âyou used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for thatâ
Pairings: fem!oc x Piers Nivans, implied Chris Redfield x Jill Valentine. Oc Ă Oc!Bestfriend
Summary: Evelyn tried to make her world spin again for years after everything stopped that day of September 1998, but between buried secrets and PTSD, she didn't expect to fall for the grumpy lieutenant her best friends complained about.
TW: Fights scenes, blood, gore, descriptions of a hand being cut off, zombies, weapons, PTSD, form of self harm (stay safe!!), anxiety, panick attacks.
A/N: this is becoming just a vent for me ngl
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The room theyâd given me was too quiet, too sterile.
White walls, steel fixtures, a cot that felt like it belonged to a holding cell more than a place for rest. They said it was temporary, a place to âobserve and ensure my safetyâ, as if I were the threat.
I hadnât touched the food tray James left outside the door and I hadnât spoken to him since the tests started. He didnât try again. Maybe he finally understood what heâd done.
He basically threw me to the wolfs so they could torn me apart, like I was a subject and not a living, breathing person. They tested me without my express consent, they put me off my meds.
âFor the vaccine, to save the world-â well, fuck the world.
The withdrawal was subtle at first â a twitch here, a restless toss in sleep. But the nightmares came back like a wave crashing through thin glass. All the things I had locked away behind pharmaceutical doors were now clawing to get out.
And tonight, it happened again.
The scream ripped itself from my throat before I even knew I was awake. I jolted upright in the too-clean bed, the sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. My chest heavy, sweat soaked through the collar of my shirt, my pulse jackhammering against my ribs.
No one burst in. No alarms. Just the soft, sterile hum of overhead lights and the faint, echoing footsteps of someone â maybe a guard â responding to the noise. But I knew better than to believe I was safe. I was never safe.
I wasnât screaming because of a nightmare. I was screaming because I remembered.
Not clearly. Not enough. Just flashes, like film melting in a projector: a corridor lit in red, metal doors slamming shut, a cold voice calling my name â not Evelyn, something else â and a light above me so bright I thought my eyes would burn out of my skull.
And the smell. Bleach. Blood. Burning hair.
I pressed both hands against my face, trying to smother the rest of the memory ad my fingers trembled against my skin.
I shouldnât have stopped the meds.
I needed to stop them, but the meds were the only thing between me and the void in my head cracking open like a fault line.
The door creaked softly. Not kicked in, not rushed. Just opened â carefully.
He didnât step inside right away. He stood in the frame, quiet, eyes scanning me like a sniper reading a far-off target.
âYou okay?â he asked. No real emotion in his voice, but something gentler in the way he didnât move closer. James probably sent him to check on me.
I didnât answer. My hand found the edge of the bed, gripping it like I was about to fall off the earth. The wrist tutor bit into my skin with the movement, grounding me, reminding me that at least that pain was real. Still here.
âIâm fine,â I said. Lying.
âJames heard,â Piers said eventually. âHe wanted to come. I told him not to.â
My teeth ground together at the sound of Jamesâ name. âGood,â I snapped. âHeâs done enough.â
Piers gave the smallest nod, not agreeing, not disagreeing.
I knew why they were really here. Not just to babysit me through a PTSD spiral. Not just to listen. They needed me. Theyâd taken my blood before I ever unpacked the single duffel James carried in for me, they already knew there was something different. The genome markers didnât line up with anything clean. There were whispers â incomplete comparisons to archived Umbrella data, echoes of sequences found in âa lost sample,â but no confirmed match.
Still, it was enough to keep me locked inside these sterile walls, enough to justify pushing me off the meds that kept the pain quiet, or at least had done for the last two years.
Because if I really was what they thought I might be, then I wasnât just a survivor. I was a potential key. To a vaccine, to the next step in bioweapon resistance, to fixing a world that had bled too much.
But I didnât care about the world, not when mine had been turned inside out once again.
