David lay on the table, wounded and injured with his gruff hands clutching the side of his wound. Blood was staining his yellow outfit and Yoko stared worriedly.
A herb case was sprawled out on the floor as Cindy ravaged through it, looking for her bandage and any herbs that would be of use. Mark stood by the door stoically on the look out for any dangerous foes.
Oh how she wished George hadn't gone with the others. He was a trained surgeon, a good doctor and definitely a medical expert. She wasn't even a nurse, wasn't even a medical student. Cindy was a waitress with a desire to help people and an interest in nursing and slight knowledge on herbs and the strange healing power they have in Raccoon City.
"Can you help him?" Yoko asked quietly, almost a whisper as David tossed and turned in his unconscious state, the wound aggravating and disturbing him. His body growing weaker and sweatier by the second.
Cindy didn't answer right away, merely pulling out a few green and red herbs and then stopping again before pulling out a blue herb. She didn't know what that massive flea did to David and she wasn't sure if it was poisonous or gave him internal bleeding as well as external bleeding.
Confidence was what she needed and it's Mark's impatient looking back and forth and Yoko's constant worrying, she was losing it quite quickly. The group relied on her to be their medic as well as George. But she was the back-up, a quick patch you up.
"I'm sure I'll be able to Yoko. David is a survivor, he'll pull through. He won't let something like a massive flea bring him down, not after he's taking down an infected elephant and lion of all things."
Yoko merely nodded her head and looked back at David, Cindy was sure there as some kind of romance going on with the two of them. The young student and the plumber who disliked everyone were generally always sticking together.
After David started to shake again, Cindy knew she needed to start acting quicker. Taking a deep breath, she mixed the three herbs together. Green helped heal most kinds of wounds, blue was a good cure of most kinds of poison and venom and red amplified the effects of both despite being useless on its on. And the bandage would prevent external bleeding.
Applying the concoction to David's side, rubbing it in and then covering it with the bandage. Cindy was shocked to find it worked almost instantly as David seemed to calm down and relax, his body breathing at a much better, normal pace and his face also relaxed, well as much as his permanent look of disdain could.
A smile was on her face, she had done the job that the group was relying on her to do. As Kevin constantly reminded her, she just needed to be confident and she could achieve. Now more determined than ever, she would put her skills to use and help her group survive and get out of this awful outbreak.
The shotgun strapped to her back, the handgun in her hands as Cindy walked purposefully to her destination. She was certain the vet would have some kind of serum that she could use to heal Carlos from his wounds. That man, as flirtatious and Kevin-like he was, had saved her and she needed to repay that. She would repay that.
Zombies shambled around her, she ducked and avoided some knowing that taking them out would draw unwanted attention to herself. The zombie dogs and crows that ran and flew around were distracting and worrying, not to mention the rare licker that she saw every now and then.
She crept forwards, hands along the wall as the Vet grew closer and closer. But someone dressed in white, red and blue in the far along distance caught her attention. Gunshots rang out as the other blonde took out a zombie.
Cindy knew who it was, it was her cousin, Elza Walker. Her eyes lit up, finally she had found her again and this time she would make would get to her. Moving her steps along more hurriedly, get Elza, save Carlos.
"EL-" Nothing else would come out as a zombie dog tackled her down, knocking her handgun out the way as the distant Elza grew out of sight. Cindy's heart skipped a beat, not only for herself but also for her cousin Elza, for there was a pair of lickers slowly stalking after her.
Cindy reached for the handgun that she had dropped, screaming out when the dog took a bite of her arm. Screaming as she wrestled with the animal, teeth sinking deep and blood spurting from the wound.
Arm reaching for the herb as face winced in pain, the shotgun couldn't be reached if she was laying on it and with the dog tearing her wrist apart, the handgun was unattainable.
Oh God, help her please. Screams, fingers moving, arm wrestling and the dog trying to rip off her hand. It was unpleasant to say the least, Cindy liked to be optimistic. But the glass was tipped over, draining from half full to completely empty.
SWISH!
The case swung and knocked the dog off her as Cindy rolled over to her hands and feet, quickly grabbing the shotgun. The dog tackled her again but this she held onto the gun, laying on her back as the dog pounced again.
Aiming for her throat, firing quickly and trying to ignore the pain from the recoil, the dog was knocked flying from the air and whimpered on the ground before succumbing to the shot.
"Meanie." Cindy muttered, blood staining her outfit as she opened her trusty herb case. Quickly and efficiently patching up her wound, she grabbed her handgun and started on her way to the vet.
Albeit with more a limp this time and a growing sense of dread. She wasn't worried about being infected, she'd seen Jim get bitten by a zombie dog and not transform. She was worried about being strong enough to make it on her own to Carlos and was worried for Elza.
So close yet so far. These things had to stop happening, the more they happened the more her chances of survival decreased. Her wrist already hurt, throbbing and aching. She knew she was extremely lucky the dog didn't get her throat.
An image of a bloody Cindy sprawled out on the floor with no throat made it's way into her mind. Corpses of those kind weren't anything new to her, after all her dear friend Will had been one of them.
The rest of the trip to was somewhat eventful, a trio of zombies, some of which she recognised, had been in her way but she was prepared this time.
