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This part will be a lot more emotional than the last part of "Judgment Day"...get ready for serious feels, in fact.

If you've played RESIDENT EVIL 6, then you know the plight that Helena Harper suffered that made her such an integral part of that story. ONLY a writer would come up with such a dark and virtually hopeless scenario for the lady to face that compelled her to betray the President of the United States she swore to protect for the life of her sister Deborah. It would only belabor the point to go into why because this tale already explained in painful detail...and both because of what Black Falls has become and her own overwhelming emotional state, Helena was transformed in much the same way Murphy Pendleton was in SILENT HILL DOWNPOUR.

Unfortunately, unlike Murphy, Helena wanted that change to happen. The question must be asked, how can the lady return to her true self again? The answer, if you've kept up with this story, will be painfully obvious...the art above even gives a couple of important hints...but it won't be a simple problem to tackle.

Sometimes only love can heal the deepest and ugliest of wounds we inflict upon ourselves...!

---

"RESIDENT EVIL X SILENT HILL: JUDGMENT DAY"

written by Charles W.S.,
inspired by Ygure

Chapter 41:

"RISE"

--1--

Only a few moments passed as Rebecca and Christine confirmed that Elza Walker was slowly, steadily healing, but the girl definitely wouldn't be at 100-percent again for a while. Cheryl looked over to Helena Harper, who was on the other sofa...asleep, her upper body was cradled on Leon S. Kennedy's lap as he and a few others watched over her. The girl from Silent Hill said softly, "Now we need to do something for Helena." Cheryl looked at the beautiful prison guard with black hair, and she got the sense that Anne Cunningham knew what Helena was going through.

Cheryl drifted to Anne and asked, "Agent Kennedy said she brought this upon herself...?"

Anne nodded and clarified, "It was after the darkness came. She told us about a lot of hideous shit she blamed herself for. It was the same for someone I met in Silent Hill."

Cheryl asked, "Who?"

Anne gave her a look. "What, you don't know who already? I would've thought you'd use your telepathy or whatever on me if you were curious."

"I only use that kind of power if I really need to...or if someone invites me to look into their mind."

The prison guard nodded. "You've got my permission, Cheryl. I want you to see my memories of Silent Hill."

The blonde nodded and closed her eyes, and in the next moment as they stood before one another, even though no one else in the lounge saw anything visibly happen, a LOT did. For Anne, it was a wild but not-uncomfortable sensation that made her tremble a bit. It felt like a warm, sweet touch caressed her cheek, but it was something she felt deep within her very being, in every part of the very core of her...Rebecca would have related. It was uncertain how long it took, but everyone else could only watch with interest and confusion. Even Cybil wasn't quite sure what was happening. Finally, Cheryl opened her eyes. The blonde said quietly, "Silent Hill looked a little different from how I remember...and I never thought the dark could change people before they die."

Anne confided, "Murphy had lots of baggage. He felt so guilty, and he finally realized he didn't have to. He was able to change back from being a monster."

"He must have been one hell of a man." Cheryl realized that figure of speech, and smiled a little sourly at the irony of it...

...Anne smiled more than a little, but warmly, as she confessed, "I wanted him dead, I really did, but he forgave me." She raised an eyebrow and added, "That mind trick shit is creepy, you know!"

Cheryl shrugged. "You gave me your permission, remember?" The blonde looked to Helena and frowned a bit. "Helena has to want to be herself again, too. That means this won't be as simple as freeing Elza from that parasite. She'll need help..." Cheryl drew much closer and knelt before Leon and Helena as everyone carefully encroached closer around them. She said to Leon, "...I might be able to help her if you're ready to trust me, Agent Kennedy."

The man managed to look up from Helena and responded, "You can call me Leon if you want, Miss Mason."

"You don't have to be formal, either. The name's Cheryl."

Leon nodded. "What can you do for her?"

"I might be able to get through to her literally speaking. Like I just did for Elza, I can dive into her mind." Her brow knitted a bit as she considered Helena.

Leon shook his head. "I don't quite understand what that means." Barry, who was all the way interested, could only look on and emphatically agree.

Cheryl illuminated: "It's basically projection, Leon. It was like before when I sent my image to you and the other teams and showed you where to go on your maps. The essential me will still be in my own body as I project myself into Helena's dreams. I've got to admit I've never gone into another person's dreams. I have a good idea what the risks will be for both me and Helena. For her sake, I still need to try."

Leon looked at Cheryl with even more uncertainty...and finally sighed. "If you can do anything for her, please try."

Not far away, Chris wasn't so prepared to trust Cheryl and began to say, "Leon -- !"

Leon's eyes snapped to the BSAA captain and he asked with firm voice, "Do you have a better damn idea?"

Chris blinked...and finally said, "No."

"Then there's nothing to debate. Please help her if you can, Cheryl."

Cheryl cautioned with a somber tone, "I can't make any kind of guarantee. Please understand that in the end, this will be up to Helena. All right?" Leon nodded again. Cheryl bowed her head and said a bit louder for everyone else to hear, "Please, no one interrupt me."

Douglas grunted, "Don't worry, we won't!" The old guy looked around him with hard eyes.

As Cheryl edged a little closer to Helena on her knees, as everyone else could only watch with apprehension or worry or hope or a mix of all of the above, Barry quietly growled, "This is like something out of comic books and fairy tales. We're really talking about magic."

Rebecca looked up at him and asked, "Is it really that weird, Barry?"

"Even compared to everything else we've ever seen? Yeah! Bio-weapons and mutations and nightmare viruses are one thing...!"

Caroline gently counseled the big man, "Even the weirdest things have a basis in truth, Chief. Before we entered Black Falls, I always had faith that things greater than us were real." The former Ranger smiled. "But I never thought true magic could be real...!"

Sherry looked at Caroline as she and Claire held hands...the blonde agent told the former Ranger, "There's all kinds of magic in life...we just don't open our eyes to really see it."

Cheryl reached out and her slender hand touched Helena's gray, still-lovely face...she wasn't sure if direct contact with the lady was necessary and wished she could ask permission for this beforehand...and then the girl from Silent Hill closed her eyes.

--2--

When she was little Cheryl Mason in 1983, her father Harry took her to see a Dennis Quaid film at the cinema. It was a fantasy where the guy had the ability to enter other people's dreams, and the girl from Silent Hill felt a super-strange sense of deja vu. As the projection of her soul manifested in the dreamscape of Helena Harper, she looked around and realized this was SO much like that movie. It was like being in a true physical place in the real world...unfortunately, what she found herself in was just as bad as Black Falls at present.

