Helplessness is probably one of the most terrifying feelings for someone who is as self-reliant as Claire Redfield. She doesn't allow many of her vulnerabilities seep out into everyday life, being a strong person is as much a part of her as anything else that had shaped her throughout her life. When one has seen as much death and destruction as Claire Redfield, though, one begins to fear the idea of becoming helpless.
It's just about the only angle she didn't think to consider. And in that small fear that she always did her best to push back and ignore, the Nightmare King had his in.
She found herself in the tiny cell of the Antarctic coliseum she'd been to so long ago, locked in the small cage, unable to escape. It's dark beyond the bars, at first, and she can only see enough to attempt to find a way out, her fingers feeling along the cold stone walls that made up most of the cell. She was calm, despite the stifling dark beyond the bars of one wall and the silence surrounding her. Right now, she was in control of herself, and while she may be locked up, there were very few cages that Claire Redfield was unable to break out of. She didn't notice the initial signs that she wasn't alone at first, too focused on trying to find a weakness in the wall or a loose bolt in the door on the opposite side of the barred opening, but gradually, she heard it.
Ragged, uneven breathing. Almost panicked.
Slowly, Claire turned away from the door, looking back at the darkness beyond the bars, although it wasn't dark any longer. Gradually, lights came on, to reveal the all too familiar room of the coliseum, and at the far end, Steve Burnside. Hesitantly, Claire moved towards the bars, one hand curling around the thick steel separating her from her friend.
"Steve," she said his name quietly, barely breathed it, but he heard her, and his eyes opened. The teenager focused on her from across the room, and her brow furrowed, her body pressing closer to the bars.
"Claire..." he said her name weakly, his eyes terrified and burning into hers. "Claire, help me, please. I-I can't hold on. I can't -Aaaaah!" He broke off into a wail, this scene playing out like so many times before. She frantically cast a glance around her cell, looking for some way to help him.
"Steve! Hang on, you have to fight it! Remember who you are, Steve!" It wasn't much good, he didn't seem to be listening to her, now, and even if he was.. she couldn't do anything from where she was.
nothing you could do; he died because of you
Her breathing hitched as Steve lost his humanity, becoming the hulking green mass that was nothing but rage and fury. He set his sights on her, on the heavy steel door that separated her from him, and Claire saw the look in his eyes. Animalistic, but beneath it, burning hate and anger.
you did this; it's all your fault
She backed away from the bars as quickly as she could, falling backwards in her haste and landing hard, but she was away from the door when a second later his axe hit it swinging, and he roared, banging away furiously. She dragged herself to the corner, eyes fixed on the roaring beast, filled with so much anger towards her for being the reason he was dead.
should've been you; it's all your fault
"...Mom?"
Claire's head jerked to the left at the sound of that voice. It didn't fit in with this nightmare, but it was there all the same. The child she loved with all her heart.
the child you left behind
"Sherry?! Sherry sweetie, run!" the panic was evident in her voice, as she scrambled upright. Her daughter was out there, in the room with Steve. She could see her, past the hulking mass, scared and hesitant. "Get out of here, Sherry!"
Either something in her voice, or the fact that the little girl was making enough noise to catch the attention of the creature beating against the steel door caused Steve's focus on Claire to break, turn to the little girl. Claire felt cold fear sweep across her chest as she rushed to the bars of the cage, desperate to do something, recapture Steve's attention, anything.
"No! Steve! You want to kill me! Not her, leave her alone!" She screamed, reaching her arms through the bars in an attempt to grab a hold of Steve before he slipped away, but her fingers ghosted over infected flesh and he was after the tiny blonde child, who had become trapped like her, in the far corner of the room, but there all the same.
"Mom! Mom help me!" she was screaming as she crouched down, and Claire pounded her fists against the steel, shaking it, doing anything she could in an attempt to get to her child.
"STEVE, NO! LEAVE HER ALONE!" she was screaming at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking in effort as her breathing edged into hysterical and erratic. The bars of the cage remained unyielding, and the monster was on the little girl, then. From where Claire stood, helpless, she could see as the veronica creature arched its axe above his head, and swung it down into the little girl, cutting her terrified screams abruptly short, although the screaming continued from Claire's own lips, mixed with hitching sobs as she slid down the bars, arms reaching uselessly towards the bisected and bloody remains of her child.
