Chapter Text
He was called the Doll Maker. His victims usually ranging from twenty to thirty years old and ranging from men to women of all races. Sometimes they would talk about serial killers and what they thought of them, and if given the chance what exact mental illnesses he could have. What kind of early life he could have had, and so on. Jill looked down at the newspaper they were all talking about, there were four of them. Her, Claire, Ada, and their Boss William Birkin. He was the one that perfected the idea of transference and they were all lounging because there was no one else there. Jill still felt light and giddy from yesterday, they had to keep her for at least a day of observation still.
The young girl was in a desert, her name was Anna. She huddled under a dry decaying plant under a bright and cloudless sky. 'I can't move.' she repeated over and over again. She was startled as Jill approached her, it was one of a almost year worth of work with her. Jill settled down next to her. She went quiet, and stilled. Jill was sure the girl wasn't mentally ill and sadly the illness she did have was fatal eventually as her muscles and body skeletonized. The human mind does strange things when told terrible news and Anna had taken it to mean she couldn't move at all ever. Otherwise she would die. Jill sat by her until Anna looked up at her with wide eyes. It was the first time the girl had actually moved, since Jill had been there treating her.
'You... can't move?' she asked Jill. Jill shook her head.
'I can move.' she told Anna. 'I know how scary it is though.' Anna frowned and huddled back down.
'I'm going to die.' she sobbed. 'That's what they said, I'm going to die unless I don't ever move!' Jill stayed silent but stayed there with her for another moment as Anna cried. She hugged Jill in a sudden motion and sobbed into Jill side. 'I don't want to die!' she cried and Jill grimaced soothing the little girl. There was little Jill could do without therapy and therapy took a lot of time. Her parents wanted it done now.
'I know, I know how terrible it is. Some days I don't want to get up either.' she told Anna. 'But we adults have to.' Anna looked up at her.
'Why.' she begged.
'Because otherwise, somethings would never happen. Like birthdays.' she smiled to Anna as the young girls eyes lit up. A small 'oh' came out of her. Jill stood and held out a hand to Anna. The little girl stared at her with wide eyes until with a sniff she stood and slowly made her way out. The most jarring thing was waking up from the space.
Her parents were ecstatic of course, but Anna would still need therapy and Jill was still coming off the cocktail of drugs that had been pumped into her. Critics said this was all a hallucination, but the results were impossible to explain that. So far Jill settled down, and sipped at the decaf. She wasn't allowed caffeine until the drugs wore off completely. "This one was a deer hunter! the doll maker turned him into a fawn!" Ada snorted, it was a sick fascination. But the papers only had a rough outline of what happened to the body. Severing the legs, and hands, and then sewing deer legs on the ends with only the mans thumb in the place of the dew claw of the deer. The antlers had been implanted in his head and Jill shivered thinking he might have done some of this when the man was alive, or the deer for that matter.
"I'm glad that I don't have to deal with catching him. I had my fill of criminal psychology in school." Jill told them. The two girls looked at her and nodded.
"You're right jesus, do you think his parents are alive?" Claire asked. Jill shook her head she knew of people who had been abused and most serial killers were severally abused as children. This doll maker was likely no exception to this rule. At least he didn't kill kids, or do anything horrible other than mutilating the bodies in sick ways.
"Do you think he finds it funny?" Ada asked her and Jill shrugged. The decaf coffee didn't hit the same spot as normal coffee.
"I think he is an artist." Jill supplied and the room went silent. "Not like that, but if he found it funny he'd do something else. This speaks of someone who likes art." she said and shrugged. Wishing for more members. But the focus was still on her.
"What do you think he does?" Claire asked her.
"Doctor. Surgeon maybe." Ada supplied. Jill sighed as Clarie looked to her and she was free from the focus of the two. "Maybe a mortician but someone with training."
Jill stood and left the two to talk over the killer to write further reports and to add Anna to her paper about the Red Queen. The computer AI which all together was a simple thing as AI went, but the further it was devolped, the further two minds could be combined she thought. Maybe even curing coma patients. Jill rolled her shoulders as she settled into her 'home' here. She might as well live here she thought as she opened her computer and pulled up the various things and typed all the notes and compiled data. It would likely be over a month if not more until the next patient came in. In the meantime she could go home eat, sleep and drink real coffee instead of the decaf that was now sitting making a ring in the mug by her.
