When I was younger, if you told me I'd survive a city-wide disaster all by myself, I'd probably have laughed in your face and told you to get a life. I mean look at me, a fifteen year old teenager just barely over five and a half feet tall, scrawny as hell, and no experience in self defense whatsoever. If you told me that I fought off monsters and zombies straight out from corny horror movies, that I single handedly survived the wrath of multiple madmen and made it out with barely a scratch, I would've recommended you to an insane asylum. Well, at least I had that much power.
You see, I was on work experience at the Raccoon City police department for my school. It was a requirement to get at least one hundred hours of volunteer experience in my field - at the time, it was law. So, what better place to gain that experience than a police precinct? God, and I thought life was tough back then. I was scrambling as much money as I could to maintain a decent lifestyle. I have no parents and quite honestly, I don't know what happened to them.
All I know is that I moved to Raccoon City by myself when I was around thirteen years old. I had a mentor, and I didn't even know his name. I only knew him by "Mr. Masters". I never actually met the guy, but I knew he was responsible for providing me with the necessary one thousand dollar donations to my bank account at two week intervals. With enough money saved up, I moved to the city from my home in Osaka, Japan. I wasn't actually born there - I'm ethnically Chinese … some kind or whatever, I don't even know from which part of the country. I managed to get a nice apartment in the suburbs of Raccoon City, just next to a few condominium houses. It was a peaceful place, birds singing every morning, trees and flowers blooming every which way. And being in the American Midwest, the weather wasn't too bad either, right beside the calm Pacific Ocean. Raccoon Secondary School was a great place too. There weren't too many kids in the school, and everybody in my graduating class knew each other. I mean there was the oddball rebel in every level that just got rejected by everyone else but in general, it was the picture perfect life. I don't know why I decided to study in America; perhaps it was because of the interest in American culture that I harbor.
Where was I? Right. So I worked part-time in the Raccoon City Precinct. My manager was this hulking officer named Marvin Branagh. I called him Marv and he hated that, haha. He was a good guy though, sometimes buying me lunch when I wasted my money on cigarettes or something. Yeah I know smoking is bad, but can you blame me? With my kind of lifestyle, I wouldn't have had a hope in hell of surviving without some kind of stress relief habit. Sides, it's not like I was addicted or anything.
Through Marvin, I got to know the other workers at the precinct. Off the top of my head, I remember the chief - Brian Irons. The guy was a freak. I've been to the office a few times, delivering his mail and whatever letters the secretary pumped out. The walls of his office were adorned with heads of various animals he killed on multiple hunting trips. The guy had wolf heads, moose heads, stuffed pheasants … even this one stuffed whole tiger. The thing was fucking massive and completely stuffed, although made to look like it was real. I'll admit, sometimes I thought the thing would jump out at me and eat me. Funny how a few months after I started working there, there have been things that threatened to eat me, but I'll save the details for later.
There were some good people that I met though. I remember Rebecca Chambers. She was a good girl, kinda cute although she was a few years older than me. She was a little timid and I've sat down and had coffee with her on a few occasions and I got to know her a bit better. She was new to the police department, fresh out of university. I know eighteen years old is the perfect age to get into university but this girl was some kind of chemistry whiz. At the time, she'd just been recruited into a special division of the R.P.D. called the S.T.A.R.S., standing for Special Tactics and Rescue Squad. This special unit consisted of a bunch of hotshot police officers with a lot of experience in their life and who were considered the cream of the crop when it came to their jobs.
There was Officer Christopher Redfield. Personally, I was always intimidated by the guy. He had a short temper - and I mean really short. He's never really yelled at me but on a few occasions, I've actually seen him hit criminals with his bare fist. He looked like some hardcore army guy to, with a deep bass in his voice and short brown hair cut close to his head. And not just that, but the guy was huge. I swear his muscles had muscles he was so scary. I think he's got a humorous side but whenever he tried joking with me I just sorta smiled and pretended that I found his jokes funny. He also liked to ruffle my hair a lot whenever he said something to me, which was usually, "Hey, how's it going, squirt?" or "Try not to deliver my porn subscription letters to Jill's office again." He'd say stupid things like that, talking to me like I was some kid. Well, maybe saying "ruffling my hair" is an understatement. Maybe that's what he tried to do but instead, he'd practically crush my head into my shoulders while rubbing my hair, ruining the half hour gel job I'm put it through every morning. He apparently found it amusing. He's a good guy overall too, just like everyone else. He was just kinda scary, is all.
