Jill practically tackled the door as she collided with it, hurriedly squeezing herself through. Then it became a scramble to slam it closed, putting her entire back into it.
"F-Fuck...!"
But.
The unwelcome intruder barrelled into it just before she could, however, wedging both its disturbing head and neck into the doorframe just in time, bucking and screeching her way.
No, where it thought she was.
Heart thundering in her chest, Jill had to tilt her head away as the brain-faced Licker snapped at the air, its teeth-filled jaw and head feverishly trying to crane those few extra inches in order to bite deeply into her flesh.
Only suddenly, the BOW's tactics changed, and its long sharp tongue darted out, aiming for a deadly swipe right at Jill's face.
Instinct and nothing more had her back abruptly sliding down the length of the door, avoiding the blow by a hair's breadth.
Now in an awkward position on the ground but surging with adrenaline, Jill freed the familiar weight of her customized Beretta 92F Samurai Edge from her waist holster.
Then she drew it tight to her chest, unloading three rapid fire bullets straight into the exposed brain mere inches away.
Blood splashed about, a frenzied screech too, but the creature made one final jerk before going limp, falling to the floor, between the door and wall.
Wasting no time, Jill scrambled to her feet and kicked it back out the door, then slamming it closed for good.
And yet, even then, it wasn't time to rest.
Not yet.
A symphony of moans could be heard from outside, getting closer and closer along the alleyway outside, the one she had been forced to run down minutes prior.
Tense, Jill looked around the room, eyes hoping to find a specific something. When she actually managed to find it, and behind her, she thanked her good fortune, already moving.
Jill hurried to the other side of the large vending machine, where she put all her weight into pushing it over.
And no sooner too, because after the bulky consumer product's loud crash, the on and off moans and growls coming from outside surged all at once.
Still, even as the door was pounded on and scratched at without relent, that was all. The vending machine held. And naturally, the doorhandle remained equally still.
Jill took slow steps back.
At the same time, if only absentmindedly, she began idly pondering humanity's survival if the mundane zombies ever became even the slightest bit smarter.
Luckily, the clever ones are few and far between, Jill thought, horrid memories replaying in her head.
And far too many to count.
That said.
"...Still alive though."
With a shaky breath, or maybe even a delirious chuckle, Jill stumbled over to a wall far enough away from the crescendo of moans and planted a hand against it, then an entire shoulder, steadying herself.
She felt the urge to sink down right then and there, too.
Ever since that harrowing encounter at her apartment, it had been one thing after another. The exhaustion was steadily piling up, and Jill wished it was only physical.
Regardless, she needed to rest soon. Otherwise, she would hit her limit and collapse. Something Jill was sure those demonic denizens walking the streets this very moment would just love.
Need to scavenge, too, she reminded herself grimly. The canteen at her hip was half-empty. And as for food, well... Jill's stomach choosing that moment to growl was evidence enough.
Naturally, the meager candy bar she had eaten two hours ago proved itself not to be enough.
Oh, and ammo.
Lips pulling downward, Jill palmed the single spare clip she had through the material of her ammunition pouch.
And in this city, no... this battlefield, it was only a matter of time before she burned through the rest.
Jill knew her way around close quarters combat as much as the next S.T.A.R.S., army-training notwithstanding, but that didn't suddenly make her eager to bring her flesh any closer to those cannibalistic freaks than she had to.
Not when all it took was one mistake.
Not to mention, there was something even worse out there than those awkward shambling corpses. Worse than even the evolved ones that cropped up every so often.
A hulking form with a deformed pale white face appeared in her mind's eye, its singular eye staring her down with bestial madness, and Jill was quick to banish the reimagining, lest the fear she had succeeded in squashing down this entire time rise to the surface.
Instead, she finally took the time to look around the room she had landed herself in.
It was... a stairwell.
The bottom of one to be exact.
Her gaze lingered on it, then, where it led upward, before she straightened up, pushing herself off the wall.
She was three flights up before she finally found an accessible door. Jill first pressed her ear against it. She heard nothing. Still, one hand on the handle, the other with her Beretta, she slowly opened the door.
First, by a crack.
Then, when nothing jumped out at her, she opened it fully. Jill took slow cautious steps, and with two hands, swept her sidearm left then right, all around the now much wider room, ready for anything.
To her relief though, from what Jill could see, there were no threats. The space was devoid of people. Undead or otherwise.
