A/N:

NeuroticBanana: Please enjoy and thank you so much for the reviews so far! We do very much enjoy getting them. Makes us happy to keep going! Have a fun read as things are about to get a little intense!

Avogadro602: Hope you like the chapter!

Disclaimer: We couldn't handle the Resident Evil Fandom, so we gave it to Capcom. True Story. In other news, that was a lie.

Cover Art was done by LoneWolf117 from deviantart.

Chapter 10:

Highly Flammable

Leon had never been a big fan of dark stairwells; they always seemed to carry something unpleasant with them. It was one thing to face a well-lit set of stairs; it was an entirely different story to face one in a shroud of darkness. Despite all he'd been through, he could still be a victim to fear.

The door to the stairwell had been bulky and reinforced, designed to keep intruders out, or keep whatever was inside locked up tight. Leon shuddered at that thought and pressed forward, on into the blackness of the empty stairwell. As the heavy door had slammed shut behind him, Leon flipped on the headlight that he always brought with him on assignments. The light illuminated concrete stairs and a red handrail. Leon felt a chill run through him as he touched his hand to the icy cool metal. Slowly he began his descent down the stairs.

It was eerily quiet in the corridor—the only sound echoing in Leon's ears were his own footfalls. Despite the light shining brightly from behind one of his ears, there were many shadows that remained, making him jumpy. He kept thinking he was seeing things just at the periphery of his vision; sinister things. He was so distracted and skittish that when he finally reached the end of the stairwell, he nearly ran into the door.

"Jesus," Leon murmured to himself while taking deep breaths to help slow his rapidly beating heart. After a few calming breaths, Leon finally glanced up at the door to the sub-basement. It was just like the heavy metal door that had led to the stairwell: thick and reinforced.

A large white sign with bold red lettering was posted onto the door.

SUB-BASEMENT LEVEL

AUTHORIZED PERSONNNEL ONLY

CREDENTIALS REQUIRED

KEY CODE ENTRY REQUIRED

Leon read the sign with mild interest; he'd suspected as much for a facility that was assumedly doing fairly serious biohazard testing. As Leon's hand nearly sealed over the handle to the door he took note of the security key pad next to it. He leaned closer to the key pad and examined it. Cautiously, Leon poked a finger into one of the soft keys to see if anything happened. But the key pad showed no signs of life and for all intents and purposes seemed utterly dead. Not for the first time Leon wondered who else had been in this facility other than himself. He knew Ada had been here but he had his doubts about her being the one to hack into the sub-basement; but then again, one could never be sure of anything with a woman like that.

Backing away from the key pad, Leon looked back to the door and took hold of the door handle, taking mild comfort in the cool metal in his hand. Who knew what lied beyond the safety of this door. Leon warily opened the door to what awaited beyond.

Utter darkness greeted Leon. The only bit of light came from his overhead lamp, and that didn't illuminate much. Leon swallowed and took a step forward into the blackness.

Lights abruptly flickered on, making Leon tense in surprise. He blinked at the sudden brightness and slowly looked around the room he was now standing in. He was at the end of a fairly short hallway with two banks of elevators on his left. The walls were a dull gray in color and the floor was an incredibly shiny white, as if they had recently been waxed and buffed. There were no pictures adorning the walls or any such nonsense; obviously this part of Panacea was strictly for science.

Leon took a few tentative steps further into the hall and was relieved to see more lights flicker on, apparently responding to his movement. He could make out a large white desk with dead computer monitors on it vaguely reminiscent to a security station. A bolded silver lettering on the desk read, SECURITY. Leon moved forward with more purpose now that he could see the desk. As he drew closer he saw vacant chairs at the desk and a thick metal door at the back of the wall behind the security counter. Leon moved forward toward the door but a small corridor to the side of the security desk caught his eye and made him stop.

A pair of double doors sat square in the middle of the corridor with AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY etched into the paint in bright red letters. Leon had a feeling that those doors would lead him further into the facility and likely into whatever labs Panacea had been testing in.

