Warning for that Dr. Isaacs brand of creepy in this chapter. It's nothing extreme, but it's clear that Alice is uncomfortable whenever he's touching her.
Alice could hear the gentle rush of water and flames crackling. Up above, birds flocked from the trees and across the early morning sky.
She couldn't move. Every last square inch of her body was hurting. Burning, aching, stinging, the works.
Tap, tap, tap. Somebody was navigating across the rocks, steadily growing closer.
Sharp talons dug into Alice's cheeks, drawing blood. Her head was turned to face their owner.
She didn't appear human. Not even close, but Alice recognized the red fabric hanging from her neck. She knew the blue and brown eyes, but they didn't seem to know her at all.
"Rain..." she croaked. "I'm sorry." In a way, she blamed herself for this whole mess.
Yes, Umbrella was responsible for stealing the T-Virus from Ashford for their own twisted use.
Yes, Spence tried to steal it next, releasing it into the Hive as he was making his escape.
But if Alice had just... been more careful when meeting with Lisa, then he never would've overhead and gotten the chance to pull what he did.
Hell, if she had even grabbed that fucking gun before Spence did and trapped them in the lab, then they could've gotten back to the platform and acquired the antivirus much faster. Maybe then, it could've been given to Rain and Matt on time. They could've left the mansion before Umbrella showed up and avoided a lot of this.
If she had grabbed Rain before she reached Yuri or gotten the pilot to take off before Cain showed his face...
"I'm so sorry."
Rain did not seem to understand, nor care. She surged forward, and rows upon rows of sharp teeth sunk into Alice's throat.
Everything went dark.
Alice found herself floating in tangible nothingness. She couldn't tell you how long she had been doing so for. She had no true sense of time. It could've been years or seconds.
Something started drawing her away, urging her back into the realm of consciousness. She did her best to follow it.
When she finally snapped awake, she found herself in an incredibly unpleasant reality. She no longer understood her nightmare, which now felt so, so distant. Not for the first time, she didn't know who or where she was. A thick fog clouded her brain, swirling with panic and confusion.
She...
She didn't feel right. And not in the way she instinctively knew that she used to. The vague sense of foreignness—of wrongness deep within her core was gone, instead replaced by a subtle thrumming throughout her body.
She was trapped inside a relatively small tank with a respirator stuck in her mouth, numerous tubes pumping her full of things, and a couple of metal braces that were keeping her in place, as well as sticking some particularly large and painful needles into her.
Everything appeared to be through a blue filter. She couldn't tell if it was because of the fluid she was in or because there was a digital readout in front of her eyes.
A middle-aged man approached, studying her carefully like she was the most intriguing specimen he'd ever seen.
DESIGNATION: JASON ISAACS || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 2
"Can you hear me?" the man, Isaacs, asked. His voice was quite muffled. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"
She nodded frantically, pressing her hands against the glass. 'Get me out of here. I need out!'
Isaacs gave her a short nod in return. "Good." He turned to face a couple of people sitting in front of computer monitors. The digital readout identified them as well. "Begin the purging process."
The fluid quickly began to drain. When it was below her head, the blue tint lessened significantly, and other colors became faintly discernable. She tore off the respirator before starting on the tubes, which her body didn't seem to like very much. It immediately missed whatever they were administering to her. All of a sudden, she was feeling hot, her muscles were aching, she was shaking, and the sense of panic was becoming worse.
The tank opened. Isaacs draped a lab coat over her nude form. Despite the sweltering heat, she clung to the article, pulling it as tight against her bare skin as she could as she tried to sit up.
"Her recovery's remarkable," somebody said. "And her powers, both physical and mental, are developing at a geometric rate."
Isaacs crouched down in front of her, moving to brush her long, sopping-wet hair out of her face. She didn't like his touch. Not at all, and weakly pushed his arm away. He caught her hand and held it in both of his, stroking his thumbs over the dorsal side in a shallow attempt at reassurance. She tried to tug free. He wouldn't let her.
Her mouth struggled to work. "Wh-wh—?"
"Where are you?" Isaacs finished for her.
"Where?" she managed.
"You're safe."
No. No, she didn't feel safe. Whatever this place was, she didn't like it. She didn't like all these people in white, either. Especially not the one speaking to her. She had a very vague sense that she already knew him.
