Resident Evil Black Ops III: Last Escape

by EpsilonChurchRVB

Very few had survived the destruction of Raccoon City. The Raccoon Trials would go on to last for years through intense unrest. Jill Valentine and Frank Woods were among the few survivors to be alive throughout the last days of the doomed city, all while being targeted by a relentless, powerful monster to silence them all. This is the story of their fates - of their last escape…

2. Chapter 2: Unnerving Presence

Author's Note: I'm going to be doing review responses at the end of each chapter from now on, with the intention to keep the story flowing seamlessly and not have long essays written up before reading the following chapter lol. However, any important, but short heads-ups will be included at the very beginning of said chapter, like this right now. This is the last chapter I'll have uploaded before returning back to my break, at least for a couple more months or so.

Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil Outbreak - Main Theme

2. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - Raccoon's Destruction

3. Resident Evil 3: Nemesis (1999) - The Beginning of Nightmare

Bonus Track: Resident Evil Resistance - Descent Into Darkness

---

Chapter 2

In about under an hour, they'd be arriving at Raccoon City.

Nikolai Zinoviev had his arms crossed, his mind and body ready for what was ahead of them, and he believed his squad would do well - at least better than the rest anyway. Everyone under his leadership that made up Squad B respected him highly, in fact, he was seeing it in their eyes right now. Although none of them knew the exact dangers they'd all be facing, most would surely die, but not without some valuable performance for the combat data that'd be worth in the thousands. After all, he had practically trained them himself.

No one in the chopper was talking, not even among the other squad leaders of the whole Delta Platoon, the only personnel inside wearing headsets. The aircraft was just too loud for any of them to have a conversation. Even if it wasn't, Nikolai had nothing to say to either Mitch Hirami or Mikhail Viktor for that matter. Viktor was their superior, the commander of the entire platoon. That position should've belonged to Nikolai. Viktor did not have any of the qualities that made up a true leader. Hell, Sergei Vladimir had personally chosen Nikolai as a participant for Operation: Watchdog, and Spencer knew he was more than capable as well.

No matter. They're all under my grasp. I was chosen for Watchdog, and after this is all over, Umbrella will have to deal with me and me only, whether they all like it or not.

Nikolai kept his face in a frozen state of solemnity, but he grinned a wide smile inside. When the time finally comes, the higher-ups from Umbrella would realize just how much they'd underestimated him.

He sat between Squad A and C leaders against one wall of the cabin, soothed by the soft and steady humming of the transport itself. The air inside was contaminated by the smell of masculine sweat and heavy tension, something he had already grown accustomed to since his days as a Spetsnaz operative during the Cold War. He had led most of his men in battle before, although if it all went as planned, he would never have to again.

He took one more glance at the troops' faces, wondering to himself if any of them would survive more than an hour or two. He supposed it was possible, but the chances of that happening were very minimal regardless.

He moved his attention toward Mike Cryan for a second, the Squad C leader, seeing the spectacle of the mysterious background he had behind the familiarity on his face. He swore he'd seen those scars across his face before, but could not remember from where exactly. Cryan was American, but his past was entirely shrouded in mystery, something Nikolai couldn't keep his mind off. Amongst the troops, rumors began to spread about Cryan being an outcast of the US government, thrown to rot in a South African mission gone awry, surviving on his own for almost an entire month inside Africa's harsh wilderness, until Umbrella managed to find him, recruiting him within their UBCS ranks. However, even if it were true, it was still highly unlikely that Cryan held the requirements to survive and escape Raccoon, just like the rest of them. After all, the briefing hadn't prepared any of them for what was ahead…

Nikolai's own briefing, two days earlier, had been quite the opposite. He knew the projected numbers and had been told what to expect and how to properly dispose of just about any known BOW inside the infested city. The limited research and combat data that had been gathered from the Spencer Mansion, thanks to Vladimir, had them pretty much prepared about even things like the Tyrant series. Umbrella Europe had also sent in a special shipment of the latest Tyrant model, a T-103 injected with some kind of parasite, and Nikolai was also given instructions on how to avoid it as well. He had more knowledge than anyone on the transport.

But I am also more ready than Umbrella could possibly imagine… because I know the names of the other "dogs".

Again, he suppressed a wide smile. Inside his mind, he possessed a lot more valuable information that, if turned out to be true, could earn him a great deal of money, even up into the millions. On the surface, all of the UBCS was under the guise of rescuing any surviving civilians, at least that's what they all have been told anyway. However, he was one of the ten that had been chosen to monitor and record combat data of trained soldiers going against t-Virus carriers, human or otherwise. It was the main reason why the UBCS was being deployed into the city in the first place, aka Operation: Watchdog, as they called it in his own briefing. But this was all that Umbrella knew about, so far at least.

Thanks to Lev Kravchenko, an old comrade he'd met back in his Spetsnaz days, he had given him the list of people that were already stationed inside the city; seven of them in total - three scientists, two Umbrella pencil pushers, a woman who worked for the city, and a police officer who closely worked with the chief himself. Besides himself, there were two more inside the UBCS, disguised as concerned soldiers with the only goal to save as many civilian lives as possible. A few of them were most likely aware of one or the other as Umbrella's handpicked data collectors, but with Nikolai's computer skills and a few personally given passwords from the Perseus leader himself, he was the only one among the Watchdogs who knew about every single one of them - and where each was supposed to file their reports.

What would happen if one by one, they fail to report in? What would happen if only one Watchdog survived and had all the information for a fixed price? What would happen if that information just so happens to fall into someone else's hands as well? Double the price, and a single man gets turned into a millionaire overnight.

Nine people. He was just nine people away from becoming a millionaire, from being the only Umbrella employee to have the information they wanted, and in return, have Perseus double his money after that. Having dead weight with the UBCS didn't seem to matter to him anymore. They'd all die quickly one way or another, and he'd have more than enough time to go through every location each of the Watchdogs would be around the city, to snatch their data and end their pathetic lives.

Nikolai couldn't hold it in any longer. His face had now grown into a wide smile, a grin that made him feel ecstatic about the mission that lay ahead of him. It was going to be a true testament to his skills in everything he had learned in his life thus far… and when this was over, he'll be one hell of a rich man.

---

Carlos was faintly aware of his surroundings, letting himself sink into the dull humming roar of the engines within the cramped space. He was too busy trying to comprehend whatever he was told by Trent in the conversation they had over a couple of hours ago, his mind replaying the conversation for the hundredth time. Whether or not any of the vague information he was given would be of any use was still up for debate.

As he recalled it one more time, Carlos' first impression of the old man wasn't exactly a pleasant one, at best. He looked about as trustworthy as a stranger could get to a little kid. This was further proven when he was keen to talk to him with a wide smile, too odd for someone to feel thrilled about having a simple conversation with another stranger down the street. Carlos could've guessed Trent probably didn't have many people in his life to talk to, but despite this, it almost made him run the other way, until he became more curious about what it was that Trent needed to tell him about.

The alley in which the conversation took place was cool and dark, the smell of urine faint in the air around them.

"What kind of information?" Carlos had inquired.

Trent's dark, blue eyes had a faint tinge of both humor and seriousness as he began to utter what he already had in mind, flatly ignoring the question that was previously asked.

"Shopping district, downtown. Should be a Burger Town nearby, typical American chow, next to the theater up the street from a fountain, you can't miss it. Let's say…" - he took a quick look at his watch - "by zero hundred hours, get yourself inside and I will be able to brief you more as soon as I find a way to help you."

Carlos had barely caught all of the information, confused, not knowing where to even start. "Hey, uh… no offense, but what are you even talking about?"

Trent had given him a smile beneath his gray thick beard and mustache. "I suppose you know you're going to Raccoon City. Am I correct?"

Carlos had nodded hesitantly, but never bothered responding for several moments, and he had continued to stare at the elder man to see if he was going to say anything more to elaborate on how he knew such information about him and his work. Though Trent had seemed like he was the one waiting for Carlos to speak up first.

"So…um…, Trent, err…" Carlos still had no clue about what he should ask or say to him, but he refused to keep wasting time anyway. "Again, no offense, but you might be confusing me with someone else… And I gotta get going."

