THE ROTTEN ONES
āyou used to be one of the rotten ones and I liked you for thatā
Pairings: fem!oc x Piers Nivans, implied Chris Redfield x Jill Valentine. Oc Ć Oc!Bestfriend
Summary: Evelyn tried to make her world spin again for years after everything stopped that day of September 1998, but between buried secrets and PTSD, she didn't expect to fall for the grumpy lieutenant her best friends complained about.
TW: Fights scenes, blood, gore, descriptions of a hand being cut off, zombies, weapons, PTSD, form of self harm (stay safe!!), anxiety, panick attacks.
A/N: this is becoming just a vent for me ngl
Day thirteen.
The room theyād given me was too quiet, too sterile.
White walls, steel fixtures, a cot that felt like it belonged to a holding cell more than a place for rest. They said it was temporary, a place to āobserve and ensure my safetyā, as if I were the threat.
I hadnāt touched the food tray James left outside the door and I hadnāt spoken to him since the tests started. He didnāt try again. Maybe he finally understood what heād done.
He basically threw me to the wolfs so they could torn me apart, like I was a subject and not a living, breathing person. They tested me without my express consent, they put me off my meds.
āFor the vaccine, to save the world-ā well, fuck the world.
The withdrawal was subtle at first ā a twitch here, a restless toss in sleep. But the nightmares came back like a wave crashing through thin glass. All the things I had locked away behind pharmaceutical doors were now clawing to get out.
And tonight, it happened again.
The scream ripped itself from my throat before I even knew I was awake. I jolted upright in the too-clean bed, the sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. My chest heavy, sweat soaked through the collar of my shirt, my pulse jackhammering against my ribs.
No one burst in. No alarms. Just the soft, sterile hum of overhead lights and the faint, echoing footsteps of someone ā maybe a guard ā responding to the noise. But I knew better than to believe I was safe. I was never safe.
I wasnāt screaming because of a nightmare. I was screaming because I remembered.
Not clearly. Not enough. Just flashes, like film melting in a projector: a corridor lit in red, metal doors slamming shut, a cold voice calling my name ā not Evelyn, something else ā and a light above me so bright I thought my eyes would burn out of my skull.
And the smell. Bleach. Blood. Burning hair.
I pressed both hands against my face, trying to smother the rest of the memory ad my fingers trembled against my skin.
I shouldnāt have stopped the meds.
I needed to stop them, but the meds were the only thing between me and the void in my head cracking open like a fault line.
The door creaked softly. Not kicked in, not rushed. Just opened ā carefully.
He didnāt step inside right away. He stood in the frame, quiet, eyes scanning me like a sniper reading a far-off target.
āYou okay?ā he asked. No real emotion in his voice, but something gentler in the way he didnāt move closer. James probably sent him to check on me.
I didnāt answer. My hand found the edge of the bed, gripping it like I was about to fall off the earth. The wrist tutor bit into my skin with the movement, grounding me, reminding me that at least that pain was real. Still here.
āIām fine,ā I said. Lying.
āJames heard,ā Piers said eventually. āHe wanted to come. I told him not to.ā
My teeth ground together at the sound of Jamesā name. āGood,ā I snapped. āHeās done enough.ā
Piers gave the smallest nod, not agreeing, not disagreeing.
I knew why they were really here. Not just to babysit me through a PTSD spiral. Not just to listen. They needed me. Theyād taken my blood before I ever unpacked the single duffel James carried in for me, they already knew there was something different. The genome markers didnāt line up with anything clean. There were whispers ā incomplete comparisons to archived Umbrella data, echoes of sequences found in āa lost sample,ā but no confirmed match.
Still, it was enough to keep me locked inside these sterile walls, enough to justify pushing me off the meds that kept the pain quiet, or at least had done for the last two years.
Because if I really was what they thought I might be, then I wasnāt just a survivor. I was a potential key. To a vaccine, to the next step in bioweapon resistance, to fixing a world that had bled too much.
But I didnāt care about the world, not when mine had been turned inside out once again.
