Kindly remember to add this new work to your libraries."Zenith of Desire: The Hollywood Incubus"
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*****
He felt a tightness in his chest. If he had killed her for points, he would have lost a part of himself. He would have become just another monster in this Unforgivable world. By letting her choose her end, by letting her find her mother, he retained his humanity.
Only Atlas bore the full weight of Lisa's tragedy, a secret etched into his undead heart like a scar that wouldn't fade.
That was why he refused to end her with his own hands, no matter the surge of power—the hollow XP—it might grant him. She had endured enough torment; he couldn't bear to claim even a fragment of her shattered soul. All he wanted was for her to slip away into peaceful oblivion, untouched by one more act of violence.
Her suffering had carved canyons into her spirit; he couldn't add to that wound by claiming any part of her essence. Let her rest—truly rest—in the silence she had earned, free from one more predator's grasp.
Were he still alive enough to weep, tears would have blurred his vision now—his eyes would have glistened now, mourning another fragile soul she had been: a lost, flickering light adrift in a savage world of beasts.
For her, that innocent spark extinguished in a realm overrun by monsters, a little soul forever lost amid the snarling darkness.
"She just... jumped," Chris whispered, lowering his gun.
"She found peace," Atlas said softly. "Finally."
After Lisa's, the iron door on the far side of the platform slowly opened.
They entered a small, dusty room—Lisa's "bedroom" for the last three decades. It was filled with rags, dolls, and candles.
Jill walked to a small table. There was a letter there.
"Oh god," Jill whispered, reading it.
"What is it?" Rebecca asked.
Jill read it aloud. It was a letter from George Trevor to his family, telling them to escape. It detailed the trap. It detailed the experiments.
"They were here for thirty years," Jill said, her voice shaking. "Umbrella... they experimented on a teenage girl. For thirty years."
The cruelty of it was suffocating.
Rebecca covered her mouth, tears welling in her eyes. She looked around the wretched room, imagining the fear, the pain, the loneliness.
"How could they?" Rebecca sobbed. "How could anyone do this?"
She swayed, overcome with emotion.
Atlas was there. He reached out and pulled her into his arms.
Rebecca buried her face in his chest, letting the tears fall. She grabbed his jacket, holding on tight.
"It's okay," Atlas whispered, rubbing her back gently. "Let it out."
He held her, his chin resting on the top of her head. He offered her a silent, sturdy comfort in the middle of hell.
Jill watched them. She saw the way Rebecca melted into him, the way Atlas protected her.
She felt a lump in her own throat—sadness for Lisa, anger at Umbrella, and a strange, quiet pang of envy. She wished, for just a moment, that she had someone to hold her like that. To be a shield against the world.
She wiped her moist eyes quickly, steeling herself. "We make them pay," Jill said. "For Lisa. For everyone."
In the corner of Lisa's room was a hidden staircase.
They climbed it, emerging into the crisp night air. They were in the courtyard garden. In the center was a large, decorative fountain pool.
"Under this pool is the main laboratory," Enrico said, pointing. "The heart of the beast."
Atlas walked to the control pedestal. He inserted the Eagle Medal and the Wolf Medal they had collected.
RUMBLE.
The water drained away. The stone stairs descended into the earth.
"Here we go," Chris said.
They went down.
When they reached the bottom, a familiar voice echoed from the shadows of the flower bed.
"Welcome."
Wesker stepped out. He was smiling, but it was cold.
"Since you didn't die in the mansion," Wesker said smoothly, adjusting his sunglasses, "I left a little gift for you in the lab. Consider it my resignation letter."
Before anyone could shoot, he stepped backward into a hidden elevator and descended, disappearing behind a blast door.
"Coward!" Barry yelled.
"He's going to do something," Atlas said. "We have to hurry."
They entered the facility.
It was stark white. Sterile. The lighting was harsh and fluorescent, a jarring contrast to the gothic gloom of the mansion and the filth of the tunnels.
They passed through the main corridor. Atlas and Chris took point.
Two zombies in white lab coats wandered the hall.
"Clear left," Chris said.
Atlas moved right. SNAP. He broke the zombie's neck efficiently.
They entered a viewing room.
"Come and see," Rebecca's voice trembled.
