Chapter 7

-There's Something Wrong with Chris-

The cavern branched off into two directions, right and left. From the right tunnel the faint noise of what sounded like fingers typing on a keyboard, and after a few steps they discovered the source of the noise. A tall woman was standing with her back to them, typing on a laptop. She wore matching heals to a very revealing and skimpy white dress and multiple accessories. The bracelets, earrings, and necklace looked like they probably cost a fortune. The woman's hair was dark brown and neatly tied back in a bun. Upon hearing their footsteps, her brown eyes widened as she took in the group of ten.

"Excella Gionne! So Tricell is involved in this." Chris declared to the woman. "Where's Uroboros?!"

The woman, Excella, slammed the laptop closed and glared at him and the others.

"Maybe I'll tell you, maybe I won't," the woman said with her nose upturned. She spoke with a heavy accent.

"What's Tricell?" Mohinder asked, hinting that he was slightly intrigued.

David answered him. "Tricell is a pharmaceutical company. If you ask me, they basically replaced Umbrella. This woman, Excella Gionne, is a high-ranking official with the company."

"So you've done your homework." Excella sneered. "Well that information won't do you any good here."

"I can find out." Matt told Chris, stepping forward. "I can read minds."

He stared at Excella, concentrating hard so he could get into her mind. She frowned at him as Matt did this. The woman seemed to feel him getting into her head and she expressed her dislike for it.

"There's something here that she doesn't want us to find." Matt started, tilting his head slightly.

Excella's eyes widened and she took a step away from them, bumping into the table.

"It's about a virus of some kind and something in that briefcase." Matt informed them, pointing to a metal case that rested next to the computer.

"Something about a virus called Progenitor? I don't know... She gives regular doses of something to that Wesker guy. I think he needs it for some reason... Yeah, he needs it in order for his own virus to remain stable."

A low moan from the other tunnel, followed by the sound of dragging chains, broke Matt's concentration. Free from Matt's mind reading, Excella made a run for it. She grabbed the metal briefcase and ran down the cave tunnel, out of sight. Chris would have given chase but the low, sorrowful moan sounded again. The abominable creature Lisa Trevor had become was walking towards them from the left tunnel.

"Come on!" David yelled and ran down the passageway on the right.

The rest of the group followed and Chris stayed in the back, closest to Lisa since he was the only one armed. When he caught up to them, they were standing around an opening in the cavern. It was a square platform of some kind, with tall stones in each corner. At the center was a rusty metal coffin, and behind that was a doorway but it was blocked by metal bars. Chris took all of this in and remembered the last time he had fought Lisa. It had been ten years ago but he remembered the journal he had read only minutes earlier. Lisa had wrote something about four stones and he recalled that all Lisa really wanted was to be with her mother.

"Sylar! You've got telekinesis or whatever that's called right?" Chris asked.

The man confirmed and looked at him curiously. "Yeah, why?"

Lisa's moan of misery grew louder.

"See those stones in the corners? Can you push them over the side with your power?"

Sylar nodded. "Done."

He focused and lifted a hand to each stone, knocking them off the edge with each motion just as Lisa entered the area. The others saw that the stones had been attached to chains and when the chains were dropped, the bars in front of the exit lifted and the top of the casket slid open. The creature, seeing the casket open up, shambled over to it and reached inside. She pulled out what was noticeably a human skull and lifted it up over her head.

"Mooother!"

Lisa wailed and they all watched as she threw herself over the side of the platform, her mother's skull cradled in her arms. Silence followed her demise and it was Claire who approached the coffin. Though she didn't seem to particularly want to, she peered into the casket. Noticing something, her expression became one of interest as she reached in and pulled out a sheet of very old paper.

"It's a letter." Claire revealed and then proceeded to read it to them.

"To my Lisa. Day by day I can feel my consciousness drifting further away. The shots given to me by men in white clothes made some of mommy's itching go away. Today they gave me another shot saying it was "nutrition". When they give me the shots mommy can think straight, but mommy's shocked and sad because mommy's unable to think of you all the time. Mommy's afraid. Afraid of forgetting everything, especially the memories of you and daddy...What your faces look like, how we used to be together...They're all starting to disappear somewhere dark in my mind. Oh Lisa, I wish I could touch your face and hold you in my arms right now, so that I can hold on to our wonderful memories of you and daddy. Lisa we can't stay here any longer, we have to escape! Listen to me Lisa. Our chance to escape is the next time when we go to that lab together. We'll both pretend that we are both unconscious and when that man in white clothes is off guard that will be our chance. When we're on the outside, let's look for daddy together. Okay sweetie? Be strong, Lisa. November 13, 1967. Jessica Trevor."

Angry tears filled Claire's eyes but she fought them back before they could escape.

"The people that did those things are gone, Claire. They can't hurt people anymore." Chris said, trying to comfort her.