Trent had chortled in response. "Duty calls, da? Just like back in my youthful days…", he had said, his smile dwindling down. "Understand that they won't tell you everything you need to know. Situation's far worse than you'd realize. And careful about who you trust. As my father once said, good music is earned by the warmth of heart as is the trust one puts in others … And remember - Burger Town, midnight. Closer to the northeastern part of town."

"U-huh… sure," Carlos had said, almost with indifference as he stepped back out of the alley and into the dwindling daylight, forcing a small grin of his own. "Well… I'll make good note of it."

Trent had put up a smile again, stepping out after him. "Dasvidaniya, Mr. Oliveira."

Carlos was quick to turn back and walk away, glancing back at Trent one more time as he did. The guy had watched him, stared at him as he had put both hands in his pockets once again, looking rather calm and relaxed. He had definitely acted like a nutcase in some way and seemed to be a lot more of one as he told him all of the things he did.

…as if it'll make any difference now.

Even after being held up by Trent, Carlos was still able to get to the field office rather early, but no one knew anything about what exactly was happening in Raccoon City. At the briefing, they'd all been told that a toxic chemical had been spilled earlier last week, causing hallucinations and fits of violence across the city. Apparently, the chemical was no longer active, but the community was still being torn apart by those who had been affected, and the UBCS was tasked to assist the police in trying to get things under control, to help out any unaffected civilians and use force against those affected, if necessary.

This was all happening in the same location that the witness from ABC News was from, and Trent might've known something… something nobody outside of the city knew…

Sounds like it's something similar to what happened with those Nova Six gas attacks overseas decades back…

But if everything Trent told me is true, why hadn't they told us everything? What could be far worse than dealing with a mob of mentally deranged maniacs? Or maybe…

His veins chilled at the thought of not knowing, of now coming in blind with all the warning signs pointing to a difficult battle ahead of them…

Since he was first trained as an elite guerilla fighter, he'd been paid a good amount to put his life in danger several times in his life, for a good cause he firmly used to believe in, but at least he had always known the true dangers behind those revolutionary battles, prepared for them one way or another, knew what was at stake for him and everyone else around him. Now with his first UBCS operation, the thought of going blind was making him go insane, more nervous than he had ever been in his life, and his whole body had become to sweat within the confines of the transport. If one thing could count for any sort of consolation was that he was at least going in with over one hundred experienced soldiers altogether. Whatever was waiting for them, they would somehow be able to handle it one way or another.

He took a quick look at the cabin around him, trying to tell himself that he was in good hands with a group of men he could trust. Not all of them came from good backgrounds, but they were adept fighters, experienced individuals who knew the dangers of an intense battlefield. Hell, even most of them looked determined and ready, their eyes glistening fearlessly…

…but one of them, the Squad B leader, was grinning like an alligator into blank space, like a fearsome predator, and Carlos couldn't help but sit closer to his back, suddenly feeling even more apprehensive as he stared at him for several moments. The dude's name was Nikolai, or whatever, with cropped white hair, built like a weightlifter.

The Russian met his gaze after a few seconds, his impossible grin widening, and Carlos felt an intense dread wash over him as his heart skipped a beat, never having seen someone smile so serenely like that before, almost menacing-like…

…and the moment finally passed just when Nikolai nodded back at him before looking away absently. Just a friendly gesture from a fellow soldier acknowledging another, nothing more. The conversation with Trent had him so paranoid about every little thing, it had been negatively affecting him more than just about anything else

Taking in a deep breath after closing his eyes shut, he reminded himself of the most important part of the conversation, forcing himself to forget about everything else mentioned.

Burger Town, next to the theater.

He'd keep it in mind, just in case.

---

Jill had finally finished preparing herself to make her way out of town. She mentally mapped out her way through, using the large sketch she had on her investigation board. If she could somehow stick to the side streets and cut through buildings as much as possible, she could potentially reach the southeast highway in no time, assuming most of the barricades don't slow her down on foot or bump against crowds of zombies in cramped areas.

Okay,… fire escape is a no-go, boarded up entirely. That just leaves the main stairs…

She slowly opened the door leading out to the corridor of the apartment's third floor, with her Samurai Edge ready in one hand. She began to shiver a little from the cold, damp chill of the air inside the still-lit hallway. Someone had forgotten to turn off the AC long before the outbreak had ever begun, but this was nothing that really mattered compared to what she'd be having to face sooner or later.

Focus, Jill. Just keep focused…

She would've been fine with her STARS uniform, but back when she had been wearing it on that fateful day two months back, not only has it been torn apart, but it was practically hard to move around with it sometimes being in the way. Instead, she opted to wear something that was slightly thinner and more casual; a blue V-neck sleeveless shirt and a pair of dark blue-grayish jeans with black tactical boots that were pretty durable and flexible to move around with. Through the mess inside her apartment, she had difficulty looking for her white sweatshirt as she was going to be facing the cold chill of the night, but because time was of the essence, she decided to leave it behind in the end. Lucky for her, however, she at least had a fanny pack to carry extra magazines.

Her apartment building wasn't exactly huge so it shouldn't be a problem to cut through and leave onto Fox Street. Back from her earlier excursions, she had quickly discovered that the infected moved out into the streets in search of food as soon as they could, abandoning their homes and buildings in the process. Most of the car alarms, bleating sirens, and gunshots had all left them wandering around in the streets, enough of them for her to be able to clear her way through the interiors without much of a hassle.

There was a noise. A soft moan came from one of the apartment doors farther down the hall. Jill stood silently, frozen, waiting for the zombie to pop into view as she aimed her custom Beretta in front of her, eyes fixed directly in front as her ears strained to hear the direction in which the sound had come from. It was just a second later that she realized that there was a subtle smell of gas coming from somewhere inside the building.

"Shit…" she whispered loudly, trying to recall the layout of the building itself, of the location in which the boiler was located. She took a few steps forward, looking to her right as the door to apartment three twenty-one was opened.

I hope Carly escaped from the city by now…

She leaned closer to the edge of the door and took a peek inside, quickly noticing that the air inside reeked of blood and death. The kitchen inside was littered with silverware all over the place, the fridge still remaining with power as its interior light was turned on, though it was all covered in thick amounts of blood.

"Oh, Jesus…" Jill gasped as soon as she saw what was ahead past the kitchen area.

There were stacks of newspapers and books scattered across the ground, with blood covering most of the mess around. The small TV lay on its side, still turned on but showing only a white screen of electric snow. Broken glass from the sliding door leading to the balcony had peppered the whole area. Small white and red pills from an opened can of Umbrella medicine were also spilled over the rest of the mess, but that wasn't what kept her uneasy.

A corpse lay sitting in front of a desk, the lampshade fallen next to the head that was completely obscured by long, black hair on top of the desk. There was a small pool of blood that had flown over the desk's flat surface, still spilling droplets of drying blood across the ground underneath where a gun lay abandoned. On the wall above, there was an ominous statement written in what appeared to be in the dead person's own blood…

I AM
NOT
ME

Jill stepped closer to inspect the body further and began to shift some of the hair out of the way to reveal the identity of the dead body.

No… Carly!

She didn't want to accept it, unwilling to believe it was the same neighbor who always used to wave "hi" and "goodbye" to her every time they passed one another. Carly was one of the very few people who actually had an open mind about Jill's predicament, about everything that's been going on inside the city, of the corruption that the RPD had slowly been consumed by. She had become another casualty, another victim of the senseless nightmare that had been plaguing the city for ages. This was enough proof to her that, despite anyone having an open mind about everything that the STARS have tried to expose, the knowledge itself wouldn't have been enough to save anybody from the spreading infection of the deadly t-Virus.

But at least she knew what was about to come once the infection slowly begins to take over your body, your mind … your sanity…

Jill closed her eyes for a moment and began to whisper something quietly.

"May you rest in peace, Carly, and I hope you didn't suffer as much as many others had before you."

There was a creak from behind, and Jill quickly spun around, instinctively raising her Beretta as the front entrance was now blocked by a shuffling, stoop-shouldered man. The features of the man were exactly like the ones from back at the Spencer Mansion, from back in the streets - the same features from back what was left of the high school itself. The man was another virus carrier, his sallow skin and bleached eyes indicating that there was no turning back from the state he was in. One of his cheeks looked like they had been ripped off, decaying, as if that wasn't proof enough of his existence as a zombie. These undead creatures felt no pain, and the resilience they had were almost unimaginable, to say the least. As it opened its mouth to make an unnatural moan of deadly hunger at her, she could see the base of the gray, swollen tongue. The sickly reek of rotting flesh it emitted overpowered the thick air of blood inside the room, and the smell of gas could no longer be detected by her overwhelmed nostrils.

