"Are you sure...?" Jill and Barry asked, completely unconvinced by Javier's plan. It sounded suicidal. If they jumped, the platform would completely lose balance, and leaving Javier alone on it was asking for trouble. What if it plummeted? They hesitated, worried.
"Just jump!" Javier sighed, annoyed at their fear. "Don't jinx it! I'm more afraid of death than either of you. I wouldn't do this if I wasn't absolutely certain. If you feel bad, next time we're in danger, I'll just kick you both in front of me instead."
Javier leaned into his cynical, selfish persona. It was true; he'd always put his own survival first and wouldn't gamble with his life. He was here to enjoy the world of Resident Evil, not to play the hero—that was a role for someone like Chris. As a self-proclaimed scoundrel, Javier wasn't cut out for martyrdom.
Jill and Barry's momentary surge of emotional sincerity was instantly chilled by Javier's cruel joke. Javier is still Javier, they realized. He could be clever, but he was also infuriatingly selfish. Seeing his familiar, obnoxious demeanor reassured them. They stopped arguing, exchanged a look, and quickly sprinted to the edge. The platform was swaying violently.
"Jump—!!!" they yelled in unison.
They leaped simultaneously, crashing onto the ledge just as Rebecca had, though their greater body mass—Barry's middle-aged weight and Jill's "elastic fat"—offered slightly better cushioning than Rebecca's "flat screen." This thought, however, unintentionally wounded Rebecca's feelings again. The young chemist vowed right then to invent a side-effect-free breast enhancement serum and grow "grapefruit-sized breasts" just to spite the scoundrel Javier.
"Thud...!!!"
Jill and Barry felt the impact, their bones aching. Rebecca rushed over to help them up. Only Javier was left, but then the inevitable occurred.
"Bang!"
"Rumble...!!!"
Just as the others landed, the precariously balanced platform made a horrible noise. The two remaining chains suddenly became loose, snapping instantly, and showering the cave with debris. The heavy platform and the coffin, obeying physics, plunged into the abyss.
With the support ripped away, Javier's face went white. Like a drowning man grabbing at a straw, he frantically clutched the dangling remnant of one of the chains, his grip absolute. One slip, and it was a thousand-foot fall.
"Shit! Goddamn it!" Javier cursed loudly. "My luck is the worst! This damn script is trying to kill me, isn't it? It didn't fall earlier, but now that everyone's safe, it collapses! Is this payback for not having a protagonist's halo? Whose cursed bad luck is this?!"
His hands gripped the chain, but his arms were already white and trembling. He couldn't hold on much longer. The thick chain was too wide to grip securely or use for an improvised foot-lock. He was relying entirely on arm strength, and human arms can only endure so much. His muscles were violently shaking, and despite clenching his jaw, he looked seconds away from falling.
"Javier!!!"
"Damn it, you hold on! Don't let go! We'll make a rope out of our clothes right now!" Rebecca, Jill, and Barry immediately panicked. They hadn't expected the platform's complete collapse. Javier was dangling, swinging, and looked ready to fall at any second. Despite their earlier grievances, they couldn't bear to let their teammate die. They desperately shouted for him to hold on, quickly stripping off their combat vests and jackets. Jill and Barry tied their outerwear together, while Rebecca tore Javier's tactical backpack in half to add more length.
They placed Jessica's skeleton on the ground, working frantically to extend the makeshift rope.
But it was too late. Javier felt his arms failing. He wanted to rely on sheer willpower, but he knew he wasn't the material for a dramatic power-up. As an ordinary man, his body had limits. He felt the last of his strength draining away.
"Shit!"
His curses faded into a single, terrifying sound.
"Clatter...!!!"
His fingers slipped loose. Javier slid off the chain, the metallic clang echoing his fall. Jill and Rebecca, alerted by the noise, spun around just in time to see Javier plummet into the deep abyss. Their faces were a mixture of panic, shock, regret, and shame. Their busy hands fell limp.
Was this the end?
No.
Javier had left a backup safety system—Lisa Trevor. The question was whether this system could be activated. Lisa's parasite tentacles could extend for meters, capable of piercing targets, but also capable of tightly wrapping around them. It all depended on Lisa's conscious decision.
"Hiss...!!!"
The moment Javier fell, Lisa, standing by the entrance, let out a low, guttural cry. As if truly comprehending the danger, the parasite tentacles on her back shot out with incredible speed toward Javier. This time, her intent was not to pierce him, but to save him.
"Snap—!"
With perfect accuracy, dozens of parasite tentacles wrapped around Javier's ankles, stopping his fall instantly.
"Roar...!!!"
The moment the tentacles grasped him, Lisa let out another low snarl. The otherwise slender tentacles abruptly swelled to several times their size, becoming immensely thick and strong. With a sudden surge of power, they yanked the dangling Javier out of the abyss.
"Thump—!"
Javier hit the ground with a painful thud—harder than anyone else had. His chest was bruised and his breath stolen. He lay on the ground, recovering for a moment, before struggling to sit up.
He looked over at the monster girl, Lisa, who was now standing quietly by the entrance, gently cradling her mother's remains. The others stared in shock. They couldn't believe this monster, who looked no different from a zombie, was capable of understanding human pleas and performing a deliberate act of rescue. It was astonishing. If not for her hideous appearance, she might indeed be the next stage of human evolution—with powerful life force, preserved intelligence, and autonomy.
"Thank... thank you..."
Before Javier could even thank her, Lisa spoke first, her voice still raspy. Javier was deeply moved; she was truly a good soul.
But before Javier could say anything more, Lisa clutched her mother's skeleton and turned away, walking slowly toward the other side of the cave entrance.
"Lisa...!?"
"Hey, Lisa! Where are you going?!" Javier cried out in alarm. He was terrified the poor girl was going to do something foolish. In one of the original timelines, Lisa took her mother's body and plunged into the abyss to end her tormented life. In another, she attacked Wesker in a suicidal frenzy, only to be briefly subdued by a collapsing chandelier before being consumed in the mansion's explosion. In either case, her fate was tragic.
Javier didn't want Lisa to end her life so abruptly. He believed her parents wanted her to live, no matter what she had become. He wanted her to fulfill the responsibility of the living and not seek death.
Unseen by Javier and the others, as Lisa walked away holding her mother's remains, she drove countless parasite tentacles onto her own face, violently ripping off the layers of human skin that had imprisoned her with obsession for so many years. With the rush of crimson blood, the faces that symbolized her madness and grief slowly tore away and fell to the ground...