StarsiderdotSajun
Well-Known Member
Wow this is really good. The ending to this last post made me giggle. But yeah this is great writing and I'd definitely look for this if you ever get it published. 
Angel’s Thanatos (Resident Evil/Silent Hill Crossover)
- Thread starter T-Virus Rose
- Start date
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Thanks... I've been really writer's-blocked lately though so I don't know when or if I'll finish the next part. I had part of it but it got lost in the process of moving and getting a new computer. Sucks.
Wesker's_heir
The Heir of Albert Wesker
what about pyramid head? Maybe pyramid head could fight Wesker or something? that would be awesome!
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Woah! I never thought I'd get this many views, ha ha. Thanks to everyone who read this while I was gone forever writing the next section (the computer ban I’m supposed to be on didn’t help). I'm finally done with the next chapter though, so here it is…
Ghosts
“She’s going to kill me, Chris,” Lisa murmured desolately.
Immediately after Chris had left the parlor with her to get away from Rebecca’s brutal death, Lisa had promptly vomited, swooned, and then fallen into a dead faint. He supposed that one girl could only take so much in the course of several hours, even with his new respect for Lisa’s sheer toughness. Afterwards he’d picked her up in his arms, as he had when she’d been injured, and carried her to the safest place that he could think of; the very parlor with the grand piano where he’d left Rebecca what seemed like an entire lifetime ago now. His instinct had paid off, and the room had been clear and just the way he’d left it. It still had an odd air to it, the way the rest of the mansion did, but not exactly a foreboding one. Dreamlike, that was a more accurate way to describe it. Right… some dream.
He looked to Lisa again, a bit worriedly. She lay across the top of the piano with her lean, pale legs dangling over the edge and her eyes closed. Her slightly tangled and dirty hair was spread out over half of her face and in a blonde halo around her head. If she’d been pale before she’d gone milk-white now. It was a strange image, giving her the appearance of a cross between a cancer patient and a showgirl out of some old-fashioned musical. He half- expected her to stand up on the piano and start singing show tunes and flashing those legs of hers.
That distinctly unhealthy look troubled him, though. Was there some illness she was concealing from him, maybe? It was all too easy to picture Lisa wasting away in a hospital of leukemia or something of its ilk. He was sure that more than one tough young girl from New York had gone out that way. The thought seemed an outrage, after all she’d survived.
“She’s going to kill me, and I don’t even know why.”
“Hey,” Chris attempted, “I’m in this with you too, you know. I’ve got your back. And because she’s crazy, is why. Killing for the sake of killing.” It was a weak attempt, even he’d admit, but it was all he had to offer. Coming from the guy who’d let her be nearly run through the chest and just watched his comrade be killed, he wasn’t sure how much it was worth.
Lisa just let out a long, exhausted sigh, not bothering to open her eyes.
“Yeah, well, that’s what I thought, too. Did she come after you when this place turned, though? Because she sure as hell took a shot at me.”
Finally she moved. She turned over on her side to face him and propped her head up on one hand, and the look that she gave him was, above all else, tired. There was a mix of other emotions there as well that was almost painful to look at.
“She said some things to me… after I woke up again. I don’t know what the hell she’s getting at, or what her problem with me is, but she knows something, Chris. She’d kill you if she got a chance, too, don’t get me wrong…”
Her voice broke and she appeared to compose herself for a second before continuing, her tone now barely above a whisper, “Because that would kill me to see.”
The composure broke, and a tear or two slid down her cheek. “You know, you’d probably be better off just… walking off now. Hell, you might even live. I don’t mean to drag you into anything. I’m here looking for my mother, and I’m going to keep looking whether or not I’m screwed or you’re with me. I mean… what else am I supposed to do?”
Of course. Even in that state, she was set. Chris doubted that anything he said could’ve swayed her.
He took a step forward and took both of her hands in his, apparently catching her slightly by surprise, and helped her up into a sitting position, shaking his head.
“Nah. Protect and serve, right? I think I’m staying right here. What kind of cop would I be if I left you behind?”
Got to save someone tonight, right? God, Rebecca…
“Can’t save her-”
The recollection was vivid enough that Chris glanced at the radio, but Lisa didn’t seem to react to any noise.
She looked up though, a bit of the brightness returning to the almost eerie blue of her eyes, and didn’t try to pull her hands away.
“Guess I thought as much.”
Lisa took a long, careful look at Chris’s face before finally feigning a smile.
“You don’t look so good,” she deadpanned, which was impressive considering the circumstances. Chris couldn’t help a short bark of surprised laughter.
“Yeah, well, I could say the same about you.”
The utter despair of the moment broken, they remained still for a moment more, before Lisa pulled away and stepped down from the piano.
“I can play, you know. My parents had me take lessons back when they had some kind of hope I’d become a lady.”
A fresh pang raced through Chris’s gut, but he decided against saying anything; no need to remind the poor girl.
“Well then, let’s hear it.”
She gave him an ‘are you serious?’ sort of look.
“Right now?”
“Yeah, right now,” he teased, sitting her on the piano bench, “As good a time as any, right?”
She smiled nervously. “Well… alright. I don’t know much, but here goes…”
After making a melodramatic display of cracking her knuckles though, she paused with a thoughtful gaze.
“Hmm.”
“What is it?”
The look was encroaching, but at the moment it was more like just slight bewilderment.
“Déjà vu. Weird… Whatever, though; It’s nothing.”
Without more pause, she began playing.
Within a couple notes, Chris was ready to break out into a cold sweat.
Coincidence? He didn’t think so, whatever that might mean. Lisa glanced back at him after a bit and broke off, probably at the look on his face.
“What, Chris? Don’t like Beethoven?”
Before he could answer, a soft rumbling behind them cut him off, and Lisa nearly jumped off her seat.
“What the hell is that?” she gasped. He took a moment to steady himself to respond,
“It’s a mechanism, I guess. That song, Re-… One of my teammates played it earlier and it activated it…”
He trailed off though, getting the sense that he was going unheard. She had already risen from the bench and ran to investigate where the wall had smoothly slid upwards to reveal the small passage behind it.
“This wasn’t here before,” she remarked, a hint of worry in her tone. Chris wasn’t all that surprised by that point; he’d seen it before, on his first trip into the mansion, but so much had changed that he wasn’t sure what he’d been seeing.
“Yeah, well. Guess we’re seeing a lot that wasn’t here before.”
Lisa shook her head. “Yeah, but… it’s weird. Call it a feeling, but this place seems pretty normal right now, right?”
“I suppose you could call it that.”
He followed her as far as the opening in the wall as she kneeled in front of the marble statue at the passage’s end to pick up what looked like an aged newspaper. She remained silent for a minute, crouched over, before she shook her head wearily.
“****, she muttered quietly, “I knew it.”
Not liking the desolate tone her voice had returned to, Chris joined her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Knew what?”
Lisa sighed deeply, as if releasing a good load of tension, and passed Chris the paper.
Manhattan Adolescent Killed in Brutal Hit-and-Run
June 27, 1965- Manhattan
The Manhattan area was rocked yesterday by the sudden death of twelve-year-old Linda Duponte, a seventh grader at a local school and the daughter of popular sculptor Katherine Duponte. According to witnesses, the young girl was several blocks past a diner that she was returning home from accompanied by her close friend Lisa Trevor, when she was struck down by a passing car while crossing. Duponte died almost instantly of her injuries, including massive head trauma and a broken neck. Diners at a nearby café reported hearing Trevor’s screams and phoning the police.
The driver has yet to be identified, however, details given suggest that Linda’s tragic death was, in fact, a suicide. “She saw it,” Trevor tearfully insisted upon questioning, “She saw the damned thing and she walked right in front of it. I never would’ve thought Linda would do something like that. Not her, never.”
The Duponte family, including three-year-old sister Emily, was shocked and devastated by this news. Evidently Katherine Duponte was hospitalized, but her husband was unavailable for comment.
One of those hit the hardest was Lisa Trevor, the friend present at the girl’s death. Friends say that the girls were longtime acquaintances, as architect father George Trevor and Jessica Trevor were close family friends of the Dupontes.
“You never did see Little L without Big L,” says Michael St.Pierre, Lisa’s boyfriend, “I mean, they were always off doing something together. Big L and Little L, that’s what we called them. Big Linda and Little Lisa. It was sort of funny, seeing them together, these skinny little blondes, except Linda always just towered over Lisa. It made you smile; they were like that.”
Lisa is cited as still being badly shaken by the loss of her friend. George Trevor commented, “She’ll be alright, eventually. Lisa’s a tough little thing, like my Jessie. If there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s survive.”
Memorial services will be held Monday for friends and family members of the deceased.
Ghosts
“She’s going to kill me, Chris,” Lisa murmured desolately.
Immediately after Chris had left the parlor with her to get away from Rebecca’s brutal death, Lisa had promptly vomited, swooned, and then fallen into a dead faint. He supposed that one girl could only take so much in the course of several hours, even with his new respect for Lisa’s sheer toughness. Afterwards he’d picked her up in his arms, as he had when she’d been injured, and carried her to the safest place that he could think of; the very parlor with the grand piano where he’d left Rebecca what seemed like an entire lifetime ago now. His instinct had paid off, and the room had been clear and just the way he’d left it. It still had an odd air to it, the way the rest of the mansion did, but not exactly a foreboding one. Dreamlike, that was a more accurate way to describe it. Right… some dream.
He looked to Lisa again, a bit worriedly. She lay across the top of the piano with her lean, pale legs dangling over the edge and her eyes closed. Her slightly tangled and dirty hair was spread out over half of her face and in a blonde halo around her head. If she’d been pale before she’d gone milk-white now. It was a strange image, giving her the appearance of a cross between a cancer patient and a showgirl out of some old-fashioned musical. He half- expected her to stand up on the piano and start singing show tunes and flashing those legs of hers.
That distinctly unhealthy look troubled him, though. Was there some illness she was concealing from him, maybe? It was all too easy to picture Lisa wasting away in a hospital of leukemia or something of its ilk. He was sure that more than one tough young girl from New York had gone out that way. The thought seemed an outrage, after all she’d survived.
“She’s going to kill me, and I don’t even know why.”
“Hey,” Chris attempted, “I’m in this with you too, you know. I’ve got your back. And because she’s crazy, is why. Killing for the sake of killing.” It was a weak attempt, even he’d admit, but it was all he had to offer. Coming from the guy who’d let her be nearly run through the chest and just watched his comrade be killed, he wasn’t sure how much it was worth.
Lisa just let out a long, exhausted sigh, not bothering to open her eyes.
“Yeah, well, that’s what I thought, too. Did she come after you when this place turned, though? Because she sure as hell took a shot at me.”
Finally she moved. She turned over on her side to face him and propped her head up on one hand, and the look that she gave him was, above all else, tired. There was a mix of other emotions there as well that was almost painful to look at.
“She said some things to me… after I woke up again. I don’t know what the hell she’s getting at, or what her problem with me is, but she knows something, Chris. She’d kill you if she got a chance, too, don’t get me wrong…”
Her voice broke and she appeared to compose herself for a second before continuing, her tone now barely above a whisper, “Because that would kill me to see.”
The composure broke, and a tear or two slid down her cheek. “You know, you’d probably be better off just… walking off now. Hell, you might even live. I don’t mean to drag you into anything. I’m here looking for my mother, and I’m going to keep looking whether or not I’m screwed or you’re with me. I mean… what else am I supposed to do?”
Of course. Even in that state, she was set. Chris doubted that anything he said could’ve swayed her.
He took a step forward and took both of her hands in his, apparently catching her slightly by surprise, and helped her up into a sitting position, shaking his head.
“Nah. Protect and serve, right? I think I’m staying right here. What kind of cop would I be if I left you behind?”
Got to save someone tonight, right? God, Rebecca…
“Can’t save her-”
The recollection was vivid enough that Chris glanced at the radio, but Lisa didn’t seem to react to any noise.
She looked up though, a bit of the brightness returning to the almost eerie blue of her eyes, and didn’t try to pull her hands away.
