Sherry was standing in an underground passage in the R.P.D with nowhere to go and nothing to do. She had search high and low and had yet to find anything that could be of possible use to her. The wind howled coldly from some outside place she could see and brushed tenderly against her face, making the emptiness in her heart feel even more apparent.

Shortly after her encounter with Kain, she ran into a spot of bother in the form of one of those messed up zombies. It was in a very bad way, the maggots wriggling in it's face causing her skin to crawl and her hair stand on end, but she was on the move from another dead end shaft and the only way she could go was beyond it. It's mindlessly gnawing mouth was already envisioning her young flesh between its jagged teeth, she would stand a chance it dodging past it; it would imprison her with its cold steely grip and tear into her before she realised she had been captured. She had seen it happen; zombies were deadly at close range.

Thinking She had no choice but to fight and run, something happened that she did not expect. Someone else rounded the corner. She didn't see it very well, her heart racing and her head full of dizzy terror, but they looked like they were wearing red… But she couldn't be sure. She was so drunk on panic that she wasn't even sure if she cried to the person for help. She thought she did, but her heart was screaming so many things at once that she honestly wasn't very sure.

She had escaped back into the duct from whence she came, which ended in a dead end; a small little display room behind Chief Irons' office and there she hit for what felt like hours, still shivering all over from just how close she had once again come. Cold tears were running down her face, and yet she didn't feel like crying, but that her very soul was bleeding salty aqua from her deep blue eyes.

She got up, and moved cautiously around that dingy little room for a few moments, past the fireplace, and just before she left the back area of the storage room, she came across a small, neat little Diary on a desk next to a bright banner of the Raccoon City P.D logo that either wasn't there when she was in that room last, or she has simply not noticed the first time around. After quickly checking the trophy room for hostiles, she dared to pick the Diary up to read. She didn't want any nasty surprises while engrossed in reading. She gently move it from the dusty desktop and shivered when she saw that it was absolutely dust free, a clear indication that it had only recently been placed it the dusty old room, and as a precaution, she snuck back into the opening of the duct (behind the suits of armour in the corner of the trophy storage room) but poked herself out from it just enough so that some of the dull, dusty light caressed the thick pages of the diary. If someone came in now, she could shoot back into the duct for safety. It may be a dead end, but it was better than having no escape in the fireplace part of the room from a zombie, or a monster or a crazy person, the kind that would take and hide a diary in just such a isolated place.

But thinking about what kind of person would put the diary here, she realised that Chief Irons was most likely the person to hide it in a room beyond his office. If anyone other than herself had found it, they would have to pass through his office to get to it. This meant that he could still be alive, but Sherry didn't rush to go and check. Irons was creepy even before the zombies attacked. She felt sick when she envisioned just what the insanity would make of an already eerie man like him.

She swallowed hard, the sound very loud in her ears, and she felt as though it would give her away to whoever lay the diary to rest here. She just hopped her bad feelings about looking through this was just part of the bad feelings that had been festering in her ever since she saw that first zombie man in the park. Yet… though the rational part of herself told her that it was dumb, the things going through her head, that this was not placed here by some creepy psycho killer trying to hide evidence, she could not control the feelings of excitement and terror as she opened the first page up, clicking open the pop-button leather cover and starting to read the words. She felt like a spy behind enemy lines, but she knew not to be so childishly naïve about this. If this was what she feared, then reading these words could put her in danger not only from zombies, but from people too.

The smell of the pages were new, and the ink… Sherry shivered to comprehend that this dairies last entry was not long ago, but as she read, her heart began to turn to a horrible viscous liquid that burbled up into her through and threatened to choke her.

April 6th
I accidentally moved one of the stone statues on the second floor when I leaned against it. When the chief found out about it, he was furious. I swear the guy nearly bit my head off, screaming at me never to touch the statue again. If it's that important, maybe they shouldn't have put it out in the open like that...

Sherry had been past those statues! When she raced from Kain, up the stairs to the second floor, a corridor with three statues, one holding a beautiful stone, was the first she raced through. Beyond that was the corridor that held the entrance to the S.T.A.R.S office. Sherry felt scared that she knew the place this person was talking about, and even more scared that it was Chief Irons that yelled at the author. Now, this diary lay in a place accessible only by Chief Irons. He had done something, something terrible, just like Sherry had suspected. She braced herself, and continued to read.

April 7th
I heard that all the art pieces from the chief's collection are rare items, literally worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I don't know which is the bigger mystery: where he finds these tacky things, or where he's getting the money to pay for them.

Certainly not on cop pay. Sherry's Daddy often banged on and on about how underpaid the R.P.D staff was, and how it didn't give them enough incentive to do their job properly. Once Sherry bothered to hold a conversation with him, she thinks she said something like 'is that why they still haven't found those cannibal murderous?' and her father fell as quiet and as pail as a ghost. He then told her to go to her room. It was totally unfair.

May 10th

I wasn't surprised to see the chief come in today with yet another large picture frame in his hands. This time it was a really disturbing painting depicting a nude person being hanged. I was appalled by the expression on the chief's face as he leered at that painting. Why anyone would consider something like that to be a work of art is beyond my comprehension...

Though picturing the disturbingly vivid scene sickened Sherry to the point that she almost gagged, she wasn't too surprised that Irons was turned on by that kind of thing. He was very, very sick and screwy. Her Daddy was sort-of friends with him, at least he told her that they had a professional business relationship and Irons was convinced her Daddy looked up to him. Anyhow, what her Daddy told her was that Irons defiantly showed signs of necrophilia but she always though he was just messing around. He said many bad things about Chief Irons to her. Stuff like 'podgy fat prick' and 'stupid filthy fucking slime-ball' were among his favourites. He would always make sure Mommy wasn't listening when he said these things in front of her, though. He got caught once. Very entertaining.

June 8th
As I was straightening up the chief's room, he burst through the door with a furious look on his face. It's only been 2 months since I've started working here, but that's the second time I've seen him like this. The last time was when I bumped into that statue, only this time he looked even more agitated than ever. I serious thought for a moment that he was going to hurt me.