She was standing on the rickety wood of a great mining complex within a gigantic cavern that felt like it went on forever in nearly every direction. The stairs and platforms here with all kinds of machines and equipment that went several levels deep were so old, they looked ready to collapse at any moment. Lights illuminated the labyrinthine gloom, but only barely. Cheryl stepped to the edge of the platform she was on, and saw it was a REALLY long way down into a dark, depthless black. She touched the railing in front of her...and it really felt real, even though strictly speaking, she wasn't exactly 'here'. It was just like that old film dad loved -- it scared the heck of her at the time, especially when Dennis and the President were being stalked by the bad guy who reminded her too damn much of Reeve Meyers and finally transformed into a snake-monster to kill them both. THAT nearly made her run out of the cinema! The film became a favorite ever since, and she totally understood why dad loved it.

Cheryl asked herself if it was possible to die in your own dream, just like that movie. She wasn't in the mood to know the answer. She needed to find Helena. Through this psychic avatar, she opened her senses....and then she heard the voice. It was a woman's, but it didn't sound quite human. It was a plaintive and needful moaning from deep in the dark far below: "Helena. Helena. Helena." Cheryl moved to the nearby stairs and began to descend...she listened to the sad, lonely voice like it was a clarion.

Time she couldn't measure pass...she moved a few levels down...and then. Cheryl took one look and sighed, "Oh, Jesus."

In a central platform of this level that looked dangerously unstable, she saw Helena Harper. The lady was facing away from her as she laid on one side of the platform looking down into the dark. Listening. Here Helena was in that unreal transformed state, and Cheryl knew instantly that was a really, really bad sign. It took her a moment of thought to really figure out what to do next. If Helena was in such a bad way because of her guilt, if she wanted all of this shit, then she wouldn't respond well to an intruder. But Cheryl had to do something...

...she had to communicate with Helena, get through to the lady, and she heard the voice speaking her name over and over again. Deborah's voice. It took her a brief but critical time to carefully look into Helena's memories without her noticing. Oh, god. That motherfucker Simmons. Everything he did, all of the nightmare pain he put both Helena and Deborah through...

Cheryl knew what she had to do.

A meaningless moment later. Helena was lost in the sound of the voice calling her name, and she wanted so deeply to cast herself off the side of the platform into the gulf. She was so sorely tempted to fully accept what she had become and join her sister. Then an oh-so-familiar voice greeted loudly right behind her: "Helena!"

Total surprise and confusion gripped Helena...that was her sister's voice, it was beyond ANY doubt her sister, but she was already calling from far below in the dark...! Her lovely body turned and she looked up...

...and...she saw her sister exactly as she last remembered the girl before the C-Virus changed her. Dressed in nothing but a neglige, looking haggard and worn down, yet so beautiful. Shocked beyond anything, Helena stammered, "D-D-Deborah?!?" Her ethereal eyes blinked with total confusion as she managed, "B-but...!" She looked back behind her to the edge of the platform, to the dark below, and she didn't understand.

The image of Helena's sister drew closer -- Deborah's expression warmed as she urged, "Calm down, sis! I'm not here to make your nightmare worse." Her hands clasped before her anxiously, Deborah said with genuine care, "I wanna wake you up!"

But. Helena still heard the voice calling to her from the dark below...she asked, "How...could you be here...?"

Deborah shrugged. "Mind over matter, sis!" The girl drew closer and a respectful distance away, she lowered to her knees. Deborah's expression became so sad as she sighed. "God, look at you. Not long ago, someone told me I was being too hard on myself. Becca hasn't gotten to know you yet."

Helena's confusion could only increase...she moaned, "But it can't be you, Debbie. You..." Again she heard that haunting voice calling her name. "...she..." Finally, the lady's expression broke with pure despair...she looked down upon the rotting wood of the platform she laid on as she said with a low tone, "My sister is dead."

"Yeah, she is..." Helena looked up at the image of her sister again, and it might as well have been Deborah Harper regardless as she looked at Helena with compassion. "...and I'm really sorry. I'm simply looking like this because I needed to get your attention, Helena. Close your eyes for a moment and you'll see what I really look like." Helena frowned, unsure, but Deborah urged, "Go on...close your eyes now." Doubtfully, the lady did. Before she knew it, a very different voice spoke to her then. "Okay. Now look."

Helena opened her eyes and she saw the truly pretty blonde kneeling there in Deborah's place...her hazel eyes so full of knowledge. Helena recognized this visitor to her dreamscape and she asked slowly, "Cheryl...Mason...? How in the hell could you be here???"

Cheryl answered simply, "Where there's a will, there's a way. I can make lots happen if I put my will to it. All I want right now is to help you escape this...place you put yourself in."

Helena looked away, her mood absolutely despondent. "I don't deserve your help, girl. I belong here."

Cheryl gave the lady an examining look and said, "Explain that to me. Why do you feel you belong here? Why did you want to change?"

"I...I-I can't..."

Cheryl told Helena: "I've already looked into your memories, so I know what happened to you and your sister. That scumbag Simmons kidnapped Deborah so he could make you do anything he wanted. If you gave him what he wanted, he'd let Deborah go. As one of the primary agents of President Benford's security detail, Simmons coerced you into giving him the little opening he needed to infect the man you swore to protect with the C-Virus. You gave Simmons that opening, and then showed his gratitude by having your sister infected, too. It made her into a monster, someone who wasn't even human anymore, and you and Leon had to stop her."

Shocked, Helena managed, "I...I-I don't even know you...how...!"

"Looking into your memories was a lot easier than coming into your dreams...but really, I can get used to this sort of thing." Cheryl lowered further to sit on the platform. She looked down introspectively. "Still wish I had a cigarette for times like this, but I'm pretty sure..." With a little concentration, a cigarette DID appear between two of her fingers. "Now a light?" It took a little more willpower, but the end of the cigarette ignited and flared into a bright cherry. With a bemused smile, Cheryl took a drag as Helena stared at her blankly...with a look of total dissatisfaction, she flicked the 'cigarette' into the dark as she blew a plume of 'smoke' into the 'air'. She sighed, "Not as good as real life. I've got a few left in my pocket back in the real world, so that's okay!"

Cheryl fully looked at Helena again...she recounted in brief, "You and your sister got fucked by that piece of shit Simmons. That's what happened. But instead of hating him, you hate yourself so much more. Can you explain why, please?"

Astonished up to that point, that question immediately prompted total shame in Helena Harper. She told Cheryl, "You said it yourself. I gave Simmons what he wanted. I didn't even try to fight him...I should have fought for Deborah."