"Finally." She gasped, making it to the vet, much to her surprise and pleasure. It was empty, bar for a half eaten man sprawled on the front desk.
"I'm sorry this happened to you." She muttered, giving the man a moment of silence as she scavenged through the books. Finding a sea snake that looked like the one that attacked Carlos and what serum to prepare to hadn't been a hard task.
Most of the ingredients were there, Cindy started preparing the anti-venom, hoping that it would still heal Carlos. She was too absorbed to notice the man had gotten off the table and was slowly creeping towards her.
A noise, a distraction, or perhaps a figment of the imagination. Cindy wasn't sure but she couldn't take her eyes off the serum. There was only a limited amount of chemicals, herbs and medicine available and she couldn't afford to mess it up.
Tasty. A louder noise. Did the door just open? Cindy turned around to investigate. The man wasn't there on the table anymore, so where was he?
A hissing noise as a little ball of fur and blood sprung at Cindy. A cat, she ducked in time, ducking was a skill she had perfected since Raccoon. But she didn't look at the zombie crawling towards her ankle.
"I donate regularly to all these animal charities, how come it's always them that attack me?" She asked as she pointed the shotgun at the hissing zombified cat.
Before she could get a good aim, something wet and slimy grabbed a hold of her leg. She screamed and tried to yank her foot away. So that was where that man went to, oh god he had no legs.
Just as she was about to shoot him, the cat pounced onto her shoulder and she had to start prying it off with her arms. But she couldn't forget about her leg. God please have mercy on her, pain in wrist as she tried to use her good arm to pry off the cat. But to no avail, both the cat and man were gaining momentum.
Yellow and black teeth moved closer to her ankle. Cindy felt tears come from her eyes as she made a prayer for her last moments.
"Sorry, Carlos, I failed and let you down in your moment of need. Oh Jim, I should of listened to you earlier and not been so ignorant. Elza, please make it out for me, I tried my best. Kevin, I should of taken you up on your offer and moved with you. I was just foolish and shy. God, I'm sorry for letting you down by not believing anymore."
A flash of white blinded and disoriented her. Bang. Bang. Blood splattered over her face and the clicking of high heels was heard.
What a weird heaven, Cindy briefly thought before a familiar voice chuckled. Opening her eyes to find the mysterious Ada, Cindy was relieved.
"We have to stop meeting like this. I can't afford to many stops." Ada chuckled as Cindy immediately thanked her before checking on the serum she concocted. Relieved, not only as she had survived but the serum had too.
"Take this." Ada offered out the grenade launcher. "You look like you're struggling and I don't really need this. After all, I've got what I've needed."
Cindy attempted to turn it down, not wanting to leave Ada without a weapon but the woman merely threw the grenade launcher and was on her way out again.
"You're a pretty lady Cindy, I'm sure there's a man waiting on you. Try to make it back in one piece, I won't be there to rescue you all the time." Ada smiled coyly before exiting the door and was immediately gone even after Cindy followed her out.
Cindy knew she needed to be tougher. Carlos and Ada have saved her many times, she couldn't let herself fail in saving Carlos. And as Ada said, Carlos was waiting for her, she had to hurry back to him.
She was much tougher than last time, feeling inspired by Ada as she gunned down even a few lickers on her way. No animals had got the jump on her so that was a relief, no zombie had crept up and even though her hand was burning, she was toughing it out.
"Oh Carlos," she gasped as she opened the door to the room she locked him in. He looked awful, pale, bordering between death and living. She had to act quickly as she injected the serum. It had to work, it just had to.
Miraculously, within mere moments. His skin returned to it's normal, tanner colour and he even woke up. "I knew you'd come through for me Chica."
Cindy gave him back his shotgun and caught him up on what she went though, giving him one of her herbs to give him a boost of energy.
"That building, you were right, I think it's where we need to go. But that snake, it almost killed you. And with that water, we can't see it."
"Cindy, we're prepared this time for it. If we can lure it out of the water, it'll be exposed and then you can blast it with that grenade launcher and we'll be able to go into that building."
Cindy merely nodded, eyes looking at the bandage on her wrist and the bandages wrapped around Carlos' leg. "Even so, I think you should rest for a while."
Carlos looked away before smiling and standing. "We can't afford to rest, they nuked Raccoon. Once they hear about this, they'll nuke it too. It's smaller than Raccoon so it won't attract any attention."
He offered out a hand to Cindy, as she hesitantly took it. "We'll be able to make it through Chica. You've saved me, I've saved you. To me, we make quite a great time. Not quite as good as Jill and I, but good."
And together, with Carlos' shotgun at the ready and Cindy awkwardly heaving the large grenade launcher, they walked to wear the giant sea snake rested.
As a team they would be able to defeat it. But as Cindy had learned from the last outbreak. Teamwork wasn't always enough to save you. Eight people watched Will die, not one of those eight were able to save him.
The snake swam, it's tongue flickered out and it poked it's head out of the water. Starving eyes on the pair as it watched them walk towards the water slowly. It had been a few hours since it's last meal, it was hunger, it was wild and it was mad.
"Are you ready for this Chica?" "This isn't the first giant animal I've beaten before. A snake can't be any more dangerous than an elephant or a lion."
A small red line full of hard scales, unnoticed by the pair, snaked and slithered it's way around one of their legs. They were prepared but so was the snake.