His office… THE office that was only just down the corner from her… Something was in there…. This building held secrets… Sherry felt tingly with fear and excitement as she unlocked this forbidden information, but what if Irons found out she was reading this? She couldn't think straight with her horror and exhilaration, so instead she just read.

June 15th
I finally discovered what the chief has been hiding all along... If he finds out that I know, my life will be in serious danger. It's getting late already. I'm just going to have to take this a day at a time...

She was dumbstruck by what she just read. So there was something hidden in this building… She turned the page to find out what the writer did, how they got away, how they hid what they had done-

- But the next page was blank and she felt something inside her heart snap. She turned the page again, hoping that they had missed a page by accident like she was always doing in her diary, but that page was blank too. Now filled with a new kind or terror, she flicked through the leaves of the book with mounting terror and saw not one mark on them, not ONE mark.

With a shriek she tossed the book from her ands and it banged against the hard wooden floor beyond the suits of armour, a plume of dust rising up from its impact. She regretted reading it, she regretted being such a nosey little bitch that she couldn't just have put it down and stop learning it before she learnt too much of disgusting truth. Read it though was like a snowball running uncontrollably down a cliff, getting larger and larger and harder to stop, and that was just what had happened to her, the danger building and building with each fact she learnt until her curiosity was too great and powerful to stop, then abruptly, her path ended and she realised she had read too much. She cried, but plucked up the courage to climb out of the safe haven when she realised Irons could come back for the book. If he found it on the floor, then he would KNOW that someone had read it. The only entrance being the duct, he would do something about it, blocking it up or maybe even filling it with toxic gasses!

Well… the toxic gasses thing was a little overboard, but he'd know all the same about her, and it would only be a matter of time before he hunted her down….

She carefully picked up the book from the floor and tried to cover over the disturbed layer of dust by brushing at it with her hands, only to disturb a greater area of dust and make it more obvious. On realising she was making matters far worse, she felt her throat tighten and it become more difficult to breathe for her from the sheer anxiety. Quickly, she dashed over to the table and slammed the book down on its surface, causing dust to fly about and up into her face in a large choking plume of suffocating dead skin. It flew into her mouth and deep down into her lungs, scratching and tickling at them, daring, FORCING her to cough.

She spluttered for several seconds, then cough, and cough loud. Her eyes were weepy and streaming, her mouth over-salivating to get rid of the itch, her wet spluttering sprayed dust covered globules onto the previously unspoilt dust caped wooden floor. It was then that her irrational self had taken all it could, and in mindless panic induced panic, she ran. As quickly as a fleeing, frightened little animal, she raced from that back room, through the trophy room, and slammed open the door. She had to get out, she wanted to get out more than she wanted to breathe, more than she wanted to be happy, more than anything she ever wanted in her entire life. She wanted to scream and cry and rip out her hair, she wanted to beat her fists hard down on the earth and tear out her very soul itself, but first, she had to get away. It was the only desire in her whole being. She raced down the corridor, came to a turn, and felt her heart fill with terror at the sudden thing she saw at the end of the corridor. It was a tiger! She screeched and threw her arms up in protection, but then suddenly became aware that her voice was the only one in the impeccably narrow corridor. No roars, no heavy, clawing footsteps. Slowly, the courage to lower her arms filled her as the mindless fright leaked out of her in the disturbingly silent corridor. The tiger wasn't moving, frozen in an unmoving, artificial pose. It was stuffed.

Relief in the form of an all-consuming wave crashed into Sherry. There was no way she could resist it. She cried, falling to the floor on tired, dusty legs. She cried into her little pale hands. She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't take it, she just COULDN'T. She had cried so much in the past day but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't stop herself. She didn't want to cry anymore. She didn't want to be helpless, she didn't want to be alone anymore, and for a long, beautiful moment, she wanted Kain. He was powerful, so much more powerful than the zombies, than Chief Irons, and even the inside out men. If she were an adult, then it may have taken her a lot longer to realise what he was but right now, he was whom she wanted to be with. Raw power.

-Talking… Someone was talking in the next room… And the voices… One male - Chief Irons – and one female. Sherry immediately jumped to the conclusion that it must have been the woman who had written the diary, and that Chief Irons was about to do something bad to her, something terrible, and if she didn't do something about it quick then… then God only knows what would happen to her! She ran to the door-

-Then froze. What if the woman wasn't that diary person, and was a friend of Irons, someone who would want to hurt her just as much as Irons would? He Mommy was always telling her stories about women who assist in rape because it makes their boyfriend happy, and if this woman knew that sick bastard Irons' then chances were she was just as much into hung naked corpses as he was. Then again, if she was wrong, and the lady in Irons' office really needed help…

She didn't know what to do!

The voices stopped. For a moment, Sherry wondered if her ears had just given out on her, the silence deafening, painful to her little ears, which ached to be touched by the musical sound of voice. Did this mean he'd killed the lady?

She was answered by the sound of heavy footsteps moving toward that door Sherry was right next to, and at that instant she flew into a panic, racing back down the corridor from whence she came. She knew what had to have happened. Irons killed the lady and now he was coming for her because he knew she was there, touching his stuff and discovering his secrets. The footsteps behind her, round the corner from her now, sped up to match hers but she didn't stop, she ran so fast she felt like she couldn't breathe. She ran into the dingy trophy room, past the ventilation shaft behind the suits of armour, and into the fireplace room, shutting off the lights and squeezing into the furthest, darkest corner of the room. She wasn't crying now. She wasn't even filled with terror. She emptied her heart of all of the feelings that had been warring and fighting for supremacy inside her. Now that she was in real danger from something sentient, her attitudes towards the danger changed totally.

She drained her heart and squeezed herself into a tight ball, trying to become the darkness that enveloped her, absorbing it and making it her own to evade the… human being that stalked her. The footsteps slowed and ceased as they rounded the door to the fireplace room.

This was it. The moment that would decide the fate of absolutely everything for her.

The person, by what she could tell from ear, moved unhurriedly across the narrow room to the desk, to the diary she replaced on the side, and Sherry began to feel fear leak back into her organs. It was Irons! It HAD to be! He had seen that the diary had moved and now he was sure that someone was in here! She felt a lump in her throat. He wouldn't leave now, not without searching the room. She tried not to start crying again but it was hard, so very hard. She had a terrible sinking feeling inside her. She knew she was going to die. Irons would find her and do bad things to her just like her Mother was always telling her about.

