Infinite horror
Vol 1. Resident Evil
Chapter 1
Zheng Zha (Zheng) always felt that he was dead in reality. Go to work, come home, eat meals, go to bed and wake up. He didn’t know where the meaning of his life lie, but it was definitely not in that face of his fat supervisor, not in that white collar woman’s body who he met in the bar, and not in this steel and concrete forest - the modern city.
Zheng felt he’s becoming rotten. Going to rot from age 24 till the end of his life, then become part of the earth, and leave behind a name. No, not even a name, since no one will remember you. No one will remember a little white collar. Whether he lived as a truly graceful person or just acted like one, he was just a tiny piece of this world.
He wanted to change something. He wanted to have his meaning.
“Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live… a real life?”
When he turned on his computer at work today, a message popped up. This was obviously some newbie hacker seeking attention. Whatever you choose, it would force you to download a virus. Zheng laughed at it and was about to close it. Yet, when his hand touched the mouse, his heart skipped a beat, then he stopped.
“Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live… a real life?”
Zheng felt a little lost. An indescribable force attracted him to put his finger on the mouse. He clicked on the YES button. Then, he lost conscious.
Cold, shaking...
The moment he woke up, Zheng jumped up from the ground. He looked around in panic. The vision of his office and the current environment caused a chaos in his head, but after a few seconds he woke up from the confusion.
“Not bad, you have the best quality of the bunch this time.” A cold voice said.
Zheng turned his head around, and saw a black haired guy sneering at him. This person was around 24 or 25, had a very common face, but the few scars on his face made him looked horrifying.
Black haired guy had a cigarette on his hand, and took a deep smoke. Then his sight looked past Zheng. That was when Zheng realized there were five people lying beside him. Three men and two women. Other than that, there were over ten westerners in this concealed room.
This was the compartment of a train, and the train’s moving very fast. The feelings of cold and shaking were coming from the train.
“Where is this place? Who are you? Why am I here?” Zheng asked these people. Furthermore, due to the presence of westerners, he also repeated it in English.
The westerners looked at him for a moment then turned their head away. Only the black haired guy said to him, “Think carefully, it should had already inserted everything to your head.”
Think carefully? Zheng tried to recall everything. He only remembered when he saw the pop up on the screen “Want to know the meaning of life? Want to live… a real life?”, and clicked YES, he fell unconscious.
Wait... Zheng felt there’s something in his head, something about survival and life.
This is a game. Whoever created this game is not known, maybe it’s god, maybe it’s the devil, or maybe it’s the aliens or humans in the future. Now he’s became a player of this game, or maybe part of this game.
A game that brought together those who’s lost in life but have yet to become a rotten person. When they chose this game, they will be transported to various scenes in horror movies.
“This time is Resident Evil 1. Your luck isn’t bad, newbies, getting such an easy horror movie on the first time. Even when you die it will be an easy death.” The black haired guy took his last smoke then crushed the cigarette in his hand.
“You are saying only our conscious has come inside the computer? Just like in novels? And when we complete this game our conscious will go back to our bodies?” A chubby dude next to Zheng asked.
Black haired took out a gun, a desert eagle, while handling the gun he said, “I don’t know if it’s conscious or not, but you will feel pain, you will get injured, and you will die. And you were wrong, when you finish this movie, you will go to the next one. Maybe you have seen that movie or maybe not. God will bring in new members to replace those that died in the last movie. Every movie consists of seven to twenty people. In other words this is a very easy movie, we only have seven people here.”
Chubby dude said with a sneer, “How do you know those who died didn’t go back to their body? Perhaps they chose to die willingly.”
Black haired raised his head suddenly, as though he had became a panther this moment. He bent his knees and in a split second he’s already on top of the chubby dude. His desert eagle stuffed inside the chubby dude’s mouth.