Save that for a little later, Leon thought to himself and moved back over to the desk. As he walked around the side of the counter to gain access to the computers and chairs, Leon stopped dead in his tracks when his eyes landed on what stained the floor.

There on the desk's surface, the chairs, and in a large quantity outside the door on the back wall were blood stains. Leon took note of blood splatters on the computer monitors as well. Slowly he moved forward to examine the ugly stains more closely.

He recognized the red spatter on the counter and monitors. They came from bullet wounds. However, the stains on the chairs and floor were a deeper set of red as the blood had collected there from the victim's motionless body. There was something a little bit off about the blood on the floor around the chairs and the blood at the door. Leon suddenly realized what it was; they were drag marks. Someone had dragged bleeding bodies from the chair to the room behind the desk.

After this realization Leon automatically pulled out his gun and approached the metal door against the back wall. He opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it and instead took hold of the door handle and turned. To his surprise however, the door did not open; it was locked. Leon tried again only to face the same result. He stepped back from the door and shook his head in confusion. There were bodies behind that door, he was certain of it, but whoever or whatever had put them there had also locked the door.

For a moment Leon considered trying to break down the door but decided against it due to the door's heavy, reinforced construction. Turning away from the security station, Leon moved down the opposite end of the hall. His search revealed a little sitting area at the end of the hallway and much to his relief, no more blood.

At last Leon returned to the security station and stared down the double doors. He had a sinking feeling that whatever he found in the depths of the sub-basement would not be pleasant. There were no peek holes in the double doors so Leon had no clue what awaited beyond. With a deep breath, Leon slowly pushed open the door and stepped through.

Again lights flickered on and illuminated Leon's path, except this time not all the lights came on. A few of the overhead lights were blinking sporadically as if they were having a hard time getting enough power. Some of them failed to turn on all together. Leon sighed and pressed forward, hoping that he wouldn't run into more power problems farther along.

Leon walked along a fairly straight forward hallway with the same gray walls and shiny white floors. There was no blood to be seen. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, save the eerie quiet. Again, the only sounds to be heard through the empty hallway were his own footfalls and the unnatural silence that followed. Leon expected to hear the hum of machinery or the whir of overhead air coming on, but there was nothing; nothing but the unnerving stillness of the hall.

As Leon kept walking he caught sight of a sign not too far ahead of him on the wall. Leon picked up his pace so that he could more easily make out the writing on the sign. As he grew closer Leon realized that he'd come to a crossroads in the hall. He could continue going forward or head left or right. The sign Leon had spotted earlier was indicating what lay ahead and read:

LABS 1-7

The idea of heading toward the labs made Leon uneasy. He'd seen what unspeakable things could come out of labs like this. The path to the left and right also had signs indicating where they led.

The sign on the left read:

PROFESSIONAL OFFICES & CONFERENCE ROOMS A & B

The sign on the right read:

LABS 8-14

With little hesitation Leon turned to the left and headed down the hall that would take him to the professional offices and conference rooms. The thought of heading toward the labs unnerved him. It reminded him far too much of Raccoon City and the horrors he'd been witness to.

This hallway was much of the same with gray walls and white floors. Lights continued to flicker on as he moved down the hall, ever aware of his loud footsteps in an otherwise dead quiet hall. There were various doors on either side of the corridor. Judging by the nameplates on them, Leon guessed these were the professional offices. He'd tried a few of the doorknobs but had been disappointed to discover that they all appeared locked.

Leon was fairly certain he was reaching the end of the hall when he noticed a dark stain marring the otherwise spotless white floors. Cautiously, Leon continued forward feeling anxiety mount in his stomach as he drew closer to the ugly stain. When he was close enough, the lights flickered on at his movement and allowed him to see the blemished surface, confirming his earlier suspicions that it was indeed blood.

Swallowing down his unease, Leon looked up at the door that loomed over the dried crimson stain. There was a little sign next to the door that identified it as 'Conference Room A'. Leon stepped forward, avoiding the large pool of dried blood, and peeked in the little peep hole in the door. It was dark in the room which made it impossible for Leon to make out anything. Leon waited quietly for a moment to listen for any noises coming from within, but heard nothing. Tentatively, Leon rapped his knuckles against the door. He hated the echoing sound his knuckles seemed to make against the wooden surface. There was no response to his knock but he'd expected that, so Leon gingerly took hold of the doorknob and turned. Much to his surprise, it opened.