Three weeks later Birkin and the three girls were crowded by a large TV as they watched the scene. It seemed riduclous, but somehow, mabye a once in a million event they had found the doll maker. It wasn't even in the process of dumping a body, not really. But from of all things purchasing an illegal firearm in a DEA sting. Jill watched the prusuit, and then subsquent crash. He'd been in the hospital for sure and she breathed a sigh of relief once it was confrimed. There was one of his bodies in his car, and the firearm was for the doll, a retired police officer. Jill looked away from the screen as Birkin frowned but said nothing. Two days later, without a single person trying to come to them and Birkin called them all into his office. Chris, Claire's brother was there as she paused and settled into a chair. There was a serious astomphere around them as Chris sighed.
"You know the Doll Maker?" he asked them, three nods. "he is in a coma, and..." Chris wiped a hand down his face. "I need you all to debate on who will examine him." three women all looked to each other shaking their heads. Jill swallowed as Chris fixed his sister with a desperate look and a paricular fear ran through her.
"He has someone doesn't he?" Jill asked the silence Chris looked right at her with a startled expression. "Captive I mean. He has someone somewhere captive." she finished to his face. Chris looked down and sighed.
"Yes, this isn't public knowledge, but he usually keeps his victims for a week... alive." Jill shuddered as the room went silent. No one wanted to go into the head of a comatose serial killer. Looking at the minds of coma patients, of little girls who were so scared of moving they created their own psycholoical phenomemon. Jill shighed.
"I'll do it." she said quietly. Birkin stood up and paced a few steps.
"Jill, I..." he paused and sighed looking to the three women. "This is dangerous, I can do it." he said she shook her head.
"Do we have a safety? A way I can excape?" He paced behind his desk thinking. It was deep into REM sleep like state where the body was paralyzed, so far with completely safe people, children, it wasn't needed. Now they, or rather she, would be going into the mind of a dangerous criminal. The two minds were more gently separated via a tapering of drugs and the hazy sort of dream like space that seemed to bridge the two minds via the Red Queen.
"I can try to program a safety into the Red Queen..." he said thinking and sitting down. "Are you sure about this Jill?" he asked. She thought about Anna how helping her wasn't just trying to talk to her but understand her. Ada had tried, and Claire once. But the most progress was with her. Anna was a scared little girl and she looked to Chris.
"Do you know who he took?" Chris looked away.
"I can't.... share that information." he said and she shook her head.
"Ada, Claire go." The two got up looking to Jill before they left the room. Chris sat down finally and grimaced. "Show her." Jill blinked as he pulled out his phone and flicked it open. Jill stared down at what it showed. It was some kind of private live feed of a young man in a cell. With clear glass walls and steel the man was currently under the bench as two inches of water was treading into the sealed room. Pipes and such could not be seen for where the water came from all it was a young man.
"We believe his is Alfred Ashford, he... was traveling America." Chris explained. "He is a earl. Royalty." Jill forced her face to stay still. Sure that if this was just some random person on the street that they wouldn't have bothered. But she didn't say anything as she watched the water stopped and the young pretty guy got out from under the bench and started trying to escape. This is when Chris pulled the phone back.
"Is that a live stream?"
"We've tried tracing it, we can't find it." he answered tersely. Jill frowned at him and then looked to Birkin. He was doing a flurry of typing on his computer. "We need to know where he is, can you TALK to him?"
"If you are asking if you can go in no." Chris stared at her and she looked up to Birkin, he gave her a glance and nodded. "Only a specific mind can go in. So far... those have only been female. Thus the Red Queen being called what it is." Chris sighed and put a hand to his face.
"You need to be brief-" he said and she snorted.
"Briefed on just what to ask a psychopath?" she asked him. He glared at her. "Just what is wrong with him?"
"I don't know the details, the doctors said it might take him..." he threw up his hands. "Whatever to wake up, IF he wakes up." Jill grimaced.
"Brain damage?" he shrugged. "Where is his doctor?"
"He's coming in with the transfer." Jill let out a breath and thought. Heading into kids minds was easy, and they had never even thought about heading into the mind of some legit psychopath. Jill felt a chill of fear about just what that could be like, and what could happen. It almost happened with Ada for a catatonic rich bastard who almost trapped her in his mind. That was because his family needed some clarification of his will. Thankfully the guy was more stupid and willing to do anything for a strip tease, and Jill did feel sympathy for the lonely guy but only so much. That alone should have made the fail safe, but that was hard when you are locked into a sleep state and can't move. Chris was staring at her with a frown.