“Then do you want to try and die? Can you imagine that unending terror? I lived through three movies. The first one was Nightmare on Elm Street 1. There were 15 newbies in that movie and two experienced survivors. But do you want to know the ending? They all died in their dreams. Me and another person were the only ones survived. Do you want to know how it feels to get killed by a stupid dream? Imagine everything around you becomes slithering rotten meat, in a gruesome factory you watch as a pair of scissors slowly cut through every bit of your body. Can you imagine the pain? You piece of shit! You want to die?”
Black haired was shouting like a madman. His intent to kill was so clear and obvious in his eyes. The chubby dude was scared and unable to move. And with a gun in his mouth, he couldn’t even plead.
Zheng and the other four people persuaded them to break up. Black haired walked back to his seat and said, “ Dying in an horror movie is real death. Furthermore when you die here you will be tortured by the devils in these movies. So if you don’t have determination to live, I advise you to suicide now.”
A girl with glasses said, “Then we don’t have a way to return to our bodies?”
Black haired said with a sneer, “I have been saying, it’s not your conscious that came into the computer. Do you think humans have to technology to create this game? No, this is the work of god, we are nothing more than bugs in his eyes. We are thrown here to struggle just to entertain them. Both our body and conscious have been brought to this world, and can’t go back. At least I don’t think we can go back.”
The glasses girl has a sense of calmness, she thought for a moment and said, “By your tone, it seems like there’s still a way to go back?”
Black haired took a look at her and said, “The quality of this time’s newbies are not bad. You’re right, there is hope to go back.”
Everyone stared at him. “Every time you finish a mission, that is you lived through a movie, you will obtain 1000 points. You can exchange these points for a lot of things, such as the right to live in a movie for 100 days.” Black haired said.
A middle aged guy said, “Who would want to live in a horror movie? That’s asking to die.”
Black haired remained quiet. Glasses girl said, “No, I think I understand what he meant. There are many genres of horror movies, sci-fi like Resident Evil, where everything can be explained with science. You just have to go outside where the main events are happening, the rest of the world is normal.
Black haired snapped his finger, “Bingo. You can indeed live in another part of this world normally for those days. Think about it, after experiencing a couple of life and death trials, the chance to live normally in this world is a bless.”
Zheng’s body shivered. He thought he understood the meaning of this world a bit. Yes, the reason he’s feeling rotten was because his life was boring. Once you experience life and death, then the mundane life is what you would wish for.
Black haired continued, “Other than exchanging for time, there are many other things. Such as this desert eagle with unlimited ammunition. It only took 100 points, that’s 10 days of time. You can also use points to improve yourself, including intelligence, mental capacity, reaction time, cell vitality, muscle density, and immunization strength. In other words, if you survive through this movie, you can double your strength. If you lived through a hundred movies, you can become a super human.”
Glasses girl asked calmly, “Let’s get back to the point, how many points does it take to get back to our world?”
“500000 points.” Black haired took out another cigarette. “If you don’t use any points, you just have to live through fifty movies. Then you can go back.”
Suddenly, everyone quieted down. According to this guy, if you don’t use your points, it’s impossible to live through fifty movies.
“Of course, 1000 points is the base reward of every movie. You can do side quests in movies to earn points. Like when I explained everything to you, according to God’s rule, explaining to newbies will be rewarded 100 points. Also you should noticed that special watch on your hand.” He waved his left hand, there’s a black metal watch.
Everyone looked at their own left hand. There were a few data on this watch. A timer that is counting down from 3 hours 7 minutes. A counter for zombies, hunters, newbies...
“You will get one point for every ten zombies you kill, 100 point for every hunter, and 1000 points for every newbie...” He looked at everyone with a wicked face. Only Zheng and the glasses girl looked back calmly at him.
“Of course that’s negative 1000. Ok if you have any other questions hurry up and ask. This movie is about to begin.”
Glasses girl looked at Zheng, then continued asking, “I have three more questions. I saw Resident Evil, the ending is the T virus from the lab spread throughout Raccoon City. Then if we drive this car and leave the city, wouldn’t that let us survive easily?”
Black haired nodded and replied, “Take a look at your watch, there’s a name on the upper left side, read it.”
“One.” Everyone read it out, then they noticed one of the westerners had a faint glow on him, then slowly faded away.