If he gets too close, just push him out of the way and move!

Jill took a stride across the kitchen area, waiting for the zombie to come closer to her direction, to look for an opening and run downstairs to escape the apartment and its gas leak that could incinerate the whole place if just one spark were to be anywhere in the building.

Now!

Quickly taking off, she ran around it, hugging closer to the edge of the opened door in case any more of them showed up in surprise. A second after making sure the coast was clear, she took a left, hurrying as she began to inhale the smell of the gas much more intensely closer to the stairway. Opening the door swiftly, she continued her pace down the set of stairs, the effects of the gas leak now starting to affect her vision and mobility, a sort of dizziness and lightheadedness creeping inside her. She could even taste the ugly, acrid sulfuric odor at the back of her throat, already imagining the shimmering waves of thick gas polluting the air itself.

Gotta be a massive leak if I hadn't smelled it earlier in the afternoon…

Through her blind hysteria, she collided with a woman, knocking her down the wooden stairs with heavy thumps to her head and back, bones cracking inside her brittle body as she smashed against two more figures that were standing just below. Jill barely noticed the woman, but even after almost tripping over her, she kept her balance straight and ran past the three virus carriers, all of them sprawled against the corner of the white plaster wall.

She made her way back into the main lobby, the acrid odor of the gas too overwhelming for her to breathe in.

Three male zombies blocked the main exit leading out into the streets, all having blood smeared across their clothing and faces, their gangrenous arms slowly beginning to stretch in front of them, eager to get their rotting hands on her as they moaned hungrily at her. Another female zombie began to rise from underneath the reception desk. One of her eyes was missing, the red, glimmering socket becoming brighter in the white overhead light.

How could there already be this many people infected?!

There were another couple more, crawling, with one of them already coming too close to reaching her legs. Three more behind her, the same ones she had left behind earlier, and Jill moved closer to the security door, aiming her weapon at the one closest to her, their face completely peeled away, exposing much of their rotting, wet tissue. The wall behind him was a row of mailboxes, all of them made out of metal, but she had no choice. She was trapped and the only thing she had going was to hope that the gas fumes were weaker in her current position.

The creature suddenly lunged at her, and out of instinct, she fired her weapon, simultaneously hurdling over for the front door as the nine-millimeter round impacted the zombie's skull.

Ssssssh—BOOM!

Within a split second, she felt the explosion before she could even hear it coming. Instantaneously, her feet separated from the rumbling ground itself, a powerful displacement of hellish air hammering and shoving her in the direction she jumped, so fast and forcefully, she could barely understand the passage of time itself, unable to comprehend anything happening chronologically. Her ears popped painfully, her vision clouded in a world of red and white, and she felt her body aching as the doors dissolved through her, tucking and rolling across the asphalt trilling into her shoulder, hitting her back against the thick tire of a parked car. The horrific smells of fried, rotting meat and burning hair washed over her, so overwhelmingly, she barely felt the flash-rain of blackened glass peppering the street around her.

Jill quickly scrambled back to her feet, trying to ignore all the aches and small injuries she sustained from the explosion, spinning around, readying to fire her gun once more as the flames of death began to consume the main lobby of her apartment. She blinked her watery eyes rapidly, widening them to get a better view of her surroundings, hoping to see past the flashing spots of fire that had been robbing her vision for a good amount of time.

Two fried corpses laid on the ground a couple of meters before her, most likely permanently dead, but two other zombies were still shuffling around inside the burning wreckage, all of them combusted completely. To her right, beyond the remains of a police blockade, were more wailing voices of human carriers slowly making their way toward the chaos she'd found herself in.

Turning to her left, there was a single male zombie, already stumbling towards her in small strides that narrowed the distance between them, their clothes ripped and slathered in dried blood. Without hesitating, Jill took aim and fired a single shot directly at its infected, mindless brain, taking a walk towards it as it began to collapse to the ground. She was at least glad that the particular strain that'd infected the whole city did not have the ability to revive dead zombies back to life, into their crimson forms similar to the ones from the mansion. If it had been the exact strain, people all over the city would've died much faster and she would've been hearing the steaming grunts of the violent creatures by now.

Okay… past the dumpster and head west. Up ahead, a few blocks worth of shopping district. Should be able to work my way around the blockades along the way…

Nodding at herself in confidence, she decided to take a quick look at her injuries. Rolling up the ends of her jeans, she found abrasions on both her knees. Looking over her bare shoulder, she found it to be bruised up with a couple of scrapes that were speckled with dirt and gravel. Jill gave a relieved smile, knowing that it could've been a lot worse for her. Her hearing and vision were still impaired, but at least it would all pass after a short while.

Reaching the dumpster that blocked the way to Fox Street, wedged between a clothing shop and a busted car, she did her best to climb over it, making sure to keep her eye directly on a door across from her.

Back alley… probably a quicker way out of town.

Jill jumped down, and felt a powerful jolt of shock and panic rising inside her mind, her heart pounding and hammering against her chest as she darted left and right. There were dozens of them, perhaps hundreds - two entire hordes in either direction, all of them shambling their bodies with an effort that could almost be compared to their crimson variants from back at the Spencer Mansion. The closest one was already moving to cut her off from the dumpster completely.

Move! Move!

Without further hesitation, Jill rushed two running steps toward the door, unable to imagine the horrors that could happen to her should the door refuse to open…

No! No!

The doorknob rattled, denying her entry, and her brain threw itself into a hysterical frenzy of terrible fear.

"C'mon!" she said, unaware that she had spoken through her blind panic and used her uninjured shoulder against the rusting door.

The door shuddered, yet it refused to give in. She didn't give a single damn about how close the zombies were getting to her. All she was focused on now was forcing the door open, bruteforcing her way through one way or another, her body preparing itself with more adrenaline at each hit she desperately tried. The zombies were getting closer; she could already smell the dreadful scent of rotting flesh starting to overcome her senses, and the door still held stubbornly.

Focus, Jilly! Just do it! NOW!

Her father's voice, her very first teacher. Jill took a step back, gathering herself as she felt the cold, chilling brush of rotting fingers against the side of her neck, and rammed the door one more time, the biggest hit she could ever do.

CRASH!

The door flew open, causing her to stumble forward and she barely managed not to collapse against the ground. She was through, the hungry, disappointed cries of decaying creatures right behind her, and she began to run, seeing pale, rotting arms trying to get ahold of her through the broken windows inside the alley as she tried to remember what was ahead.

The old warehouse, straight through this alley!

Her pulse was racing, she could almost hear it over the echoing wails of frustrated hunger behind her, rushing to a left turn, and kept her pace, putting as much distance from the combined horde as possible. Up ahead was her salvation; a door to safety.

Please don't be shut…

Jill grabbed the handle, twisting it smoothly as she gave a swift push into a silent, well-lit open space, closing the door behind her immediately.

Thank God…

Inside was a man, who was sitting in the middle of a small set of stairs leading to the main floor below the landing she had just stepped on. Jill raised the Beretta for a quick second but didn't fire, quickly scanning him before lowering her gun again. It was still that same paranoia Frank used to have even before they knew anything about the existence of zombies and monsters, though it had since saved her life several times for as long as she has been surviving inside the infested city.

Despite the man having torn and blood-splattered clothing, she was easily able to tell by his immense, fearful expression that he wasn't an infected… or at least not the type that had changed into a rotting freak yet.

Feeling extremely relieved at finally making some sort of contact with another living person, she smiled shakily at him. The powerful tendrils of relief she felt made her realize just how lonely she'd been. Even if it was someone with no prior knowledge of self-defense techniques or handling of firearms, she could easily use the company, help each other out in varying ways…

"Sir? Are you alright?" she asked carefully. "What's your name?"

"Ah! Stay back!" the man gasped, apparently still frightened at her, backing away to the main floor as much as possible. "Don't come any closer!"