âI donât want to be tested,â I said into the dim room, my voice rough, low. âI donât want to remember. I donât want to be part of this.â
Piers didnât flinch. âBut you are.â
I glared at him, he didnât move. âWe didnât choose what weâre born into,â he said. âBut we choose what we do with it.â
âSpare me the recruitment pitch.â
âIâm not recruiting you,â he said flatly. âIâm trying to keep you from breaking.â
I looked away, jaw tight. My hands were still shaking.
A moment passed, then another. I heard him shift in the doorway. The door clicked shut behind him and in the silence, I curled back into the sheets that didnât smell like me, in a room that wasnât mine.
Rebeccaâs voice, always gentle, felt like sandpaper now. âThisâll just take a moment,â she said, swabbing the inside of my elbow. âYour hemoglobin is still low. That might explain the headaches.â I didnât flinch at the needle. Pain meant nothing anymore.
No. The headaches were memories trying to tear themselves out of my skull like worms.
I stared at the white ceiling. Tried to count the dots in the tiles. One. Two. Seven. Fiftyâ
âThey found something,â she said carefully and mygaze snapped to her.
Rebecca hesitated. âYour DNA⊠parts of it match sequences found in early Umbrella records. Theyâre incomplete, but whoever you areâwhoever your family wasâthey were involved in something⊠significant.â
I went cold. No names, no origin. Just genetic ghosts and corporate corpses.
Chris spoke to me directly this time. We sat across from each other in the strategy room â the one they cleared just for this.
âEvelyn,â he said, folding his arms. âWe donât know what you are. But we do know youâre not a threat.â
I laughed. Bitter. âI screamed down the compound last week. Pretty sure that counts.â
âYou screamed because your brainâs trying to survive something it wasnât designed to hold.â He didnât say the word experiment, but it hung between us. âThe regeneration markers in your bloodââ he stopped, rephrased, ââtheyâre like something we saw once in Eastern Europe. A failed clone project. Half-human. Mostly decay.â
âNot saying youâre one of them,â he added quickly. âYouâre stable. Alive. That matters.â
I wanted to scream again.
The door slammed. James stood outside my room, fists clenched at his sides.
âI didnât want this for you,â he said through the metal. I didnât answer. I never did.
âYou think I betrayed you,â he continued. âBut what if this is the only way? What if your blood saves thousandsâhell, millions?â Still silence. âYouâd be a hero.â
âI never asked to be,â I snapped finally. âI never asked to be anything.â He didnât argue. Just left the tray of food again. Untouched.
I hadnât been sleeping, not really, not since the face.
It came to me in a fever-dream â sharp lines, too perfect to be real, and eyes like polished amber staring through me like glass. He didnât speak so much as⊠echo. His mouth moved, but the words bent around reality, like I was hearing them through water.
âYou are necessary,â he said. âFor the good. The tests must continue.â
I didnât know who he was. But something in me did. My gut twisted at the sight of him â not in fear. In recognition. The way a child might recognize a shadow at the end of their bed.
Every time I closed my eyes, he was there.
I spent the morning pacing. The room was too small, too quiet, too clean. Like a place meant to forget the world existed.
I scratched at the inside of my free wrist until the skin turned raw. The tutor bit down too tight when I flexed, and I didnât care.
They asked if I wanted sleep aids, I told them no. I knew what they meant. Sedatives, more fog in my brain. Fog I didnât want anymore. I needed clarity.
My hands couldnât stop shaking, I couldnât even hold a pencil.
Rebecca said my cortisol levels were spiking. No surprise, Iâd been running on nerves and dehydration for days.
âYou need rest,â she said gently. âYour bodyâs on the edge.â
âI donât sleep anymore,â I muttered, eyes locked on the vial she held. I saw a reflection in it â just my face, gaunt and pale, but for a second, I thought I saw him behind me. In the glass. That same amber gaze.
I didnât blink, I didnât look away.
He caught me in the hallway after a blood draw. I hadnât even heard him approach.