"How?" The blonde leaned a little closer as she sat there. "Tell me this, Helena. How? He had your sister, and if you tried to defy him or rescue her or warn the President in any way, Deborah would have been dead."

Helena's expression was of unremitting anguish. "I...I did have a change of heart at the last minute...I couldn't betray my country and the trust that was put in me. I couldn't betray my first duty...but it was too late. Simmons had Debbie infected with the C-Virus, and I know it was because I tired to warn President Benford." The lady wept heavy, haunted tears as she moaned, "Don't you see? I failed in every possible fucking way."

In a blunt matter-of-fact way, Cheryl nodded and said, "You're right. You did fail. But you insist on getting lost in your failure and letting it haunt you, change you, and turn you something you didn't even earn!" Cheryl began to entreaty, "Helena, there's no damn justice in condemning yourself -- !"

With impatient, elemental outrage, Helena screamed, "YES, THERE IS! I DID EARN THIS!!!" She clutched a hand to her breast as she already yelled at Cheryl the verdict she passed upon herself: "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME WHO WAS THE ONE CONDEMNED! NOT MY SISTER!"

"That would only be true if YOU were the one who stuck a fucking needle in little Debbie and made her into a monster!" Cheryl frowned as Helena looked away from her again. The lady didn't want to hear it. Cheryl sighed heavily. "I can't believe I'm the one trying to help you feel better..."

"...but there's someone else who can do that."

--3--

In the waking world of Black Falls. Cheryl suddenly opened her eyes, took one look at Leon, and said with an eerie tone, "Excuse me!" With a flash, her right hand reached out and she took hold of one of Leon's shoulders!

Leon issued a surprised, "Ughh!" And just like that, the man's body relaxed and his head slumped forward as he closed his eyes. Cheryl immediately entered her own fugue again.

Claire exclaimed with sudden fear, "Leon!"

Rain among a few others were tempted to reach for their weapons as the commando snarled, "What the FUCK is she doing?!?"

Rebecca yelled at Rain, "DON'T EVEN!" The pixie totally believed in Cheryl and said to everyone urgently, "Everyone calm down! It'll be all right!" Still, she really prayed Cheryl knew what she was doing...!

--4--

In Helena's dreamscape, Leon S. Kennedy found himself projected there, too! Cheryl felt more than a little relief, but she remembered how much more powerful she had become since the darkness fell. She remembered what Metatron told her about being a childe of light and darkness. Like Dennis Quaid said, given who she was and WHERE she was right now, it was easy. Really disoriented, Leon managed, "Whu...wha...!"

Helena cried, "L-Leon!?!"

Leon looked at Helena, saw where he was, and then noticed Cheryl sitting on the platform next to him. He asked slowly, "How in the hell...?"

Cheryl told him conversationally, "Ask me later. You love this lady, don't you?"

Without an ounce of restraint, Leon answered, "Yes!"

Cheryl gestured to the tortured lady. "She needs your help, the kind of help I can't give to her. Get through to her, Leon. Save her from herself."

Leon looked down at Helena and moved close...the lady whimpered with shame and almost recoiled, but the man was down on her knees before her. With desperation, Leon said, "Helena, you've got to stop this for your sake...!"

Helena shook her head and nearly wailed, "I can't. I know you love me...I love you, too...but I don't deserve your love." Her head hung low, Helena said with desolation, "I need to suffer for everything I've done and failed to do."

A very quiet moment passed...and Leon's eyes narrowed. He finally grunted, "Okay. Fine. If you insist, go right ahead. Condemn yourself."

Cheryl was almost as surprised as Helena was when he said that. The transformed woman's eyes were wide as she asked, "What...?"

Leon insisted, "Go on! If you want, go ahead and throw yourself into that darkness right after your sister and put an end to it! Go ahead and embrace what you THINK you deserve!

"That's what you want me to say, isn't it? ISN'T IT!?!"

In that beyond-critical moment, Leon knew he was taking one helluva gamble...but it was a gamble that was paying off because she saw the pure uncertainty in Helena's eyes. The doubt. The lady he loved could have condemned herself completely long before now, but she hadn't. She couldn't. And he hoped he knew why.

Leon nodded and pressed on: "Well, I said it, and I feel like an asshole! What I really want to do, what I will do, is lift you up from your fucking despair because that's what you deserve, Helena Harper!" The man drew even closer and his strong hands took gently hold of her shoulders. "I love you. I love you so much if given the chance, I'll take that leap off the edge in your place if it means SAVING you!

"I will give anything to save you in the same way you gave your honor to save Deborah. I would give anything to save you because that's exactly what you did for me in Tall Oaks and then China. You put yourself on the line for me more times than I wanted to count when you didn't have to." With an expression in his eyes that could only be love, Leon urged, "I need to save you, Helena...but I'm gonna need your help again!"

Absolutely affected to the core of her soul, feeling the love in Leon's eyes and the touch of his hands, Helena would have given him anything. Everything. She moaned, "I...I want to...but..." Yet she still hated herself so much...the guilt was so damned strong. "But I'm so afraid of failing you, too. Oh god, I do love you, but I might fail you one day in the same way I failed my sister...!"

Leon shrugged a little. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. It's possible to have all the training and conviction in the world, whether you're following your orders or following your heart, you can give your very best 150-percent of the damned time...and you can still fail. Life is like taking a test in a classroom in so many ways, yet it isn't because at the worst of times, you only have one chance to get things right. Worse, you've got assholes like Simmons and Krauser who are there to make your test even harder!"

Cheryl was really staring at Leon as he said to Helena, ""It's people like them who really make life a test, and they do it by setting good people like us up to fail, Helena. Think about it. Derek Simmons prided himself on being an intellectual...he's the kind of asshole who used people like chess pieces, always to his advantage, and he knew how to think one step ahead of most everybody. That's the kind of narcissistic monster he was, and he knew how to put you and your sister in an impossible position. If you didn't do what he wanted, he would have had you and Deborah killed, right?!"

Helena's voice still sounded so broken as she answered, "Y...yes...but I tried to warn Benford and everyone, and that had to be why Simmons had Deborah infected...!"

"Helena, really think about what kind of man Simmons was. He would have tied up every loose end. He would have had something done about you and Deborah anyway. Don't forget that even if you hadn't tried to warn Benford, your sister was already infected by that time. We both saw that in some of the data we recovered from his labs in Tall Oaks!"

