Chapter Text
The stench of decay blanketed the air – Heavy and metallic, hanging thick in your lungs, choking you. It clung to everything, the walls, the tiles, your hair, it seeped into your clothes like blood. You had to fight not to hurl your guts up all over the corridor of the abandoned lab you found yourself in, heartbeat thumping in your ears with each step echoing in the otherwise silent building. The fluorescent lights above you flickered every few seconds, creating a faint electric buzz, barely illuminating the carnage before you.
Bodies. Dozens of them. They were strewn across the floor like discarded toys, some twisted in grotesque shapes, others sliced in half at the waist, leaving a trail of guts from where they must have been picked up and THROWN. Others were only recognisable as piles of limbs – An arm here, a leg over there. You swallowed down the bile rising in your throat. Their sickly skin was flecked with black lines. The signs of infection coursing through their veins.
Something shifted in the corner of your vision, and you startled at the finger twitching on the dismembered hand a foot away from you. Your heart pounded, whatever killed all these guys must have come through recently. The carnage was still fresh, and the red blood painting the hallway told you they were human when they died.
You halted.
That meant they were yet to be reanimated.
You sucked in a breath, held it there, and glanced around, checking for any other signs of movement. If they were freshly infected it wouldn’t be long before they all come back, and you didn’t want to be here when that happened and be caught in a building filled with dozens of zombies with no windows and minimal doors to escape through.
You stepped over one of the bodies, boots slick with blood, and almost slipped. Your breath caught in your throat as you threw your arms out to steady yourself. You paused again, glancing at the body beneath you. After a few seconds with no signs of movement, you closed your eyes, releasing the breath you’d been holding, your stomach twisting with nausea.
You had to leave, had to get out of this corridor. You were going to vomit.
How had it come to this?
You had come here in search of answers – hoping someone here could give you answers to the questions everyone in B.S.A.A had, what had happened? What was this virus? And why was the city, your home, destroyed because of it? Rumors amongst B.S.A.A agents about a viral experiment gone wrong spread like wildfire. And the culprit? The Umbrella Corporation. It was the only entity that made sense as to who might be behind this. The corporation's mass success in microbiological research and medical breakthroughs years ahead in advancement to any other company in the world had left many questioning the source of all its success and what might be going on behind closed doors, but nothing had ever happened before. Not until now.
That’s why you came here, to one of Umbrella’s facilities. You needed to see for yourself. You needed to get answers. You needed to see what you were up against. Most of all, you needed to confront the man behind it all. Albert Wesker, Chris had told you. You were going to find him, and you were going to make him pay for your loss. But you had GREATLY underestimated the danger. Clearly.
Your gloved fingers clench tightly around the gun in your hand, using the cool bite of the metal to ground you as you force yourself onward. The smell of death still burning your nose with each inhale. Everything about this place reeked of dark secrets, pain and corruption.
A sound reaches your ears. Faint, but it was there – A wet shuffle from behind the next doorway down the corridor.
Your heart skipped a beat as you creep closer, breath shallow, ears straining to pick up any sound, fear falling off you in waves. The door was ajar, just enough for you to see the subtle movement of a shadow from within. Something makes you hesitate as your fingers tighten around your gun, and you move to click off the safety. Your pulse pounded in your ears, and you cursed your breathing for being so loud in the silence. It was at this moment you truly understood what all those wildlife documentaries meant it would be like to be caught in a forest with a predator nearby.
Quietly, carefully, you push open the door.
The lab inside lay in ruins. Shattered glass blanketed the floor, leaving no space for clean tile. Equipment smashed and overturned around the entire room, broken test tubes leaking all sorts of colourful liquids and you found yourself hoping to god it wasn’t something that could affect you through vapour. But that wasn’t what caught your attention.
In the center of the room stood a single, untouched cylindrical containment pod that was so large it could fit a seven-foot man inside. Unlike its surrounding environment, the pod was pristine and untouched, almost as if it had been deliberately left undisturbed. That fact alone made a chill run down your spine. Whatever had attacked this place had enough sense to leave this alone.
Inside the pod, something writhed – An unnatural mass of twisted flesh and bone, barely recognisable as a human.
