Disclaimer: I don't own rights to Resident Evil or Love Hina.
Edited by: Sci-Fi Raptor
Mayhem: Secret Underground Pathway
Shinobu and I leave the safety of the room, walking towards the elevator. With each step that I take, my hip feels less painful. I usually don't take any type of medicine, but these painkillers really work. I already checked my sniper rifle for ammo and its ready to go. Shinobu hands me back my gun that I had the nurse borrow. I don't check it until we're in the elevator. There are no bullets so I change the clip, leaving me with four more.
I wait patiently until we reach the ground floor. Once the elevator doors opens, we hear glass breaking as the front entrance begins to ooze out zombies.
"Quick! Where is the pathway?" Shinobu franticly searches the hallway, running and opening up the 'stairs' door. With the zombies coming towards us, I follow her. Through the door, I watch her open another, telling me to get in. I'm not sure why she's leading me there, but with a bunch of zombies after us, I go with her. The small room seems to be a janitor's storage place with mops, buckets and cleaners all around. I see Shinobu guiding her hand around the walls of the room. I ponder what she's doing when one of the walls opens up.
"This way," she says. We both walk in the dark tunnel with very little light coming from behind us. I get a little nervous, once its disappears, . A ball of light comes out of nowhere, showing us an old stone pathway covered in spider webs. I look in the direction of the light and see that Shinobu is holding a lighter.
We continue to walk for about ten minutes, seeing no end. We finally come to a stone room of some sort. One wall has burning metal torches. They make me wonder how long they have been like that. On the opposite wall, there are ten more torches that aren't lit. The wall that's farthest from the door has nothing but a stone picture of two samurai warriors. It seems that they're fighting, but their swords never meet, leaving a large gap between them. There is something written next to the door, but it's in Japanese, so I don't know what it says.
We leave the room and continue walking. We don't get a quarter mile down when we reach a dead end. Shinobu and I look at each other, seeming puzzled by this. She begins to check the walls like she did in the storage room, but they don't open up this time.
"NO!" Shinobu cries, speaking more in Japanese. I don't know what she's saying, but it can't be good if she's crying.
"There is nothing more here. Let's go back." I let her cry for a few more minutes before she starts sobbing and walking with me. I figure that she has been through enough problems and that I should let her take her time.
As we go back down the pathway, I hear strange noises coming closer. I'm not should what's going on until we reach the entrance of the room and smell the scent of death.
"Shinobu! Get in the room!" I pull out my handgun and aim into the darkness. I wait until I can see a zombie, but when I do, it's standing right in front of me! I quickly put the trigger, killing it instantly with a shot to the head. I can't see my own gun in front of my face, so I aim high and continue to shoot. I'm scared as hell, wondering when this will end. I empty a few clips and reload as fast as I can, but they still keep coming. Then I get an idea.
I run back in the room and grab a torch. I run back into the pathway and throw the torch at the zombies. I manage to hit the lead zombie, causing it and a few around it to burn, since there was a herd of zombies behind them. I ignore the flaming zombies and shoot the ones behind them. Bullet after bullet, one goes down after another, but the swarm keeps coming. As I reach for another clip, I realize that this is my last one, watching as the flames slowly die. With only fifteen shots left, I ran back into the room and grab two more torches. After throwing them at the zombies, I run towards Shinobu, who is looking at the stone writings.
"Shinobu! There are too many of them! I need your help!"
"I do too."
"What do you mean?"
"If I read right, we light one torch to open secret pathway."
"What?!" I'm a little angry that she didn't tell me this before. I could have saved a lot of my ammo. "What are you waiting for! Light one of them!"
"Can't!" She yells. "Riddle says light one. If I light wrong one, we make doom. But I don't know riddle." Now I understand why she didn't tell me earlier.
"What does the riddle say? Maybe I can help." I tell her, trying to show some confidents, even those I'm no good at riddles.
"I know word of letters three, add one and none shall be. What is word?" Yeah! I don't know. I'm bad at riddles! I look at the unlit torches and notice a Japanese character next to it.
"Shinobu, what do those characters say?"
"Those? They're numbers from zero to nine with zero as the starting number." Yup! I have no clue how to solve this. I was never good at these things. But something bothers me. Why are the characters numbers? I look at them, saying the numbers to myself. As I do, I realize the answer to the riddle. I'm so surprise that I double check in my head to make sure.
Knowing that I have the answer, I turn to Shinobu and see a few zombies in the doorway.