"C'mon." He slowly pulled her to her feet. Keeping upright was proving to be a challenge, so he positioned her stand against the wall beside the tank, firmly grasping her shoulders.
'Let go... Let go of me...' She looked away from him, instead watching a researcher checking things off on a clipboard.
DESIGNATION: VINCENT GOLDMAN || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 2
Isaacs followed her gaze. "Do you know what that is?" He took Vincent's clipboard and pen. "It's a pen."
She did recall what a pen was.
Isaacs wrote the word to demonstrate. "See? You try." He handed it to her.
She didn't recall how to hold it. "P-p-p..." She awkwardly gripped it in her fist and scribbled nonsense onto the paperwork. 'It's... three? Three letters. Say it...' She couldn't.
"Look at me." He returned Vincent's things and forced her to face him. She twisted about uncomfortably, unable to maintain eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. "Can you remember anything? Hm? Can you remember your name?"
"My... name...?" she choked out. 'What is my name? Who am I...?' She tried as hard as she could to conjure the answer.
When she wasn't replying, Isaacs seemed satisfied. He stepped away. "I want her under twenty-four-hour observation."
Without warning, pain exploded within her skull. Like someone just jabbed her with an icepick as hard as they could, driving it into her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She was standing in front of a mirror. It was fogged over from the hot water still spraying out of the spigot in the shower she just woke up in. She swiped her hand across the glass, revealing herself.
...Her face wasn't familiar to her.
"I want a complete set of blood work," Isaacs continued. "Chemical and electrolyte analysis by the end of the day."
"Alice?" Rain questioned. There was a slow dripping from where she was standing behind her at the desk.
"You could go ahead and try to destroy Umbrella as a whole after this for all I care," Ashford told her over the payphone. "My only concern is my daughter. Do we have a deal, Alice?"
A researcher watched with alarm as alerts began to flash across his monitor.
CARDIAC RISING
RESP. RISING
CEREB. RISING
STRESS RISING
"Sir?" he piped up nervously.
"Do you not see her right now?" Peyton brought back the hammer of his Beretta. "Alice, let go of her so we can—"
Terri was walking beside her. She could feel her gaze carefully trained on her. "...Alice, are you even human?"
"Advanced reflex testing is also a priority."
"You can trust Alice," Rain insisted. Blood began to trail from the splits on her lip.
"Jesus christ..." Rain watched Angie weep over her father's dead body. "Alice, I don't think we've got a choice here."
"...Ah-lysss..." Attempting to keep her broken arm steady, Rain offered the sharp talons of her mutated hand so that she could cut her binds.
"Sir?"
"I want her electrical impulses monitored and her—"
Cain shouted up to her, "Project Alice... The virus caused you not to mutate, but to evolve!"
"Alice? Hey. Can you hear me?" Jill's fingers were pressed against the side of her neck. "Fuck. I barely feel a pulse."
"Stay with us, Alice," Carlos said.
"Sir!"
Isaacs sighed and walked over to the researcher. "What is it?"
"My name... is Alice." With that knowledge, a calmness settled over Alice. Calmness, confidence, and a slight twinge of anger. Everybody in the room seemed to freeze. She exhaled an entirely humorless laugh. "And I remember everything."
Fast as lightning, Alice snatched the pen from a dumbstruck Vincent and drove her elbow into his face, knocking him to the floor. Then, she swung back to hit the guy that was standing beside him. He collided with a monitor and shattered it.
A guard in a black uniform advanced on her. She punched him straight in the nose before wheeling around and whipping the pen at Isaacs. The tip struck him directly in the eyeball. He yelped in pain and doubled over.
She seized him by the collar of his shirt and put him through the glass of the tank.
The remaining researchers fled to the corner furthest away from Alice. She let them and headed for the exit.
A second guard appeared and shot her with a taser. She grunted but was nowhere near as discomforted as she ought to have been. Upon yanking the probes out, she returned them to him and they hit him in the throat, giving him the shock he intended for her.
She made her way into the hall. The last time she woke up in an Umbrella facility, Rain and Matt were also in the building.
...Of course, there would be no reason to look for poor Matt. The thought of what Alice saw and did back then put an immediate lump in her throat. She did her best to shove the hurt aside and focus.