āI donāt want to be tested,ā I said into the dim room, my voice rough, low. āI donāt want to remember. I donāt want to be part of this.ā
Piers didnāt flinch. āBut you are.ā
I glared at him, he didnāt move. āWe didnāt choose what weāre born into,ā he said. āBut we choose what we do with it.ā
āSpare me the recruitment pitch.ā
āIām not recruiting you,ā he said flatly. āIām trying to keep you from breaking.ā
I looked away, jaw tight. My hands were still shaking.
A moment passed, then another. I heard him shift in the doorway. The door clicked shut behind him and in the silence, I curled back into the sheets that didnāt smell like me, in a room that wasnāt mine.
Day Sixteen.
Rebeccaās voice, always gentle, felt like sandpaper now. āThisāll just take a moment,ā she said, swabbing the inside of my elbow. āYour hemoglobin is still low. That might explain the headaches.ā I didnāt flinch at the needle. Pain meant nothing anymore.
No. The headaches were memories trying to tear themselves out of my skull like worms.
I stared at the white ceiling. Tried to count the dots in the tiles. One. Two. Seven. Fiftyā
āThey found something,ā she said carefully and mygaze snapped to her.
Rebecca hesitated. āYour DNAā¦ parts of it match sequences found in early Umbrella records. Theyāre incomplete, but whoever you areāwhoever your family wasāthey were involved in somethingā¦ significant.ā
I went cold. No names, no origin. Just genetic ghosts and corporate corpses.
Day Twenty-One.
Chris spoke to me directly this time. We sat across from each other in the strategy room ā the one they cleared just for this.
āEvelyn,ā he said, folding his arms. āWe donāt know what you are. But we do know youāre not a threat.ā
I laughed. Bitter. āI screamed down the compound last week. Pretty sure that counts.ā
āYou screamed because your brainās trying to survive something it wasnāt designed to hold.ā He didnāt say the word experiment, but it hung between us. āThe regeneration markers in your bloodāā he stopped, rephrased, āātheyāre like something we saw once in Eastern Europe. A failed clone project. Half-human. Mostly decay.ā
āNot saying youāre one of them,ā he added quickly. āYouāre stable. Alive. That matters.ā
I wanted to scream again.
Day twenty-three.
The door slammed. James stood outside my room, fists clenched at his sides.
āI didnāt want this for you,ā he said through the metal. I didnāt answer. I never did.
āYou think I betrayed you,ā he continued. āBut what if this is the only way? What if your blood saves thousandsāhell, millions?ā Still silence. āYouād be a hero.ā
āI never asked to be,ā I snapped finally. āI never asked to be anything.ā He didnāt argue. Just left the tray of food again. Untouched.
Day Twenty-Nine.
I hadnāt been sleeping, not really, not since the face.
It came to me in a fever-dream ā sharp lines, too perfect to be real, and eyes like polished amber staring through me like glass. He didnāt speak so much asā¦ echo. His mouth moved, but the words bent around reality, like I was hearing them through water.
āYou are necessary,ā he said. āFor the good. The tests must continue.ā
I didnāt know who he was. But something in me did. My gut twisted at the sight of him ā not in fear. In recognition. The way a child might recognize a shadow at the end of their bed.
Every time I closed my eyes, he was there.
Day Thirty-Two.
I spent the morning pacing. The room was too small, too quiet, too clean. Like a place meant to forget the world existed.
I scratched at the inside of my free wrist until the skin turned raw. The tutor bit down too tight when I flexed, and I didnāt care.
They asked if I wanted sleep aids, I told them no. I knew what they meant. Sedatives, more fog in my brain. Fog I didnāt want anymore. I needed clarity.
My hands couldnāt stop shaking, I couldnāt even hold a pencil.
Day Thirty-Five.
Rebecca said my cortisol levels were spiking. No surprise, Iād been running on nerves and dehydration for days.
āYou need rest,ā she said gently. āYour bodyās on the edge.ā
āI donāt sleep anymore,ā I muttered, eyes locked on the vial she held. I saw a reflection in it ā just my face, gaunt and pale, but for a second, I thought I saw him behind me. In the glass. That same amber gaze.
I didnāt blink, I didnāt look away.
Day Thirty-Seven.
He caught me in the hallway after a blood draw. I hadnāt even heard him approach.
