Chapter Text
Great, absolutely great. If matters could not get any worse, now he was being hauled into another room. They dragged him by his already battered arms and threw him into the grimy room. This was not helping his germophobia; surely Umbrella had some cleaner and more sterile rooms. Then again, maybe they were not meant for low-level lackeys like him.
They gripped him by his wrists, cuffing him to the chains dangling from the ceiling. Maybe the room was filthy, thanks to those who were previously here; it could’ve been humans or BOWs; at this point, it didn’t even matter. He tried to distinguish the people standing around him, but blood was actively stinging and blurring everything into a reddish tint.
Great, he was done for now.
It was meant to be a simple recon mission, gathering some intel about the new virus Umbrella had been cooking up and leaving it to the professionals. Instead, he was ambushed not long after entering the facility. He had worked his way through carefully, sneaking through the shadows and sliding past guards stationed outside rooms before finally reaching his objective.
And that's when everything went to hell.
A mob of operatives swarmed him, guns firing and knives flying, before tackling him to the ground and knocking him out. They then had taken to beating him with a wooden baseball bat, trying to get information out of him. Now it seemed like they were moving on to the next stage of torture, whatever that could mean to him. He blinked hard, hoping it would clear his vision, giving him some kind of clarity so he could start drafting an escape plan. The dingy room was lit by a single light bulb that stood over his head. He could find something to make it work; now, he had to wait for them to leave.
The cuffs dug into his raw and red wrists. He was forced upright. He was sure his left shoulder was dislocated when they tackled him into the ground, the way it sent spikes of pain down his chest when he shifted slightly. His head lolled side to side when he tried to look back up; he was certain he had a concussion, not from hitting his head but from being beaten up by a baseball bat. They had started talking to him again, another drawling monologue he could not quite put his mind on, attempting to get something out of him.
“Spare me the speech. Why not go running back to whatever hole you dicks crawled out of?" he spat. His head was doing numbers on him; listening to the man's grating voice worsened it. A slap right across his cheek left his jaw battered, radiating pain and causing him to spit out blood that emerged when his teeth connected with his inner cheek. He looked up at them in defiance, pure spite pumping through his veins. Angered by his tantrums, the thugs pulled out a crowbar.
“How original,” he thought to himself. He sucked in a quick, sharp breath, bracing for the pain that was yet to come. Each blow felt harder than the last. White-hot pain seared through his skin, exploding throughout his body. His attempts to curl inward were in vain, as some other guys held his limbs as the leader, or he guessed the leader landed blows onto his body. He was completely stretched and exposed, with nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.
By the last hits, he gave up crying out, his throat hoarse and he was at the teetering brink of unconsciousness. Oh, how he wished it had taken him sooner, the moment the pain began. He had no ounce of strength left. When they were done beating the life out of him, his head flopped forward; uneven, short gasps escaped him, each hurting more than the last. Great, now his ribs were broken too.
The room began to swim, his vision blurred and focused; they left him hanging there, still holding onto the small hope a knight clad in armour might rescue him. The thought made him chuckle; he could’ve been the bait, Umbrella’s puppy chow, when the organisation he worked for temporarily, as he put it, completed the job behind his and their backs.
He sighed, flinching as the pain invaded from the inside out, eating away at his dying body. That's when the door opened again; from the corner of his eye, he saw a shorter man approaching with a knife in hand and a crazed expression, trudging towards him. Who knew Umbrella employed asylum patients?
Everything was distant and floaty; nausea churned in his stomach, white spots danced in his vision, his ears rang violently and his body decided to warm up but leave him shivering at the same time. His arms screamed in protest; God knows how long he had been hanging there for. Pins and needles settled between his fingers, which he clenched and flexed to get some kind of circulation through. He groaned; all he could do was whimper like a beaten animal after screaming his throat and lungs dry.
An uncomfortable feeling now festered in his chest; he began coughing violently. Dry, airy coughs racked his damaged ribs, which sent more jolts of pain down his body as he coughed up blood, or rather, puked up the blood. Breathing again almost seemed impossible; each shaky breath was calculated, trying to give his muscles oxygen as well as not jar his ribs. He was utterly exhausted; he wanted to go under. After the beatings and the artistic impressions left on his body, he wanted to crawl into bed and sleep the rest of his life again.
They returned.
“Come on, aren’t you guys tired of trying like this? I’m not telling you where Ada Wong is, buddy. Hell, if I knew,” he whispered, his cracked voice musing as he pulled himself upwards, balancing on the tips of his toes, listening to his own blood trickling down the side of his face, dripping onto the murky ground.
He looked up at the thugs again; this time the world tilted sideways. Why was he being turned upside down? Gravity reintroduced itself in the rudest way possible as he hit his head hard onto the concrete ground. Pain exploded through his head as his concussion was possibly jostled again, but he was relieved, feeling returned to the tips of his arms as he continued to flex and clench his fingers. Looking up at his captors, he felt a prick in his arms. He instinctively pulled away, not getting too far as his weary limbs settled to become noodly.
That's not good; blood rushed through his system, making him very aware of the chaotic bursts of pain that made his limbs twitch uselessly. His vision blurred at the edges. He was injected with something, drugs. Oh, oh shit, a virus? Maybe Umbrella’s new virus. He had to move.
His body decided it was taking the day off, leaving him with nothing but his consciousness. Every orifice in his body screamed in agony, and whatever they injected him with only made the pain worse, making him feel as if his muscles had been constricted by some kind of invisible restraint. He could feel something pooling below his back. Great, now he was bleeding out. What a lovely way to go out. In Umbrella’s old building in some random town, after being infected or just plain bleeding out. Thus began the downfall of Nolan Davies Kennedy.
His vision went dark.