Chapter Text
His name was Chris Redfield. At least, that’s what everyone called him. The name felt like poison to him, a subtle reminder of who he was supposed to be. The mirror taunted him, voiding any recognition he had of his reflection. Maybe it wasn't the mirror's fault at all, but rather his own self identity. He hadn’t seen the man connecting eye-contact as just a flipped version of himself for years. He eventually broke eye contact with himself after what felt like hours, finally blinking. He didn’t realise he was having a staring contest with himself until his tear ducts ejected enough tears to fill a glass, subsequently refreshing his blue eyes. Weren’t they brown before? When did they change colour? Chris shook his head, removing one of his hands from the counter to wipe his eyes with his arm, irritating the fragile optics. The already annoyed male got more frustrated, letting out a splur of assorted cuss words as he tried to make the tears go away. He wasn’t even crying, let alone feeling sad. This was bullshit!
"Captain." Of course... Chris took a deep breath, glaring at the subordinate at his door. What was his name again? He had been working with the man for years. In fact, he considered himself quite close with this particular man. So, what was his name? Perry? Peter? pee.... puh puh puh...
"What." Chris' tone came off significantly more aggressive than he intended, slightly startling the younger soldier.
"I was coming to make sure you hadn't killed yourself in the bathroom. You've been in here for hours. Hurry the fuck up. The rest of the team is waiting and HQ is getting impatient. Have you not heard them ripping our ears off through your radio?" The man, Pirate, Porter, Paul, who was significantly more fit to be a Captain than Chris ever was, snapped. He was properly geared up in armour and an assault rifle hugged to his chest. Meanwhile, Chris was still in nothing but a black shirt with a random company graphic, and aged, white underwear. Chris inhaled deeply, looking aside to his radio on the counter. It was, in fact, spewing angered voices. He had specifically put it on the counter so he could hear when people were trying to get his attention, yet somehow his secluded pity party managed to muffle his ability to hear. He remained quiet, leaning back from the counter to stare blankly ahead for a moment, his arms dangling with a soft sway. "Are you getting flashbacks again?"
"No. I'm fine. Just give me another few minutes, I'm almost done... Piers." That was his name, right? Chris moved to leave his suite, but was stopped with a firm hand to his sternum. "Chris. It’s been months now, and you haven’t improved even a little since that one mission. What happened? You're not talking to me, you won't talk to the team counsellor, and I have to fight you to get you to the doctor most of the time. Hell, you’re not even eating anymore. I'm starting to get worried. What's wrong? What’s going on in that thick skull of yours?"
“It’s nothing! Let me get dressed, we’re already running behind.” Chris snapped, shoving Piers out of the way so he could get past. He crouched down, gathering his belongings from the floor, and got to work to dress appropriately for the mission. Piers watched with a sense of disbelief, then shook his head, continuing to stare and wait for Chris to hurry up.
It took around 10 or 15 minutes of tense silence for Chris to get ready, walking out from his room with his usual stern glare with his loyal companion following close behind. Chris approached the designated meeting area, his usual stoic glare masking his emotions as he glanced at all of his team members, doing a quick head-count. He nods, walking through the group to take the lead as he walks out of the building, expecting the others to follow suit. Everyone took a second, baffled at how their captain was hours late to the mission, yet acted like he was the one waiting for all of them. Nonetheless, everyone quickly picked up their feet and followed close behind to head for their mission.
The building wasn’t the shortest walk in the world, but was close enough that with a firm jog they could arrive within the hour. Chris was quick to begin ordering formations and setting a plan into place. Split the team into 3 equal groups, use all different entry points, clear the floor then go down. The main reason they were there in the first place was to see if a supposed secret lab was in the process of making bioweapons. Chris, Piers, and some rookies named Hans and Charlie arrived at the south entrance, waiting until they heard confirmation from the other two groups of being ready. During the wait, Piers made subtle nudges to try and get an understanding on what was going through Chris’ head. Chris only glared at the younger, shrugging him off and even stepping away to create distance. This only made Piers more suspicious, but if Chris wouldn’t talk while they were alone, he sure as hell wouldn’t talk with first-mission-rookies within earshot.
