Early Life (1984–2002)
From the beginning, the boy called Alen lived in quiet solitude. At St. Ignatius Orphanage, he wasn't unhappy or mistreated, but he was apart. While other children chased balls or shrieked with laughter, he could usually be found under the branches of an old oak tree, his small face turned toward the sky, or sitting beside the garden pond, staring at his reflection as if looking for someone hidden in the ripples. The nuns noted his calm, his silence, and the strange, focused intelligence in his piercing blue eyes.
In the spring of 1985, everything shifted. Dr. Jessica R. Richard, a respected British virologist and humanitarian, visited the orphanage on one of her medical outreach tours. A widow who had lost her husband, philosopher Jason Mitchell, in a tragic accident, she had thrown herself into caring for children, a solace denied to her by her own inability to conceive.
As she moved through the orphanage, her kind eyes and gentle manner putting the children at ease, she noticed the solitary boy by the pond. He wasn't crying. He was simply watching the water with a depth of focus far beyond his years.
She asked one of the sisters, "That boy, by the water… he seems so alone."
The nun sighed with a mix of affection and worry. "That's Alen. He was left here as an infant during a storm. He's a sweet child, but… distant. He doesn't play with the others. His mother left only his clothes and a broken locket with his name. A sad story, but not unusual here."
Intrigued, Jessica began to seek him out. She didn't push. She simply sat near him, reading aloud from a book of fairy tales or pointing out the dragonflies skimming the pond.
One afternoon she sat beside him on the grass. "It's peaceful here, isn't it?"
Alen glanced at her, studied her for a moment, then gave the smallest nod before returning his gaze to the water.
"My name is Jessica," she said softly. "When I was a girl in Scotland, I used to sit by a river that looked a lot like this one. It always helped me think."
She came back every day for a week. She brought him a small model plane, which he assembled with uncanny precision. She told him stories of places she'd traveled. Slowly, his silence began to crack. He offered one-word answers, then short sentences. Something in her stirred—a warmth she hadn't felt in years. Here was a child who, like her, had been left adrift.
By late June, her mind was made up. With her reputation and resources, the adoption went quickly. At age two, Alen Wesker—though no one knew that name—ceased to exist. Legally, he became Alen R. Richard, and he left the orphanage holding Jessica's hand.
In Cambridge, under Jessica's care, Alen's brilliance bloomed. He devoured books like other children devoured sweets. By seven, he was mastering high school material. At fourteen, he graduated from college. His grasp of science felt less like learned knowledge and more like instinct.
In 1998, he entered Cambridge University, following Jessica's path into virology and genetics. That same year, news broke of the Raccoon City incident. While his classmates saw a disaster out of a horror film, Alen dissected every article, every conspiracy theory, every official denial. Beneath the chaos, he saw the science. It marked a turning point: his academic interest hardened into grim obsession.
It was also at Cambridge that he crossed paths with Carla Radames, a visiting researcher with a reputation for ambition. After hearing about his genius, she sought him out.
"Alen Richard," she said, cornering him after a lecture, eyes alight with fanatic energy. "Your paper on retroviral integration was… inspired. You're wasting your talents on theory."
"Thank you," he replied neutrally, already gathering his notes to leave.
"I'm working on something revolutionary," she pressed, her voice low. "A new frontier in viral evolution. With your mind, we could change everything."
Alen looked at her, his blue eyes sharp and cold. "I know your type, Ms. Radames. You see change as a hammer. I prefer to understand the nail before I swing. And I don't work with people whose ambition is greater than their ethics."
He walked away, leaving her stunned—and quietly furious.
Then came the summer of 2002. After a year of fighting, cancer claimed Jessica. On July 19th, in the quiet of their Cambridge home, the woman who had taught him love and given him a life, was gone.
The loss shattered him. For two months, Alen withdrew into silence. He ignored the phone, the door, the world. Everything he had built—first for her, then for himself—collapsed. Abandoned once, miraculously found, he was abandoned again. The prodigy disappeared, leaving only grief in his place.