Keeping her shaky smile, she moved towards the steps, climbed down to the main floor, and stopped, making changes to her plans of escape already. The guy didn't seem like he had any weapons on him, but that wouldn't be a problem as she had seen an old shotgun at Black Jack's Bar two days previously, which was pretty close. Of course, it had been unloaded, but finding shells around the shopping district wouldn't be a hard find, assuming most of the survivors hadn't hoarded them up somewhere in a single place either. There was always the alternative to reach Kendo's gun shop as well, but she figured that most of the roadblocks would prevent them from ever reaching the shop from where they were regardless.

…and together, we could even push through one of the barricades. Easy way out!

"Sir, I'd suggest you come along. We have to get out of here. It's not safe," she said, trying to sound more confident and hopeful. "Help is not coming, at least not for a while, but between the two of us…"

"Are you crazy?" he interrupted, his trembling gaze wandering around. "I'm not going out there! Not when those… things are trying to eat anything they see! And how dare you barge in here like you own the place and tell me to go back outside!"

He began to trail off, his eyes fixed on the door she had just come in from, as if he was able to see through the door and watch the mindless zombies wandering around, still looking for her…

Jill nodded, reminding herself that not everyone would respond logically in a place like this. After all, she even remembered just how unbelievable everything was when she'd first seen it all, and it cost Joseph Frost's life in the end, almost costing hers if it wasn't for Frank. She figured the man was probably in shock.

"Which is exactly why we need to —"

"My daughter, she's out there somewhere! Lost!" he cut her off yet again, only this time, his panicky voice began to rise into a shout that echoed throughout the entire warehouse. "And she's probably dead, just like the rest of them, and if I won't go out there for her, what makes you think I'll go out there for you?!"

"What was your name, again?" Jill said calmly.

The man looked at her with a livid expression. "Dario Rosso, but why the hell would you care anyway?"

Jill put away her Samurai Edge inside her gun holster on her upper thigh and took out her STARS badge, slowly raising both hands as she approached him carefully, trying to keep her concerned tone as smooth as possible.

"Alright, Mr. Rosso. My name's Jill Valentine. I'm a police officer, okay? I understand the circumstances are… harsh to say the least, and I'm sorry about your daughter, I truly am, but with me around, I can help you - help find your daughter and come back here to wait for rescue if you like."

He backed up a step, his face contorted in complete disdain, and Jill could still see the fear and terror beneath his anger. She knew about the false implications of STARS' handling of the Arklay investigation, and Dario probably still thought most of what the mass media have said about them was true. The fury that he was showing was also a coping mechanism for being afraid, to hide their true fears behind a mask. She's seen it before many times in her career, even in herself, and she had to at least try, despite knowing that it was going to be impossible to get through to him.

"I know you're scared," she said softly. "I am too, but as a former member of the Special Tactics and Rescue Service squad, we were trained for dangerous operations at similar magnitudes like this, and I truly believe I can get us out of this mess - but only if you're willing to cooperate with me."

Again, the man simply backed up another step, glowering at her with immense hatred crossing over his exhausted face.

"And one hell of a bang-up job all of you did," he said in a lower tone. "I'd rather starve to death in here than go anywhere with you and be eaten by one of those undead monsters! Now leave me alone!"

He turned around and ran, stumbling across the ground as he skipped over fallen cardboard boxes, heading directly towards a storage trailer at the far side of the warehouse. He climbed up with difficulty but managed to crawl inside as he pulled his legs in, panting loudly. Jill caught a glimpse of his sweating face as he pulled the doors closed altogether. There was a click of a metal latch from inside, locking himself from the outside world, followed by a muffled shout that set his ultimate decision in stone.

"Go away! I'm not leaving! Never!"

Jill felt a burst of her own anger but knew it was just as useless as trying to reason with him any further.

Sighing, she turned and walked back to the steps, carefully trying to withhold the depression that threatened to overtake her mind. She took one careful look at the warehouse, seeing there was an office inside, and then she was reminded of something.

Jason was holed up in here when he last sneaked inside the city all those months ago…

Just before Frank was admitted to the hospital, she managed to recover the device given to him by Jason before anyone had the chance to see it on him. Ever since then, she studied it further in her apartment, finding out many details of classified CIA missions that Jason, Frank, and Alex had gone through previously within the past few decades, apparently trying to tie in connections between their own experiences and Umbrella's wrongdoings across the globe, particularly inside the United States. Many of the details were alarming and unsettling, that she simply decided it would've been best to ask Alex himself, filtering out some of the most horrific parts of their experiences.

Of course, she didn't divulge any information to him as to how she came across such sensitive information, but at the very least, he was more than happy to help his STARS buddies to be more in the loop on what they were dealing with when it came to Perseus and their leader, Lev Kravchenko. After all, they've been outcasted by the media, and with the whole public against them, the whole investigation process was extremely slow and difficult to execute.

She had made sure to dispose of the small computer machine completely just after Chris' departure to Europe. With it destroyed, it sealed any chances of the information inside it falling into the wrong hands.

Alright, enough fooling around. The office upstairs may have some supplies that I could use.

She walked around the building, climbing a set of stairs that led directly into the main office of the old place, trying to mentally put up a checklist of the things that she was going to need along the way.

Ammo, more firepower, maybe even a set of lockpicks…

She'd be lucky if there were anything useful left in the office, assuming Jason hadn't picked the place clean in order to cover up his tracks, which she suspected was a more than likely chance that he had.

Wouldn't hurt to check regardless.

Reaching for the door to the office, she gave a deep sigh, wondering how was she ever going to make it out of the city alive.

---

Frank jolted awake as he stared at his surroundings in surprise, blinking rapidly for a moment. He was inside his room, a lantern shining its bright yellow light over the drawer to his right, everything looking exactly as he had left it the day in which everything had turned to shit last time. As he stood up from his bed, there was barely any excruciating pain he had felt earlier. He quickly realized he was wearing no lab coat or hospital gown, his scar across his chest exposed by the light next to him, only wearing a pair of boxers.

Don't ever remember changing or going to bed at a fucking time like this…

As he continued to scan anything unusual over his body, he discovered that someone was with him, sitting on a chair next to his bedside as they had fallen asleep with their head resting on top of the bed. It was most likely that whoever was with him was possibly the same intruder from before, but if they wanted to hurt or kill him, they would've done so already and not decided to sleep next to the person whom they wanted to harm either.

Frank slowly reached to them and tapped their head carefully.

"Ey…" he said in a loud whisper as he switched to tapping the person on their shoulder. "Ey, you alive?"

The guy jerked awake, looking back at him confused for a moment, and Frank suddenly knew who it was, his heart jumping inside as he saw the face of the same man he'd been friends with for almost all his life, feeling overjoyed that he wasn't missing or dead after all.

"Alex?" said Frank, surprised. "Goddamn, is it really you?!"

"Frank - you really are alive?" said Alex, slowly smiling back at him with exhaustion in his eyes, and before Frank could even say a word back to him, Alex immediately hugged his best friend as tight as possible, and he began to fight back what seemed to be powerful emotions of relief and shock all at once just behind Frank's left ear. "Jesus, Frank - I thought I lost you again for the fucking third time in my life already!"

"Alright - alright, enough with the emotional shit," said Frank as he patted his best friend's back with both hands. "Don't cry me a river or you'll drag me along with you."

But Alex wasn't willing to let him go for a long time, and although Frank greatly appreciated his concern for him, he was starting to become slightly annoyed at this, and his tight grip was starting to hurt his back a bit more.

"Okay - okay, Mason, back's killing me," he said quickly. "Not exactly as young as I used to be, remember?"

"Oh sorry, brother," he apologized and pulled himself back from the tight hug. He looked up to Frank, fighting off tears that slowly began to swell in his green eyes. "It's just so fucking good to see you alive, Frank. Everyone thought you were dead, and…" Alex turned his head away for a moment, apparently still trying to fight the emotions that had been trying to take him over. As he turned to face him again, his eyes had already given in to his intense feelings of relief to see his best friend come back from the dead, and not into the undead. "Fuck, man, we saw you die! I mean, how the hell are you even with us?!"

"If I'm gonna be brutally honest with you - I still don't even know myself," Frank expressed to him, not even sure how he was still alive after the injury he sustained from the tyrant several months back, now staring at his own scars that were newly carved on his chest. "But I know sure as hell that nothing can kill me unless I have a say in it."

