Work Text:
The Music of the Night
Leon softly tiptoed his way through the halls of the Rhodes Hill Chronic Care Center, clutching his gun tightly in his gloved hands as he tried to keep them steady. The infection he had was causing his limbs to shake, and a soreness blossomed through the muscles of the diseased areas. Memories of a similar feeling with Las Plagas started to resurface, when his whole body had felt like it had been fighting through an intense fever.
There wasn’t any time for complaints, though. He had to keep his mind focused on the mission. So, he clenched his jaw, bit down on his tongue, and ignored the ever-growing dull throbbing that was spreading throughout his body.
The hallway was spattered with dark, drying blood. Red, bloodied footprints were scattered throughout it, some of which looked fresher than the others. He looked closely, trying to see which ones were the newest and would indicate if there was a zombie nearby. He also kept a close eye on the walls to see if there were any approaching shadows moving toward him.
Leon couldn’t deny that since losing his hearing back in China, he’d relied more and more heavily on his vision, but not because deafness had magically heightened it. The government training he went through after becoming deaf required him to focus more and more on his surroundings, keeping his peripheral sight sharp.
Leon continued to walk through the corridor, wondering how big this place must be. It felt like a labyrinth, twisting and turning in various directions. He remembered Chris and Rebecca telling him a while back about the layout of the Spencer Mansion, back where it all began, and he wondered if this was similar. He and Grace were flies, trapped in Viktor Gideon’s spiderweb, trying to wiggle their way out to freedom before it was too late.
He soon came across a wooden door, decorated with intricate carvings. He paused, momentarily hesitating, his eyes looking over the engravings, before giving in and gently pushing it open. If there was even a small chance that there was a clue to who Viktor Gideon was in there, or if Grace was hiding in the room on the other side, then it was worth the risk.
As Leon stepped into the room, he carefully moved his head to check his surroundings, letting out a shaky breath.
Hanging from the ceiling were jeweled chandeliers, emitting a dim, yellow light. Various potted plants, all shades of dull green, were placed throughout the room, clearly meant as some sort of decoration. The marble floors had a black-and-white checkered pattern and were, to Leon’s amazement, still clean, untouched by any blood or grime.
And in the middle of the room stood a massive grand piano, with a woman moving right beside it who didn’t seem to notice that Leon was there.
He froze, and backed up a few steps before getting a good look at her.
From her fair skin and white hair, to her alabaster-colored dress and slippers, everything about her was pale. The only parts of her that weren’t white were her hands, and the area around her mouth, both coated in blood, showing that she was another infected patient.
She moved in a way that almost looked like she was floating, seeming to drift aimlessly, almost tripping as she walked, but keeping close to the piano. Her hands moved back and forth from near her chest, where her heart was, to waving outward like she was a ballerina caught in the middle of a twirl.
She didn’t seem to notice Leon as he moved past, and for a moment, he wondered if he could search the entire room without her even noticing, just making sure she didn’t drift too close to him.
Then he felt a sudden snap and the crunch of something breaking under his foot, though he didn’t hear it. He looked down and saw that he had stepped on a glass bottle, which had completely cracked beneath his boot.
The infected woman turned to him, looking at him with wide, haunted gray eyes. She stepped forward, reaching her arms out toward him. Leon stepped back and readied his handgun, preparing for her to launch at him.
Unexpectedly, she paused, squeezing her bloodied hands into fists. Thenher mouth twisted wide open, and he felt a burst of air against his face. Though she was still, she shook aggressively while her jaw hung wide open. Leon felt a strange pressure against his skull and a soft vibration under his feet that seemed to move throughout his body.
It suddenly dawned on Leon that she was screaming at him, and her shrieks were meant to daze him while she moved in to kill him. Lucky me, he thought to himself, rolling his eyes and raising his gun.
He shot her right in the chest and near her jaw. She recoiled and began to writhe in pain, but stepped forward again. Leon shot a few more times before pulling out his axe and delivering a killing blow right to her chest.
Sorry to cut your act short, Leon thought to himself as the infected woman fell to the ground, not daring to say it out loud. He could still talk. Losing his hearing didn’t erase his voice. But he didn’t feel comfortable talking when he knew that he might’ve just alerted more zombies to his location, not to mention the off-chance that Viktor Gideon was still keeping an ear out for him.
Leon stared down at the pale corpse of the fallen woman, red spilling out from her open mouth and bloodshot eyes against her snow-white skin, some splattered across her equally colorless hair and dress.
For a moment, Leon found himself wondering who she was before she’d turned into a flesh-eating monster. Looking at the place she seemed to roam, his eyes fell back onto the large, grand piano and a microphone set up near a bar in the room, bathed under the warm glow of the chandelier lights. Suddenly, he felt a soft tug in his heart.
From the way she’d been screaming at him before, she’d clearly cared a lot about her voice when she was alive. Maybe she’d been a singer? It’d make sense why she’d wandered around this particular area before he stumbled across her.
Absentmindedly, he slowly walked over to the piano. The lid of it was raised, revealing a set of pearly but yellowing keys splotched with flecks of blood. He brushed his fingers over them, tempted to press down on one and feel the vibration of melodic sound in his skin.
One of the things that Leon missed most from the time he could hear, apart from the voices of his friends and loved ones, was music. Before China and the helicopter crash, he’d never thought about the role that it had played in his life. But when he suddenly became deaf, and the only sound left was the occasional high-pitched ringing in his ears, he began to reflect on it more and more.
He remembered the soft hymns from the Catholic church his parents took him to when he was a little kid, sometimes feeling a drowsiness overtake him before his mother shook him awake and told him to focus. As a teenager, he often carried around a Walkman all throughout high school and then into the police academy, blasting his favorite rock songs into his ears when he wanted to tune out the rest of the world. He’d left it in his car the day he drove into Raccoon City, not thinking about how he would never get to finish the cassette tape he’d left in the player.
Even when he was in military training, sometimes, if he listened closely enough, he’d hear a soldier singing softly to himself, often a song that reminded him of home. The soldiers would have to do it quietly, lest Krauser hear them and then yell at them to shut up in his commanding voice. But even in those unlucky cases, it never seemed to scare anyone off from continuing to do it.
Leon had always tried to drown them out and sleep through it, completely ignoring the way his foolish heart missed Claire and Sherry. Now, he could only look back and wish he hadn’t ignored it. His career fighting bioterrorism hadn’t exactly given him the time to enjoy music as much as he wished. More than the music itself, he missed the memories attached to them, and he mourned the ones he would never get to make.
He felt his wristwatch buzz, snapping him out of his daze. He looked down, and saw a message from Sherry on the screen.
You still there?
Yeah. I’m fine. Leon typed back quickly. Any updates?
No, not yet. I’ll keep you posted. Sherry replied.
Leon let out a soft sigh and looked toward the piano one last time before pulling the lid shut.
Fin