Helena shook her head sorrowfully once more. "L...Leon...I still failed Debbie. I swore I'd always look out for her. Oh god, I failed her constantly before then." She looked back on her life with her sister long before the nightmare of Tall Oaks changed everything. "I...I told you that girl was so irresponsible and loved living fast, living so loud...she was so different from me. So different I...I tried to get her to change her ways, slow down at least a little and grow up. And we got so damn angry with each other...the last time I saw her, she said she hated me for trying to rule her life. I couldn't ever hate her, but knowing how she felt about me before she...she was transformed..."

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she managed to say, "Oh Leon, I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I wanted to promise I'd make it all up to her, but I couldn't because of the state she was in when we found her...! A-a-and then she was transformed and I never got the chance to tell her any of those things and...I...I had to let her go." A ragged sigh. "But I never did let go. I couldn't. I can't let go of the reality that I failed Debbie completely."

It took all of Leon's strength to not cry with the lady he loved...and he managed to say with a calm, sure tone, "No, you didn't. I promise you didn't."

"How can you say that...?"

"I found something else in Tall Oaks. It was a note left by your sister Deborah." Helena was visibly stunned to hear that. "I took the time to confirm it with the help of an expert who compared it to other things written by your sister. The only other person I showed this to was Ingrid. We both thought if you saw it, it would bring you so much more pain. Still, I...I carry it with me all the time."

Helena asked needfully, "Why...?"

Leon was the one who looked down then. "Honestly...you're not the only one haunted by what happened to Deborah. You're not the only one who felt guilty for failing to save her. And I...I had doubts I was doing the right thing keeping this from you. I was wrong, and I'm so sorry for that, Helena."

"Leon?" Cheryl. Both Leon and Helena looked at the girl from Silent Hill, who told him, "I can leave you both here for just a moment so I can read that note to Helena. Where do you have it?"

Leon said quietly, "The left breast pocket of my shirt under my tactical vest."

Cheryl nodded. "Okay. Give me a minute, please." Then in another really strange moment, the projection of the girl disappeared.

For a moment, so surreally, they were both alone in Helena's dreamscape. The transformed woman said with care, "Leon...y...you didn't have to hide that from me. I doubt anything could have made me feel worse than I...I already did...!"

Leon said softly, "Please forgive me, Helena."

Helena gazed at the man she loved with adoring eyes...she purred, "You just wanted to protect me. That's how much you love me...you beautiful, beautiful man...!"

"Helena!" It was Cheryl's voice, yet she seemed to come from all around them. She wasn't quite there yet! "I want to read this to you in the voice and image of the sister you remember. I know that sounds kind of strange, but I feel like it would be wrong to give this to you in any other way."

Helena looked up and answered, "It's all right, Cheryl. It..." She looked at Leon, and his hands perked a bit as her slender shoulders shrugged lamely. "I-it wouldn't be any stranger than everything else we're dealing with right now...!"

Leon nodded and said, "Yeah...!"

Cheryl's voice spoke to them one more time: "Okay. This is what Deborah's note said."

In the next meaningless moment, Deborah Harper reappeared before them, as lovely as she was before. Just as Helena last saw her. Leon was more than a little surprised to see her, but he understood it had to be Cheryl...even as the apparition stood there and spoke every word from that note in Deborah's voice:

"To my dear sister Helena...I'm sorry I was never the good sister I should have been, even though you loved me unconditionally. I'm sorry for everything.

"They injected me with something. It's making me forget things...who I am. Who you are even. I don't want that. Please know that I've always loved you, too."

Leon was so affected by this moment, but not even remotely as much as Helena...the lady was quaking in his arms, weeping with wonder and terrible grief as she heard her sister's loving words. Deborah continued, yet her words were awkward, fragmented, but in every word there was a desperate need to give one last message to Helena. "I don't want to leave you...hope you find someone to love you...don't want to forget..."

Deborah Harper's image looked upon Helena and said very softly, "Love you." And then she was silent.

Overwhelmed, Helena barely heard Leon say, "That was all she could write." The lady looked at him, and the man told her, "She was already losing her memories...her self...even as she was writing that. That's why I thought it would bring you so much pain...!"

Helena regained a small measure of her composure and moaned, "I...I-I understand...!" She looked to the gorgeous image of the sister she loved and lost. "I thought you hated me, Debbie. God, I should have known better than that. I did love you beyond any condition...I loved you for who you were and I insisted you straighten out your life because...because I just wanted you to be happy." And now, once and for all, she knew that Deborah knew that.

Leon told the lady, "She loved you so much, she would have understood why you failed. She loved you, so Deborah would have wanted you to ask for her forgiveness at all. I'm damned sure she wouldn't want you to do this to yourself." The man said tenderly, "Deborah would want you to rise again...lift yourself up and be loved, be happy...and live for her."

With that complete realization and understanding of the truth, something extraordinary began to happen. Both before Leon's eyes in the dreamscape and in the teacher's lounge, Helena Harper transformed within and without. The gray, cracked skin evaporated to nothing to be replaced by the lady's normal, pale skin tone...the hardned cap of her hair softened in heartbeats to become soft, luxurious brunette. In every way that counted, the lady was herself again!

In the dreamscape. Helena was truly, achingly beautiful again and gazed at her man as he held her close...her voice still had a healthy amount of shame as she asked reluctantly, "I put myself through so much shit...and I didn't even have to, huh...?"

Leon grinned upon her and said in a joking tone, "Nice to know you're figuring that out! Hell, I couldn't be happier. I do love you, Helena Harper. You are worth everything, and even if there's a chance you'll fail...I've got no problem taking a chance like that. All I can ask is: do you wanna take a chance on me?"

As Cheryl watched still in a departed young woman's image, Helena answered with quiet, perfect passion, "Yes. I know no matter what, you'll never ever fail me. I will always give my best for my country...and much more importantly, for those I love." The lady drew very close and swore from her soul, "I will give my all to you."

There was no distance between them at all then and Helena kissed Leon as they embraced...both of their souls soared...

...and somewhere else, in a far far better place than that dreamscape and the nightmare Black Falls had become, Deborah Harper knew joy and everlasting peace.

TO BE CONTINUED
---
Unfortunately, as wonderful as this turn is, that's the ONLY good news because this horror show is far from over! Our heroes still have a lot of problems on their plates, and a battle unlike any other is on the bleak horizon.

Next time, our heroes who have only a billion questions will start getting answers...but those answers won't be pleasant!

Giving credit where it's due!
XNALara created by Dusan Pavlicek; XPS by Dusan and XNAaraL

Models:
(From left to right!)
Helena Harper mutated (well, you know who she really is, RE fans!) by !
Deborah Harper by by way of !
Leon S. Kennedy, also by !
Scenery by !