"SHIT!" I pull out my handgun and aim at the zombies. "SHINOBU! MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" She sees the zombies and jumps out of the way as I start firing. I have to make every shot count since this is my last clip. I see the girl pull out her sword. "NO SHINOBU! DON'T! JUST LIGHT THE TORCH!"
"But I not know riddle."
"IT'S ONE!" I yell, in case she can't hear my voice over the gunfire.
"How you know?"
"IT'S A THREE LETTER WORD AND WHEN YOU ADD ANOTHER LETTER TO IT, YOU GET NONE. NOW...TAKE THE FIRST 'N' OUT. WHAT DO YOU GET?"
"One..." She lightly says, sounding surprised.
"LIGHT THE TORCH SHINOBU! I'M RUNNING OUT OF AMMO!" I continue to fire at the zombies when I hear clicks from my gun. Great! It's empty. What else can go wrong?
"HELP! Can't…reach…torch…" I look over to Shinobu and see her reaching to light the torch. She's nowhere close to lighting it and the zombies are coming in fast. Since the only way out of here is to light the torch, I pistol-whip the closest zombie and kick it, knocking it and a few others out of the doorway. I grab Shinobu and lift her within reach of the torch. Once it's lit, I hear something like stones rubbing against each other. I put Shinobu down and turn around to see the gap between the two samurais move. I smile before I hear the groans of the zombies behind us.
"Shinobu! Get in! I'll catch up." I do a spinning back kick, knocking a few zombies down. I have to fight enough of these things so there won't be a whole lot of them chasing after us. I knock a few more down when I hear her yelling at me.
"Officer! Hurry! It's closing!" I take one more out before turning around to see the gap closing and fast. If I don't make it to the other side, I'm going to be stuck here with a bunch of hungry zombies.
I run as fast as I can towards her, hoping that I can make it. I see the gap almost about to close, so I slide head first, closing my eyes. I can feel my body rubbing against the stone floor, probably bruising my chest and tearing my uniform. But I rather feel this then those zombies tearing me to pieces like a Thanksgiving Day turkey.
I swear I only slide a few feet when I hear a pounding sound, thinking that the pathway closes. I dare not open my eyes in fear of those zombies, so I crawl forward to feel the stone wall. I crawl a few feet when I feel someone grab my shoulder. I quickly turn around, ready for a fight, when I open my eyes and see Shinobu's shining face, holding up her lighter.
"You made it officer," She says with a smile on her face. I notice we're in a dark tunnel of some sort. I see the end of it, thinking that's where the gap opened. I don't think those zombies are strong enough to bust through a stone wall, but I don't want to find out! I get up off the ground and rub off the dirt from my uniform. I'm surprised that there are no holes on it, but I'm in a dark area, so I really don't know. I already know that my handgun is empty, so I take out my sniper rifle and walk ahead.
Shinobu has our only light source, so she walks ahead of me, but I'm ready to shoot anything down. We walk for what seems like forever with no end in sight. I feeling really hungry, now wishing I had something when she and that nurse went to the cafeteria. I haven't heard any sounds from behind, so none of those bastard zombies broke that wall. I begin to feel tired when we see what looks like stone stairs ahead. Without hesitation, I grab her by the hand and race up the stairs. But when we reach the top, there are no doors. In fact, the only thing at the top is a stone ceiling covered in spider webs.
"Shit!" I yell. "We're fucking stick here!" I notice Shinobu sitting at the top step, crying. I feel bad about losing my cool in front of her, so I sit beside her, putting my arm around her for comfort.
"We never get out, will we?" She looks up at me with those purple eyes full of tears. I don't reply back, knowing we'll probably die here.
But I won't stop trying. I ask Shinobu for the lighter and search around the top step. Maybe there is a riddle we have to solve or some hidden switch to get out of here. I look all around the walls and don't find anything other than metal bars attached to a wall. I look up and notice that the corners and ceiling aren't covered in webs. I find that kind of odd since I studied them as a kid when I was living in San Diego. I look back the wall with metal bars, then up again. Maybe this is our way out.
I climb the bars, having the webs sticking to my hands and uniform. When I reach the ceiling, I push it with one hand. It's a bit heavy, but I manage to open it. I climb a bar or two, looking around to see what I opened. There is a little light in here and I see boxes a upon boxes resting on metal dividers to each of my sides, realizing that this is an alleyway of some sort.
"Shinobu! I found a way out!" I see her in the light, turning a miserable frown into a sweet smile.
Once we're up, we walk together in the alleyway of the boxes. When we reach an end, we see many alleyways, feeling like we're in a supermarket. We peek through them all, seeing more boxes. When we reach the end, I notice a desk with it's light on.
