Chapter Text
Albert Wesker didn’t feel fear. There was nothing he had to be afraid of. He was practically a god, and gods had nothing to fear. Yet he couldn't help the way he felt his skin crawl as he explored the laboratory. His sources had told him one of the few remaining branches of Umbrella was operating there. And he wanted to get rid of Umbrella.
So far, Wesker had found the lab mostly abandoned. Dust was everywhere, equipment was broken down, and lights flickered. And yet, he was told the lab was fully operational. He walked deeper into the dark hallway, electricity buzzing. At the end of the hall was an elevator. The elevator opened with a ‘ding!’ and the man stepped inside, going down.
There was so much blood. Bloody footprints made the floor slippery, shiny under the blinding lights. If Wesker wasn't wearing his sunglasses, he'd be experiencing a debilitating migraine. There were no security guards in sight. How arrogant.
“Horrible security,” he scoffed, briskly walking down the bloodied halls. Wesker didn't have much time to waste. He wanted to get some specific supplies, kill some former Umbrella scientists, and leave. Uroboros was close to being done. There was no more time to waste.
“Dispose of the failures. We'll find success with the next batch!” Wesker heard a voice snap as he walked past a locked room. He paused, tilting his head. The door had a narrow window running from the top to above the door handle.
The view was slightly blurry, but he could see a few scientists surrounding a medical table. Wesker couldn't quite see what was on the table, but it didn't take a genius to know it was a failed experiment. Any other time Wesker would have walked by, continuing on his mission, but one scientist moved and Wesker paused. There was a child on the table, still alive.
“Get rid of it,” the head scientist snapped. “It's failed just like all the others.” He threw his clip board on the floor. “Wha—” He looked at the door before Wesker had burst into the room, the door hanging off its hinges. Wesker didn’t give the scientists a chance to beg for their lives. With inhuman speed, he slaughtered every last one of them.
The child was shaking, strapped down onto the table. There was bandages covering her limbs and torso, some an ugly brown as they hadn’t been changed in a while. Her brown hair was short and her neck had puncture scarring. Her wrists and ankles were rubbed raw from the too tight restraints. Her grayish brown eyes looked up at him, wide with terror.
Wesker carefully took off the restraints, unsure of why he felt so compelled to be gentle. The girl scrambled back, crashing to the floor. She made a pained wheeze and curled in on herself. Her small body trembled, and Wesker’s anger only grew. She looked barely five years old. How could anyone be so cruel to a child? In the back of his mind he knew the exact kind of monster that preyed on children.
“You’re coming with me,” Wesker stated, crouching in front of the girl. “Consider yourself lucky.” He reached for her, and she scrambled back.
“N…ngh…” she tried to refuse. Each time Wesker attempted to carefully grab her, the child would skitter back, as if afraid of the mere idea of being touched. “S…st…” Most children would have been screaming at him to get back. Why wasn’t she?
“I am not going to hurt you,” Wesker stated matter-of-factly. Getting irritated, Wesker finally managed to grab her, carefully picking her up. He didn’t want to hurt her further. The girl whimpered, squirming. He carried her as he finished gathering what he needed. Using a flash drive he downloaded all the files in the lab’s database.
The child’s trembling didn’t stop. She weakly pounded on his shoulder, making horrible wheezing sounds. She tried to speak, no words coming out. Pained noises were all she could produce. Her entire body ached, her heart pounding.
“Stop struggling. You’ll only hurt yourself more,” Wesker sternly told her. There was nothing left in the lab he needed, and he’d be damned if he left it standing for more pests to take it over. The child’s struggles stopped when he walked out of the lab, leaving a highly explosive substance behind. The girl flinched, clinging to him as he approached his helicopter, the loud whirring of the engine frightening her.
“Do you have a name?” Wesker asked, putting her down in the helicopter. The child tilted her head, frowning, inching away from him. The bio-terrorist took a deep breath. Of course. This child was young. She’d probably been there since for most of her life. He’d be amazed if she even knew how to read or write much less speak.
“S…Su…Su…” The girl huffed in frustration, brows furrowed as she tried to relay her name to him. The scientists had named her, but she couldn’t voice it. Her lips pursed into an adorable pout.
“Hm?” Wesker raised an eyebrow. The child looked away, curling in on herself once more. He told the pilot to fly back to his base, watching below as the Umbrella lab was blown up, a satisfied smirk on his face. More pests that wouldn’t be welcome in his new world.
Wesker was not prepared for a child at all. The moment they’d landed at his base, she had tried to fight him and hide. Her wounds needed to be treated yet she kept trying to escape his infirmary. It was evident she was terrified of needles. No sedatives could be administered with her constant struggling and breathless, hoarse screams. When she had finally exhausted herself, Wesker took to changing her bandages.
Once she was asleep, Wesker looked over the files he’d taken. Her file was in there. No name was given for her other than Subject #24. His teeth grit painfully, anger roaring the more he read. Children taken from orphanages and from families that couldn’t do anything to find their child to be used for an Immunity Project Umbrella had been developing to keep select people immune during virus outbreaks. Every child had perished except for this one.
There was nothing about who her parents were or where she’d come from. Before this project, she was a ghost. Wesker glanced at her sleeping form. She seemed so peaceful, a far cry from the terrified borderline feral child he’d found. There were audio and video files in her subsection, each more horrifying that the last. The child was deemed a failure to the project, and yet she was the only one to survive. He opened one of the last videos.
Subject 24 escaped containment due to an employee’s incompetence. The subject hysterically cried for help, finding [REDACTED], a mercenary Umbrella hired. Subject 24 tried to use him to escape, but Head Scientist [REDACTED] found her.
“Huh? A kid?” a man with shaggy brown hair knelt down to the child’s level. “What’s a kid like you doing here?”
The child cried, clinging to him. “Help me!” she wailed, tears streaming down her face. “They’re hurting me!” Her shoulders shook, her wails morphing to hyperventilating. The mercenary froze, holding her close. His eyes widened and he looked down at her.
“Ah, there she is,” the head scientist spoke calmly, a fake smile on his face. “Thank you for finding her, Mister Oliveira.” Carlos narrowed his eyes, shielding her. “Children have such vivid imaginations. She likes to exaggerate things.”
“Then why is she terrified?” Carlos asked suspicious of the scientist.
“As I said, vivid imaginations,” he smiled. “She’s my niece, and I’ve let her watch a series without double checking what it was. She’s just frightened because of my mistake.” He reached for the child. “I thank you for finding her. It would have…been quite horrible if she was lost.”
Carlos reluctantly let her go. “Yeah, if you say so.” He frowned as she was led away. The girl looked back at him, eyes pleading before the camera cut black.
Wesker closed the files, putting them aside. His fist clenched and fought the urge to lash out. He didn’t lose control. He had enough self-control to keep himself in check. He didn’t remember any ‘Mister Oliveira’ that worked for Umbrella, but then again, he didn’t pay attention to the bottom feeders of the organization. He was probably some poor soul manipulated into believing he was helping people.
Many had fallen victim to Umbrella’s schemes, Wesker playing his part in some of them. Yet the difference between him and Umbrella was the fact he’d never target children. If they got caught in a crossfire, so be it, but he’d never purposely target a child. He wasn’t that much of a monster.
For the time being, Wesker would keep an eye on the child and find out why she survived while the other children didn’t. Perhaps she’d be strong enough for his new world. This child could hold so many secrets and possibilities that he’d discover one at a time. But first, he needed to make sure she’d survive her injuries and maybe learn to trust him.