A Star's Descent

Chapter Twelve: Derailed

A Star's Descent

By evolution-500

Disclaimer: House of the Dead and Resident Evil are properties belonging to SEGA and Capcom respectively. I do not own any of these characters.

Sorry for the delay. Progress had been hampered by outside factors. A huge shout-out to zipscool for his immense help. For anyone reading, I highly recommend his stories, he's an excellent writer. On a side note, for the first part of this chapter, I recommend reading it at night while listening to a particular soundtrack from RESIDENT EVIL REVELATIONS, a crap game (storywise) with some great music and atmosphere in parts. The song: QUEEN DIDO HALLWAY aka "Falling Chorus 2".

Chapter Twelve: Derailed

When Rebecca awoke, the first things that she became aware of was the blinding halo that shone over head, along with the throbbing within her ears and the long sheet of glass that encased her entire body. Blinking, the medic tried to readjust her sight, but it ebbed and flowed, a sensation that was both alien yet at the same distinctively familiar.

'What the hell?' she wondered.

She tried to move her limbs, but for whatever reason she found herself unable to do so.

Had she been rendered paralyzed by the crash?

Worry filled her mind as she willed her body to move. Worry turned to terror as her body refused to obey.

Oh God, please don't let this be!

She tried to open her mouth and call out, but her facial muscles couldn't even respond. The only sort of muscle control she had was with her eyes.

'What's going on?! Why can't I move?!' came the thought.

Looking upward, Rebecca saw a pair of overhead lights shining over a distinctively watery surface. From the shape of the roof, floor and glass, she was in some sort of water-filled tube, but what was really strange, though, was that she couldn't feel a thing, not even the water's touch.

Who brought her here?

Lowering her eyes back to the glass, Rebecca focused her attention on the exterior surroundings, hoping to catch sight of the person or persons that placed her in this prison, maybe even something to help her determine where she was. Greeting her, instead, was what looked to be a massive dark amphitheater with several different stairways and overhanging catwalks supported by long cables, each one attached to a stalactite-covered ceiling. Dotting each section of the stairways and various rows like lanterns were clusters of containers just like the one she was in, the sole sources of light within this shadowy hell. There must have been over several hundred people within this room, maybe more.

'Where am I?' Rebecca wondered in awe.

Based on her positioning, she was somewhere on the upper levels, close to one of said-catwalks. Drifting her vision along its rails, she followed it to the center of the amphitheater, where she saw a great ring-like platform surrounding something huge and slightly iridescent. Though the thing was concealed by a thick snowy-haze, Rebecca detected constant movement. In a way, it reminded her of a great windmill, but what kind of windmill could operate underground and produce wind? Each flap from said- "sails" resulted in an audible and powerful gust that howled, groaned and whistled hollowly in a repetitively throbbing beat throughout the amphitheater. For reasons unexplained, Rebecca felt a potent terror swell up within her the longer she stared in its direction.