A fleeting groan parted from the lips of a woman. Followed by the flicker of her green emerald eyes. For a moment, she let her eyes adjust to the blinding light that consumed the very room she was in.

Droplets of water raining down on her, she blinked away the grogginess, and found herself lying flat beneath the shower of a bathroom and wrapped up in a towel. Climbing to her feet, she pressed the towel tighter around her body tightly and moved to the mirror, and swiped away the steamed up glass.

Alice stared back at her, and not the older one that traveled the wasteland. But the younger one from the Hive, her golden locks not yet showing that dirt shallow brunette that came with age. Lowering her gaze, she noticed a pale, jagged scar that traced her shoulder. Curiously, she traced it with a finger, until her eyes landed back on the mirror...

Forcing herself out of the room, Alice entered into the bedroom, something familiar about everything began to bite at her like a cold wind. On the bed was a red dress, low and cut below the knees, followed by a pair of black boots. She quickly grabbed them and dressed, heading out of the bedroom while she shrugged the dress on.

She found herself inside a larger hallway, and observed the place. Windows were absent, hiding away the outside world while a lone statue lurked at the end of the corridor. Cabinets and dressing tables lined the outer walls, and a picture frame of a man she thought familiar, and herself, perched on a coffee table nearest to her. She held it for a few seconds, racking her brain against the image, for anything to feel.

But all she felt was a nervous tingle down her back, and a weird sense of Déjà vu that just seemed to get stronger with each step she took. Until a shadow in the reflection passed the frame, causing her to snap around, and face the statue.

'......'

Forgetting the picture frame, she placed it back down and pushed on ahead. Towards the end of the corridor, she noticed a door, a way out perhaps, and gingerly rushed to it, and pulled it wide open.

Only to be greeted by another hallway.

But this one was smaller, more confined, its body made of glass. Walls, floors, roofing, they projected her reflection right back at her. All while strobes of white light glared in each direction, lighting up a path for her to follow.

Reaching out with a hand, Alice placed her soft palm against the glass, curiosity lingering in her mind. Something was off, but familiar, it made her skin crawl. So much so that she made contact, an array of images assaulted her mind, causing her to wheeze and gasp.

What happened in the Hive, Shade, the Umbrella soldiers that were cut down, sliced and diced into nothing but pure flesh by that blue laser the Red Queen operated.

Drrr...

Pulling back, Alice flinched and turned around, the door behind her had closed, locked by a steel bulkhead that sealed her way out. Turning back to the hallway, the faint hum of power wind up called to her, and the familiar laser trap lit up in all its painful glory in one familiar line.

Without thinking, she high jumped up and latched to the handlebars of the vents above, her legs tucking into the canopy. All while that laser passed, slicing a piece of her red dress in two. Dropping back down, hands at the floor, she looked back up and saw the laser making another pass, until it transformed into its final image. Cross shaped laser, no way out, only death.

Fear on her mind, her body shaking, she took to the vent above. Jumping as far as she could and through the open vent like it was pure instinct, and for her, it was.

She narrowly made it into the vent, the laser slicing the sole of one of her black boots, allowing the failed material to join its red brethren on the ground. Huffing, Alice crawled on through the vent and stopped once she appeared at the end, a vent hatch that led down into a white stained hallway.

Opening up the vent, she dropped down with her boots clinking against the floor as she pushed herself up, and gazed at the new room she found herself in. The walls were adorned with the familiar Umbrella logos, black coloured signs with white font that detailed a hospital of some kind.

Buckling her nerves up, she proceeded down the hallway, steel in her steps, careful but anxious. Her guard up, she turned a corner and noticed a camera atop the wall. She ducked back, carefully observing ahead, and noticed a hospital gurney. Acting fast, she rushed ahead and grabbed the bed, pushing it forward as quickly as she could, intending on getting out.

But suddenly, the bed was dismembered, cut up in half from below. Alice flinched backing up, as she noticed a steel saw lowering back down into the floor.

'This place is a fucking deathtrap.'

Breathing heavily, she stepped over the destruction left behind, and moved on. Ahead she could make out an elevator, if she could —

Brrrttt!

Suddenly Alice let out a strained gasp, her hands immediately clutching at her abdomen. Blood leaked from her body, hands soaking already in red, pain coursing through her very system.

A small drone device had leapt up from the floor, beneath the Umbrella logo that stared back, and had opened fire.

She felt her body freeze, her eyes began to roll back, and suddenly she went limp.

Fallen to the ground, her last breaths were blocked by the thumping sound of hurried footsteps.

Men in white hazmat suits approached her deceased body, and the lead man in charge removed his mask to reveal a Dr. J. Issacs.

Familiar bastard.

