Epic: The Third Survivor
By. Indigo Siren
Disclaimer: Resident Evil is to Capcom. I do not own any of the characters and situations depicted from the games. They are merely being used for entertainment purposes only. I do however own this story and any characters and scenarios that were not featured in the franchise. All rights reserved.
A/N: Took me a little time to edit it, and even after, its not a particularly long chapter. But its the real beginning of events assosiated with the 2nd game. A little bit of this, that and everything. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter 3: Between the Lines of Life and Death
She awoke sometime during the late afternoon of the 29th September. Because the skies were so clouded with smoke from multiple fires in the area, it was almost as if it were night already. She didn't bother to open her eyes. Instead, she listened.
The hollow blast of air around her droned on at a consistent rate, a radiator in the corridor below clanked now and again cantankerously and a clock on the wall ticked away oblivious to events, getting louder or quieter depending on how hard she focused on the sound.
Then came another sound, sharper and more attention grabbing then the rest. It was completely new to her.
A hiss of a breath, the sound somewhat strained. The way it rolled out gave the sound an edge of a growl.
Whatever had made the sound, it wasn't human.
Click, Click, Click…
Sherry was diagonal from the grate, though made no effort to move. A part of her didn't want to see what was out there. Click-clacking, whatever it was, was moving. With baited breath, she waited.
CLANK! It moved over from the wall onto the front of the shaft, the loud echoing sound threatening to make her jump out of her skin. Immobile with fear, she watched, eyes widening as a creature she could have never imagined, crawled across the front of the grate.
Its body was like an open wound, no skin to cover the bloody exposed muscles. Its sharp teeth cradled a long tongue, whipping out to taste the air. Above that, shockingly, was its brain completely exposed, covering the area where the eyes should have been. On its large deadly claws, it wondered away, not seeing her statue-like form curled up there in the vent and headed off down the corridor.
Waiting until it was far enough away, she decided to slowly get up onto her hands and knees and find a new area to investigate. She didn't feel safe there anymore.
Gritting her teeth, she shimmied through the steel duct - sliding to make the least amount of noise possible. After ten minutes of crawling around the whole of the first floor of the station, she lowered herself down to a loose vent at the floor level of a dimly lit room. As she always did, she listened out for sounds beyond - moans and shuffling particularly - then peaked out to be certain there was nothing there.
The room was sparsely furnished - a couple of lockers lining one wall; a table and handful of chairs; a worn newspaper stand - though for little that was there, more of it was clutter from the occupants abandoning the place in a hurry. Strewn cups with day old coffee turning to goo in bottoms, torn 'Raccoon Times' pages covering the table and chairs, entangled with old food wrappers and stained paper plates. The room had the combined scent of faded pine air freshener, sweat and cigarette smoke that clung to the aging, yellowed wallpaper like an unwelcoming perfume.
Everything was perfectly still, perfectly quiet… perfect by a little too much. It was safe for now.
She crawled out, her knees crumpling up a paper dated a couple of days before the outbreak. Ignoring the print of what had been more normal times, she stood, wiping the black print from her knees. Her aching body reminded her that she'd been scrunched up in a confining place for much too long. This little bit of freedom was a welcome change despite her increased tension of being out relatively in the open.
Keeping herself focused, she made a beeline toward the lockers. Thankfully none of them were locked. But as much as she hoped to find hordes of helpful supplies, there was nothing really much to behold. Besides the personal effects that had no real usefulness, she found a bar of lightly scented soap, a new toothbrush still in its unopened package, a tube of toothpaste and a granola bar (not one she particularly liked, but she still ate it anyway).
There was a side room just past the lockers where she could see a sink just inside. Clutching the cleaning supplies, she hurried over, desperate to wash up. She couldn't remember the last time a bar of soap touched her face and it made her feel disgusting. It hadn't exactly been her top priority with circumstances as they were, but with the temporary reprieve, she didn't hesitate to turn on the taps. The water only ran lukewarm, but that didn't bother her. She soaped up, the freshness she suddenly felt like a comforting pillow. There was a dry towel on the side, seemingly clean if not a little worn from use and laundering. She buried her face into the course cotton and sighed gratefully.
