Author's Note: Sorry about the delay! I had to work out some bugs in the story...Hopefully, there will be fewer problems (Yeah, right). Oh! And if anyone has noticed, this story is Silent Hill influenced. Anyway, is it just me or is fanfiction.net refusing to update my story? Bah. Well, I've got some neat stuff planned for this story, so keep reading!

There was another growl.

Three more bullets.

'Oh God, am I even hitting it?!' Claire thought frantically as she fired her gun into the darkness that consumed the hallway. She kept backing up, bumping into cold metal as she tried to feel her way to the next room. She couldn't see the monster, but she could hear it. It was trying to get to her.

Another growl. It was closer this time.

She felt something brush up against her. She cried out and fired all around her, hoping that she had hit it. She heard something scuffle across the floor.

'It's still alive?!' Claire thought as the scuffling turned into heavy thumps. Claire began following the wall as quickly as she could.

The heavy thumps got louder. Claire pointed her handgun at the sound and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Something slammed Claire against the wall and dug its fingernails into her neck. She screamed and fought against her attacker, trying to loosen its grip on her before it choked her to death.

She felt hot breath against her neck as she fought. Her attacker growled as it held her in place. Claire struggled for air and her vision starting to get hazy. She knew she was going to die.

'Steve...'

She heard a shriek and the zombie-like monster dropped her. Claire gasped for air and heard a heavy thump of a body hitting the ground. Something grabbed her hand and dragged her to her feet. It pulled her away from the monster and she and this mysterious savior ran through an opened door at the end of the hallway. They both stumbled into a dimly-lit room filled with animal heads mounted on the wall and green carpeting on the floor. As soon as she recovered from the shock, Claire looked over at the person who had saved her.

"S...Steve..." she choked out. She rubbed her eyes, but the image of the auburn-haired young man from Rockfort was still there. He was standing there with his hands on his knees, panting. At the sound of his name, he looked up. His eyes filled with surprise, then quickly softened. He smiled at her arrogantly, as if he hadn't been dead for several months.

"Y-you..." Claire tried to speak, but the words were caught in her throat. She had a million questions to ask, a million things to say to him, but none of them came out. Instead, she found herself wrapping her arms around him in a tight hug. She leaned her head against his chest, listening to his beating heart.

Steve looked down at her, stunned. He slowly wrapped his arms around her. Claire looked up and smiled at him. Her eyes moistened.

"You're...alive," she whispered.

"Yeah," he smiled, "did you come here for me?"



"Of course I did, I couldn't just leave you here," Claire said, feeling a little embarrassed as she spoke. She watched as Steve looked away and blushed slightly. They both reluctantly withdrew from each other's arms.

"Anyway, what happened? I thought you died," she asked him.

"I think I did die. This guy told me I was revived by the T-Veronica virus," Steve explained.

"Do you mean Wesker?" Claire asked. Steve felt like he had heard the name before, but he wasn't fully awake when the man had started to talk to him. Steve shrugged his shoulders.

"It could have been. Who's Wesker?" Steve asked.

"Someone whose been harassing my brother. He's a real jerk," Claire said, "although he did lure me here to find you. I think it was a trap though," she said.

"A trap?" Steve asked. He thought back to those monsters. This whole mansion was like one giant death trap. However, there seemed to be something much darker at work. Steve couldn't stop thinking about that message that was written in blood. No monster could have done that.

"Yeah, but if we could survive Rockfort, then we can survive this," Claire said, then she smiled, "I'm glad I came though."

Steve smiled, but their reunion was cut short when the zombie-like monster burst through the door. Claire and Steve jumped to their feet. It growled and shuffled quickly across the floor with its arms outstretched. Claire darted towards the door in the back of the room. She motioned to Steve.

"Quick! This way!" she shouted. Steve looked at her. That way led right back to the monster he had fought earlier.

"No! Don't go through there!" Steve yelled back. While he was distracted, the zombie grabbed him. Steve quickly tried to push it away before it bit him. He only succeeded in pushing its head back, but he couldn't free himself from its grip.

"Steve!" Claire ran over to help him.

"No! Stay there!" Steve told her. The zombie growled and struggled as Steve pushed it back. He pulled back his free arm and curled his fingers into a fist. The zombie turned its head to bite into Steve's arm, but Steve smashed his fist into the zombie's face before it could sink its teeth in. Steve could hear a sickening crack as its frail bones snapped and his fist sunk deep into its face. The zombie dropped to the ground, shrieking and flailing. Steve looked down at the zombie as he brought his foot down on its head. It shrieking immediately stopped as its face was crushed in. Blood and brain matter oozed out from under Steve's foot. The zombie dropped its arms and remained still.

