"What do you think?"

"About what?"

"About all of it."

"Oh. Well, Ingrid… I think it's a joke."

Leon placed the sweating glass on the table. The coaster sat right beside it, Ingrid's eyes glued on it as the glass dripped into a god-awful ring on the table.

"It's not a bad idea, Leon," she said, reaching across the table and placing his water on the coaster. "And you, for one, are too broke to think it is."

Leon chuckled. He closed his eyes and shifted his body, as if to cure her jab with an air of superiority.

"Did I mention it's suicide too?" Leon lifted the glass to his lips and took a hearty gulp, before setting it back onto the wooden table beside the coaster. "I'm not broke enough."

Ingrid leaned into her chair, a smirk of cheeky disbelief to distract from her eyes searching the table for more reasons to appeal to him.

"How's Ashley?"

"Don't know," said Leon, wiping his forehead.

"You don't know how she is?"

"Why would I? We don't talk."

"I just figured it would be customary for people to want to talk to the person who saved their life."

"It is," said Leon, raising his eyebrows with a sharp stare. "She tries to talk to me, that doesn't mean I have to try back."

Ingrid pursed her lips. There was a knowing in her eyes, and Leon sure noticed it. He took a deep sigh and an unfocused roll of the eyes, before slumping into his chair. His stare was glued to the glass of water.

"It's my job to be emotionless. I used to think I was better than that. I thought I was a natural, because I was," said Leon, wiping a finger in a stray creek of water edging toward the side of the table. "But I guess I thought… I thought a natural meant being exempt from everything else the average people had to go through, yada yada yada."

Another sigh. Ingrid's eyes shot lasers through him.

"It didn't," he said. "It did for awhile, but it wasn't real, it was… it was that wild, young delusion that goes with not knowing much about the world."

"When did that change?"

"When I came home." He brought his finger back and rubbed it with his middle finger. "I sat down at home, and I thought, 'Shit. I'm still here. What the fuck does that mean?' And… well, I just… disconnected."

His eyes softened, as well as his body. He shifted for a moment, and then seemed to freeze as he looked down and to the left.

"It seems like so long ago, and yet it wasn't. Like, was it a movie? Or a game? It sure as shit couldn't have been real life, because—" Leon extended his arms, showcasing the room they sat in. "This is real life. This is nothing like what we went through. I mean, did we get sucked into another dimension and then got away? Or is it worse?"

"Worse how?" asked Ingrid.

Leon looked up at her.

"Or was it exactly real life, just some distance away?"

A muffled explosion shook the room. Dust fell from the ceiling, with Leon and Ingrid apathetically looking up.

"How long do you think we have?" Ingrid asked.

"Not long," said Leon, standing up from his seat and grasping his glass for a last sip of water. He raised it to his lips, but paused before his drink. "You ready?"

Ingrid exhaustedly laughed and shrugged. "Do I have time for a nap?"

Leon smiled, closed his eyes, and took a sip of his water. He separated his lips from the glass, but kept it close, as if not wanting to disturb the scene out of the savoring of the gulp. With a chuckle, he opened his eyes and set the water on the table.

"Well, that can't be good," said Ingrid. Leon looked at her as she gave a wistful point to the glass. The water within it was vibrating, quickly becoming a miniature splashing puddle.

"Well," said Leon with a forced, lackadaisical tone, "I guess it found us."

Stepping away from the table, he reached into his holster and removed his service weapon. A small holster beside his torso held a silencer, which he slid out with the push of a small safety lever and began twisting it onto the muzzle.

"They're going to be pushing toward us from the north doors. I imagine there will be a few, but the cavalry will be waiting behind so they can bottleneck us before we make it to the terminal," said Leon, pulling back the slide just slightly to check the chamber. He released it with a small mechanical clank, and looked at Ingrid. "We just gotta beat 'em."

Ingrid stood up with a tired smile.

"You make it sound so easy." She reached into a duffle bag beside her and removed a chainsaw. "You wouldn't happen to have any beer left in your bag, would you?"

"Yes and no," said Leon, replacing the gun into its holster and removing his knife. He pressed a button just beside the handle, observing as the blade slowly glowed red, and then pressing the button again.

He picked up the glass of water from the table.

"I had two left," he said, pouring the remaining water on the blade as steam sizzled off of it, before placing it back into its breast sheath. "But I dropped the bag off the ferris wheel."

"Damn it," said Ingrid, throwing the duffle bag over her shoulder by its strap. "I remember that. God, I could use one right now."

"Yeah. Me too."

Leon placed the empty glass back on the table to rattle once again, and reached beneath the table and removed a combat shotgun with a nail-ridden tin can duct-taped to the side of it. He looked at Ingrid once again.

"I think—" a mechanical voice said from the corner of the room. A small mechanical cube rolled on carbine wheels into the light, with a small camera perched atop it. "You'll be needing this."

A small tray in the machine clunkily propped open, revealing a key with a donkey on it. Ingrid reached in and removed it, tossing it to Leon.

"I think we will, Simon" she said.

Leon smiled wearily, placing the key into his pocket.

"Alright," he said. Leon turned around toward the door, the shotgun in a ready position, as Ingrid and Simon lined up beside him. "Let's blow their socks off."

Leon started his way toward the door, Ingrid following close behind, clutching the chainsaw.

"Wait, wait, wait," Simon shouted, his metal cube casing shaking urgently.

Leon and Ingrid turned around to look at the tiny machine. A bigger tray on the opposite side of his casing opened to reveal a single bottle of beer, secured by straps.

"We can share," said Simon sheepishly.

Leon scoffed.

"After," he said. He looked at Ingrid. "We'll cut it in three."

Leon turned around once again toward the door, clutching the shotgun with the stock pressed to his right shoulder.

"Ah, shit. Ah, shit. Ah, shit. Okay," said Simon. He shook himself off. "Let's blow their socks off, then."

A moment to listen. Leon turned his head for his ear to be closer to the door. His head flinched, as if he heard something. He turned his eyes back to the door and smirked. His eyes closed as his smirk turned into pursed lips.

With one fluid movement, Leon opened his eyes and placed his hand on the door, bolting through it.

...

Four weeks earlier...