"Take a sample of her blood." Dr. J. Issacs ordered his team, and the two hazmats behind him did so. Grabbing her body and hauling her away. "Now," he turned, and motioned to a man in black. "What about the other subject?"

The man in black approached, a scarred face that was generally pissed, was now all but tame. Michael Rodigro had been through the fucking ringer, and being here with Dr. Issacs was the final nail in his coffin.

"He's uh, much of the same, sir."

Dr. Issacs licked at his lips, the familiar grin on his face absent. "Do tell."

In turn, Michael grimaced, no matter what, this was too much, even for him. "Here."

Handed a PDA, Issacs watched the footage of another failed experiment.

Project Y/N.

"What. The. Fuck?"

Those were the words Y/N had uttered once he awoke. Younger, covered head to toe in black, and the Umbrella symbol patched to his chest, he had found himself in a dark office space.

Now out into a hallway, the white halls looked familiar to him, as his brain racked for where he had found himself, and his memory, it was hazy and disoriented.

Pulling himself together, he marched on down the hallway, hands balled into fists at his side. Reaching a door at the end, he opened it up and entered, only to be greeted by the same glass room.

Cautiously he proceeded ahead, and memories began to unearth within him. Shaking his head, he walked towards the exit as quick as he could, only to find the door locked. He pulled on the handle, hard. And yet it didn't budge.

Drrr...

Y/N pulled back, and readied himself, the laser powered on and charged towards him. A single laser in the middle that wanted him dead. Acting fast, Y/N ducked under the laser, and rolled to the floor.

Turning towards it, he watched it fly by again. He jumped upwards, intending on grabbing the vents above, but was suddenly detached from his position when the laser suddenly disintegrated and changed heights.

"Fuck!"'

An index and a middle finger from both hands sliced from him was dropped to the floor. Sizzled flesh, his stumps cauterised and himself thrown to the floor. Clutching his hands, Y/N howled in pain, and climbed to his feet. The laser turned back to him and returned with the same path.

Ready, Y/N ran at the laser and slid at the last second as the beam turned tracks to its highest point. Sliding past the laser and through the open door back into the hallway, he got up fast and looked back at the death trap. Breathing in, he brought his hands up, trembling slightly, and groaned.

"Motherfucker!— Ah!"

He felt teeth latch on his shoulder, biting down on his flesh. Immediately he elbowed whatever attacked him, and knocked it back. Turning swiftly, he took notice of the creature.

A zombie.

It had taken a bite out of him.

Its face was deformed, not a regular one he soon found out, as it's mouth opened up like a flower, barring razor sharp teeth.

"...Oh shit—"

Y/N's shouting echoed the hallways until he was silenced by the undead, the beast ripping apart whatever flesh it could get its hands on.

"I see." Dr. Issacs handed him back the PDA, his face adorned with the same lacklustre disappointment he had seen every other day for the last two years. "Have him removed as well. Carry on."

Michael left him to his own devices, a spring in his step to get out of the doctor's presence. The man made him sick sometimes, but he'd never admit that though. Not so long as he lived and breathed.

Heading topside, he made it outside the facility through a single elevator alongside the hazmats, carrying two fresh corpses. One he knew dearly, and the other he couldn't care less about. Once the door opened up, he shielded his eyes at the bright light of Nevada, and followed.

Until he stopped at the foot of a land hill, a giant grave for unwanted experiments. He watched them dump the bodies, gaze flickering between each one, an unsettling and uncomfortable churn in his stomach.

And all of that led back to Dr. Issacs.

'If only I could kill you twice... Issacs.'

The camera panned out, to reveal a mass grave of bodies. Dozens of them, maybe even hundreds, of red on black. Dresses and uniforms. The familiar faces of Alice and Y/N, clones that wore their faces.

He couldn't bear to watch any longer, and retreated back into the hole in the ground, to ride out the end of the world.

Because... After all, he had a job to do here, right?

—

The Umbrella Corporation thought they'd contained the infection. Well, they were wrong. Raccoon City was just the beginning.

Within weeks, the T-virus had consumed the United States. Within months, the world.

The virus didn't just wipe out human life. Lakes and rivers dried up, forests became deserts... and whole continents were reduced to nothing more than barren wastelands.

Slowly but surely, the Earth began to wither and die. What few survivors there were, learned to keep on the move.

We avoided major cities. If we stopped anyplace too long, they would be drawn to us.

Only a few at first, but then more and more.

A never-ending army of undead.

For those of us left...

Staying on the road seemed the only way to stay alive.

At least, for now...

Hand at the throttle and wind in her hair, Alice sped down the deserted asphalt road of Utah. Surrounded on each side by mountainous hills and rocky plains, the land was covered by a landslide of sand that weathered the cracks beneath the once green earth now barren.

