Author's note: Just a quick note, On chapter one I may have referred to Alice as Liz, but that's just because I was originally planning this as my own story before I turned it into an Alice/Carlos fic and forgot to change the name. Just thought you should know...

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A piercing scream filled the empty air. At first, it was weird. The sound was so familiar to her, yet felt so foreign. Turning her head quickly to the left, she saw the source. Kmart was pinned onto the fire by a cloaked figure. She pulled the gun from the holster on her thigh and took aim. Squeezing the trigger, the figure turned and ran off into the darkness. Leaving Kmart screaming on the asphalt. Trying desperately to get as far away from the fire as possible. Leon was already by her side when Claire got to her. Her eyes immediately fell upon the large burn in the middle of her back. Her shirt seemed to be melted into her very skin. Claire looked up at Leon, who returned the gaze. Kmart whimpered in pain between them.

XxXxX

"So, uh. I got a question." Alice said breaking the silence of the group. She turned her head around to look at Chris whom she had adressed the question to.

"Shoot." He replied. Alice turned her head forward again.

"Where are all the infected?"

A look flashed on Chris face, and as quickly as it was there it was gone. It was a look of genuine cluelessness, and thoughtful concern.

"Well, um-"

"They're in the center of the city." The other man, Chris' friend, answered. Alice turned her head in his direction and looked at him. He was tall, had a young face with tousled black hair and piercing green eyes. A thin white scar ran up from his eyebrow. The length was questionable since it disappeared under his dark hair. She looked forward just in time to step over what looked like an old speaker that had been torn apart. "He speaks."

"Only when I want to." And just then, Alice could've sworn she saw him smile. Though small and quick. And for a split second, she didn't want to rip his head off.

"I didn't catch your name earlier."

"Thats because I didn't give it. Nat. Nat Scott." Scott? Really? Alice thought as her mind flipped back to Leon. Aint that a coin-ki-dink.

"Okay. How do you know they're in the center of the city?"

"Because I was caught up in it. Barely made it out." He replied.

"I found him sleeping under the counter in a Starbucks with a cigarette in his mouth." Chris laughed.

"Not to interupt any backflashes you may or may not be having right now, but where are we going?" Carlos asked. Alice, Chris, and Nat stoppped mid-stride. Alice looked dumbfoundedly at Carlos, then at Chris and Nat.

"Well, where are we going?" Chris shrugged and Nat looked at his watch, which suprisingly, still worked.

"It's a quarter to six-"

"Thank you father time." Alice said as she crossed her arms over her chest, voice dripping with sarcasm. "How does that have anything to do with right now?"

"It gets dark around six." Nat answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "Dark. Zombies. Bad."

"Do you want to get stabbed in the nuts?" Alice warned. That 'want to rip his head off with my bare hands' feeling was back.

"Alice," Carlos interjected. "We do need to find a place to stay for the night.

"Theres a warehouse just a few blocks from here," Nat said. "We could crash there for the night."

"Good idea." Chris replied, with his regular 'Go team Go!' attitude.

XxXxX

The redhead heard the girl whimper as she spilled antibiotics over her burns. They were really bad, and every move the girl took put her in a spasm of pain. "I'm sorry K, it'll be over in a sec." She tried to reassure her, as she placed the bottle on the table next to Kmart and began to dab at the area with a cotton pad until she was sure it went everywhere on the burn. "Sit up," Claire told Kmart, who did as she was told. Carefully, Claire wrapped her back in gauze as best she could. "Lay on your stomache but try to get some rest." She said in a soft voice as she cut the end piece of the gauze and made sure that it didn't fall out of place. "We're going to be outside, if you need us." She said before closing the door behind her.

They took shelter in a small apartment a few blocks away from where Kmart was almost killed. It was small but then again, it didn't matter. Claire saw Leon sitting on the old couch. She had told him to stay out here, she didn't quite remember why. He looked up with cocern in his eyes. "Is she going to be okay?"
"Yeah, it's bad but she'll be okay." She took a seat next to him. "I found some pain killers in the bathroom. I gave her some and told her to rest."

He noticed that she clutched Kmart's tattered shirt in her fists. It was ripped and was nothing but mere scraps of cloth. "Had to cut it off her. The fire melted the fabric into her skin." She said with a sort of awkward half-smile. The skin under her eyes were a deep shade of purple. An obvious sign that she hadn't had a decent nights sleep in a long time.

Leon returned a small smile, and put his arm across her shoulders and pulled her into his chest. "You should get some rest too. You could use it."

"Yeah," she yawned, already falling asleep on his shoulder.

XxXxX

Albert Wesker walked down the long white hallway lined with cages. Numerous animal howls echoed up and down the hall. Just before the apocalypse, he had collected numerous animal specimans of hundreds of species. In his hand, he held a clipboard with a list of every animal in his possesion.

Sumatran tigress...

Gray wolf...

Kodiak bear...

Just to name a few. The facility he currently resided in was specifically made to house all these animals, and right now he was in the large predator containment area. Wesker stopped in front of a cage. Inside, a rather large Sumatran tigress paced back and forth. Her tail swished at her heels irritably. Against his better judgement, he gave this animal a name, Mara. Her mate, a white Siberian tiger which he named Taj, slept silently at the back of the cage. Tigers had always piqued his interest, though he kept it to himself.

Mara was a vibrant orange with bold black stripes lining her body, and she had pale yellow eyes that stared back at him in a hypnotizing gaze. Her belly bulged slightly, giving away the fact that she was carrying cubs, that were more than likely going to be the next generation of the Project X experiment.

Pity the last one, he thought. He was sure he got the genetics right, but still Alice had managed to destroy it. And the other one, it barely made it out of stage one and failed horribly at the second stage.

Each one was injected with the T-Virus, as was almost every animal in the facility. Wesker often cross bred animals as well. Taking the desired traits from one and mixing it with another animal creating a new creature. He had failed in creating the perfect predator numerous times. Either the animal destroyed itself or was unstable and had to be destroyed. This time, when Mara's cubs are born, he'll try something different. He had an idea.

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