The Last Survivor //Resident Evil Village//

The sadistic daughter

TW!!! //Attempted sexual assault//

"SAVE HIM!" She cried out in terror, pacing around the man laying on the table. Sarah felt sick to her stomach. Never had she seen her so frightened. She had always been so calm and collected, nothing could break her. She kept her walls up, never allowing anyone to see herself so vulnerable, not even Sarah. But now, her walls were crumbling right before her as she begged the girl to save this man.

"Sarah," she pleaded, "he can't die!"

"I'll do what I can, but I cannot promise his survival," Sarah replied to the woman. "I need privacy. You know I prefer to be alone in stressful situations. I work better alone."

That wasn't exactly the truth. Sarah could do her job just fine in the presence of others. She simply preferred to be alone, to not be watched. Solitude helped her focus. It was the silence that allowed her brain to speak aloud, to remind her how to work her hands. This seemed to be the only trait of hers that the woman could understand. So she nodded, and left Sarah alone with the injured and dying man in front of her.

Almost immediately his eyes shot open, causing Sarah to jump. "Please," he rasped, turning his head towards her. "I can't keep living like this. Just let me die."

Sarah shook her head, beginning to work on him. "She'll have my head if I do so. You are special to her."

He scoffed. "Special? To Miranda? Nothing is special to her, no one is. Not even you," his words felt like knives in her chest.

"She cares for all of us! She loves all of us!"

A pained smile found its way on his face. "You all keep telling yourselves that. You're stuck in a dream, and I've woken up. Let me die and watch, in just a week, no, a day, she will forget of my existence entirely. I'll be just another one of her failed experiments. Because I'm just a mere stand-in. Like the others, like you."

Those words seemed to never want to exit her head, stuck in a loop replaying over and over like a broken record until it nearly drove her mad. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was just a stand-in that would be thrown to the side once the right vessel was found. But would Miranda truly do that to her? After everything she has given her, would she truly throw her to the side to be forgotten? No, she wouldn't. He was wrong, Miranda would never do that. He didn't know Miranda like Sarah did, he didn't know who she was. She cared for them, she loved them, she loved Sarah. Right? She had always said to Sarah that she loved her and that everything she did was out of love for her. So she had to be telling the truth, right?

"I'm sorry," Sarah answered, "I'm not letting you die."

*****

Sarah's eyes fluttered open, immediately landing on the sleeping man leaning on the wall next her. She sighed and pushed herself up into a sitting position against the wall. Ethan never seemed to look relaxed, even while he was asleep. He always seemed tense, as if everything around him was trying to kill him. To be fair, almost everything was trying to do just that. But he had never seemed so tense before, as if sleep made this anxiety worse.

She noticed him shivering as she recalled him giving her his jacket. With ease she slid it off and placed it over him, trying to not wake him in the process. Luck, however, was not on her side as he immediately startled awake.

"Sarah!" He gasped with wide eyes. "You scared me!"

"Sorry," she replied. "You looked cold... and tense. Were you having a nightmare?" She asked, recalling the dream she had moments before waking up.

Ethan laughed, shaking his head. "I don't have nightmares. Hell, I don't dream anymore. I haven't since-" he paused, beginning to fiddle with the ring around his finger. "Anyways I assume you're feeling better?"