At her right side, her green eyes caught the rustic and bent road sign that was soon left behind in the dust of her bike's motor.

Salt Lake City limits - Utah.

If not for the radio broadcast that was crying back at her from the radio she had nailed to the gas tank, she wouldn't have diverted from her straight shot west. Instead she went out of her way like an Angel from the heavens, insistent befalling upon any lost souls indeed of prayer and guidance.

Or in her case, a good helping hand.

"This is KLKB. We have seven people here in need of urgent medical attention. We need help. This is KLKB. Can anyone hear us? Can anyone help us? Please."

Killing the engine and stalling the bike to a stop, Alice climbed off. Boots onto the grains of sand once more, she looked up at the building where the call originated from.
It was decent sized, larger than most buildings around here, the red coloured sign of "KLKB" staring down from above.

After everything that had happened to the world around her, she was surprised at the condition of infrastructure. Built to last, it seemed, only the sand having struck its outer layers of marbled gray.

At least the exterior.

Shutting the radio cover and silencing the call for help, Alice left the safety of her transportation and approached the building, her boots trudging upon the sand leaving footnotes in her walk.

Through an open entrance that lacked doors, its hinges long since destroyed, Alice kept her eyes clear and her ears sharp, with only the tapping of her feet against the granite floor. The place was a mess. The floor was littered with trash, windows blown, and walls rotting, safe for the graffiti and blood red that lined them like a raider marking their territory.

Up ahead was a wall of glass, windows protected from the inside, and through it one lone single bulb of light flickered from above, dangling back and forth.

If her gut told her anything, it'd be to prepare yourself for anything that life throws at you.
Pulling a pistol from one of her holsters, Alice gripped it with both hands and proceeded to the left hand side and further into the building. Cautious but optimistic, she hoped whatever she found was simply a cry of help.

If not, she could handle it.

She always did.

Soon enough the wailing of a woman reached her ears, but it only served to heighten her guard. Following the sound, she found herself in another room, the darkness diminishing thanks to the light. Gun turning in each direction, her gaze on every inch of the large room, it stopped on her final turn, the soft crying of a woman in the far back. Situated in a lawn chair, her back to Alice.

Stepping forward with her pistol still raised, the woman turned towards her carefully, clutching something in her arms.

"My baby."

The woman was older, hideous and scarred by the elements, a crass look upon her face and eyes strewn with tears that danced back.

"Please." The woman begged, gesturing to what Alice knew to be a bundle towards her. "Please help my baby."

Hesitant and unsure, her face a wave of emotion she hadn't felt in months, Alice placed away her gun and reached out gingerly, guiding the bundle into own arms as the woman watched, her face a mess.

She quickly unfolded the tattered bundle, only to find a doll staring back at her, and soon followed by a cocking of a gun, and a laughter that chilled her bones.

Half a dozen guns reached out to her in every direction, sidearms and pistols dirty and unkept, right in her face they spat as much as the ones holding them did.

That wouldn't do, not at all.

She quickly threw the doll to the ground.

"You bitch. Heh. You dropped my baby."

It happened in a blur, their voices in her ear, shoving her down, she felt her face hit the hardwood floor of a table, bruising her so. All while their words, vile and putrid, mocking all those that had tried to do the right thing and found only death in their wake.

"We're surrounded. We need help, can anyone hear us?

"Can anyone help us? Please."

"Works every time, mama."

Their grubby hands roamed up and down her scarred flesh, all of them wanting, needing, searching for anything of use. Like vultures across a field of blood, paying no mind to the living that still wailed and called, too focused on their lust and greed to care of what they had soon found.

Someone far more dangerous than they'd ever been scared to dream of, even when their rotten corpses sunk beneath the earth, would they have realized it was all for nought.

"Let's see what else she's packing."

"Yeah."

Turned around by rough hands, Alice stared them in the face, a face that was calm and quiet, yet bordering on murder.

"What you got down there, fishy?"

One of the men, a knife in hand, trailed down her leg and trembled upon her skin, a hidden lust that had so far been left unstated.

"I wouldn't do that." Alice warned him, face set in like iron, and a threat that leaked like venom.

But of course, they stilled, all of them, until Alice felt a smack of a hand strike her cheek, and the laughter that hounded around the very room.

"Shut your mouth!"

"Relax."

"Just show the bitch!"

The man pulled at his belt and dragged at his pants while the others watched. Alice, reeling from the hit, cracked her neck left and right.

Before sending a quick, clean kick of her leg that swiftly connected to the man's face, and killing him. Teeth and blood flew from his mouth, his skull fractured and body bent backwards onto the floor.

"Eddie! Eddie! Eddie! Jesus Christ, he's dead!"