It didn’t take long for the third team to finally pipe up through their radios “Ready”. As soon as Chris processed the words, he was quick to signal Hans to the door to plant small explosives to make kicking the door open easier, followed by mumbling militaristic code into the speaker that roughly translated to “Move Forward”. Like a soft wave of fireworks popping at different times, the sound of explosives reflecting off metal doors was sound. Each small group kicked open their respective doors and moved into the building. Chris took the lead of his group, as usual, scanning the room and poking around corners. He didn’t hesitate to poke his gun into every nook and cranny of what looked like an office room. He wanted to be sure that there were no mutants or BOW in sight. The group continued on, spreading out in a room, then sticking together the minute they had to leave the room. This pattern continued for around 5 minutes until reaching one particular room. The room itself was innocent, a messy hallway with paper everywhere and fake plants every couple of feet along the wall. Chris stared at the artwork on the wall before getting startled by a soft whistle heard from Charlie, causing Chris to snap his attention to the boy, nearly giving himself whiplash in the process. Charlie weakly signalled for Chris to come over, looking horrified as he stared into a doorway of an adjacent room. Chris didn’t want to know what Charlie was looking at, but he also really needed leads for the mission. He took a deep breath and approached, pressing against the wall, then peaked inside.
He felt his heart drop to his gut. A sight he had seen time and time again, but never fails to make him want to donate his stomach acid to the floor: a corpse, so mangled and visorated that the only information you could recover from the unfortunate soul was that they were most likely human. But that wasn’t what made him upset. The part that made him revolted was the secondary humanoid figure curled over the corpse, sinking its mangled teeth into the corpse’s flesh, tearing muscle and breaking bones just to get to more disgustingly delightful flesh. The rookie was frozen in place, holding up a weak hand to the sight, unsure to scream, cry, pass out, or try and push forward. Chris reached out, firmly placing his hand on Charlie’s shoulder to snap him out of the daze he found himself in. He whistles out in a sort of code to catch the attention of the other two of the team, then lifts up his gun and carefully aims.
A deep breath in, tensing his hand to pull down the trigger of his gun, deep breath out, and the animated corpse was back on the ground away from the corpse. The sound of gunshots didn’t startle him anymore. A gun, no matter how big or small, pointed at him or someone else, was no longer seen as threatening. At times it felt like he didn’t even hear the shots. He was quick to stand up, signalling to the others to enter the room with high alert. Chris followed his own command, grabbing the animated corpse and not hesitating to even check its living status as he slammed it against the wall, crushing its skull between the wall and his hand with impressive strength. The remade corpse began to sizzle, melting in a pile of disgusting mush, in turn signalling its departure from the living world. Chris huffed, glancing at the fresh corpse that had been turned into a feast. He no longer felt disgust in the situation, but rather felt disgust in himself. The mangled corpse looked appetising, a sense of internalised jealousy that such a disgusting creature was able to enjoy such a beautiful feast, forever tainting it. Chris shook his head, walking to the corpse and crouching down to look for an ID. Piers looked just as revolted, but for a different, more logical reason.
“Fucking hell. I feel like these BOWs just find new ways to make a corpse look worse than a roadkill carcass…” Piers commented, gagging slightly as he glanced away. The other two nodded with disturbed agreement. Chris didn’t comment, focusing on finding… Something. What was he looking for again?
His hands picked up chunks of meat, relocating them and moving around the tattered fabric of what looked like a button up and dress pants. The corpse was warm, inviting. He picked up a few more chunks of meat, his mouth salivating as the strong scent of blood violated his senses. His stomach churned, when was the last time he had eaten? It had to have been over a month by now… He tried eating dinner the other day at least, but it didn’t make it far before he had to excuse himself to the bathroom. Chris quickly shook his head, pulling himself out of his own brain as he dropped the meat and moved to regroup with the others. No one seemed to notice his odd behaviour, too distracted trying to not look at the graphic scene. Chris sighed in relief, then grunted to catch his team’s attention.
“Did you find an ID?” Piers asked, side-eyeing the disturbed corpse every so often. Chris shook his head, a look of disappointment in his own eyes. Piers showed an expression of sorrow, a sense of pity that the unknown corpse, at the current moment, wouldn’t be able to be identified and brought to its family. Chris didn’t share the same rhetoric, too distracted by other thoughts. He needed to get out of this room before the smell drove him insane.