“Guess I thought as much.”
Lisa took a long, careful look at Chris’s face before finally feigning a smile.
“You don’t look so good,” she deadpanned, which was impressive considering the circumstances. Chris couldn’t help a short bark of surprised laughter.
“Yeah, well, I could say the same about you.”
The utter despair of the moment broken, they remained still for a moment more, before Lisa pulled away and stepped down from the piano.
“I can play, you know. My parents had me take lessons back when they had some kind of hope I’d become a lady.”
A fresh pang raced through Chris’s gut, but he decided against saying anything; no need to remind the poor girl.
“Well then, let’s hear it.”
She gave him an ‘are you serious?’ sort of look.
“Right now?”
“Yeah, right now,” he teased, sitting her on the piano bench, “As good a time as any, right?”
She smiled nervously. “Well… alright. I don’t know much, but here goes…”
After making a melodramatic display of cracking her knuckles though, she paused with a thoughtful gaze.
“Hmm.”
“What is it?”
The look was encroaching, but at the moment it was more like just slight bewilderment.
“Déjà vu. Weird… Whatever, though; It’s nothing.”
Without more pause, she began playing.
Within a couple notes, Chris was ready to break out into a cold sweat.
Coincidence? He didn’t think so, whatever that might mean. Lisa glanced back at him after a bit and broke off, probably at the look on his face.
“What, Chris? Don’t like Beethoven?”
Before he could answer, a soft rumbling behind them cut him off, and Lisa nearly jumped off her seat.
“What the hell is that?” she gasped. He took a moment to steady himself to respond,
“It’s a mechanism, I guess. That song, Re-… One of my teammates played it earlier and it activated it…”
He trailed off though, getting the sense that he was going unheard. She had already risen from the bench and ran to investigate where the wall had smoothly slid upwards to reveal the small passage behind it.
“This wasn’t here before,” she remarked, a hint of worry in her tone. Chris wasn’t all that surprised by that point; he’d seen it before, on his first trip into the mansion, but so much had changed that he wasn’t sure what he’d been seeing.
“Yeah, well. Guess we’re seeing a lot that wasn’t here before.”
Lisa shook her head. “Yeah, but… it’s weird. Call it a feeling, but this place seems pretty normal right now, right?”
“I suppose you could call it that.”
He followed her as far as the opening in the wall as she kneeled in front of the marble statue at the passage’s end to pick up what looked like an aged newspaper. She remained silent for a minute, crouched over, before she shook her head wearily.
“****, she muttered quietly, “I knew it.”
Not liking the desolate tone her voice had returned to, Chris joined her and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Knew what?”
Lisa sighed deeply, as if releasing a good load of tension, and passed Chris the paper.
Manhattan Adolescent Killed in Brutal Hit-and-Run
June 27, 1965- Manhattan
The Manhattan area was rocked yesterday by the sudden death of twelve-year-old Linda Duponte, a seventh grader at a local school and the daughter of popular sculptor Katherine Duponte. According to witnesses, the young girl was several blocks past a diner that she was returning home from accompanied by her close friend Lisa Trevor, when she was struck down by a passing car while crossing. Duponte died almost instantly of her injuries, including massive head trauma and a broken neck. Diners at a nearby café reported hearing Trevor’s screams and phoning the police.
The driver has yet to be identified, however, details given suggest that Linda’s tragic death was, in fact, a suicide. “She saw it,” Trevor tearfully insisted upon questioning, “She saw the damned thing and she walked right in front of it. I never would’ve thought Linda would do something like that. Not her, never.”
The Duponte family, including three-year-old sister Emily, was shocked and devastated by this news. Evidently Katherine Duponte was hospitalized, but her husband was unavailable for comment.
One of those hit the hardest was Lisa Trevor, the friend present at the girl’s death. Friends say that the girls were longtime acquaintances, as architect father George Trevor and Jessica Trevor were close family friends of the Dupontes.
“You never did see Little L without Big L,” says Michael St.Pierre, Lisa’s boyfriend, “I mean, they were always off doing something together. Big L and Little L, that’s what we called them. Big Linda and Little Lisa. It was sort of funny, seeing them together, these skinny little blondes, except Linda always just towered over Lisa. It made you smile; they were like that.”
Lisa is cited as still being badly shaken by the loss of her friend. George Trevor commented, “She’ll be alright, eventually. Lisa’s a tough little thing, like my Jessie. If there’s one thing she knows how to do, it’s survive.”
Memorial services will be held Monday for friends and family members of the deceased.
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Jesus… So maybe Lisa was on to something when she said that girl was out for her. Having to live through something like that at her age seemed like a cruel irony considering what she’d had to go through afterwards. Chris wanted to offer her his consolation, to at least say something, but something nagged at him. He skimmed over the article again, trying to catch it, then again… And froze.
Oh Christ.
Chris looked from the newspaper to Lisa with a rush of confusion and a twisting sensation in his gut, but she didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, merely keeping her mildly troubled expression. He began searching for every possible explanation,
Probably just a typo,
But he immediately knew that wasn’t it. She must’ve seen his distress, as she looked up to inquire, “Chris?”
That strange, dreamy atmosphere that the room had taken on seemed to tangibly swirl around him. Maybe that was what was making it so difficult to move.
“Chris? Is something wrong?”
Yes, Lisa, there was something wrong.
The date. The date on the newspaper was more than thirty years old.
Chris released her shoulder, rose from the floor, and stood over her, giving her a long, hard look. Lisa couldn’t tell if he was angry or just confused about something, but either way she couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that he was directing a look like that at her then.
Like I need that now?
After a few tense moments of utter silence though, it softened. She still had no idea what it was, but it was softer. He took a deep breath and said,
“Tell me… who you are.”
That caught her off guard. Lisa blinked in surprise. What…?
“Chris… What do you mean?”
He took the newspaper, which he still clutched, and held it out for her as if she was having trouble seeing it. This, she didn’t need. What the hell was he getting at?
“Will you just tell me what you’re trying to say already? My mother’s missing and I have some sadistic bitch after me and…”
She didn’t bother continuing; he didn’t need her to explain that she’d been having a ****ty couple of days.
With a shake of his head, Chris jabbed his finger at the paper just below the header.
“The date, Lisa! June 27, 1965! I want to know who you are, and how you got here!” His tone gave away what his face didn’t; it was bewildered, frustrated, and maybe even a little frightened.
Lisa might have thought he was being irrational, but, hearing Chris, a cop, that rattled, she couldn’t help but start to get a little scared herself. She felt her heartbeat speed up a little. And, thinking about it too much, that feeling of confusion started returning…
"No, Lisa… I don’t know who you think you are."
“Chris,” she pled softly, “I don’t know what you mean. You know who I am. I drove here from New York to look for my mother, and when I got here everything had gone to hell.”
She was telling him the truth… At least…
“I mean… that’s what had to have happened… right?”
She would admit that it was a little hazy, a little uncertain, but, hell, upon her arrival she’d been pursued, fallen into unconsciousness after her stomach wound, and above all had been scared. Was it her fault for not being entirely certain of all the details?
Maybe seeing her genuine fear, Chris finally relented with a long, exhausted sigh.
“You know… I really want to believe you, Lisa.” The look he was giving her now was one of almost sadness. “Do you know how long ago this is from?”
Something about hearing those words sent chills running up and down the length of Lisa’s spine though it was a simple and strange question.
“I was twelve, so it would be… two years ago from June.”
He groaned softly and turned to face a wall. Whatever was bothering him so much was beyond Lisa, but she rose from her knees and moved to offer him whatever comfort she could anyways.
“Chris?”
“So you really mean what you’re saying…”
“Of course I do, Chris. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t have a reason to lie to you.”
“Lisa… Lisa, that was eight years before I was born.”
Lisa’s lips involuntarily twitched into a nervous smile, out of surprise.
“What…? Chris, that’s-”
“I’m twenty four, Lisa; I was born in ’73. What you’re saying is impossible… It would make you older than me.”
She took a moment to try to wrap her mind around the statement; surely he had to mean something else. She told herself that even as dread gripped her. The fine hairs on the backs of her arms and neck felt like they were bristling with energy. Out of lack of a better reaction, she grimaced angrily.
“Chris, if you’re saying this just to… just to scare me or something…!”
And what sense did that make? Lisa sighed.
“No… you wouldn’t, would you.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he affirmed. Right; Of course.
“Yeah, well, what do you want me to say? It’s insane!”
“Guess we’re both a little crazy by this point.”
He reached for her, but she turned around to avoid him; he sounded really honest, and that was the frightening part.
“And just when do you think it is?” she insisted, her voice unintentionally soft and weak. She felt as though she might faint again.
Chris hesitated.
“On three?” she attempted to encourage, though she couldn’t force any real volume into her tone.
He remained a couple steps behind her, like maybe he was nervous about approaching her. Lisa found herself dreading the thought… Despite what she’d said about believing it to be better for him to leave on his own, he was the only living person she’d seen for days in that hellhole; she was horrified at the idea of being left alone again.
“Sounds good.”
She breathed deeply.
“One…”
Nothing would come of it.
“Two…”
Chris was just confused.
“Three.”
She was sure of it.
“1967,” she finished about a half a second after Chris,
“1998.”
Whatever she’d been intending on saying next (and she had no idea what that might have been) caught in her throat. Finally she managed the best she could think of,
“****.”
“You… can’t tell me what’s going on.”
Something she’d been holding back gave way and she found herself overwhelmed by a sense of frustration at her inability to make him get it.
“I’m telling you the truth!” she exclaimed, angrily putting one foot down for emphasis.
He, however, just stood his ground.
“I know,” he said simply, then sighed thoughtfully.
She couldn’t help but ease up a bit; Chris was confused, all right. Maybe half as confused as she was. Lisa frowned.
“Yeah, well… What now then? What are you going to-”
Chris caught her off guard and silenced her by drawing her into her arms and hugging her to him.
“Not that again,” he said, his breath warm in her hair, “I already told you; whatever I need to do to keep you safe.”
Christ, Chris… She felt moisture brimming in her eyes, which she fought back.
“And,” she whispered, still unable to look him in the eyes, “What if she’s right? I mean… maybe I am a ghost or something.”
“You’re not a ghost.”
She had to catch her breath in a little hiccup before she could speak again.
“Yeah? And who’s there to say that?”
Chris quieted her again with a gentle kiss right above the soft curl of her bangs. Lisa released her held breath in mild and not unpleasant surprise; it had no real hint of suggestion, not really, but it was obviously meant to comfort. Her parents had always been fond of kissing her hair in the same manner.
“Well… you seem real enough to me.”
Oh Christ.
Chris looked from the newspaper to Lisa with a rush of confusion and a twisting sensation in his gut, but she didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, merely keeping her mildly troubled expression. He began searching for every possible explanation,
Probably just a typo,
But he immediately knew that wasn’t it. She must’ve seen his distress, as she looked up to inquire, “Chris?”
That strange, dreamy atmosphere that the room had taken on seemed to tangibly swirl around him. Maybe that was what was making it so difficult to move.
“Chris? Is something wrong?”
Yes, Lisa, there was something wrong.
The date. The date on the newspaper was more than thirty years old.
Chris released her shoulder, rose from the floor, and stood over her, giving her a long, hard look. Lisa couldn’t tell if he was angry or just confused about something, but either way she couldn’t help but feel a little hurt that he was directing a look like that at her then.
Like I need that now?
After a few tense moments of utter silence though, it softened. She still had no idea what it was, but it was softer. He took a deep breath and said,
“Tell me… who you are.”
That caught her off guard. Lisa blinked in surprise. What…?
“Chris… What do you mean?”
He took the newspaper, which he still clutched, and held it out for her as if she was having trouble seeing it. This, she didn’t need. What the hell was he getting at?
“Will you just tell me what you’re trying to say already? My mother’s missing and I have some sadistic bitch after me and…”
She didn’t bother continuing; he didn’t need her to explain that she’d been having a ****ty couple of days.