"Heh, ever the survivor, aren't ya?" said Alex, grinning at him. "Even death's touch hasn't changed you one bit."

"It's gonna take more than death itself to change who I fucking am," said Frank with a haughty smile.

Alex began to chuckle as he patted Frank's bare shoulder when suddenly, there was something that was knocked to the ground downstairs, like something clattering against the tile.

Both of them froze and they switched their gaze toward the only door inside Frank's dimly lit room, staring at it in a few seconds of silence that wrapped the air around them.

"Someone else here?" Frank whispered, his voice barely audible altogether.

Alex slowly shook his head as he stood up, pulling his gun out of his holster over his gray pants, and began to raise the weapon as he slowly stepped closer to the door in front of them, aiming as he did. He gave Frank a hand gesture to wait for him inside as he took his time to carefully grab at the doorknob and twist it before quietly opening it slowly.

As Alex disappeared out of view, Frank knew better than to wait for Alex to be needing any backup, considering they were still inside a city infested with zombies. Not taking any chances, he quickly got himself off the bed, grabbing the gun that laid over his drawer, the same gun he managed to pick up prior to falling unconscious, and followed after his best friend.

As he strode through the door and inside the small, narrow hall, he heard several gunshots in the distance just outside of the house.

Shit, Mason!

Just when he was about to rush downstairs, he felt sharp pain jolting inside of his head and arms, making him crouch down for a moment as he put both hands over his temples, wincing and grunting loudly.

Agh! What the hell?!

He looked over his arms to see if he saw anything unusual, but the lack of lighting prevented him from seeing anything significant. For a moment, he considered helping Alex with whatever he was facing outside, not entirely caring about his own well-being, but the numbing pain was preventing him from ever stepping closer to the stairs.

Seeing that he couldn't stand up without anything to hold onto, he took the left and pushed the opened door to their bathroom nearby. He crawled over to the sink, pushing himself up with great difficulty, and switched on the overhead light, his tired blue eyes darting around at his own reflection in the mirror, at his own bare chest and face. He looked about the same as he did back at the hospital, though the missing patches of hair from where the needles were connected had all grown back, and the wounds from those needles were already healed too.

Am I really here… alive? Or am I still unconscious at a fuckin' hospital?

Brushing the doubtful thoughts aside, he quickly stood up with renewed energy and put the gun aside before turning the faucet on and started to rinse himself with water over his face, splashing it repeatedly as though it was going to wash away any worrying thoughts his mind still harbored, trying to forget that Umbrella did something to him, trying to reassure himself that a few zombies wouldn't cause much trouble to Alex - and that no one else in STARS has gotten hurt or killed by Umbrella, Perseus, or other biological abominations from hell itself.

…and just as he turned off the running water, something began dripping from his nostrils so suddenly, a few drops of scarlet liquid hit the sink's white bowl without him ever noticing for a short moment.

What the fuck…

He looked back in the mirror, his eyes focused on the blood dripping and running from his nose, putting his fingers over it, not entirely believing it was happening. His right eye began to slowly drain the color of his iris into bleached white, the skin around it turning pale, rotting away as his veins swelled and blackened before him. His hand slowly waved over the right side of his face, the tip of his fingers searching for answers. It felt like thick muck, icy cold, and thin as rotten fruit.

He gasped in terror, stumbling back as he jolted and leaned against the door, quickly closing it and locking it behind him, panting and panicking.

No - no - no -no! Was I infected all along?! Shit - shit -shit - SHIT!

His eyes were still locked into his reflection, dilated in horror as he continued to stare at himself in fear and revulsion, the blood in his veins across his bare body now rotting away, slowly turning himself into another corpse like the walking ghouls from the Spencer Mansion and across the city itself. He looked down over his hands again, the color of blood all over them, as if his flesh had ripped itself out, decaying before him, his nails completely falling apart. The worst part was that he could not feel any pain in his flesh anymore, only being able to feel rigor mortis pulling through his legs as he fell to the floor, holding onto his remaining weight over the sink again, feeling like his body was the weight of an entire truck.

Pulling himself up with agonizing effort once again, Frank began coughing up blood over the sink in response, seeing parts of his own rotting lungs coming out of his mouth, and began to heave heavily, becoming out of breath. He looked back up again, his whole body resembling that of the walking dead, his veins bulging out so much, he could practically begin counting them, and his flesh was now entirely falling apart, exposing much of the muscles between his legs and the scars in his chest showing coagulated blood running through the former healed slashes.

"Woods, you okay, buddy?" said Alex in a perturbed voice as he knocked on the bathroom door a few times on the other side. "Some knucklehead broke inside and brought along four zombies with them. Scared the crook away and killed the rest though."

Woods tried to warn him, to tell his best friend, his brother, to stay away from him, afraid that he could potentially infect him, or worse… but nothing could come out of his mouth, only feeble wheezes of pain and fatigue that prevented him from speaking at all.

"Frank? Frank!"

Frank could hear the desperation rising in Alex's voice, banging on the door as he tried breaking it down, and Frank could do nothing but listen to his pleading voice. "C'mon Frank, if there's something wrong, let me help you! Open up!"

As Alex kept pleading with him in a blind panic, Frank kept finding it harder to breathe, his decaying chest heaving severely. He suddenly felt itchy, his skin and flesh now burning him endlessly. He felt terrified, felt a voracious appetite… an insatiable amount of hunger. He needed to eat - like something raw and fresh, human flesh…

He was turning rapidly and there was only one thing left in his mind…

Need… eat… meat… Out… for… Alex… tasty… flesh…

No! Don't… spread… virus!

Kill… kill…

"Sorry… Alex…" he managed to utter loudly through his intense panting, and although he could not understand what Alex was saying anymore, he felt the dread inside his best friend, felt the despair he must've felt when he saw him die at the hospital in front of him, felt the fear of losing him yet again…

For the first time in what felt like years, Frank started to cry in hopelessness, whimpering, rasping as he desperately tried taking any breath of life he had left. He looked at his gun, struggling to grab it, smearing blood all over the blue-tiled counter…

Can't… let… me…kill…Al!

He looked at his reflection one more time, still thinking to himself if this was really real. Even if it wasn't, he couldn't take that chance. He had to end it, had to prevent himself from turning completely, from killing the one person he considered as a close brother…

Frank closed his eyes tightly shut, pointing the gun directly at his right temple as he took a few more labored breaths, and without further hesitation, he squeezed the trigger…

Frank gasped and panted awake, raising himself back up on a bed again as he heard the echoing sound of the gun going off inside his head, and began to look at his surroundings as quickly as he could.

One nightmare after another…

Gotta get my shit together!

There was no light anywhere inside, but he could immediately tell that he was in Alex's room, still dressed in boxers, though now wearing a shirt that was slightly bigger than what he was used to. As he switched his full attention in front of him, he could make out the sight of someone standing in front of the doorway, looking rather scared through the dim moonlight of the night. He could tell it wasn't Mason, but someone else entirely, a much younger woman, looking like they were in their late teens or early twenties, with long, dirty blonde hair, wearing tight blue jeans, and a dark gray tank top.

Blinking his eyes rapidly for a quick second, he immediately demanded answers from her.

"Who the fuck are you?" he said reprovingly. "Where's Mason?! And what the hell are you doing in —?!" The young lady turned on a bright flashlight, making Woods squirm slightly as the beam was directed at his face, not aiming it away from him for a good moment as she studied him from afar. "Fuck, kid! Could you at least aim that thing elsewhere?!"

The woman did as she was told, only aiming it slightly lower to his chest area instead, and Woods was now able to tell that he was wearing one of Mason's most used plain, dark-green T-shirts with a simple design that read "Rise from the Ashes". The lady must've used Mason's clothing to dress him up herself as he could not remember ever having come upstairs in the first place either, not even in the dream he had.

"You're… not infected, are you?" the young dirty-blonde's voice quivered as she asked him reluctantly. "Not some kind of… creep or monster either?"

Woods raised his arms, somewhat glad that she was only holding a flashlight and not a gun to his face.

"You tell me," he responded, but this time, more calmly. "Do I look like a rotting shithead to you?"

"I suppose not… but I gotta ask though," she said, aiming the flashlight elsewhere as she put it on top of Alex's drawer, illuminating the area between them, and she picked up a lab coat and hospital gown that he was wearing before, showing them to him with a confused look on her face. "Why were you wearing this? And why were you carrying someone else's ID from the hospital anyway?"

