The final corridor opened before them:
a path carved into the corpse of reality.
The walls oozed black light.
The ground shifted underfoot — not solid, not liquid, not gas, but something worse, something unnamed.
Above them, the ceiling pulsed, veins of living shadow throbbing like diseased arteries.
The remnants of humanity — Kaela's army — stood at the threshold.
No speeches.
No last-minute prayers.
Just the sound of guns being loaded. Blades being drawn. Helmets being tightened.
The unspoken truth hung heavy between them:
Few would survive.
Most would die screaming.
And still — they stepped forward.
Because there was no other path.
---
Into the Maw
The first strike came without warning.
From the seething shadows overhead, tendrils lashed downward, ripping men into the ceiling —
not killing them — but absorbing them, twisting their bodies into new, shrieking horrors that dropped screaming onto their former comrades.
Kaela shouted:
> "HOLD THE LINE!"
Gunfire erupted.
The corridor became a storm of screaming bullets, plasma bolts, the roar of makeshift artillery.
But the Dreamer's creations were endless.
For every abomination they destroyed, two more slithered from the walls.
A massive beast — a tower of stitched flesh and broken memories — lumbered into view, each step shattering the ground.
It carried faces on its skin — familiar faces.
Serin's face.
Chris Redfield's face.
Faces from Kaela's childhood.
Mocking her.
Weeping.
Begging.
Arin charged with a howl, planting explosives along its legs, trying to slow it down.
Kaela burned it down with blasts from the Genesis Core — each pulse a hammerblow of golden light.
The beast fell, shrieking.
But it wasn't enough.
The horde kept coming.
---
The Shattering of Hope
Minutes? Hours?
Time lost meaning inside the Cradle.
Every second was a battle for breath, for sanity.
Elise fought like a woman possessed, carving a bloody path through the monstrosities — until a Proxy wearing her dead brother's face drove a spear through her side.
She staggered, snarling, refusing to fall — ripping the weapon free and jamming it into her attacker's eye socket.
But Kaela saw the blood leaking from her side.
The way Elise swayed.
> "Keep going," Elise gasped. "I'm not dead yet."
Behind them, a shriek rose — human and not.
Kaela turned just in time to see a squad of Echo veterans ripped apart by a tidal wave of churning teeth and bone — gone before they could even scream.
Someone else — a mercenary Kaela barely knew — grabbed a Proxy in a bear hug, activating his grenade belt.
He smiled at Kaela — just once —
before vanishing in a blossom of gore and black fire.
There were no more victories.
Only survival.
---
The Field of Corpses
The corridor widened into a vast, open field — or what had once been one.
Now it was a landscape of bodies.
Thousands — maybe millions —
heaped in grotesque mounds, forming towers that stretched toward the bleeding sky.
Some corpses twitched.
Some whispered.
Some stared, accusing, with rotting eyes.
The army hesitated.
And in that hesitation —
the Dreamer struck.
The ground erupted in a tidal wave of sludge and bone.
Creatures rose:
corpses stitched together into impossible shapes — hydras made of soldiers and children, giants of armor and despair.
Kaela raised the Genesis Core.
It flared, and for a moment, she thought —
Maybe — just maybe — I can push them back.
But the Core flickered.
Weakened.
Fading.
Her heart twisted.
They had come so far —
fought so hard —
only to find the Dreamer still stronger than their hopes.
---
The Collapse
The battle shattered into chaos.
Arin was dragged away, clawing at the ground, shouting Kaela's name — swallowed by the writhing mass.
Elise fell to one knee, slashing at unseen enemies, blood pouring from her wounds.
Soldiers died by the dozen — screaming, howling, cursing gods that had never answered.
Kaela fought like a cornered animal.
Blasts from the Genesis Core tore through hordes — but each strike drained her.
Each blast cost her more — blood from her nose, from her ears, dripping from her fingertips.
Her vision blurred.
The world shrank to a tunnel of noise and pain.
She staggered, dropped to one knee —
and almost gave up.
Almost.
---
The Choice
In the center of the field, a figure waited.
It wasn't a creature.
It was her mother.
Lia Wong — standing whole, smiling, beautiful.
> "Kaela," she said, voice perfect and wrong.
> "It's over. You fought so hard. Let go. Rest."
Arin appeared behind her — whole. Smiling.
Elise too.
Chris.
All of them.
Beckoning.
Offering peace.
Kaela wept.
Tears ran hot down her cheeks.
Her arms shook.
She wanted — gods, she wanted — to run to them.
To collapse.
To end this nightmare.
But deep down — deeper than fear, deeper than grief — she knew.
They were lies.
Beautiful lies.
The Dreamer's final weapon.
> Let go, the vision urged.
> You've done enough.
> Come home.
Kaela closed her eyes.
Felt the broken earth under her knees.
Heard the dying screams around her.
Smelled blood and ash.
And she remembered:
Arin's stupid grin after their first mission.
Elise sharpening her knife by firelight.
Chris teaching her how to shoot.
Serin's bad jokes.
They were real.
They mattered.
Even if she lost everything —
she would not surrender.
Kaela rose to her feet.
Eyes burning.
Heart breaking.
And she whispered to the false mother:
> "No."
---
The Inferno
The Genesis Core blazed.
A supernova of raw willpower.
Not rage.
Not hope.
Choice.
Kaela unleashed it.
The blast annihilated the false visions — tore through the army of corpses — shredded the Dreamer's illusions.
The land itself buckled.
Creatures screamed and melted.
The Cradle howled, twisting in agony.
And at the far end of the field — a gateway tore open:
The Sleeper's true body.
Waiting.
Wounded.
But awake.
The last survivors — Arin dragging himself from the mire, Elise leaning on a shattered sword — gathered behind Kaela.
No more army.
Only a handful now.
Bloodied.
Broken.
Burning with the last ember of defiance.
> "We end this," Kaela whispered.
And they stepped through.
Into the Sleeper's heart.
Into the final nightmare.