Claire was now by Steve's side, staring down at the zombie with a pale, sickened face. Steve felt horrible. He felt sick from the disgusting mess on the floor, but worse than that, he felt like a monster.

'It's no different from when you killed them with an actual weapon,' he told himself. Yet it didn't seem to make him feel any better. Perhaps it was because of the look on Claire's face. She looked as if she felt sorry for it. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"We should go. I think it's safe to return to the first floor of the mansion," Claire said softly. Steve nodded. They walked into the dark hallway, using the wall to guide them. Steve saw light from the upper floor dimly illuminated the staircase. He broke into a run with Claire close behind him. Claire and Steve ran up the stairs and into the main entrance hall of the mansion. Steve winced as light flooded his eyes.

"I think we can leave from here," Claire said as Steve's eyes adjusted to the light. She walked towards the large double doors that led outside, but stopped a few feet away from it and looked down. Steve couldn't tell what she was looking at.

"No!" Claire cried. She crouched down and as Steve walked towards her, he saw her crouching next to a circular steel door and a broken number pad. It had been ripped out and was lying next to Claire. She looked at Steve.

"This was the way I came in. Someone must being trying trap us in here," Claire said. Steve looked at the double doors.

"Why not try this?" Steve walked over to the doors and pulled on them. To his disappointment, they wouldn't budge.

"We'll have to find another way out, but I don't know where to begin looking," Claire said. She looked at Steve, who seemed to be staring at something else. His eyes were wide. She followed his gaze and saw a dark, red liquid oozing from under the door on the right side of the room. The door creaked open as if it were beckoning them to enter. Steve and Claire exchanged glances, and they walked in.

Wesker stared silently at the monitor. The monitor displayed Chris's younger sister and her friend leaving the entrance hall of the mansion. Wesker smiled.



'All the pieces are almost in place,' Wesker thought. There was just one piece missing, and that piece was Chris himself. Chris would naturally go to rescue his sister if she were in peril. Wesker pictured himself standing in Chris's blood as his sister wept over her brother's corpse...

The only thing that bothered Wesker was the bizarre phenomenon that was occurring in the mansion. It seemed like there was someone else trying to get in on Wesker's fun, and it annoyed him.

'But who? There's no one else in the mansion,' Wesker thought.

'Unless...'

'No, he's dead...'

Wesker wiped his forehead. His skin felt very warm and not cold like usual. It couldn't be because he was getting sick. Wesker wondered if being exposed to that virus had anything to do with it. Wesker turned to his computer and frowned. He had been trying for hours to find some kind of file on the N-Virus, but so far he had found none. He walked away to find the nearest phone. There would be time for worrying later.

Claire gasped as she and Steve entered the room. Blood was splattered all over a large table with some kind of animal carcass laying on a silver tray. The carcass looked like a cat that had been turned inside out. All that was left of the animal was a mess of blood and stringy sinew. Some of its muscles looked like they had been torn out, exposing some of the animal's organs and bones.

"Oh my God...who could have done this?" a horrified Claire asked. Steve looked away from the carcass with disgust. A gun hanging on the wall caught his attention. It was a shotgun.

"Hey look!" Steve exclaimed. He walked over to the shotgun mounted on the wall. It was in between two large, dark, square-shaped holes in the wall. There was a gate preventing anything from getting in...or getting out.

"Steve, be careful..." Claire warned. Steve just smiled at her, and then plucked the shotgun from the wall. The shotgun was already loaded. It wasn't as good as the submachine guns, but it would have to do. Steve turned to Claire.

"See? No harm done," Steve said. The hooks suddenly clicked upward, followed by a mechanical whirl. The gates covering the holes lifted. It was too dark to see what was inside.

"I don't like this," Claire said.

"We better get out of-" Steve was cut off by a low growl. A growl that came from the holes, or were they holding pens?

The sound of nails tapping against the ground followed. Steve remembered the handgun bullets in his pocket. Still keeping his gun trained on the sound, he gave the handgun bullets to Claire. She wasted no time in reloading her handgun.

Two large dogs emerged from the pens. They had no fur, just reddish colored skin. The dogs were covered in a clear, wet film and their skin was stretched over their eyes. The dogs' fangs were a lot bigger than a normal dog. Steve was reminded of the zombie dogs from Rockfort. The zombie dogs that infected him with T-Virus while he was trying to escape.

Rage boiled inside Steve as he recalled what happened at Rockfort. He no longer felt afraid. Steve pointed his shotgun at the dogs.

"C'mon Claire! Let's show these monsters who's boss!"