Work Text:
April 1st, 2003
Rebecca Chambers had every reason to celebrate her progress. It had been three years since the destruction of Raccoon City, and three months since the survivors had officially seen the demise of Umbrella once and for all. Monetary compensation was a meager price to pay for the trauma caused by the pharmaceutical giant, but it was something to say the least. Of course, Rebecca hadn’t sought compensation per se, she and her other surviving S.T.A.R.S. member friends were only focused on seeking justice for their beloved city. Although justice had finally been served, trauma was a bit harder to fix. Recurring nightmares, flashbacks, panic attacks and PTSD had rooted themselves in Rebecca’s mind like weeds ever since that fateful night in the Arklay Mountains, and she had spent the past five years uprooting them. Still, it didn’t help to have the constant threat of Umbrella’s retaliation looming over her head. Any day where she didn’t have to look over her shoulder was a gift; in a city as densely packed as New York, her disappearance was unlikely to cause a real stir. Now that the threat was pretty much over, she could focus solely on getting her life back, or creating a new one. Her time as a Raccoon City police officer was over, and her time as a medical student at Columbia with the hopes of becoming a doctor was just beginning. However, in order to clear her mind and prepare for the mental workout her time in med school was sure to bring, she had to face her fears head on.
When the time finally came one weekend, she made her way to the 7th St. entrance of Penn Station around lunchtime. Descending one of the escalators and entering the station proper, she marched past the numerous shops and restaurants and went straight to the ticket counter–New York Penn to Newark Penn, a thirty minute trip at most. With a ticket secured, she confidently sought out the train’s corresponding gate and descended another escalator to the platform. The station lights were bright enough, but the gray walls and sprawling tunnel system seemed to coalesce into some twisted path toward an endless void of darkness, cold and empty. The panic immediately began to sink in.
To her left, the platform was congested with people waiting for their early afternoon train to roll up, but their presence did nothing to alleviate her steadily rising sense of unease. It was early spring, and yet the atmosphere began to feel as thick, humid and heavy as a mid-July day. There was an Acela train parked on the track to her right, presumably empty save for the cleaning crew. The dining car was the closest, allowing Rebecca to peer right through the slightly tinted windows and into the interior. Faded beige curtains sporting some pattern mimicking gold filigree lined each window of the dimly lit room, blending with the ornate red cushioned chairs and beige linen tablecloths. Several passengers just arriving at the platform whizzed by her, but time seemed to slow almost to a screeching halt as she stared into the nearest window. There, sitting in the chair closest to the tinted glass was a very familiar and unwelcome figure. The man sat sideways with only his slicked back white hair and pale skinned profile visible, until he slowly turned to face her.
Rebecca stood frozen in place, the bodies around her now a blur, a flurry of shadowy figures whizzing by her at a dizzying rate. They may as well have been ghosts, yet here was the only specter who held her focus. It can’t be…he can’t be here, he’s long gone! Rebecca felt her breath hitch, tried to reassure herself that this was merely a bad memory resurfacing and clawing its way out of the murky depths of the darkest part of her mind. Paranoid delusion or PTSD, that’ll all–snap out of it! She shut her eyes tightly, mentally counting to three while she inhaled and counting to seven as she exhaled. It took two more of those breaths to steady her pulse, but when Rebecca opened her eyes, James Marcus was still there. No way, this can't be real! The confusion and panic only increased after a few quick glances to her left and right. It was impossible to hear the thing inside the train car, but surely anyone close enough could see it, surely–
THUNK!
A loud bang against the window drew Rebecca’s attention back to the detestable sight.
The thing in the window was no man, let alone Marcus. The pale skin began rapidly melting into something gray and decayed, its eyes white and glazed over and completely void of humanity. No, please god no! Rebecca wasn’t religious at all and yet she could help but say a silent prayer as she watched the hideous mass of rancid, sentient flesh separate itself into a massive pile of amorphous, slimy creatures. In unison, the mutant leeches slithered around each other until they crawled up the window and stuck to the glass like magnets. She didn’t need to hear the stomach wrenching sounds they made while they writhed and piled onto the cool, smooth surface and bared the jagged little knives in their hideous mouths. Rebecca’s eyes remained glued to the gruesome sight as she reached for a handgun that wasn’t there, and she knew damn well what was about to happen next. The rational part of her mind was screaming at her, desperately trying to make her take action; shock, you’re in shock, get that blood flow moving NOW! All it would take to call for reinforcements was reaching into her hoodie’s front pocket and then yanking out her cell phone to call the BSAA. No station officer was equipped to handle this B.O.W. let alone an outbreak; former Officer Chambers was on her own. These people, I have to warn them, I have to get them all–
The burdened glass began to crack, forming thin white lines which streaked across the smooth surface like white lightning in a dark sky. There were more and more cracks, the glass starting to resemble some dark mosaic as the bulbous, rabid little creatures frantically pressed against the once smooth surface. Suddenly, the monstrous leeches burst through the window, the noise finally snapping Rebecca out of her petrified state, but it was too late. They launched themselves through the new opening, aiming straight for their old friend…
She hadn’t been the savior that day, instead, someone had saved her–saved her from stepping too far back and falling onto the tracks behind her. Some good Samaritan had grabbed her just in time, pulled her back to safety and reality. Once snapped out of her paranoid delusion, the leeches were gone, there was no hole in the window, and a station officer ended up escorting her back up to street level, a teary-eyed and trembling mess. Worst of all, he kept referring to her as “kid.” No one had called her that in years, and she reflexively wanted to correct him with “that’s Officer Chambers to you.” Rebecca’s previous title briefly flashed across her mind like a neon sign on its last leg, and then a face… his face, there and gone faster than her old title. He wasn’t there to save her. He didn’t leap to her defense, ready to shoot the bulbous creatures with pinpoint precision. He hadn’t been the one to console her after the terrifying hallucination. Rebecca would've even taken being called "Dollface" right then just to know who had her back, if only to hear his stern yet sarcastic words and his heartwarming voice again. She had been surrounded by dozens of people on the platform, and had felt completely alone. Back to square one...