“This is the leader of the mercenaries in this movie. This movie belongs to a specified location genre. The plot only happens in the lab. In this kind of movies, you are not allowed to leave the plot area or stay too far away from the casts. If you stay further than 300 feet from One, then bang, you will have nothing left. Understand? Of course when One is dead in the movie, this restriction will be moved to another cast.” Black haired explained.
Zheng then asked, “Who is this God that you have been mentioning?”
“God is the thing that manages our entrance to movies. It gives us points and you also exchange through it. God is a ball of light. I don’t really know what it is either.”
Glasses girl nodded and said, “One last question. This number, what does it mean?” She pointed to the timer counting down.
“This is the time that you must stay in this movie. Once the timer is over, you will go to where God is and get your reward. There you will also wait for the next movie.”
The train started to slow down. Black haired guy finished his cigarette and took out his desert eagle, “Ok, the plot is starting. The casts will be able to hear our conversations now. Remember if they hear anything not belonging to this world or spoilers, 10 points will be deducted for every sentence. Well newbies, try your best to survive.”
The train slowly came to a stop. The mercenaries cautiously moved out. Black haired was the first to follow, then glasses girl took a look at Zheng and the others, and followed them out. As One was moving further away, the rest moved out also.
Outside the train was a platform. Zheng recalled the movie, this was the beginning where people wanted to enter the Hive, and the entrance to the underground lab.
People followed the platform and soon came to the lab entrance, where a metal door blocked their way. On the door was a set of special symbols denoting the company of this lab and the danger of this place.
Zheng and the others followed the mercenaries to the door when a woman in red skirt suddenly turned to One and asked, “I want to know who you people are and what’s going on here.”
One looked at her then waved to the other mercenaries. They took out some devices from their bags and started unlocking. He then said to the woman, “You and I have the same employer. The mansion above us is an emergency entrance to the Hive. You are security operatives placed there to protect that entrance.”
Zheng remembered this scene. This was where Alice asked about the cause of this event. Even though he had seen the movie and know the truth behind it, but experiencing this scene in person gave him a surreal feeling.
Alice seen a little lost. She rubbed her wedding ring, and muttered, “What about this?”
Matt said, “Your marriage is a fake. Just part of your cover to protect the secrecy of the Hive.”
“And what is the Hive?” One of the non mercenary westerner asked. Zheng recognized this person also. Spence Sparks, he was the cause of this event. A business spy attempting to steal the T virus.
One turned to a mercenary, “Show them.”
He nodded, and brought up a screen on the laptop.
“Raccoon City, nearest urban center. The mansion where we found you and gained access to the train, which in turn brought us to the Hive.”
A building that looked like a bee’s hive appeared on the screen.
“The Hive itself is located underground deep beneath the streets of Raccoon City. A top secret research facility owned an operated by the Umbrella Corporation... Our position on the map is indicated by the heat signature.”
As One explained, our location was shown on the laptop. We were standing on the platform on top of the Hive. Zheng knew this was a safe place, but not long afterward, this area would become a death zone.
“And them?” Alice pointed to Zheng and the others.
Zheng panicked. They thought they were guests of this world, and the casts would not interact with them. They would only need to avoid those monsters. Who would had guessed the main character talked to them.
One said, “They are also security operatives. Company has their registered files. But I question if there’s an error in corporate orders. Aside from one person, everyone else is just ordinary people.”
This is probably the identity God gave them.
Spence then asked, “Why can’t I remember anything?”
“The Hive has its own defense mechanisms, all computer controlled. A nerve gas was released into the house. Primary effect of the gas, complete unconsciousness lasting anything up to four hours. Secondary effects are varied, but can include acute memory loss.”
“For how long?”
“Subjective. An hour, day week.”
Another non mercenary westerner said, “So you’re saying this place was attacked?”
One looked at him, “I’m afraid things are a little more complicated than that.”