You took a slow step towards it and it spasmed, tentacles bursting from its spine, flailing wildly in its containment, as if it sensed you there and wanted out of its prison. The flailing of tentacles slowed, and they began slowly feeling around the glass, travelling over every inch, as if looking for weakness in its confines. Black veins pulsed beneath its grotesque skin. The virus moved through its body, and your eyes widened in realisation.
“So, the rumours were true” You whispered to yourself. Umbrella was experimenting with a virus. They made this monster, this THING, and somehow there had been a breach in their biosecurity.
You hurried to take a step back, whirled around and ran to a corner. The vomit you’d done so well holding back rose in your throat and spilled all over the floor. This continued until you had nothing left and sat there heaving.
When you finally stood, you looked back to the pod and froze. The creature’s eyes were open and staring at you, bloodshot and glowing a dangerous red. It let out a guttural, animalistic screech, muffled by the fluid in the tank, but enough to rattle the glass, vibrating deep within your bones.
Its tentacles began moving again, but instead of searching they focused on a single spot at the bottom where the glass met the seal. You watched in terror as a single bubble rose from that spot.
Suddenly, the pod cracked with a snap, splintering under the pressure and shattering completely, shards of glass raining down with the rush of the tank's fluid, knocking you off your feet, shredding your skin all over and the creatures spilled out with a screech.
With a pained yelp, you pushed up onto your hands just in time to see the creature rise to its feet, its grotesque limbs twitching, tentacles writhing as it settled its gaze on you.
You didn’t even have a moment to scream.
It lunged at you.
Reflexes kicking in, you rolled to the side, the pain from your sliced skin forgotten as you shot to your feet, gun raised, and fired – once, twice – each bullet hitting its mark. The creature shrieked in pain, but the bullets did nothing to slow it down. Its tentacles shot towards you, faster than you could ever react. One of them wrapped around your hand holding the gun, the slimy appendage was ice-cold as it tightened its grip, crushing the bones in your wrist. You screamed and dropped the gun as its tentacle yanked you towards it.
Your vision blurred, panic overwhelming every one of your senses as you tried to pull free.
Another tentacle lashed out, wrapping around your other wrist and pulling, stretching your arms out to your sides with a bone-crushing force.
Agony.
Blinding agony as your muscles tore from its grip, wrenching an ear-splitting scream from your lungs so loud the creature flinched. This was it, you were going to die here, in this mess of a facility, with no one around to find your body except for the dead that would soon rise out in the hallway.
The creature shook its head, a clawed finger scratching at its ears, and you seized this moment to use the last of your strength to flex your arms. What little muscle was still attached seared in pain as you used the tentacles around your wrists to pull yourself up, lifting your legs and kicking it in the face. Hard.
The creature stumbled back with a shriek, hands raising to clutch its face, its tentacles releasing their hold on you and you fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
Gritting your teeth, you used what little strength you had to surge upwards, your arms screaming in protest as you stood and threw yourself into the door, shoving it open and stumbling out into the hallway.
A groan came from your left, deep and guttural, and ungodly close, too close. You glanced up just in time to jump out of the way of a zombie lunging at you. Its gnarled fingers graze your shoulder.
It stumbled before straightening and turning back to face you again, its neck turning with a crack that human vertebrae shouldn’t make.
You look at it with wide eyes, your nostrils flaring as you take deep shuddering breaths.
Other moans came from around you, and you spun, taking in the dozens of zombies surrounding you. The scientists, all the bodies that had been strewn out dead mere minutes ago now walked towards you, arms clawing at the air, grasping towards you, their mouths open as wide as possible, teeth ready to sink into your flesh.
You look around the corridor for a way out but find nothing. The windowless design with minimal exits meant to keep this facility safe now made it a death trap!
An angry bellow vibrates through the walls around you before the creature explodes through the wall, ignoring the open doorway completely.
You waste no time. Spinning on your heel, you shove the zombies with all your strength, pushing past them, potential bite be damned. You would rather risk being bitten than being torn apart.
The zombie fell backwards, still grasping for you as if gravity meant nothing.
There!
A window in the group. Wasting no time, you sprint for the gap between the hoard. Past the first group of zombies, then the second, they were too slow and unable to predict where you were going, mindlessly following you.
A sharp pain stabs into your calf, wrenching a scream from you as you tumble to the ground. A snarl reaches your ears and you look over your shoulder to see the creature stepping towards you, the tip of its tentacle sharp and pointed buried in your leg, covered in thick, bony armour that hadn’t been there before.
