Chapter Text
The impact of the cold on viruses and germs had long been a subject of debate; although she’d been told for most of her life by relatives and authority figures that being out in the frigid air would render her ill, history had once been saying otherwise; in other times, frozen lands and chill breezes were considered signs of a “healthy climate”.
She’d come quickly to grasp anyhow that nature doesn’t matter in the case of man-made viruses carefully manufactured to toy around with human life.
On that freezing December day, back in Oblein, Alaska, there were a lot of things that Lexi Watts had no choice but to learn, moreso to say unlearn: diseases are indeed not weak to the cold, being dead doesn’t exactly mean you’re dead , and guns never work like they do in the movies.
But probably the most important of all; life is shit, and no one’s coming to help. Even when the screams deafen your brain, when the tears have been all but frozen; when the snow starts eating away at whatever bits of life that are left, she knew what truly being alone felt like. It was the harshest lesson of all, and it became nothing short of proof after two long weeks of brisk, lifeless silence.
The monsters first started appearing on a Tuesday, which in itself may as well mean that life-threatening confined apocalypses can happen at any time. Those months spent in the far North, helping out a modest yet heartfelt community, had initially been a blessing for an adrift soul such as herself; it seemed that her everlasting existential crisis was, too, allergic to the cold. But it all rapidly turned into a nightmare; what was once neverending weeks of tiresome work became vivid hours felt through the lens of adrenaline and terror, and suddenly survival was the only thing on her mind.
Being attacked by cannibalistic humanoids shaped in the form of your former friends usually does that to your head. A few seconds after the initial shock, it twists the gears of your brain, crushing then bending them in a way that ensures they will never be the same again. It changes you, haunts you, and keeps you on your toes for whatever’s left of your life. But the initial shock doesn’t. No one even dreams of such scenarios ever happening to themselves; and thus, there was no way of knowing that her body’s first reaction would be to freeze .
The following seconds taught her the first lesson of many: don’t freeze. Actually, don’t ever stop moving at all. Every moment spent on your two feet threatens your existence; ever since those weeks of December 2001, Lexi had never once betrayed that mindset of hers and had since always been moving.
Well, to be painfully honest, it’s not like she had much of a choice.
After being rescued by villagers from the neighbouring hamlet two weeks after the onset incident, every single mention of Oblein was forever expunged from the maps. From what she’d heard, it became a ghost town and had probably been emptied while nobody was looking. No news coverage, no testimonies, no nothing; just a whole deal of silence extirpated from a living hell from which she was the sole witness.
It was to be expected, however, that such secrecy did not mean that no one was aware of it. Lexi wasn’t stupid; it only made sense that someone, somewhere, knew about this. People being transfigured into man-eating monsters would not simply go unnoticed, and disclosing that she had been there and lived to tell the tale would only throw her into a blender of conspiracies and government bullshit that she was not prepared to endure. She was terrified, of course; and she had every right to be.
It took them what she assumed to be a few months to trace her. On a Tuesday morning (decidedly, her life had a knack for going to shit on this specific day of the week), she was accosted by a man in a suit. Which was a red flag in itself, considering that she was lazily lounging in a cafe after one of her classes in a college program which she did not care very much for yet had still enrolled herself into out of a desire for normalcy. Nothing had ever really been normal since that time, and she was still dealing with the aftermath, the nightmares and all, in utter silence. She would wake up screaming, doubtlessly waking whoever was near, and hours passed before she could fall asleep through the tears. She flinched at the slightest noise, jumped at any sudden motions, and trembled at the mere idea of being alone with herself.
Needless to say, she was vulnerable, and whoever was sitting across the table from her knew this.
She came to learn of the cause of her neverending torments; Umbrella, the once renowned pharmaceutical company now on the brink of bankruptcy, had been operating a small manufactory in Oblein back in the days. Lexi had known about it; initially opened to offer new jobs to the impoverished villagers, the recent layoffs following the company’s slow but inevitable downfall had led to tensions and hardships in the little town, which was the reason she was offered a job there in the first place. The nearly abandoned factory had been the cause of a substance leak, a virus, which they had then been testing on the workers unbeknown to them for all these years.