The wailing of the woman at the dead's man side left Alice feeling satisfied, even as one of the men pistol whipped her to the back of the head, sending her into an unconscious state.
Luckily for her, she was awake in minutes.

Dizzy but awake, Alice's first view was a dangling electrical wire, sparks flying from the broken end. Groaning at the hit, she wrestled, finding her hands shackled behind her back and flat on her side. The group of raiders and murderers looked down at her from above, having thrown her into a pit opened up below.

"Think you're pretty smart, huh? Well, you'll see."

The old woman laughed and quickly threw down a set of keys to the handcuffs that landed at Alice's back.

"There you go, bitch. I wouldn't want it to be over so fast!"

Pulling herself upwards, Alice leant against a rusted cage as she grabbed the keys and tried to unlock her cuffs. Only to flinch when an infected dog snarled at her from within, colliding against the metal that kept it contained.

While above, the raiders happily watched and then let loose a couple of the hounds that hungered for flesh.

Alice immediately acted fast, pushing her feet upwards and jumped to her feet, just as the cages opened up for feasting. Two infected dogs that ran straight towards her, causing her to run. They chased her ahead, through the concrete pit they had fashioned, but like all mindless animals they fell victim to her trap. She spotted the concrete wall and sharp rebar that sprouted out beneath.

Hightailing it towards the wall, Alice's feet collided against fallen debris and kicked her legs upwards against the wall, and immediately cartwheeled back. Landing graciously on the ground, she didn't have time to look back as one of the infected were impaled upon the rebar.

"Let 'em loose!"

She quickly uncuffed the shackles from her hands and let them drop to the ground. Her hands free once more, Alice looked up to see another dog rushing towards her, its snarling presence drawing her back. She retreated backwards, vaulting over a rusted metal barrier, onto the top of the dog cages.

The animal soon followed, jumping up on and leaping after her, only to be greeted by Alice's boot to its face and sent flying into the mess of electrical wires that hung in place. Trapped within, the dog was helpless, as Alice jumped down and took the chance, grabbing but a single wire and wrapping it around the cages and knotting it into place, her gaze focused on the group leering down at her.

In a split second, another dog came her way, leaping at her while she was otherwise occupied, and knocking her to the ground. Holding back the mangled teeth that snarled at her, she grabbed the mess of wires and began tying it around the undead. When finished, she pried the sparking end, and jabbed it into its flesh, burning its face and causing it to wail, another jab and it buckled, and threw it aside.

Up on her feet, she reached for the concrete pillar beside her and wrapped the last end of the wire around it and tied it in place, soon enough the cages, dogs and concrete pillar that held this part of the floor above intact were suddenly entangled like a giant web, the raiders above none the wiser, all but focused on the mindless slaughter about to happen.

Unfortunately for them, it wasn't going to be Alice's slaughter...

The last infected dogs came her way, rushing at her for a fresh kill, as Alice grabbed what wire was left dangling and struck it off to the side, knocking the first dog down and capturing it within the last of the wires. Then the second launched out of the open cage behind her, but was put down as she sent a right hook into its scarred face, killing it.

"What!?"

Alice turned back towards the mess she had created, the undead dogs were snarling at her, pulling at the wires that tightened them in place. Unknown to them that they were shaking the building's foundation of concrete until it was too late.

Screws and nails long since rusted were pulled apart from the pillars holding the floor above intact, causing the concrete to break away and crack, crumbling over the edge. The raiders backed up, even as the floor befell, and created a way up.

Immediately, she took her chance.

Alice rushed ahead and jumped onto the fallen concrete, using it as a base, she jumped and grabbed a hold of one the wires dangling from the roof and pushed herself forward. Landing onto hanging concrete, she jumped quickly and hung onto the rafters of the roof, it's steel rebar holding her upright just as the undead dogs came rushing up afterwards.

The raiders were suddenly set upon, the infected animals ripping into them, biting and snarling, their flesh removed from their bones as they screamed and begged for mercy.

Unmoved by their suffering, Alice dropped down to the floor while the dogs were feasting. And turned to the table in front of her. A cache of weapons, her own gear, she could use it. She quickly grabbed her two pistols, along with a new stockless pump action shotgun, and twin kukri machetes she holstered to her back.

Leaving behind the endless slaughter and screaming, Alice soon found herself back on the road driving west. How sure she had been of the broadcast, and yet it had led her only to marauders and creatures worse than man. She tried her hardest to stay optimistic, even as each step she took could be her last. But all it ever brought her was the cold embrace of death.

And the shattering truth of a world gone mad.

A/N: Sorry if these chapters are moving kinda slow. The first couple are just setting up what's to come, and what's happened so far. Chapter 6 onwards will be where things start to ramp up.