āYouāreā¦ different,ā he said, not accusing ā just watching.
I stiffened. āEveryoneās changing.ā
He shook his head. āNot like this.ā
He didnāt say what he saw. Maybe the tremor in my hands, the shadows under my eyes, maybe the way Iād started looking over my shoulder like I expected something to crawl out of the walls.
I opened my mouth to lie again ā say I was fine, say it was nothing. But I didnāt.
Day Forty.
I kept the memories to myself.
Who would believe me? Who would want to? Even the people who were supposed to be on my side looked at me like a case study, a risk, an anomaly.
The more I tried to fight it, the stronger the face became. The voice. The words.
āYou are necessary. For the good.ā
I didnāt understand what āthe goodā meant. Or why I felt pulled toward it ā like a moth to flame.
I avoided the common areas. Avoided James. Avoided anyone who might ask questions I couldnāt answer.
Day Forty-Two.
Piers found me again. āWhy wonāt you talk to anyone?ā
āBecause no one listens,ā I said flatly.
He nodded slowly, as if he understood more than I could say.
Day Forty-Five.
They started to prepare me for the next phase. More tests, more monitoring. The same cold efficiency as before ā but now with something sharper underneath, like they were closing in.
I wasnāt ready, but they didnāt ask.
Day Forty-Seven.
The memories came in shards now ā jagged, incomplete. Sometimes just flickers in the corner of my vision, like reflections in broken glass. Other times, full scenes flooding me when I collapsed from exhaustion, the nightmares too much to bear. Sleep was no longer a refuge. It was the only place where the past slipped in unbidden, demanding attention.
I started to miss my medicines.
Day Fifty.
Staff started to whisper, Rebeccaās eyes lingered too long during blood draws, Piers caught me staring off during briefing, unblinking, like I was somewhere else. No one said anything outright, but the weight of their silent concern pressed down like iron.
I said nothing. I couldnāt. I didnāt want to.
Day Fifty-Two.
The man in sunglassesāthe amber eyes that burned through everything ā appeared more often in my dreams. But sometimesā¦ he was different.
Less shadow. More light. A presence not of fear, but of calm. Like a guardian watching over me in the chaos.
I didnāt understand it. Could someone who haunted my memories also be a comfort?
The contradiction twisted inside me like a blade.
Day Fifty-Seven.
I sat alone in the common area, trying to focus on anything besides the flicker at the edge of my mind. Piers approached quietly.
āYou donāt have to carry it all,ā he said softly.
I swallowed hard. āIām not ready to talk.ā
His eyes searched mine, patient but steady.
āWhen things will get worse, Iāll be hereā
Day Fifty-Nine.
The visions became more vivid ā voices, faces, fragments of places I couldnāt place but somehow knew.
The amber gaze always there. A promise, or maybe warning. Sometimes connection.
I didnāt know who I was anymore, but I was starting to realize that the past wasnāt done with me.
The man with the amber eyes never made it into my words.
No one knew. Not because I didnāt trusted them ā which honestly, I didnāt ā but because I didnāt trust myself to explain.
How do you describe a ghost who isnāt quite a ghost? Someone who belongs in the cracks of your mind, whispering truths youāre too scared to hear?
Day Sixty.
The visions came unbidden as I stared at the ceiling in the middle of the day ā a face I didnāt recognize, but whose voice echoed in my bones. āYouāre perfect,ā he said again, softer this time.
There was something almostā¦ tender behind the amber eyes. Something that made me want to believe him.
I wanted to hate him, i wanted to run, but the part of me that remembered himāthe part that ached for answersāwavered.
Day Sixty-Two
James tried talking again, but I kept my distance.
I was a puzzle no one could solve, and the pieces were starting to cut deep.
I couldnāt say a word about the man who haunted me. Who knew what would happen if I did? Would they think I was insane? A threat? A weapon?
The silence around that was heavier than any chain.
Day Sixty-Seven.
Piers sat beside me one night during the lockdown. No questions. No words. Just presence. I know James sent him.
Because in this world of shadows and fractured memories, it was the only thing that felt real.
Day Seventy.
I have been fighting and refusing the treatments lately.