The pathogen, dubbed the “T-Virus”, would cause disease to appear in most patients. It would mutate their cells and enhance their survival capacities; however, their brain would be permanently damaged, leading them to attack and lunge at everything in their vicinity, often cannibalizing their unsuspecting victims and thus infecting them as well. Oblein had been the scene of such an epidemic, which was forcefully contained before it could spiral out of control but not before leaving out at least one surviving witness. Although years had come to pass since that conversation, Lexi would always remember getting sick to her stomach upon hearing those words.
The man introduced himself as an agent of the British government; and although he’d felt disconnected from the rest of the conversation, almost as if he was rehearsing a text he long practiced, his gaze suddenly turned dark. He told her the following plainly: a lot of people knew about Oblein. And not necessarily the people she would ever entertain the idea of meeting: influential individuals, some of whom were involved in what had taken place and would take great pleasure in extirpating her secrets through the barrel of a gun.
Agents from the United States are after you, he told her. And he was here to offer her a choice. He didn’t have to talk for very long, however, because the next day she was already back home, packing. Twenty-four hours later and she was on a plane for London.
In retrospect, if she had known what had been awaiting her across the Atlantic, she would have let him keep talking.
[∆∆∆]
OCT 15TH, 2004
SPAIN
13:37
As far as anyone was aware, Lexi Watts had always been unwavering. Sure, she was capable of skepticism, and would never hesitate to snap back in the face of disagreement. She’d been reprimanded multiple times for her temper, her mood swings, and her debilitating inability at listening to her superiors without biting back; nevertheless, everyone knew her as capable, confident, and determined.
In reality, however, Lexi Watts was nothing short of terrified.
Who the fuck ever approved of her being sent out on a mission anyway? Sure, she exuded confidence, which was less of a truth and more of a facade she had built for herself through the years as a way to dodge the irritating questions and the pitied looks; she had passed all the shooting examinations, was physically capable of carrying an objective to resolution, and spent the last year and a half training for this exact moment. On paper indeed, she was ready.
But when her foot landed on the dirt path leading to an isolated village in the middle of buttfuck nowhere, her gut feeling was quick to tell her that she never should have stepped into that car in the first place. This journey, the whole mission was a bad idea, a train crash waiting to happen; Lexi knew she should have refused the gig from the get-go.
The driver’s car door slammed shut. The man, now outside, presumably noticed her hesitation and let out a scoff as he settled his back against the vehicle.
“What now?” His bemused smirk did not go unnoticed as Lexi shifted her head towards the brunet to her side. “Got cold feet, boss?”
He had hissed the last word with discernible annoyance, which again was not much of a surprise to her. She’d been assigned two other agents, Thompson and Matthews, both of whom were in fact more brawn than brain: plenty of combat experience and on-hand tactical training, which Lexi had to admit she lacked severely. Still, she was the one with the knowledge; it was impossible to know more about B.O.W.s and how to take them down than someone who had been through that hell already. It was following such a logic that led to her being appointed with the responsibility of leading the team. She wasn’t thrilled at all, yet still had seemingly managed to land on the only other person on Earth who wanted to be here even less. Lady luck had never really been on her side anyway.
Matthews sustained her irritated gaze without ever breaking eye contact, and a smirk drew itself at the corner of his lips. “You’re not killing anyone with those eyes, princess.” he slurred. “Even if HQ seems to think otherwise.”
“Matthews, knock it off!” another voice, lighter this time, echoed from the other side of the car. Thompson’s bleached hair poked over the roof, moving at a pace similar to those of the steps echoing against the gravel until he eventually came to stand in front of them. “We’re not paid for standing around and banter like children.”
“Yeah, well we’re not paid to do babysitting either!”
“I-”
Before either of the men could interject with anything else, the last car door was slammed shut with brute force, imposing a grim silence that Lexi planned to take advantage of.
“I’ll make myself very clear, just this once.” her words were slow; if a glare could spew off daggers, Lexi’s would’ve spat flames. “You two are here because HQ deemed it necessary. Personally? I don’t give a shit. You might as well get off my back now and drive off.” Along with a brief pause, she sneered, her eyes settled on Matthews who was now staring back at her with furrowed brows and flared nostrils. “I get it if you’re scared.” Was it weird that she was enjoying this? “You have no fucking idea what we’re about to meet out here. I do; that’s why I’m in charge. If you have a problem with that, I will politely invite you to fucking leave and go back to the office.”