"What?" she demanded.
"Is this all real?" he asked her.
"Yes it is, we've had almost twenty successes." she told him. "Do you even know what the Glascow coma scale is? Or what his name is?" Chris shook his head.
"No finger prints, no identification." Jill sighed.
"And you can't look into missing persons?" she asked and he stayed silent. "Of course." Jill sighed again.
"Jill? Are you sure about this?" Birkin asked her stalling, they stared at each other and she knew that if they did succeed then that would be a huge boon to them. That this would make them all legitimate. No one could say everything was false. That what went behind the closed doors of the Red Queen was just false things, similar to hypnosis. The weight of everything that she had become a part of was heavy on her shoulders.
"I am sure," she told him. "So long as you can get the safety in." he nodded and gestured to her. Jill stood and went by him looking down at his screen. "Can the Queen SENSE that?" she asked him.
"I wish we had time to test it, but I hope so." she was stated at least. Touching her thumb and forefinger to the webbing of her hand, on either side should let the Queen know she was in danger. Hopefully the AI would not only be able to sense that motion, but know if she was in danger.
"I'm going to go prepare." Jill said and he nodded she looked up to Chris. "Be sure to take a tour of the facility." she told him and smiled before heading out. Her small apartment used as she was recovering from a session she settled down and put both her hands to her face. No one wanted to be in the head of a psychopath and she could only just barely think of all the problems this man could have. How she could even navigate the 'mental pathways' of his head? A person who killed and mutilated people for whatever sick gain he thought of was not something she wanted to experience in the slightest. But this was more of a have to, if she could get the location of this duke, earl what have you then she would prove everything was real.
Jill was reminded of Claire's mental world, and what she, and Ada for that matter had said about it. All of them had to have sessions with each other not only to familirize with each other but also to know the affects and such to the process. Her mind was a shifting place, like a huge facility that was like a hospital, but not truly. It was like every build she had ever been in all meshed together with random wings of fantasy buildings. Claire was simple, plains and forests, and small homey places. Ada was more compilcated, a skyscraper with varying levels. The two said it was like Jill didn't know what to be, and given her history they were right.
At eighteen she went to the military, ran the operator course and was denied for no true reason other than her gender. Top marks and being ahead of two men at least? No it was because they didn't want girls. Then there was her stint in medical school before she transfered into psychology. Dropping that as soon as she finished school then heading to marine biology. From there Birkin found her and here she was.
Now she was being trusted in going into a psychopaths head and poking around in it. Jill shivered, again. Someone who spent his time murdering people and then multilating their corpses, hopefully in that order. Jill looked up at the blank wall, there wasn't even anything personal here. Her place of living wasn't much better. The random thrift store finds, things that just caught her fancy. But all of this was moot, she laid down and tried to get some sleep.
Jill washed her hands as they brought in the man and let out a breath as they put him into a hastily built medical unit within one of the rooms of the Red Queen. It was the 'group' therapy unit that they could never get to work properly. She was in a sort of wet suit that would help supposedly for the Red Queen to sense the safety movement, still just as experimental as everything else. She looked at him as they put him on one of the platforms. Jill was struck that he didn't look like a serial killer, but then what people really did until you knew better. In fact he looked like a doctor in some sitcom. Hair that had once been sytled was crazed on his head and he sat passively with gauze banages and a medical drape on him as they got him settled there. His doctor was a Vincent Goldman, and as she watched she frowned. Her two years of medical school said that he was one of the 'i am god' doctors.
"What is his coma scale?" she asked him and he stared at her like she was speaking tongues.
"Eight." he said after a moment as she finished and went to his side. Pointed features and a placid expression she did a once over herself. There was something familiar about him she was sure. Several old scars were on his back and the backs of his thighs. It looked like he was whipped almost, or canned so hard that he had scars from it. There were small pebble like scars on his knees and thin hair line scars on his hands. "He's been examined." Vincent told her with a sneer.
"Looks like he was tortured as a child." was all she said before she left, he had no trouble breathing. But he needed intravenous medications, and a gastric tube for feeding. She knew the type of little scars on his body and reflexively touched her hands. The poor guy, she thought and shook it out of her head there was no time for reflection right now. Birkin came in and with a small button press several slings came down and he worked with Vincent to get the unconscious man into the red Queen. The IV was settled into him and the various drugs pushed into his system first, Jill wouldn't be bringing him into her mind that was for sure.
