Chapter Text
June 22nd, 1997
I heard it again, that melody. A very distinct song I have yet to be able to put a name to. ‘Dream Song’ doesn’t do it justice. I’ve never heard it on the radio, it doesn’t match the soundtrack of any play or movie I’ve ever seen, but it’s stuck in my brain regardless. Every time I have a dream, or– more accurately, a nightmare, –I wake up with that melody playing in the back of my head. I’ve tried to ask William if he’s ever heard this song, and he said he hadn’t either, but he suggested it could have been from some show that I watched as a child. Annette proposed I check out old music box songs, as it could have been one of those.
Nevermind the fact that I never had a music box growing up, I’ll take their suggestions into consideration. Maybe then I’ll finally put an end to this mystery.
But there is another thing that sticks out to me as well. The name Alex shows up repeatedly in my dreams. ‘Alex’ is more relegated to pleasant or neutral dreams, while the melody only shows up after nightmares, but both are of equal mystery to me.
I do not know what these things are. I don’t care to remember them, but there’s something in my brain that won’t let me forget them. They seem to be important, but important to what I do not know.
Perhaps Chris was right. Maybe I should seek out a psychiatrist to fix this mess.
-A. Wesker
It wasn’t particularly often that Wesker would dream. His horrendous sleep schedule was preventative enough of any sort of deep sleep, but even when he did manage to get more than 6 hours of sleep, he’d rarely dream. Maybe 2 to 3 times a month at most.
Which was why it was very shocking to him when he merely blinked at his desk and woke up 7 hours later, the name Alex ringing in his ears yet again.
He sat up, the position he’d slept in for hours was hard on his back, his spine cracking as he stretched out. A piece of fabric fell from around his shoulders when he sat back, looking down at it he realized it was a blanket. He also noticed the now cold cup of coffee sitting on his desk. Examining it further there was a yellow post-it note stuck to it.
‘Brad says you’re a hypocrite. ;) -Jill’
Wesker almost chuckled. Fair enough, he thought. He was always getting on the team’s backs about slacking off or sleeping on the job, (nevermind the fact that Wesker was the only one who could be relied on to finish paperwork). He looked at the clock, which read 2:34 am. Which meant he was late to the lab. Cursing himself for dozing off, Wesker quickly grabbed his things and rushed out the door.
Driving down to Arklay labs from the RPD usually took a bit of time, but given the time there was little traffic, the streets of Raccoon City were as barren as a desert, completely empty aside from a few drunkards walking home from the local bars.
With the lack of traffic and few things to keep an eye on, Wesker’s mind drifted to the fleeting bits of the dream that he could remember. A girl in a school uniform, a stack of books, and a vhs tape. They were strung together somehow but Wesker couldn’t remember the specifics. He tried to remember the girl. He thought she had blonde hair but could have been brunette, she was possibly taller than him (in the dream, at least), and she was talking about… something.
Was… Was she Alex?
Wesker didn’t know. He banished the thought from his mind and focused on coming up with an excuse as to why he was late for work. The T-Virus was an important project, and he could not afford to slack off too much. William would kill him if he wasn’t there to help.
There it was again. The signature… bells, could they have been? Of the dream song playing in his ears.
Ouch. Wesker opened his eyes to bright fluorescent lighting, and a visceral agony emanating from his midsection. He couldn’t move his legs, so gathering the rest of his strength he rolled over onto his side and pushed himself up to survey the damage.
The tyrant’s claw had gone right through his spine and out the other side. He groaned in pain, spinal injuries were the hardest to heal, but it would hopefully not take too long. Especially if said tyrant was still roaming around.
Wesker tried to orient himself with his surroundings. Okay, he was beneath Spencer Mansion, in the tyrant’s chamber, and he needed to get out of there without getting caught by either a raving tyrant, or a righteously pissed off member of S.T.A.R.S.
Not that Wesker couldn’t finish them off himself, but he needed to keep hidden and use the fact that he by all means should be dead to his advantage. Wesker climbed up the side of a table and used it as a crutch to stand back up. The skin where he’d been impaled had knitted back together, but there was still untold damage to his internals that he had to worry about, nevermind his spinal cord, so he had to take it easy.
And again.
It was only a few days after Raccoon City was blown to ashes, and only a few days after Wesker had lost the only people close to him. That damned melody played over horrific visions of William and Annette, their bodies torn and mutated, screaming out in pain.
He barely slept for a month after that. Between the heart-wrenching grief and the debilitating anxiety of not knowing how his best and only friends had died, his mind went to the darkest of places, wondering over and over, had they suffered? Did they die torn to pieces and eaten alive by their undead coworkers?
And through it all the melody haunted him. His entire body plunged into cold, petrifying anxiety every time he heard something even resembling the melody, as all of the worries flooded through him like a dam of emotions had burst.
It was at that time that hiding felt like the best possible option. Not just from the law, but from his associates as well. He could allow nobody to see him this weak and broken down, grieving the loss of the Birkins.
Albert Wesker didn’t resurface for another 6 months following Raccoon City, and the only reason he did was to attack the Ashfords.
And wouldn’t you know it, he woke up under a pile of burning metal with that damned melody in his head.
It was inescapable. Alex’s appearances became more rare, but the melody played on and on. It got to a point during the research into Las Plagas that he would wake up every morning to the sound of the dream song fading away as he opened his eyes.
And as if to mock him, the last thing that Albert Wesker heard as he sank down into the magma, was the melody.
Or, so he thought, as he opened his eyes to discover he was strapped down to a surgical table.