Zheng recognized this cast also. He’s Matt Addison, came here looking for his sister, who was a researcher inside the Hive. She found out the corporation was researching T virus and attempted to contact the government. The person she contacted was Alice. But before she could stole the virus, Spence stole the virus and leaked it. She later got infected and became a zombie.
Zheng was thanking the gods. He watched a lot of movies because his life was so boring. And scifi and horror were his favorite genres. Knowing what the plot was and who the main characters were would increase his chance of surviving. It’s common sense that the main characters won’t die whether it’s a movie or a novel.
At this time, a voice came from the door, “Sir! We’ve breached the Hive.”
One nodded, then he looked at Zheng’s group and sighed. He turned around and led the mercenaries to the door.
The door opened under the computer’s control. It was totally black inside. One called a mercenary, “JD!”
That person nodded and put on night vision goggles. One paused for a moment, he turned to black haired and said, “Zhang Jie (Jie)!“
Jie took his desert eagle and just walked in. Zheng knew black haired also knew the plot. In Resident Evil 1, as long as the central computer system stayed on, they would be safe there. But once the computer system got shut down, this place would be filled with zombies and hunters.
It didn’t take long for Jie to turn on the lights. The whole room was lit, you could also see a scenery of the modern city through the window. A scene that Zheng had enough of in his life.
The mercenaries and everyone went into the room. A female mercenary said, “Halon content has dissipated.”
When Spence stole the T virus, he broke a vial of it. Then the ventilation system spread the virus throughout the Hive. Everyone inside was infected. When the central computer system found out, it isolated the Hive and injected gas. The only thing left in the lab were zombies and hunters.
It seemed like Resident Evil was a popular movie. Everyone in Zheng’s group saw it. All of them were leaning on the windows and looking outside. They weren’t worried at this moment because they knew this was still a safe place.
Matt suddenly said, “Makes it easier to work underground, thinking theres a view.”
Zheng hesitated a moment the put out his hand, “Zheng Zha... Uhm, I may be a security operative.”
Matt’s hands were handcuffed because his files were not in the corporation. He turned around with a bitter smile, “Handcuffed, I don’t think we can shake hands like this... And I forgot my name.”
Zheng gave him a friendly smile. Matt was a nice person in the movie. He’s also an innocent person. He was just here to look for his sister and he tried to protect Alice until the end of the movie. He was one of the person that lived at the end.
On the other side, One and a few mercenaries got the elevator door open. But it was pitch black inside. They threw down a flare and saw that the elevator was at the bottom with the wires cut off.
“Looks like we’re taking the stairs.”
One turned to everyone, “Through the stairs, we must reach the bottom in ten minutes. Everyone follow.”
The mercenaries were well trained, Alice had T virus, Spence and Matt’s stamina weren’t bad either, Jie had gone through three movies already and probably enhanced himself.
Of the remaining six people, even though Zheng’s a office worker, he liked to exercise and spent a day in the gym every week. According to him, this helped to take care of those women.
Glasses girl looked skinny and as a girl, her stamina was weaker than a man’s. But she was smart enough to got a hold of the corner of Jie’s shirt. So Jie supported part of her weight. He looked at her for a moment then continued moving in front of her.
The chubby dude looked about twenty eight. Before long, he was panting, and his speed slowed down.
There were three more people. A middle aged man, probably a laborer. He was not running fast but kept up with everyone. A middle aged woman. She was doing worse than the chubby dude. She’s at the point where she’s walking step by step. The last one was a boy in his teen. His face looked very common and his body didn’t seem strong. But like the middle aged man, he kept up with everyone.
After a while, you could no longer see the chubby dude and middle aged woman from behind. Zheng was following close to Jie all along and sudden heard, “Two out.”
Zheng asked curiously. “What two out?”
Jie sneered, “Them! Don’t think of my words as a joke. This is a real world. We will die here. Perhaps you are still not taking this seriously and think of this as a movie, right? Being more than three hundred feet away from him will explode, this is one of the rules. They are going to die!”
Bang.
Just as Jie finished his sentence, two explosions came from above. Zheng’s group looked toward it with a daze, but aside from the stairs there was nothing else.