The world returned in fragments.
First came the cold, and sadly not that lovely cold of a winter morning, but the bone-aching chill that would make anyone shiver and wish they were anywhere but there. He was cold. Yes, that was the first sensation that he became aware of during the effort to open his eyes, and then the cold sensation was joined by soreness that spread across his entire body the moment he tried to move. Coughing and then groaning with pain as his body seemed to wake up slowly, the young man tried to get an idea where in God's name he landed.
What happened?
But just as he asked himself that, a wave of memories surfaced slowly, almost as if his mind was doing it reluctantly. He was on a mountain road that had clearly seen better day, but before he could remember more, Samuel put his hands on his head as a headache soon start bothering him.
He remembered the truck. A battered thing, rust-eaten and probably older than him truck, that had appeared out of nowhere while he was trying to avoid some potholes on the road. He remembered the driver's face, looking just as shocked as he was to see another car appear in front of his truck. He remembered his own hands grabbing the wheel, before he desperately tried to avoid the truck only to find himself jumping out of the road, and then the long, terrible descent through winter-bare trees.
His newly acquired car, well, newly stolen three days ago from a town whose name he'd already forgotten was for a lack of better words gone. Either buried in snow somewhere below or reduced to scrap among the rocks. Not like he had much stored in it, but some extra clothes would have done wonders in this cold.
Letting out a groan, Sam tried to sit up, which he soon found out was a very bad idea as he felt everything was hurting. Chances are that he broken a rib or two in the fall if not worse. Ignoring the cries from his body, he ran his hand through his hair and much to horror, blood matted his dark hair.
"Fucking hell, I really fucked myself with that, ugh." Sam grunted in pain as he managed to prop himself against a fallen log, gasping through the effort
For a few long minutes, Samuel did nothing but breathe. Yet, each inhale made him feel like his lungs were burning. At the same time, with each exhale, the same burning sensation vanished into thin air as if the breath he pushed out disappear into thin air. The forest was silent in that suffocating way only a winter forest could be, but in a way, this was probably for the best, as Sam really doubted, he would be able to do much if some kinds of predator were to roam the forest right now. Thankfully he couldn't hear anything like that.
After a few moments, thinking that for now this was plenty of rest, he pressed his trembling fingers against his side, hissing through his teeth, which made him regret that decision. The pain there was sharp, and it hurt like hell. He didn't have to be a doctor to realized that chances are, he had a broken rib. Maybe two. Not only that, but as soon as he started feeling that pain, he realized his head still rang and that dull throb behind his eyes was starting to take its toll on him, but despite those, he forced himself to focus. Panic wouldn't help. It never had.
"Move," he muttered to himself. "Get up and move."
His body protested as he forced himself to stand, using the fallen log for leverage. The world spinned dangerously for a moment, and he had to squeeze his eyes shut against a wave of nausea. When he opened them again, everything was slightly out of focus, but at least he was upright.
The sun was already sinking behind the jagged treeline, and with it, night would soon follow. Speaking of night, one such night in the mountains would not be forgiving. It would not care that his body healed faster than it should. While it would not be as bad as being thrown into a cage to fight other experiments, the winter cold will not care that he had survived worse places than this. Hypothermia didn't care about experiments or altered biology.
He did not like his chances of lasting until morning, not in these conditions.
Swallowing hard, Sam braced one hand against the nearby tree and slowly moved forward.
One step. Then another. And so on as he thought of his only chance of finding some help would be moving downhill, deeper into the valley, after all valleys meant roads, and roads meant people.
Minutes bled into each other, or maybe it was hours, Sam couldn't tell anymore. Time had become as fluid and unreliable as his vision, which kept blurring at the edges no matter how many times he blinked to clear it as this god forsaken forest seemed endless. moment. And if that wasn't bad enough, the cold was getting worse. He could feel it seeping through his torn jacket, and settling into his bones. His fingers had gone numb a while ago, and he'd stopped being able to feel his ears. The shivering had progressed from those occasional tremors to a constant and violent shaking that made him want to scream out in pain.
Keep moving. Just keep moving. This is nothing compared to the facility, Sam.
The mantra was all he had left.
He didn't remember falling the first time. One moment he was walking, the next he was on his hands and knees in the snow, gasping like a fish on land. It took everything he had to push himself back up. The second time, he caught himself against a tree before he went down completely. The third time, he wasn't sure he'd be able to get up again.
But he did. Because the alternative was lying down in the snow and never getting up. That was plenty of reasons for Sam to forced his battered body up, once more.
After what felt like an eternity through hell, the forest began to change, though he couldn't say exactly when it started. The trees grew slightly less dense, and the ground under his feet felt more like a small path. As if people had walked on it regularly. That realization sent a small spike of adrenaline through his exhausted body and a small spark of hope flared inside of him.
People. There might actually be people nearby.
Sam forced himself to move faster, though "faster" was relative when every step felt like trying to walk through quicksand. The light was dying rapidly now, and in maybe twenty minutes, it would be fully dark, which meant that he needed to find shelter before then. And some help.
Thanks to this hope and probably the cold finally working its magic on his mind, he stumbled over a root hidden beneath the snow and nearly went down again, but much to his surprise, his hand shot forwards, catching himself at the last second with a grunt of pain. When he looked up, squinting through the gathering dusk and the blood still crusted around one eye, he felt his breath caught in his throat as he stared in disbelief at what his eyes were seeing.