Description
This part will be a lot more emotional than the last part of "Judgment Day"...get ready for serious feels, in fact.

If you've played RESIDENT EVIL 6, then you know the plight that Helena Harper suffered that made her such an integral part of that story. ONLY a writer would come up with such a dark and virtually hopeless scenario for the lady to face that compelled her to betray the President of the United States she swore to protect for the life of her sister Deborah. It would only belabor the point to go into why because this tale already explained in painful detail...and both because of what Black Falls has become and her own overwhelming emotional state, Helena was transformed in much the same way Murphy Pendleton was in SILENT HILL DOWNPOUR.

Unfortunately, unlike Murphy, Helena wanted that change to happen. The question must be asked, how can the lady return to her true self again? The answer, if you've kept up with this story, will be painfully obvious...the art above even gives a couple of important hints...but it won't be a simple problem to tackle.

Sometimes only love can heal the deepest and ugliest of wounds we inflict upon ourselves...!

---

"RESIDENT EVIL X SILENT HILL: JUDGMENT DAY"

written by Charles W.S.,
inspired by Ygure

Chapter 41:

"RISE"

--1--

Only a few moments passed as Rebecca and Christine confirmed that Elza Walker was slowly, steadily healing, but the girl definitely wouldn't be at 100-percent again for a while. Cheryl looked over to Helena Harper, who was on the other sofa...asleep, her upper body was cradled on Leon S. Kennedy's lap as he and a few others watched over her. The girl from Silent Hill said softly, "Now we need to do something for Helena." Cheryl looked at the beautiful prison guard with black hair, and she got the sense that Anne Cunningham knew what Helena was going through.

Cheryl drifted to Anne and asked, "Agent Kennedy said she brought this upon herself...?"

Anne nodded and clarified, "It was after the darkness came. She told us about a lot of hideous shit she blamed herself for. It was the same for someone I met in Silent Hill."

Cheryl asked, "Who?"

Anne gave her a look. "What, you don't know who already? I would've thought you'd use your telepathy or whatever on me if you were curious."

"I only use that kind of power if I really need to...or if someone invites me to look into their mind."

The prison guard nodded. "You've got my permission, Cheryl. I want you to see my memories of Silent Hill."

The blonde nodded and closed her eyes, and in the next moment as they stood before one another, even though no one else in the lounge saw anything visibly happen, a LOT did. For Anne, it was a wild but not-uncomfortable sensation that made her tremble a bit. It felt like a warm, sweet touch caressed her cheek, but it was something she felt deep within her very being, in every part of the very core of her...Rebecca would have related. It was uncertain how long it took, but everyone else could only watch with interest and confusion. Even Cybil wasn't quite sure what was happening. Finally, Cheryl opened her eyes. The blonde said quietly, "Silent Hill looked a little different from how I remember...and I never thought the dark could change people before they die."

Anne confided, "Murphy had lots of baggage. He felt so guilty, and he finally realized he didn't have to. He was able to change back from being a monster."

"He must have been one hell of a man." Cheryl realized that figure of speech, and smiled a little sourly at the irony of it...

...Anne smiled more than a little, but warmly, as she confessed, "I wanted him dead, I really did, but he forgave me." She raised an eyebrow and added, "That mind trick shit is creepy, you know!"

Cheryl shrugged. "You gave me your permission, remember?" The blonde looked to Helena and frowned a bit. "Helena has to want to be herself again, too. That means this won't be as simple as freeing Elza from that parasite. She'll need help..." Cheryl drew much closer and knelt before Leon and Helena as everyone carefully encroached closer around them. She said to Leon, "...I might be able to help her if you're ready to trust me, Agent Kennedy."

The man managed to look up from Helena and responded, "You can call me Leon if you want, Miss Mason."

"You don't have to be formal, either. The name's Cheryl."

Leon nodded. "What can you do for her?"

"I might be able to get through to her literally speaking. Like I just did for Elza, I can dive into her mind." Her brow knitted a bit as she considered Helena.

Leon shook his head. "I don't quite understand what that means." Barry, who was all the way interested, could only look on and emphatically agree.

Cheryl illuminated: "It's basically projection, Leon. It was like before when I sent my image to you and the other teams and showed you where to go on your maps. The essential me will still be in my own body as I project myself into Helena's dreams. I've got to admit I've never gone into another person's dreams. I have a good idea what the risks will be for both me and Helena. For her sake, I still need to try."

Leon looked at Cheryl with even more uncertainty...and finally sighed. "If you can do anything for her, please try."

Not far away, Chris wasn't so prepared to trust Cheryl and began to say, "Leon -- !"

Leon's eyes snapped to the BSAA captain and he asked with firm voice, "Do you have a better damn idea?"

Chris blinked...and finally said, "No."

"Then there's nothing to debate. Please help her if you can, Cheryl."

Cheryl cautioned with a somber tone, "I can't make any kind of guarantee. Please understand that in the end, this will be up to Helena. All right?" Leon nodded again. Cheryl bowed her head and said a bit louder for everyone else to hear, "Please, no one interrupt me."

Douglas grunted, "Don't worry, we won't!" The old guy looked around him with hard eyes.

As Cheryl edged a little closer to Helena on her knees, as everyone else could only watch with apprehension or worry or hope or a mix of all of the above, Barry quietly growled, "This is like something out of comic books and fairy tales. We're really talking about magic."

Rebecca looked up at him and asked, "Is it really that weird, Barry?"

"Even compared to everything else we've ever seen? Yeah! Bio-weapons and mutations and nightmare viruses are one thing...!"

Caroline gently counseled the big man, "Even the weirdest things have a basis in truth, Chief. Before we entered Black Falls, I always had faith that things greater than us were real." The former Ranger smiled. "But I never thought true magic could be real...!"

Sherry looked at Caroline as she and Claire held hands...the blonde agent told the former Ranger, "There's all kinds of magic in life...we just don't open our eyes to really see it."

Cheryl reached out and her slender hand touched Helena's gray, still-lovely face...she wasn't sure if direct contact with the lady was necessary and wished she could ask permission for this beforehand...and then the girl from Silent Hill closed her eyes.

--2--

When she was little Cheryl Mason in 1983, her father Harry took her to see a Dennis Quaid film at the cinema. It was a fantasy where the guy had the ability to enter other people's dreams, and the girl from Silent Hill felt a super-strange sense of deja vu. As the projection of her soul manifested in the dreamscape of Helena Harper, she looked around and realized this was SO much like that movie. It was like being in a true physical place in the real world...unfortunately, what she found herself in was just as bad as Black Falls at present.