He stood at the threshold of the door, the sinister secrets of this room just begging to be discovered. Leon stepped into the room and blinked as one or two of the overhead lights flipped on. What Leon saw as the lights came on made his mouth fall open in shock.

There was a large wooden table in the center of the room with what looked like a projector in the center. Several chairs were stationed around the table and several people were clearly visible in these chairs. However, it was not the discovery of people that brought Leon's shocked stare; it was the cold blooded execution style bullet wounds in their heads.

Four of the six chairs were occupied by well-dressed business men that Leon naturally would assume were CEO types. And every single one of them had a bullet hole in their head, their brains splattered on the wall. The two unoccupied chairs also had quite a bit of blood on them. A bloodied body was slumped next to one. It was a woman, her blonde hair stained red from the bullet wound in her head. While the sixth chair was covered in blood, it sat empty; a trail of blood led from the chair to the door.

The pool he'd seen outside the door was likely from whoever had been seated in that chair. He quickly filed away that information and turned back toward the table. In front of every one of the corpses were white folders. Leon grabbed a folder with the least amount of blood and gore on it and flipped it open. He briefly skimmed over the contents and found little of it to be noteworthy except for one passage.

In light of Dr. Redfern's continued absence, we are currently in the process of appointing a new head researcher. It is our sincere hope that we can continue his work despite his absence. While Dr. Redfern's disappearance is unfortunate, it solidifies the decision that we need to break away from our current benefactor. As you know, Dr. Redfern had had many disagreements with some of the benefactor's terms. Now that we are aware of these terms we also have taken Dr. Redferns stance; quality is our guarantee. We are happy to announce that we are in talks to take on a new benefactor, one that will encourage quality work and productivity.

Feeling puzzled and more than a little alarmed, Leon followed the blood trail out of Conference Room A. The trail led across the hall to Conference Room B. Whoever had been shot had been bleeding quite a bit and must've stopped just outside the other door because there was a larger pool there. Leon opened the door and stepped inside expecting a similar blood bath to Conference Room A to greet him. To his relief, he only found one body in Conference Room B. It was a balding man who obviously was another executive based on his fancy suit. Unlike the people in Conference Room A though, this man had not been shot in the head. He'd received a total of three gun show wounds as far as Leon could tell; one to his left shoulder, another to the right chest, and the last one in his gut. In death the man's face had frozen in a permanent frown, his hands clenched into tight fists as if he were ready to throw punches even in the afterlife.

After searching around the rest of the room and finding nothing of interest, Leon left the Conference Room and headed down toward the end of the hallway. There was a little break room at the end and Leon made the grisly discovery of three deceased security guards slouched in their chairs, bloody bullet wounds in their heads. Judging by their relaxed posture they had not seen their attacker coming, or they had known him. Leon felt the hairs on the back of his neck rise at that thought.

Felix is running around here somewhere. I would not want to run into him in the dark down here, Leon thought to himself and left the break room in a rush. He felt mildly panicky as he scuttled down the hall. He kept thinking he saw things in the shadows or hiding in the darkness ahead of him just before the lights would flicker on. Ada's here too…she'd help me if something happened, wouldn't she? The answer that formed in his head disturbed him. What have I gotten into myself into?

Finally Leon reached the crossroads again and decided he'd do a quick sweep of Labs 1-7. Though he was fairly certain that whatever he found there wouldn't be pleasant or something he'd easily forget.

Moving as swiftly as he could, Leon made his way down the hall and quickly came to the first lab. It had a nameplate on the side that simply labeled it as 'one'. Plastered all over the door in bright red was 'Biohazard Level 3: Caution Advised'. Leon felt his stomach flip flop at the thought of what exactly Panacea was testing on. There was a small square peek hole in the metal, airtight door that Leon could see into. Unlike the offices that Leon had run into that had been dark, this lab appeared to be well lit and allowed Leon to see into it. He could make out what looked like an anteroom that connected to what was likely a decontamination room. Beyond that lay the official lab. Both the door to the decontamination room and the lab itself were thick, bulky, airtight doors.

