Visions

The forest was pretty

Moss and trees

Flowing water... Vines swinging lightly in the wind...

Clouds passing by, covering up the bright yellow sun

Wildlife passing keeps passing by

Boars, Deer, Elk... Snakes

"JACK!!"

"KUH!!!"

"Jill! Get over here and help me give CPR!!"

Oh fuck that

"No! I'm awake! I do not want any broken ribs right now!!"

"Oh my god, you're okay!"

Please stop hugging me woman, I feel like death and you're about to as well

"You've been out for almost three hours now. The explosions didn't do much to your body but you happened to slam your head on one of the railings, almost splitting your skull and causing a lot of bleeding. You should really stay in bed for now"

Great...

"Jack, what happened to your eyes?"

What?

"Give me a mirror?"

Rebecca handed me a hand mirror lying on the bedside

My eyes were slitted

'Necro, what did that snake do to me?'

[...]

'Necro?'

[...]

'Right, so I'm kinda screwed for the foreseeable future, that is just wonderful'

"The snake did something to me when it bit me. No clue what it is though, hopefully it's not dangerous..."

Jill's face brightened up

"That's right! We searched the snake after I blew it up and inside of its eyes, it has these two weird gemstones. Luckily I remembered that statue you pointed out when we passed by it.."

She pulled out a case of shotgun ammo and a floppy disk

"While you were out, I put the gemstones inside the statue and it gave me these things."

Right, the tiger statue MO disk. That's useful...

"Lift me up, please"

"What?! But you're still wounded! Chris and I will continue trying to find a way out, but you need to rest"

I deadpanned and lifted the bandages around the bite. Rebecca was just about to stop me until she saw that the bite wounds were already sealed up and the scars were fading rapidly. I had no idea how my internals were doing but I felt I could at least stand, if not walk by my own

"Wha-? But h.. how??"

"Honestly, I'm just as confused as you are, but I'm healed. I just need someone to support me"

'A lie but I can't let them know about Necro nor my mutations just yet. Maybe later...'

The nurse made sure to inspect me head to toe, making sure I was healthy and able to walk

"I have no idea how, but that snake bite looks like it did nothing to your body besides a cosmetic effect.. You can walk, at least, but I'll be keeping a close eye on you"

"Duly noted"

No complaints since realistically, someone with this sort of wound should have been bedridden for weeks, if not months or even years. Hell, if I were any lesser being, I'd have been dead on the spot Rebecca isn't showing it, but she's intrigued as well as scared at the way my body is healing through this damage

Jill slung my arm around her shoulder and we walked out of the room...

Right into Chris

"You're back! What did you find?!"

The man was covered in blood and some sort of white substance. Brain matter? He looked down and gave a small nod in my direction before pulling out a 12 Volt car battery and a small key

"The key was a weird find. It was in a puzzle box in a room with a huge mirror, so it's probably important. Car battery too"

*KRKRKRKRKRKRK*

Ah shit its these things again

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEE"

*BLAM!*

"..."

Before I even had the chance to reach for my gun, Chris whipped out his shotgun and blasted the lizard hunchback.

"Damn Chris..."

"No time to be sitting here, we need to move, Now"

Behind the lizard Chris just shot, three more showed up. It seems they were following him for a while now

"Head to the elevator outside the Mansion! I'll hold these things back!"

We wasted no time following the S.T.A.R.S operatives directions, making a beeline for the gardens. The hunchbacks seemed to have multiplied at least four-fold as we made our way there with the amount of them we encountered along the path

Seeing as how Necro wouldn't talk either, it applied to absorbing the things as well, so we were leaving a trail of exp that I couldn't pick up

I almost cried... almost

By the time we made it outside, we could still hear Chris shooting the things down. As it turns out he saw us down below

"Catch!"

And recklessly threw down the battery and the key...

With a concrete floor below us...

It's a damn good thing I had enhanced reflexes or we probably would have been stuck here. Didn't do any wonders to the treatment Rebecca was giving me though

As we got closer to the waterfall, the hunchbacks seemed to slow down, transitioning to small snakes which I took care of easily

We ended up arriving with no problems, aside for the lack of Chris, of whom we could still occasionally hear blasts of shotgun shells from up in the mansion

"Why the hell did he tell us to come back here..?"

A good question...

Wait

Waterfall

Whats usually behind one of those when someone wants to hide something?

"A Tunnel"

"What?"

I separated from Jill and made my way under the freezing cold water.

Surely enough, there was a ladder behind it, leading down somewhere..

"Come inside! We have another clue to explore!"