The door to the observation room opened with a soft click. Jill Valentine stepped inside, carrying the kind of calm that only comes from surviving hell and walking out the other side.
Iād heard the name before ā a legend in the BSAA, a survivor of Raccoon City, someone who had stared down the monsters and come back scarred but apparently unbroken. Her eyes said otherwise.
She scanned me briefly, taking in the trembling hands, the haunted look. āI know what youāre fighting,ā she said, voice low but steady. āMore than the virus. More than the labs. The ghosts. The nightmares.ā
I wanted to say nothing, but she kept going. āYou donāt have to face it alone. Not here.ā
Her words were a lifeline I wasnāt sure I wanted to grab. She told me about her time captive ā about Weskerās shadow reaching into her life, using her, breaking her in ways that never fully healed.
She didnāt sugarcoat the pain, but she didnāt let it define her either.
That afternoon, Jill sat with me longer than anyone had.
āIām not here to fix you,ā Jill said. āIām here to tell you that youāre still you ā even if it doesnāt feel like it right now.ā I wanted to believe her.
But the man in my visions was still waiting. Still whispering that the tests must continue. For the good.
And I wasnāt sure if that was hope or doom.
The room was dim, the fading light casting long shadows across the walls. Jill sat quietly beside me, her presence steady, like a rock in a storm I didnāt want to face.
āYouāre more than what they took from you,ā she said quietly. āMore than the tests, more than the nightmares. Youāre still here.ā
āBut what if all I am now,ā I said, voice trembling, even tho I wasnāt sure why āis what they made me?ā
She reached out, a gentle touch on my hand.āWhat you are now is not everything you will ever be.ā
For the first time in a long while, I let myself lean on that hope, fragile and uncertain though it was.
The dreams came back again, more vivid this timeālike watching a broken film reel with missing frames.
There was the man, always the same. Sharp lines, amber eyes, always watching, always silent except for those distant echoes I couldnāt quite hear. But there was someone else now.
She wore a white coat stained with rust and tears. Her face was tired but soft, eyes full of sorrow. She looked at me like a mother would. I knew, somehow, that she actually was my mother. But she wasnāt free.
There was fear in her eyes, like she was trappedāforced to do things she hated, things that I couldnāt understand but felt wrong deep in my bones.
And the manā¦ He stood close, his presence looming over her, like a shadow with power.
I felt something strangeāa flicker of warmth toward her, and a cold weight pressing down from him.
The fragments of memory were no longer just flashesāthey carried feelings. Confusion, affection, fear.
And maybe sheāmy motherāwasnāt the enemy. Maybe the man with the amber eyes was the one who took everything.
She stood over me in a glass cell, murmuring into a headset.
I couldnāt move, my arms were restrained, tubes in both veins, something cold rushing through them.
āTest five stabilized. Prep for cellular override.ā She said.
My scream woke me. So did Piers, again.
He didnāt speak this time. Just sat on the floor outside my door until dawn.
Day Seventy-Four.
Iām scared to look it up. Afraid of what Iāll find. But pieces wonāt stop falling into place.
I remember my hand ā how it was cut, jagged and bleeding during the chaos in Raccoon City. I remember the cold, sterile room where they stitched it back on ā not a hospital, but a lab. There were scientists moving around, whispering in clipped voices.
The Umbrella Corporation logo. I couldnāt mistake it.
I remember needles, strange injections coursing through my veins as they worked on me. I donāt know what they gave me, or why. All I know is it wasnāt normal.
And somewhere in the background was that man ā the one with amber eyes. I never told anyone about him, maybe because Iām afraid, or maybe because Iām not sure what it means.
But Iāve made a choice ā to keep his name locked away inside me for now. Because some secrets donāt want to be told.
And maybeā¦ some monsters shouldnāt be named.
Jill caught me in the hall that morning..
Sheās got that look ā the one that says sheās seen too much pain not to notice it in others. We sat in the common room. Sparse light, nothing too official, as she talked to me, and I stayed silent. For some reason, I kinda of trusted her, maybe because she got the same look in her eyes I always had.
āI need to tell you something,ā I said, voice barely above a whisper.
She didnāt say a word, just waited. I swallowed hard.
