An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Starvation was the rot consuming them all. Alex knew its branches, its subtle shades, and she remembered all too well what it felt like to suffocate. First came hypercapnia: a desperate reckoning where the body fought with all its residual strength against the mounting carbon dioxide, forcing the heart to hammer faster, harder, in a frantic attempt to purge the poison and drag in oxygen. Then, the convulsive phase: the cerebral cortex began to drown, consciousness slipping away into nothing more than a twitching mass of tics and spasms — the final, misfiring impulses of a collapsing nervous system. Next, the breath died. The pupils paralyzed into that wide, vacant stare of pure, unadulterated terror that she now knew by heart. The heart itself — a stubbornly pathetic muscle — delivered its final, agonizing strokes as the blood pressure bottomed out into nothingness.
Silence.
Alex clawed through the bottom of the licorice bag, hunting for the strawberry-filled one. "He’s almost done." Daniel informed her, his voice deadpan. She leaned closer to the bag, scrutinizing the remaining candies. "He’s gasping now." he added, propping his boots onto the control console. Alex found what she was looking for: she pulled out a small black cylinder stuffed with artificial pink and took a heavy, tearing bite. "Look at him." Daniel chuckled, washing down a breath with a swig of Sprite. "I would’ve bet good money his eyes were going to burst right out of their sockets." Alex wiped her fingertips on a crumpled tissue, her gaze drifting toward Monitor 3. There, James Grant — a journalist of the Raccoon Press whose curiosity had proven fatal — shuddered in one last, agonizing convulsion before going rigid in the oxygen-starved chamber. "We could’ve given him to Trenchy." Daniel mused, tilting his chin toward her. "Doctor Birkin needed intact specimens." Alex countered; she rested her cheek in her palm and sighed, and her breath bloomed with the cloying scent of strawberry and sharp licorice — a smell so heavy Daniel could almost touch it, forcing him to shift his weight from hip to hip in a sudden, uneasy discomfort. Alex shot him a sideways glance, utterly unreadable. Her eyes were a mirror of Doctor Wesker's: that same arctic, predatory blue that haunted his thoughts, his very existence. "And besides." she murmured, her tone dripping with a quiet, sickening ambiguity "Where's the fun in that?" She locked her gaze onto his and Daniel drew a sharp, ragged breath, swallowing hard. Alex smiled — a jagged baring of teeth and phantom blood. Suffocation wasn't the only way to die: not when she was in the room.
Stunning art from the lovely @madbedlam



