âYouâre⊠different,â he said, not accusing â just watching.
I stiffened. âEveryoneâs changing.â
He shook his head. âNot like this.â
He didnât say what he saw. Maybe the tremor in my hands, the shadows under my eyes, maybe the way Iâd started looking over my shoulder like I expected something to crawl out of the walls.
I opened my mouth to lie again â say I was fine, say it was nothing. But I didnât.
I kept the memories to myself.
Who would believe me? Who would want to? Even the people who were supposed to be on my side looked at me like a case study, a risk, an anomaly.
The more I tried to fight it, the stronger the face became. The voice. The words.
âYou are necessary. For the good.â
I didnât understand what âthe goodâ meant. Or why I felt pulled toward it â like a moth to flame.
I avoided the common areas. Avoided James. Avoided anyone who might ask questions I couldnât answer.
Piers found me again. âWhy wonât you talk to anyone?â
âBecause no one listens,â I said flatly.
He nodded slowly, as if he understood more than I could say.
They started to prepare me for the next phase. More tests, more monitoring. The same cold efficiency as before â but now with something sharper underneath, like they were closing in.
I wasnât ready, but they didnât ask.
The memories came in shards now â jagged, incomplete. Sometimes just flickers in the corner of my vision, like reflections in broken glass. Other times, full scenes flooding me when I collapsed from exhaustion, the nightmares too much to bear. Sleep was no longer a refuge. It was the only place where the past slipped in unbidden, demanding attention.
I started to miss my medicines.
Staff started to whisper, Rebeccaâs eyes lingered too long during blood draws, Piers caught me staring off during briefing, unblinking, like I was somewhere else. No one said anything outright, but the weight of their silent concern pressed down like iron.
I said nothing. I couldnât. I didnât want to.
The man in sunglassesâthe amber eyes that burned through everything â appeared more often in my dreams. But sometimes⊠he was different.
Less shadow. More light. A presence not of fear, but of calm. Like a guardian watching over me in the chaos.
I didnât understand it. Could someone who haunted my memories also be a comfort?
The contradiction twisted inside me like a blade.
I sat alone in the common area, trying to focus on anything besides the flicker at the edge of my mind. Piers approached quietly.
âYou donât have to carry it all,â he said softly.
I swallowed hard. âIâm not ready to talk.â
His eyes searched mine, patient but steady.
âWhen things will get worse, Iâll be hereâ
The visions became more vivid â voices, faces, fragments of places I couldnât place but somehow knew.
The amber gaze always there. A promise, or maybe warning. Sometimes connection.
I didnât know who I was anymore, but I was starting to realize that the past wasnât done with me.
The man with the amber eyes never made it into my words.
No one knew. Not because I didnât trusted them â which honestly, I didnât â but because I didnât trust myself to explain.
How do you describe a ghost who isnât quite a ghost? Someone who belongs in the cracks of your mind, whispering truths youâre too scared to hear?
The visions came unbidden as I stared at the ceiling in the middle of the day â a face I didnât recognize, but whose voice echoed in my bones. âYouâre perfect,â he said again, softer this time.
There was something almost⊠tender behind the amber eyes. Something that made me want to believe him.
I wanted to hate him, i wanted to run, but the part of me that remembered himâthe part that ached for answersâwavered.
James tried talking again, but I kept my distance.
I was a puzzle no one could solve, and the pieces were starting to cut deep.
I couldnât say a word about the man who haunted me. Who knew what would happen if I did? Would they think I was insane? A threat? A weapon?
The silence around that was heavier than any chain.
Piers sat beside me one night during the lockdown. No questions. No words. Just presence. I know James sent him.
Because in this world of shadows and fractured memories, it was the only thing that felt real.
I have been fighting and refusing the treatments lately.
The door to the observation room opened with a soft click. Jill Valentine stepped inside, carrying the kind of calm that only comes from surviving hell and walking out the other side.