She was standing on the rickety wood of a great mining complex within a gigantic cavern that felt like it went on forever in nearly every direction. The stairs and platforms here with all kinds of machines and equipment that went several levels deep were so old, they looked ready to collapse at any moment. Lights illuminated the labyrinthine gloom, but only barely. Cheryl stepped to the edge of the platform she was on, and saw it was a REALLY long way down into a dark, depthless black. She touched the railing in front of her...and it really felt real, even though strictly speaking, she wasn't exactly 'here'. It was just like that old film dad loved -- it scared the heck of her at the time, especially when Dennis and the President were being stalked by the bad guy who reminded her too damn much of Reeve Meyers and finally transformed into a snake-monster to kill them both. THAT nearly made her run out of the cinema! The film became a favorite ever since, and she totally understood why dad loved it.

Cheryl asked herself if it was possible to die in your own dream, just like that movie. She wasn't in the mood to know the answer. She needed to find Helena. Through this psychic avatar, she opened her senses....and then she heard the voice. It was a woman's, but it didn't sound quite human. It was a plaintive and needful moaning from deep in the dark far below: "Helena. Helena. Helena." Cheryl moved to the nearby stairs and began to descend...she listened to the sad, lonely voice like it was a clarion.

Time she couldn't measure pass...she moved a few levels down...and then. Cheryl took one look and sighed, "Oh, Jesus."

In a central platform of this level that looked dangerously unstable, she saw Helena Harper. The lady was facing away from her as she laid on one side of the platform looking down into the dark. Listening. Here Helena was in that unreal transformed state, and Cheryl knew instantly that was a really, really bad sign. It took her a moment of thought to really figure out what to do next. If Helena was in such a bad way because of her guilt, if she wanted all of this shit, then she wouldn't respond well to an intruder. But Cheryl had to do something...

...she had to communicate with Helena, get through to the lady, and she heard the voice speaking her name over and over again. Deborah's voice. It took her a brief but critical time to carefully look into Helena's memories without her noticing. Oh, god. That motherfucker Simmons. Everything he did, all of the nightmare pain he put both Helena and Deborah through...

Cheryl knew what she had to do.

A meaningless moment later. Helena was lost in the sound of the voice calling her name, and she wanted so deeply to cast herself off the side of the platform into the gulf. She was so sorely tempted to fully accept what she had become and join her sister. Then an oh-so-familiar voice greeted loudly right behind her: "Helena!"

Total surprise and confusion gripped Helena...that was her sister's voice, it was beyond ANY doubt her sister, but she was already calling from far below in the dark...! Her lovely body turned and she looked up...

...and...she saw her sister exactly as she last remembered the girl before the C-Virus changed her. Dressed in nothing but a neglige, looking haggard and worn down, yet so beautiful. Shocked beyond anything, Helena stammered, "D-D-Deborah?!?" Her ethereal eyes blinked with total confusion as she managed, "B-but...!" She looked back behind her to the edge of the platform, to the dark below, and she didn't understand.

The image of Helena's sister drew closer -- Deborah's expression warmed as she urged, "Calm down, sis! I'm not here to make your nightmare worse." Her hands clasped before her anxiously, Deborah said with genuine care, "I wanna wake you up!"

But. Helena still heard the voice calling to her from the dark below...she asked, "How...could you be here...?"

Deborah shrugged. "Mind over matter, sis!" The girl drew closer and a respectful distance away, she lowered to her knees. Deborah's expression became so sad as she sighed. "God, look at you. Not long ago, someone told me I was being too hard on myself. Becca hasn't gotten to know you yet."

Helena's confusion could only increase...she moaned, "But it can't be you, Debbie. You..." Again she heard that haunting voice calling her name. "...she..." Finally, the lady's expression broke with pure despair...she looked down upon the rotting wood of the platform she laid on as she said with a low tone, "My sister is dead."

"Yeah, she is..." Helena looked up at the image of her sister again, and it might as well have been Deborah Harper regardless as she looked at Helena with compassion. "...and I'm really sorry. I'm simply looking like this because I needed to get your attention, Helena. Close your eyes for a moment and you'll see what I really look like." Helena frowned, unsure, but Deborah urged, "Go on...close your eyes now." Doubtfully, the lady did. Before she knew it, a very different voice spoke to her then. "Okay. Now look."

Helena opened her eyes and she saw the truly pretty blonde kneeling there in Deborah's place...her hazel eyes so full of knowledge. Helena recognized this visitor to her dreamscape and she asked slowly, "Cheryl...Mason...? How in the hell could you be here???"

Cheryl answered simply, "Where there's a will, there's a way. I can make lots happen if I put my will to it. All I want right now is to help you escape this...place you put yourself in."

Helena looked away, her mood absolutely despondent. "I don't deserve your help, girl. I belong here."

Cheryl gave the lady an examining look and said, "Explain that to me. Why do you feel you belong here? Why did you want to change?"

"I...I-I can't..."

Cheryl told Helena: "I've already looked into your memories, so I know what happened to you and your sister. That scumbag Simmons kidnapped Deborah so he could make you do anything he wanted. If you gave him what he wanted, he'd let Deborah go. As one of the primary agents of President Benford's security detail, Simmons coerced you into giving him the little opening he needed to infect the man you swore to protect with the C-Virus. You gave Simmons that opening, and then showed his gratitude by having your sister infected, too. It made her into a monster, someone who wasn't even human anymore, and you and Leon had to stop her."

Shocked, Helena managed, "I...I-I don't even know you...how...!"

"Looking into your memories was a lot easier than coming into your dreams...but really, I can get used to this sort of thing." Cheryl lowered further to sit on the platform. She looked down introspectively. "Still wish I had a cigarette for times like this, but I'm pretty sure..." With a little concentration, a cigarette DID appear between two of her fingers. "Now a light?" It took a little more willpower, but the end of the cigarette ignited and flared into a bright cherry. With a bemused smile, Cheryl took a drag as Helena stared at her blankly...with a look of total dissatisfaction, she flicked the 'cigarette' into the dark as she blew a plume of 'smoke' into the 'air'. She sighed, "Not as good as real life. I've got a few left in my pocket back in the real world, so that's okay!"

Cheryl fully looked at Helena again...she recounted in brief, "You and your sister got fucked by that piece of shit Simmons. That's what happened. But instead of hating him, you hate yourself so much more. Can you explain why, please?"

Astonished up to that point, that question immediately prompted total shame in Helena Harper. She told Cheryl, "You said it yourself. I gave Simmons what he wanted. I didn't even try to fight him...I should have fought for Deborah."