Suddenly, everything burst into a painful, harsh, piercing white that stung her watery eyes. She gripped at them but the pain did not subside. Irons had switched the lights on; she was revealed and incapacitated. She wouldn't stand a chance…. All that was left for her was to flee.

She screamed and ran with the same kind of irrepressible, desperate will as she had done when she first fled from Kain, hoping that if she was too quick for him, too small and swift for him to trap, then she would have a chance of escape even in this tiny tomb of a room, but the clenching squeeze of a spindly, skeletal hand on her arm told her otherwise. It stopped her rapid movement abruptly, giving her a huge, body-wide whiplash and smashing her brain against her head. She felt its dead, heavy weight hit against the inside of her skull and it left her daze, but only for a split second.

"Let me go!" She squealed, struggling and writhing with all her tiny might, thrashing, scratching and even punching at the skeletal, ghostly arm had hold of hers.

"Easy, easy-there! I'm not a zombie!" –

-A female voice; a young woman. It was a young woman grasping at her arm and not Chief Irons. At that moment of realisation, everything changed. Terror instantaneously turned into relief as she realised she was finally released from solitude.

Opening her eyes, she saw her face in the light. She was a very pretty young lady with her hair tied behind her, and when she smiled down at Sherry with her blue eyes lighting up warmly, Sherry felt like she might cry again. She hugged the lady tightly, feeling more relief and sadness in one moment than she had done in her whole entire life. It was a wave of release so powerful that it threatened to rob her of her sanity just as much as her most intense horror had done. But Sherry's sense kicked back into practice as her exhilarating relief began to drain out of her fair soul. This wasn't the end. Infact, this was most likely the beginning of the true nightmare she would face. Sherry had fled from other adults before because she knew that to linger with them meant her death. They would try to take her to a safe place, but there was no place that was beyond the reach of the monsters that hounded her.

Sherry pushed away from the woman gently, so she wouldn't think she was trying to run away again, and looked her in the eye. She felt herself cringe at that look in the young woman's eye. Those eyes hadn't seen anything yet, whereas every time she closed her eyes, Sherry could still see the shimmering reds and blacks of tearing flesh and writhing maggoty skin. This lady didn't know what she was up against, and to go with her… it was just too dangerous!

She crouched down to meet her eye to eye, and Sherry resisted the urge to back away cautiously. It didn't make any sense, but she was still afraid of her. She wrapped her arms behind her back and stood with her face looking down, unsure if she could meet her eyes again and not feel sick at the thought of accompanying her. She didn't want to hurt her feelings, especially as she seemed such a nice lady…

"My name's Claire, what's yours?"

Sherry inwardly winced at the musical tone of her voice, She wasn't used to talking to people, let lone one as nice as her.

"Sherry..." She looked up at her as she spoke her name to make sure she heard, but dropped it right back down again out of embarrassment. Her soft face and warm gaze were unnerving.

"Do you know where your parents, are?"

Sherry felt her heart sink at the mention of her parents. She wished she knew for sure where they were…. But the last she heard from her mother was that shaky phone call. She'd spoken to her face to face even longer ago than that. She said she would be working late with her father. "They both work at the Umbrella Chemical plant near the city limits."

"The Chemical plant?" Claire frowned, not out of anger, but curiosity. "Then… what are you doing here?"

Sherry hated to have to go through it again… "My Mom called… and told me to go to the police station because it was… too dangerous to stay at home."

"From the look of things, I'd say she was probably right, but it's dangerous here as well." Claire smiled warmly, and Sherry froze up. She could feel what was coming next in her bones; the words she had been most dreading.

"You'd better come with me."

Sherry refused, shaking her head and stepping back, feeling strangled and trapped once more. She'd been in that place for long enough. It would be coming for her now, and it would be close and when it found Claire… Oh God, she wouldn't even be able to run from it. Even Claire looked frightened a bit now at Sherry's strangled expression.

"But there's something out there. I don't know what it is, but I saw it… Much bigger than any of those zombies, and it's coming after ME!"

And as if it had heard her, it screamed.

Gyraaaahh!

Claire jumped up, prepping her handgun in her right hand.

"That's what I was TELLING you about! It's here!" Sherry ran, she didn't care if the ventilation shaft led to a dead end, she'd find another way. She HAD to. The shaft kinked up and down at certain junctions; if she put some effort into it, she could escape to the basement levels and lead the fearsome monster far, far away; away from Claire.

"Sherry wait!"

It may already be too late… As Sherry escaped into the winding junctions of the R.P.D ventilation system, she silently preyed that she would find Claire again, and that the monster would not.

That had been anywhere from fifteen minuets to half an hour ago. This place she was alone in now was creepy. It was a dark, damp and chilling basement to the R.P.D, where in the R.P.D exactly, she didn't know. There were cold steel ladders at the end of the grey hall leading to a manhole in the ceiling. The floor was damp, dark smelling earth that gave slightly as Sherry stepped upon it, like hard sponge. Some of the walls had a strange white plastic sheet draped across them. Sherry couldn't think of a reason why. She didn't touch them to find out if they concealed something either; Zombies could jump out from anywhere. They had an uncanny ability to somehow mask their presence… You know how one can almost feel the presence of someone in the same room as them; Zombies seemed to be unable to emulate that quality. She figured it was a psychological thing until she met Kain. If he WAS what he said he was… then so much more was possible than she could have ever dreamt.

With nothing to do, Sherry moved slowly over to the grey steel door, rubbing her tired face with her hand and feeling it come away grimy. When she checked it out, she had noticed another ventilation shaft concealed beneath a cluttered wooden desk and she had felt a sudden burst of anticipation at wondering what part of the building she would unlock from exploring it. She'd decided to finish her exploration of the corridor first, in case she discovered any hostiles or maybe even an exit. She had uncovered neither, only a dead end and a pile of construction items.