That said...
Jill headed further into the room, feeling quite strange. After all... bookshelves, an impressive expanse of them, lined the room's surface area, and as far as the eye could see.
It was a library.
And yet, it reminded her of a movie theatre as well, college classroom even, the way the massive room was structured in an diagonally ascending fashion.
At least from the perspective of the side entrance she must have entered from.
Jill was on the lowest point, where tables, chairs, and even couches were congregated in a wide square.
Then, a couple stairs up, were the bulk of the bookshelves, which covered the entirety of the massive room in a half-circle.
And up even more stairs, this theme continued.
But on the base floor with her, opposite the stairs, was a glass window.
Jill stopped and stared.
Because it wasn't just any ordinary window. It spanned almost the entirety of one of the library's walls, revealing the outside, that is, the various nearby low rooftops, high as she was, and then going on to show Racoon City as a whole.
And...
Jesus...
Below the night-drowned sky, amidst the seemingly endless rooftops, lights flickered on and off in the distance, some artificial and some not.
The city... was on fire.
It looked unreal.
Yes. It looked like it could just be nothing more than a nightmare, one she would wake up from at any moment.
But it wasn't.
Jill found that she couldn't tear her eyes away from the sight, that of her home, now reduced to hell on Earth, and as far as the eye could see.
And she didn't know how long she spent staring, only that the longer she did, the more numb she felt.
Numb from it all.
But that was when something stopped that feeling dead in its tracks.
There, in the darkness, on a far rooftop with close to two buildings separating them, was that of a shape. And a suddenly blinking Jill wondered if she would have even seen it if it wasn't being partly illuminated by the neon sign nearby.
Wait.
Jill froze.
She was wrong.
It wasn't a shape.
It was a figure.
A humanoid figure that stood on two legs with a hulking black body.
Jill's breath caught, denial going hand in hand with realization.
Yes.
Because as much as she might want to, Jill wouldn't mistake that pale head anywhere. And certainly not when it was looking right at her.
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
Cold and unrelenting fear stabbed into her as the Tyrant's demented bellow travelled clean across not only the streets separating them, but the window too.
But then that fear quickly turned into horror as the creature retrieved something from its back. Something large, black and compact.
"Y-You're kidding."
The Tyrant swung the unmistakable sight of a rocket launcher onto its shoulder, aimed it at Jill, and fired.
In that moment, she rid herself of all unnecessary thoughts.
Heart in her throat, Jill leapt over a couch and curled in on herself.
That was all she had time for before she witnessed a fiery projectile slam into the stairs several meters away.
Everything shook.
A horrendously loud sound thundered through the room, followed by a mighty shockwave. And then suddenly weightlessness as Jill felt her body being sent flying.
No.
Not flying.
Falling.
The floor had broken apart.
That was the last thing Jill remembered before she hit her head on something hard and her vision went black.
...
...
...
Everything hurt.
That was Jill's first thought upon waking up, lying uncomfortably on her side, and on what she half-thought, half-hoped was solid ground.
Also, heat touched her bare skin, and the sensation perplexed her. Almost as perplexing as the bright flickering lights dancing behind her still closed eyelids.
Jill blinked them open.
And for several long seconds failed to ascertain what she was looking at.
Flames.
Jill was surrounded by flames.
They furiously licked at the barely visible ground, the top of large chunks of concrete littering the floor, the odd steel partition... Anything it could consume, it was consuming.
Whatever grogginess or disorientation she felt vanished without a trace.
Suddenly incensed, Jill quickly and frantically tried to sit up. She instantly regretted it. An agonizing sharp pain suddenly sprang to life out of nowhere, causing her to gasp unevenly.
"S-Shit..."
She quickly found the reason.
Deeply embedded into her clothed thigh, was a jagged piece of metal.
Fortunately, it was thin, but at the same time, there was nothing fortunate about something the size ruler sticking out from both sides of her leg, each side a gaping indicator of a situation unmistakably turning from bad to abysmal.
Especially because Jill could see, in morbid detail, how the object's jagged teeth meshed messily with her ripped and bloody flesh.
Dizzy.
She felt dizzy.
And it hurt.
God, it hurt so bad she wanted to cry.
No, the tears were likely already there.
Either because of the pain or the omnipresent smoke in the air, Jill's eyes were burning like crazy.
"F-Fuck," she gasped out.