"How?" The blonde leaned a little closer as she sat there. "Tell me this, Helena. How? He had your sister, and if you tried to defy him or rescue her or warn the President in any way, Deborah would have been dead."

Helena's expression was of unremitting anguish. "I...I did have a change of heart at the last minute...I couldn't betray my country and the trust that was put in me. I couldn't betray my first duty...but it was too late. Simmons had Debbie infected with the C-Virus, and I know it was because I tired to warn President Benford." The lady wept heavy, haunted tears as she moaned, "Don't you see? I failed in every possible fucking way."

In a blunt matter-of-fact way, Cheryl nodded and said, "You're right. You did fail. But you insist on getting lost in your failure and letting it haunt you, change you, and turn you something you didn't even earn!" Cheryl began to entreaty, "Helena, there's no damn justice in condemning yourself -- !"

With impatient, elemental outrage, Helena screamed, "YES, THERE IS! I DID EARN THIS!!!" She clutched a hand to her breast as she already yelled at Cheryl the verdict she passed upon herself: "IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME WHO WAS THE ONE CONDEMNED! NOT MY SISTER!"

"That would only be true if YOU were the one who stuck a fucking needle in little Debbie and made her into a monster!" Cheryl frowned as Helena looked away from her again. The lady didn't want to hear it. Cheryl sighed heavily. "I can't believe I'm the one trying to help you feel better..."

"...but there's someone else who can do that."

--3--

In the waking world of Black Falls. Cheryl suddenly opened her eyes, took one look at Leon, and said with an eerie tone, "Excuse me!" With a flash, her right hand reached out and she took hold of one of Leon's shoulders!

Leon issued a surprised, "Ughh!" And just like that, the man's body relaxed and his head slumped forward as he closed his eyes. Cheryl immediately entered her own fugue again.

Claire exclaimed with sudden fear, "Leon!"

Rain among a few others were tempted to reach for their weapons as the commando snarled, "What the FUCK is she doing?!?"

Rebecca yelled at Rain, "DON'T EVEN!" The pixie totally believed in Cheryl and said to everyone urgently, "Everyone calm down! It'll be all right!" Still, she really prayed Cheryl knew what she was doing...!

--4--

In Helena's dreamscape, Leon S. Kennedy found himself projected there, too! Cheryl felt more than a little relief, but she remembered how much more powerful she had become since the darkness fell. She remembered what Metatron told her about being a childe of light and darkness. Like Dennis Quaid said, given who she was and WHERE she was right now, it was easy. Really disoriented, Leon managed, "Whu...wha...!"

Helena cried, "L-Leon!?!"

Leon looked at Helena, saw where he was, and then noticed Cheryl sitting on the platform next to him. He asked slowly, "How in the hell...?"

Cheryl told him conversationally, "Ask me later. You love this lady, don't you?"

Without an ounce of restraint, Leon answered, "Yes!"

Cheryl gestured to the tortured lady. "She needs your help, the kind of help I can't give to her. Get through to her, Leon. Save her from herself."

Leon looked down at Helena and moved close...the lady whimpered with shame and almost recoiled, but the man was down on her knees before her. With desperation, Leon said, "Helena, you've got to stop this for your sake...!"

Helena shook her head and nearly wailed, "I can't. I know you love me...I love you, too...but I don't deserve your love." Her head hung low, Helena said with desolation, "I need to suffer for everything I've done and failed to do."

A very quiet moment passed...and Leon's eyes narrowed. He finally grunted, "Okay. Fine. If you insist, go right ahead. Condemn yourself."

Cheryl was almost as surprised as Helena was when he said that. The transformed woman's eyes were wide as she asked, "What...?"

Leon insisted, "Go on! If you want, go ahead and throw yourself into that darkness right after your sister and put an end to it! Go ahead and embrace what you THINK you deserve!

"That's what you want me to say, isn't it? ISN'T IT!?!"

In that beyond-critical moment, Leon knew he was taking one helluva gamble...but it was a gamble that was paying off because she saw the pure uncertainty in Helena's eyes. The doubt. The lady he loved could have condemned herself completely long before now, but she hadn't. She couldn't. And he hoped he knew why.

Leon nodded and pressed on: "Well, I said it, and I feel like an asshole! What I really want to do, what I will do, is lift you up from your fucking despair because that's what you deserve, Helena Harper!" The man drew even closer and his strong hands took gently hold of her shoulders. "I love you. I love you so much if given the chance, I'll take that leap off the edge in your place if it means SAVING you!

"I will give anything to save you in the same way you gave your honor to save Deborah. I would give anything to save you because that's exactly what you did for me in Tall Oaks and then China. You put yourself on the line for me more times than I wanted to count when you didn't have to." With an expression in his eyes that could only be love, Leon urged, "I need to save you, Helena...but I'm gonna need your help again!"

Absolutely affected to the core of her soul, feeling the love in Leon's eyes and the touch of his hands, Helena would have given him anything. Everything. She moaned, "I...I want to...but..." Yet she still hated herself so much...the guilt was so damned strong. "But I'm so afraid of failing you, too. Oh god, I do love you, but I might fail you one day in the same way I failed my sister...!"

Leon shrugged a little. "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. It's possible to have all the training and conviction in the world, whether you're following your orders or following your heart, you can give your very best 150-percent of the damned time...and you can still fail. Life is like taking a test in a classroom in so many ways, yet it isn't because at the worst of times, you only have one chance to get things right. Worse, you've got assholes like Simmons and Krauser who are there to make your test even harder!"

Cheryl was really staring at Leon as he said to Helena, ""It's people like them who really make life a test, and they do it by setting good people like us up to fail, Helena. Think about it. Derek Simmons prided himself on being an intellectual...he's the kind of asshole who used people like chess pieces, always to his advantage, and he knew how to think one step ahead of most everybody. That's the kind of narcissistic monster he was, and he knew how to put you and your sister in an impossible position. If you didn't do what he wanted, he would have had you and Deborah killed, right?!"

Helena's voice still sounded so broken as she answered, "Y...yes...but I tried to warn Benford and everyone, and that had to be why Simmons had Deborah infected...!"

"Helena, really think about what kind of man Simmons was. He would have tied up every loose end. He would have had something done about you and Deborah anyway. Don't forget that even if you hadn't tried to warn Benford, your sister was already infected by that time. We both saw that in some of the data we recovered from his labs in Tall Oaks!"