"No, no Sherry!" she cried, banging a fist against the bars.
you couldn't protect her; you could never protect her
The monster seemed to be entirely ignoring Claire at this point, his back turning on his fresh kill, swinging the massive blade as shots rang out from the opposite side of the coliseum, through a door she couldn't see. Shaking with the effort of controlling her sobbing, Claire looked to see who was coming, and a second later her brother appeared in the doorway. She had a second to feel an empty sort of relief, before the monster was charging Chris, although he was matching it, getting the hell out of the way of that blade and ringing off shots where he could.
He actually scored a few hits, even knocked the axe from Steve's hands before his gun clicked dry. Claire watched with her breath caught in her throat, as Chris threw the handgun aside and pulled his knife from its sheathe, going in for the kill.
She saw what was going to happen a second too late.
"CHRIS, NO!" she was up again, for the second time in such a brief time watching one of her loved ones stare down their mortality with no way of helping them. Steve had feigned left, and with one monstrous arm had lifted Chris off the ground, wrapping another around the body of the BSAA member while he tried to get free. The stab of knife may as well have been a pinprick for all the attention Steve gave it, and while this time the view was obscured from her sight, she heard the sickening snap and then the broken body of her brother was tossed aside while the monster turned to retrieve its axe.
everyone who tries to help you, tries to love you; everyone will die
She watched in somewhat muted silence, her throat raw from screaming, tears running down her face unstifled. When she heard gunfire again she immediately looked towards the door, shaking her head.
"No no no no no, please God, no," numb fingers clutched at the bars of her prison, but she just didn't have the strength to pull herself up again.
"Please, don't, not him too," she whispered, pressing her forehead against the bars. She could feel it coming, she couldn't bear to watch another person she loved die, so she squeezed her eyes closed.
The sounds she expected, however, were quite different from what she heard. The sound of a heavy weapon powering up, and a second later the pained roar of the creature, heavy body falling to the ground.
Claire opened her eyes, to see Leon standing over the smoking remains of Steve Burnside. Part of her ached, she'd lost Steve again, but Leon was safe. Alive. Swallowing her tears she pulled herself to her feet again. Leon's face was cast away from her, his eyes focused on the corner where Sherry lay.
"I couldn't stop him," she said weakly, trying to get Leon's attention. She needed him right now, she needed to draw off the strength he always had because her own was just about gone. "I tried but.."
"But I wasn't here fast enough," Leon finished for her, his voice hard, cold. When he finally looked at her, it wasn't the way Leon usually looked. For all the hard looks he gave people, his face always softened somewhat when he looked at her. Not now, though. If anything, it was colder and harder than she'd ever seen it before. "I wasn't here to fix your mess for you, and now everyone is dead." He turned a little, more squarely facing her now. Claire frowned, not sure where this was coming from.
"Leon I'm not-" he held up a hand, an impatient look on his face.
"You're useless, Claire Redfield." That, on top of everything that had just happened, was like a punch in the gut. She could only look at Leon, a look of confused betrayal on her face. "Seven years, and time after time, whenever you're in a mess too deep to climb out, someone else has to come in and save you. What're you going to do when there's no one left, Claire? Because you sure as hell can't save yourself. You can't even get out of that cage, can you?" He stepped around the body of Steve, walking towards her, until he was just out of her reach.
"Your uselessness is what killed them. You don't see the rest of us returning from missions with the same scars as you, do you? Because we're actually capable of defending ourselves and others." Claire found her voice a little then, through the pain and the hurt and the betrayal, anger began bubbling in her chest. Where was this even coming from?
"I'm not a trained soldier, Leon!" she snapped, both hands curling around the steel bars as she leveled her gaze on him. "And I have worked my ass off trying to protect people, and I've saved plenty of lives-" He laughed then, cold, humorless.
"Not the ones that matter. You've left them all to the wolves. It's meaningless if you're just campaigning for a better tomorrow." He unholstered his gun, then, and cocked it. Claire felt an irrational jolt of fear, but the gun remained at his side.
"There's no one left to help you, Claire. You're alone in here, and you're always going to be alone. Too bad you never learned to help yourself." She frowned, opening her mouth, managing to get his name out, before the gun snapped up, but instead of aiming at Claire, he was aiming at his own temple.
"Everyone who tries to love you, dies." He pulled the trigger then, and the sound of gunfire mixed with Claire's scream, and Leon fell to the ground. Heaving a sob, Claire fell to the ground after him, staring through the bars at his lifeless form.