She... She needed to get that out of her leg. If not, it would only increase the chance of her getting an infection.
Wait...
No...
That was...
That was obviously wrong.
If it came out... she would simply bleed to death, and that would happen long before she could succumb to something like tetanus.
Jill... clearly wasn't thinking straight.
The pain was just too distracting.
Need to... get away, she decided, somehow, and through halted breaths. Yes. Jill needed to escape this place. Hole up somewhere. Then she could worry about her wounds.
But.
That meant she needed to get up.
Jill, swallowing down her fear, tried to move, tried to stand up, but the instant she moved the pain flared up like crazy, and she immediately gave up.
It was like her leg was doused in the fire not even a few meters away.
Jill glanced down, and couldn't help getting lightheaded when she saw something that big sticking out of her, and then at the copious amounts of blood beginning to flow out of the wound at an even faster pace.
JIll frantically shook her head.
With gritted teeth, she tried to stand again, this time with her non-damaged leg first. Then, after planting both hands on a nearby piece of rubble, Jill put more and more pressure on the other, hissing and gasping all the while.
"O-Okay. O... Okay."
She was standing now.
Next, Jill looked around, trying to spot anything that looked even remotely promising.
She was in luck.
There, laying on the ground beside her, was her Samurai Edge. With relief, she managed to scoop it up, just with no small amount of pain.
Returning it to her hip-holster, Jill's eyes returned to checking her hazy surroundings. And in doing so, she finally noticed the oddity. That is, above her.
It was a massive hole.
So she had fallen after all.
What's more, from here, beyond the haze of smoke too, Jill could just barely see the library's ceiling. As for where 'here' was exactly, she had fallen down a few stories...
Jill saw cars, some wrecked, others not, mixed in with the fallen slabs of concrete.
Some kind of parking garage?
Their colored hoods were set alight with fire just like everything else. One such vehicle was leaking a dark murky liquid onto the ground, which the flames licked at with even greater zeal.
No wonder it spread this much and so quickly. I'm... surrounded by accelerants, Jill realized, sweat trickling down the length of her face.
She really, really, needed to get the hell out of there.
The only problem was, with her surroundings being a maze of fire, rubble, and smoke, there was no clear way to tell which way would lead to safety, or more fire.
Or, the prolonged death where she just stumbled about, got lost, and ran out of oxygen.
Which meant...
It was all up to luck then.
Figures, Jill thought with a grim smile, then picked a direction where the smoke seemed to be at its weakest, and one she could visibly see that she could traverse without getting in the way of most of the flames obstructing access.
Jill began stumbling forward, gasping with every step, the pain almost blinding, using her hand to maneuver through any object of support she could find.
But she had to be careful.
Somehow, she didn't have any serious burns yet, but that would change in a heartbeat if Jill accidentally touched the wrong thing. Say, the steel bodies of one of the stray cars, superheated to the extreme.
Between keeping focus on that, the six feet or so she could barely see ahead of her due to the smoke, and the shocks of pain she received with each step of her bloodied leg, it took everything Jill had not to just pass out.
But... it was fine.
She could handle this much.
Losing her mother to illness at nine... watching her criminal of a father be dragged away in handcuffs at fourteen... basic training and then Delta Force's grueling requirements at twenty-one...
And, surviving the inhuman horrors that they had found in the Arklay Mountains...
Jill did not go through all of that just so she could die here. That feeling burned dangerously bright, and she didn't even mind calling it spite.
I can find a way out. Out of this city too. Just a little longer. Just a little fur—
A massive shape slammed into the ground in front of her, dust and concrete exploding in every direction, and Jill was flung backwards by the force alone, hitting the ground hard.
But that wasn't nearly as concerning as the dizzying jolt of pain that decidedly spasmed through her leg.
Jill cried out, and she just writhed on the ground in the several long seconds it took for her to decipher what the hell had happened.
And when she did, the pain vanished.
No, she just no longer seemed to feel it. It was overshadowed, plain and simple, and by the one thing Jill had not wanted to see, certainly not this soon.
But then it roared the only word it knew, and Jill felt her skin crawl.
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
As usual, the Tyrant stood at twice her size. Its black coat, ever present, was covered in the embers of the surrounding fire. And yet, its white, leathery and mismatched face didn't seem to care.
Just like it hadn't seemed to care about jumping down into this fiery hole.
Because S.T.A.R.S. was here.
Because, Jill, was here.
Killing her.