Helena shook her head sorrowfully once more. "L...Leon...I still failed Debbie. I swore I'd always look out for her. Oh god, I failed her constantly before then." She looked back on her life with her sister long before the nightmare of Tall Oaks changed everything. "I...I told you that girl was so irresponsible and loved living fast, living so loud...she was so different from me. So different I...I tried to get her to change her ways, slow down at least a little and grow up. And we got so damn angry with each other...the last time I saw her, she said she hated me for trying to rule her life. I couldn't ever hate her, but knowing how she felt about me before she...she was transformed..."

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she managed to say, "Oh Leon, I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I wanted to promise I'd make it all up to her, but I couldn't because of the state she was in when we found her...! A-a-and then she was transformed and I never got the chance to tell her any of those things and...I...I had to let her go." A ragged sigh. "But I never did let go. I couldn't. I can't let go of the reality that I failed Debbie completely."

It took all of Leon's strength to not cry with the lady he loved...and he managed to say with a calm, sure tone, "No, you didn't. I promise you didn't."

"How can you say that...?"

"I found something else in Tall Oaks. It was a note left by your sister Deborah." Helena was visibly stunned to hear that. "I took the time to confirm it with the help of an expert who compared it to other things written by your sister. The only other person I showed this to was Ingrid. We both thought if you saw it, it would bring you so much more pain. Still, I...I carry it with me all the time."

Helena asked needfully, "Why...?"

Leon was the one who looked down then. "Honestly...you're not the only one haunted by what happened to Deborah. You're not the only one who felt guilty for failing to save her. And I...I had doubts I was doing the right thing keeping this from you. I was wrong, and I'm so sorry for that, Helena."

"Leon?" Cheryl. Both Leon and Helena looked at the girl from Silent Hill, who told him, "I can leave you both here for just a moment so I can read that note to Helena. Where do you have it?"

Leon said quietly, "The left breast pocket of my shirt under my tactical vest."

Cheryl nodded. "Okay. Give me a minute, please." Then in another really strange moment, the projection of the girl disappeared.

For a moment, so surreally, they were both alone in Helena's dreamscape. The transformed woman said with care, "Leon...y...you didn't have to hide that from me. I doubt anything could have made me feel worse than I...I already did...!"

Leon said softly, "Please forgive me, Helena."

Helena gazed at the man she loved with adoring eyes...she purred, "You just wanted to protect me. That's how much you love me...you beautiful, beautiful man...!"

"Helena!" It was Cheryl's voice, yet she seemed to come from all around them. She wasn't quite there yet! "I want to read this to you in the voice and image of the sister you remember. I know that sounds kind of strange, but I feel like it would be wrong to give this to you in any other way."

Helena looked up and answered, "It's all right, Cheryl. It..." She looked at Leon, and his hands perked a bit as her slender shoulders shrugged lamely. "I-it wouldn't be any stranger than everything else we're dealing with right now...!"

Leon nodded and said, "Yeah...!"

Cheryl's voice spoke to them one more time: "Okay. This is what Deborah's note said."

In the next meaningless moment, Deborah Harper reappeared before them, as lovely as she was before. Just as Helena last saw her. Leon was more than a little surprised to see her, but he understood it had to be Cheryl...even as the apparition stood there and spoke every word from that note in Deborah's voice:

"To my dear sister Helena...I'm sorry I was never the good sister I should have been, even though you loved me unconditionally. I'm sorry for everything.

"They injected me with something. It's making me forget things...who I am. Who you are even. I don't want that. Please know that I've always loved you, too."

Leon was so affected by this moment, but not even remotely as much as Helena...the lady was quaking in his arms, weeping with wonder and terrible grief as she heard her sister's loving words. Deborah continued, yet her words were awkward, fragmented, but in every word there was a desperate need to give one last message to Helena. "I don't want to leave you...hope you find someone to love you...don't want to forget..."

Deborah Harper's image looked upon Helena and said very softly, "Love you." And then she was silent.

Overwhelmed, Helena barely heard Leon say, "That was all she could write." The lady looked at him, and the man told her, "She was already losing her memories...her self...even as she was writing that. That's why I thought it would bring you so much pain...!"

Helena regained a small measure of her composure and moaned, "I...I-I understand...!" She looked to the gorgeous image of the sister she loved and lost. "I thought you hated me, Debbie. God, I should have known better than that. I did love you beyond any condition...I loved you for who you were and I insisted you straighten out your life because...because I just wanted you to be happy." And now, once and for all, she knew that Deborah knew that.

Leon told the lady, "She loved you so much, she would have understood why you failed. She loved you, so Deborah would have wanted you to ask for her forgiveness at all. I'm damned sure she wouldn't want you to do this to yourself." The man said tenderly, "Deborah would want you to rise again...lift yourself up and be loved, be happy...and live for her."

With that complete realization and understanding of the truth, something extraordinary began to happen. Both before Leon's eyes in the dreamscape and in the teacher's lounge, Helena Harper transformed within and without. The gray, cracked skin evaporated to nothing to be replaced by the lady's normal, pale skin tone...the hardned cap of her hair softened in heartbeats to become soft, luxurious brunette. In every way that counted, the lady was herself again!

In the dreamscape. Helena was truly, achingly beautiful again and gazed at her man as he held her close...her voice still had a healthy amount of shame as she asked reluctantly, "I put myself through so much shit...and I didn't even have to, huh...?"

Leon grinned upon her and said in a joking tone, "Nice to know you're figuring that out! Hell, I couldn't be happier. I do love you, Helena Harper. You are worth everything, and even if there's a chance you'll fail...I've got no problem taking a chance like that. All I can ask is: do you wanna take a chance on me?"

As Cheryl watched still in a departed young woman's image, Helena answered with quiet, perfect passion, "Yes. I know no matter what, you'll never ever fail me. I will always give my best for my country...and much more importantly, for those I love." The lady drew very close and swore from her soul, "I will give my all to you."

There was no distance between them at all then and Helena kissed Leon as they embraced...both of their souls soared...

...and somewhere else, in a far far better place than that dreamscape and the nightmare Black Falls had become, Deborah Harper knew joy and everlasting peace.

TO BE CONTINUED
---
Unfortunately, as wonderful as this turn is, that's the ONLY good news because this horror show is far from over! Our heroes still have a lot of problems on their plates, and a battle unlike any other is on the bleak horizon.

Next time, our heroes who have only a billion questions will start getting answers...but those answers won't be pleasant!

Giving credit where it's due!
XNALara created by Dusan Pavlicek; XPS by Dusan and XNAaraL

Models:
(From left to right!)
Helena Harper mutated (well, you know who she really is, RE fans!) by !
Deborah Harper by by way of !
Leon S. Kennedy, also by !
Scenery by !