Iâd heard the name before â a legend in the BSAA, a survivor of Raccoon City, someone who had stared down the monsters and come back scarred but apparently unbroken. Her eyes said otherwise.
She scanned me briefly, taking in the trembling hands, the haunted look. âI know what youâre fighting,â she said, voice low but steady. âMore than the virus. More than the labs. The ghosts. The nightmares.â
I wanted to say nothing, but she kept going. âYou donât have to face it alone. Not here.â
Her words were a lifeline I wasnât sure I wanted to grab. She told me about her time captive â about Weskerâs shadow reaching into her life, using her, breaking her in ways that never fully healed.
She didnât sugarcoat the pain, but she didnât let it define her either.
That afternoon, Jill sat with me longer than anyone had.
âIâm not here to fix you,â Jill said. âIâm here to tell you that youâre still you â even if it doesnât feel like it right now.â I wanted to believe her.
But the man in my visions was still waiting. Still whispering that the tests must continue. For the good.
And I wasnât sure if that was hope or doom.
The room was dim, the fading light casting long shadows across the walls. Jill sat quietly beside me, her presence steady, like a rock in a storm I didnât want to face.
âYouâre more than what they took from you,â she said quietly. âMore than the tests, more than the nightmares. Youâre still here.â
âBut what if all I am now,â I said, voice trembling, even tho I wasnât sure why âis what they made me?â
She reached out, a gentle touch on my hand.âWhat you are now is not everything you will ever be.â
For the first time in a long while, I let myself lean on that hope, fragile and uncertain though it was.
The dreams came back again, more vivid this timeâlike watching a broken film reel with missing frames.
There was the man, always the same. Sharp lines, amber eyes, always watching, always silent except for those distant echoes I couldnât quite hear. But there was someone else now.
She wore a white coat stained with rust and tears. Her face was tired but soft, eyes full of sorrow. She looked at me like a mother would. I knew, somehow, that she actually was my mother. But she wasnât free.
There was fear in her eyes, like she was trappedâforced to do things she hated, things that I couldnât understand but felt wrong deep in my bones.
And the man⊠He stood close, his presence looming over her, like a shadow with power.
I felt something strangeâa flicker of warmth toward her, and a cold weight pressing down from him.
The fragments of memory were no longer just flashesâthey carried feelings. Confusion, affection, fear.
And maybe sheâmy motherâwasnât the enemy. Maybe the man with the amber eyes was the one who took everything.
She stood over me in a glass cell, murmuring into a headset.
I couldnât move, my arms were restrained, tubes in both veins, something cold rushing through them.
âTest five stabilized. Prep for cellular override.â She said.
My scream woke me. So did Piers, again.
He didnât speak this time. Just sat on the floor outside my door until dawn.
Iâm scared to look it up. Afraid of what Iâll find. But pieces wonât stop falling into place.
I remember my hand â how it was cut, jagged and bleeding during the chaos in Raccoon City. I remember the cold, sterile room where they stitched it back on â not a hospital, but a lab. There were scientists moving around, whispering in clipped voices.
The Umbrella Corporation logo. I couldnât mistake it.
I remember needles, strange injections coursing through my veins as they worked on me. I donât know what they gave me, or why. All I know is it wasnât normal.
And somewhere in the background was that man â the one with amber eyes. I never told anyone about him, maybe because Iâm afraid, or maybe because Iâm not sure what it means.
But Iâve made a choice â to keep his name locked away inside me for now. Because some secrets donât want to be told.
And maybe⊠some monsters shouldnât be named.
Jill caught me in the hall that morning..
Sheâs got that look â the one that says sheâs seen too much pain not to notice it in others. We sat in the common room. Sparse light, nothing too official, as she talked to me, and I stayed silent. For some reason, I kinda of trusted her, maybe because she got the same look in her eyes I always had.
âI need to tell you something,â I said, voice barely above a whisper.
She didnât say a word, just waited. I swallowed hard.