"Over there," I say, pointing at the desk. We rush over there and begin to check for anything that could be useful. On top a mountain of folders, I come across a picture sticking out. I grab the folder, open it and notice that the picture is of the monster my team and I encountered, but a smaller version. I try to read the notes, but it's all in Japanese. Since Shinobu is able to read it, I turn to her and see her trying to hand me something.
"Here officer." I look at the contents in her hand, seeing a box of ammo for my gun. I take it from her and hand her the folder.
"I think this is about the monster that attacked us. Can you please read it for me?" She nods and points to an open drawer before reading the folder. I go over to the drawer and feel like I hit the jackpot, seeing numerous boxes of ammo. I take all I can fit in my pocket, which is about ten boxes; plus another one that I load in my handgun. Once I'm finished, I turn back to Shinobu, who is lying against the table, crying again.
"What wrong?" I ask, walking towards her, who is holding up the picture.
"My friend," she sobs, letting go of the picture and covering her face.
"I don't understand, Shinobu. I thought we are friends?" She shakes her head, pointing back to the picture she let fall.
"Not that. She my friend." I have no idea what she's talking about. I pick up the picture and study it carefully. Then it hits me. The monster looks almost human, but not like the zombies that we have encountered. This monster must have been a friend of hers before the incident. I'm not sure if this is the same monster that my team and I have been fighting since it is a smaller size.
"So, your friend is a monster?" I ask for confirmation. She nods. "Is it the same monster that we fought when we first met you?" She shakes her head. I breath a sigh of relieve knowing that I won't feel guilty about killing it; if we can kill it. "Do you know how to kill it?" She uncovers her face, wiping away the tears.
"I sorry, I not get chance to read information."
"It's all right. I understand. But we may need to that information in case we run into it again." She nods and begins to read the folder.
I check the desk and everything around it. There aren't many useful things around it. There is a locker off to the side. I try to open it, but it's locked. I have enough bullets, so I shoot the damn thing until it opens. There isn't much inside other than a lab coat and stacks of porn. I feel like I have just wasted some bullets when I check the top shelf and find a walkie-talkie. I check the frequently and yell into it, hoping to get anyone living.
"Hello? This is An Wong from S.T.A.R.S. Delta Team. If anyone can hear me, please respond and identify yourself." I wait for a reply, but I get nothing. I repeat myself again and still nothing. "Damn worthless piece of..."
"Hello? An? Is that you? This is Motoyuki." Oh shit! It works.
"Motoyuki! It's me!"
"Shit! Hey guys! It's An! He's among the living!" I hear them cheering in the background.
"Fuck An! Where have you been?" Recognizing Jeffery voice.
"I don't fucking know. I was getting away from those fucking zombie. Where are you?"
"In the Umbrella Corporation building," I hear Tèa say.
"Why are you guys there?"
"We were also getting away from some fucking zombies," I hear Randy say, sounding sickly. "Is the girl with you?"
"Yeah, she is. She's reading some report on the monster we encountered."
"WHAT?!" They all yell together, almost blowing my eardrum.
"We found a file on what we believe to be the monster we encountered."
"What does it say?" Randy ask.
"I don't know. It's in Japanese! I asked her to read it."
"Is she done reading?" I walk over to Shinobu, who still reading it.
"You done reading?" She shakes her head. "She's not finished guys."
"Let me talk to her," Motoyuki says. I get Shinobu's attention and hand her the walkie-talkie. She starts speaking in Japanese and looking at the folder. She must be reading the information to Motoyuki since he's the only one who can understand her. I realize that whatever this building they're at, it'll probably dark, not enough for a lighter to cover. I remember there was a flashlight in of the drawers. I search for it and when I have it, I can hear Shinobu screaming into the walkie-talkie.
"What's going on?"
"Gun fire."
"What?" I grab the walkie-talkie, hearing all sorts of gunshots being fired. "We have to go!" She nods as I clip the radio to my belt and search for a way out. We find the nearest door and run out into the dark sky. I'm not sure where we are, seeing a military jeeps.
"I know this place," Shinobu says. "This army base."
"Do you know how to get from here to the Umbrella Corporation building?"
"Yes. Yes I do."
"Good. Let's try to make our way to the building quickly and if we run into any zombies, we'll pass them unless there are too many of them. Understood?" She nods. With my gun ready in one hand and flashlight in another, I follow her to the building, hoping to catch up with my teammates.
Note: I want to thank Sci-Fi Raptor for taking their time to help edit this story.
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