"Ready Jill?" he asked her. Jill breathed out.
"Not really but lets get this over with." Birkin shifted a bit uneasily as she sat down on the edge of the neighboring platform. It was comforting at least that he appeared not to want this although he must be preening inside his head. It was his machine, his work that was going to be used to save a royal brat. Jill laid down and there was a slight pinch, as the needle was put into her elbow the only part of her uncovered by the suit than the hands, feet, and head.
The drugs would take a minute and she slipped into a mirrored sling of the man by her. She took a moment to look at him, he looked like he would have been well groomed. Meticulous. Defined, maybe he worked out once a week at least to keep his body flat and trim. Someone that was as she could see defined his life via planning. So how he was caught by something like a sting operation for whatever it was that he wanted she didn't know.
Supported now by several hanging slings once the Queen activated and drew them together the platforms would be lowered and thus the chance of them maybe flopping around and falling off the platform and jarring themselves out would be negated. Birkin put a hand on her shoulder then drew a veil over her face. He would do the same to the man by her and soon the room was quiet. It was the veil, which was more like a balaclava but with wires, would be what connected them. Each one was connected to the Queen as well.
The computer, what took up the majority of the facility rumbled to life and she shut her eyes tightly. The drug cocktail was pumped and soon with a smell like burned marshmallows filling her nose she was drawn into darkness.
She smelled sterile next and with a shudder she opened her eyes and blinked. The medical ward in front of her was clean and empty. Featureless asides from flame doors that lined the halls. It extended out in a slow curve vanishing into the dark of some distant hallway in shadow. It was here that she realized that behind her was a great bright light but she didn't cast a single shadow, it was like the light passed through her completely. Like she was a ghost, something garbled came over the air above her. Which is when someone stepped up behind her and she realized she was in a very nice hospital gown. "Come this way to examine room two." a cultured voice said and a hand was laid on her back. Jill knew the voice and turned to see someone she thought she would never see again. Doctor Albert Wesker. The very man who gave her the psychical that allowed her to go into the operator course.
"Doctor?" she asked and he looked down at her through wire frame glasses, they flashed taking out the icy blue eyes from being seen.
"We do not have all day." he told her putting gently pressure on her back. Jill stepped forwards taking a gulp of air and walking with him towards a room just by the curve of the hall. There was less of a hall and pure darkness hiding what was down there. A flickering light and more than just a shuddering memory of just what it was made her quickly head into the room with him following. Jill stared around the room, it wasn't a hospital room, not really. It was the inside of a medical tent where she had her second physical. Where she first met him just before the operator course.
She herself was excited, being accepted to do the operator course just after basic training touched some far out pride inside of her as she waited for the doctor. The chatter barely heard was a ton of older men all excited to be going through this as well. They were all good little soldiers and Jill smiled. She was too young and naive at the moment to think of the future and of failing. Her wit, cunning, and such had brought her this far so she would get in and be the youngest, and first female, to go through and win it. Win, like a game. The doctor opened up the flap and she smiled at him at the edge of the barely padded bed waiting. Everyone needed a dumb physical; he gave a nod to her as he closed the tent flap. Jill blinked at his hands with hairline scars and a chilling memory came over her, a reminder of what she experienced.
"Jill Valentine?" he asked and she nodded as he sat down and looked at her. He held a clipboard with her information she assumed as she frowned. Jill would change her name later, Valentine was a dumb last name, and it would prevent her family from finding her. Not that THIS Jill wanted that yet.
"Yes Sir!" she said brightly and looked at his hands again. His stare was flat and unamused as she flushed.
"IS there something wrong?" he questioned and regarded her with cool detached cynicism.
"Your hands... I feel that." she said quietly, he paused to look down at his hands. "The scars? Man, I remember how hard Sister Lucia hit my hands, but she used a wooden ruler." She held up her hands and flexed them before putting them her lap. It took a moment but the cold indifferent mask seemed to slip off.
"Sister Lucia? Mine was Father Irons." he told her and she blinked and gave out a smile.
"Wait... Our Lady of Starlight catholic school?" she asked he smiled and nodded relaxing. "I never thought I'd find another person from that shithole." she told him. He snorted, and nodded. "Jesus was Irons that bad? I heard he got creeping on the girls shower more than once."