She decided she would crawl back into the cold ventilation shaft and when she was deep into the twisting tunnels, she would go back to sleep. Maybe when she woke up, things would be a lot better. Whenever she got really sick, her mother and father would tuck her gently into bed and tell her to go to sleep. Nearly every time she did this, she woke up and everything was perfect and back to normal again. If she slept, then maybe when she woke up the army would be here.

She unhurriedly grasped the chilly, dirty metal of the doorknob with her little hand with such a weak grip that it frightened her how drained she had become. Her head sagged and she felt her eyes become cloudy with tears yet again. She had begun to wonder what had happened to her parents and then slowly she stopped wondering. They were both probably… probably… -

-"Sherry!"

Her head snapped up at the mention of her name, and her eyes were wide. She was familiar with that voice. VERY familiar.

"Sherry? H… Help…"

"Oh my God!" Escaped from her lips involuntarily. The distant voice, laced with pain and fear, was her fathers!

"Daddy? Are you okay!" She looked around for where the voice was coming from as he spoke;

"Sherry? Is that you honey?"

"Yes!" She nodded to herself, chasing the sound down the corridor to the dead end.

"Sherry honey, I'm scared! Please, you have to help me!" The voice was coming through a hole in a wire mesh, high up on a wall. Sherry knew what she had to do. Her father was on the other side of that, maybe being attacked by the monsters, and she was the only one who could save him. Taking some of the construction beams, she lined one board up with the hole making a ramp, and prepared to climb-

-"Sherry!" Another voice, only this one was much closer, and belonged to Claire. She froze. Sherry knew she would try to talk her out of it.

"Sherry where are you going? Don't run from me, don't you trust me?"

Sherry didn't turn back. "It's not that Claire, it's because of my daddy. He's over there, I heard him call my name!" Sherry started to panic, but still didn't return to Claire, who was approaching her too quickly for her liking. She was going to try and stop her, and Sherry couldn't let that happen. She squeezed into the hole.

"Sherry!" Claire yelled again as she disappeared beyond her reach.

" Daddy must have been attacked by the monsters! I HAVE to help him!"

"Wait Sherry don't go alone!" Claire was too late though. Sherry had fallen to the floor on the other side of the wall and had already begun looking for her father. "Sherry! SHERRY!"

The R.P.D basement was full of goods and delights, Kain discovered, if you knew where to look. Prizing open the already damaged door to the weapons storage room had been a cinch, and his reward was one of those sub-machine guns William had encountered and more ammo than he would need, what with his claws serving him well in close quarter combat with the undead zombies. Why the humans who broke into the weapons storage room prior to him left the sub-machine gun behind, he would never know but it would defiantly slow down some of the hardier enemies that stalked the corridors of the R.P.D.

Speaking of which…

Kain had discovered many an area where his wits had been required, his reward for two of them being two strange stones… and a blue fragment of a third one. Anyway, he found where those two red jewels were supposed to be used, and in that room he acquired a pink, diamond shaped key, which opened a door that held a heart shaped key, which opened a door to the basement area which no doubt must have the last key he needed. One complete stone was acquired from a strange puzzle in the library involving sliding shelves to match a picture on the wall, and the second whole piece… well, the circumstances in which he obtained that item were very unique.

The previous stone and the blue stone fragment he had found had been uncovered to him after he had solved a puzzle of some elaborate description, yet when he unlocked the door to what seemed to be some kind of interrogation room with the diamond key, the first thing his yellow eyes came to rest upon was the whole stone itself, lying on a shelf on the opposite side of the room. Kain did not enter the room before looking it over with his sharp optical sense, his chilling gaze travelling over a large mirror consuming one wall and a desk in the centre of the room on which rested a cable and an eerily half empty polystyrene cup of coffee. Whoever started that coffee, was killed before he could finished it… a definite sign of danger.

Entering slowly, Kain watched the reflective surface of the giant mirror with his deathlike white face creased in bewilderment. Certainly a peculiar place for such a large mirror… Another puzzle, perhaps?

He noticed this was very much the case and thought twice about taking the stone. It could trigger all manner of things if he wasn't sharp enough to spot the problem. Check over the tiled floor and then the ceiling, he saw nothing. He was looking for something like a button of a steel grate through which toxic gasses would be freed but there was nothing. He examined the stone and saw nothing was attached to it; no trip wires, no secret levers below it that would activate a giant blender… No freaky shit would happen if he took it. He relaxed now, and did just that. -

-And as if on cue, as if it was part of a trip-wire mechanism set up to catch off-guard thieves, the giant mirror exploded into a million pieces and a snarling fleshy ball of hatred fell to the floor with a heavy thump. It was another one of those damn tongue creatures with an exposed brain! It howled and then screamed and finally lunged at the still dumbstruck vampire. Kain kicked it away with his heavy boots and it smashed into the table and chairs.

That's when he saw him again.

William Birkin was comfortably sitting with his legs crossed in one of the gunmetal grey seats at the interrogation desk with a large smile on his sick features. The inside out creature Kain had placed his heavy metal boot in had been propelled into the chair William was sitting on, but because of his insubstantial form it fell straight though him, falling on the chair and almost instantly springing from it again at him. William applauded this sending daggers of hate slicing into Kain's heart but Kain ignored him. He had an idea…

Ripping one of the legs from the table, Kain preceded to beat the exposed lobe of the howling, spitting snarling beast into a bloody grey pulp.

"Oh, I'm very vulnerable there!" William joked in a comic voice as Kain delivered a blow on its exposed brain. Kain ignored him and brought down another shattering wet thud on its bare brain sending it convulsing to the floor. "There go the piano lessons!" William quipped, but in spite of the great impatience in Kain's heart for the man, he preceded to ignore the annoying mad scientist just as he had planned. He behaved as though William wasn't even there.

As Kain exited that room with the stone in his gore soaked claws, he caught sight of William out of the corner of his eye and boy was he pissed.

That had been about an hour ago, Kain had counted from the small wristwatch on one of the bodies in the morgue but his interest was piqued when he picked up the sound of yelling from somewhere in the R.P.D basement a moment ago. With his vampiric senses he could discern that though the sound was not very far, it was greatly muffled. Out of curiosity he followed the path the sound had come from and had found a grungy, poorly lit dirty little alley full of overflowing trash and at the end of it, an open manhole.