There, through the gaps between the trees maybe fifty meters ahead, he could see it. A building. An actual, honest-to-God building.
For a moment, Sam just stood there, staring, afraid that if he blinked it would disappear like a mirage. But even when he was forced to blink, the house stayed there and a thin line of smoke was rising from what had to be a chimney.
Upon seeing that, hope flared in his chest for the first time since the crash.
"Thank fuck, for once luck – is on my side."
As he got closer, more buildings revealed themselves to him. Not just one house, but several, clustered together in a small clearing. A village. An actual village, tucked away in this forgotten valley in the middle of fucking nowhere. The buildings were old, probably ancient by modern standards, built in that Eastern European style that was common in the countryside.
Feeling how his body was slowly starting to give up, Sam rushed forward and with some difficulty, he finally broke through the last line of trees at the edge of the village.
Now that he was out of that forest, he could see more details about this small heaven he stumbled upon. There were lights in some of the windows and there was smoke rising from three, maybe four chimneys. The snow around the village had been trampled down into rough paths connecting the buildings, and that meant there were people here.
He wanted to feel relief, but all he could manage was a numb sort of exhaustion. He'd made it to the village, yes, but now came the hard part. Now he had to hope these people would help him rather than turn him away. Or worse.
A low wooden fence marked the boundary between the forest and the settlement, because such a fence wouldn't stop even a rabbit. Regardless, Sam approached it slowly, gritting his teeth and trying his best to stay awake, as he felt himself falling unconscious. When he reached it, he gripped the weathered wood with both hands, supporting his body before he opened his mouth to call out, but what came instead was just a painful cough.
Still, that didn't stop the young man from trying once more, this time though it was a somewhat ragged shout for help.
Come on, you bastard. You didn't drag yourself through the woods just to die on someone's doorstep.
Sam leaned heavily against the fence, trying to gather the strength for one more push. Just had to make it to one of those doors. He just had to knock…had to…
But just as the situation felt hopeless, his eyes caught some movement caught his eye down the village road. One of the doors, on a house maybe twenty meters away was opening. A figure appeared in the doorway, and while Sam couldn't make out details through his blurred vision, but he could see a woman pausing at the doorway and after a few seconds of looking around, seemly trying to see if he was alone, she rushed out of the house and run towards him.
The woman reached him faster than he expected. Up close, Sam could make out a few more details through his failing vision. The woman had her dark hair tied back, a worn shawl wrapped around her shoulders, and she looked young, probably a bit younger than he was.
Soon enough, her hands went around his arm, taking some of his weight as he sagged against the fence. The touch was almost painful, not because she was rough, but because his body had gone so numb that any other sensation would be felt tenfold.
"Ce s-a întâmplat?" she asked and Sam only looked at her without understanding a word "Ești rănit? De unde vii?"
She was speaking Romanian. He knew that much, but knowing what language it was didn't help him understand it. He'd never learned more than a handful of phrases, when he arrived in this country
Sam tried to respond, tried to open his mouth, but what came out were not word, but blood as he once again started coughing violently.
The woman's grip tightened on his arm, as she called out something over her shoulder, and soon enough he heard another voice coming from the same direction as when he first saw her.
"Please," he managed a whisper. Praying that the woman would understand english. "Help. I need... help."
"Ajutor," the woman shouted once again, and even through the fog,
A few moments later, he felt more hands on him now, supporting his other side. A man's voice this time, asking the woman something, and while he barely understood anything he did caught some words that were more or less familiar to him such as "pădure" (forest?), "sânge" (blood?), ", but those two were more or less what he could make out.
His legs were giving out completely now. The last reserves of adrenaline that had carried him to the village were gone, by now. The woman and whoever else was supporting him were practically carrying him now, as his body was being dragged through the snow towards the woman's house.
"Stay... awake," he muttered to himself, though he wasn't sure if the words made it out loud. "Have to... stay..."
But he couldn't. His body had carried him as far as it could and had kept him alive through the crash and the cold and the endless walk through the forest, but now it was demanding payment for that service.
The darkness at the edges of his vision was spreading inward now, swallowing everything and at the same time, the voices around him became distant and muffled, as if he were underwater. Sam didn't know when it happened, but at some point he was being laid on something soft and then slowly came the blessed warmth of being indoors, and out of the killing cold.
"Dute după Luiza," he heard the woman say, and whoever that Luiza was, Sam hopped she would be able to at least tend his wounds long enough for his body to start doing its own thing and fix itself.
Despite everything, he tried to open his eyes one more time, but to no avail, as he was too weak to be able to do that.
After days of running, hell, weeks of looking over his shoulder and months of pain and fear after he managed to get away from that facility, Samuel's body finally had enough and soon unconsciousness pulled him down into the very familiar black, dreamless depths.
For now, at least, he didn't have to run anymore.
< This will be my first take on a more romance aimed fanfiction in RE universe. The plot will revolve a lot around House Dimitrescu and its daughters, and the story happens 3 years before Ethan arrives here, so around the time he find Mia in Louisiana. More chapters on Patr3on .Just change "3" with "e" : https://patr3on.com/meatbunkun>