Rain had turned Raccoon City's streets into a swamp. Behind them, the tanker explosion still churned orange against the sky, heat and freezing rain hitting their faces in the same breath.
Miles away, the municipal hospital burned quietly in the downpour.
The explosion hours earlier had torn the main building wide open. Rebar and concrete lay scattered across the block, smoke twisting up through the rain into a black column against the night. Somewhere in the deepest layer of rubble, what remained of Nemesis had been incinerated by the blast, ground to ash in the flames.
But no one had noticed. In the final instant before detonation, a core no thicker than a pinky finger, a Nemesis-α parasite, had already burrowed free of the shattered body.
It latched onto a rat scurrying past. Sharp tendrils punched through the animal's spinal cord and hijacked the tiny frame in a heartbeat. When the shockwave hit, the rat carried it a hundred meters out, slamming into the mud at a storm drain opening.
Now the rat was dead. The shell still twitched, but nothing inside it was a rat anymore.
The Nemesis-α dragged the remains of its host through the black arteries of the city's underground, creeping toward something it couldn't name. Sewage, garbage, the occasional rat hiding in the dark... all of it fed its awareness. It didn't know what it was looking for. Only that somewhere in that direction, it could sense others like itself. More hosts to consume.
---
Ryan and Leon sprinted from cover to cover down the street until they reached the precinct's front entrance. They shoved through the heavy wrought-iron doors and Leon locked them fast. Seconds later, zombies crowded the other side, arms flailing through the gaps.
"This is it." Leon pushed open the main doors of the Raccoon City Police Department.
An empty lobby stretched out before them. The whole building was silent.
Emergency lights pulsed a dim, sickly green. Their own ragged breathing was the loudest sound in the room. Then, from the west-side offices, a muffled thud. The sharp click of a pistol's slide locking back on an empty magazine. A zombie's gargled snarl.
"Someone's in there!" Leon snapped his weapon up toward the sound.
They moved fast. Leon kicked the office door in and caught the scene mid-collapse: two zombies lunging at a Black police officer backed into the corner, rotting jaws inches from his throat.
Gunfire cracked simultaneously. Ryan put two rounds through two skulls. Leon's shot punched into the lead zombie's torso. The snarling cut off. Both monsters dropped.
The officer blinked, staring at them. Wariness first, then his eyes found Leon's uniform and the tension bled out. He pressed a hand to his bleeding stomach, tried to stand, swayed, and sank back against the wall.
Marvin Branagh. Acting chief of the RPD, and the last man holding the station.
"I'm Leon S. Kennedy, new officer, supposed to start today. This is Ryan Cole. Best survivor I've met." Leon stepped forward to help him up, but Marvin waved him off.
Marvin's face was chalk-white, slick with cold sweat. He managed a thin, bitter smile at both of them. "New officer? You're late. This city and this station are done. The virus broke out across the board last night. Everyone here either got bitten and turned, or ran out and never came back. It's just me now."
The words barely left his mouth before he grunted in pain and slid down the wall, instinctively shielding his left arm. Leon's gaze caught it immediately: a tear in the sleeve at the forearm, and beneath it, bloodstained bandages.
"You were bitten?" Leon's voice went tight.
Marvin said nothing for a moment. Then he slowly rolled up his sleeve. Under the bandage, two deep bite marks carved down to bone. The skin around them had already taken on a bruised, purplish hue, and dark veins were crawling steadily toward his elbow.
"Three hours ago." He closed his eyes. Something resigned settled into his voice. "A group of civilians were trapped in the lobby. I got them into the records room and took a hit doing it. Figured I'd hold out for rescue. Doesn't look like that's happening. When you two kicked the door in just now, those zombies came through the air vent. I was too slow. Got clawed again."
He looked down at his arm and let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Meant to deal with the outside situation first and worry about this later. But this arm's barely responding anymore."
Ryan stood still, fingers tightening at his sides. The plot correction was relentless. He'd already put Brad on that evacuation subway, removed the original source of Marvin's bite wound entirely, and Marvin had still gotten bitten. Some things just refused to change.
He didn't say any of that. He dropped to a knee, pulled the waterproof pouch from inside his jacket, and produced a glass vial sealed with a pale violet liquid: the t-Virus neutralizing vaccine.
"Leon, hold him down. Keep him still." Ryan cracked the seal on the vial without a second's hesitation. "This is a t-Virus vaccine. If we inject it now, we can still stop the spread."
Leon's head snapped up. Shock all over his face. "Where did you get a..." He caught himself, then grabbed Marvin's shoulders and pinned him firmly. Marvin stared at the violet serum. The dead look in his eyes flickered, and something small and stubborn reignited behind it.
Ryan found a vein in Marvin's arm and pushed the liquid in slowly.
Fifteen minutes later, the purple discoloration stopped advancing. The dark veins faded. The skin around the wound was still red and swollen, but the corpse-gray pallor had vanished. Marvin's fever-glazed eyes sharpened back into focus, and the violent tremors running through his body gradually stilled.
He braced against the wall and stood. Looked at his arm. Looked at Ryan. Disbelief, gratitude, and something close to awe, all at once, without a trace of doubt.
In a city where everyone was either dead or counting the hours, a stranger had pulled out a vaccine and dragged him back from the edge.
"Thank you, Ryan." Marvin's voice came out rough, but the conviction in it was absolute. "You gave me this life. From here on, wherever you go, I go. I'm yours."
Ryan nodded. Pocketed the empty vial. He knew this was only the beginning. There were more people in this station waiting to be saved.
A faint sound drifted in from the hallway. Soft footsteps. The office door eased open a crack, and a girl in a red leather jacket leaned in, pistol raised, eyes sweeping the room.
She spotted Leon and lit up instantly. The tension dropped from her shoulders and she strode in. "Leon! Thank God you're okay! I took a detour on the way here. Thought something happened to you two!"
Claire. She'd arrived a little behind schedule. Roaming zombies on her route, plus a Licker perched on a rooftop she'd had to circle wide around, before she finally tracked them here by sound.
She took in the wrecked office, Marvin leaning against the wall, and then her gaze settled on Ryan. Curiosity flickered behind her eyes. Leon stood next to the guy with an ease that bordered on instinct. In a city like this, anyone who could earn Leon's trust that fast was worth paying attention to.
She didn't ask. Just gave Ryan a nod.
Four of them now, gathered in an office that strobed green and dark, green and dark.
Outside, rain kept falling. Somewhere down the block, more zombies howled.
And far below the station, deep in the guts of the city, the Nemesis-α that had crawled from the hospital ruins was already inside the sewer ventilation shaft. It dragged what was left of the rat upward, inch by inch, separated from the floors above by concrete and rebar. It could almost smell the fresh blood and warm bodies overhead.
Less than twenty meters to the surface.
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