Well, it was a bit of a lie; Lexi had, too, no fucking idea of what could be causing such a ruckus in the furthest point away from modern civilization in the entirety of Spain. The report was very brief, mentioning a few accounts from witnesses that bore striking similarities to the horrors she had gone through in Oblein. Nothing had quite been confirmed yet, but the risk was too considerable for anyone to ignore. Following a thought process she hadn’t quite been able to elucidate so far, it dawned on her that she was to be sent on the field as if she wasn’t one dead body away from a severe mental breakdown. But hey, she’d lost the right to refuse years ago, and now here she was, shouting at a man armed to the teeth (her colleague too, not that it changed anything) as if she wasn’t quaking in her boots from the anxiety of having to face anything close to what she had already been through.
In any case, Matthews did not seem to like being yelled at: he seemed positively furious. “Fuck you.” he spat out, only prevented from adding anything else to the already burning wildfire by Thompson’s hand firmly landing on his shoulder. No other word was added, and they all moved away from the car under the heavy weight of silence.
For a few meters at the very least, until faraway gunshots echoed between the trees. Although distant, the noises were discernible enough as to put them all on high alert, their weapons soon out of their holsters. There was no way they’d be able to distinguish the source at such distance, but who knew now what was hidden between the trees?
“So much for going in peacefully.” Thompson sighed, his eyebrows knit together as he scanned the surrounding woodlands.
Squinting her eyes, Lexi could also see the supposed end of the path, leading straight into what seemed to be a bona fide traditional village, with old-fashioned wooden houses alongside stone structures. It was quite arduous to make out any details anyhow, and her gaze soon turned to something else: they’d walked up to a junction in the road, shifting left as to lead to what appeared to be an isolated wooden home. As she stood behind the two agents, Lexi sent confused glances their way, to which only Thompson replied.
He nodded and signed something to Matthews before turning back towards the girl. “We’re going to investigate the village,” he said, and she internally sighed. Of course they’d want to investigate the shots without her. “In the meantime, you should search that house, see if there’s anyone nearby.” his eyes briefly shifted down to her pistol, a Browning Hi-Power revolver that was not an authorized regulated weapon; at least it hadn’t been for nearly thirty years. She was getting ready to protest against his apparent confusion, but he swiftly brushed away the subject despite it brushing his lips. “Be careful. We’ll rejoin in 20 minutes.”
Lexi was well aware that Thompson did not like her any more than Matthews did: he was known for being the best shot of his unit, and she’d heard from one of their fellow agents that Thompson himself had said that going on such a mission was an “undeniable waste of his talents”. Nevertheless, he was smart enough to shut his mouth about it. She could do with shutting up.
Acquiescing along with a single-word response that almost went unheard, her feet led her to the left, alongside this alternate path that seemed in a worse shape than the main one. Nature seemed to have taken over the area, as the weeds ate away most of the dirt and the tree branches had been unkempt for long enough to practically slap her in the face as she walked.
The home was overall isolated, despite the narrow path leading north to what she assumed to be the village as well. Bizarrely enough, the door was wide open, despite there being no apparent activity inside of the structure. But as she was about to step inside to investigate, the sound of muffled steps instantly sent her into high alert: the barrel of her gun was aimed at the road, from which, following a few seconds of repeated sounds, exited a young man, his weapon lifted upwards despite not having spotted her yet.
His ashen bangs covered most of his upper head, making it difficult to discern anything of his face as he moved, but his quite obviously expensive leather bomber jacket was enough of an unusual sight for it to be noticed. She did not have the time to analyze anything more, however; eventually spotting her form as well as the edge of a gun pointed at his face, the man was quick to reflect the movement.
There was a blunt silence, which turned out to be quite short-lived. "You're not from around here," he eventually told her. It wasn't a question.
Lexi shook her head vehemently, lowering her weapon away from what was quite obviously a living human. "I'm not," she confirmed, and her brows knitted together as he shifted his gun in turn. "What's going on here? I heard gunshots up north."
The man seemed hesitant, emotions battling at the back of his eyes before opening his mouth once more. "No time to waste." his eyes momentarily lingered on the front door, still very much open. "Follow me."
The following seconds would have Lexi go back in time for a split second; as if she was staring at herself through blurred glass, her screams unable to reach her other self on the opposite side. She's a witness to it all: the shaky eyes, the rushed breaths; the hurried flick of hands as to lock the door in the steadiest way possible—the raw smell of gunpowder and rotten flesh.