Nothing else seemed to matter.
Jill swallowed, but, despite her fear, engraved reflexes had her hand snaking to her hip, ripping her Beretta free from its—
Faster, the Tyrant advanced, and Jill didn't even have the chance to fire before the being was already seizing forward with its mighty arm outstretched, violently snatching her up by her throat, holding her in the air.
But Jill was far from done.
"H-Hands. Off. YOU UGLY FUCK." With gritted teeth and even more effort, she raised the sidearm the rest of the way, unhesitantly unloading shot after shot at its obtrusive face. She did so until the clip ran empty.
The bullets messily impacted with the pale white flesh, blood splashed outward, and along with the hideous squelching noises, the Tyrant undeniably flinched with each one.
But.
It did not let go.
Instead, it did something that had an icy cold chill scuttling down Jill's spine. It craned its bullet-riddled, marred, horrifying-to-look-at face back at her...
"S.T.A.R.S..."
And smiled an eerie smile.
It did so with an unquestionably satisfied, deep and low warble.
Jill... realized it then.
The bullets had hurt it.
But the Tyrant just didn't care.
It... was having fun.
It was enjoying the chase. The battles. Watching her struggle. Seeing what she'd do. It was enjoying all of it. And because of that...
It was never going to stop.
No, not just the Tyrant.
Its creator, too.
Umbrella was never going to stop chasing not only her but her friends as well. Everyone who possessed the means to expose the immoral corporation. And that was a goal they were scarily close to reaching.
Kenneth. Edward. Richard. Forest. Enricho. Joseph. Kevin... and Brad too.
All dead.
Was it now Jill's turn?
And then Barry, Chris and Rebecca, wherever they were?
"S.T.A.R.S.!"
Suddenly growing louder, the pale demon must have gotten impatient playing with its food, because its grip around her neck began to tighten, and the effect was immediate.
Jill struggled to breathe.
She raised the Beretta again, intending to fire once more, but it made a terrifying clicking noise instead.
The clip, of course, was empty.
Dropping the gun, Jill tried with her legs next, her single good one, that is, trying to hit the Tyrant, desperate to deal any kind of damage... but it didn't even reach its body.
She just kicked at the air fruitlessly, gasping and writhing all the while.
Now desperate, Jill snagged her final lifeline from her person, where she immediately started savagely stabbing the iron like arm that was holding her, her combat knife raining down on it again and again, doing so until her arm burned with exhaustion.
Blood splattered.
Emaciated flesh was torn.
But even then, that pale white grin stayed right where it was. No, to Jill's now fiercely watering and blurring vision, it seemed to grow wider.
The knife slipped from her hands.
It had just been a fruitless drain on her rapidly dwindling energy reserves. Reserves only dwarfed by her almost completely spent oxygen.
She... was going to die.
Jill's eyes began to bulge, her erratic movements began to slow, and with her throat tightening further and further, she had no choice other than to welcome the final sight appearing amidst her darkening vision.
The frightening visage of that pale white grin, unceasingly staring at her and only her as it continued to squeeze.
Jill began to go limp. Her vision lost focus. The horrible sounds she could hear herself making suddenly quieted. And she felt it.
She actually felt it.
Death. How close it was. Literally seconds away. Seconds away from claiming her completely.
And then.
And then she was suddenly hitting the ground, on her back, with a frenzy of haggard coughs and gasps.
But confusion?
Relief?
No such thoughts came to her, not when the moment she landed, an unimaginable pain shot up and down her thigh, so painful she saw white.
Then, just as quickly, darkness, blotting out the corners of her vision, engulfing her completely and utterly, taking her away to some far off place.
Death, after all?
Jill didn't know.
She was just... tired.
So very tired.
And with that, her head lulled to the side, and Jill remembered nothing more.
...
...
...
A sickening squelch; with one downward slash, that was the sound that licked the air raw as the searing-hot energy blade sliced right through the massive black-clothed arm, cleanly severing it at the elbow.
A single beat passed.
Then there was a pain-filled guttural roar as the coat-clad giant instantly recoiled, its arm landing on the ground with a barely audible thump. What it had been holding followed, the human, gasping for air.
But the pale beast didn't pay that much attention.
Retreating several steps, it began thrashing about, throwing its remaining arm in wild violent swings, eye darting every which way, flashing with naked rage, madness, and undeniable confusion.
But then the next attack came.