Inside the manhole was a filthy basement section, the damp soil serving as the floor plush beneath his sturdy boots and strange plastic sheets covering some of the walls. Following the path, he came to the source of the pleas.

Claire Redfield, the young woman whom had caused him much reason to complain earlier, was now on her knees on a ramp of wood, peering apparently desperately (though he was behind her, her actuations were laced with stressful worry) through a small hole in a wire fence.

Much stranger was William Birkin, standing next to the makeshift ramp on which Claire was knelt, peering nervously at her for any signs of progresses, fidgeting on the spot and playing roughly with his fingers. Claire could not see, hear of even sense he was there, so it was strange that he would waste his time manifesting himself to her in this way…

William noticed Kain before Claire did.

"Oh God, what have I done?" He said nervously to Kain.

"What is happening?"

Claire spun around at the sound of Kain's voice, but rather than question his prescience, she preceded to tell him.

"It's Sherry! She went though this hole because she thought she heard her father calling to her!"

Kain looked at William. "Did he?"

William unhappily nodded.

" I don't know if her father's really over there." Responded Claire to a question she believed was directed at her.

"But we HAVE to find her! He father wouldn't want her risking herself like this!"

"Damn right I wouldn't!" Answered William. "It called me back, the G-virus that now controls my body. That's where I am when I'm not with you Kain, and in some kind of pain induced confusion as I grew extra claws, I called out of help… I think I might have called her name… I'm not sure…. Anyhow, I wasn't in full control so it could have made me says ANYTHING to her!"

"Idiot." Muttered Kain under his breath and made his way to the ramp. "Get out of my way!" He barked to her.

Claire gave him a confused look as she slipped down the ramp and back onto her own two feet again. Her bright eyes showed that she could not work out what he was about to do.

"It's too small for an adult to enter." Claire told him. "I've been trying to widen the hole, but that wire's tough."

"I need not adjust the hole."

Even with his induced weakness, one of his most useful dark gifts had apparently endured the long slumber and scientific tests: Mist form.

Claire gasped as Kain swiftly and gently disintegrated into a gentle cloud of living mist. The mist had a bizarre movement about it compared to normal mist. It danced and swirled amidst itself in a most beautifully haunting but unnatural way and took on the rough shape of its previous humanoid form. Claire didn't know what to think when the man standing right next to her became dancing mist and seeped through the wire mesh hole. Claire was a very levelheaded person and sure, zombies were running around, but a grown man transforming to mere mist just simply wasn't possible! Little did she know that the father of the young girl she was so concerned for was standing right next to her in the damp hallway. Ironically, he himself was once a very levelheaded man but at some point in the last ten years, he had been slipping further and further into madness. He felt that soon, she would follow the path he took, too.

The haze of Kain's form soaked through the steel wires and solidified on the other side in a crouch. A sense of vertigo overcame him for a second but as Kain forced his eyes open, his sense of direction rejoined him.

"I am through." Kain told them. Claire didn't know how to respond for a moment and then answered;

"I'll wait here for you, but you must find and protect Sherry! Even if her father IS in trouble over there, she has no way to protect him!"

Kain unhurriedly moved over to the small red elevator in the corner of the room, his boots characteristically thumping heavily with each powerful step and seeing that the rust coating the controls of the small one-man lift had been disturbed very recently, felt that there was still hope for the little human child.

"If her father indeed is over here, then it will be Sherry whom requires protection."

Racing down the footpath in the open-air section of the sewage treatment facility, Sherry's blood ran cold when she felt something's icy dead eyes on her. She didn't stop to peer into one of the thick blocks of shadows cast by huge tanks that reached into the very sky, enveloping the walkway in an inky black death, but just kept running, sprinting to the end of the 'T' shaped walkway and going left to a closed steel door.

Once inside, she felt absorbed in relief again once realising the coast was clear; Extreme emotion seemed to be a side effect of the terror. Looking around, she saw she was in a strange room indeed; A deep drop in the centre of the room, like some kind of dirty, drained pool and three large, wooden boxes in that hole for apparently no good reason. On the other side of the hole was a shelf and on that shelf, something sparkled preciously. A key with a jewelled, green top in some kind of shape she couldn't make out. If she got that key at least, then maybe Claire wouldn't be so mad at her for running off to save her Daddy, who didn't seem to be anywhere around here after all. She preyed it was because he had escaped…

Directly in front of her was a small consol that intrigued her curiosity. Moving across the empty room to the panel, she could see it was some kind of device for controlling the level of water in that damp pit… it seemed fairly uncomplicated; there was an on and off switch and currently it was set to 'off'.

Sherry had a brainwave. If she stacked the boxes to one side of the room…-

- The door, the only entrance and exit to the room, clacked and squealed painfully open on old, unlubricate hinges. Sherry had spun around to meet the creature eye to eye even before the door had finished creaking open, yet the creature that had entered was there already.

"Kain!" Sherry squeaked and resisted the itching urge to run up and cuddle him. As much as she was overjoyed to see him again, he didn't look like the type to be fond of kids.

"Sherry Birkin." He responded upon seeing her, his emotions ever unreadable, or simply non-existent. He pointed at her with one long sharp black claw. "You are to accompany me back to your 'Claire' immediately. It is unsafe for a diminutive human child such as you to be astray at this time."

"Well yeah… But I'm NOT going back until I find my Daddy!"

"You are best off NOT finding your father, child." Kain said seriously. "He could pose a great threat to you in his current way."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Sherry yelled in her high voice. Where she got the courage to yell at such a frightening man, she didn't know. "We may not have known each other very well, but my Daddy loves me! I can't just leave him to die just because YOU think I'm too weak to take care of myself!" Kain marched toward her threateningly but she ran in the direction of the oversized concrete steps leading down into the pit containing three boxes. She hopped down each oversized step as quickly as she could, the recovery time after each jump painfully slowing down her decent to the bottom, but when she rose up from her crouch after landing on the bottom on the pit, Kain was already standing there right in front of her, waiting.

Sherry was shocked. "How did you…?"-

Kain stalked forward. "I jumped."