She sat there, silent, broken, and lost for what felt like an eternity. She heard it all echoing around her, how helpless she was whenever someone needed her, how useless, pathetic, weak she was. Gradually, though, through the echoing she realized something.
This body wasn't Leon. She had had a million conversations with him, and she knew he didn't think she was some useless broken thing. He was incapable of lying outright to her if she approached him dead on.
And she had saved people. People had died, and been lost, but there were people she had saved, and she wasn't powerless to help anyone. Gradually, clinging onto that thought, that she wasn't powerless, she could get herself out of this, it reminded her of something. A moment, not so long ago, like this one, that she'd somehow forgotten in the whirl of anger and grief.
"I'm gonna kick your intangible ass," Claire whispered under her breath, slowly climbing to her feet. Her eyes lingered on the body of Leon that wasn't him for a moment, before she focused on the bars of her prison.
"I'm not helpless," she stated, loud and clear, one hand resting on the steel of the bars.
"I'm not useless." she wrapped both hands around the bars, bracing her legs.
"And Leon would never talk to me like that." She yanked on the bars, then, as hard as she could, sharp and quick. It took several sharp tugs, but after her third tug the bars came loose, and she tumbled forward, out of the darkness and found herself once again surrounded by the familiarity of Stacy. Breathing hard and looking around her to make sure that she was free she pulled herself to her feet again, reaching around to find the gun Leon had given her still holstered, in place of her typical 9mm. Laughing to herself, she drew it out.
"Oh you are so dead, Nightmare King. Never #^@& with a Redfield." Gun in hand, she headed in the direction she knew anyone else who could break out of their dreams would head. And kept an eye out for anyone having a hard time of it.
Claire blinked as the pixie came up next to her, hesitant for a moment. She didn't remember ever meeting anyone like this before, out of all the strange people she'd met. Still, after a moment's consideration, there was something familiar about the face...
"Will?" She sounds more than a little surprised. "...You've had quite the growth spurt."
"Oh. Okay." Claire has seen enough weirdo crap at this point that she's not even questioning it anymore. She accepted Will's hand and pulled herself up, glancing around while shaking her head.
"No. Besides extremely out of character facsimiles of my loved ones. We should head towards Escherville." She glanced back at Will, her brow furrowing for a second. "You can fight, right?" She was assuming this was some kind of He-Man transformation, but well, the Will she'd first met was a unintimidating teenage girl. She needed to make sure she wasn't going to be dragging a kid towards danger.
Claire let out a heavy breath, glancing back at the spot she'd been trapped in moments before, still able to see the discarded bars of her prison lying there.
"Yeah, looks like he's not playing now." She shook her head slightly, looking down the hall again. "I think things are about to get very interesting around here."
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It's just about the only angle she didn't think to consider. And in that small fear that she always did her best to push back and ignore, the Nightmare King had his in.
She found herself in the tiny cell of the Antarctic coliseum she'd been to so long ago, locked in the small cage, unable to escape. It's dark beyond the bars, at first, and she can only see enough to attempt to find a way out, her fingers feeling along the cold stone walls that made up most of the cell. She was calm, despite the stifling dark beyond the bars of one wall and the silence surrounding her. Right now, she was in control of herself, and while she may be locked up, there were very few cages that Claire Redfield was unable to break out of. She didn't notice the initial signs that she wasn't alone at first, too focused on trying to find a weakness in the wall or a loose bolt in the door on the opposite side of the barred opening, but gradually, she heard it.
Ragged, uneven breathing. Almost panicked.
Slowly, Claire turned away from the door, looking back at the darkness beyond the bars, although it wasn't dark any longer. Gradually, lights came on, to reveal the all too familiar room of the coliseum, and at the far end, Steve Burnside. Hesitantly, Claire moved towards the bars, one hand curling around the thick steel separating her from her friend.
"Steve," she said his name quietly, barely breathed it, but he heard her, and his eyes opened. The teenager focused on her from across the room, and her brow furrowed, her body pressing closer to the bars.
"Claire..." he said her name weakly, his eyes terrified and burning into hers. "Claire, help me, please. I-I can't hold on. I can't -Aaaaah!" He broke off into a wail, this scene playing out like so many times before. She frantically cast a glance around her cell, looking for some way to help him.
