Recommended BGM:

1. Resident Evil Director's Cut (DualShock ver.) - More Rooms

2. Resident Evil (Remake) - Guardhouse I

3. Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles - Initial R

Chapter 13

Alex smashed the door behind him and locked it before he was about to be zombie food for a couple of ghouls that were wandering around; the same ones that had broken through the glass frame of the windows in the back of the corridor. Barry and Mason had just split up and Mason was now back in the same bedroom where he and Chris found the morbid diary, sitting on the bed for a moment. The gurgling zombies were scraping against the closed door lazily as he lost himself in his own thoughts. Barry had told him he'd go on the east wing while he suggested he'd stay here on the west wing and explore any areas that were left unsearched, looking for either the damn masks or the other lost missing emblem, now that he had a key to work with, which had an engraving of a helmet. In a huge mansion like this, it would take ages for them to look for anything specific.

I'm sorry I dragged you into this mess somehow, Dave…

He took a deep breath, still feeling shaky about the events that had unfolded just minutes ago. The same horrible images played on an endless loop inside his mind as each second flew by with David, his son already in his late teens, scared for his life as random strangers surround him in his own apartment.

Your Uncle Woods taught you how to be strong, how to protect yourself, how to be vigilant… most of all, how to be smarter than your dear ol' pops. You'd know what to do, right?

…fuck! I can't let that happen.

Woods has reassured him that David knew exactly what to do in case a similar incident like that arises, but even knowing that David was trained by one of the most skilled military combatants he's ever known, he couldn't help but become extremely worried for him. Being a father to someone who hates you for abandoning them as a child was difficult. His biggest regret in life was not being there for his son as he grew up to become an adult. He wanted to believe everything he had done up to this point in his life was to make the world a better place for him, but that was foolish of him to think about the moment he decided to help out his best friend, Woods, over being with his son for almost over twelve years now.

But here he was, trying to make it up to him now, in a very ironic, but twisted way. Now that his boy was in grave danger, he's going to have to turn his back on his teammates, his friends, and his very own best friend… to whom he had promised to help shed some light on the classified BS that happened back in Angola.

Sacrificing his relationship with other people around him would hurt him, ruin him, and destroy whatever shred of humanity he had left. It was worse than being brainwashed and not having to be aware of the disasters you've committed.

Rebecca… Richard… Chris…

…Woods.

It was too much for him. He wished that he could just kill Wesker for making him go through all this, worse than even Dragovich, Steiner, or Kravchenko at this point since they all never had any specific detail on his own family's location to use against him. Wesker, however, could very well have a wealthy amount of resources to use from Umbrella, and considering how dangerous they can be if even such a deadly accident like this can happen, he could only imagine the severity if they were anything similar to the Soviets, except through the use of a virus rather than a noxious chemical gas like Nova Six.

After thinking about it for some time, there could be some connections between this and the Angola incident with Woods and his team. It wasn't simply because of the civil war that was happening in the region, but rather experiments being performed on his team behind the scenes. It was evident by the number of deformities and similar decomposition seen from the fallen soldiers inside the container filled with a noxious wave of rot, comparable to that of the zombies they've encountered inside the mansion.

And to think that the CIA and US government have been trying to cover it up all this time…

Could they somehow be involved in all of this mess as well? And is Umbrella also involved in the black market, not just here, but across the globe too?

He couldn't tell and decided not to waste time any further. Not anymore.

He looked around the bedroom and then thought about some of the rooms he had already searched. There was no phone or radio to be seen anywhere in the mansion. It's almost as if the house has been deliberately set up to not have any outside contact with anyone.

How is that shithead even going to contact his Umbrella minions if he doesn't get access to the underground lab any time soon?

This realization meant that they may be on borrowed time.

"SHIT!" He exclaimed angrily as he violently threw an empty liquor bottle against the wall in front of him, full of blind hatred for Wesker, the sound of breaking glass making the zombies behind the door much more eager to enter the room he was in.

Staring back at the wall and down below the ground near the big shelf filled with mostly expired alcoholic beverages, he saw something that seemed out of place, hidden underneath the furniture. Filled with curiosity, he walked and crouched towards it and there was a medium-sized bottle filled with some sort of clear blue liquid.

As he managed to grab the bottle, and proceeded to open the cap. The smell…

Kerosene? Why would they have it stored here anyway?

Regardless, he was now slightly relieved that it could now solve their crimson zombie problem, but without Chris' lighter or anything else to light them on fire, the issue would still remain. Not to mention it would only be enough to burn at least a few bodies, at most. He'd have to stack them up if he wanted to be more resourceful with it.

In a sudden rush, he looked for anything to light it with; lighters, matches, or anything that could make a spark.

He searched underneath the pillows, the bed, through the small gaps around the shelf, inside the drawers and one of the closets that were unlocked, and still, nothing.

Thinking the person who might've stayed in the room could have something of use inside their discarded clothing, he searched through every pocket he could find, until one, in particular, had a box half-full of matches.