Leon tried the turn handle on the intimidating door and was surprised when he felt it give. He knew there was a risk of contagion but from what he could tell through the peek hole the antechamber was clean and the decontamination room intact. Leon pulled the door open and quickly slipped inside.

Once inside Leon took notice of the large pane of glass that separated the anteroom from the lab room allowing for observation from the safety of a clean room. There was a closet to the side with several biohazard suits hanging on it. Leon ignored them and moved toward the glass to see into the lab.

The first thing he noticed was the stark whiteness of the room before him; the lights were unpleasant to his eyes even though he wasn't actually in the lab and only viewing them. The second thing he noticed was the line of rat cages. He couldn't see any movement in any of the pens and thought he saw just a hint of something red staining the steel bars of one of the cages. The last thing Leon noticed was the crumpled body at the foot of the door to decontamination. After he'd taken note of the body Leon finally saw the blood, all the blood.

Leon had to blink as he took in the gruesome sight before him. Most of the lower part of the door to decontamination was stained red with blood splatters or bloody hand prints. The man was crumpled onto his stomach with his hands outstretched toward the door. Judging by the hand print patterns it looked as if the crumpled man had been clawing at the door, willing it to open. The man's hands were so stained with blood Leon could hardly make out individual fingers. Leon could see that the man was half in and half out of a biohazard suit, his upper body completely free of the suit. There was a dark, almost black pool of fluid around the man's head. Perhaps vomit? Blood covered the back of the man's shirt and dotted the bottom half of his hazard suit; it coiled upwards on the wall and splashed in rivulets on the floor.

On one side of the lab it was clean and sterile; white and untouched. But the other side of the room, the side with the body and the door, was a blood bath. It was like something out of a horror movie and made Leon feel vaguely nauseated. Slowly Leon stepped away from the glass and looked around the anteroom for something that would clue him in to what exactly they'd been experimenting with.

After a thorough search of the room that revealed nothing, Leon eagerly left . He didn't dare enter the decontamination room let alone the lab itself. After exiting Lab 1, Leon made his way down the hall until he came across Lab 2. The door looked mostly the same as Lab 1's had except when Leon peeked in the little square window it was dark inside. Leon shined his head light in through the glass window and into the antechamber. He couldn't see much inside but as he continued to shine the light around, his eyes caught a flicker of movement from within the room.

Leon directed the light in the direction of the movement. He caught sight of something long, tubular, and flesh colored that was moving away from his light. Leon darted the light farther up the tubular flesh colored thing and realized it was a tail—it was a rat, just a rat. Leon breathed a sigh of relief until he saw what the rat had in its mouth; the rat was gnawing on an outstretched human finger. Leon panned the light up along the finger to reveal a hand and then an arm and then a face—a horribly contorted pained face. The eyes were bugged out as if the person had been deprived of oxygen, the lips swollen and deformed, blood dried and caked around the nose. Leon couldn't even tell if it was male or female. He quickly pulled away from the door after that discovery and continued on toward Lab 3.

What happened here? Leon thought to himself as he investigated Lab 3. As Leon poked around the peek hole he thought he heard some kind of shuffling sound from within but dismissed it as nerves. This place was pretty creepy after all. Just as he was about to turn the handle to enter the antechamber, Leon heard the same shuffling sound and decided then that it was not nerves that were getting to him.

Pressing his face close to the glass of the window, Leon gazed around the anteroom as best he could. Then he saw it; there inside the lab was a rhesus monkey shuffling around the room. It wasn't the monkey though that made Leon's heart skip several beats, it was the bloated gray face of a human staring back at him from the other side of the window of the lab. Leon had initially thought it was just another body but the eyes had blinked and Leon swore he heard a faint moan from beyond the door. The person looked nearly dead and certainly wasn't going anywhere very quickly. Leon stared at the man in the lab and gulped as he slowly rose from his slouched position to a standing one. He shuffled toward the glass window of the lab and weakly started hitting it and moaning as if in pain. Leon couldn't tell if he was actually forming words or just moaning but the look in his eyes made the hair on his arms stand straight up. The expression was vacant; hollow as if he were looking at a shell. It was vaguely reminiscent of the undead he'd encountered over the years.