"Steve! Hang on, you have to fight it! Remember who you are, Steve!" It wasn't much good, he didn't seem to be listening to her, now, and even if he was.. she couldn't do anything from where she was.
nothing you could do; he died because of you
Her breathing hitched as Steve lost his humanity, becoming the hulking green mass that was nothing but rage and fury. He set his sights on her, on the heavy steel door that separated her from him, and Claire saw the look in his eyes. Animalistic, but beneath it, burning hate and anger.
you did this; it's all your fault
She backed away from the bars as quickly as she could, falling backwards in her haste and landing hard, but she was away from the door when a second later his axe hit it swinging, and he roared, banging away furiously. She dragged herself to the corner, eyes fixed on the roaring beast, filled with so much anger towards her for being the reason he was dead.
should've been you; it's all your fault
"...Mom?"
Claire's head jerked to the left at the sound of that voice. It didn't fit in with this nightmare, but it was there all the same. The child she loved with all her heart.
the child you left behind
"Sherry?! Sherry sweetie, run!" the panic was evident in her voice, as she scrambled upright. Her daughter was out there, in the room with Steve. She could see her, past the hulking mass, scared and hesitant. "Get out of here, Sherry!"
Either something in her voice, or the fact that the little girl was making enough noise to catch the attention of the creature beating against the steel door caused Steve's focus on Claire to break, turn to the little girl. Claire felt cold fear sweep across her chest as she rushed to the bars of the cage, desperate to do something, recapture Steve's attention, anything.
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"Mom! Mom help me!" she was screaming as she crouched down, and Claire pounded her fists against the steel, shaking it, doing anything she could in an attempt to get to her child.
"STEVE, NO! LEAVE HER ALONE!" she was screaming at the top of her lungs, her voice cracking in effort as her breathing edged into hysterical and erratic. The bars of the cage remained unyielding, and the monster was on the little girl, then. From where Claire stood, helpless, she could see as the veronica creature arched its axe above his head, and swung it down into the little girl, cutting her terrified screams abruptly short, although the screaming continued from Claire's own lips, mixed with hitching sobs as she slid down the bars, arms reaching uselessly towards the bisected and bloody remains of her child.
"No, no Sherry!" she cried, banging a fist against the bars.
you couldn't protect her; you could never protect her
The monster seemed to be entirely ignoring Claire at this point, his back turning on his fresh kill, swinging the massive blade as shots rang out from the opposite side of the coliseum, through a door she couldn't see. Shaking with the effort of controlling her sobbing, Claire looked to see who was coming, and a second later her brother appeared in the doorway. She had a second to feel an empty sort of relief, before the monster was charging Chris, although he was matching it, getting the hell out of the way of that blade and ringing off shots where he could.
He actually scored a few hits, even knocked the axe from Steve's hands before his gun clicked dry. Claire watched with her breath caught in her throat, as Chris threw the handgun aside and pulled his knife from its sheathe, going in for the kill.
She saw what was going to happen a second too late.
"CHRIS, NO!" she was up again, for the second time in such a brief time watching one of her loved ones stare down their mortality with no way of helping them. Steve had feigned left, and with one monstrous arm had lifted Chris off the ground, wrapping another around the body of the BSAA member while he tried to get free. The stab of knife may as well have been a pinprick for all the attention Steve gave it, and while this time the view was obscured from her sight, she heard the sickening snap and then the broken body of her brother was tossed aside while the monster turned to retrieve its axe.
everyone who tries to help you, tries to love you; everyone will die
She watched in somewhat muted silence, her throat raw from screaming, tears running down her face unstifled. When she heard gunfire again she immediately looked towards the door, shaking her head.
"No no no no no, please God, no," numb fingers clutched at the bars of her prison, but she just didn't have the strength to pull herself up again.
"Please, don't, not him too," she whispered, pressing her forehead against the bars. She could feel it coming, she couldn't bear to watch another person she loved die, so she squeezed her eyes closed.
The sounds she expected, however, were quite different from what she heard. The sound of a heavy weapon powering up, and a second later the pained roar of the creature, heavy body falling to the ground.
Claire opened her eyes, to see Leon standing over the smoking remains of Steve Burnside. Part of her ached, she'd lost Steve again, but Leon was safe. Alive. Swallowing her tears she pulled herself to her feet again. Leon's face was cast away from her, his eyes focused on the corner where Sherry lay.
"I couldn't stop him," she said weakly, trying to get Leon's attention. She needed him right now, she needed to draw off the strength he always had because her own was just about gone. "I tried but.."