With a shake of his head, Chris jabbed his finger at the paper just below the header.
“The date, Lisa! June 27, 1965! I want to know who you are, and how you got here!” His tone gave away what his face didn’t; it was bewildered, frustrated, and maybe even a little frightened.
Lisa might have thought he was being irrational, but, hearing Chris, a cop, that rattled, she couldn’t help but start to get a little scared herself. She felt her heartbeat speed up a little. And, thinking about it too much, that feeling of confusion started returning…
"No, Lisa… I don’t know who you think you are."
“Chris,” she pled softly, “I don’t know what you mean. You know who I am. I drove here from New York to look for my mother, and when I got here everything had gone to hell.”
She was telling him the truth… At least…
“I mean… that’s what had to have happened… right?”
She would admit that it was a little hazy, a little uncertain, but, hell, upon her arrival she’d been pursued, fallen into unconsciousness after her stomach wound, and above all had been scared. Was it her fault for not being entirely certain of all the details?
Maybe seeing her genuine fear, Chris finally relented with a long, exhausted sigh.
“You know… I really want to believe you, Lisa.” The look he was giving her now was one of almost sadness. “Do you know how long ago this is from?”
Something about hearing those words sent chills running up and down the length of Lisa’s spine though it was a simple and strange question.
“I was twelve, so it would be… two years ago from June.”
He groaned softly and turned to face a wall. Whatever was bothering him so much was beyond Lisa, but she rose from her knees and moved to offer him whatever comfort she could anyways.
“Chris?”
“So you really mean what you’re saying…”
“Of course I do, Chris. Why wouldn’t I? I don’t have a reason to lie to you.”
“Lisa… Lisa, that was eight years before I was born.”
Lisa’s lips involuntarily twitched into a nervous smile, out of surprise.
“What…? Chris, that’s-”
“I’m twenty four, Lisa; I was born in ’73. What you’re saying is impossible… It would make you older than me.”
She took a moment to try to wrap her mind around the statement; surely he had to mean something else. She told herself that even as dread gripped her. The fine hairs on the backs of her arms and neck felt like they were bristling with energy. Out of lack of a better reaction, she grimaced angrily.
“Chris, if you’re saying this just to… just to scare me or something…!”
And what sense did that make? Lisa sighed.
“No… you wouldn’t, would you.”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he affirmed. Right; Of course.
“Yeah, well, what do you want me to say? It’s insane!”
“Guess we’re both a little crazy by this point.”
He reached for her, but she turned around to avoid him; he sounded really honest, and that was the frightening part.
“And just when do you think it is?” she insisted, her voice unintentionally soft and weak. She felt as though she might faint again.
Chris hesitated.
“On three?” she attempted to encourage, though she couldn’t force any real volume into her tone.
He remained a couple steps behind her, like maybe he was nervous about approaching her. Lisa found herself dreading the thought… Despite what she’d said about believing it to be better for him to leave on his own, he was the only living person she’d seen for days in that hellhole; she was horrified at the idea of being left alone again.
“Sounds good.”
She breathed deeply.
“One…”
Nothing would come of it.
“Two…”
Chris was just confused.
“Three.”
She was sure of it.
“1967,” she finished about a half a second after Chris,
“1998.”
Whatever she’d been intending on saying next (and she had no idea what that might have been) caught in her throat. Finally she managed the best she could think of,
“****.”
“You… can’t tell me what’s going on.”
Something she’d been holding back gave way and she found herself overwhelmed by a sense of frustration at her inability to make him get it.
“I’m telling you the truth!” she exclaimed, angrily putting one foot down for emphasis.
He, however, just stood his ground.
“I know,” he said simply, then sighed thoughtfully.
She couldn’t help but ease up a bit; Chris was confused, all right. Maybe half as confused as she was. Lisa frowned.
“Yeah, well… What now then? What are you going to-”
Chris caught her off guard and silenced her by drawing her into her arms and hugging her to him.
“Not that again,” he said, his breath warm in her hair, “I already told you; whatever I need to do to keep you safe.”
Christ, Chris… She felt moisture brimming in her eyes, which she fought back.
“And,” she whispered, still unable to look him in the eyes, “What if she’s right? I mean… maybe I am a ghost or something.”
“You’re not a ghost.”
She had to catch her breath in a little hiccup before she could speak again.
“Yeah? And who’s there to say that?”
Chris quieted her again with a gentle kiss right above the soft curl of her bangs. Lisa released her held breath in mild and not unpleasant surprise; it had no real hint of suggestion, not really, but it was obviously meant to comfort. Her parents had always been fond of kissing her hair in the same manner.
“Well… you seem real enough to me.”
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Huh? Did the last part not submit or something? I didn't notice it until now... Weird. Here that is, then...
They remained still there for a little while. The thick atmosphere seemed to drag out the moment for longer. Finally Chris didn’t move yet, but mused,
“My partner Jill’s the thinker here, but I think I’m putting something together here. The guy who designed this place… His name was George Trevor, wasn’t it?”
Lisa perked in interest. “My dad? What about him?”
Chris’s expression went blank again. “Your… father.”
“Yeah.” She paused, registering his reaction. “That… doesn’t make sense either?”
He shook his head, though. “It kind of does, actually. In a weird sort of way. I remember hearing something, about this guy. From what I hear, years back, back in the… the sixties…”
She nodded, dread nearly silencing her… What kind of news could he possibly have? The strange air pushed inwards, taking form into that familiar old sense of confusion again. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “One day he just up and disappeared. Turned out they couldn’t find his wife either…” He looked Lisa straight in her eyes, “Or his kid. I would’ve seen something sooner, but it seemed like a common name, I didn’t remember it…”
At that Chris shook his head again and turned away slightly as if prolonged eye contact was bothering him then. Something at the back of her mind stirred in sorrow at that, and she had a feeling that it was the same part that had nearly overtaken her when she’d discovered the sudden healing of her wounds before… before the thing with Rebecca.
So he doesn’t even want to look at me now?
She tried to bury it, telling herself it was a ridiculous thing to be thinking at the moment, but it was more unsettling than she would’ve liked to admit.
“Christ Lisa, I’m sorry! I don’t know what it means, but…”
What?
“You’re… sorry.” He was sorry? Neither of them had any sane explanation of how the hell she’d gotten to where she was and he was sorry?
“All this time, since we met up, I just… missed it completely. It could be something important, we could’ve needed to know, and I just didn’t see. I’m so sorry, Lisa,” he insisted, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, “I’m not messing up with you, too.”
The oppressive atmosphere relinquished its grip on her, as something she could physically feel. Lisa’s sigh was in relief.
“It means…”
To tell the truth, she didn’t know what it meant. Much more of that and the weirdness of it all would drive her right out of her mind… She pushed away from Chris and stared hard at the marble bust of Beethoven, trying to come to some sort of conclusion.
“It means that… they must be here, right? I mean, I’m here, so if you’re right… they must be here.”
The hint of desperation in her tone was obvious even to her, but she hoped Chris didn’t pick up on it. From the way he looked at her, it was in vain.
“I guess it could. It makes sense, I suppose.”
Lisa didn’t answer. Chris seemed to pick up on her aversion and fell silent with her for a while before changing the topic,
“So. That paper.”
She sighed; at least that train of thought was the lesser of two evils at the time. “She must’ve left it there or something. It was… it was pretty bad, you know? I knew Linda just about all my life and then that. Mrs. Duponte wound up in the mental ward…”
Lisa vividly recalled the woman’s wide, glassy-eyed stare when she’d grabbed a hold of her in the funeral home,
“What did she say?! Tell me the last thing my baby said!”
She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him the rest, about the things her friend had said, about chopping off nearly all of what had been her prized hair in the bathroom to escape the feeling of being unable to wash off blood still splattered in it, about the nightmares that followed… about how the whole thing could’ve very well been her damned fault.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yeah… Thanks.”
Lisa breathed in deeply to calm herself.
Wait…
She sniffed at the air again, narrowing her eyes slightly in concentration, then turned back to Chris. “Do you smell that?”
He looked confused, but after a moment of searching for the scent he seemed to notice it as well.
“Yeah, I do. Smells like perfume or something. Wonder where it’s coming from…”
As Lisa began getting chills from the familiar occurrence, it started up again… The sound of a pair of high-heels clicking across the floor below. But how could she have heard that? The floor was-
“The statue,” Chris interrupted her thought, seeming to notice it as he spoke it, “See those marks on the floor? It’s been dragged.”
Sure enough, the floor did show scuffmarks in a trail leading up to the bust. Hiding something, maybe? Only one way to find out. She hurried over to it, hoping to catch up to the source of the noise before it could vanish a second time, and made an attempt at pushing the heavy marble statue. There was no way she was moving that on her own, she quickly found, but Chris came to her assistance and soon they’d slid it across the floor far enough to see what it had been concealing; a trapdoor.
He flashed her a concerned look. “Do you want me to go first?” he asked. Lisa managed a slight smirk and brandished her katana.
“What ever happened to ‘ladies first’?”
He nodded in understanding and stepped aside to allow her to kneel and pull open the door.
So you’re really doing this again? And dragging Chris into it, too?
Quashing her internal voice, she looked down and saw that the next floor wasn’t too bad of a drop down, nothing she couldn’t handle, and gripped the edge of the floor to lower herself down. One after the other, Lisa and Chris slipped into the darkness below.
They remained still there for a little while. The thick atmosphere seemed to drag out the moment for longer. Finally Chris didn’t move yet, but mused,
“My partner Jill’s the thinker here, but I think I’m putting something together here. The guy who designed this place… His name was George Trevor, wasn’t it?”
Lisa perked in interest. “My dad? What about him?”
Chris’s expression went blank again. “Your… father.”
“Yeah.” She paused, registering his reaction. “That… doesn’t make sense either?”
He shook his head, though. “It kind of does, actually. In a weird sort of way. I remember hearing something, about this guy. From what I hear, years back, back in the… the sixties…”
She nodded, dread nearly silencing her… What kind of news could he possibly have? The strange air pushed inwards, taking form into that familiar old sense of confusion again. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “One day he just up and disappeared. Turned out they couldn’t find his wife either…” He looked Lisa straight in her eyes, “Or his kid. I would’ve seen something sooner, but it seemed like a common name, I didn’t remember it…”
At that Chris shook his head again and turned away slightly as if prolonged eye contact was bothering him then. Something at the back of her mind stirred in sorrow at that, and she had a feeling that it was the same part that had nearly overtaken her when she’d discovered the sudden healing of her wounds before… before the thing with Rebecca.
So he doesn’t even want to look at me now?
She tried to bury it, telling herself it was a ridiculous thing to be thinking at the moment, but it was more unsettling than she would’ve liked to admit.
“Christ Lisa, I’m sorry! I don’t know what it means, but…”
What?
“You’re… sorry.” He was sorry? Neither of them had any sane explanation of how the hell she’d gotten to where she was and he was sorry?
“All this time, since we met up, I just… missed it completely. It could be something important, we could’ve needed to know, and I just didn’t see. I’m so sorry, Lisa,” he insisted, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, “I’m not messing up with you, too.”
The oppressive atmosphere relinquished its grip on her, as something she could physically feel. Lisa’s sigh was in relief.
“It means…”
To tell the truth, she didn’t know what it meant. Much more of that and the weirdness of it all would drive her right out of her mind… She pushed away from Chris and stared hard at the marble bust of Beethoven, trying to come to some sort of conclusion.
“It means that… they must be here, right? I mean, I’m here, so if you’re right… they must be here.”
The hint of desperation in her tone was obvious even to her, but she hoped Chris didn’t pick up on it. From the way he looked at her, it was in vain.
“I guess it could. It makes sense, I suppose.”
Lisa didn’t answer. Chris seemed to pick up on her aversion and fell silent with her for a while before changing the topic,
“So. That paper.”