An upwards slash this time.
Behind it, the brutish creature didn't even have the chance to react before the glowing sword cut swiftly and deeply once more, this time unmistakably revealing the black and green armor holding it. But the sight was fleeting.
By the time the pale beast's remaining bulky arm came toppling off its body with another hideous sound, and before it could even turn around, there was nothing there.
Still; that did not stop the mad creature from roaring with both hate and pain as it twisted its now armless body around, determined to spot its opponent.
It wouldn't.
He had no reason to let it.
Active Camouflage.
His MJOLNIR suit's armor enhancement bent the surrounding light, rendering the wearer completely unseeable to the naked eye. Achieving an effect that was often mistaken for invisibility, or even magic, much to his annoyance.
Regardless.
It was undoubtedly suited for those who hunted, killed, and then arbitrarily convinced themselves that they did so for a purpose. That they were a soldier following orders.
As he had done for so long and without question, becoming a weapon that killed those who deserved it, but also those that didn't.
A few steps beside the pale abomination, yet hidden from sight by the air itself, Locus silently observed the creature as it stumbled around, almost drunkenly, too aggrieved by its wounds to do anything else.
It no longer seemed capable of fighting.
But, that was using logic.
In the short time Locus had been here, in this place that was little more than a reverse world of the one he used to know, he couldn't say there was anything logical about it.
Without delay, Locus' gleaming sword came to life once more, and seconds later, the creature tumbled forward, as if losing its balance. It did. Half its leg now lay on the ground behind it, cleanly severed.
Truly, the Sangheili artifact proved to be more effective than Locus had anticipated. Though, unsurprising, considering it could cut through even the most dense of high grade metals, U.N.S.C. issued or otherwise.
The beast's deformed head let out a deep groan of pain before it lifted up, either in agony or defiance, and in the completely wrong direction.
Locus watched it closely for several moments, then, with a minute movement, turned the bulk of his attention elsewhere. Lit up by the ongoing fires, several paces away and past the smoke that his helmet filtered out, a figure on the ground could still be seen.
The brown haired human female... unmoving save the faint rise and fall of her chest.
Alive.
However.
His gaze dipped downwards, to her leg, the steel jutting out of it, and then the precarious amounts of blood flowing out at irregular intervals.
Locus lingered for a fraction of a second before stepping towards her.
But that was when a strange sound filled the air, causing him to go still.
He turned.
Of course, towards the creature.
It hadn't gone anywhere, nor was it attacking.
But that wasn't to say it wasn't moving. One of its stump-like arms was raised, and it became obvious it was the source of the sound. The exposed insides; they were bubbling and writhing, like a chemical reaction.
Then, the fleshy material suddenly burst apart at the center, and something that looked like a tentacle popped out. No, a bundle of nerves. Razor sharp nerves that congregated into a single point, coated in something dark and purple.
And then, the crippled creature didn't even hesitate.
The tendril shot forth, straight towards the only lifeform it could still see, still hurt. Writhing as if alive, the sharp appendage made a beeline straight for the unconscious girl.
Locus' armored boot came crashing down on it, robbing the body part of all its momentum and crushing it to fleshy paste.
The contact disabled his camouflage, and Locus saw the way the intelligent madness in those eyes lit up at the sight of him, then quivered.
In rage.
Murderous rage.
Silently, Locus stared back.
It tried to crawl towards him after that. Or her. He didn't know. But its throat; it began rumbling with growls and guttural roars. No. Not roars.
It seemed to be words.
"S.T.A.—"
Not caring, Locus stabbed the energy sword straight through its head.
...
...
...
Jill blinked her eyes open.
And to a strange but welcome feeling.
A heavenly softness was cradling her head.
No, her whole body was receiving treatment.
And, all Jill did was bask in the criminally comfortable feeling, not fully awake, but not fully asleep either.
For all of five more seconds.
Because then the memories of fire, pain, and fear came flooding back to her, and every alarm bell possible seemed to trigger in her mind at once.
Suddenly, Jill was drenched in a cold sweat, wide awake, and throwing herself into a sitting position.
But while frantically looking around, half-expecting to see a rotted face, that horrible pale white one, or anything really, just in time for an attack—
The small living space in front of her held no such threat.
Whether it was the closed door with a doormat off to one side, the boarded up window on the other end, the kitchenette, the dining table, the T.V., the visible bathroom, all in separate areas of the room...
