A/N: Before you go any further, I must extend a very grateful hand of thanks to my good friend and bro, Skyler, for helping me create this story. Without him, I wouldn't have made it past the introduction. Thanks bro, your ideas were genius!

RESIDENT EVIL: The Mutagen Saga

Book I: Plagas ventrialis

Part I

Chapter I

South America, the Amazon, Coordinates Classified

The South American village buzzed with life in the heart of the Amazon jungle, protected from the outside world by behemoth trees and a wall of vines that entangled each other in their green caress. The children played sports in the open, kicking a ball crafted from animal skin and filled with water. They screamed and laughed in joy as they kicked up dust. The women smiled and washed clothes or cooked, chatting amongst themselves in an unknown language long forgotten by civilization.

An air of ancient power rested over this old village, its mirth and strange majesty seeping into the earth, giving life to this most ancient town. A sort of energy enveloped the area, you could feel it. It hummed as it sustained its people, creating a proverbial shield.

Suddenly, it all went quiet as the man staggered into the village. His walk was not quite right; a steady step, then a crooked side step. He groaned and lurched forward, barely keeping his balance. The Amazonian stopped in the center of the court. He screamed, the sound echoing in the area, sending a flock of birds to the air. The children screamed, huddling together in fear. The man convulsed, writhing in agony, clutching his tanned head. The vessels stood out as veins of tendrils appeared on his head, exploding out of his body, wiggling in the green-tinted air.

The adults raced over, grabbing their children as the grotesque transformation continued. Women and children weeped, as the men stood their ground, horrified. More black tendrils blew out of the flesh of the man, creating a wriggling mass of tentacles in a pool of blood. The weird extensions returned to the inside of the man, and he fell backwards, seeming to be dead.

A woman approached him, quivering. Suddenly, he attacked her, screeching like a demon. He clawed her, throwing the woman down, when his head exploded in a mass of brain and gore. A writhing mass of crimson tentacles, teeth, and petals shot out of the neck of the man.

The tentacles grabbed the screaming woman and dragged her to the host body. The petal-like lips shot forward and opened, revealing a maw rimmed with teeth, and a tongue-like appendage with a spore on it. There was no question what this beast meant to do. The petals forcibly latched onto the screaming woman's face, silencing her, and shoved the spore into her throat, before releasing her. The infected woman choked it down, vomiting and gagging, on her knees. The villagers now panicked, screaming and running. The host grabbed another villager, infecting him with the spore as well.

Plagas ventrialis had arrived.