"He was, but he is dead now." Jill laughed at the thought, she only knew the pastor in passing and even Lucia, a hard nosed and very detached lady told her to avoid him.
"Good, I'm glad, you must have moved on just before I got in." He thought a moment and nodded. The school had two wings, one for girls and one for boys, and it was only meals that put them together. Silent meals, where if you talked they would come by and hit you. Jill shuddered at the thought.
"I am glad to know someone else did survive that place intact." he commented and Jill was spared from thinking of the odd comment before he did her physical. It was just a good thing to know someone else from a catholic boarding school, Jill heard worse stories told in the dead of night via morse code taps on bedframes. After the course she found him standing with a frown to the general of the area. She was excited and happy that she excelled beyond even her expectations, and beyond two more trained men than her basic training. But there was an outright hostility of the men, and only men. One of them served towards her and she went right to the General and the doctor.
They stopped speaking as she nodded her head. "I'm sorry doc, but I didn't catch your name." she told him and smiled. He looked up and then back to her. The general moved away from her saving her saluting him, he snapped something angrily at the man whom followed her.
"Albert Wesker." he told her and she nodded. "You did very well out there." she chuckled.
"I beat out two marines right?" he nodded and smiled. "So I got this in the bag?"
"You are being very friendly." he said dryly and she laughed. "But since we both share a school I wont think a thing about it."
"Thanks," she paused a moment to look around. "Did you... have to go down to the pit?" she asked. It was a rumor and she still felt a shiver of fear. It was a punishment, for only the worst of students. Jill behaved on the threat alone, the sisters and mother superior said there were nails in the ground that you had to lay on as a bed. And much worse stories.
"You don't want to know if you never experienced it." he told her simply Jill shivered.
"Christ, it was that bad?"
"Worse." he frowned and she touched his hand. He blinked once as if coming out a terrible memory and looked down at her holding his hand.
"Hey, what I wouldn't give to kill all those fucking pricks there too. I'm glad Irons is dead. How did he die?" Wesker smiled a bright smile that Jill found charming.
"Violently, screaming, with lots of blood." he joked and she laughed with him.
"Serves him right. One down twenty four to go right?" he nodded ending in a chuckle. She let go of his hand now and looked to the General as he stomped to her. This was where she weas denied her success. Furious that anyone wouldn't let her actually be successful when she proved she was.
Albert pulled out a fabric tape and started measuring her various portions. writing them down as Jill worked up the nerve to speak. She breathed out as he turned her a little and she faced him, he wasn't even attempting to look at her face. She took a breath in and took his hand as it passed. He blinked. "Doc? Do you remember me?" she asked him. Finally he looked to her face and stared at it. "The operator course." she said when there was nothing on his face. "Jill Valentine." He looked down to her hands that held his.
"Yes I remember you." he slipped his hand from hers and she froze as he put both his hands around her neck loosely. Her hands clutched at his as he narrowed his eyes to her. "Where do you come from?" Jill shuddered.
"You're... hurt." she told him. "The Red Queen Transference. You're there." She drew her hands down and put them behind her back hands hovering in the proper position to escape.
"I have heard of it." he told her and put both thumbs under her chin tilting her head up. "Hurt?"
"Coma scale eight, they don't know when you'll wake up..." she mumbled and paused. "They said your the doll maker." Jill shut her eyes as he leaned forwards and smelled her. "Doc?"
"Jill, my little bird that tried to fly away." he mumbled. But he drew back and put his hands on her shoulders a smile on his face. "Did you want to see what I did to Irons? He's here and I found Lucia for you." she drew her hands back to her front. "I wanted to tell you, they never will find the best ones. I keep them for myself."
"Albert? You..." He gripped her shoulders and turned her to the door. From the tent like entrance it vanished to be replaced by a wall of glass. Like they were on some kind of sick ride as from the right to the left what he had done came into view. An insane laugh burst out of her. Irons was a portly guy, and Lucia had been a frail old lady. Lucia also was a fan of prostrating herself during heady prayers on her hands and knees which obviously inspired what he had done. Her face was peeled off and worn by Irons, Lucia was prostrated and frozen looking up holding her rosery beads. While Irons was behind her in an obvious pantomime of sex. Her skirts were drawn up and as it passed it twisted showing that, yes, there was fornication happening. Another bubbled laugh as with a robotic stiffness the two pantomimed the action, the mouth of Lucia opening and closing as Irons pumped into her. It vanished after that as she put her hands to her face trying to contain and process the horror of that.