She sighed; at least that train of thought was the lesser of two evils at the time. “She must’ve left it there or something. It was… it was pretty bad, you know? I knew Linda just about all my life and then that. Mrs. Duponte wound up in the mental ward…”
Lisa vividly recalled the woman’s wide, glassy-eyed stare when she’d grabbed a hold of her in the funeral home,
“What did she say?! Tell me the last thing my baby said!”
She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him the rest, about the things her friend had said, about chopping off nearly all of what had been her prized hair in the bathroom to escape the feeling of being unable to wash off blood still splattered in it, about the nightmares that followed… about how the whole thing could’ve very well been her damned fault.
“You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Yeah… Thanks.”
Lisa breathed in deeply to calm herself.
Wait…
She sniffed at the air again, narrowing her eyes slightly in concentration, then turned back to Chris. “Do you smell that?”
He looked confused, but after a moment of searching for the scent he seemed to notice it as well.
“Yeah, I do. Smells like perfume or something. Wonder where it’s coming from…”
As Lisa began getting chills from the familiar occurrence, it started up again… The sound of a pair of high-heels clicking across the floor below. But how could she have heard that? The floor was-
“The statue,” Chris interrupted her thought, seeming to notice it as he spoke it, “See those marks on the floor? It’s been dragged.”
Sure enough, the floor did show scuffmarks in a trail leading up to the bust. Hiding something, maybe? Only one way to find out. She hurried over to it, hoping to catch up to the source of the noise before it could vanish a second time, and made an attempt at pushing the heavy marble statue. There was no way she was moving that on her own, she quickly found, but Chris came to her assistance and soon they’d slid it across the floor far enough to see what it had been concealing; a trapdoor.
He flashed her a concerned look. “Do you want me to go first?” he asked. Lisa managed a slight smirk and brandished her katana.
“What ever happened to ‘ladies first’?”
He nodded in understanding and stepped aside to allow her to kneel and pull open the door.
So you’re really doing this again? And dragging Chris into it, too?
Quashing her internal voice, she looked down and saw that the next floor wasn’t too bad of a drop down, nothing she couldn’t handle, and gripped the edge of the floor to lower herself down. One after the other, Lisa and Chris slipped into the darkness below.
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Downward Spiral
Beyond the spot where Chris and Lisa had dropped through the opening in the floor lay an expanse of barely lit hallway, its exact length hidden by the steady curve in it. It didn’t look even vaguely familiar, but at least it didn’t seem too terrible. Not coated in rust or swarming with monsters, anyways. On instinct Chris took the lead, going in a few steps ahead of Lisa, before nodding back at her and waiting for her to catch up.
“Clear,” he assessed, still keeping his voice down just in case.
Close by each other’s sides, katana and handgun at the ready, they continued a few feet more down the oddly shaped hall…
Until Chris was stopped in his tracks by the radio beginning to emit a low hiss. Lisa did the same a second later, the same worried look on her face that he was sure was on his own.
“Is it…?”
Her words were cut off by an enormous sort of shaking over the rising whine, filling the entire hall.
What the… hell?
It was easily the most bizarre feeling that Chris had experienced in his life; it wasn’t just the room shaking, oh no. It was a sort of low rumble, as if the world had turned to static, and the radio and the haze now obscuring his vision only contributed to that image. Their surroundings indeed took on the shifting, blurred characteristics of white noise. And Christ, that headache! He gritted his teeth against the nearly unbearable discomfort of it, a couple low noises of distress escaping. He thought he saw Lisa sink to her knees in pain, gripping at her head. She cried out, a long, helpless groan, but there was nothing he could do.
Softly, over the waves of noise from the radio, he heard again,
“Chris…?”
Metal was groaning and his head still pounded, but at least the trembling was dying down by degrees. Chris shook his head trying to clear it and managed to keep steady on his feet.
The static rose and almost seemed to… to take on shape, a blurred image that he could just picture like a phantom shape in the snow on a television. He could almost literally see the form of reaching fingers.
“Chris…”
He jerked into full awareness at the sensation across his shoulder… Oh god. He’d been physically brushed by whatever strange force that might’ve been.
Then, as abruptly as it had started shaking, everything settled. Chris looked around in every direction. Next to him, still on her knees, Lisa’s breath came in little gasps.
“Oh ****,” Chris muttered, a little winded himself. She looked up wordlessly, sighed heavily, and shook her head in exasperation.
Well, so much for the passage looking safe. If anything, it now looked worse than ever. Every wall, including the floor and ceiling, had taken on the now-familiar look of rusted and bloodstained grating, save for a dented metal door visible around the bend. The inner wall of the curve, which looked to be the core the stairs were built around, revealed just how far down the passage went; seemingly without end. Directly across from them, within the prison of the stairs’ core, an unidentifiable mass of flesh held fast and suspended by a thorough wrapping of thick chains convulsed and dripped blood into the abyss below.
Lisa seemed to recover herself, pushing herself off the floor and rubbing at her head, and turned with Chris to dwell on the strange object for a moment or two. Finally she said, with the air of a conclusion,
“I… don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“You and me both.”
“Let’s keep moving”
There didn’t seem to be much of a choice; the trapdoor they’d entered through had apparently simply faded out of existence. The only way out of that section of hallway was through the door around the bend. Chris nodded in agreement.
“Just let me go in first, okay?” he insisted.
Lisa rolled her eyes and Chris almost had to smile despite himself. It was one of the few gestures he’d seen that actually made her seem like a fourteen-year-old girl.
“God, Chris, you have to be so protective?”
“Call it my desire not to see you with another hole through your chest.”
She sighed. “Fine. But don’t leave me out here too long, alright?”
He nodded. Something seemed just a bit off with her apparent rush to head into a potentially fatal situation, but she would be in a hurry, wouldn’t she? She was looking for her parents, after all. Still though, Chris filed the bit of information away in the back of his mind; he wasn’t missing out on anything critical that time. His mind was still reeling with the implications of what he’d found out before.
“Right. I’ll check it out first, and you come in when I call for you.”
Lisa raised her arms in submission and stooped as if she was going to sit, then reconsidered with a grimace, probably at the floor’s coating.
“I’ll be right here, then,” she said, leaning against the curve’s outer wall and toying with her katana in a light swinging motion of her wrist so that it hit the grating with a repetitive metallic ping, ping, ping. She was ready to defend herself, the action said. He could’ve done with a little more assurance than that, but it would have to do.
Chris walked the few remaining feet of the hall until he was in front of the door, and then glanced back once. Lisa was still tapping the wall with the blade, still in no immediate danger, and still waiting. With an internal sigh, he readied the handgun and cautiously entered the next room.
Beyond the spot where Chris and Lisa had dropped through the opening in the floor lay an expanse of barely lit hallway, its exact length hidden by the steady curve in it. It didn’t look even vaguely familiar, but at least it didn’t seem too terrible. Not coated in rust or swarming with monsters, anyways. On instinct Chris took the lead, going in a few steps ahead of Lisa, before nodding back at her and waiting for her to catch up.
“Clear,” he assessed, still keeping his voice down just in case.
Close by each other’s sides, katana and handgun at the ready, they continued a few feet more down the oddly shaped hall…
Until Chris was stopped in his tracks by the radio beginning to emit a low hiss. Lisa did the same a second later, the same worried look on her face that he was sure was on his own.
“Is it…?”
Her words were cut off by an enormous sort of shaking over the rising whine, filling the entire hall.
What the… hell?
It was easily the most bizarre feeling that Chris had experienced in his life; it wasn’t just the room shaking, oh no. It was a sort of low rumble, as if the world had turned to static, and the radio and the haze now obscuring his vision only contributed to that image. Their surroundings indeed took on the shifting, blurred characteristics of white noise. And Christ, that headache! He gritted his teeth against the nearly unbearable discomfort of it, a couple low noises of distress escaping. He thought he saw Lisa sink to her knees in pain, gripping at her head. She cried out, a long, helpless groan, but there was nothing he could do.
Softly, over the waves of noise from the radio, he heard again,
“Chris…?”
Metal was groaning and his head still pounded, but at least the trembling was dying down by degrees. Chris shook his head trying to clear it and managed to keep steady on his feet.
The static rose and almost seemed to… to take on shape, a blurred image that he could just picture like a phantom shape in the snow on a television. He could almost literally see the form of reaching fingers.
“Chris…”
He jerked into full awareness at the sensation across his shoulder… Oh god. He’d been physically brushed by whatever strange force that might’ve been.
Then, as abruptly as it had started shaking, everything settled. Chris looked around in every direction. Next to him, still on her knees, Lisa’s breath came in little gasps.
“Oh ****,” Chris muttered, a little winded himself. She looked up wordlessly, sighed heavily, and shook her head in exasperation.
Well, so much for the passage looking safe. If anything, it now looked worse than ever. Every wall, including the floor and ceiling, had taken on the now-familiar look of rusted and bloodstained grating, save for a dented metal door visible around the bend. The inner wall of the curve, which looked to be the core the stairs were built around, revealed just how far down the passage went; seemingly without end. Directly across from them, within the prison of the stairs’ core, an unidentifiable mass of flesh held fast and suspended by a thorough wrapping of thick chains convulsed and dripped blood into the abyss below.
Lisa seemed to recover herself, pushing herself off the floor and rubbing at her head, and turned with Chris to dwell on the strange object for a moment or two. Finally she said, with the air of a conclusion,
“I… don’t want to stay here any longer.”
“You and me both.”
“Let’s keep moving”
There didn’t seem to be much of a choice; the trapdoor they’d entered through had apparently simply faded out of existence. The only way out of that section of hallway was through the door around the bend. Chris nodded in agreement.
“Just let me go in first, okay?” he insisted.
Lisa rolled her eyes and Chris almost had to smile despite himself. It was one of the few gestures he’d seen that actually made her seem like a fourteen-year-old girl.
“God, Chris, you have to be so protective?”
“Call it my desire not to see you with another hole through your chest.”
She sighed. “Fine. But don’t leave me out here too long, alright?”
He nodded. Something seemed just a bit off with her apparent rush to head into a potentially fatal situation, but she would be in a hurry, wouldn’t she? She was looking for her parents, after all. Still though, Chris filed the bit of information away in the back of his mind; he wasn’t missing out on anything critical that time. His mind was still reeling with the implications of what he’d found out before.
“Right. I’ll check it out first, and you come in when I call for you.”
Lisa raised her arms in submission and stooped as if she was going to sit, then reconsidered with a grimace, probably at the floor’s coating.
“I’ll be right here, then,” she said, leaning against the curve’s outer wall and toying with her katana in a light swinging motion of her wrist so that it hit the grating with a repetitive metallic ping, ping, ping. She was ready to defend herself, the action said. He could’ve done with a little more assurance than that, but it would have to do.
Chris walked the few remaining feet of the hall until he was in front of the door, and then glanced back once. Lisa was still tapping the wall with the blade, still in no immediate danger, and still waiting. With an internal sigh, he readied the handgun and cautiously entered the next room.
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
The door swung shut behind him as though given a gentle push. At the sight of the other figure in the room with him Chris quickly aimed his handgun, but lowered it as he took in the woman’s frame and long, dark brown ponytail. She was sitting on top of a lightly stained hospital bed (or at least that was what it resembled, he didn’t know many hospital beds to come accompanied with shackles) with her head down and in her hands, shuddering a bit. She didn’t seem to notice his arrival.
“Christy.”
Christy started and hurriedly looked up. Chris could now see the source of her shaking; her face shone from tears even in the dim lighting of the single flickering overhead bulb. The woman looked completely distraught. He looked around the small room, half-hoping that he’d spot whatever had upset her that way, but other than the bed the room was fairly bare. Nothing but two doors, the one on the right wall the solid bars of a prison cell and the one straight ahead the same as the one he’d entered through, and a strangely placed long blonde wig tossed to the floor.
She breathed in deeply, unevenly, and then spoke, her words nearly lost to another sob,
“I’m so sorry, Chris.”
Chris kneeled in front of the cot and pressed one of Christy’s cool hands into his in an attempt to console her, though she looked down when he tried to look her in the eyes.