She staggered backwards, astonished, until she was abruptly stopped by one of the heavy wooden boxes. Backing into it gave her a little start and she yelped out in surprise.

"Child, you are causing me more bother than is wise. If you continue to elude me, I will take you by force. Do you understand?" He was getting pissed now.

After a moment, Sherry got her nerves back. If he truly were a monster like she guessed, then if he wanted to kill her he would have done it already. He was bluffing.

"I can take care of myself!" She barked.

He lost his temper, the savage look in his eyes seemingly exploding into rage. "You little brat!" And he clutched her arm tightly in his iron grip so fast that Sherry didn't even see the hand move until it was squeezing painfully at her wrist. "I may not desire the loss of your life but believe me mortal, when I say that I know of quite literally hundreds of ways to hurt to a human body without drawing even a drop of blood!"

A few painful moments passed. The echo of Kain's violent words concluded in the sewage disposal room, then an all-consuming silence enveloped them. The child peered at him with disheartened watery blue eyes that told a crushing tale of her woe. Her woe then turned to pain, and her pain turned to tears.

She started to cry. Loudly.

The sound of her noisy bawling echoed hugely in the empty little hole, cradling her gushing eyes with her free hand balled into a fist, her faces creased into pain. Still hold of her other arm, Kain at first felt angry that she would pull something like this; every monster in a 30-metre radius was going to hear this racket, he began to feel a another emotion sneak into a crack in his heart the longer her pain went on. He started to feel a little bad for hurting her in this way. She was only a little girl; she didn't know any better and now he'd yelled at her simply because he couldn't control HIS temper.

"Sherry…" He tried, looking around first as though to check no one was defiantly watching before he continued, placing his other hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry Sherry… I didn't mean to yell at you." She didn't stop crying. "You just… would not comply and I was forced to take more direct action…" His words weren't helping and Kain began to unwillingly comprehend that he would need to try something a little more intimate to get her to calm down. He gradually pulled her to him until he was holding the child against his chest in a hug. The crying little girl held him tightly once she got there, Kain letting go of her arm and she immediately threw her little arms around his waist (or as far around as she could get them), her head rested against his slowly pulsating, sculpted stomach. He shushed quietly at the child, feeling a flicker of embarrassment wriggle around inside his abdomen but swallowed heavily and tried to ignore it. He stroked her hair as softly as he was able, and when she had quietened down somewhat and peered in enchanted amazement up at him, he pasted on the least intimidating face he could muster.

Sherry sniffed the last of her tears down. " I don't know why I cried." She said in mild ashamed embarrassment, pushing herself away from him. "My parents used to yell at me a lot when I got in the way and I never cried then."

"Tonight is special." He commented, putting on the friendliest smile he could manage, but it was twisted to a great extent and appeared very disingenuous even to Sherry. She raised an eyebrow, and upon seeing that it wasn't working, Kain stopped trying to appear friendly. He had stopped her crying; He'd done his share of kindness. "I believe circumstances on this night are somewhat different." Kain continued. "We are all feeling emotions that we normally would not…" He didn't mean to give it away to her but he obviously meant that he had felt guilty enough to try and stop her from crying and that was not at all usual for him...

Feeling awkward now for causing him such bother, Sherry thought for an uncomfortable moment of how to reiterate her point without angering him again….

Before Kain came in, Sherry remembered having an idea on how to get to that key…

She clenched her hands enthusiastically and beamed determinedly up to Kain; "Kain, if I can prove to you that I'm not just some dumb kid, will you have a little more faith in me?"

Kain propped his fists onto his hips and raised an eyebrow, curious but amused slightly by her proposal.

"What do you have in mind?"

Sherry pointed one little finger to the other side of the deep pit where the key rested on an otherwise empty shelf.

"I'll get you that key using my wits! All you have to do is stay by the side of the pit and watch me work!"

Kain smirked and chuckled to himself lightly. That key was none other than the very one he needed to unlock the final remaining closed doors in the P.D.

"Very well." He said with mild, playful disdain as he moved over to the edge of the pit, uncoiling his fists until his arms hung by his sides. "If you can bring me the key, then I shall treat you with a tad more respect, child."

"My name is Sherry Birkin." She reminded him with contempt.

Kain snorted to himself with a sly, dark smile across his pale face, turning to face the discoloured, slimy wall of the deep hole. Then, in one graceful inhuman movement he sprang up more than three metres back onto the upper level of the sewage treatment room, before turning and waiting by the water control panel to see what Sherry had planned.

Shaking her head trying to free her from a daze, she didn't desire to show his abilities left her feeling a little rattled; it would be a sign of weakness. She had to redeem herself in his scowling, golden eyes after bursting into tears right in front of him like some pathetic trapped animal. As she executed her little theory, pushing the boxes up to one side of the pit, she began to think about Kain more. She so absolutely did not want him to believe she was helpless, albeit she wanted his protection. It reminded her of one of the annoying documentaries her father made her watch on TV. Wild animals in zoos seem to have a friendly pet-like relationship with their keepers, but one sign of weakness for even a second and they'll take them down. Her Daddy said that it was nothing personal, and that it was because they would see it as an opportunity to become leader of the pack and animals are always opportunists. Kain was a sentient being though. If he took an opportunity to hurt her now, then it would most certainly be personal.

The boxes were lined up in a row on the far wall of the sewage. She dusted the layer of grime from her hands and smiled in satisfaction. Turning up to Kain, she was delighted to see he was at least still watching her and hadn't wandered off, his gaze or otherwise.

"Are you finished?" Kain asked, trying (but not his hardest) not to sound so arrogantly impatient, however after years of practicing exactly the opposite, he couldn't hide it very well. However, had Kain seen into the tiny girls heart, then he may have been surprised to see she felt flattered that he was at least trying not to lose patience with her again. It reassured her in that he didn't believe it was her fault he got mad. Adults usually blamed the child for anything THEY did wrong and the child had the misfortune to get swept along with. It was really quite unbelievable that Kain hadn't killed her. It was chilling for her to comprehend what he could do to her before he killed her...

