Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Does God damn children? Jill thought. Across her skin a blanket of perspiration gleamed. A frown touched her quivering lips. The path she had been walking for the last half hour twisted and turned. She tired of hearing her boots shuffle through loose granite and crunch glass. As the urge to sit and surrender to the disease within her grew she discovered in the distance a shadow. Its outline was jagged before evaporating into nothingness.

Hard shapes melted into liquid haze. Her legs wobbled as though they turned into jelly. She staggered a few paces before leaning against a segment of brick wall. Its cold bite forced her to move along. There had been moments where the nausea rolled out to sea but as the waves washed over her again she felt her stomach come up into her throat. Its vile taste dripped from the corners of her mouth and down her chin.

It was then the voice within spouted cryptic nonsense. She stepped over a heap of trash and listened reluctantly.

"Life on a mountain top precious diamonds drip as the beast scours a flesh spread.

Channels race here and throughout a disenchanted valley forged in hell while fiery tempers glimpse at the past. Showers fall apart against rocks as does a fragile skull and though bits of soul seep through none of it will cease to hurt," it said, its voice deepening like a dying tape recorder.

Jill glared as the shadow reappeared. Then words etched across its based, tiny crimson sketches of another unknown phrase she was supposed to decipher.

Steel cuffs bind wrists and ankles

Swollen flesh ripple around their rusted teeth

In the crack of midnight open eyes shut

And even in the shades of malice

I wander forever more

Alone

Jill paused at the corner. A piece of parchment was attached by a bent nail and she plucked it free to read its heavy black type.

December 17th, unknown year.

On a massive scale we remind each other of our differences. As a whole we are bound for self-destruction if we cannot learn to allow love to set us free.

Jill lowered her gaze. Taking a few more steps forward she came to another abrupt halt as another sheet materialized. With heavy lidded eyes she indulged in its body, her mind now captured by the unfolding truth she expected all along.

She asked the voice, "Are you Akin?"

"Perhaps," floated a voice from the shadow now shifting shape.

Jill read the piece of parchment in her hands. It had torn clean from the hook it hung from moments ago. The room filled with fog. It distorted its contents, but as she sank into a withered leather chair it failed to impress upon her any importance.

"'Calamity capers shower depths of deep Dark Ocean. Coiled and with calculated strikes, its victims see little before feelings bones crush and blood vessels pop. Much is like the sting of a bee, a bite from a rabid dog and pounce of a cat. All have the element of surprise and surprise is what also saves,'" she read softly. It was odd how the letters almost glowed.

"‘A heart of darkness bleeds not the essence of life, but the riches of death and destruction. Such is the way of life when mankind is a raging beast sloping toward fiery judgment and the contempt of Him.

"‘If it were not for the innocence we often overlook in our desperate quest for glory, we might not yet have a shred of dignity to hold our heads up. Still as dawn approaches and the lines of justice and revenge blur, not many will see the truth until the final swipe of His vengeful hand.’"

Jill wondered how she could remember it all, but as the book throbbed in her hand she figured its message was meant for her. She paused. She didn't know what waited for her out there. Her hand cradled her chin, her fingers gently rapping her cheek, as her eyes narrowed and focused on the glowing penmanship.

"We are not born into sin, but learn it."

She shifted in her black swivel chair and adjusted the pillow behind her though no matter how comfortable she try to make herself the topic bore a agony in her heart and settled a weight upon her slender shoulders. Could it be that within every adult brews a heart of darkness?

Jill read on. "Expect not the feeble mind of an inconsiderate fool to understand the weight of hate, as she is one to discard truth and sets herself high upon a gold pedestal. Her staff and rod wears the skin of a belly crawler. Her dangling gems sparkles, flashes and glows. Beside her, seated on a throne of theory and paranoia, a host tips his glass and spies in her name."

"And so comes the hatred of truth," the voice interjected.

Jill jerked. The disembodied voice sprung at her through intensifying darkness. Paint peeled in uneven strings. Faces pressed outward from behind the plaster as sulfur filled her nostrils. It flowed to her in heavy tides. Her stomach churned. Taking another breath made her chest burn. She pushed aside a few bangs. They had been sticking to her forehead for the last hour but only now bothered her.

"What is all this supposed to mean?" Jill asked. Her body ached with fever.

"You should know by now," replied the voice.

She shook her head. Eyes opened along the door. They blinked and gazed at her with bloody tears filling them. Down splinters of wood they rolled like crimson diamonds.

"Become one of the undead," it seethed. "Become one of the unholy crusaders. It is in your blood. All these years you have been training for something great. The virus working inside of you right now isn't from tyrant. It is a special blend that has been given only to a select few. You have it in you because great potential has been recognized in your abilities and reasoning. You should feel honored. You should submit to the sickness."

"I no longer feel like Jill Valentine," she confessed. "I feel more and more like a daydream or perhaps a nightmare. My memories are being rewritten. I remember things I shouldn't remember. I can't understand humanity anymore. I feel so different."

"Because you are different," the voice roared.

"I am not different. I do not want to be different. I want to be Jill Valentine. I want to be human!"

"That is just a glitch in your system. You need to get back to what really matters. Do you think those flesh bags you call friends are going to find you? Does it matter that friends are generally users and abusers?"

The note dissolved in her hands. It drifted like yellow vapors, spiraled toward the ceiling where it mingled with obscurity.

"Death," Jill heard herself whisper. "Death rules mankind. It gives people reason to believe in creators. Why do they do that? Why do people put their fate in an unseen force? I use to know why, but now I am not quite sure. I don't know. I just don't know. Nothing makes sense anymore. The world as I know it is evaporating."

"Let go of those silly mortal strings," the voice demanded.

Jill shook her head again. "I can't let go. I need to hand on. I cannot let go. I need to be here as a mortal flash bag so that I may see my friends again. They do not use. They do not abuse. That is a sickness you invented to turn us against one another."

She drew her legs up to her chin. Chills raked up and down her spine like metal fingernails.

"Why do you pretend to know the will of a higher being," the voice asked.

Jill coughed. "I am not going to argue with a voice that has no body. I wish you would just show yourself instead if hiding in the f*****g shadows. This isn't a game. This is real life. There are rules to be followed."

"No higher power obeys mortal commands," the voice bellowed.

"I think you need to just shut up. My head hurts. My stomach feels as though someone is stabbing me with a thousand knives! I just want to get through a day without living in this horrible freak show. Does this make any sense to you?"