He put his arms around her waist as the door melted back into place. "Now I finally have you." he said. Jill looked into the mirrored rectangular slit and her whole body went still. It was then she knew that she wasn't in his head, but they were in hers. In the mirrored glass she saw how he saw things. From her first date that had stiffed her, and what he thought of himself. He didn't look human, at least not that much. More corpse like with exposed teeth and no nose and gross purplish mutations over his face and body that wasn't hidden by her body. Just under the field of her vision she could see indirectly his hands which were bloated and corpse-like with long fingernails that dug into her long medical gown. Jill had had this dream quite a bit since medical school. Wandering around a darkened hospital with vague forms of obvious nurses not paying attention to her or moving.
But in his mind she was wearing what she had for that first date, her hair had been cut into a no-nonsense bob and she had a blue tube top and a short miniskirt. A white coat was around her waist since the air was a bit chilly but the restaurant wasn't. But she remembered sitting there as fifteen minutes passed until she got a text saying 'sucker'. She had already ordered and it was an upscale joint totaling around a hundred dollars. She told her waiter, but someone, he, had been listening in or watching. Paid for everything, and she had herself a fancy meal, albeit alone. She never did know where the guy went, as he seemed to vanish but no one bothered to list him as missing. As an adult, it was his right to disappear after all. "Albert?" she asked quietly.
"Don't worry, Do you want to see more? I want to see more of you. I want to know you." his voice took a color that made her feel chilled. The Doll maker had at least twenty known victims, and quiet a few people speculated that he had at least one accomplice.
"Birkin. He works with you." she said. Wesker chuckled and drew back, she did not want him in her head. She didn't even want to be in her head. But he opened up the door and peeked out. She took the chance and pressed on the part of her body that was supposed to free her. Nothing happened, the Red Queen didn't know. It was just a computer and it was just there to keep the two minds in one single 'space' as it were. Jill watched as he slipped outside of the room, she rushed after him grabbing his arm. One thing was certain, she did not want him at loose in her brain, digging around it. Finding her secrets and more.
"Wait." she breathed, there was a ripple and she stared down at his hip in horror. He changed fully to that large corpse being. He breathed out a large gust of air and leaned over her.
"Jill. I wont tell your secrets. Let me see." he said voice a harsh rough parody of a human voice. Body dysmorphia tied with maybe schizophrenia. He saw this thing as himself. That might be why he latched onto her, since obviously she didn't see the harm in touching him. His hand touched her cheek as she looked up at the horrible face. It reminded her in a way of the tooth thing from Hellraiser. The world tilted with that, and she did most definitely not like that. Needing control of her head she shut her eyes and tried to concentrate. The shifting reality of her headspace seemed to feel light and little grounded but there were commonalities.
The hospital, and the stairway platforms of her high school. The living room of her home growing up, and an art deco form of New York's subway. But she didn't like the last one as it was tied with nightmares of being chased by a huge monster form of something that was a train. Not lips but teeth grazed her shoulder prompting her to open her eyes and clutch at his chest. Wrapped up in thick black layers just like the creatures from Hellraiser. Jill shuddered as he bit into her shoulder but whatever pain there 'was' was just a faded sort of shudder. She knew there should be pain, but there was just the pressure and a sort of ache from the wound as he pulled back. She knew he must be smiling because she was still touching him as he put an arm around her back hand touching the small of her back. Pressing slightly towards the darkened hall. A quick shake of her head but he pressed all the same and she walked with him as they went to darkness of her own head.
Ada and Claire didn't go into her head much farther than the door, not that they were supposed to. Both did not want to see or face the warping shifting mass that was in her head. Wesker opened the door which was a cellar door down into the worst nightmares she grabbed at him holding onto the corpse-monster. "Please." she begged, but he didn't listen instead pulling her down.
The stairs were old, and they creaked. In the dark Jill shuddered and gave out a small whimper. There was a snap the sound of a leather belt being pushed in and then snapped in a whip like sound. Deep in the dark there was a cry of child that used to be. Cursing of her father and so much pain, the school she went to was an escape as a boarding school. Nothing compared to the pains she got at home. She was partly sure he got the same if not worse at his home with the scars on his knees. Like he had kneeled down in gravel or dried peas. Maybe rice. Deep down in her head where she ran down to escape the reality that had been her life, there were feelings down there she didn't think were her.