"Yeah but it's like you said. This Tricell company is just like Umbrella, right? So now there's another evil out there. I don't understand why someone would want to ever do such horrible things to others..." Claire said sadly.

She placed the letter back into the coffin and turned to the others. "Let's just get out of here."

"Oh no..." Chris started.

"What?" Peter asked him, appearing alarmed.

He didn't have to wait long for that answer. Chris pressed the palms of his hands against the sides of his head and lifted it as he began to scream the most horrendous cry of agony.

"Stop! No!" Chris screamed out.

His eyes rolled back into his head and then he collapsed onto his side. Images began to swirl around the platform and it stopped when dark woods appeared at night. A group of people were searching the area with flashlights, handguns out. First it focused on Chris as he searched through the brush and trees. Then the people with him became clearer, one at a time. The first was a man with red brown hair, a few days growth around his mouth. This must have been the aforementioned Barry, back with the first images they'd witnessed in the mansion's foyer area. He was clearly muscular and he held a hefty looking handgun as he searched about. The next was Wesker, wearing his sunglasses even though it was night time and pitch black out. The third person was a young Chris, then Jill came into view walking away from Chris going further into the trees. The last was a man carrying an assault rifle and flashlight. He was most distinguishable by the red bandanna he wore around his head. This was Joseph. The man pointed his weapon wherever he looked, being cautious. His eyes were wide though and it was clear he was very nervous about being in the middle of the woods at night like this.

The STARS member heard a noise and whipped his gun and flashlight around, searching the spot carefully but saw nothing. Thinking it was probably nothing the man visibly relaxed with a sigh of relief and lowered his rifle. The sound of grass being bent as something ran across it came from behind him. Joseph spun around just as something came out of the tall grass and leaped at him. He gave a shout of terror as a skinless dog attacked him. Gunshots rang out as he tried to shoot his attacker who was biting and clawing at him. More skinless dogs joined in, ripping and tearing his flesh off as they ate him alive. The STARS member's screams of agony pierced the quiet night and the other soldiers tried to detect where they were coming from through the trees.

Jill was the first to come to her comrade's aide and she fired into the group of dogs as she stared in horror at the sight of her fellow STARS member being ripped apart. Her eyes were wide with shock and she fired until her gun ran out. The dry click echoed throughout as she continued to pull the trigger even though she was out of bullets. Jill just couldn't peel her eyes from the sight. By this time, her fallen comrade's screams had gotten quieter as the wounds overcame him, the pain simply too great. Joseph's screams became moans which eventually stopped too, when death finally took him mercifully.

One of the skinless dogs seemed to sense Jill's presence. It turned its head, chewing on a piece of Joseph's flesh, blood dripping from its mouth. Her eyes widened further in fear and she started to back up. The dog growled and stepped towards her before breaking into a run to attack. Jill tripped and fell to the ground, the dog jumping to attack her. A gunshot rang out and the dog fell to the ground. Chris was standing there, his gun still aimed from firing. He ran forward to help her up as the gunshot alerted the other skinless dogs to their presence.

"Come on!" Chris shouted, helping Jill to her feet.

The two ran for their lives as the group of dogs gave chase. Above them, through the trees, a light shone overhead. The helicopter flew over them and Chris peered up in surprise and anger.

"Hey! Brad! Where the hell's he going?!"

With their helicopter gone, they had nowhere to run to and the dogs were gaining on them. Without much hope, Chris suddenly turned in his tracks and raised an arm over his head to defend himself as a dog sprang to attack. A bullet slammed into the dog, sending it to the ground. Stunned, Chris glanced behind him to find Wesker there with his weapon raised.

"Chris, this way!" Wesker called out.

He fired a few more shots at the dogs as Chris and Jill ran past him. The other man, Barry, was also there firing at the dogs. The four of them ran, firing shots wildly behind them, hoping to hit the dogs. As they ran, someone yelled out.

"Head for that mansion!"

Hearing the shout, Jill lifted her eyes to see a large and very eerie looking mansion coming into sight.

Then the images faded and Chris was regaining consciousness. This time when he woke up, he placed a hand to his chest and grimaced in pain. He stood up with a groan.

"This is getting old, fast." Chris commented, tiredly.

He shook his head as if to shake away the pain, and lowered his hand from his chest.

Noah was looking at him with a mixture of concern and suspicion. "You sure you're alright?"

"I have no idea what's wrong with me but I'm fine now." Chris told him, brushing off the concerned gazes.

"We were going to leave this creepy platform with the coffin then." Nathan pointed out.

It was obvious he would like nothing more then to get out of the cavern.

"No arguments here." Mohinder piped up and he led the way out of the caves.