Leon scooted backwards from the door and moved away from Lab 3. He took a few panicked breaths before he was able to continue down the hall. Why he pressed on he wasn't sure. It was obvious something terrible had happened here, someone had infected the researchers and locked them in their labs and killed the CEOs execution style. He had more than enough evidence to report back with. Leon felt fairly certain that whatever he found in the following labs would be equally as unpleasant as the previous three he'd investigated.

The investigation of Lab 4 revealed little and relieved Leon's nerves just a bit since there had been no corpses or half dead people or blood. He left that room feeling a little bit better. Labs 5, 6, and 7 all contained dead, bloodied bodies much like Lab 1. These labs also had caged rhesus monkeys in them, the majority of which were also dead and bloody looking. Leon couldn't help but feel sorry for the little critters. Poor guys always seemed to get the short end of the stick.

After investigating Labs 1-7 Leon had made his way back to the beginning of the hall to search the hallway containing Labs 8-14. It was essentially the same as all the others, the only difference being that written on the wall in bold letters every few feet was, 'BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4: EXTREME CAUTION ADVISED'. That filled Leon with trepidation. Whatever they'd been experimenting on in these labs was more dangerous than what Leon had already seen. That did not bode well.

Leon approached Lab 8 and peeked into the window in the door. The antechamber was well lit and the decontamination room appeared intact and clean. Leon looked to the lab and was surprised to see that it was dark inside the lab as if only those lights had been shut off. Leon tentatively panned his light into the lab and saw nothing in his sweep. He felt a pull to enter this particular lab as if there was something he needed to see. Leon's hand closed over the door handle and he slipped inside quietly.

The anteroom was quiet just like every other room he'd been in; he could hear nothing except the beating of his own heart. Leon turned toward the lab window and shined his light inside. He panned the light to the left and halted as his light fell upon a young woman slouched in the corner. Leon stepped closer to the window to get a better look at her.

She was young, probably early twenties, most likely fresh out of college. Unlike all the other corpses Leon had come across, she was relatively clean. There was a stain of red down the front of her shirt as if she'd had a particularly bad bloody nose that had run down her front. She wasn't in a biohazard suit and in fact was clothed completely in street clothing. Leon wondered if she'd perhaps removed her biohazard suit when she'd realized she was dying. He took in the short brown hair, petite little frame and felt and overwhelming sense of pity. This girl was just beginning her life only to have it brutally snuffed out…

The twitch of her finger made Leon jump and step away from the glass. He panned his light up toward her face and with some horror realized she'd actually opened her eyes and was looking toward him. Unlike the other semi alive person he'd encountered, this girl had some semblance of a soul left in her eyes although they were horribly blood shot. He watched in alarm as the girl slowly rose from her crumpled sitting position and stood up. Once she was standing she took several deep breaths as if she had just run a marathon and desperately needed to catch her breath. With very shaky legs, the girl stumbled toward the glass window; toward him.

Startled, Leon backed away from the window. The girl continued to stumble forward toward the window. As Leon moved backwards he bumped into the wall behind him and ran into a light switch that apparently controlled the lights in the lab. The lab was suddenly bathed in light and Leon heard the girl scream as they came on. Leon blinked at the now well lit room and at the girl who'd stumbled against the glass window and leaned against it for support. He was also able to take in the rest of the labs surroundings.

There was a discarded biohazard suit in the opposite corner of where the girl had been sitting. Leon noted that there was quite a bit of blood on the suit. There were also several bloody handprints on the decontamination door. A few rhesus monkeys lay dead in their cages. Leon's gaze was drawn back to the girl pressed against the glass. This close Leon could make out more details on her face; he could see bruising around her eyes and cuts and scratches as if she'd been itching her face with too much force. Leon also realized that she looked incredibly sweaty like she was running a high fever.

