A.N: Resident Evil belongs to Capcom etc. I don't own, just like to use. This is my first attempt at writing fiction in a LONG time, and actually posting it. I'm looking for a beta who uses YIM- anyone interested drop me an email.

EDIT: This is AU obviously, since the whole Degen thing soon so just go with it mmkay?

Prologue

There's footsteps down the hall, I'm running desperately to catch those footsteps before someone else does. I call her name, "Sherry! Sherry!" but there's no sound. Not even my voice, but I hear my heartbeat and the echoes of my screams in this place. My boots thump indiscreetly on the wood, somewhere glass shatters; there's hungry moans that I know are erupting but yet they are not. Those invisible cries are threatening to overpower me always.

I come to a hallway, a waiting room with red suede sofa's that match the blood and broken glass on the floor. A terrifyingly dark hallway stretches out before me, I know before looking at it that there's a door boarded up and it's not a good idea to try to go that way. I hardly taken in account of a radio I'm supposed to have received is squawking my name, "Claire! Claire are you there? Do you copy? Over-"

Yes, over. Those footsteps again, light and with purpose reach my ears and I'm off and running again. Weariness is clawing through me much like the hungry moans want to be, I wonder whose sick idea it was at the station to grow herbs instead of leaving pain reliever around; that I'll obviously need for my head after this. I would blame my brother, but he prefers nicotine over herb any day.

Against my better judgment I stop at a sign that says S.T.A.R.S.

I don't need to read the abbreviation explanation underneath to know what it stands for. I know that it's my brothers old office, on days off from college I would visit him when he would do nothing but play guitar,and flirt with officer Valentine. I open the door and try not to feel heartbroken over the fact that I find his jacket, but not him. I guess I've grown used to it, permanent absence. My world flickers in and out, and I know what's about to happen, I think it before I say it.

"Leon!" A handsome, young and terrified man answers with the same vigor, "Claire!"

For a moment I forget the footsteps, and let his warm, strong hand on my shoulder be the pinnacle of the world for me. I've known him in reality for seven years, but really only in our minds for seven hours. His storm wracked blue eyes stare is something I've never forgotten,even in my chase; I remembered it and balked at my stupidity when I left him bleeding in that hallway. So many choices, run, don't run, fight, don't fight. There's an irony later I'll discover about how I mentally order my priorities.

When he leaves, I am bound again to find my chicken far before I've ever laid my egg. My rooster is saving his feathers for another, bigger occasion he'll encounter very soon. This is where things speed up, the desperation and the nonsensical insanity fuel me more than anything undead could ever be jonesing for flesh. Except, there's something different, I don't know why I'm searching for a cure- the person it's intended for has been lost in footsteps and the justifications of my priorities. Tightly, I clutch at a vial of nothingness, and this time, I can hear my words aloud: "Sherry Birkin, where are you?"

The vial drops as a face surfaces to the glass, it's hers, but as it is probably now. She's beautiful, for some reason I don't shiver at the similarities between her father and oddly enough; Alexia. At this, other faces are surfacing to the glass tubes to peer at me with cold, tyrant enhanced eyes. You shouldn't be able to hear words spoken under water, but I can hear whispers from a tube across from Sherry's.

"Claire..." a voice croaks, I don't stop myself from embracing the cold surface, it's not really me trying to hold a naked boy in my arms, who I know is dead. Probably. I'm not listening to him profess his undying, but realistically dead love for me.

A shadow falls over me, seething into my consciousness and familiar gloved hands wrap around my neck.

I'm not even angry as those black, leather gloves squeak in tightening around my windpipe. They're inhumanely graceful; it would almost be erotic if I didn't know the man inside those gloves.

"What do you think Miss Redfield?" His voice purrs inside my skull, and I say without saying.

About what Wesker? God, the devil, man, and you?

"Inside all these tubes incubates several ego's and ambitions, but most of your love and toil. Right Wesker?"

He rubs the pulse that should be beating in hummingbird nature, and without seeing I know he's displeased at how apathetic I am towards the revolving door of our situation.

"Give the girl a break Albert, after awhile your genius turns into the wax built up in our ear canals."

I smell Benedict Arnold, over easy and unfortunately- not cheap in taste. Morals however, yes.

Ada Wong is the true zombie to me, Umbrella could not have done a finer job of enhancing her misanthropic tendencies. Except to me, in this paradigm of memory and foresight she is as my mind demands her to be now. Bandaged, and unfortunately beautiful. I can see why he loves her, Leon; his attraction to broken goods is astronomical.

"Let her go Wesker." He is his old self, not his programmed, prepackaged secret agent persona. No, instead he's all his hope, naivete and anger from when I left him injured to go find my brother.

Again. This crushes me, it always does.

What happens next is this: Three guns, cocked and loaded all point in a wondrous triangle. I can no longer feel Wesker crushing my neck, but I can feel the radiation of lovelorn spewing off in merciless epitaphs of what was, and what could be. It's almost a comfort that the man about to end my existence is a megalomaniac; can get what he wants and doesn't exhibit human emotion. That is, until my brother finally gets his head out and finally accomplishes at being heroic.

Jesus.

I close my eyes, and think with amusement over the fact that God doesn't exist to me anymore.

I stop hearing again, but I don't need subtitles to know what happens next. Two shots are fired, from Wesker; but before Leon and Ada can die like a proper Shakespearean tragedy they ricochet off the glass tubes that hold what was once dear to me.

A rush of water, and my neck is free for now- but now I'm drowning.

I bump into bodies floating with me, they're dead, like I will be momentarily. Hazy reflections of florescent light filter under my eyelids as I open them and look around. I meet the sight of two fetal poised bodies, my arms open instinctively to cradle the now child Sherry, now dead. Cold arms grip around my waist, and I don't fight against Steve pulling me down into the depths where I belong.

Dead like him.

Like them.

I've accepted this.

Though it doesn't matter, because all of this has been a dream; and the radio is squawking again.

"Claire? Are you there? You have a call on line two, I think it's Chris."

Of course it is. Reoccurring, the irony of nightmares and life astounds me.

I open my eyes, rub the sub-reality from them in gobs of dust and mascara and answer the phone.

"Hello, this is Claire Redfield at the law offices of Burton and Coen, how can I direct your call?"