"Why'd ya have to strip me first?" he said scornfully. "Was I too handsome for you to resist or what?"

"No!" the youngster retorted defensively, still holding onto the lab coat and hospital gown as though it were manure. "It's just… I didn't want to keep seeing you with this on, and there's a bunch of clothes here that I thought would fit you anyway. You know, preserve your dignity and all - you're welcome - Oh, and by the way, you still haven't answered my question yet."

Woods looked at her more fiercely. "And you still haven't answered mine. Did you really have to trash the place downstairs and break in like some kind of third-world thug?"

"Why would you care if anybody did?" the girl said as she threw the hospital clothing aside. "It's not like you live here or anything."

"Hell if I don't!" he said roughly as he slid off the bed and stood up on both feet to the ground, ignoring the headache he was feeling. Quickly, he marched towards the closet in the room and began to emphasize, "See all this?! All this shit is my best friend's. This shirt I'm wearing is his! The room across from here is mine. I live here!" He marched forward again, this time, closer to the youngster as he took several intimidating steps, feeling his patience finally spilling altogether, watching her slightly cower against the corner of the wall. "So I'm gonna ask you one more time… where is Alex Mason?!"

"I don't know!" she began to weep. "The house was already trashed when I got here. Probably the looters around the neighborhood, but they're most likely dead now. I just wanted to be someplace safe after I got separated from my dad when those things out there were coming to get us. He told me to run… so I did. Never turned to look back and…" The girl was now trembling in the darkness, whimpering as she covered her face with both hands.

Woods could sense it, hear the fear inside her, the blood pumping inside her heart ever so rapidly, and it was something that began to frighten him. The bastards really did something to him. His senses and physical prowess were better, enhanced, and more precise, yet he had this strange feeling as though his body had been starting to slowly deteriorate ever since he'd woken up at the hospital. The more he thought about it, the more he was becoming more sympathetic toward the younger lady in front of him. After all, it wasn't necessarily her fault if all she wanted to do was to be safe and offer help to some stranger in a hospital gown that managed to collapse on the stairs in front of her, screaming in pain.

Woods crouched down carefully, not being able to find it in himself to tell her the full truth of his predicament. He knew that eventually, he'd have to come clean with her in case he suffers any more of those painful migraines or other jacked-up shit inside his body in front of her, much like he did with Chris back at the Spencer Mansion. He hated to feel like a suffering helpless old man in front of anybody, but the most important thing right now was to find a way to get out of the apocalyptic city first and find the kid's dad and his STARS comrades, if they were still stuck in the city somewhere.

Woods let out a deep sigh. "What's your name, kid?"

There was a long pause as the youngster tried to keep herself together.

"Gwen," she sniffled, clearing out some tears with the back of her hand. "Gwen Rosso."

"'Kay, Gwen. Name's Frank Woods," he emphasized softly, trying to keep a friendlier tone this time. "And I'm very sorry if I came out too harsh on you. I'm part of the STARS team, and as a cop and former military vet, I can help you find your dad as we look for a way out of here. What do you say?"

Gwen looked at him in the eyes through the slightest shade of light in the room itself, staring back at him for a good moment before finally speaking up, gulping slightly.

"I… I thought they said you died," she said in a stupor. "The news all over mentioned you dying a few weeks after the start of the forest fire. How are you… alive?"

Woods stood up and held up a hand to help her up. "I'm a man of steel," he said, smiling. "Nothing can kill me."

Gwen gave a lopsided smile as she took his hand and helped herself up, now staring around the room for a moment, gazing at it curiously.

"So… you said you and your best friend, Alex, used to live here, right?" she said, taking a few steps past Frank as she continued to stare at Alex's room. "Are we talking about the same Alex Mason, who was in STARS as well?"

"That's right," he nodded, picking up the Nickel Plated M1911A1 he grabbed earlier downstairs over Mason's drawer, re-checking the weapon entirely. "He's one of the best soldiers I've ever known. The man's got a boy your age as well. Good kid - and a very fast learner, just like his father — You don't happen to know where the other STARS members are, do you?"

Gwen shook her head as she turned around to give him an explanation.

"STARS became a thing in the past - everyone got suspended last month. After that, no one has really seen them since."

"What?!" he said in a quick gruff, turning his head around as he narrowed his eyes at Gwen. "What do you mean 'suspended'?! Why would they ever —!?"

It became clear to him now.

Chief Irons must've been bribed by Umbrella. Wesker had STARS under his control and died in the end, which meant that Umbrella must've been desperate to continue having someone else in the RPD as their puppet.

Or maybe, fucking Irons knew all about the shit we were about to face…hide under the face of the media as a "saint"…

…and make up a silly story, bringing STARS to a fault, suspending everyone that way.

"Shit!" he cursed loudly this time, stopping himself from giving in through the sudden urge of throwing the gun across the room.

Gwen gaped at him, not knowing what else to tell him herself, and a few seconds later, Frank turned his back on her, picking up her lit-up flashlight, and strode outside of Alex's room and into his own room, fully determined to dress himself up and prepare for their departure.

"Hey, where are you going!?" she hollered, but Frank ignored her.

His room was exactly as he had left it months before, just like in his dream. He was a bit in awe about why hadn't the looters ever bothered coming upstairs and continuing to ransack the rest of the place.

Maybe it hadn't been looters. Probably the Umbrella and Perseus fucks as they had our place rigged somehow.

But then why would they leave our shit alone in our rooms? Did Mason fight them off before they could do any more collateral damage?

He was more than happy that he wasn't the sentimental type, at least ever since he was a young teenager, surviving on his own out in the streets of Philly. Fumbling through his own things as quickly as he could, he found himself a pair of olive-green cargo pants and his most preferred black combat boots. After putting them on, he decided to keep Alex's shirt on. He thought it fit him quite well, even though Mason was slightly more built than he was, something he could never admit to him directly anyway.

"Hey uh… we're not gonna go out there right now… are we?" Gwen quivered, standing right next to his doorway.

"What do you think?" he responded dryly as he finished up tying up a red bandana he had as a spare before pulling over his weapon case from underneath his bed, taking out a utility belt to hold in his gun and extra magazines. "We stay here any longer, and we might as well be ringing the dinner bell."

Gwen said nothing in response as she proceeded to watch him prepare and carry a small hiking backpack, her expression telling him she looked somewhat surprised that he hadn't bothered mentioning much about his current physical or mental state to her and Woods couldn't have cared any less about what she was thinking right now. Once he checked his weapon cases over three times, he felt a sudden stab in his gut when he remembered that he left most of his equipment at the RPD inside the STARS armory, but at the very least, he'll have several magazines to spare, a box of dozen cartridges for the shotgun he brought with him earlier, along with another gun that Gwen could use for herself. He still had yet to check and see if Mason had left behind his weapon cases as well, but he doubted there'd be anything useful inside them as both of them have agreed to relocate most of their equipment inside the STARS armory.

"You know how to use one of these?" he said, showing the Browning HP to her with his left hand before he stood up and began walking closer to her.

"I uh… no, actually," she said hesitantly, looking at it as though it was going to kill her at any moment. "I'm against using guns, so…"

"Sorry, sweetheart, but you're in the middle of a zombie apocalypse," Frank coached, forcing her hand on the gun's grip. "It doesn't care whether you like guns or not. You need something to defend yourself with. An axe or screwdriver to the face ain't gonna cut it. You get surrounded by them, and it's game over for you. Sure, a gun makes more noise, but you'll be better off handpicking them faster than taking your sweet-ass time with one of them up close."

Frank let go of the gun in her shaking hand as Gwen continued staring down at it with disgust on her face, trembling at the mere thought of even holding a gun with her bare hand. After a small moment, she nodded shakily, aiming the gun down at the ground as she switched her gaze to the floor, thinking to herself.

"There's nothing to it," Frank continued, turning back to prepare his things. "You'll get used to it after a few shots with it. Try aiming for the head. It's your best bet. Know who or what you're shooting first, and don't come blasting me by mistake. Got it?"

Gwen examined the gun for a quick moment, nodding to him slowly and silently, still feeling quite unsure about having a gun with her, let alone the possibility of ever using one.