“Christy, what do you mean? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
That only seemed to bother her more; she bit down on her lip and whimpered piteously until it dissolved into more tears.
“God, I’m so sorry, Chris,” she choked out between gasps, “I’m so, so sorry…”
He moved his hand to her back.
“It’s okay, Christy,” he reassured her.
“No it’s not!” she cried out, abruptly almost yelling.
Chris moved onto the bed with her, wrapping an arm around her to hold her closer to him. She cried over his shoulder and he could still feel her shuddering all over.
“Alright, Christy. What’s not okay?”
When her next whimper faded away, Christy paused for a few moments, seeming to steel herself for something she could barely say. Finally it came out as a breaking whisper near his ear,
“I couldn’t save her.”
What? Chris held her back to see her face. It was utterly solemn and nearly devastated.
“What do you mean? Who couldn’t you save?”
The words seemed to burst out of her with a tragic intensity.
“The girl, Chris! The little blonde girl! I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”
Chris couldn’t hide his confusion. What was she talking about? Not only had Lisa pulled through, but she’d been just about completely healed, though he didn’t think he’d tell her about that part quite yet.
“Lisa?”
Hearing her name apparently got Christy sobbing all over again. She took a deep, shuddering breath in…
The door opened and Lisa rushed in.
“Chris? Is everything okay in here?”
Christy whipped around at the sound of her voice, and her sob became a gasp.
“But…! I-I thought that… that…”
Lisa paused in mid-step and lowered her katana, taking her in curiously and, Chris thought, maybe even a little nervously.
“Who are you?”
He sighed.
“Lisa… this is Christy. The doctor who treated you after you were stabbed. I guess she worked here, before all of this.”
She studied the older woman for a moment more before nodding to herself. Like in the parlor above, Chris began to notice an unusual tense charge to the air.
“Right… Well then, thanks… Christy. I suppose I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for you,” she acknowledged. Somehow, though, her words almost sounded to have more of an edge of anxiety than gratitude, though he couldn’t imagine why. He looked her in the eyes.
What’s wrong? he attempted to communicate with his gaze. Lisa looked away from the look.
Christy merely nodded, still wide-eyed, and brought one hand to her forehead to rub it absently. Chris had the strangest thought then. She looked like she might’ve been… afraid of Lisa.
Now that’s ridiculous. Doesn’t make any sense, she’s just a kid.
He remembered the sense of foreboding he’d gotten from that girl Rachael, though, so he wasn’t one to talk. Gently shrugging her arm off him, he rose to stand with Lisa. She hardly seemed to notice, still wrapped up in her observation of Christy.
“You look familiar. Have I seen you before?” she asked cautiously, as if speaking to someone younger than her. So maybe she saw it, too.
The woman hesitated for a moment before answering, “No… I bandaged your chest a while ago, but you were unconscious, and I left after… I could’ve sworn…” She sighed. “You wouldn’t have seen me.”
Real concern made itself visible in her expression.
“Could’ve sworn what?”
Christy just shook her head, then seemed to remember something.
“Oh, Chris.” She bent down to reach under the cot she sat on… And pulled up a bulky, unmistakable weapon; a sub-machine gun. “I found this a little while ago. You can have it if you need it… I can’t stand guns.”
Seeming to forget her anxiety for the moment, Lisa’s eyes lit up as she hurried to investigate.
“Oh, nice,” she muttered, setting down the katana and taking the gun into her own hands, weighing it before mock-aiming it across the room. She held it surprisingly steadily considering its weight; her tiny wrists didn’t even shake. “I’ll bet we could mow through any of those things out there with this. The bitch with the black hair wouldn’t be too happy with a few shots from this in her.” She lowered it anyways though, and cast a thoughtful look at her blade. “Hmm.”
After a moment of that consideration, she held out the sub-machine gun towards Chris. He accepted it with a slight smile, glad that at least some of that strange tension had passed.
“Thanks.”
Lisa shrugged it off. “It’s probably a better idea for you to hold on to this. Besides,” she said, retrieving her katana, “This thing kind of grows on you.”
As she said it, though, Chris noticed her throw a very pointed glance at the door opposite where they’d come in. He inwardly sighed… Maybe it hadn’t passed after all. There was that near-obsessive drive to move again. He approached the bed again to speak to Christy, still sitting there looking frightened and bewildered.
“Christy, we’re going to keep moving now, alright? We’ve got to keep looking for Lisa’s parents, and a way out of here. Come with me this time. I’ll keep you safe, I promise,” he assured her. He could at least make sure that she didn’t disappear again…
Christy, however, didn’t seem convinced. She sighed and closed her eyes, shaking her head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Chris… I can’t right now. Okay?” When she opened her eyes, they had a pitifully tired look to them. “I… I think something might be really wrong with me. I think I have to stay here for a little while…” She wiped her face on her arm, at the edge of her lab coat, “At least get my head on straight.”
Though displeased, not to mention concerned for her safety, Chris had to nod eventually. She was a grown woman, after all. He supposed he couldn’t order her around.
“Yeah, Christy. I understand. I’ll… We’ll try to come back for you later. Catch up with us, if you can.”
She’d already pulled her knees up onto the bed, though, and had her head down on them. She wasn’t listening. Chris sighed and holstered the sub-machine gun… He’d save the bullets, just in case.
“Come on, Lisa… Let’s go.”
Lisa seemed pretty eager to take his advice, and was out the door within moments.
“Christy.”
Christy started and hurriedly looked up. Chris could now see the source of her shaking; her face shone from tears even in the dim lighting of the single flickering overhead bulb. The woman looked completely distraught. He looked around the small room, half-hoping that he’d spot whatever had upset her that way, but other than the bed the room was fairly bare. Nothing but two doors, the one on the right wall the solid bars of a prison cell and the one straight ahead the same as the one he’d entered through, and a strangely placed long blonde wig tossed to the floor.
She breathed in deeply, unevenly, and then spoke, her words nearly lost to another sob,
“I’m so sorry, Chris.”
Chris kneeled in front of the cot and pressed one of Christy’s cool hands into his in an attempt to console her, though she looked down when he tried to look her in the eyes.
“Christy, what do you mean? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
That only seemed to bother her more; she bit down on her lip and whimpered piteously until it dissolved into more tears.
“God, I’m so sorry, Chris,” she choked out between gasps, “I’m so, so sorry…”
He moved his hand to her back.
“It’s okay, Christy,” he reassured her.
“No it’s not!” she cried out, abruptly almost yelling.
Chris moved onto the bed with her, wrapping an arm around her to hold her closer to him. She cried over his shoulder and he could still feel her shuddering all over.
“Alright, Christy. What’s not okay?”
When her next whimper faded away, Christy paused for a few moments, seeming to steel herself for something she could barely say. Finally it came out as a breaking whisper near his ear,
“I couldn’t save her.”
What? Chris held her back to see her face. It was utterly solemn and nearly devastated.
“What do you mean? Who couldn’t you save?”
The words seemed to burst out of her with a tragic intensity.
“The girl, Chris! The little blonde girl! I couldn’t… I couldn’t…”
Chris couldn’t hide his confusion. What was she talking about? Not only had Lisa pulled through, but she’d been just about completely healed, though he didn’t think he’d tell her about that part quite yet.
“Lisa?”
Hearing her name apparently got Christy sobbing all over again. She took a deep, shuddering breath in…
The door opened and Lisa rushed in.
“Chris? Is everything okay in here?”
Christy whipped around at the sound of her voice, and her sob became a gasp.
“But…! I-I thought that… that…”
Lisa paused in mid-step and lowered her katana, taking her in curiously and, Chris thought, maybe even a little nervously.
“Who are you?”
He sighed.
“Lisa… this is Christy. The doctor who treated you after you were stabbed. I guess she worked here, before all of this.”
She studied the older woman for a moment more before nodding to herself. Like in the parlor above, Chris began to notice an unusual tense charge to the air.
“Right… Well then, thanks… Christy. I suppose I would’ve died if it hadn’t been for you,” she acknowledged. Somehow, though, her words almost sounded to have more of an edge of anxiety than gratitude, though he couldn’t imagine why. He looked her in the eyes.
What’s wrong? he attempted to communicate with his gaze. Lisa looked away from the look.
Christy merely nodded, still wide-eyed, and brought one hand to her forehead to rub it absently. Chris had the strangest thought then. She looked like she might’ve been… afraid of Lisa.
Now that’s ridiculous. Doesn’t make any sense, she’s just a kid.
He remembered the sense of foreboding he’d gotten from that girl Rachael, though, so he wasn’t one to talk. Gently shrugging her arm off him, he rose to stand with Lisa. She hardly seemed to notice, still wrapped up in her observation of Christy.
“You look familiar. Have I seen you before?” she asked cautiously, as if speaking to someone younger than her. So maybe she saw it, too.
The woman hesitated for a moment before answering, “No… I bandaged your chest a while ago, but you were unconscious, and I left after… I could’ve sworn…” She sighed. “You wouldn’t have seen me.”
Real concern made itself visible in her expression.
“Could’ve sworn what?”
Christy just shook her head, then seemed to remember something.
“Oh, Chris.” She bent down to reach under the cot she sat on… And pulled up a bulky, unmistakable weapon; a sub-machine gun. “I found this a little while ago. You can have it if you need it… I can’t stand guns.”
Seeming to forget her anxiety for the moment, Lisa’s eyes lit up as she hurried to investigate.
“Oh, nice,” she muttered, setting down the katana and taking the gun into her own hands, weighing it before mock-aiming it across the room. She held it surprisingly steadily considering its weight; her tiny wrists didn’t even shake. “I’ll bet we could mow through any of those things out there with this. The bitch with the black hair wouldn’t be too happy with a few shots from this in her.” She lowered it anyways though, and cast a thoughtful look at her blade. “Hmm.”
After a moment of that consideration, she held out the sub-machine gun towards Chris. He accepted it with a slight smile, glad that at least some of that strange tension had passed.
“Thanks.”
Lisa shrugged it off. “It’s probably a better idea for you to hold on to this. Besides,” she said, retrieving her katana, “This thing kind of grows on you.”
As she said it, though, Chris noticed her throw a very pointed glance at the door opposite where they’d come in. He inwardly sighed… Maybe it hadn’t passed after all. There was that near-obsessive drive to move again. He approached the bed again to speak to Christy, still sitting there looking frightened and bewildered.
“Christy, we’re going to keep moving now, alright? We’ve got to keep looking for Lisa’s parents, and a way out of here. Come with me this time. I’ll keep you safe, I promise,” he assured her. He could at least make sure that she didn’t disappear again…
Christy, however, didn’t seem convinced. She sighed and closed her eyes, shaking her head sadly.
“I’m sorry, Chris… I can’t right now. Okay?” When she opened her eyes, they had a pitifully tired look to them. “I… I think something might be really wrong with me. I think I have to stay here for a little while…” She wiped her face on her arm, at the edge of her lab coat, “At least get my head on straight.”
Though displeased, not to mention concerned for her safety, Chris had to nod eventually. She was a grown woman, after all. He supposed he couldn’t order her around.
“Yeah, Christy. I understand. I’ll… We’ll try to come back for you later. Catch up with us, if you can.”
She’d already pulled her knees up onto the bed, though, and had her head down on them. She wasn’t listening. Chris sighed and holstered the sub-machine gun… He’d save the bullets, just in case.
“Come on, Lisa… Let’s go.”
Lisa seemed pretty eager to take his advice, and was out the door within moments.
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
“There’s something weird about her, Chris,” Lisa remarked as they descended the set of stairs leading down from the door. Chris sighed.
Yeah, you’re telling me.
“She’s been through a lot; we all have. It must be getting to her.”
She shook her head. “But… there’s something not right with her. I mean, you saw her. She was scared of me or something. There was just this look she had-”
“Wait.”
Chris listened closely to the radio until he was certain that the barely audible hissing wasn’t just his imagination.
“What is it?”
“Quiet for a minute,” he whispered to her.