âMy hand⊠it wasnât just healed after the outbreak.â I watched her closely. No surprise. No judgment. âThey reattached it. In a lab. Scientists did it, not doctors. There was a procedure, strange injections⊠and Umbrellaâs symbol.â
She nodded slowly, absorbing it.
âI donât know why they did it. Or what they injected. But it wasnât normal.â I left out the man. I wasnât ready, probably will never would be.
Jillâs silence was heavy but kind. âYou donât have to tell me everything,â she said finally. âNot until youâre ready.â
That small mercy felt like a lifeline. And maybe, for once, I didnât feel so alone.
Jill didnât keep my confession to herself, I found out the hard way.
Rebecca approached me quietly during a routine blood draw. Her eyes were sharp, professionalâbut there was a new edge of urgency there. âWe need to talk about your hand,â she said softly, âand what you told Jill.â
I stared at the sterile ceiling tiles, trying to will myself invisible.
Chris showed up later that day, calm but firm. âWeâre running out of time,â he said. âWeâre almost sure youâre not a threat, but the vaccine development depends on understanding your geneticsâand your history. We need to connect the dots before itâs too late.â
The room felt smaller, tighter, like the walls were closing in with their expectations.
Rebecca laid out the situation in clinical terms. âThere are anomalies in your genome, partial matches to data recovered from early Umbrella archives. But the records are fragmentedâdestroyed, hidden, or lost. Without more context, weâre hitting dead ends.â
Chris added, âWe believe your unique biology holds the key to countering the latest bioweapon threats. But to harness that, we need to dig deeperâinto your past, your genetics, and everything Umbrella tried to erase.â
The urgency was palpable. Every day felt like a countdown.
James stopped leaving food trays outside my door. Jill stayed close, her presence a steady anchor.
But I felt more adrift than ever.
I hadnât told them about the man in my dreams, nor had I mentioned the woman Iâd come to know as my mother, forced into silence and servitude, the fragments of memory felt like shards of glass under my skin.
And somewhere beneath the sterile halls of this base, the past was closing in.
The nightmare came like a stormâfast, brutal, and unforgiving.
I woke choking on cold sweat, my body tangled in sheets that felt like chains. My lungs burned, and my heart pounded so loud I was sure it echoed down the sterile hallway.
Piers was there before I could even find words. He never came in with haste or loud concernâjust slow, quiet presence. He sat down on the floor beside the door, his back against the wall, eyes watching me without pressure, like a shadow waiting to catch me if I fell.
I didnât want to speak. I wanted to sink back into silence, to erase the images that clawed at my mind. But the weight in my chest was too heavy to bear alone.
After what felt like an eternity, I spokeâhesitant, raw. âThereâs a woman.â My voice cracked like fragile glass. âIn the memories⊠I see her all the time.â
Piers didnât say anything. Just waited.
âSheâs not just a face or a shadow. I⊠I think sheâs my mother.â
His eyes softened, but he stayed silent.
âShe always looks so broken. Like sheâs trapped under something terrible she canât escape. When she looks at me⊠thereâs submission, like sheâs been forced into it. But thereâs also horrorâlike she hates what sheâs done. Or what they made her do.â I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat catching. âAnd then thereâs the man.â
âBut I know him. Not like I know you, or James⊠more like something Iâm born with, something buried deep. Thereâs this strange connectionâa familiarity thatâs older than the nightmares. He feels like the center of everything awful.â
I closed my eyes, the images rushing backâthe cold amber eyes, the distorted voice echoing in my head, the feeling that Iâm both hunted and chosen at once.
My hands clenched the sheets until my knuckles whitened.
I looked at him thenâreally looked. For the first time in weeks, I didnât feel completely alone. âI donât know what to do.â
He met my gaze. âYouâre still here. Youâre still fighting. That counts.â
I let out a breath I didnât know I was holding.
âFor now, that has to be enough.â He said.
He stayed with me until the first light of dawn, and for once, the nightmares seemed a little less sharpâjust enough to breathe through the silence.