"C-c-come…to fin-finish the the…job?" She stuttered her voice dry and weak. Leon raised an eyebrow and realized that this was probably the only opportunity he was going to get to find out what had happened here. He might even be able to save this girl.

With renewed energy, Leon boldly stepped forward to the glass window and eyed the girl carefully. Just as he was about to speak though, the girl abruptly bent over and retched. At first she just dry heaved but then she did actually vomit, except it wasn't food that came up or even stomach juices, it was reddish black fluid. Leon watched in disgust as the inky fluid spilled onto the floor and the girl's feet. She took in a few ragged breaths and then straightened out slightly.

"This i-isn't en-enough?" She snarled and gestured around the lab.

Forever the knight in shining armor, Leon said, "It's okay, I'm here to help you. Just tell me what happened here and I can get you some help."

Much to his surprise, the girl laughed, a bitter and angry sound. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him. "R-r-really? Why tease w-w-wh-when you know you c-can't?" She appeared to be having great difficulty speaking as if her throat had swollen shut.

"I'm here to help you. I want to help you," Leon said softly and did his best to look non-threatening. He realized he was still holding his gun and quickly holstered it. She watched him do this but her angry expression didn't change.

"Fucking Red-f-fern, dam—dammed theories…f-fuck, m-my head," the girl mumbled and lowered her head into her hands. She whimpered then, sad and pathetic. It was a sound that made Leon's heart sick. He could hear her sniffling and expected to see the soft fall of tears but was disturbed to see little rivulets of red flow down from her eyes. Leon stared, horrified. What happened here? What have they done to these people?

"Just tell me what happened," Leon urged and hoped the soothing tone of his voice would calm the crying girl.

However, it seemed to have the opposite effect. The girl abruptly dropped her hands from her face and looked up to meet him. The intelligence in her eyes was gone and had been replaced by a madness that Leon had seen only once before in his life when he'd been a child and had looked into the eyes of a rabid dog. The girl growled and started banging on the glass. She screamed incoherently at him and Leon backed up for fear of the glass breaking (though he knew that was unlikely).

Just as quickly as her mood change had started however, she changed back to crying and whimpering and lowered her head back to her hands. Leon could hear her mumbling softly to herself.

"N-not yet…gotta stay here a l-little longer."

Slowly the girl raised her head and met Leon's gaze again. The wild look had vanished and the intelligence in her eyes had returned.

"D-don't know…don't don't know how, but it was sabo—sabuh—saboo," she stopped as she struggled with the word, "it was from w-within. No one gets to leave alive."

Leon felt his stomach flip flop with dread. Was this girl talking sense or was she just rambling whatever came into her head?

The girl slowly raised her right hand up to the glass and pressed it against it. Leon saw dried blood caked into the creases in her hands. He didn't know why but he felt inclined to offer up his hand to hers against the glass. The girl glanced at their hands separated only by the glass and squeezed out a few more bloody tears as she looked at him.

"N-need to leave. Run. G-g-go. Leave or you'll d- die too," the girl said softly. Leon shook his head in response.

"Let me help—"

"GO! RUN!" The girl abruptly screamed and hit the glass again. Leon jumped and backed away from the window and moved toward the door. He spared on glance back to the girl only to watch her leaning against the glass window again and sliding down it.

Leon turned the handle to the door and slid back out into the hallway. Once the door was closed behind him he felt an overwhelming urge to leave this particular hall—hell to leave the entire sub-basement.

Fuck Felix, Leon thought to himself as he half ran down the hall and toward the double doors leading to the security station. Once Leon reached the double doors he practically kicked the doors open and stumbled into the security desk. He felt claustrophobic suddenly in this dark, creepy basement with unspeakable terrors. His head was spinning and Leon took a few deep breaths to calm his mind. After a few minutes of deep breathing Leon looked down the hallway toward the stairwell and the elevators. He wanted to get out of here.

Just as he took a step forward to head toward the stairwell he stopped as he remembered the locked door behind the desk. Leon slowly turned his head and eyed the door carefully. He decided he'd give it another try. Leon strode over to the door and took hold of the door handle, all the while telling himself that it didn't matter. The door would be locked anyway and then he could be well on his way to fresh air and sunlight.