Soon the static began rising slowly and steadily in the now-familiar warning. “Oh,” she mouthed silently.
Somewhere in the hall below, something was approaching. More of those doctor creatures? Several sets of erratic footsteps became audible, though, that made a series of clicks like a woman’s shoes. Was that the tapping that they’d been pursuing? He motioned for Lisa to back into the wall beside him and they both watched the passage below them warily. He could then hear heavy, gasping breathing, and that was a woman’s too. Before long, one after the other, they staggered into view.
Oh ****, he had to will himself not to say out loud, Now these?
There were three of them, all nearly identical in their gruesome appearance, which was worse even than the doctors’ had been. They wore a uniform of a short, formerly white but now grey and bloodstained, dress under an unbuttoned lab coat with a pair of high-heels. They stumbled and their movements were jerky, as though they were having difficulty moving their limbs. The fact that their bodies were slender and feminine despite not having particularly large breasts seemed a mockery in their horrid state, but that was by far not the most noticeable detail. Underneath ragged lengths of blonde hair, every one of their faces was obscured by bloody and dripping bandages; the majority of the blood staining their chests and the tops of their medical uniforms seemed to come from there. The only things visible were the eyes, their blue eyes, rolling and glinting crazily, murderously. Every one of them was armed with a scalpel. Underneath the bandages of the head creature, Chris thought he saw a trace of a twitching, insane smile.
At the base of the stairs the trio jerked their heads from side to side, searching. He held his breath and tried to hold as still as he possibly could, praying that they wouldn’t see them and turn back. They continued their search, though… Until all three of them slowly turned in unison to look directly at him with a disturbingly provocative stare, wearing that twitchy smile again.
“****,” he muttered, aiming the handgun directly at the ‘nurse’ in front. Lisa took his cue and readied her katana.
The monsters advanced up the stairs, pushing past each other, more quickly and determined than before. Before they even managed to raise their scalpels he opened fire, the shots slamming into the two closest to them. They gave nearly human, bloodcurdling cries of pain and jerked even harder at each new wound, but just kept coming. The nurses were almost on them then and Lisa swung at an upward angle, managing to slit open one of their throats. ‘She’ dropped with a final, gurgling groan. The other two continued on relentlessly though. As Chris frantically fired two more shots, the last loaded into the gun, into the chest of one close enough to reach for him, it finally collapsed and died. His relief was short-lived, though… The final creature that had been right behind it made a sort of awkward tackle at him, catching him off guard as the clammy female body slammed into him, and wrapped its long legs in a death grip around his waist.
“Get off of me!” he shouted in disgust. The nurse raised her scalpel directly over his neck, still smiling sickly…
Until it too gave a dying wail, its limbs going limp. The tip of a blade stuck visibly through its chest, inches away from his own. Lisa pulled back the katana and it fell backwards over the legs of one of its companions.
For a few seconds they both just stood gasping and staring down at the now-still corpses, then looked at each other as if for a confirmation of what they’d just killed. Chris was the first to speak,
“You know… I still don’t like doctors much.”
Lisa shook her head. “You and me both.”
“Let’s just hope there aren’t any more of them.”
She sighed. “I’m sure there will be.”
He continued staring down for a minute. Something seemed utterly wrong about that hair and those eyes, and soon he realized what it was; other than length of the hair, they were identical to Lisa’s. As much as he didn’t want to upset the poor girl any farther, the realization was simply too disturbing not to give voice to.
“Looks kind of familiar,” he muttered, looking to her but not quite meeting her eyes.
She sighed and shook her head, obviously seeing his implication.
“It looks like my mother. Other than, than… you know. The hair’s right, anyways. People say we look alike.”
He saw that she, too, was still dwelling over the dead creatures, particularly the one she’d just dropped.
“Hey… they’re just monsters.”
Finally she looked up and waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
Without saying anything else, Chris stepped over and around the nurses and continued down the last few steps before looking back at Lisa and nodding her forwards.
“You coming?” he called.
“Of course.”
She worked her way around the bodies as well, nearly falling forwards but catching herself in time, and then sighed again tiredly.
“What choice do I have?”
Yeah, you’re telling me.
“She’s been through a lot; we all have. It must be getting to her.”
She shook her head. “But… there’s something not right with her. I mean, you saw her. She was scared of me or something. There was just this look she had-”
“Wait.”
Chris listened closely to the radio until he was certain that the barely audible hissing wasn’t just his imagination.
“What is it?”
“Quiet for a minute,” he whispered to her.
Soon the static began rising slowly and steadily in the now-familiar warning. “Oh,” she mouthed silently.
Somewhere in the hall below, something was approaching. More of those doctor creatures? Several sets of erratic footsteps became audible, though, that made a series of clicks like a woman’s shoes. Was that the tapping that they’d been pursuing? He motioned for Lisa to back into the wall beside him and they both watched the passage below them warily. He could then hear heavy, gasping breathing, and that was a woman’s too. Before long, one after the other, they staggered into view.
Oh ****, he had to will himself not to say out loud, Now these?
There were three of them, all nearly identical in their gruesome appearance, which was worse even than the doctors’ had been. They wore a uniform of a short, formerly white but now grey and bloodstained, dress under an unbuttoned lab coat with a pair of high-heels. They stumbled and their movements were jerky, as though they were having difficulty moving their limbs. The fact that their bodies were slender and feminine despite not having particularly large breasts seemed a mockery in their horrid state, but that was by far not the most noticeable detail. Underneath ragged lengths of blonde hair, every one of their faces was obscured by bloody and dripping bandages; the majority of the blood staining their chests and the tops of their medical uniforms seemed to come from there. The only things visible were the eyes, their blue eyes, rolling and glinting crazily, murderously. Every one of them was armed with a scalpel. Underneath the bandages of the head creature, Chris thought he saw a trace of a twitching, insane smile.
At the base of the stairs the trio jerked their heads from side to side, searching. He held his breath and tried to hold as still as he possibly could, praying that they wouldn’t see them and turn back. They continued their search, though… Until all three of them slowly turned in unison to look directly at him with a disturbingly provocative stare, wearing that twitchy smile again.
“****,” he muttered, aiming the handgun directly at the ‘nurse’ in front. Lisa took his cue and readied her katana.
The monsters advanced up the stairs, pushing past each other, more quickly and determined than before. Before they even managed to raise their scalpels he opened fire, the shots slamming into the two closest to them. They gave nearly human, bloodcurdling cries of pain and jerked even harder at each new wound, but just kept coming. The nurses were almost on them then and Lisa swung at an upward angle, managing to slit open one of their throats. ‘She’ dropped with a final, gurgling groan. The other two continued on relentlessly though. As Chris frantically fired two more shots, the last loaded into the gun, into the chest of one close enough to reach for him, it finally collapsed and died. His relief was short-lived, though… The final creature that had been right behind it made a sort of awkward tackle at him, catching him off guard as the clammy female body slammed into him, and wrapped its long legs in a death grip around his waist.
“Get off of me!” he shouted in disgust. The nurse raised her scalpel directly over his neck, still smiling sickly…
Until it too gave a dying wail, its limbs going limp. The tip of a blade stuck visibly through its chest, inches away from his own. Lisa pulled back the katana and it fell backwards over the legs of one of its companions.
For a few seconds they both just stood gasping and staring down at the now-still corpses, then looked at each other as if for a confirmation of what they’d just killed. Chris was the first to speak,
“You know… I still don’t like doctors much.”
Lisa shook her head. “You and me both.”
“Let’s just hope there aren’t any more of them.”
She sighed. “I’m sure there will be.”
He continued staring down for a minute. Something seemed utterly wrong about that hair and those eyes, and soon he realized what it was; other than length of the hair, they were identical to Lisa’s. As much as he didn’t want to upset the poor girl any farther, the realization was simply too disturbing not to give voice to.
“Looks kind of familiar,” he muttered, looking to her but not quite meeting her eyes.
She sighed and shook her head, obviously seeing his implication.
“It looks like my mother. Other than, than… you know. The hair’s right, anyways. People say we look alike.”
He saw that she, too, was still dwelling over the dead creatures, particularly the one she’d just dropped.
“Hey… they’re just monsters.”
Finally she looked up and waved a hand dismissively. “Yeah, yeah. I know.”
Without saying anything else, Chris stepped over and around the nurses and continued down the last few steps before looking back at Lisa and nodding her forwards.
“You coming?” he called.
“Of course.”
She worked her way around the bodies as well, nearly falling forwards but catching herself in time, and then sighed again tiredly.
“What choice do I have?”
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
The layout of the entire passage had proven to be similar to those first few rooms, with small rooms leading out onto staircases descending into curved hallways leading into another room, though each turn had something unique to throw at them; A room with several dog-like monsters with split-open heads greedily gnawing on a hunk of meat (which they’d managed to avoid by dashing across the room and quickly slamming the door), a hallway strewn with shrouded corpses, a few more of those nurses. The hall they were in, at least, seemed clear, though uncomfortably damp and cold. It seemed endless. Chris was tired, and it looked to be wearing on Lisa, too. For a girl her age she was holding up surprisingly well, but she definitely wasn’t at her best. She’d taken a fresh and painful looking cut to the cheek going at one of the nurses and wasn’t keeping up quite as well as she had been. He slowed down a bit to allow her to keep pace with him again.
“Hey,” he asked, noting that she still looked unhealthily ashen, “You okay?”
She gave a slightly annoyed sigh and frown, quickening her pace a little so that she passed him by a step or two.
“I’m fine.”
Chris caught her by the shoulder… She certainly didn’t look ‘fine’.
“Lisa.”
“I said I’m alright! Okay?” Lisa insisted, stamping one foot hard into the floor angrily. Then she took a deep breath, released it, and shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry if I got angry, Chris. Just… don’t worry about me, alright? I dragged you into this, so it’s my own fault if-”
“If what? If he gets killed or something?”
Wait. He recognized that voice. The childish tone came from near the end of the hall, where a small form was moving in the darkness. Sure enough, as she moved closer, he made out bright red hair and a pristine white dress with an inexplicable pang of dread… Rachael.
Still watching us, maybe? I’d like to know what the hell’s up with this kid, now…
He kept his face even, though. No matter what she might be doing, she was just a kid.
“Rachael,” he called out to her, “You shouldn’t have wandered off like that.”
Lisa’s eyes were wide and surprised as she took in the child.
“A little girl?” she whispered, leaning close to him. He nodded in confirmation.
Rachael rolled her eyes with a slight smile on her face. “Aww, Chris, don’t be so lame about it. I’m okay, aren’t I?”
It was true. The little girl didn’t have a single scratch on her, strangely enough considering the monsters wandering around.
“I suppose you are,” Chris admitted. Rachael chuckled.
Lisa approached a few steps towards her and, he noticed, she didn’t back away from her as she had from him. He found himself, guiltily, grateful that she was dealing with her so he wouldn’t have to, and wondered if she got the same skin-crawling feeling from being near the child that he did…
“Rachael… right?” she spoke gently, in just the right tone for speaking to a girl that age. Her expression was soft and there were a million questions in her eyes, but Rachael just seemed mildly amused. “Where are your parents?”
Chris caught the undertone in her question. It wasn’t just Rachael she was asking for.
The younger girl shrugged nonchalantly, flashing a fleeting glimpse of part of what appeared to be a circular crimson mark on either of her arms just above the cut of her sleeves, and walked to tinker with a pair of valve handles on the wall.
“Well, my mom’s around here somewhere. I’ll look for her when I’m done here… I’ve got a job to do now.”
Again with her being busy?
Lisa nodded thoughtfully. “Just what is this job, then?”
Rachael paused in turning the valves and rubbed at her chin in exaggerated contemplation.
“Mmm…” Then she smiled again mischievously. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to tell you. Not now, anyways.”
Chris groaned internally, ready to clench his fists in frustration. Lisa, however, remained calm.
“But aren’t you worried?” she continued, still maintaining her gentle tone.