The whole world the moment they got down to the end of the old wooden stairs to the basement of her family home was bathed in a dark red color. Making everything look garish and bloody in the dark. Shapes moved and creeped at her knees. Touching the bare skin of her calves. Thoughts and memories long buried and kept distracted away from her waking mind. Wesker moved away from her and she wanted to jolt back up the stairs but found her feet rooted to the spot. Hands were gripping her calves, ghastly pale and lurid in the light and just as corpse-like. She whimpered as one roamed up her thigh when Wesker bent down away from her showing her where her mind wandered. It wasn't right she told herself but he was listening to the buried thoughts. The instructor for the marine biology course was a prick, some holier than thou person just like the Doctor Vincient somewhere far outside where her body was. She didn't like him at all and thought constantly that the world would be better off without him. She was so relieved when Birkin contacted her since she felt something would have happened sooner rather than later.
Those thoughts were exposed now rising up just like the nurse in her head, a wandering bad thought and quickly forgotten and repressed down her in her subconscious. Jill was very good at that but Wesker was turning to her and she was looking away trying to move away. "Don't hide Jill." he told her holding out his hand. "Look at how beautiful these are." Everything she learned said it wasn't. The shifting thoughts, the date that stiffed her was a short lived thought and the one she saw from where she cringed at.
Imagining death on people was simple, a lot of people did it, and it was seem as somewhat normal. What wasn't normal was thinking about just how to do it, where to dump the body and what it would FEEL like when the knife slipped into their body over and over and over again. Hearing the grunt and gasp the last noises of them dying. "Beautiful." Wesker praised. Jill tried to bury it, but his arm grabbed the 'head' of the corpse and pulled it out making her face it.
"That's not me." she said in a small voice. But it was. It was a dead form of herself, the one that would have killed him, maybe, if he hadn't vanished. A 'dead' thought moaning and zombie like living rent free in her head. Like the nurse, a hidden little Jill who might have become a nurse like her family wanted. Becoming something that Jill didn't perceive herself as. She wasn't that thing, she wasn't this zombie, she was herself. Everyone had bad thoughts, everyone thoughts like that. That didn't mean she was crazy like him. Another one pulled up, this one was much younger, a teenaged Jill with a gun who had shot her father and mother to death. One that hated them more than anything and still hated them. Would anyone blame her? Probably not if they knew about the way her father beat her down her in the cellar.
"Beautiful. All of it." he breathed into her ear. Jill shuddered shutting her eyes but it didn't exactly work. She could still technically see and all the thoughts and memories were dredged up that she didn't like to go roaming around in her head like the nurse. Probably the only thought she kept around, THAT is why didn't stay in medical school. The old school sexism right? Like all the thoughts of all the soldiers and the general. Thinking about slowly luring them out and away from the base only to tie them up and kill them. Jill wasn't dumb in thinking of sex appeal to lure people in it was easy for her, and most people didn't like a hot girl would be a secret killer. The zombies of her, the dead thoughts she had killed and shoved down here were let go and praised by Wesker. "You never even tried?" his voice gentle and crooning as he touched her cheek.
"No! I can't! Its wrong!" The thoughts felt good however, which is why there was still the hand running up and down her thigh. It was wrong, murder was illegal. "They got you! You were caught."
"That's what they told you. But they don't have evidence." Jill looked up at his face, more familiar than the human skin she thought. "Why would they think a retried police officer sold guns for his pension?" the taunt made her think that even Chris was in on this. A cult of murder that sent a dark shiver down her body. The deep subconscious thoughts free roaming in her head rattled his touch was gentle. "I knew how much you would like it all." he crooned and kissed her. There was the feeling of lips, but it was more teeth than anything else. The world buckled, fading out and she tried to make a grateful gasp she could put all her thoughts back down later. She came too on the platform, just above it in the slings.
But she remembered that Birkin was suspicious if not complicit, and even Chris wasn't to be trusted. Claire was his sister. Which mean maybe only Ada was someone who could be trusted in this. Not even the holier than thou doctor. Her mind swirling in the confusing lethargy of the drugs. That wasn't entirely normal, but with a deep sort of clicking her platform slipped out from under her. Jill tried to think, but the thoughts were slow as she blinked realizing the sensation of a hand on her thigh. It did feel good and she cringed from the awful realizations in her head firstly. She needed to do things first before she faced them. "You just need a little help right?" Wesker asked her. Jill's heart skipped a beat but she couldn't see since the veil was over her head. "To see just how good you can be. How good it feels."
