One by one (and sometimes two or three), the freaks slowly began dying and the room was finally empty. We had nowhere to go except down one of the staircases that had streams of water running on either side of the steps, and once we did we found a small room. In the two corners in the back were big yellow pressure plates.

"What are those for?" Ashley asked, before I could.

"I don't know… You guys take this one and I'll stand on that one."

We did as we were told and at first nothing happened, but as we listened closer, we could hear the sounds of gears turning.

"… What did we just do?" I asked, only half expecting an answer, which I didn't get.

Ashley and I followed Leon out of the room and, to our surprise, sitting in the middle of the room was a lever. We all looked at each other, dumbstruck.

"… Well who's going to turn it?" Ashley looked at me. "Seriously? I have possibly the worst upper body strength in the history of mankind!"

"That's not necessarily true," she said.

"Whatever, I vote Leon. He has the biggest muscles I've ever seen."

Ashley blushed and looked down at her feet. I didn't realize what I had said until Leon smirked at me and said "Really?"

"I… uh… Well, yeah… I- I guess…" My cheeks flared red and Leon took hold of the handle and began turning it.

Not even a second later, we realized what it did; as soon as he started turning it, what we thought was a wall, slowly began descending down, and revealed itself as a set of stairs to a higher floor.

Ashley and I quickly ran up said stairs and she pointed to something on a high platform, that I didn't see, I was focused on the door in the back of the room, and all the water in front of it.

"Look there's a crank over there!"

Then I looked over and saw a crank on the other side, too. "Maybe we can turn them…?" I suggested to Leon.

"Alright." He said. We walked over to one side of the room and he lifted Ashley up, then me on the other side. Oh God, it was the jumping thing all over again.

Once we were safely up, we immediately began turning the cranks. About two seconds after I started turning, I looked up to see a cloaked freak right in front of my face. As soon as I screamed, his head exploded and my shirt was covered in even more blood. I looked down and saw Leon reloading his gun.

"Thanks!" I shouted, as I began turning the handle again.

"No problem!" He shouted back.

About two minutes later, the turning was over with, and we looked over to see that two stone platforms had risen up out of the water, big enough to jump across to reach the door. I ran up to the edge of the platform I was standing on and before I could, Ashley shouted "Leon!", who was currently fending off two guys with shields.

Once he killed them, he walked over to Ashley's side and she jumped into his arms and he gently set her down. My eyes grew wide when he walked over to me and held his arms out.

"You-… you mean…?" I didn't know which to be worried more about, my reddening face, for how much higher up I seemed than before.

"I caught you last time, didn't I?"

I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and jumped. It felt like forever until I was in his arms, and once I opened my eyes, he was already setting me down.

I stood there, blinking, trying to remember what just happened. Great, I blanked out the spilt second I was in the hottest guy on the planet's arms. That's something you should cherish, not forget.

"Did he hold you longer? I'm pretty sure he held you longer." Ashley whispered, thinking Leon couldn't hear her.

After a chuckle escaped his lips, I whispered way softer, "I don't even remember what happened, to be honest."

She laughed and then Leon turned to us. "Well are you two going to keep standing there whispering about me, or can we keep going?"

Oops.

The blonde and I acted innocently as we rushed past him. We came up to the platforms and after Leon jumped across he held his arms out for me with an expectant look on his face.

"U-um… I think I can do it by myself this time…"

"Alright," he nodded and stood back. I took a deep breath, and a few steps back before taking a giant leap over to where he was standing. I landed safely, but he caught me by the arms just in case I fell. I looked up at him; his piercing blue eyes were staring right into mine and if I stared back any longer, I would have become light headed. "Um… t-thanks." I attempted.

"No problem." He said, as he smiled and let go of me. I swear, this man had no idea what he could do with just one look.

We walked through the two big doors and were, yet again, mesmerized by what we saw. This room was just about as beautiful as the first, but there were two giant, upside down statues hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, I didn't really get the point of that either. There was another long red carpet leading down to something I couldn't see well from where we were standing.

We continued walking until we saw the merchant standing beside the entryway to a hallway. There wasn't a door at the end of it; the door was to the right. Instead, there were six suspicious looking holes in the wall. I tried not to pay too much attention to them, and turned back to the masked man.

"So how much was that Blacktail, again?" I asked, completely interrupting his and Leon's bargain.

He chuckled. "Twenty-four thousand, Stranga."

I emptied my pockets; six Spinels, and about thirteen thousand pesetas. "YES!" I exclaimed. I had enough for the gun, plus a thousand left over. I threw everything I had at the man, including the extra thousand, and held out my hands pleading "Gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie gimmie…"

My two companions watched me with curiosity. "Here ya go, Stranga…" He gently placed them in my hands, and I gaped at it in awe… for about a second.

"OH MY GOD I FINALLY HAVE IT!" I was literally jumping up and down in place. Without thinking, I threw my arms around the first person I saw, which was Ashley. They both laughed.

"Is that gun really all that great?" Leon asked.

I quickly let go and turned to face him. "That great? It's amazing! When fully upgraded, it has a reload speed of point-twenty-seven seconds!"

"Damn. That is a nice gun." He stated.

"I know right?!"

After we sold my old gun, we continued walking down the hallway, and just as we were about to enter the door my enthusiasm came to an abrupt halt; I started coughing, completely unable to stop. There was this pain in my chest and it was completely unbearable. It was like coughing soothed it just a bit, but every cough made it burn even worse.

"Hey… you okay?" Leon asked me considerately.

I wasn't focusing on him; I was too distracted by the amount of blood in my hands. I never knew a person could cough up that much… my hands were drenched. Luis said the first sign of the parasite eggs hatching was coughing up blood… Oh god.

My eyes grew wide. "Emily…?"

"No!" I don't know what came over me. I shoved Leon away and began sprinting forward. I didn't know what I was running to or from, I was just running and it hurt.

"Emily, wait!" He shouted, but I kept running. Then all of the sudden spikes shot out of the floor and I stepped back just in time. I turned around and kept running, as more spikes shot up.

Finally, I reached the wall. My chest was aching and I just needed to breathe—

Then before I knew it, bars shot out from the holes in the wall, pinning me against it.

"Emily!"

I barely had time to say anything before the wall spun around, placing me in a new room.

"Don't worry; I'll get there as soon as I can!" I heard Leon shout from the other side.

"I-I'm sorry!" I shouted back, but I wasn't sure if he could hear me.