Origins Unveiled"
Location: Blue Umbrella Dormitory, Room 7C
Date: December 25, 2011
Time: 2300 Hours
The room was a tomb, sealed tight against the world. Rain lashed against the windowpane, each drop a frantic tap against the glass, echoing the pounding rhythm of John "Alen" Kane's heart. The mission on Sein Island had left a residue, a psychic stain he couldn't scrub away. The hallucination—the shadowy woman, the lullaby, the hidden compartment—it wasn't random. It was a key, and it had unlocked a door in his mind he'd spent a lifetime welding shut.
Why her? Why there? Who was she?
Frustration boiled into quiet, seething anxiety. He'd risked everything to smuggle the artifacts past Blue Umbrella's hyper-vigilant security, his skills as a ghost tested not against B.O.W.s but against retinal scanners and patrolling guards. Now, they lay before him on his bed: a pair of old-fashioned spectacles, a nondescript hard drive, and a black leather diary, its cover embossed with a single, stark rose.
Taking a steadying breath, he broke the delicate clasp and opened the diary. The handwriting was precise, elegant, and ruthlessly efficient—a scientist's script. But the words… the words were something else entirely.
Log Entry: October 17th
The subject continues to develop at an accelerated rate. Cellular regeneration is… miraculous. Progenitor integration is at 98.7%. His immune system is stronger, more refined, and more advanced than both mine and Albert's.
Alen's blood ran cold. He turned the page, his hands beginning to tremble.
Log Entry: November 3rd, 1983
I grow more cautious every day. Each time I think of our son, fear grips me. My greatest fear is Oswell. His eyes are everywhere. If he ever discovered Alen, it would be dangerous. He would use him for his own gain. His fate could be worse than Lisa Trevor's. Oswell doesn't care about life—only power.
A cold dread pooled in Alen's stomach. He read faster, the clinical entries slowly morphing into something more personal, more desperate.
Personal Entry:
I don't know the date. The days blur. I held him tonight. He has Albert's face and my eyes. Albert and I agreed to hide him away from the world. No one must ever know he exists—no Umbrella Corporation, no Oswell Spencer. For his own good. Albert may be cold, but he cares, and he agreed.
The words began to swim on the page. A high-pitched ringing started in his ears, muffling the storm outside. The sterile light of his room seemed to warp and stretch.
They will use him. Spencer will tear him apart to see what makes him work. They will turn his perfection into a weapon. I have seen the files on Lisa. The pain… the endless, screaming pain… I will not let that be his fate.
A sudden, violent flash. Not a memory, but a sensation: the softness of a wool blanket against his cheek, a scent of lavender and antiseptic, a low, humming vibration against his ear.
The room dissolved.
Hallucination Sequence
Sensory Overload: The hum of the dormitory's air conditioner twists into a gentle, melodic hum. A woman's voice, soft and tired, sings a Russian lullaby he somehow knows the words to. The grey walls of his room bleed into the warm glow of a lamplit nursery.
Fragmented Imagery: A silver-blonde strand of hair falls across his vision. The glint of wire-rimmed glasses. A single, tear-filled blue eye looking down at him with overwhelming love and bottomless sorrow. A hand—slim, elegant, a scientist's careful fingers—stroking his cheek. The same touch he felt in the lab.
Tactile Memory: He is being held. Cradled. The world is safe, warm, and small. The humming continues, a vibration in his very bones. It's her. The shadow. The ghost. It's… Mother.
The Crash Back to Reality: A clap of thunder outside his window was a gunshot. The vision shattered. He was back on his bed, gripping the diary, his knuckles white. His heart hammered against his ribs. He fumbled, turning the page, and a small, faded photograph slipped out.
It was a woman in her early twenties. Silver-blonde hair tied back. Intelligent, intense eyes behind the same spectacles now lying on his bed. She wore a simple white lab coat. In her arms, she held an infant wrapped in a blue blanket. She was smiling, a real, unguarded smile that didn't match the cold Alex Wesker from the briefing files.
Taped behind it was another photo. A man with sharp features, slicked-back blonde hair, and an arrogant smirk. Black sunglasses. Black turtleneck. Albert Wesker. He held the same infant with bemused detachment. Scrawled on the back in the same elegant hand: "A & A. 1983. Our only secret."
The diary slipped from his numb fingers, hitting the floor with a soft thud.
The pieces crashed together in his mind, forming a picture of monstrous truth. The suppressed memories. The lullaby. The island calling to him. The ghost leading him to her most personal secrets.
He wasn't an orphan. He was an heir. The son of two arch-demons, a product of the most twisted eugenics experiment imaginable.
A raw, guttural sound tore from his throat. He launched himself from the bed, his fist shattering the mirror on the wall. Glass exploded, shards raining down around him like crystalline tears. He stared at his reflection, now a fractured mosaic of a monster's face.
"God complex, huh?" he spat at the broken image, his hand bleeding onto the floor. "I'm a monster too."
His eyes darted to the nightstand, to a small, framed photo of a smiling woman with kind eyes and grey streaks in her hair—Jessica R. Richard, his adoptive mother. He grabbed it, holding it like a lifeline.
"You," he whispered, voice cracking. "You are my mother. The day you found me… you didn't just take in an orphan. You gave a weapon a soul. You taught me what mercy is. What love is. You are my real mother. Not her."
He treated his bleeding hand with mechanical efficiency, the sting a welcome anchor to reality. He cleaned up the shattered glass, each piece a symbol of his broken past.
He had to know more. He retrieved his hardened, non-networked laptop and plugged in the second hard drive. It was a digital Pandora's Box. Schematics for T-Phobos. Financial records—accounts in Switzerland and the Cayman Islands, still holding over twelve million dollars untouched. Psychological profiles. And at the core of it all, the project she called Ascension: Consciousness Transfer.
He read her clinical notes on Natalia Korda, the selection process, the neural mapping. Then he found it: a personal addendum to the project specs.
The transfer must be total. To be truly reborn, one cannot leave fragments behind. The past informs the present. The memories, even the suppressed ones… especially the suppressed ones… are the foundation of consciousness. A full upload is the only path to true immortality.
Alen leaned back, the horrifying implication dawning on him. Barry Burton might have stopped the physical transformation, but what if the digital transfer had already completed? What if Alex's consciousness—all of it, including the buried, maternal personality that still loved him—was now dormant inside Natalia's mind, waiting?
The girl wasn't just a survivor. She was a sleeper agent. And she was living with a man who had dedicated his life to stopping the very thing sleeping inside her.
The truth was darker than he could have imagined. He wasn't just the son of monsters. He was perhaps the only person on earth who knew the greatest threat to the Burton family was the daughter they loved.
He closed the laptop. The game had changed. Blue Umbrella was a means to an end, a place to gather resources and intelligence. But his mission was now his own. He would play the loyal soldier, but from the shadows, he would watch. He would investigate Blue Umbrella's true goals. And he would watch over Natalia Korda.
From this night forward, Alen had a mission: uncover the corruption inside Blue Umbrella, steal what information he could, and protect the Burtons at all costs. If Natalia ever awakened as his mother's vessel, he would hunt her down. Even if it meant killing her.
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