As she was cleaning her teeth, she paused as she finally peaked up at the mirror. She wasn't tall enough to see properly into the glass, but from where she could see, she suddenly paused - mouth filled with foam - spying a figure not far behind her.
She practically dribbled the foam into the sink, suddenly afraid to make too much noise, even though she had been before. Why she hadn't thought to look behind her before, she didn't know, and now suddenly felt foolish as she shakily turned.
Three sets of bunk beds were lined across the back wall, dim under the minimal lighting in the room, but on the bottom of one of the closest bunks was a man. A policeman.
For the longest of seconds she stared at his pale face. Watched and waited. But not a flicker.
He wasn't a man nor a zombie. Just another body, well and truly dead. No in-between.
Swallowing hard, she took a few paces forward, rewarded with a gruesome sight. A cavern where his throat used to be, caked in dry blood clinging to the remaining withered threads of skin and muscle. She turned away, covering her mouth as she tried to clear the image from her mind, afraid she would throw up on herself.
She returned to the sink, turning on the cold water tap so she could splash her face and drink the a couple of handfuls to calm her stomach. She clutched the ceramic basin hard enough for her finger tips to turn ghostly white, the feeling of despair washing over her like a tidal wave. She clung on, was swamped by the emotions, enough to pinprick her eyes and rode it out until she felt she was completely spent. Quivering, she turned off the tap and went back into the other room.
There were distant moans out in the corridor - hungry and desperate.
There was nothing left for her there now. Not even security, though she'd known from the start that nowhere was safe. And with the rotting corpse in the back, she had no further desire to hang around to suffer a similar fate. She hurried back to the open vent and scuttled back inside, remembered to pull the grate cover back into place. As cold and dim as they were, the grey, squared passages gave her some level of comfort.
But where was she really going to be safe? How much longer could she survive crawling through the ventilation network? It just seemed to risky to try and escape. The building was a zombie mine trap; the streets were even worse. There were even more dangerous creatures lurking in the shadows. The odds were just too highly stacked against her.
She didn't know how to properly defend herself against the monsters, nor did she have adequate equipment to even try (not that she'd know how to use a gun if she found one) - and by all accounts, there was nobody really left around to help her. Her mind fluttered like a cluster of panicked birds. As much of a smart girl she was, she just couldn't logically figure a way to get out of her damning situation.
Running - only possible for so long. Fighting - suicide. Hiding - in the same category as running. It just seemed inevitable she'd waste away there, wilt like a little flower without water.
Her gloomy thoughts trailed her all the way to her next destination. A dark room.
Certain she was alone, she squeezed out of the vent between the wall and a cabinet. The only light in the room was the illumination of a red safelight at the other end of the long counter. There was a strong smell of chemicals, some of which reminded her of bleach, but it was definitely a smell she'd never come across before. The culprits were a couple of nameless bottles tipped over by the sink.
A couple of photos were clipped onto a line over her head, the fronts of which she couldn't quite make out in the dark. They didn't seem to have come out of the developing process very well. Losing interest, she meandered into the next room. In there, the lighting was much brighter, illuminating a dull grey room with nothing more then a couple of lockers, a battered old chest, a locked filing cabinet and an aging desk with a standard plastic-covered chair.
She searched the desk drawers. Nothing but stationary and old reels of undeveloped film. On top of the desk itself was a scattered pile of coffee stained worksheets, a pot of paperclips and a battered old typewriter that had definitely seen better days. Ink was even leaking out of the bottom of it, staining a folder that had been placed next to it.
Sherry went and clambered on top of the chest, the top of which sunk in slightly from her weight. Leaning back against the wall, she sighed woefully. She really didn't know what to do with herself. Where should she go next? That was something she couldn't figure. All she seemed to be doing was hanging around, sleeping and listening to the horror echo around in a growing crescendo.
The monsters were coming for her, and it felt like only a matter of time before her life expired.
She was so used to be alone, but right now, she wanted to cling to someone. Feel their warmth and the beat of their heart. If anything, she didn't want to die alone.