However, the door clicked and swung open. Leon watched open mouthed as the room revealed its contents to him. The source of the blood became apparent rather quickly once Leon spotted four dead security officers slumped on the floor of the room. Someone had killed these men and then quietly stashed them in their security room and locked the door.

Leon automatically took his pistol back out and stepped into the little room. The room had been locked earlier; he was certain of it. Someone or something had unlocked the door in the time he'd been away, which meant he wasn't alone.

Just like everywhere else in the basement, the room was dead quiet. There were however, working computers and TV monitors. Leon realized that this was a security footage station. This was a lucky find. He quietly closed the door behind him; he didn't want unspeakable things sneaking up on him while he was in this little security room of death.

Leon eyed the monitors carefully; there were eight in all, and all seemed to cover different locations. Leon saw the parking lot on one monitor, the sub-basement hallways on another, the conference rooms, etc. One of the monitors was turned off though. Leon frowned at the perplexing situation. Was it simply malfunctioning or had someone tampered with it? Leon touched a power button on the monitor and held his breath. The monitor flickered to life. Leon smiled at first but felt it fall right off his face as he took in the image on the monitor.

It was the one area he hadn't been; the one area Ada had told him was the Panic Room; the one area the majority of the employees had fled to when their alarm went off. It was the Panic Room, of that Leon was certain.

Squinting his eyes, Leon tried to make sense of the image he was seeing. But his brain didn't want to analyze it; it had seen too many terrible things today. Where the fuck is Felix?

On the TV monitor the Panic Room was clearly visible as well as what was left of the former employees of Panacea. Leon could make out some people, or at least parts of people but mostly he could just see blood and tissue; lots of blood and tissue. The little silver room was filled with it; it was like a swimming pool of blood and gore and the occasional intact body part. Leon couldn't wrap his head around it; it was like something had been released into the air that made the flesh dissolve clean off the bone. That thought alone was enough to make Leon gag.

Stifling his gag, Leon clicked on a few of the buttons on the monitor hoping to run the clock back a few hours to see what he could find. He ran the clock back to when Panacea had gone dark but much to his surprise and concern, several hours of footage, namely the times that would've revealed when Panacea's alarm went off and when Panacea had officially gone dark, was gone. Leon tried every one of the monitors, from the monitor that covered the parking lot to the video displaying the lab hallways to see if he could access that particular time frame and couldn't. It was missing as if someone had specifically removed that footage from the security surveillance.

Leon stood and scratched his head. There was something seriously wrong with this scenario. Panacea had been targeted for some unknown reason, and had lost everyone because of it. But whoever had taken out the trash was masking their trail efficiently. Something big was going on; something with dark implications.

A noise from outside the security room startled Leon and had him whirling around and facing the door, gun cocked and ready. Leon moved toward the door and lined it up in his sights. He moved forward swiftly then and kicked opened the door and charged through it scanning the area. His eyes nearly missed the tall man standing some feet away from him, his hands relaxed at his sides. It startled Leon so much that his finger almost closed around the trigger, but he caught himself just in time.

Felix stood before him.

"Shit, Felix!" Leon hissed and lowered his weapon slightly.

"You're a bit jumpy," Felix observed, his face emotionless.

Leon raised an eyebrow at Felix's statement. Really? What had Felix been doing this whole time? Twiddling his thumbs? Did he miss out on all the blood and gore or the basement of terrors? "Where the hell have you been?" Leon demanded, an edge entering his voice.

Without any hesitation what so ever Felix replied, "I've been looking for you. I stepped out of the room upstairs to investigate a noise. When I went back into the room I'd left you in, you were gone. I have been searching for you ever since." Despite the fact that there was no emotional giveaway in Felix's face or in his voice, Leon felt certain that he'd just been lied to.

"Right," Leon mumbled and holstered his gun. Some part of him felt very uncomfortable having his gun holstered around Felix—he didn't trust him.

