And now for a rather unfortunate turn of events. It seems that the president and the Federal Council have passed judgement over the civilians of Raccoon City. The president and Federal Council have ruled that the Bacillus Terminate option is the best course of action for this extreme situation, and have since, executed it. Based on that fact, Raccoon City has been literally wiped off the map. Current reports have the death toll surpassing the one-hundred thousand mark. Our hearts go out to those poor civilians of Raccoon City.
CNN news report, 1998/01/10, Bioterrorism Security Assessment Alliance video file BR-55-44X
Believe
"The nightmare ends here and now."
He remembered saying that. February 18th, 2003 to be exact, during the storming of Umbrella's Russian facility. A time when he actually believed those words, believed that the fight was over. But times changed and now, five years later, it felt like he was living in an entirely different world. The BSAA, bio-terrorism via actual terrorists and insurgent groups rather than the "evil empires" of Umbrella, WilPharma and other irresponsible corporate entities... The world have moved on from the past...from Umbrella, from Harvadville, from Pueblo, from the Spencer Rain, from the...well, the list was long and he hadn't come here to go over it. Especially since he was standing at the outskirts of the site at the top of the list, the site that started everything...
Raccoon City.
Even now, the sight of it left him stunned. Not that there was much to see of course-although much of the radiation from the nuclear strike had dissipated away, the National Guard still kept a cordon around the city. Not that they really had to bother. Who would want to visit a nuclear wasteland? There were other attractive sites in the Midwest and Raccoon City was a relic from the previous century-America's Chernobyl in a way. A place everyone knew about, but had no desire to go to or research. A ruined ghost town.
A ghost town, he reflected bitterly. Like it was before Umbrella moved in. Missile craters aside of course...
He knew he couldn't stay long, the rising sun giving him more insight to the passage of time than his wristwatch ever could, despite the nifty gadgets R&D had installed in it. The slopes of the Arklay Mountains slowly received the sun's light, standing vigil of the grave of Raccoon City and the one-hundred thousand that had perished in it ten years ago. He smiled faintly, marvelling at how the mountains seemed so majestic now, a far cry from the horror from the terror that had once dwelled within their forests.
Never thought I'd be glad to so those forests again, he thought, watching the pines bask in the warm glow of Earth's life giver. The Arklay Forest hadn't escaped from Operation: Bacillus Terminate unscathed, radiation and wildfires from the missile strike doing a number on its ecosystem, but nature had recovered from mankind's abuses. Raccoon City on the other hand, was left to rot. While nature rebuilt, humanity moved on. Sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes for the wrong ones...
Right and wrong...far vaguer concepts than they were a decade ago.
Sometimes, he felt like an oddity. He'd made a...well, not exactly a vow to see Umbrella taken down after the Spencer Estate incident, but certainly a resolution to do the right thing, a sentiment mirrored by the surviving STARS members. But that resolution had been fulfilled, and here he was, fighting a similar but different battle, while his friends had moved on. Sure, they weren't above continuing the fight against Umbrella's monsters, at least if the Harvadville report was to be believed, but they'd all got new professions like Claire, had settled down like Barry or were simply no longer with them such as...
He shuddered. He didn't want to think of her. Not now.
People died, he knew that. He knew that nothing would bring Raccoon City back and however noble he saw himself in remembering it, it was a pointless endeavour overall. Nothing could bring back the dead apart from bastardized science and he'd experienced enough of that to last a lifetime. And if there was such a thing as a soul, he was under no illusions as to the likelihood of being able to lay Raccoon's spirits to rest. Besides, the saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes" had been rendered null and void a decade ago. He'd realized that it was the other way around, that no benevolent deity (or malevolent, if His creations could inflict such abuses on the world) would greet-...
Idiot. You said you wouldn't think about that.
He didn't know how long he stood there, how long he dwelled in the past. He knew that he was in the minority of the world's populace, looking back at the past rather than focussed wholly on the challenges of the future, everything from global warming to oil giving the media plenty of material. Raccoon City was a dead city, an old story that would probably be nothing but dust by the time any sort of proper memorial was erected. Radiation and the often denied fact that such a thing as the undead existed tended to alter one's sense of priorities. In his case however, his priorities remained the same. The same bloody priorities he'd had for ten years.
But he didn't back down.
He didn't back down because Raccoon City's ruins still existed. He didn't back down because after learning things that still kept him up at night, the fight against Umbrella had thought him that the key to building the future is maintaining the past, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, had learned that for all the strengths of the darkness descending upon the world, one lone candle of hope was enough to hold it back.
And no matter how late he'd be for his briefing concerning his upcoming mission to Kijuju, no matter what damage lingering radiation might have done to him, Christopher Redfield was determined to keep his hope alive...
...and believe.
Update (09/02/13): Made correct to "against Umbrella" error.