Then there was Jill Valentine, not quite as cute as Rebecca but she had a nice face with these gentle brown eyes that were never harsh to look at. She had shoulder length brown hair but always had it hidden under her S.T.A.R.S. hat. She was like a mom to me, always giving me advice on which direction to go in life. "Chase your dreams," she would always say. She's an expert at picking locks. I've never actually seen her do it, but I've heard from the rest of the staff that when they ever lost their keys, it would always be Officer Valentine to the rescue. It was strange though. She never struck me as the lock picking kind. She had the personality of gold and I'm not kidding when I say she could've melted the coldest heart.
And speaking of cold hearts, that Albert Wesker, leader of one branch of the S.T.A.R.S., I'm almost willing to bet my life that his heart was made of stone. Granite to be exact, you know, the really cold kind that's solid and impossible to break. He always wore these sunglasses, Gucci brand I think, and he never took them off. Of the month and a half that I spent at that precinct, I would always see Wesker walking up and down the hallway past my work desk and he'd always have those damn sunglasses on, even on cloudy days. And wearing sunglasses indoors on a cloudy day is a serious crime against the fashion industry - not that I would know, of course.
I wouldn't say that I was especially close to these people, but I know I had formed a bond of some nature or other with Rebecca, Marv, Jill and Chris - well, enough to refer to them on a first name basis. I always had such respect for the members of S.T.A.R.S. and one day, I hoped to be one of them. But all the bullshit started with the strange things that started happening around the Raccoon City vicinity. There were these strange reports of murders, of people finding mangled bodies that had been washed downstream from the mountains into the city's water supply. I was kinda gross actually. I snuck into the photo labs and took a look at the developing pictures myself.
Repeating reports of events of the same nature kept being filed until one fateful day in June, something huge happened. There was an explosion in the Arklay Mountains just a few miles from the main city area. Jill, Rebecca and Chris came back with these crazy stories that would've made a good scary movie about mutated animals, zombies … things that nobody believed. And to be honest, I never believed a word they said either. I mean, would you believe it if someone came up to you and told them they shot walking dead people to death? But the only thing I didn't understand was the deaths of the other S.T.A.R.S. members. That was the only thing that had me confused and rumors floated around the precinct for awhile about what really happened that one night in the mountains. I didn't know what to believe but whatever information leaked out of the mouths of the higher ups, I was always shielded from them and I carried on my life as usual, even though I could see that my co-workers were going through a lot of stress.
I should have listened to their stories though. Because the events that occurred three months later seriously wiped out more than half of Raccoon City's population. If only we believed what the surviving S.T.A.R.S. told us. But by the time I realized that, it was too late. The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a war zone. And the war was being fought by the remaining officers of the police precinct and hordes of the undead. I don't know how to describe the feeling of surprise that engulfed me the moment I saw a zombie in real life standing right in front of me, heading my way ready to rip out my guts and eat them. Marv came just in time though, grabbing my collar and pulling me into the protective heavy oak doors of the precinct. I was so consumed with horror and confusion that I couldn't even move.
By that time, Chris, Rebecca and another surviving S.T.A.R.S. member, Barry Burton who I never really got to know well, had left for Europe. I don't know what happened to Jill though, but I prayed for her safety nonetheless. Hell, I'm not even gonna lie to you when I say I prayed more for my own safety! Marv was injured in the battle, Jill was missing and Chris and Rebecca managed to escape Raccoon before it turned into a virus infected community of undead creatures. They were the lucky ones. I was all alone with nobody to help me.
That's when my adventure began, standing alone in main hall without even a gun; the surrounding air quiet as death. I could hear the slow shuffling of footsteps from behind the door northwest to my location as I stared blankly at the same oak doors that Marv had pulled me through just a few hours ago. I didn't even know where he was at that point. All I knew was that I had to get out of Raccoon. And that was when I, Kenneth Feng, a fifteen year old kid on work experience took the city's firearm laws and threw them out the window. I went looking for a gun.