She forced that thought from her mind before it got out of hand. Climbing back up the giant steps to the ground level with Kain, she tried to convince herself that vampires were different from humans in such things. They'd been around a lot longer she guessed; they'd know better by now, right? -

- She pushed herself up on one of the cold stone steps, yet as she applied pressure to the dirty, slippery concrete, her fingers slid through green slime that rimmed the step and she lost all balance. What happened in the next split second took Sherry more than several of them to piece it all together through her startled shock.

She fell… then stopped abruptly and violently before she reached the cold sold floor… Her small eyes didn't open immediately; even now-clenched firmly closed, bracing for an impact that had been unnaturally delayed, but as she became aware of a strange pressure on her arm, she dared to open her eyes, just a little, to inspect what had happened.

Kain's pallid, clawed hand was firmly wrapped around her arm stopping her from falling. He'd been at the top of the chunky stairs literally a heartbeat ago and now he was before her, taking hold of her arm and barely centimetres from her. He moved faster than she could ever have anticipated…

"You should be more careful, child." The tone of mockery in Kain's voice was unmistakable as he lifted her up off her feet by her arm and carrying her to the top. "Slip in the wrong place and you will most certainly die."

The very moment Sherry's feet touched the floor again, she struggled free from his grasp, Kain making no attempt to hold her against her will. She turned furiously to him, but after a few moments of irritated scowling she apparently decided to let it drop.

Kain watched curiously with one folded across his chest and his other claw on his chin as she began to play with the water level control panel and a sudden snap of a steel switch filled the room. The, the hissing, rushing roar of racing water from somewhere deep below them crept in swiftly from the distance, becoming louder and louder until the roaring filled the pit below, razing the row of boxes Sherry had created up to their level. Even as the boxes rose, Kain chuckled when he noticed what Sherry's plan must have been; to use the floating boxes as a makeshift bridge to the other side of the room. He shook his head gently. It was a very clever idea for such a tiny human child but she hadn't planned for one thing…

Sherry dashed over to the boxes and placed her foot confidently on its surface-

-Finding it bob around beneath her foot in an unstable manner. Not letting this discourage her, Sherry cautiously climbed onto the first box, it jogging and ebbing around, now dangerously close to-

-And then it happened. Cringing, Kain covering his eyes with his hands as he heard the splash of Sherry Birkin plunging into the grimy water. The box had done a rotation in the water and had dumped its passenger into the semi-treated sewer waters beneath. Coughing and spluttering, Sherry swam painfully slow back to the floored stair area of the pit and dragged herself out, knelt on the floor in a dripping heap of disappointment.

"You could have pulled me out!" Sherry complained.

Kain shook his head. "A Vampire body is burnt by the touch of water as if by acid."

"That's holy water!"

Kain frowned. "No, it's water. How does holy water differ from any other water? It is still made of exactly the same chemicals."

"It's charged with the power of God or something." She told him, wringing out her clothing with more than a little irritated scowl on her face.

Kain laughed. "The Christian God would have given up on this world round about the time humans murdered his son. Would he truly allow such a hopelessly violent race such access to divine power? No, child. Water seems to have an eroding effect on vampires."

"What about sunlight and crosses and garlic and stuff?"

Kain snorted. "Sunlight turns fledglings into dust at its touch but I have developed somewhat of an immunity already. Though I am weaker during the day, I can still survive in direct sunlight. As for crosses and garlic, that is a load of petty accusations dreamt up by a cowardly race to demonise a people they know they are inferior to."

"You don't seem like much of a saint yourself." Sherry dared, her voice small and as unthreatening as she could. Her ignorance angered Kain, and stalking towards her tiny crouched form, he burned at her with wicked golden eyes.

"An eternity of persecution does that to a man."

A silence ensued as Kain, using his vampiric strength and speed he had demonstrated earlier, jumped across the water filled pit to the other side and casually collected the key himself, slipping it into one of his hip packs.

"Why the heck didn't you do that in the first place?" Asked a fuming Sherry.

"You said it yourself." Kain responded, jumping back to her so easily it made one wonder why humans were incapable of such movement. "You wanted to get that key to prove yourself to me. And you failed."

"If I hadn't fallen off then I would have got it!" She yelled.

Kain Chuckled softly. "You may as well have said 'if I hadn't failed, I would have got it'. You didn't get the key, Sherry. If you cannot even achieve something as simple as that then what hope have you for finding your father?"

"Simple for YOU maybe! I'm finding my father and nothing you say can changed that!"

Biting his lower lip just for a second, Kain unwillingly accepted the fact that this was a true statement. He shuddered to think that the G-virus monster William had become had used William's voice to lure her to it. She wasn't safe alone yet if she was so dead set on finding her father, then that meant she would be attempting to dash off at every available opportunity and although Kain had proven himself to be faster and stronger than her, all she needed was a conveniently placed hole to escape and squeeze into and she would be beyond his reach and protection. He could not expect her to stay with him, even now yet without him, she would perish…

"I don't care what you have to say!" Continued Sherry, breaking Kain from his thought. "I can't come with you just yet; my father is around here somewhere and I HAVE to find him!"

"Is this what you want?" Kain asked softly. A far cry from the violent outburst of emotion at her defiance that Sherry expected. Armed with the final precinct key, Kain now had access to the final locked doors in the R.P.D building and believed his search would be hindered with a child tagging along. She too needed to perform a search of her own and was not going to yield; William Birkin may have been the immoral diversion of human nature that damned him to this torment, but he was still father to this cute little girl and the love between them was apparent from their legitimate concern for one another, rather than each being cross at the other for leaving them behind. He would get a chance to protect her but that time was not now. Right now, she needed to find her father and learn the true meaning of the fight for survival, rather than hiding away in the ducts like some powerless fluffy animal.

After Sherry nodded in answer to his uncertain question, Kain removed William's handgun from one of many straps on his belt and handed it to her. Eyes wide in disbelief, Sherry cautiously took up the deadly black metal object, gasping slightly at its heaviness as it pulled down her hand somewhat.

He unstraped and handed her the side-pack he had found in the weapons storage locker, full of ammunition and gave her instructions on how to use the weapon.

