Chapter Text
Honestly, he doesn’t remember how long it has been.
His last memory before everything went blank is that he was standing? He’s pretty sure he was standing above the skybridge’s roof, or maybe on a rooftop? And one of his hands—hands? Tentacles? He couldn’t tell—holding a person in white coat. No, choking would be the best to describe it. Winter winds blew hard and he somehow couldn’t feel the cold. He feels his body is heavier than it used to be, and it was wrong. He was begging to get something he couldn’t remember what it was and he heard something cracking, like a bone broke, and then blank. Oh! He remembered hearing a roar—or was it himself? And after that, blank. None, na-da.
And then pain. So much pain all he can do is scream. He screams and screams—or roar?, until his vision becomes white, so white it hurts. And he can feel again, and then smell, and then he sees. So much red, so much blood. The colors start filling his sight again—red, then grey, white, and then blue. He sees a blond guy in a blue police uniform standing not far from him, his gun pointing at him, and he looks terrified? Relieved? He opens his mouth, tries to speak but he throws up instead. So much blood. Why is he bleeding? What happened?
“Are you okay?” The guy asks, still maintaining his distance and his gun still aimed at him.
He raises his hand. “Yeah,” he whispers. His sight became more clear and he realized he was covered in blood. His clothes are torn apart, the left side of his body looks weird, too fleshy even, and there’s veiny things on his arm. Can human veins enlarge? He wasn’t sure, he’s not a doctor. There’s a bite mark on his forearm, not too visible but the mark is there. And it was surrounded by black veins. In fact, the black veins start from there to half of his chest. He can’t really feel the left side of his face too, though his sight is as clear as he used to remember. His finger, oh God, he can’t describe it. They’re not normal, definitely not normal. Since when does he have claws? And why’s the skin red? Why is it segmented like a worm? “What the fuck?,” is all he can say.
“What’s your name? Are you—not gonna bite or eat me?” the guy asks again, this time more ease.
“Bryan? Yeah, Bryan,” he replies, unsure about his own name. “Oh—oh God, what happened? Where—”
“Hey, hey, take a deep breath,” the guy says, he kneels now to match his eye level and tries to ground him. He realized he’s about to have a panic attack, but he couldn't help but scoot away from the guy, fearing he would attack him. He doesn’t know why he has this feeling. “Okay, sorry. But please, breathe with me, okay?”
Bryan watches the guy breathing in a tempo and he matches him, or he tries to. As his breath slows and becomes more grounded, Bryan once again examines his surroundings. His last memory was him standing on a rooftop? Skybridge? But right now, he’s inside a room. How’s he inside? But the sight triggered his other memory. On how he’s here, what happened to him.
“Oh my fucking God,” Bryan heaves. “I was—was I a monster?”
The guy nods. “You were chasing me and I found this weird syringe with green liquid and I stabbed you with that,” the guy replies. “And then you start convulsing and melting, like literally. I was worried you were gonna explode because how—how horrific you were.”
“Oh God,” Bryan whispered. And then he hears a groan, and then distant roar. “Oh fuck, it’s real.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a sign for let’s get out of here. Can you stand?” The guy walks closer to Bryan and helps him stand. “I think I found the scientist changing room, let’s find you some warmer clothes.”
They manage to walk to what the guy—his name is Leon, he introduced himself—describes as a changing room. It is surprisingly organized as if the chaos doesn’t touch it. Bryan takes a quick bath from the blood and he tries his best not to overthink, while Leon rummages through the locker to find some clothes for him. Bryan also realized his ears become more sensitive and he doesn’t know why. The groan and roar is getting closer, probably chasing after Leon, or him. Whatever the reason, they need to be quick. As he’s done changing, Leon hands him a gun with a full magazine.
“Hope you can shoot,” Leon says.
“I—I suck at guns,” Bryan tells him but still accepts the gun. He hears the roar again, and heavy thud. “It's getting closer.”
“How close?”
“You can’t hear it?”
“No? Wait, you can?” Bryan opens his mouth to answer Leon's question, but they hear a massive thud and something sounds like metal being bent. “Nevermind, that’s him. Let’s go.”
Bryan follows Leon escaping the facility. Everything reminds him of something Bryan can’t remember. There are labs, some of them still dripping a liquid in yellow and green but no container under it. He sees bodies, torn in half. And then it clicked. Raccoon City General, he was delivering something—a liquid in yellow a guy called it a serum, a binder to a cure. He was bitten, oh God he was bitten by a kid whose face bloomed like a flower. And then he was chased by this monster with many hands and feet and tentacles that was a woman. Bryan stops walking and leaning against the wall as his breath starts panting, again. Oh, c’mon, Bryan, don’t start to panic now! He was mutating, he ate those scientists at the hospital. They were the cause of this hell.
“Bryan—” Leon calls him, his vision slowly getting clear. “Hey, man, I know you’re having a hard time, but I’m sorry we gotta go.” The thud and groan getting louder. “Like, right now!”
Bryan groaned and nodded. Leon pulls him away from the wall at the right time when the big mutated monster bursts from the metal roof. Leon is about to shoot the monster before suddenly a woman suddenly begging Leon not to shoot it. Both Leon and Bryan are still aiming their gun at the monster, and the woman apologizes before she shoots it with something, the liquid inside its shell bursting on impact, and it sizzles when it touches the skin. Bryan lowers his gun and suddenly remembers what Leon said a moment ago, about how he’s melting when Leon gave him the cure. Leon and the woman talk when they’re sure the monster is dead but Bryan should’ve known better.
“Watch out!” He yells and it’s too late. The monster's large hand grabs the woman and it throws her to the second floor of the lab.