The group walked down several hallways, Chris and Sylar once again taking the lead. In one hallway there was a zombie, but other than that, there were no other surprises waiting. The next door they went through took them into a room which was easily distinguishable as a lab. There were various computers and also cryogenic tubes as tall as a person on the left. Chris paused, leaving Peter and Nathan to almost walk into him. They soon found why he had stopped. An image of Wesker from the night of the mansion incident was there. He was typing away at a computer.

"Hey, it's you." Claire told Chris.

He turned towards the door to see where his past self was, only to have himself from 1998 walk right through his present self. A young girl with short hair walked behind him. It was Rebecca Chambers and she peered around at the lab with curiosity. For only being eighteen years old, she had been one heck of a brave girl. The images of Chris and Rebecca were standing a few feet behind Wesker now. They already knew their captain was more than he seemed but still found it hard to believe. Wesker didn't even pause from his typing as the two STARS members approached so Chris spoke first.

"Wesker."

"So you've come. Chris, you make me proud. Course, you are one of my men." Wesker remained typing.

"Thanks." Chris replied, clearly sarcastic.

Wesker turned suddenly and pointed his gun at Chris's head. Chris wasn't at all surprised.

"Since when, Wesker?" he asked his captain.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about."

"Since when have they been slipping you a paycheck?!" Chris asked, his voice rising as it grew more hostile.

Wesker took a few steps closer, the gun still aimed at Chris's head.

"I think you're a bit confused. I've always been with Umbrella. STARS were Umbrella's, no, rather my little piggies. The Tyrant virus leaked, polluting this whole place and unfortunately I have to give up my lovely members of STARS." Wesker told Chris and Rebecca, educating his former subordinates.

"You killed them with your own dirty hands..you son of a bitch!" Chris proclaimed angrily, pointing a finger accusingly at Wesker.

"No..." Rebecca murmured in horror and disbelief.

"Oh yes dear. Just like this." Wesker said before he shot Rebecca in the chest.

"Rebecca!" Chris cried out and turned to help her.

"Don't move." Wesker commanded, pointing the gun at Chris's back.

"You..." Chris uttered as he turned his gaze back to Wesker.

"I don't think you want to die just yet. I have something that's of some interest to you."

Keeping the gun poised on Chris, he started typing on the computer again. When he was done, he tilted his head to look behind him at the large cryotank that held a monstrous looking creature. The thing in the tank must have been at least nine feet tall and had pale gray skin. It was muscular, broad shouldered, bald, and sexless. Its right hand was normal except for the fact that it had abnormally long fingers that were more like claws, and its left hand was literally a hand with gigantic claws. Each claw on the left hand was easily at least a foot long and at the center of its chest was a red mass which appeared to be its huge beating heart. The skin and lips had been peeled away so that it looked as though the creature was constantly grinning. The water began to drain from the tank and Chris realized Wesker had woken it from its slumber.

"The ultimate life form, Tyrant." Wesker revealed to Chris.

Surprisingly, Chris laughed out loud in disbelief. "Wesker, you've become senile!"

Wesker ignored his laugh as he walked over to the tank which contained his precious Tyrant, staring up at it in admiration.

"Chris, you'll never understand."

Wesker gazed up at Tyrant and raised his arms out in a praising motion. "It's magnificent."

Tyrant was moving inside the tank now. Its eyes were open and it was staring at Wesker. For a moment it seemed as though the two of them locked eyes. Then it drew back its giant clawed hand and broke the glass of the tank, spearing through Wesker's stomach. Wesker cried out in pain and Chris shrank back as Tyrant stepped from its broken tank. It tossed Wesker's body across the room and Chris watched the body slam into a computer before sinking to the floor, unmoving in a pool of blood.

Slowly Tyrant turned around and locked its eyes onto Chris. The large red mass on its chest was audibly beating, the heartbeat constant and terrifying to any observers. It began to lumber towards Chris as the STARS member continued to back away from the monster.

The images were fading now. They watched as Tyrant vanished from sight, followed by Chris from the past, and then even the laboratory was disappearing. The group looked around themselves in surprise as they suddenly appeared back in the courtyard of the mansion.

"What the-" Chris started but he was interrupted by his partner and leader of the Delta team.

"Chris! Quick! Come this way!" Sheva Alomar yelled to him.

Chris turned his eyes on her, surprised to see her there.

"Sheva! How did you find us? You were supposed to radio me when you got to the mansion."

The young African woman shook her head. She seemed impatient and motioned for them to follow her before she disappeared through the door they had originally come through, when the group had originally arrived in the courtyard for the first time. Chris shrugged when he received questioning looks from the others before following after her. They came through the doors and found themselves in a building of some kind. It was an open area with metal flooring and straight ahead was a balcony with stairs leading down on either side. Sheva was nowhere in sight and Chris searched for her in confusion.

"Where did your partner go?" Danko asked Chris.

Sheva had completely disappeared.