The car by the mangroves had been swallowed by weeds. Only the shine of the paint hinted that it was still there underneath browning long grass and broken tree branches. Insects buzzed a high-pitched hum between the trees and the sound of the bayou lapping over their half-sunken roots. A sticky humid breeze carried the whispers of the long glass in waves: the most noticeable sound for miles, and yet too quiet to hear what was being said.
A low humming slowly grew nearer, distant like a dream at first, a quiet purr that rose to a growl. The suspension squeaked and tires sliding off rocks made a popping sound like hot oil. The car lumbered up to the treeline, until the path that lead to the property became too narrow to drive on. The engine whirred to a stop alongside the mass of vegetation that hid the other car.
The driver stepped out and pulled her thick dark hair off her shoulders. It clung damply to the back of her neck as she looked at the abandoned car beside hers. Already, a nauseating pit sank in her stomach. More than twenty-four hours had passed since Ethan arrived at the Baker's, and neither call nor text nor email had come from him since. Mia had nearly chewed a hole in her lip with worry after the first night alone in their house. Spinning like a ceiling fan, her mind circled back to the same question as she lay in the perfect, absolute silence of solitude: What if he was right? After the first day of no contact, she assumed the worst. Another full day allowed her to gather all the firepower she needed. Even still, anxiety clawed at her incessantly. If Ethan hadn't gotten in touch with her, then something bad had happened. If something bad had happened, then all of Blue Umbrella had been unsuccessful in containing the mess. If all of Blue Umbrella had been unsuccessful, how could she expect to do any better?
She popped the trunk of her car and withdrew a shotgun and a swollen backpack full of smaller handguns and their ammunition. She sighed a hurricane: the unsavory anxiety of returning to the property writhed inside her like snakes. Old wounds that she thought had closed split painfully, dryly open. Something close to self-hatred stung like a slap that she was performing an extraction mission on her own.
She reviewed the scraps of E-001's file that she left in the passenger's side during her drive, the only artifact she kept from her time with the Connections, save for a few scars and more repressed memories than she knew how to count. "Oh, Evie," she muttered to herself as she paged through the photos and notes in the crumbling manilla folder. The whirring of the bayou filled the consequent pause as she considered the conflicting abstractions that followed. A pseudo-maternal guilt regretted that Eveline had been raised in a lab. A lurch in her heart tightened her trigger finger at the thought of Ethan repeating what she had gone through. Then those two feelings washed to red as revenge blinded her, the memories of the last three years rising from their inky depths. She set the folder down and took the safety off her shotgun, and decided bitterly, "you should have stayed dead, you little bitch."
She hustled through the swamp weeds and large stones that littered the path until the mansion came into view. Going in the front door would be too risky, walking into the heart of the house and not knowing what she was up against. She went around the side of the main house to the garage. She crouched to place her weapon on the ground and wedged her fingers under the warps and dents in the door. With all her strength she worked to straighten her legs while the misshapen and rusty door squeaked its protests. She heaved it up to knee height and used her leg to keep the door up. She pushed the shotgun in ahead of her and wriggled under the gap she had created. Her jeans tore across her thigh on the rough edge, but no skin broke.
She inspected the tear and wiped a nervous sweat from her brow when she found no blood. Eveline's methods of infection were multiple and ubiquitous, and there were very few risks that Mia was willing to take that might subject her to Eveline's influence again. She secured her shotgun as the door squealed shut and landed with a sentencing clang.
YOU ARE READING
The One That Got Away
Fanfiction{Resident Evil 7 Fanfiction} Eight months after the Dulvey Incident, a series of loose threads leads Ethan back to the Baker house after he receives a cryptic message from someone unexpected.