She was keenly aware of how it all felt because she had been there once.
[∆∆∆]
DEC 8TH, 2002
OBLEIN, ALASKA
14:54
Shit shit shit. What the fuck. What the actual fuck was happening?
Those rhetorical questions, interlaced with swear words and shocked exclamations, were the only things looping through her brain as her left hand went for the double lock on the top of her front door. The erratic pounding on the other side was getting rowdier, accompanied by the groans and whines of who were once her colleagues and fellow villagers; they’d all seemed to have lost their mind at the same time and were now roaming around, biting and chewing on whoever was left sane enough to run away. In front of such an incomprehensible disaster, Lexi had been lucky. The luckiest, in fact: she could not recall seeing anyone else still running away before she slammed the door shut.
The first sign of it all was odd in itself: her decision to exit the house that day had been met by nothing but deafening silence. There was no one around to greet, no vehicles driving by; almost as if all signs of life had been dissolved only to leave behind empty walls and the frigid mist. It was at that moment that something in her gut constricted: this didn’t feel normal.
The gut feeling was confirmed a few mere seconds following her first steps on the snowy ground, as a man rushed out from the corner of the street, panting loudly. His clothes, which seemed to have once been jean overalls and a grey shirt, appeared to have been torn to shreds, the distinctive cuts and gaps now covered in a crimson substance that only resembled blood. He had no winter coat on, a precarious decision to take at such a time of the year, and the confusion only heightened as she recognized the face of a man who currently was her neighbour. Lewis, she could at least recall his name.
She’d called out to him but received no vocal response; the arching of his brows was enough of an answer as his trajectory shifted, allowing her eyes to land on the gaping wound on the right of his neck. Oozing blood down to his tattered clothes, the frayed skin did leave a lot to interpretation; it did, however, kind of look like a bite mark. A bear attack was her initial thought: those weren’t exactly rare at this time of the year.
His gaze spoke for his profoundly alarmed state and his stance conveyed panic and terror; nevertheless, he seemed somewhat lucid, at least at first. Upon asking what in the hell was going on, his answer was all jumbled and confused, the gist of it being that the villagers were turning into monsters, that they were infecting everyone else, and that he was about to live through a similar fate. A few seconds went by, housing Lexi’s obvious bewilderment, and he started coughing and hacking, eventually tumbling to the ground in a pool of melted snow, dirt and blood.
As if that particular minute hadn’t already been going fast enough, his trembling hand shuffled into his overalls pocket before extirpating a gun, a small silvery pistol, and flinging it onto her lap. “It’s too late for me.” he’d said. When he asked her to put the barrel to his head, she vehemently shook her head in horror, firmly believing she could never comply with such an order.
It was only mere moments later, when some of the other villagers started peaking out from around the corner, that the sense of urgency started settling in: gray skin, bloodied clothing, and mangled, torn-apart faces were such a disturbing sight that Lexi briefly believed she was about to pass out, right here in the snow. Such a scene sent panic waves directly to her brain, shaking and quaking as if her entire world was crumbling; nevertheless, the only thing keeping her at the very least responsive was the man’s excruciating coughing at the side.
In the end, he’d guided her fingers on the trigger as tears flooded her vision, her breath hitching at the back of her throat. And as the weapon went off, the ringing in her ears remained lesser than the one inside her brain.
In the end, she had no idea how long she'd remained in the snow, kneeling next to the corpse of a once-trusted friend. It was probably less than a minute, although it felt like full, endless hours. Her fingertips numbed in the glacial breeze, and so did her face under the frozen tears and falling snowflakes. Eventually, however, adrenaline did kick in; she could not recall why and how she had gotten back inside her house, only relishing upon that fact once she had locked the door three times and collapsed on the doorstep.
This wasn't real. This couldn't be real. She'd pinched herself through her coat, many times over until she did not even feel pain anymore. Her chest tightened, struggling to breathe with air barely entering her lungs as she tried to prevent herself from vomiting out of shock. How could one even begin to understand what was happening when it felt like the entire world was crumbling down?
As she curled up against the floor, her left arm covering her ear as to muzzle away the cries and whines of those monsters outside, her other hand fastened around the handle of the small pistol, remaining in an aiming position as if something was about to appear out of the empty void that was the rest of her house. Her finger twitched over the trigger; the tears, however, didn’t stop streaming down.