"Wesker, you do have to be careful, Redfield is coming in two hours." Birkin's voice said. Jill thought about this in a slow way. "There is no evidence they know, and you have to convince HER you aren't this. IT was a dumb move."
"But it got me where I want to be." Wesker called back. Her mind was still slow in processing this. Drugged she realized, a change in the cocktail keeping her partly under. "You will be a good change wont you?" He asked her. "There are some people who need you Jill."
"Who?" she asked the word coming out as a mumble. The hand moved up to her stomach, to the free portions of her body touching her bare skin. Where the needle was still in line with her veins.
"I need your help, please?" he pleaded. And kissed her through the veil. It took a little bit of time that was too hazy to comprehend but soon Jill was being pulled back down. This time was wasn't in the light corridor. But a massive cathedral. She was wearing white, that had a large stained red hem that seemed to be creeping up. She was standing in a large puddle of blood and looking up at Wesker. Around him were almost one hundred 'dolls' including the crude pantomime of Irons and Lucia. They moved in strictly jerky movements like animatronics. There was quite a few of her, each of the pulled out thoughts, enacted in the middle of the most gory moment displayed on full display. She wasn't a zombie in those, but herself. Jill wanted to back out and away, but a sick fascination, and maybe dulled by whatever cocktail that was pumping into her was driving her forwards.
"See? How good and perfect they are?" Wesker asked her, he looked normal again. Maybe it wasn't how he saw himself, but how she saw murders. Killers, monsters. "Will you help me? I'll help you Jill." he motioned to the younger version of herself that had killed her parents. It was right by him, and his own parents. Those were not someone the police founds she knew. Huddled in a corner and trapped was the mother looking gaunt and starved. Half crazed and holding onto the arm of her husband. It looked like he had starved his mother to the point she had been willing to kill and eat her husband. Or something of the sort. Her own parents were tied up by her and killed simply, without a thought or ounce of remorse. That was displayed in full. Her face impassive compared to the tears and begging. Jill nodded staring at the most wanted deaths she wanted. The nurse who didn't believe that the doctor touched her improperly when she had to have her appendix removed and she was to drugged to fight.
"Okay. Tell me what to do." he smiled at her as she sniffed and he leaned in whispering in her ear.
Chris frowned at her. "You told me he was the doll maker!" Jill accused him. "We wasted so much time!" Chris looked down and away.
"We though so. I couldn't talk so much about the case." Jill folded her arms in front her her. She didn't like doing this. But there was a constant loop in the back of her head. If she did this, then she would see. Part of her needed to know, and now that it wasn't beaten down again just yet if she could beat it down she was driven to do Weskers plan.
"I didn't see anything amiss in his head. He was there to try to stop his friend from selling arms." It wasn't exactly a lie. They HAD been known to each other, and Wesker was going to kill the cop. But with the raid it killed the cop, and put him at least fakely down. The mental willpower it took to fake being in a low grade coma made her shudder.
"We need to find Albert Ashford did you see or find anything?" he asked her. Jill swallowed.
"How long has he been missing?" Chris grimaced.
"Two years." he said quietly.
"What about the prints on the phone?" Chris grimaced again. "Could... could the cop have been the doll maker?" she asked quietly. Chris blanched and put his hands in his head meaning she had hit the nail on the head. It was an old recording she knew. The royal brat a grostestic floating corpse somewhere.
"We don't KNOW." he griped to her. Jill looked away. "It was all that there was." he gestured up. "We have nothing now." he thumbed his fists on the table making her jump. "NOTHING." he pointed at her. "I bet this is all fucking fake."
"You can think that... but its not true." she replied softly. Chris got up with a rough shove and left her. She did want to help him, but that could come after. Wesker said it felt good, and if anyone deserved to die that could think of at this moment it was her parents. If it didn't feel good it wouldn't take long to contact him and take out the doll maker. And Birkin. She thought about Anna too, the little girl, and her job here. Finding the deep secrets and knowing the sins of people? It would just confirm whom wasn't good who as she thought deserved what they would get coming to them. Like Lucia and Irons. Like the doctor who hurt her as a child. Maybe that one would be first.