The zombies all converged on you. All coming within inches of taking a bite from you, you squeezed your eyes shut, preparing for the horrible and painful way your life was about to end.
A gush of wind, followed by a loud ‘smack!’ The sound of flesh smacking across flesh and the thudding of bodies hitting something solid. You opened your eyes, sucking in a breath you hadn’t realised you’d been holding. The creature had used one of its tentacles to shove all the zombies out of the way, cutting through them and splattering them on the walls like they were nothing.
You met its blood-red eyes as it gazed at you and you used this last moment to truly look at what was about to kill you. It had stood seven feet tall before, but now it was down on all fours and hunching over you, its face elongated into a canine-like snout, and its tentacle appendages coming from its lower spine like tails.
It stooped lower towards you, and you closed your eyes, preparing for the mauling.
Nothing happened.
Hot air gushed against your face, and you squinted your eyes. Was it…Sniffing you?
The creature huffed again, gazing at you with a look in its eyes that seemed almost calculating, and intelligent.
You frowned.
Just as you thought it might decide to leave you alone, the creature chittered and whirled back with hiss before slamming its claws into your side.
Blinding, searing pain erupted from your side as its claws pierced your flesh, lifting you off the ground. The cold, sticky sensation of its bloody claws burrowing into your abdomen drew a raw and guttural scream from you, tearing through the lab, drowned out only by the accompanying roar of the creature as if it too were in pain.
Your blood surged, icy and burning all at once. The creature stopped its howling and ripped its claws from your gut, leaving you to collapse back to the ground in a heaping, bloody mess, gasping for breath as the world spun around you, blinded by pain.
Your vision dimmed. Black spots darkened the edges as your body convulsed, every one of your nerves on fire. The creature yanked its tentacle out of your calf, but you barely had the energy to react, let alone scream at the pain.
With one last bellow, the creature slashed at the last of the zombies and slumped to the ground, lifeless, but the damage had already been done.
Your eyes closed, and everything went black.
You woke to wildfire spreading through your veins. Faster than you could even comprehend what was happening, as though every cell in your body was being torn apart and rebuilt, your DNA rewriting itself in ways that should be impossible. You could FEEL your body changing, warping from the inside out. Your breath came out in shallow, ragged gasps as you fought to stay conscious, your body convulsing with your pain, limbs twitching involuntarily.
Your skin burned as your muscles spasmed and your vision went white from the pain. You clawed along the floor, scraping through the blood streaking the tiles, feeling the porcelain surface giving way to elongating fingernails as you writhed against the onslaught on your body as the virus that THING had worked through you, a destructive force of pure chaos, twisting you being into something... other.
Then, the sensation shifted. Subtly, the pain began to fade, leaving behind a strange, intense heat beneath your skin, leaving a thrumming pulse echoing through your body, along your limbs, into your skull. Your back arched off the ground, your spine contorting as you felt something MOVING violently beneath your skin, traveling down and focusing on your lower back. Something wrong.
You felt a tug in your lower back and you blinked, your vision clearing just enough to see them. Thin, dark tail-like tendrils slither out from your lower back. They stretched and coiled like serpents preparing to strike, twitching and coiling in the cool air, slick with blood and something darker. Your breath hitched, the horror of what had happened settling into your bones as tears welled in your eyes, preparing to fall with the despair for your lost humanity.
You had become one of them.
Whatever that thing did to you, you knew your life would never be the same.
You shuddered, your body fighting against the overwhelming tide of the infection, but it was like holding back a flood with your bare hands. Useless. The virus had taken root, burrowing into your body, your mind, and your very soul, leaving you to drown in its control, clawing at the last shreds of your humanity.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, the lain subsided. Pushed to the edges of your consciousness and replaced by something else. Power. Cold, insidious POWER hummed beneath your skin, feeding on your fear, your anger, your desperation to survive.
You lay there, panting, sweaty and....thirsty. So, so very THIRSTY. Something pricked at your lip, and you stuck out your tongue to feel something pointy in your mouth. You frowned. No. It wasn’t something. It was a tooth. With a hollow gasp, you reach up to press your thumbs against two sharp, elongated canine teeth protruding from your gums.
You cried out, despair splintering your sanity, gripping your mind in a vice as a single terrifying thought settled deep within your consciousness.
You weren’t human anymore.