"When the slide is back, it means it's empty. When you reload, the slide catch is hit and it will move forwards, showing you that you have done it properly. Hold it as rigidly as you can with both hands; even a gun like this can easily buck out of your hands, child, so be very careful."

"Wait… What are you doing?" Sherry asked, holding the weapon that had previously belonged to her father in her tiny hands. "You just go around give little kids guns?"

"If you wish to search for your father, then you cannot go unarmed." Kain reasoned. "And I am also assuming that though you may only have been on this earth for a mere twelve years, child, you are not psychologically deficient enough to fire that weapon at yourself."

"What if I shoot someone else?"

"Then be it on your soul rest, child. Surely the thought of taking a life will be enough to ensure your care?"

Sherry swallowed hard. He trusted her enough to give her a gun! …Or maybe it was that he was far more aware of the seriousness of the situation that he was able to overcome such humanly immoral ideas as little kids with guns. In a town like Raccoon, who cares if it's sick to give a kid a gun? It's even sicker to deny them one when it could be the only thing between them and death.

Kain led Sherry out of the water filled room and into the walkway beneath the starts and, after testing the weapon by firing a thunderous shot into the night sky, he was satisfied she knew everything she could to defend herself in Raccoon city. She had the common sense to run from danger when she was outnumbered; she had a good chance of surviving alone for now, and as they parted ways, Kain silently wished her luck. She may have been twelve, but she understood what to do; why should he worry?

Entering back to the tunnel with the wire net hole he had used mist form to infiltrate, Kain begun to decide just how disappointed he should sound when he told Claire and William that he could not find Sherry Birkin.

The monster hollowly and wordlessly observed the small child and the pale man part ways from its vantage point on top of one of the enormous water tanks overshadowing the area. When the two life forms had disappeared, the creature opened its soft black lips steadily and moved its damp tongue behind its sharp teeth, breathing warm damp air through them all. The sound it had been trying to emulate did not leave its lips as it had done before and it grew impatient. Why was it so hard to do this? The strange life forms that littered this world all made such odd music through their soft pink lips. It was a tremendous mixture of melodies that lasted from dawn until dusk that they all made so surprisingly effortlessly. If it was like them, why was it finding it so hard?

When it first awoke in the deep, hidden places of this world, it saw something it would never, ever forget. At the time, it did not know what the strange, astonishing and beautiful creature was gazing back at him from the outside with its glassy eyes. It stared in amazement at it as it awoke, the spongy lips of its mouth parting to reveal what it would later recognise as teeth and damp tongue. Then, it decided that it should be outside it this strange thing and broke free from the cushioning gluey liquid and the cutting glass all around it. The creature clothed in white did not seem to be what it would later recognise as 'frightened', and instead it made the music from its mouth. It would never forget the sound of that music. So deep and rumbling, like thunder from the heavens, then it too opened its mouth and made the music, howling at the blue eyed creature with its own song, but the creature did not understand its music and it seemed to make it more wary of it.

It turned back to the womb of glass and cables it had burst free from and saw another next to it still holding another one of those animals, only this one with a pale colour. There was much more of the strange fur that grew from the top of its head than there was with the animal before it, and it was a different colour, too. As silver as the rays of the moon... -

-Then, it became aware of the colour of its own fur, and it matched the creature still in the glass womb. It traced over its whole body with its own eyes and found that the creature still in the womb was identical to it in every way. Why? It turned to the creature in the white cloth and now its powerful blue eyes were fill with a new, strange emotion that even now it cannot work out. It was not afraid of it, it was not sad, it was not happy… but it made the music again from its mouth and it did not take on such a pleasing quality to the ear.

It remembered back to when it first awoke and is hissed angrily. There was so much about these strange creatures that it did not know then. The beautiful creature with the voice of gentle thunder had been a male; it understood that much. It too was a male. The opposite of 'male' was 'female' and they differed in a variety of ways. Females were far louder before it made them stop working, for one, and males tend to fight back much more. It remembered the first creature it made stop working; a female child. It did not do it on purpose with her, however. Not like now. It wanted to see the inside of that child, and it was indeed a beautiful sight, but for a long while it wondered if it was really worth making the child stop working. The creatures were boring when they stopped working; they no longer made the music it enjoyed to hear and would take on a limp stance, becoming no different from an object. It later discovered that the red juice that poured from the creatures like water from a tap was indeed very delicious and had taken well to opening up the creatures to get at the juice inside. They made a very different kind of music when it did this: An awfully nasty song that would alert the other creatures it its prescience. It tried to get to the juice without causing them to make the horrid song, but they never relented in their hymn right up until they shut down.

The land had been engulfed by a different kind of creature recently, however. This kind had terrible tasting juice and ate the bodies of the creatures it fed on, making them bad for its health. It had listened into the songs of the creatures as they fell and heard a number of lyrics that always remained the same;' Zombies' and 'Monsters'. It guessed that this was what they must have been.

It followed the carnage all the way to this one building it was hiding in and it was here that it heard songs that it never thought it would hear again. One was a howl of a monster that sounded distorted, but could only have belonged to the beautiful man-creature in the godly white robes that it had witnessed at its awakening (this creature had also been responsible for putting him back inside the glass womb until the zombie-monsters took over, before it escaped again) and the second was even more astounding. It was ITS own song, the song it cried when it first burst free of the womb, only this time it was sung from the lips of another. Following the songs, it came across two animals; a child that had the same scent as the robed god and the thing it had seen in the second glass womb, the one that had been identical to it. The two creatures made the music to each other quite a lot and while it had been attending, it had learnt the lyrics they used to refer to each other. Its twin was called 'Kain' and the small, delicate was called 'Sherry' and as it watched them disappear from its view, it felt a ravenous pang within its chest. It had fed much since its awakening, so it was not thirst for the crimson substance it hungered for, so what was it?

It sat, impatiently trying to emulate the name of the child with its inexperienced lips, only a raspy wail leaving them, when suddenly it realised that it did not have a name, a song that was its own but turning to the black marks of language tattooed onto the right side of its chest, it saw its own name, or its serial number, as it would more appropriately be called.

Had it been able to read the language of the beings it fed upon, it would have read 'gamma'