Everyone gathered at the observation window.
The room beyond was a cold storage facility.
But it wasn't storing chemicals.
Hanging from meat hooks, suspended from the ceiling in rows, were bodies.
Men. Women. Children. The elderly.
They were naked, pale, drained of blood. Some had their chests cut open. Others were missing limbs. They hung there like cattle in a slaughterhouse.
"The guinea pigs," Atlas whispered. "The people from the bone pile. This is where they ended up."
The team fell into a collective, horrified silence.
Even Barry, who had seen war, looked sick.
They stood there, bearing witness to the industrial scale of Umbrella's evil.
"We burn this place," Chris said, his voice deadly calm. "We burn it all."
This was a research room with a lot of information on the table. Enrico asked Jill to collect it. This was Umbrella's proof and their wrongdoings.
After collecting, they moved to the second floor.
They entered the main control room. Monitors lined the walls, showing the empty facility.
After everyone entered, there was a control room. Inside, they found a map of the laboratory and lots of information.
Atlas began rifling through the papers on the desk. He found a letter.
[ Letter to Ada ]
To Ada Wong…
If you are reading this, I am already dead…
…
…
I love you, Ada.
- John.
Looks like she'd been here before, so John enhanced the self-destruct program.
"John," Atlas murmured. "The password code."
He pocketed the letter. He also found a photo on the desk. It showed a group of researchers smiling. Among them was John, and a man with blond hair and sunglasses. Wesker. And another man, dark-haired and intense. William Birkin.
"Proof," Atlas said, showing it to Enrico. "We have the faces."
Enrico nodded grimly. "Good work."
Enrico walked to the surveillance monitors. He cycled through the cameras until he found the helipad.
It was empty.
"No chopper," Enrico said, his shoulders slumping. "The extraction team isn't here."
"Brad probably ran out of fuel," Jill said bitterly.
"Or Wesker called him off," Atlas suggested.
"So we're stuck?" Barry asked..
The group stood in the sterile white corridor, the oppressive silence weighing on them heavily. They were trapped underground, surrounded by the sins of a pharmaceutical giant, with no exit strategy.
Suddenly, a burst of static cut through the quiet.
KRR-ZZZT!
Jill's radio clipped to her belt lit up.
"This is Brad! Can anyone hear me? I'm circling the perimeter! Fuel is low, but I see... god, there are monsters everywhere down there! If anyone is listening, respond!"
Jill's eyes widened. She grabbed the walkie-talkie with desperate hands.
"Brad! This is Jill! We're in the underground lab! We need extraction immediately!"
KRR-ZZZT…
"...repeat, this is Brad Vickers. Is anyone there? I'm going to make one last pass..."
"Brad!" Jill shouted, frustration bleeding into her voice. "Damn it, answer me!"
"It's no use," Enrico said, his voice grave as he checked his own frequency. "The interference down here is too strong. It's likely heavy mineral shielding or active jamming. He can't hear us."
"We can hear him, though," Chris said, clutching his shotgun. "That means he hasn't left yet. We still have a chance."
"No matter what happens," Atlas said, his voice calm and grounding amidst the panic. "We first have to find a way out of here. We can't sit still and wait for death. If we trigger the emergency lock release, the helipad access should open."
"He's right," Barry nodded, checking the rounds in his Python. "Let's move."
They left the control room, moving deeper into the facility.
The architecture changed. The functional, industrial look of the upper labs gave way to something more ceremonial. The walls were lined with reinforced glass tubes, each containing a failed experiment suspended in amber fluid—Hunters, Chimeras, things that defied classification.
Rebecca walked close to Atlas—so close that her shoulder brushed his arm with every other step. In the terrifying sterility of the lab, his warmth was the only thing keeping her grounded. She looked at the monsters in the tanks, shivering.
"They look like they're sleeping," she whispered.
"Let's hope they stay that way," Jill murmured back.
Atlas shifted slightly, placing himself between Rebecca, Jill and the glass, blocking their view of the horrors.
They looked up at him, their eyes softening.
Rebecca silently reached out and gripped the fabric of his jacket. Atlas didn't pull away; he simply adjusted his stride to match hers, a silent promise of protection.
*****
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