“Let’s go.” Chris walked ahead, assuming his team would follow behind.
It didn’t take long for one of the other subgroups to find the stairs that descended to the lower levels of the building. The response to finding said exit didn’t impress Chris, however. He was promptly informed that one from the team had run ahead and went down the stairs without the rest of the team. The main concern was quick to shift from the main mission to the idiotic soldier’s living statues due to perpetual radio silence from said soldier. Chris cussed upon finding this information, approaching the entrance to the stairs. He stared down the seemingly endless stairway, feeling the wall twist around him. He held his breath for a moment, stepping to the side and signalling for everyone to move forward. This time, he stayed behind, following the group rather than leading it. He was anxious to move forward because he could smell how awful this mission would be. He thought that corpse was bad, but it was nothing compared to the hell that was implied at the bottom of these stairs. He hated how well his nose worked.
He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself, taking a cautious step down the stairs, but choked as the scent overwhelmed him, almost causing him to hurl. He was repulsed by his desires, yet so badly wanted to indulge. He was so hungry, it was driving him insane. Nothing would satisfy the hunger. Prepped food wasn’t working, junk food wasn’t working, milkshakes and smoothies weren’t working. The closest he got was eating a thick, raw steak out of desperation. He wouldn’t lie, it was an amazing flavour. He found satisfaction in sinking his teeth into the lob of meat, ripping it apart like fabric off a beautiful woman. He still remembers feeling the bloody juices of the steak staining his favourite, white shirt, and how much he didn’t care. How much he was just happy to have finally been able to swallow something without spitting it out. Unfortunately, as much as he loved the steak, the raw steak did not agree with him. The lack of proper prep let bacteria thrive, giving him food poisoning for weeks. He frowned at the memory of Piers physically dragging his barely conscious body to the hospital as he vomited and failed to maintain fluids in his body. Even in hospital, he couldn’t keep anything down, and if he somehow managed to, it didn’t stay in his body for long, beelining for the other end. He shuddered at the memory, seeming to forget where he was for a minute. At least his prior appetite was thoroughly ruined.
“Chris! For fuck sake, pay attention!” Piers’ voice sliced through his thoughts like a freshly sharpened knife through paper. He looked around rapidly, realising they were already at the heart of the building, surrounded by hostiles. Piers’ body was flush against his, slamming him out of the way of a mutant with an impressive spit range. He falls to the floor with a thud, Piers landing somewhat on him, somewhat on the floor. Piers was quick to spring back to his feet and begin covering Chris’ so he could recover from his disoriented state. “Get up!”
Chris shook his head, wiping his face with his hand and rubbing his eyes. When did everything suddenly become so violent? He felt like he just skipped an important cutscene. He grunted, standing up and readjusting his stance to hold his gun properly. He began lighting up the place, blowing limbs off mutants and landing a final melee blow while the disgusting creatures were still stunned. Chris sighed deeply, already sweating like a pig as he did a quick overview of the situation. The room was large, making him feel small in comparison. The walls were wealthily decorated with pristine art and design, leaving barely any wallpaper without a prop. However, the floor was covered in fresh and old corpses. Chris cringed, covering his nose and mouth. Explained the putrid smell of death… On the opposite end of the room was an elevator, but it seemed to be locked due to a keycard identification system. He turned 45 degrees to face a different wall of the circular room. Three members of his crew were chasing down a BOW with wings. Of course it had wings. He huffed in annoyance, realising this room was not only decently large in circumference, but also tall. He looked up, noting the height of the room and the details of the ceiling. He returned his attention to the BOW, noticing the lanyard hanging from the BOW which just so happens to also hold a keycard.