At that, Rachael outright giggled. “Worried? Nah…” She shook her head, her smile growing into a reverent grin, “I’ve got God to protect me.”
She fully believed what she was saying, he could see in her bright little face, however naïve the thought was; she was at least close to ten, she must’ve been aware of at least some of the danger…
“So you think God’s just going to keep you safe from all of those monsters?” he couldn’t help asking skeptically.
That got her slightly eerie grin to drop, and she turned to face Chris with a suddenly utterly solemn look.
“Of course I do, Chris. And I wouldn’t talk that way if I was you…” She gave the valves a full turn each and then, seemingly satisfied with her work, stepped away from them and gestured around herself in a sweeping motion. “I mean, look around.”
Rachael walked forwards until she was barely a couple of steps away from Lisa, though she was focused on both of them.
“God is here… She’s just waiting.”
Chris’s gut instinct was relaying a sudden and sharp urge to get away to his brain. If he’d thought it before he was certain now… There was something utterly wrong with this little girl. He saw Lisa’s expression go from a look of concern to one of fright and confusion.
She stared down at her for a few moments in silence before almost whispering, “Waiting for what?”
As abruptly as she’d turned so serious, Rachael’s cheerful demeanor returned with a sweet little laugh that was completely out of place.
“Oh, you’ll see. You’ve just got to be a little patient. By the way, Lisa,” she said, smiling up at her in a manner that had even Chris shuddering from where he stood, “I’m glad you lived; just try not to let something like that happen again. It would be no good if you went and got yourself killed.”
She walked up to the wall next to her valve handles and felt along an edge for a minute before swinging open a door that…
I did not just miss that before, the damned thing was never there…
“All I can say is, just keep moving. It’ll all work out eventually.”
Rachael favored them with one final grin before closing the door behind her. Lisa hurried to investigate where she’d gone through, but Chris shook his head. Sure enough, his suspicion was confirmed when there was no trace of where the door had been.
“Damn it,” he muttered anyways.
“That girl… Who is she, anyways?”
He shrugged, trying not to let the fading chill he’d gotten show. “Beats me. I saw her before while you were out, just wandering around talking about a god and… and whether or not you were going to make it. I know she’s just a kid, but something about her just doesn’t seem right to me.”
Lisa turned to face him, making that unbreakable eye contact again.
“You were thinking something wasn’t right with me just a little while ago.”
“That’s not it.”
And, despite the enormity of the revelation he’d had about her, it wasn’t.
“Oh yeah? Like how?”
How should he explain it… “It doesn’t feel the same. When I’m around you or Rachael, I mean. I do get a feeling from you… Just not a bad one.”
Her mood visibly improved at that, and Chris’s did in response. It was a much-needed relief from the creepy air still lingering after Rachael’s disappearance. She almost looked like she wanted to smile.
“And what might that feeling be, Chris?”
Chris fell silent; the question was more pressing than she could’ve known.
“Chris?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.” Then he shook his head, clearing himself from those thoughts. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Lisa broke eye contact awkwardly and nodded in agreement. “Yeah… Good idea.”
She started out ahead of him, preventing further conversation, but soon stopped when something on the floor was sent skidding out of the way in front of her feet.
“Hmm?”
She kneeled and picked whatever it was up, studied it for a moment, and then grimaced.
“Great,” she muttered sarcastically.
“What is it?”
With a sigh she tossed the object to him, which he caught reflexively. It was a small, featureless doll crafted out of wax, with a torn-out piece of paper stuck into its chest by two pins similar to the ones supposed to be stuck into a voodoo doll. The object itself was chilling enough, but it may have been surpassed by the simple sentence that came with it.
‘Well Lisa,’ it read, ‘You coming?’
Christ. Before, when Lisa had claimed that the girl who’d killed Rebecca was out to get her personally, Chris couldn’t help but think that she may have been on to something. Now it was starting to look like she’d been right, for whatever reason that might’ve been. He looked up from the doll at her, silently asking for an explanation. She bowed her head and finally spoke,
“Linda’s mom… at the funeral… asked me what the last thing that she said was. That was it… She asked me…” She swallowed thickly before finishing in a hoarse whisper, “If I was coming with her. We always did do everything together.”
She took a deep breath and looked up to hold him stuck in a desperate, suddenly tearful look.
“I took her boyfriend from her, alright?” she shouted, “He said that he loved me and I slept with him and stole him from Linda. I knew damned well that she loved him, and that she was sensitive like that, but I betrayed her. Even after I did that to her she wanted to finish it the way we’d always been.
“She waved to me, Chris! She wanted me to… to…”
“To die with her,” Chris finished for her, at a loss for any other response. Lisa sobbed and rushed forwards. He caught her in his arms and hugged her to him, wanting to offer her what comfort he could.
“Lisa…”
“I used to have nightmares about it, you know… That she was angry at me for not going with her,” she whispered as though afraid someone would hear, plucking the doll from his hands and moving her arms to toy with it behind his back, “And she wanted to… to get me or something. She always looked horrible, the way she did after she got hit… She’d call me all these terrible things, too, just like she did right before she did it. She’d call me a bitch… she’d call me a junkie… she’d call me a whore…” Lisa sniffled. “I don’t know… Maybe she was right to. After what I did, I deserved it.”
Chris shook his head. “No,” he assured her firmly, but she shrugged it off with a sigh.
“Every time she’d give me another chance to choose to go with her. I never did, though; trust me, I don’t have the guts for something like that. And when I didn’t, she’d kill me herself. It wasn’t always the same, but most of the time she’d stab me through the back… Like I did to her.”
She released her arms from around him and shrugged out of his own before walking a few steps towards the still-existing door, keeping her back to him. By that point he could almost see her sad, sarcastic smirk.
“You should feel lucky, Chris. I’ve never told that to anyone else… Not even my mother.”
“Lisa, your friend… She wasn’t in her right mind then. You should know that.”
“Really, Chris? Because she seemed like she knew what she was talking about to me.”
Chris now saw what she’d done to the doll that she clutched in her left hand… Its semi-flexible neck was bent at an odd angle and its head was partially caved in on one side, and one of its legs and both of its arms were just barely dangling from the breaks she’d put in the wax. Somehow he thought of it as a cue to drop the subject, immediately. The horrific symbolism of it didn’t escape him, and for a second the image of those same injuries on a bloody twelve-year-old body flashed through his mind.
Without saying anything more, he followed her to the door at the end of the hallway. This door looked different from the ones they’d come through so far. It was larger, a double door, and made of a darker hue of metal, with a small depression cut into the square of stone floor in front of it. The feeling radiating out from it, he hated; it was the feeling of something grave and final lurking on the other side, just waiting. It made the hairs on the back of his neck and arms bristle uncomfortably. Lisa showed the same unease on her face.
“You feel that?” he asked. She nodded.
Despite the dread twisting his gut, though, Chris took hold of the handles and tried to pull it open. The doors didn’t budge. Like she’d known the whole time what to do, Lisa kneeled and set the broken wax doll gently into the hole in front of it. It was exactly the right size. Within the door came the soft click of the lock being released.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” he cautioned.
Lisa shrugged. “So do I. If you don’t want to go in, I’ll go in myself.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance. You just stick behind me and I’ll clear anything standing in our way.”
She rose back to her feet and hovered nervously at his side with a nod. For a moment Chris hesitated, his hands tightly gripping the door handles, before he swung them wide open.
“Hey,” he asked, noting that she still looked unhealthily ashen, “You okay?”
She gave a slightly annoyed sigh and frown, quickening her pace a little so that she passed him by a step or two.
“I’m fine.”
Chris caught her by the shoulder… She certainly didn’t look ‘fine’.
“Lisa.”
“I said I’m alright! Okay?” Lisa insisted, stamping one foot hard into the floor angrily. Then she took a deep breath, released it, and shook her head slowly. “I’m sorry if I got angry, Chris. Just… don’t worry about me, alright? I dragged you into this, so it’s my own fault if-”
“If what? If he gets killed or something?”
Wait. He recognized that voice. The childish tone came from near the end of the hall, where a small form was moving in the darkness. Sure enough, as she moved closer, he made out bright red hair and a pristine white dress with an inexplicable pang of dread… Rachael.
Still watching us, maybe? I’d like to know what the hell’s up with this kid, now…
He kept his face even, though. No matter what she might be doing, she was just a kid.
“Rachael,” he called out to her, “You shouldn’t have wandered off like that.”
Lisa’s eyes were wide and surprised as she took in the child.
“A little girl?” she whispered, leaning close to him. He nodded in confirmation.
Rachael rolled her eyes with a slight smile on her face. “Aww, Chris, don’t be so lame about it. I’m okay, aren’t I?”
It was true. The little girl didn’t have a single scratch on her, strangely enough considering the monsters wandering around.
“I suppose you are,” Chris admitted. Rachael chuckled.
Lisa approached a few steps towards her and, he noticed, she didn’t back away from her as she had from him. He found himself, guiltily, grateful that she was dealing with her so he wouldn’t have to, and wondered if she got the same skin-crawling feeling from being near the child that he did…
“Rachael… right?” she spoke gently, in just the right tone for speaking to a girl that age. Her expression was soft and there were a million questions in her eyes, but Rachael just seemed mildly amused. “Where are your parents?”
Chris caught the undertone in her question. It wasn’t just Rachael she was asking for.
The younger girl shrugged nonchalantly, flashing a fleeting glimpse of part of what appeared to be a circular crimson mark on either of her arms just above the cut of her sleeves, and walked to tinker with a pair of valve handles on the wall.
“Well, my mom’s around here somewhere. I’ll look for her when I’m done here… I’ve got a job to do now.”
Again with her being busy?
Lisa nodded thoughtfully. “Just what is this job, then?”
Rachael paused in turning the valves and rubbed at her chin in exaggerated contemplation.
“Mmm…” Then she smiled again mischievously. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to tell you. Not now, anyways.”
Chris groaned internally, ready to clench his fists in frustration. Lisa, however, remained calm.
“But aren’t you worried?” she continued, still maintaining her gentle tone.
At that, Rachael outright giggled. “Worried? Nah…” She shook her head, her smile growing into a reverent grin, “I’ve got God to protect me.”
She fully believed what she was saying, he could see in her bright little face, however naïve the thought was; she was at least close to ten, she must’ve been aware of at least some of the danger…
“So you think God’s just going to keep you safe from all of those monsters?” he couldn’t help asking skeptically.
That got her slightly eerie grin to drop, and she turned to face Chris with a suddenly utterly solemn look.
“Of course I do, Chris. And I wouldn’t talk that way if I was you…” She gave the valves a full turn each and then, seemingly satisfied with her work, stepped away from them and gestured around herself in a sweeping motion. “I mean, look around.”
Rachael walked forwards until she was barely a couple of steps away from Lisa, though she was focused on both of them.
“God is here… She’s just waiting.”
Chris’s gut instinct was relaying a sudden and sharp urge to get away to his brain. If he’d thought it before he was certain now… There was something utterly wrong with this little girl. He saw Lisa’s expression go from a look of concern to one of fright and confusion.
She stared down at her for a few moments in silence before almost whispering, “Waiting for what?”
As abruptly as she’d turned so serious, Rachael’s cheerful demeanor returned with a sweet little laugh that was completely out of place.
“Oh, you’ll see. You’ve just got to be a little patient. By the way, Lisa,” she said, smiling up at her in a manner that had even Chris shuddering from where he stood, “I’m glad you lived; just try not to let something like that happen again. It would be no good if you went and got yourself killed.”
She walked up to the wall next to her valve handles and felt along an edge for a minute before swinging open a door that…
I did not just miss that before, the damned thing was never there…
“All I can say is, just keep moving. It’ll all work out eventually.”
Rachael favored them with one final grin before closing the door behind her. Lisa hurried to investigate where she’d gone through, but Chris shook his head. Sure enough, his suspicion was confirmed when there was no trace of where the door had been.
“Damn it,” he muttered anyways.
“That girl… Who is she, anyways?”
