(023) Twenty-Third Report [>>Autoplay Video]
[The video opens on an unfamiliar setting and an equally unfamiliar scene--
--which is an ugly one.
A figure lies at the base of a tall cliff, her legs half-submerged in the water of a small river. It's nighttime, but the moon's bright enough to pick out the details: she's covered from head to thigh in blood, still fresh and glistening in the blue-white light. It starts at her forehead, where a significant gash has ripped open the skin above her eyebrows to let more scarlet drip down into her eyes. One cheek is badly torn, her lips scraped and split, and black bruising covers one temple and a good portion of her jaw. Her left shoulder rests at an odd angle, dislocated.
Moving down, the sight's worse: her jacket's been torn open, the shirt underneath as equally shredded as the skin it's supposed to cover. From the bottom of her ribs down to her abdomen is nothing but an indiscernible, bloody mess; more red coloring stains the slow-moving waters around her legs.
It might take some time to realize that this mess is Jill.
It might take more to fathom that she's still alive.
She's breathing, but barely, her chest almost unwilling to simply rise and fall under the effort. Crouched beside her is another figure familiar to some -- but he, too, bears scars from whatever just went down, parts of his face scraped and bleeding and his usual sunglasses gone to reveal red-yellow eyes. Even so, there's an unmistakable smile on his face as he takes in Jill's condition, slowly and deliberately reaching over her still form to withdraw a few items from her belt: a taser gun, a few grenades. Disarming her, useless though the weapons already are. That satisfaction carries over into his voice.]
You disappoint me. I thought I trained you better than to let your enemy walk away from an engagement.
[Jill watches him with a blank look, unmoved. After a long pause, she draws in another shuddering breath -- and even though her body's shot and she's at least half-dead, she still tries to move, laboriously rolling onto her side with a hiss that says just how much that costs her -- but the grating sarcasm comes out all the same, even if her words are rough, cracked, and forced.]
What do you know? You're still human enough to bleed.
[That gets a laugh.] I am indeed. Does that give you comfort, Jill? Or does it bother you to know that you can't call me an honest monster?
[Without warning, he seizes Jill's throat in one hand and hauls her up out of the water, allowing a brief glimpse of bloodied, broken bone protruding from just below her right knee. There's nothing gentle in the motion, no hint of regard for the injuries that are killing her, and it shows: Jill starts, her body going into a spasm as her good hand grasps weakly at the arm holding her. She finds her broken voice and cries out, but much of the volume is lost beneath the chokehold.
Wesker ignores it, digging his fingers in harder as he brings his face close to hers.] You won't have to worry about it for very much longer. I think that I'll send Chris your last regards -- any final words that you'd like me to pass on?
[It takes nearly half a minute for Jill to catch her breath and become lucid again; that done, she stares straight into Wesker's burning eyes as she quietly, barely speaks, agony and effort in every syllable.]
Tell him... that I know -- that he'll be the one... to stop you.
Always the optimist, Jill. Is it something in your genetics? Because I can't understand how you could possibly be speaking from experience.
I'll tell him you said so before I kill him, I promise.
[That strong hand constricts, but slowly, making the most of the deadly pressure as Wesker crushes her delicate throat. Jill's breathing catches, stops; her defiant eyes lose focus even as they drift aside, determined not to let her murderer be the last thing they see; her battered fingers, entirely robbed of the last of their strength, quickly fall away from Wesker's wrist. Her entire body goes slack.
...And then, again without warning, Wesker suddenly releases her. Jill hits the ground hard, jolting her bad shoulder, her leg, everything, and the little life she still has lets her gasp for air -- just enough to scream, the sound desperate and shattered. Her body arches, relaxes, writhes, and then repeats, trying to get away from itself and the overwhelming pain.
But Jill Valentine is still stubborn and a hardass bitch when she wants to be: it takes several seconds, but she bites down hard to clench her jaw and stifle her cry, even if snarls and groans still make it through her teeth.
Wesker is unmoved all the while, only examining Jill and her wounds with a clearly thoughtful look. After a moment, he crouches down beside her again -- this time to actually pick her up in his arms. She reacts with another sharp moan that he also ignores, but she's in no state to object -- and silently, he walks out of the feed's view, taking the hardly conscious, barely living woman with him.]
[The scene ends, but then the video abruptly changes to reveal Jill -- modern-day, perfectly healthy Jill, sitting in her bedroom with the tablet held in front of her. She was evidently just watching that whole scene play out; her face has settled into an entirely blank, half-distant stare.
As soon as she notices the blinking light announcing that the feed's on her now, her eyes narrow just slightly before she moves to turn it off without a word.]
[ooc; SPOILERS FOR RE5, obviously, assuming that really even deserves a warning anymore. Memory excerpted from this log.]