"I think we should get moving though, Agent Kennedy. In my experience these science facilities tend to be very unstable when there is power failure. The chemicals these research facilities deal with are often highly flammable," Felix stated, his voice just hinting at an underlying emotion that Leon couldn't pinpoint.

"A little sketchy power doesn't mean the place is going to explode. Besides, don't you want to look around?" Leon retorted and made toward the security office. Felix was at his arm in a flash, his hand sealed around Leon's in a vice grip. Leon had hardly blinked and the man had managed to cross the two or three feet between them. The speed unnerved him.

"I trust your reporting and there are protocols for facilities that research biohazards of a level 4 standing. I've already called for back up to help survey the area. We are not properly equipped to deal with potential survivors or possible infected individuals," Felix said with alarming clarity.

Leon blinked. "Do you know what they were testing on?"

"No, but a level 4 biohazard is used only with extremely dangerous pathogens. That should be cause enough for us to leave and wait for proper backup." Leon eyed Felix suspiciously. He knew that what Felix was saying was true but he somehow imagined that he had ulterior motives for wanting to vacate the premises.

"Okay, you're right…we'll go," Leon agreed and was relieved when Felix let go of him. "Although it may take us some time to get out of here…this place is kind of a maze."

"I think I remember the way," Felix said. Something about the tone he'd used made Leon doubt that Felix had any uncertainty in the way out. Sure enough Felix plunged forward toward the stairwell door, barely waiting for Leon.

Leon practically had to jog to catch up with Felix who was already in the darkened stairwell. Leon gingerly began up the stairs and was somewhat alarmed when he realized that Felix was taking the steps two at a time. In a matter of seconds Felix had cleared the stairwell and was at the door to the first level. Leon picked up the pace to catch up.

Felix was half way down the hall as Leon pushed through the basement door and had to run to catch up to him. The funny thing was, Felix wasn't running he was simply walking very quickly. Leon tried to follow as closely as he could but kept falling behind and frequently got distracted by the many twists and turns of the halls. He was fairly certain that he hadn't come this way with Ada. Leon was more than a little disturbed when he realized that Felix hardly glanced at any of the other hallways and simply marched on as if he'd been up and down these hallways a thousand times. There was confidence in his movements, confidence that only a person who knew these halls would have.

Both Felix and Leon made it to the first bank of elevators that would take them to the ground floor. Leon was practically out of breath from having to essentially jog to keep up with Felix. Felix on the other hand, looked as cool as a cucumber. Leon shivered at how utterly relaxed this man was in this building of nightmares.

The elevator finally arrived and both Felix and Leon stepped inside. The ride up the elevator shaft was quiet and quick. Once the doors opened Felix gracefully bounded out of the elevator and down the hall. Leon followed although he was unfamiliar with the territory. Although some of it he knew from his exploration of the layout earlier, it would've taken him a bit of time to make his way to the exit. It took Felix less than 60 seconds.

Leon exited shortly after Felix did and thought about stopping to take a nice deep breath of clean air, but stopped when he realized Felix was still rapidly walking away. Curiosity biting at him, Leon followed Felix toward where he'd parked the car earlier. They were about half way there when Leon heard the sirens in the distance. Well, at least Felix hadn't been lying about that.

"The cleanup crew is in for a nasty surprise," Leon said mostly to himself.

Felix had finally stopped walking and stood by the parked car and briefly looked back toward the distant sound of sirens. Leon watched as Felix gave a quick glance at the sun as if he were gauging the time.

"You gotta be—" Leon was cut off mid-sentence when a loud explosion from behind them ripped through the afternoon sky. The shock of it knocked Leon over and onto the ground. He blinked at the giant fiery cloud that obscured the sky and the roaring fire that had taken the place of what had once been Panacea. The entire building had exploded!

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Leon cried out incredulously and looked back toward Felix.

Unlike Leon who had been so shocked by the explosion he'd been knocked to the ground , Felix remained standing, apparently unaffected. He popped a mint into his mouth and glanced briefly at Leon. Leon had to blink a few times as he saw the briefest flash of a smirk on Felix's face.

"I told you, these places are highly flammable."