The harmless and empty sight just continued to stare right back at her.
Taking it all in, Jill then directed her attention to what she was sitting on, a... pull-out couch, it looked like. Without thinking, she swung her legs off it. "Ugh." A zap of pain was her reward, instantly shooting through her, causing her to hiss.
It was then and only then Jill finally took in the state of her body, her bare arms first.
The slightest trace of small burns reddened her skin, and all over too.
Even so, not a single one of them looked life-altering.
Jill flexed her fingers next, relieved when the action was met with little resistance.
Raising a hand to her face, she then palmed various places. Cheeks. Forehead. The back of her hair. But Jill's hand didn't come back with blood, nor did it hurt.
Well aware she was stalling, Jill swallowed once before finally checking the place she had been dreading.
Where even now she not only felt a numbing tingle enveloping the body part's origin, but could still perfectly recall the way the jagged steel had stuck out of it at both ends, all but lighting it on fire.
Still, Jill ripped off the proverbial bandaid, glancing downward.
At her thigh, now bare and bandaged.
Jill could only stare.
A red soaked layer of gauze had been tightly wrapped around it.
Also; it was bare, not in the sense that she was no longer wearing pants, but instead, that her wardrobe had just taken quite the strange turn.
Almost the entire pant-leg had been removed, no, cut off, leaving her looking like she was halfway to wearing daisy dukes or something. Jill... was unsure what kind of face she was making.
That was when something else caught her attention.
A bit away from the couch, discarded on the floor, was a piece of steel.
The piece of steel.
It was covered in blood, her own, and Jill stared at both it and the messy trail it left before returning to the bulk of her confusion, her bandaged and taken care of limb.
Brow furrowing, Jill sat up straighter, and it allowed her to see the small table to the right of the pull-up couch. Near the armrest. And on it...
Oh, thank god. Jill's heart soared. On it was an assortment of items, but it was her precious Samurai Edge that she noticed first. She could faintly recall dropping it, during...
Jill twisted her body, wincing as she did so, but still reached out to trace the barrel.
If she had lost the gun, it would have meant more than just losing a way to defend herself. It was her team's signature weapon. It provided a sense of comfort, a sense of pride.
Proof.
Proof that she could still fight. Proof that even if she had lost her uniform, her badge, and her job, she was still Jill Valentine, officer of the R.C.P.D. and member of S.T.A.R.S.
Smiling faintly, her gaze drifted off the gun.
Next to it was her combat knife and ammunition, the various holsters, harnesses, and pouches that made up her outfit, her canteen, and... an unscrewed cap and bottle of first aid spray.
It was all there.
All nice and orderly.
"...So, what, they just helped me and left?" Jill's slightly hoarse voice muttered to herself, absentminded and distant.
"...I considered it," a mechanical voice said, and from directly behind her.
Jill's heart dropped like a faulty elevator in the time it took for her to snatch her Samurai Edge from the table, stand up, and spin around, aiming its iron sights front and center. Also, she might have felt a burning pain, but she couldn't be sure.
At the room's entrance, the door was now open, somehow having been done without a sound. Jill didn't focus on that. Couldn't. Not with what stood in the doorway.
A monster, she decided.
Humanoid, with four human-looking limbs. Tall, too. Taller than her, but shorter than the Tyrant. It had a black and green form, with a body that was bulky. Bulky, in a way that was vaguely familiar. But she didn't focus on that for long.
After all, its face...
Jill's jaw tightened.
She could only barely find one.
Above its human-like body and neck was a round and ovalish head, yes, but it had no ears and no nose. It barely even had a mouth, just a small rectangular box on its lower half, with the tiniest of grooves that could very loosely be defined as teeth.
Almost like that of a skull's.
As for its eyes...
There was only a faceless, featureless stretch of smooth-looking black material... with a weathered green 'X' disturbingly crisscrossed over the very center.
An 'X', that, for a time, did little else but continue to regard her, much to Jill's growing discomfort.
That was when something that sounded strangely like a sigh came out from the confines of its eerie looking face.
And then it spoke.
Again, she realized.
"...You reopened your wound, you stupid girl. Why don't you decide if you want to shoot me with an unloaded gun... after sitting down," it said dryly, with that same robotic and extremely unsettling voice, and to the point where the words took ten whole seconds to register in Jill's mind.
At which point, she swallowed.
And even then.
"H-Huh?" was all she said.