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"Leon I'm not-" he held up a hand, an impatient look on his face.
"You're useless, Claire Redfield." That, on top of everything that had just happened, was like a punch in the gut. She could only look at Leon, a look of confused betrayal on her face. "Seven years, and time after time, whenever you're in a mess too deep to climb out, someone else has to come in and save you. What're you going to do when there's no one left, Claire? Because you sure as hell can't save yourself. You can't even get out of that cage, can you?" He stepped around the body of Steve, walking towards her, until he was just out of her reach.
"Your uselessness is what killed them. You don't see the rest of us returning from missions with the same scars as you, do you? Because we're actually capable of defending ourselves and others." Claire found her voice a little then, through the pain and the hurt and the betrayal, anger began bubbling in her chest. Where was this even coming from?
"I'm not a trained soldier, Leon!" she snapped, both hands curling around the steel bars as she leveled her gaze on him. "And I have worked my ass off trying to protect people, and I've saved plenty of lives-" He laughed then, cold, humorless.
"Not the ones that matter. You've left them all to the wolves. It's meaningless if you're just campaigning for a better tomorrow." He unholstered his gun, then, and cocked it. Claire felt an irrational jolt of fear, but the gun remained at his side.
"There's no one left to help you, Claire. You're alone in here, and you're always going to be alone. Too bad you never learned to help yourself." She frowned, opening her mouth, managing to get his name out, before the gun snapped up, but instead of aiming at Claire, he was aiming at his own temple.
"Everyone who tries to love you, dies." He pulled the trigger then, and the sound of gunfire mixed with Claire's scream, and Leon fell to the ground. Heaving a sob, Claire fell to the ground after him, staring through the bars at his lifeless form.
She sat there, silent, broken, and lost for what felt like an eternity. She heard it all echoing around her, how helpless she was whenever someone needed her, how useless, pathetic, weak she was. Gradually, though, through the echoing she realized something.
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This body wasn't Leon. She had had a million conversations with him, and she knew he didn't think she was some useless broken thing. He was incapable of lying outright to her if she approached him dead on.
And she had saved people. People had died, and been lost, but there were people she had saved, and she wasn't powerless to help anyone. Gradually, clinging onto that thought, that she wasn't powerless, she could get herself out of this, it reminded her of something. A moment, not so long ago, like this one, that she'd somehow forgotten in the whirl of anger and grief.
"I'm gonna kick your intangible ass," Claire whispered under her breath, slowly climbing to her feet. Her eyes lingered on the body of Leon that wasn't him for a moment, before she focused on the bars of her prison.
"I'm not helpless," she stated, loud and clear, one hand resting on the steel of the bars.
"I'm not useless." she wrapped both hands around the bars, bracing her legs.
"And Leon would never talk to me like that." She yanked on the bars, then, as hard as she could, sharp and quick. It took several sharp tugs, but after her third tug the bars came loose, and she tumbled forward, out of the darkness and found herself once again surrounded by the familiarity of Stacy. Breathing hard and looking around her to make sure that she was free she pulled herself to her feet again, reaching around to find the gun Leon had given her still holstered, in place of her typical 9mm. Laughing to herself, she drew it out.
"Oh you are so dead, Nightmare King. Never #^@& with a Redfield." Gun in hand, she headed in the direction she knew anyone else who could break out of their dreams would head. And kept an eye out for anyone having a hard time of it.
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A pixie winged girl in an unlikely outfit zips to her side, faster than the eye can see.
"Oh, Claire! Hi, we met once. I don't know if you remember me . . .?"
She was considerably shorter when they did.
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"Will?" She sounds more than a little surprised. "...You've had quite the growth spurt."
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"No. Besides extremely out of character facsimiles of my loved ones. We should head towards Escherville." She glanced back at Will, her brow furrowing for a second. "You can fight, right?" She was assuming this was some kind of He-Man transformation, but well, the Will she'd first met was a unintimidating teenage girl. She needed to make sure she wasn't going to be dragging a kid towards danger.
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"I have phenomenal cosmic magic powers." She frowns a little, more curious than displeased. "I thought everybody knew by now . . ."
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"Sorry. I know Leon mentioned it to me but he wasn't really specific on what you can do." Good to know, though.
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She looks around - "So . . . looks like the Nightmare King's kicking things up a notch."
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"Yeah, looks like he's not playing now." She shook her head slightly, looking down the hall again. "I think things are about to get very interesting around here."