"Need to hear you say it, kid," said Frank, gazing at her more fiercely this time as he raised an eyebrow. "Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah…" she said quickly, making eye contact with him now. "I got it."

"Good. Then you're ready," he replied, nodding at her as he pushed through the doorway past her, striding out into the hallway with heavy footsteps.

"Wait, Frank!" she called to him, and Frank stopped in his tracks without turning his back around to her.

"What is it?" he said in a slightly irritated tone.

Gwen began moving closer from behind him and sighed. "I think you may want to see this first before we go."

Frank turned his head around, his eyes narrowing back at her. "And what could possibly be more important than getting the hell out of here?"

Gwen rolled her eyes and scoffed at him. "Just get over here."

Swear, I did not ask to be babysitting an angsty teen now of all times…

Frank turned his head sideways for a moment, feeling almost completely irritated for having to deal with what could've been David if he never had the training he did with him and Alex.

"Better be quick," he said bitterly as he followed her inside Alex's room, remembering that he still needed to double-check what his best friend might've left behind anyway.

With the flashlight still turned on, he aimed the beam of light at Gwen's direction, who was pushing a large wardrobe to the side on his right, struggling to do so in the process.

"Little help won't hurt, you know?" she grunted as she tried to keep pushing it out of the way.

Seeing how determined she was at trying to show whatever she needed to show him, he marched towards her and decided to help her out, giving a simple push that might've felt as though the whole damn thing was made out of lightweight plastic. For a moment, he wanted to scold her for not only struggling to move a wardrobe that seemed to weigh like nothing, but then he remembered that whatever Umbrella had done to him, it somehow caused him to develop more unusual strength that almost no one his age should have, even through rigorous military training and workouts.

Gwen turned around to face him for a quick moment, looking rather shocked, and slowly started to smile at him.

"Wow…" she said in awe. "You're pretty strong, but err… you sure you're feeling okay after - you know - …the whole shebang on the stairs and all?"

"I'm fine," Frank said somewhat coldly, not wanting to talk about the incident from earlier or anything related to his hospitalization. "So exactly what is it that you wanted to — what the…" He aimed the flashlight at the exposed wall, and his jaw dropped at what he was seeing. He took a few steps back to look at it more clearly, and there was just too much to fully read and scan through almost everything he was looking at.

"I…I was kinda snooping around the place a bit thoroughly after I brought you here and well… I saw a glimpse of a few notes that were sticking out of the wardrobe from behind, but since I wasn't able to move it on my own, I couldn't see exactly what was behind it…" Gwen explained as she continued to stare at the investigation board in front of them.

Frank barely caught any words that she said, scanning through most of the photos, handwritten notes, and newspaper cut-outs, ranging from the Umbrella Corporation and STARS to past black ops missions that took place through the Bay of Pigs Invasion, Rebirth Island, and Mount Yamantau, just to name a few that stuck out to him.

From what he was able to decipher, Mason had been trying to connect the dots between Perseus' involvement, most specifically, Lev Kravchenko, as well as the many possibilities in which Umbrella may have had an influence behind some, if not, most of the missions they have been a part of throughout their entire military lives. In some of Alex's notes, he also mentioned that the Soviets had more secret underground facilities inside Rebirth Island that no one else on Earth could have ever known, which could've also housed any Umbrella underground labs, considering that the island was infamous for its use on biological experimentations.

Black and white photos of Friedrich Steiner, Nikita Dragovitch, and Lev Kravchenko were all pinned on the board, as well as Oswell Spencer, two unknown Umbrella scientists named Annette and William Birkin, Perseus' previously known leaders, and Albert Wesker. Those that were dead were marked with a red "X" over their faces. Spencer and the Birkins were marked with a single red circle, but Kravchenko's face was highlighted in multiple red circles, almost as though Mason had been trying his best to locate the bastard as much as he could.

Damn, Alex… Wish I was there to help you out…

"You might wanna check this out…" said Gwen as she passed him some handwritten notes to him. "There's stuff here that talks about Umbrella, STARS, and… Perseus… whatever that's about."

Frank didn't utter a word to her as he grabbed the notes from her, quickly reading them silently to himself.

August 17th, 1998

It's been almost a whole month since that dreadful night at the Arklay Mountains. Those unknown soldiers ransacked the place downstairs as they came to hunt me down while I was still in the shower. I quickly dispatched them all as quietly as I could so as not to arouse suspicion from the nosy neighbors across the street.

I can't stay here any longer and the more I try to remember everything, the more headaches I get with those fucking numbers still screaming inside my head.

This written record will be my final contribution as a STARS officer in hopes that someone out there will find this and put a stop to all the current bullshit going on in the world…

Umbrella Corporation

Pharmaceuticals company, established circa 1968 (so it is to be believed), industry leader in market share.

Focuses on military weapons development while maintaining cover as a pharmaceutical company. Also secretly developing bioweapons, most of which had also been funded by Perseus themselves…

T-Virus outbreak at Arklay Mountains research facility.

Predicated the "mansion incident", which resulted in the erasure of any evidence regarding further proof of the existence of biological weapons.

Conspiring with Raccoon City leadership, effectively controlling any political heads driving public influence, leading to STARS' ridicule and suspension…

S.T.A.R.S.

Special Tactics and Rescue Service, officially established in 1996, funded by the Umbrella Corporation, using Albert Wesker as their mole for the whole unit…

Employs ex-military personnel and academic experts for appropriate positions within the Raccoon Police Department.

Raccoon City mayor, Michael Warren, appropriated its overall creation as an elite law enforcement team as part of his "Bright Raccoon 21" urban development campaign. Bribes from Umbrella are not out of the question…

Perseus

Soviet-based international spy ring. Underground network consisting of rogue military operators and spies, Russian or otherwise. Known to be active since the beginning of the Cold War.

Lev Kravchenko runs the whole operation, his ultimate goal with the Umbrella Corporation is currently unknown but is suspected to be the destruction of the United States' influence and global affairs.

Have almost successfully destroyed the entirety of Europe using Greenlight. No doubt that they're planning to do the same in the Americas, particularly through the use of t-Virus biological weapons.

T-Virus

Those infected with the virus turn into zombified monsters, capable of turning the victim into a dangerous, carnivorous creature. These are some examples of possible transmission:

Bite - Allows the mixture of bodily fluids

Avian Contact - Crows that have been known to have eaten infected carrion can pass it down to humans through close contact

Airborne - Although highly unlikely, it cannot be properly discounted.

It should be noted that those who survived the incident have not yet developed symptoms, including myself. However, it is unclear whether this is just a long incubation period or because all of us just so happened to have some form of resistance to the infection. Still, precautions need to be taken regardless.

Aside from being unable to sleep most nights and hearing those numbers still repeating inside my head every now and then, I seem to be free from infection. Can't get my hopes up as this could only mean I may still be on borrowed time.

One way or another, I don't expect to survive for much longer in my current state…

As he read the last words, Woods felt his heart sink to its lowest, his gut wrenched in a hurting knot. His best friend, his brother, didn't expect to live any longer, still experiencing those awful hallucinations he remembered him having since the sixties. Sometime after Alex's escape from Vorkuta, he had pulled a knife on him on several occasions, apparently whispering to himself that Frank was either Steiner, Dragovich, or Kravchenko and that he needed to kill him, before finally coming to his senses after Frank tried his best to calm him down on each of those incidents. It wasn't until years down the line that Alex ended up pulling a knife at himself as he couldn't take the pain from those hallucinations any longer, and Frank was always there to support him, to try and get him to think straight, to help him get through all of it…

But if Alex is gone somewhere, all by himself… who knows if whatever Wesker did to him would lead him to…

Fuck!

Frank suddenly felt helpless. Alex needed his help, and his notes were essentially a cry for help, making Frank clench his jaw tight, throwing the notes aside before he slammed his fists against the board as hard as he could, to the point that he accidentally caused the whole thing to collapse, breaking a part of the wall's plaster behind it with the abnormal strength he had developed. His knuckles became bruised, bleeding out for a short moment before they slowly began to heal back to normal, only for him to feel small amounts of intense pain in the process, as though his veins began to burn him from the inside, grunting slightly in response.