What about Rain? Or Carlos, Jill, Angie, Terri, and L.J.? Could they be here, too?
Alice knew that Jill and Carlos survived the crash, but did anyone else? She sure didn't.
She...
Holy shit, she died. But the virus... It...
'Focus, Abernathy. You're not important right now.'
While she had yet to encounter another soul, she was noticing cameras around. Somebody could be watching, which wouldn't be good.
Alice stared up at the nearest device. As she thought about disabling it and the others, she got a new headache. Everything seemed brighter and the thrumming intensified.
All of the cameras began to spark one after the other, hanging limp on their support stands.
The pain and thrumming faded. Alice furiously blinked, causing the brightness to leave as well.
'...That's... new.'
Two guards rounded the corner. They weren't dressed like those she just fought, but instead like the ones stationed at the Raccoon City evacuation site with helmets and padding. Alice snapped right back into fight mode.
"Whoa, relax." The first held his hands up as if to show he meant no harm.
She paused at the sound of that voice.
The second spared a glance at the dead cameras. "Guess we can take that off the checklist." She removed her helmet. DESIGNATION: JILL VALENTINE ((FUGITIVE)) || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 7.
The man followed suit. DESIGNATION: CARLOS OLIVERA ((FUGITIVE)) || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 7. "Glad to see you're okay. We're here to help you escape."
"What about the others?"
Jill and Carlos exchanged a quick look. "They're waiting in the car we brought," the former replied.
"Okay," Alice said slowly, trying to figure out what the hell that was about.
"Follow us."
They popped their helmets back on and she let them lead her to the entrance.
Upon pushing open the door, about a dozen soldiers trained their rifles on her.
Jill grabbed her arm the way you would a prisoner. "We appreciate the help, but we've got this handled."
The sergeant's brows furrowed. "Whose authority are you acting on?"
Carlos copied Jill. "Classified."
A black car pulled up and a person got out of the front passenger seat. DESIGNATION: TERRI MORALES ((FUGITIVE)) || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 2. Terri adjusted her oversized sunglasses and pulled an official-looking paper out of her black suit jacket, handing it to the sergeant. "Level six authorization."
"Sorry, ma'am." He signaled for the troops to lower their weapons.
Terri retook her spot in the front. Jill got into the back and Carlos guided Alice in after her. Alice could sense infection.
The driver started off down the road.
She tried to get a look at them in the review mirror. DESIGNATION: LLOYD JEFFERSON WADE ((FUGITIVE)) || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 4.
Someone popped up from the very back. DESIGNATION: ANGELA ASHFORD ((FUGITIVE)) || THREAT ASSESSMENT: LEVEL 1. "Hi."
"Hey."
Angie appeared to be the only person seated in the third row.
"Where's Rain?"
Nobody answered.
"Guys. Where is she?"
"Listen." Jill awkwardly placed a hand on Alice's shoulder. Like she wanted to be comforting but was entirely unsure how. "There's one reason we were able to find you, and it was that Angie could sense you with..." she gestured vaguely, "whatever connection the virus gives you. But she couldn't feel Rain out there."
'No.' Alice could feel her heart begin to sink. "That doesn't mean she isn't."
"We couldn't even find her after we crashed," Carlos added. "Either she fell out before we hit the ground, or... Well. There was a fire, and we think that..."
'No...'
"I'm sorry, Alice."
"I found this." Angie produced a lightly singed piece of red fabric from her coat. Rain's bandana. "I thought you might want it."
Alice gingerly accepted the item.
L.J. pulled up to the gate. Terri showed the same document to one of the approaching guards. He inspected it, then looked between her and Alice. He wasn't buying it like the sergeant.
Alice hardly even registered it. She was too busy staring blurrily at the bandana and trying not to cry. It was like she just got sucker-punched in the gut.
Rain was important to her.
Rain was—
A phone started ringing within the security booth. The guard stepped away to answer it. "Hello?"
"Let them go," Isaacs ordered.
"Sir?"
He repeated himself more firmly. The gate opened. L.J. hit the gas.
'You have to be out there,' Alice thought stubbornly. 'If I can still be kicking, so can you. I'll find you. I promise.'