"Mom, where are you?" She softly called out into the silent room, listening to her own voice bounce back at her hollowly.
Just as the room fell silent again, a rumbling voice seemed to call out, shattering the temporary hush. She was startled, not simply by the animalistic roar, but by the voice that followed it. It called out a name.
Her name.
She jumped up to her feet, sweat budding in the palms of her hands. No it can't b-
Again, it echoed behind that terrible roar. "SHERRRRRYYYYY!"
She knew she wasn't crazy. It was there, a human voice being swallowed by something beastly. It sounded much like her father's voice. She was sure of it. No obscurity could convince her otherwise.
He was in pain - such terrible pain. He needed her help.
"Daddy!" She called out, rushing for the door. She pressed against it, listening. The roars continued distantly; angry, pained, sorrowful… But his call was no longer present. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn't just stand by and let something terrible happen to him.
She rushed out the room. The corridor just beyond the stairs was silent. It seemed like nobody was around. But where did the sound come from?
Something large lurched passed by the window at the bottom of the hallway. She quickly jumped under the stairs out of sight. Cautiously, she peaked out, trying her best to remain unseen.
The thing's arm was huge, like a gnarled tree trunk. It was grotesque, the flesh like leather torn from a slaughtered bull. She'd seen something similar before, but it was hard to recall.
At the shoulder, the flesh suddenly split. From within, a bulbous yellow eye emerged. The pulsating orb looked from left to right through the window. The focus finally fell in her direction. She shot back behind the stairs, pinning herself against the wooden support.
Was this the creature after her father? What had it done with him? What was it doing at the station? Her heart pounded as she hid, frightened to move in case it caught sight of her. Long minutes passed in silence before she finally bucked up the courage to look back out towards the window.
The creature was gone.
Mouth dry, she slowly stepped out, eyes glued to the dark pane. There were no more roars, nor were their cries of her name. Swallowing back her fear, she took one tentative step at a time as she approached the dirty glass. With the hall illuminated quite brightly, she found it difficult to see much beyond the dark blanket of the outside world. As she stepped up to the ledge, she just about managed to make out shrubbery and a metal fence around the perimeter. But no monster. It had vanished into thin air.
She pressed her hand to the cold pane, staring out into the heavy night. Frightened but determined, she tried to seek out the creature - to see where it had gone, and more importantly, to see if she could see her father.
The closest of two doors down the left end the 'T' shaped corridor suddenly burst open. It banged against the wall, making Sherry jump back from the window. She tripped and fell on her rear.
Zombies were suddenly piling through in hordes. But not without reason. Their flailing arms were following a woman as she barrelled into the hallway. As her back hit the wall, she rose the gun in her hands and fired off round after round into the shambling hulks behind her. The woman was dressed modestly in a red mini-dress over a pair of dark leggings. Her obsidian-black hair was cut short, frame around her delicate but resolute face. As she back up down the corridor towards Sherry, she turned and finally noticed her as she scrambled to her feet. The gun trained on Sherry.
The woman had distinctive Chinese features - Sherry assumed she was Chinese anyway, not that it particularly mattered, it just mostly struck her how beautiful the woman was. But the woman's wide, shocked expression snapped the young woman back to the situation away from the surprise of seeing another living person. That and having a gun pointed at her.
"RUN! GET OUT OF HERE!" She shouted at Sherry, turning back toward the zombies hordes and opening fire again.
As the blood sprayed the walls, Sherry made her get away, heeding the woman's words. She wished they could have stuck together, but she would have been more of a hindrance then a help. With one last look towards the battle scene, she bolted up the nearby stairs, putting it all behind her. Only the harsh, resonating gunfire trailed after her, swallowing the pitiful moans.
She rushed up to the second floor and made a dash for the closest door. The brass handle on it was broken, but the base of it was torn away, making a hole big enough for her to fit through. She scrambled onto her hands and knees, squeezing herself through and diving into a cleaning cupboard to her right, hiding behind the mops and brooms.
The gunfire had stopped. Silence once again returned. For a long time there was nothing. There were no footsteps. No voices. No nothing. The woman didn't come to her.
Sherry was still alone.