"How — how did you…?" Gwen gasped as she saw the raw strength Frank put against the board and wall behind it. What caught her even more off-guard was that his knuckles began to heal up his injuries as though he were part of the X-Men or something, like a mutant. "Your hands…" she looked up to him almost feeling terrified at what she had just witnessed. "What even are you?"

Frank looked at the back of his hands, the bruises slowly healing away, and glanced back at Gwen with an unsure look on his face, shaking his head slowly as Gwen continued staring back at him almost in absolute horror.

"I… I don't know," he said shakily. He finally decided to tell her the full truth, fighting back emotions of longing for his missing long-time partner. "Listen, I… Umbrella did something to me. All I can remember was getting injured by a… monster out in the forest. You probably already seen the scars on my chest, but that's the main reason why I was hospitalized. After that… they…"

Gwen looked at him almost as though he were a monster himself. Frank put his hands on her shoulders and she jolted in a slight panic for a moment before he began to reassure her, looking almost deeply in her light brown eyes.

"I'm no monster, and I promise you - we will get through this. Together. For your dad's sake and my partner's sake. Alright? — Do you trust me?"

Gwen began to shed a couple of tears, feeling scared, especially after learning about some of the truth that was on the board and witnessing what Frank just did not long ago. But after a few short moments, she gave a silent nod before answering back.

"Yes…" she murmured shakily. "I…I-I trust you."

Frank smiled at her reassuringly. "'Stick right next to me at all times and do exactly as I say if you wanna live. If I tell you to run, you run. If I tell you to hide, you hide. If I tell you to stay quiet, you stay quiet. Got it?"

Gwen nodded at him, this time, with slightly more confidence. "Got it."

"Good kid," he said as he straightened up his posture, taking a few steps forward toward the exit of the room. "We'll try to cut through a couple of the barricades. Assuming we don't —"

Frank immediately stopped himself as his eyes slightly widened in utter shock. The sudden feeling of his skin and hairs crawling like electrical signals was bombarding his body all over, an uncomfortable feeling he never felt before…

What the hell…?

He began to sense something approaching, something he couldn't explain that wasn't exactly zombie, let alone human… and his instincts immediately kept him on guard, frozen just before the doorway, and Gwen walked past him to stare back at him, confused.

"Is… something wrong?" she asked nervously, looking behind her inside the narrow corridor and back at the older man again. "What is it?"

Frank couldn't move a muscle as he tried to understand what this feeling was all about, what it tried to mean. Could it be that he might be losing it? Maybe another sign of a forthcoming episode of agony and insanity? It didn't feel right, but at the same time, he couldn't try to ignore it either like the painful aches he'd been having lately. Something in the back of his mind was telling him that something seriously wrong was coming, yet he couldn't explain how or why…

Frank finally connected his dilated gaze at Gwen and began to slightly push her away as he shuddered heavily.

"We need to go!" he said hurriedly, giving her a gesture to follow him as quickly as possible. "Hurry! We don't have much —"

CRASH!

A huge, broad humanoid shape burst inside Alex's room from the ceiling, landing right on top of the bed as it cracked to the ground, bellowing a loud monstrous roar of rage and deafening insanity. The figure was wrapped in an enormous clad of black fire-retardant fabric, along with yellow caution tapes hugging the humanoid being all across its entire torso, the thing being at least eight feet tall.

Could this explain…

Gwen's screams immediately sputtered Frank into action, and without further hesitation, he grabbed her by the arm and forced her to move down the corridor.

"Go! Run!" he commanded her as he began to shoot the creature in the head multiple times, knowing it wouldn't possibly kill it, but just enough to get its attention on him.

"Wait! But what about—?!"

"JUST FUCKING GO!"

As soon as Frank had turned his head to give her the last command to save herself, the massive beast had already moved dangerously closer to him and before he could even have the chance to react, he had been sent flying all the way across to his own room, his back clashing against the wall on the other side. He collapsed to the ground in great agonizing pain but did not waste time to ponder whether or not he could still move. He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, looking for the weapon that had been knocked out of his hands as a result of the impact he took.

Just as he spotted the M1911, he immediately crawled to it, ignoring the pain in his back as it tried its best to stall him in place. The huge beast was already moving extremely fast towards him, and as soon as Frank wrapped his fingers around the dropped gun, the thing kicked him violently on his left hip, sending him flying once more against his drawer to the right side, hitting himself in the head as he went to a temporary blurring daze, breathing in heavily.

Fucker's got a good hit…

His body began to burn him endlessly, making him twitch in pain for a moment. Frank tried his best to suppress it as much as he could, and through his blurred vision, he began to empty his magazine at the monster's head before it reached down and grabbed him in a powerful grasp, the huge fingers firmly wrapped around his neck as it stretched out its arm to move him closer to the top of the ceiling.

Frank struggled to breathe and reload his gun in the process but was quick enough to feel his way through, cock the gun once more, and fire three more shots at the creature in the head. The shots tore down most of the thick fabric, enough to make out half of its hideous face beneath the dark material through the muzzle flashes, the dominant feature being that of its familiar lipless mouth, teeth showing through the glistening color of red gums around its giant and squared jaws.

Tyrant…

He'd known it before, but this was concrete affirmation that what he was dealing with was another tyrant, another Umbrella victim, possibly someone who once sought to make a positive difference in the world, someone like Private Serrano…

The beast immediately threw him to the ground in a horrific rage, and Frank nearly lost his gun once more. The thing quickly followed up with a powerful punch in his direction, but not before Frank managed to roll out of its way right underneath its large legs. Pieces of wood and splinters came flying from the ground in response, almost caving in the entire floor as it did so.

Frank stood up and began to run out of there as fast as he could, shutting the door behind him to put just enough distance between himself and the roaring monster.

"SSTAARRSS!" its terrible voice echoed throughout the entire house, the word drowned by a wavering growl comparable to that of a feral animal.

It seemed as though it retained some human language intelligence, unlike Private Serrano before it, and from what Frank was able to tell, it had been created to become a trained assassin, to possibly kill any surviving STARS members within the dead city, and Frank immediately began to feel a horrible mixed feeling of growing panic and trepidation, not for himself, but for the safety of his other STARS comrades. If it had come for him, it most likely meant that he might be the only STARS member left alive…

No! Don't think and just fucking move your ass, Frank!

He switched his main concern towards Gwen, hoping she had made it out into the streets and someplace safer by now as he continued to rush downstairs. Once he made it to the first floor, he picked up the shotgun he'd left on the counter and proceeded to run outside as fast as he could, being able to hear the pursuer thundering inside the house in which he and Alex once shared before.

---

Author's Note: Probably the longest chapter I've ever written by far! One thing to note is that you might've noticed that Nikolai's name is spelled differently here than in the games or even in the novel. The main reason is that all of the official localizations (including the Remake) got his name spelled wrong. They spell it as "Nicholai Ginovaef" instead of "Nikolai Zinoviev".

Oh, and Gwen Rosso is technically not an OC character since she's an unnamed daughter that's mentioned by Dario in the novels and in the original Resident Evil 3 game but she might as well be an OC since I'm already giving her qualities that she may or may not have in any established media surrounding RE3.

As I said above, this chapter upload will be it for the story for now, just so you can have an idea of what to look forward to later on. I will try to be back by September or October and will continue to upload on a weekly basis by then, if possible. This might be a slow story so expect bigger windows in between uploads when the time comes.

Review Responses:

Guest - It's impossible for someone to be infected and randomly mutate into a Tyrant. In order to become a Tyrant, careful and extensive surgeries are required and Woods had no surgery that could prepare him to be a Tyrant in the first place. As I said before, he won't be sharing all of Alice's powers or superhuman abilities so fighting Nemesis won't exactly be the same as you might expect lol. Appreciate the support! :)

OldGlory - Thanks, bro! I'm very glad you liked the first chapter! Hopefully, I was able to do the same, if not, better in the second chapter for ya. :3

tactical deer - Currently, I have no plans to write anything past Code Veronica. However, I've been getting quite a lot of good ideas for stuff like Revelations 1+2 and RE4-RE6 so I may end up doing so at some point in the future, at least up to RE6. For RE7 & RE8, I'm not exactly the biggest fan of both so I can't say if I will ever be bothered to write for either of them unfortunately. I will try my best to think about it by the time I end up writing RE6 if I ever get to reach that point anyway. Greatly appreciate the interest given to the crossover though!

See you all again later in the year!