“Fucking, of course… Piers! Can you use your sniper to kill the flying BOW?” Chris called across the room for Piers to hear. Despite the distance between them and Chris’ shitty vision, Chris could tell Piers had a look of disappointment and annoyance, as if to say you don’t think I haven’t already been doing that? Chris stared sheepishly, watching as Piers killed off a nearby BOW, a simple grunt, with his Nine-Oh-Nine, then re-equipped his sniper, aiming up carefully and shooting. Chris watched with amazement as the BOW seemed to move with impossible speed, looking as though it had teleported to dodge out of the path of the bullet. It reminded him of something, or rather someone, from his past. He was distracted by the memory of an old friend, or enemy, but quickly shook his head and grew annoyed, looking back to the ceiling to see if he could see something that could either stun or knock down the BOW. 1, 2, 3, 4… 4 unusually designed chandeliers decorated the ceiling, hanging in a mesmerising swirl of art. The flying BOW flew just under them, its wing barely scraping the bottom of the lowest hanging shards. That could work, but he would have to time it just right, and he wasn’t sure if his pistol could reach the ceiling and still have enough strength to knock it down. He glanced over to Piers, and quickly made a run for his companion.
“Piers. I have an idea.” Chris began, grabbing Piers’ shoulder to hold his attention. He pointed at the chandeliers. “Shoot the chandelier down, but time it for when the BOW goes under it. It might not kill the damn thing, but it should tangle itself in the strings. Right?”
“Yes, but there are 12 of us in this room, and we still don’t know where Miles is. The chances of it landing on someone else is lar-”
“They can dodge. It will take a while for that thing to hit the ground. As long as everyone knows the plan, nobody will die. Just do it.” Chris encouraged, leaning into his walkie talkie to spread the plan to the other soldiers. Some were paying attention, others were doing what they could to not kiss their asses goodbye to the wave of grunts slashing and shooting at them. Piers shook his head with a sigh, but decided to go through with it anyway, trusting his captain’s intuition. He ran across the room, stationing himself to prepare for his attack. Chris watched carefully, whistling at his team-members to get out of the way.
Piers takes a deep breath as he holds his sniper to his shoulder, looking through the scope. He takes a minute to find the BOW, following the bat-like creature in his line of sight until he gets a basic understanding of the BOW’s movement patterns. With a sense of confidence, Piers began to count, reaiming to the chandelier the BOW seemed to favour flying under. 1, 2, 3… The sound of his gun releasing a bullet echoed around the room, panging into the concrete ceiling. Piers felt his heart pound, praying his gun had enough power to weaken the structure and let the chandelier fall. The BOW flew around, swinging its body under the weakened chandelier. It didn’t take much for the entire glass light to come crashing down, the BOW trying to move out of the way in time with the same impossible speed from before, but unfortunately couldn’t move far enough for it to matter. The creature panicked as the glass stabbed into its wings. It flailed around, continuing to tangle itself in the strings and glass as it plummeted to the ground.
Chris smiled for the first time in a long while, laughing, proud of his subordinate for successfully taking the shot as he watched the BOW fall. Unfortunately, it took a minute too long for the realisation to hit that he was still too close to the falling chandelier, his instinct finally kicking in to get out of the way as he turned tail and ran to get out of the way. He cussed as his thick legs did everything they could to move him out of the way, even with the realisation that if the BOW with superhuman speed couldn’t get out of the way in time, his human legs sure as hell wouldn't. The chandalier’s first shard made contact with the ground, shattering upon impact, followed by another shard, and another, each trailing closer and closer behind Chris until he eventually tripped, slamming the front of his head into the ground. He yelled out in pain, quickly curling into a ball as he protected the back of his head with his hands, eventually getting crushed under the chandelier with the BOW.
“Captain!” Piers’ voice cut through the air with panic. The air was full of glass shards, making many anxious to even breathe in case the shards got inhaled into their lungs and sliced open the frail balloon. Piers didn’t care, though. He ran into the clouded mess of floating particles, looking for his captain, looking for Chris. The air slowly cleared up as the glass settled on the ground. Piers found the BOW corpse first, still alive. He snarled in disgust, pulling out his Nine-oh-Nine without a second thought, blowing its brains out on his second breath. The creature began to sizzle into mush, allowing Piers to easily retrieve the Identification Card they were hunting down in the first place. He pocketed the small card and shifted his focus to find the captain.
He struggled to see through the thick clouds of dust, and his constant movements weren’t helping. Piers felt his heart sinking the more he couldn’t find Chris’ body. Even just a stream of blood to point him out would be better than nothing at all. Piers felt himself becoming irrational, screaming for Chris to answer until his peripheral vision caught sight of a moving shadow. Piers didn’t hesitate to bolt to the silhouette. As he thought, it was Chris, barely hanging on.
