As soon as the last piece disappeared into the depths of my stomach and the blood, absorbed through the pores, seeped into my body, I finally regained control of myself. Yeah, I need to do something about this. Ideally, I need to understand what I am and how to proceed. And I absolutely must get this control issue sorted out, or else I'll walk out among people and lose my mind again. Even if not immediately, but at the sight of blood — then what? Ideally, I need to get into one of those vivisectors laboratories, but if I go back now, there's a very high chance they'll take me apart for parts, which doesn't suit me at all. Conclusion? I need an empty laboratory or some unofficial scientists.
So, first of all, I need to find out when I ended up. And then, based on that, I'll decide what to do next. The easiest route would be to head for the Hive. I think that's what the lab under Raccoon City was called? Even if I've landed in a more remote part of the universe I know, I can always try to find something useful there or conduct research. Surely they couldn't have destroyed absolutely everything there, right? The only — but quite significant — drawback is that I'm not a scientist. So even if I'm lucky enough to find the necessary equipment and instructions, analyzing myself would still be… difficult. And that's an understatement.
Sure, I have some knowledge — in my past life I was an ambulance paramedic — but on the other hand, a paramedic isn't even a doctor! So you're completely screwed, Alex. Hmm, or should I go by the name of the body's original owner now? But "Nathan" doesn't sound right either. And unlike me, he was a complete failure; he didn't even have a job, which is why he volunteered for Umbrella, despite the fact that the prospects for the first batch of recruits were less than encouraging. I got that bit from the memories of the Frenchman whose body I ended up in. Well, the only plus in this entire situation is that now I know three languages! I speak Russian and French fluently, and I have conversational English. I had a good grade in it, though my knowledge faded a bit over the last couple of years. And Nathan knew English even better than I did, so overall this left me with a rather respectable level of English proficiency — except I might miss some curse words. But I don't think that's much of a loss.
Back to the main issue: I need to figure out where (geographically) and when (canonically) I've ended up, and act accordingly. If it's early, I can take advantage of the timing to give the zombie apocalypse a little push — and maybe do something nasty to the vivisectors while I'm at it. If it's late, I'll look for a lone scientist, and I already know one. Wesker! Though that parasite is perfectly capable of betraying me, so I need to pique his interest and make him think that I need him far less than he needs me. I could also look for Birkin, but that's only after the first point; or perhaps the most I'll find is a wild zombie with an interesting virus strain. Fun, in its own way.
When I finally emerged from my thoughts and prepared to keep running — staying near this particular lab was dangerous — I realized I had completely missed the explosion. At least I'd had the sense to increase my distance from the bomb. More interestingly, I discovered where everything I had eaten had gone! I must say, Nathan had been rather skinny, but after two dogs, my new body now had pretensions to muscle. Just pretensions, mind you, but watching muscle mass appearing so quickly was definitely pleasing.
And the fact that the next time I fought the dog, not my rebellious body acting on its own, brightened my mood even more. And this time I limited myself to its blood only, which satisfied my hunger perfectly. I had no desire to become a musclebound brute, and the meat from previous victims had already made me sinewy enough. And since I wasn't busy devouring dogs, I had more time to put distance between me and the blast site. So I drank three more on the way, while the rest were either recalled — if they contained bombs, then there must be some kind of control system— or ran out.
And so, after a brisk run, by dawn I found myself on the outskirts of some city, still unknown to me. And yes, because of the dawn, I also added night vision to my list of advantages. I could see perfectly well in the dark and even didn't immediately understand what was happening when the sun started to rise.
Also, from my vantage point, I saw military vehicles rushing toward the city and a solid stream of civilian cars fleeing in the opposite direction. One might assume the city is infected — though it's not yet clear how badly, or which city it even is. Sure, one could assume it's Raccoon City, but that would be too convenient for me, and I don't trust convenient coincidences. There weren't any signs with the city name nearby either, which means I need to move in the same direction as the military. I also need to get through the cordons to test a couple of theories. Even if this isn't the same city, it's vital to find out whether regular zombies will react to me — those last three could have been abnormal, especially considering the prime example of abnormality standing here thinking about it. Namely me.
An infected city also means I'll have immediate access to food, and at the same time I'll see how I react to humans being nearby. For now, let's go around the traffic in a wide arc, the houses here are empty, except for a couple where silhouettes glow red. Heh. Although nothing could be worse than being a latent Korean. Why did I even call myself that? Who eats dogs here? That's exactly what I mean.
Now that I've settled on my immediate plans, it's time to leave the forest and head down the hill. Eh, the main thing now is not to get shot in the head — who knows how I'll react to that? Classic zombies didn't exactly handle that well, so let's not take risks, Alex!