen in his life, Sheva knew she would be in a loony bin by his age. The things he had said were hurtful, but she realized they were things pent up inside him. They hurt, she would never forget them, and she may never forgive him for saying them. But all of what he said, she knew, was just the tip of the iceberg to all the emotions and feelings he had bottle up over time.

Watching Chris take a deep breath and make sure he had gotten all the blood off his face, Sheva jumped slightly when she heard gunfire outside. Either the zombies learned to use guns, which wouldn't be too farfetched after what she had seen in Kijuju, or the BSAA rescue was here. She gave Chris one more glance before striding towards the kids, who were still watching and frightened of the scene that had just occurred in front of them.

"That must be rescue," she stated, buckling her holster and Kevlar vest back on that she had taken off once they got into the shelter. She looked back at Chris to see him walking towards her, but not to her. He gathered his things, but did not put them onto his body. It would be too much work and maybe impossible to put them on with his injured arm. "You have a bit of blood on your temple," she told him with all calmness. He didn't say word, just wiped at his skin.

"When you two were yelling at each other, there were people trying to call on your earphones. They asked where we were and I told them here," Aaron explained.

"Good job," Sheva smiled at him, knowing the grin did not reach her eyes. Zoe jumped off the bench and ran to Chris, grabbing his hand. She was scared of the gunfire outside and the sound of someone cutting the chains on the doors. He held her tiny hand, telling her everything was all right.

Once everyone was ready, gunfire had seized and the steel doors of the tornado shelter flew open. Feeling absolutely terrible, she felt her stomach clench when Piers was the first to enter. He scanned the room quickly, his eyes roaming over the children. He settled on Sheva, keeping his professionalism in place enough to keep him from going to her and making sure she was completely healthy over the kids and his captain. But he didn't stop the smile meant for her as he strode towards the four.

"You guys are okay," he declared. He noticed Captain Redfield had bloody bandages on his right arm. "We're gonna need a medic on site," Piers spoke into his ear piece. He saluted at the kids who did the same with big grins.

"Man, am I glad to see you guys," Aaron revealed, walking past Piers and towards the team outside. "I want to get somewhere safe before the apocalypse really starts, you know?"

Piers looked to Sheva with an inquisitive look, to which she just shook her head, not in the mood to explain Aaron's theory that the world was ending. Chris led Zoe out, still holding her hand and to the safety of the helicopter outside. Having some privacy, Piers hugged Sheva quickly but tightly, giving her a quick kiss as he pulled away.

"I got really scared for a while there," he confessed. He studied as she gave him a blank smile, not meeting his eyes. He didn't need to be looked at to see the redness in her eyes, the rosy cheeks, or the furrow of her brow. "Were you crying?" he asked.

She would have said no if her appearance didn't make it so obvious. "Only a little. The zombies really freaked me out," she lied, but it was such a silly lie that it could be taken as a joke more than anything. She sighed when he chuckled and led her forward out of the shelter.

"I'm glad you're safe, Sheva. I was ready to jump out of the helicopter when you ran off to find the survivors. I'm proud of you for finding them, you did good work."

"Thanks," was all she said.

Within minutes, everyone was on the copter, flying to safety from the undead. While Zoe had crawled back onto Chris's lap and fell asleep in his arms, a large part of him ached with the child clinging to him. Sheva had never finished that sentence, but the knowledge that he couldn't have kids still affected him deeply. Having Zoe hug him only made it worse.

Aaron was bright and awake, talking to Marco about the types of zombies and guns. Piers sat by Sheva but kept his hands to himself. He was pretty sure the directors knew of their relationship, but he'd keep professional and act accordingly.

Sheva stared at nothing. Her eyes would roam about the cabin, studying everything and anything. She didn't retrace anything, just looked at everything she could. The thought of wanting to work things out with Chris seemed to be on her mind only. For once, she second guessed herself on the matter. Should she leave him be and let their relationship be what it seemed destined to be? She was sure of nothing at the moment. She wanted the quietness of her home so she could think about everything. But what she really wanted was to go home in Nigeria and be with Josh. She wanted everything to go back to the way were.


Author's note: So, was Chris's outburst justifiable or did he go over the top? The guy needs a vacation and time away from these people!

Mss. KB: Aw, thank you so much, Karina! Oh my goodness, Chris felt so slow when you play as him after playing as Sheva for so long. That means a lot about what you said about the narrative during the action scene, because those scenes are always hard for me to write. Thank you, I hope you liked this update! Hugs :)
wolfspiritqueen: I'm really curious if your guesses happened? You know, I should have added more survivors, but at least children were saved.
toby7400: Well, that's a big relief. I guess I imagine action scenes with huge monsters and explosions, so I dread the idea of having to write such events. But thank you for saying so.
borismortys: Haha, you're right about Chris's sanity for sure! Oh my, Operation Raccoon City... You could see there ambition in that game and then it all went blah. You stole the words right out of my mouth about Carlos. It's like they had never seen him before and just tried making a face for him. It's like what happened with Leon in Degeneration. D: Thank you!
mrssherrymuller: Drama is a guilty pleasure, haha. Thanks. :)
TheHappening: Thanks, hope you liked this chapter. :)

In the next chapter, were back in LA and dealing with the aftermath of what just happened. You know my writing, Chris and Sheva won't talk right away. But hopefully it'll still be good. Oh, and after the next chapter, we do a two month time jump again. But it's necessary!

-Sarai