“Captain! Don’t move, I got you.” Piers ran to Chris, tucking himself under Chris’ arm to help the man walk. Chris was heavily injured. It was a miracle he was alive. His body armour did what it could to protect his body, but that didn’t change the fact that the captain stupidly refused to wear head-gear. It wasn’t like Piers was any better, but at least he wasn’t sitting on Death’s doorstep. Piers quickly moved to where the rest of the group resided, sitting Chris against the wall. The man was barely coherent, he didn’t look like he even knew where he was. “Captain? Can you hear me? Come on, speak to me. Shit, you’re bleeding so much…”
Chris felt a dry cloth get pressed to his head, causing him to hiss. He blinked a few times, staring around. What just happened? His mind drew up blank. He heard talking, he heard a familiar voice. He tried to focus on the sound of talking, on the familiar voice, trying to ground himself as his mind went haywire.
“What’s going on?” Chris finally spoke, blinking carefully as he tried to recognize what was going on with him. His memory wobbled, barely making sense of shapes or faces. Who were these people?
“You were under the chandelier when it fell. You idiot! What were you doing under there?” A man younger than Chris snapped, holding Chris’ face while dabbing away the blood dripping from his forehead with a cloth.
“Oh, uh… But, what’s going on?”
“What? I just told you! You got crushed by a fucking glass chandelier!... Chris, what year is it?”
“Uh…” Chris blinked sheepishly for a minute. “Oh! 2012!”
“Ehh, 2013, but the new year wasn’t that long ago, close enough… Who’s the current president?” Chris stared at the man like he had a second head, blinking and thinking. His mind turned up blank.
“What’s going on?” Chris decided to ask instead, causing the young man to facepalm.
“He’s concussed.” The younger male groaned, looking frustrated.
“I’m not concussed. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Chris, shut up, let me think for a minute.” The younger male snapped, rubbing the bridge of his nose as he thought up what to do. Chris stared dumbfounded, not understanding what was wrong. “Okay, you and you, stay with Chris and do a basic medical exam, and protect him. Make sure he doesn’t move or run off stupidly. The rest of you, come with me. We’re finding Miles, neutralising any threats, then we’re getting the hell out of here. Come on. Now.”
Chris watched as the man led the group. Was he the leader? Chris stared at the duo assigned to protect him, quirking a brow. The duo glanced at one another and shrugged. One crouched, gently holding Chris’ face while carefully flashing a flashlight near his eyes to test dilation. Chris cringed, trying to pull away. The light felt like staring directly into the fucking sun!
“Hey! Let go of me, you fucker!” Chris snapped, tugging his head away violently. The rapid movement proved to be a bad idea, spiking an intense headache that caused Chris to groan, holding his head with his hand. The duo assigned to look after him whined in worry, holding Chris steady as they continued to check his vitals and injuries while attempting to placate his mood with words of reassurance.
Most of the current felt blurry to Chris. He groaned each time one tried making him do redundant tasks like follow their finger, or state the year over and over again, or to repeat what he was seeing. His vision was a blurred mess, but he didn’t see the problem. Felt no different than when he had just woken up in the morning. However, the duo didn’t quite see the blurriness as the same. One even held their hand over Chris’ eyes to dull the light, which only pissed Chris off more, slapping the limbs away and just putting his hands over his eyes himself as if blocking the sun while outside. Eventually Chris got sick of the constant prodding. There were better things to do! Chris grunted as he stood up, using the wall for balance. One soldier immediately demanded Chris to sit back down while the other placed a firm hand on his shoulder. Chris shrugged the soldier’s hand away, glaring at his subordinates. He took a few steps, looking around the uncomfortably bright room to try and get some sort of memory of where exactly he was. Unfortunately the bright lights of the circular room made it very disorienting to understand, causing Chris to feel light on his feet but heavy with his head. He attempted to continue moving away from the duo, but instead tripped over his own boots, colliding with the floor very quickly. He remembers hearing the two gasp in horror before his head smacked against the concrete floor, turning the blurred mess of his eyesight into nothing but pure black.