He shrugged, trying not to let the fading chill he’d gotten show. “Beats me. I saw her before while you were out, just wandering around talking about a god and… and whether or not you were going to make it. I know she’s just a kid, but something about her just doesn’t seem right to me.”
Lisa turned to face him, making that unbreakable eye contact again.
“You were thinking something wasn’t right with me just a little while ago.”
“That’s not it.”
And, despite the enormity of the revelation he’d had about her, it wasn’t.
“Oh yeah? Like how?”
How should he explain it… “It doesn’t feel the same. When I’m around you or Rachael, I mean. I do get a feeling from you… Just not a bad one.”
Her mood visibly improved at that, and Chris’s did in response. It was a much-needed relief from the creepy air still lingering after Rachael’s disappearance. She almost looked like she wanted to smile.
“And what might that feeling be, Chris?”
Chris fell silent; the question was more pressing than she could’ve known.
“Chris?”
He sighed. “I don’t know.” Then he shook his head, clearing himself from those thoughts. “Let’s just keep moving.”
Lisa broke eye contact awkwardly and nodded in agreement. “Yeah… Good idea.”
She started out ahead of him, preventing further conversation, but soon stopped when something on the floor was sent skidding out of the way in front of her feet.
“Hmm?”
She kneeled and picked whatever it was up, studied it for a moment, and then grimaced.
“Great,” she muttered sarcastically.
“What is it?”
With a sigh she tossed the object to him, which he caught reflexively. It was a small, featureless doll crafted out of wax, with a torn-out piece of paper stuck into its chest by two pins similar to the ones supposed to be stuck into a voodoo doll. The object itself was chilling enough, but it may have been surpassed by the simple sentence that came with it.
‘Well Lisa,’ it read, ‘You coming?’
Christ. Before, when Lisa had claimed that the girl who’d killed Rebecca was out to get her personally, Chris couldn’t help but think that she may have been on to something. Now it was starting to look like she’d been right, for whatever reason that might’ve been. He looked up from the doll at her, silently asking for an explanation. She bowed her head and finally spoke,
“Linda’s mom… at the funeral… asked me what the last thing that she said was. That was it… She asked me…” She swallowed thickly before finishing in a hoarse whisper, “If I was coming with her. We always did do everything together.”
She took a deep breath and looked up to hold him stuck in a desperate, suddenly tearful look.
“I took her boyfriend from her, alright?” she shouted, “He said that he loved me and I slept with him and stole him from Linda. I knew damned well that she loved him, and that she was sensitive like that, but I betrayed her. Even after I did that to her she wanted to finish it the way we’d always been.
“She waved to me, Chris! She wanted me to… to…”
“To die with her,” Chris finished for her, at a loss for any other response. Lisa sobbed and rushed forwards. He caught her in his arms and hugged her to him, wanting to offer her what comfort he could.
“Lisa…”
“I used to have nightmares about it, you know… That she was angry at me for not going with her,” she whispered as though afraid someone would hear, plucking the doll from his hands and moving her arms to toy with it behind his back, “And she wanted to… to get me or something. She always looked horrible, the way she did after she got hit… She’d call me all these terrible things, too, just like she did right before she did it. She’d call me a bitch… she’d call me a junkie… she’d call me a whore…” Lisa sniffled. “I don’t know… Maybe she was right to. After what I did, I deserved it.”
Chris shook his head. “No,” he assured her firmly, but she shrugged it off with a sigh.
“Every time she’d give me another chance to choose to go with her. I never did, though; trust me, I don’t have the guts for something like that. And when I didn’t, she’d kill me herself. It wasn’t always the same, but most of the time she’d stab me through the back… Like I did to her.”
She released her arms from around him and shrugged out of his own before walking a few steps towards the still-existing door, keeping her back to him. By that point he could almost see her sad, sarcastic smirk.
“You should feel lucky, Chris. I’ve never told that to anyone else… Not even my mother.”
“Lisa, your friend… She wasn’t in her right mind then. You should know that.”
“Really, Chris? Because she seemed like she knew what she was talking about to me.”
Chris now saw what she’d done to the doll that she clutched in her left hand… Its semi-flexible neck was bent at an odd angle and its head was partially caved in on one side, and one of its legs and both of its arms were just barely dangling from the breaks she’d put in the wax. Somehow he thought of it as a cue to drop the subject, immediately. The horrific symbolism of it didn’t escape him, and for a second the image of those same injuries on a bloody twelve-year-old body flashed through his mind.
Without saying anything more, he followed her to the door at the end of the hallway. This door looked different from the ones they’d come through so far. It was larger, a double door, and made of a darker hue of metal, with a small depression cut into the square of stone floor in front of it. The feeling radiating out from it, he hated; it was the feeling of something grave and final lurking on the other side, just waiting. It made the hairs on the back of his neck and arms bristle uncomfortably. Lisa showed the same unease on her face.
“You feel that?” he asked. She nodded.
Despite the dread twisting his gut, though, Chris took hold of the handles and tried to pull it open. The doors didn’t budge. Like she’d known the whole time what to do, Lisa kneeled and set the broken wax doll gently into the hole in front of it. It was exactly the right size. Within the door came the soft click of the lock being released.
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” he cautioned.
Lisa shrugged. “So do I. If you don’t want to go in, I’ll go in myself.”
He shook his head. “Not a chance. You just stick behind me and I’ll clear anything standing in our way.”
She rose back to her feet and hovered nervously at his side with a nod. For a moment Chris hesitated, his hands tightly gripping the door handles, before he swung them wide open.
T-Virus Rose
Well-Known Member
Well, I figured I might as well put another of my parody sections in. I post them between the actual sections on deviantart.com, so I have a few written up and this one was definitely worthy of putting up. The whole 'Wesker the Molester' thing is a running joke I have because of some of Wesker's more pervy lines in Umbrella Chronicles and Code Veronica, so hopefully any Wesker fans won't murder me, ha ha. Enjoy.
Intermission: Why They Call Him "The Molester"...
As Albert Wesker navigated the warped passages below the mansion with gun drawn, he shook his head slightly in exasperation. Well, so much for his plans. At least, though, most of the S.T.A.R.S. seemed to be dead in one way or another.
He was still dwelling on that when he noticed that he’d stepped into something wet and sticky; a black tendril of ink that almost seemed living, he saw when he looked down. The hall was filling with them.
“Hmm?
Wesker watched as the strange substance began to mass together in front of him, taking shape. Soon a small figure was formed and, with a dark chuckle, took on the features of a young girl with eerie blue eyes, skin nearly as white as a corpse, and hair dripping with that ink.
“Sunglasses,” she observed with a smirk, “I know you. You’re with those lab bastards.”
Somewhat confused about how this girl would know that, Wesker nodded. “I am. And just who are you?”
Her grin grew larger and she picked up a massive knife from the floor as it materialized to brandish it.
“Oh? You don’t recognize me?”
He studied her carefully, looking her up and down, until his gaze rested on her chest.
“Hey!” she cried out in indignation.
Of course! I never forget a pair of boobs!
He smirked. “My my, Lisa Trevor.”
The incarnation of Lisa’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. I’ve got some business with you, too,” she growled menacingly.
Wesker sighed. “Well, Lisa, I’ve got business with you, too… But unfortunately I don’t have time to play right now. If you know what I mean.”
She stood utterly still in place, her mouth slightly agape.
“What…?!”
He chuckled once. “I know, I know. Disappointing, right? Sorry, dear, but I’d better get moving.”
With a tremendous wham, she slammed down the knife.
“Who the hell are you calling ‘dear’?! I am god here and you’d even think about saying something like that?!”
“God? Hmm. I’ll admit that you do have a few heavenly… aspects.”
Lisa shrieked in fury, accompanied by the sound of wrenching metal somewhere. Wesker raised an eyebrow and surveyed her while she fumed wordlessly for a few moments. Finally, he took a step towards her.
“I want your body.”
She raised her weapon high over her head. “Why don’t you repeat that again?”
“Well why don’t you… give it to me?”
“You… you… PERVERT! I’m going to… Argh!”
With that she swung the blade out at him with an incredible amount of strength. Wesker easily rolled to the side, out of harm’s way.
“Feisty, aren’t you? That’s great…” He grinned. “I just love a crazy girl.”
He reached for his belt and retrieved a pair of cuffs, holding them up for her to see.
“Now, why don’t you put these on? I always did think they looked hot on you.”
Lisa scowled. “You,” she said, pointing at him, “You’re even more sick and twisted than I am! I have never seen a bigger creep than you! And trust me, I have seen creeps! You know what?” she continued, turning her back, “I’m getting out of here. I don’t even feel like killing you anymore.”
“Are you going to… stalk me?”
She howled again and headed for the nearest door. Wesker followed until he was directly behind her.
“Guess I’ll be seeing you later, then.”
He then clapped her firmly on one side of her firm little ass. Lisa slammed the door so hard it made both the door and the floor under him quiver violently.
“Mmm… I think she likes me.”
Intermission: Why They Call Him "The Molester"...
As Albert Wesker navigated the warped passages below the mansion with gun drawn, he shook his head slightly in exasperation. Well, so much for his plans. At least, though, most of the S.T.A.R.S. seemed to be dead in one way or another.
He was still dwelling on that when he noticed that he’d stepped into something wet and sticky; a black tendril of ink that almost seemed living, he saw when he looked down. The hall was filling with them.
“Hmm?
Wesker watched as the strange substance began to mass together in front of him, taking shape. Soon a small figure was formed and, with a dark chuckle, took on the features of a young girl with eerie blue eyes, skin nearly as white as a corpse, and hair dripping with that ink.
“Sunglasses,” she observed with a smirk, “I know you. You’re with those lab bastards.”
Somewhat confused about how this girl would know that, Wesker nodded. “I am. And just who are you?”
Her grin grew larger and she picked up a massive knife from the floor as it materialized to brandish it.
“Oh? You don’t recognize me?”
He studied her carefully, looking her up and down, until his gaze rested on her chest.
“Hey!” she cried out in indignation.
Of course! I never forget a pair of boobs!
He smirked. “My my, Lisa Trevor.”
The incarnation of Lisa’s eyes narrowed in anger. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, I am. I’ve got some business with you, too,” she growled menacingly.
Wesker sighed. “Well, Lisa, I’ve got business with you, too… But unfortunately I don’t have time to play right now. If you know what I mean.”
She stood utterly still in place, her mouth slightly agape.
“What…?!”
He chuckled once. “I know, I know. Disappointing, right? Sorry, dear, but I’d better get moving.”
With a tremendous wham, she slammed down the knife.
“Who the hell are you calling ‘dear’?! I am god here and you’d even think about saying something like that?!”
“God? Hmm. I’ll admit that you do have a few heavenly… aspects.”
Lisa shrieked in fury, accompanied by the sound of wrenching metal somewhere. Wesker raised an eyebrow and surveyed her while she fumed wordlessly for a few moments. Finally, he took a step towards her.
“I want your body.”
She raised her weapon high over her head. “Why don’t you repeat that again?”
“Well why don’t you… give it to me?”
“You… you… PERVERT! I’m going to… Argh!”
With that she swung the blade out at him with an incredible amount of strength. Wesker easily rolled to the side, out of harm’s way.
“Feisty, aren’t you? That’s great…” He grinned. “I just love a crazy girl.”
He reached for his belt and retrieved a pair of cuffs, holding them up for her to see.
“Now, why don’t you put these on? I always did think they looked hot on you.”
Lisa scowled. “You,” she said, pointing at him, “You’re even more sick and twisted than I am! I have never seen a bigger creep than you! And trust me, I have seen creeps! You know what?” she continued, turning her back, “I’m getting out of here. I don’t even feel like killing you anymore.”
“Are you going to… stalk me?”
She howled again and headed for the nearest door. Wesker followed until he was directly behind her.
“Guess I’ll be seeing you later, then.”
He then clapped her firmly on one side of her firm little ass. Lisa slammed the door so hard it made both the door and the floor under him quiver violently.
“Mmm… I think she likes me.”