āMy handā¦ it wasnāt just healed after the outbreak.ā I watched her closely. No surprise. No judgment. āThey reattached it. In a lab. Scientists did it, not doctors. There was a procedure, strange injectionsā¦ and Umbrellaās symbol.ā
She nodded slowly, absorbing it.
āI donāt know why they did it. Or what they injected. But it wasnāt normal.ā I left out the man. I wasnāt ready, probably will never would be.
Jillās silence was heavy but kind. āYou donāt have to tell me everything,ā she said finally. āNot until youāre ready.ā
That small mercy felt like a lifeline. And maybe, for once, I didnāt feel so alone.
Day Seventy-Five.
Jill didnāt keep my confession to herself, I found out the hard way.
Rebecca approached me quietly during a routine blood draw. Her eyes were sharp, professionalābut there was a new edge of urgency there. āWe need to talk about your hand,ā she said softly, āand what you told Jill.ā
I stared at the sterile ceiling tiles, trying to will myself invisible.
Chris showed up later that day, calm but firm. āWeāre running out of time,ā he said. āWeāre almost sure youāre not a threat, but the vaccine development depends on understanding your geneticsāand your history. We need to connect the dots before itās too late.ā
The room felt smaller, tighter, like the walls were closing in with their expectations.
Rebecca laid out the situation in clinical terms. āThere are anomalies in your genome, partial matches to data recovered from early Umbrella archives. But the records are fragmentedādestroyed, hidden, or lost. Without more context, weāre hitting dead ends.ā
Chris added, āWe believe your unique biology holds the key to countering the latest bioweapon threats. But to harness that, we need to dig deeperāinto your past, your genetics, and everything Umbrella tried to erase.ā
The urgency was palpable. Every day felt like a countdown.
James stopped leaving food trays outside my door. Jill stayed close, her presence a steady anchor.
But I felt more adrift than ever.
I hadnāt told them about the man in my dreams, nor had I mentioned the woman Iād come to know as my mother, forced into silence and servitude, the fragments of memory felt like shards of glass under my skin.
And somewhere beneath the sterile halls of this base, the past was closing in.
Day Seventy-Six.
The nightmare came like a stormāfast, brutal, and unforgiving.
I woke choking on cold sweat, my body tangled in sheets that felt like chains. My lungs burned, and my heart pounded so loud I was sure it echoed down the sterile hallway.
Piers was there before I could even find words. He never came in with haste or loud concernājust slow, quiet presence. He sat down on the floor beside the door, his back against the wall, eyes watching me without pressure, like a shadow waiting to catch me if I fell.
I didnāt want to speak. I wanted to sink back into silence, to erase the images that clawed at my mind. But the weight in my chest was too heavy to bear alone.
After what felt like an eternity, I spokeāhesitant, raw. āThereās a woman.ā My voice cracked like fragile glass. āIn the memoriesā¦ I see her all the time.ā
Piers didnāt say anything. Just waited.
āSheās not just a face or a shadow. Iā¦ I think sheās my mother.ā
His eyes softened, but he stayed silent.
āShe always looks so broken. Like sheās trapped under something terrible she canāt escape. When she looks at meā¦ thereās submission, like sheās been forced into it. But thereās also horrorālike she hates what sheās done. Or what they made her do.ā I swallowed hard, the lump in my throat catching. āAnd then thereās the man.ā
āBut I know him. Not like I know you, or Jamesā¦ more like something Iām born with, something buried deep. Thereās this strange connectionāa familiarity thatās older than the nightmares. He feels like the center of everything awful.ā
I closed my eyes, the images rushing backāthe cold amber eyes, the distorted voice echoing in my head, the feeling that Iām both hunted and chosen at once.
My hands clenched the sheets until my knuckles whitened.
I looked at him thenāreally looked. For the first time in weeks, I didnāt feel completely alone. āI donāt know what to do.ā
He met my gaze. āYouāre still here. Youāre still fighting. That counts.ā
I let out a breath I didnāt know I was holding.
āFor now, that has to be enough.ā He said.
He stayed with me until the first light of dawn, and for once, the nightmares seemed a little less sharpājust enough to breathe through the silence.