The monster evolved, maybe its final stage. Instead of two, now it has four arms with enormous yellow eyes on its knee and shoulder. There are bones protruding at its back. The platform they stand suddenly staggers and lower itself down. The woman, still alive albeit hurting, activates the platform and asks them to fight the monster. Bryan swears and starts shooting at its stupidly large eyes. Leon jumps down and finds a new firearm stored here. The monster strangely only targets Leon as if Bryan is invisible. Leon keeps dodging and firing, which amazes Bryan, but his luck runs out. He runs out of ammo and the monster grabs him. Leon yells in agony and it triggers something inside Bryan. Out of adrenaline, Bryan throws away his gun and runs towards the monster and next thing he knows he jumps and stabs the monster’s shoulder eyes with his claws. The monster is now the one who screams in agony and it gives Leon an opportunity to shoot its head, eventually killing it for good.
“What the—” Leon, panting, looks at the monster before turning to Bryan who is standing near its body, also panting, but there’s confusion written on his face. “Are you okay?”
Bryan nods and lifts his arm. The claw is still there but now it looks closer to normal fingers rather than big, hunting claws like the monster. He can still feel the adrenaline running through his veins and this sensation for hunts. “Stay away from me,” Bryan whispers. “I’m still—”
Leon grabs his shoulder. “You’re okay, you just saved me,” he firmly says. “We can deal with whatever later. Let’s get out of here.”
“But the woman—”
“Oh, shit, yeah.”
They checked on the woman. Bryan lets Leon do the talking and he stands guard in case the monster is still alive—he learnt from his mistakes, not everything in this goddamn city is dead for good. Bryan hears the woman talking about someone in a red dress and tells them both to not trust her, which makes Leon shocked. Bryan doesn’t push and ask Leon who the woman in red is. The woman later calls Bryan and tells him to be careful as he’s the only one who is infected and cured. If the news about him and his status broke out, everyone will hunt him down as his immune system is now priceless. Bryan wants to ask more but the woman finally succumbs to her injury. Leon sighs and lays her down, slowly closing her eyes.
As they venture deep enough to the lab, the mechanical voice tells them that the access to the evacuating train is open and asks for all the staff to evacuate, all because of the lab’s self-destruct sequence. It hurries Leon and Bryan follows him. They finally arrived at the central elevator, Bryan saw the woman in red. Leon asks Bryan to stand behind him and he talks with the woman. Leon accuses her and the woman just rolls her eyes and demands him about the sample. Leon raises his gun and so is Bryan. The woman finally realizes Bryan’s presence and there’s amusement on her face. The bridge they stood on starts wobbling and there’s a gunshot right behind them. Bryan turns and the woman in lab coat is still alive, shoots the woman in red, and then collapses. Bryan doesn’t realize Leon is holding the woman in red and then she falls down as Leon can’t hold her.
“Leon, the bridge’s gonna collapse. Fuck, we gotta out of here,” Bryan grab his shoulder and force him to stand.
They enter the elevator and its door opens to a room like a control room. Bryan and Leon circle the room and Leon stops at one of its screens, showing a live feed on some room and there’s a girl on it. Leon figures where the intercom is and talks to the girl. She tells them about the train, how she’s figuring out how to start the train, and asks them to meet her at the station several floors below. And that’s what they do, they take the stairs to the platform and the hallways are full of the infected. Leon soon realizes the infected are ignoring Bryan completely and it makes him easier to take them down, by hand because Bryan throws his gun away. And then both of them are surprised by the appearance of a very tall, grey skinned man in black coat.
“What the fuck is that!?” Bryan yells as he aims his gun, only to realise he doesn’t have one. “Fuck! Leon!”
“He’s invincible!” Leon yells back.
“He’s not gonna explode to rats, right!” Bryan asks, throwing seems like a big concrete at the man, hoping to get his attention but it’s futile.
“What!?”
And suddenly, a rocket launcher is thrown to the platform they are riding. Without saying anything, Bryan takes it and aims it at the man. “Fire in the hole!,” he screams before pulling the trigger. The recoil of the rocket launcher doesn’t bother him much, he doesn’t stagger at all. The rocket perfectly executes the man as half of his body is gone. “Wow, this shit is good. I wanna keep it. Can I keep it?”
Before Leon can answer, they both hear the train horn. Leon and Bryan start running, but Leon’s been hurting and he can’t match with Bryan. Bryan jumps into the moving train first and then pulls Leon, right at the platform and everything behind him explodes. They both laugh as the train leaves the exploding facility. They walk to the locomotive and find the girl and another kid, probably 10 years old. Looking at her, suddenly Bryan feels massive guilt. Michelle.
“Glad you made it, Claire,” Leon says and hugs her. “And this is?”
“Sherry Birkin, and that is?” The girl asks Leon.
“Oh, I’m Bryan, it’s nice to meet you despite the circumstances,” Bryan replies, hiding his left arm.
“I found him in the lab,” Leon adds, seemingly purposely leaving the ‘he was a monster’ part to Claire.
“Well, guys, go get some rest,” Claire says. “It’s a shitty night.”
“-100 out of 10, yeah. I will never come back to this shitty city again,” Bryan laughs, then sits leaning to the wall. “Will never deliver something again to this city, even if its paid doubles.”
“Agreed,” Claire nods. “Wait, deliver?”
Bryan tells them his story, also leaving the part of him being infected—like Leon says, he deals with it later. And then both Leon and Claire tell him how they got here. This newfound friendship makes him more at ease. Maybe everything will be fine. And God, when they finally get out of here and get a signal, Bryan needs to call Michelle.