Bingo!

Trying not to waste any more time drowning himself with self-pity, he unlocked and quickly opened the door as he ran across the other side of the room, ready to quickly evade them by using the bed as a barrier against them. As the decomposing ghouls were lazily stumbling upon the bed, slowly raising their skinny, bloodied arms in vain to try and reach him, he ran around them hazily and proceeded to lock the door behind him, making sure those zombies would never come out of there again.

I need to hurry…

Rebecca found herself alone in a room; the same room Alex had told her to stay in. For many moments, the room felt unsettlingly quiet. Richard was nowhere to be seen and sudden desperation arose as she woke up from her nap, wondering where he had gone.

"Richard? Richard!" She called out to him.

There was no answer anywhere. Not even from outside of the only door out of there. The chest she remembered moving was positioned out of place, bound against the wall instead of the door, an indication that Richard most likely pushed it out of the way and left her there, …without even telling her.

What happened? Had Alex or Chris come in and Richard joined them? How long have I been asleep?

There was a sudden pounding against the door, louder than ever. She quickly searched for her gun, but much to her shock, she was left unarmed, unprotected by the hazard that was coming to get her.

Scared for her life, she searched for the bug spray she remembered finding, but once again, she was left defenseless as the can was already completely empty, devoid of any liquid inside. The pounding wasn't stopping and it only grew louder by the second.

A deep growl was generated behind the door. She'd never heard such growls before, not even from the dogs, zombies, or any other wild animal she could remember studying that lived inside the woods near the mansion. Without a second thought, she quickly hid under the bed, hoping it wouldn't smell or sense her as it was the only thing she could do right now.

She knew it was a futile move if it was a wild, predatory animal, already smelling her from behind the door. But maybe she could get extremely lucky and wait for it to pass by and leave afterward.

With both hands over her mouth, she closed her eyes, praying she wasn't going to become another victim inside the mansion as the thing that kept pounding against the door finally blew the door open, splinters flying across the room due to the severity of the damage it had sustained.

As she opened her eyes, she saw it was a humanoid creature, its bare feet were pale and somewhat unnaturally bigger than an ordinary human being's. It wasn't crimson, like what Alex and Chris described, but whatever it was, it felt just as dangerous as she remembered being told about. Her muscles became tense and she could almost hear her heartbeat progressively becoming louder as the humanoid monster drew closer to the bed she was hiding underneath.

It then stopped in its tracks, sensing as though something or someone was in the same vicinity as the pale humanoid-shaped monster. Rebecca trembled in fear, not knowing what to do if it came to finding out where she was hiding.

Before she could even begin to plan out her escape, the creature growled loudly and immediately slashed against the bed, almost crushing her underneath. She held her breath, unmoving and silent, thinking if she screams now, it'd be over for her in an instant. However, the creature somehow knew she was there as it violently threw the bed across the other side of the room with its giant talons on its right arm, and Rebecca began frantically screaming.

Rebecca opened her eyes, her screams having reached into reality as she woke up from the terrible nightmare she had just experienced, startling an awakened Richard as he stared back at her and put a hand on her arm to try and calm her down.

"Hey, hey! You're alright! I'm right here," he said, trying to reassure her.

Rebecca stopped to look around her surroundings for a brief moment, confused and startled by the touch of his hand.

"Oh I'm so sorry I woke you up," she said apologetically. "It's just that… I— I had a terrible nightmare."

Richard gazed at her, sympathetically.

"No need to apologize. I also had a terrible nightmare as well. There were …monsters everywhere. Everything was dark and…" he stopped himself from describing his bad dream any further. He already saw how worried Rebecca looked, her eyes filled with exhaustion, almost hollow around the ridges with how little sleep she may have gotten. "Anyway, I know exactly how you're feeling. It'll pass."

Rebecca nodded. She was at least glad that Richard was okay and still with her. Being alone in a monster-infested house was still something that frightened her quite a lot. Being with Richard however, or anyone else for that matter, made her feel much safer and more determined.

"How are you feeling?" She asked.

Richard lifted his injured arm, still hurting, but at least he was now able to move it freely without any sort of paralyzing pain.

"Whatever you treated me with, it caused most of the swelling to go away and thanks to you, I'm feeling more alive than ever."

Rebecca smiled. "Most of these medicines are from Umbrella so it's no surprise that the medicine I gave you did miracles I couldn't ever have imagined as a kid. You can thank Chris and Alex for having brought you here in the first place. If it weren't for them, you probably wouldn't be here with us anymore."

"Umbrella, huh…" he replied, briefly staring into space for a moment.

Rebecca silently nodded and proceeded to change Richard's bandages as they were mostly soaked with dried blood. Thankfully, the bleeding had already stopped and the injuries he had sustained were already in the process of healing. Without trying to hurt him as much, she cleaned up whatever she could around the wounded area and began to wrap up Richard's left arm with the last of her remaining supply of bandages.

"So," Richard said, curiously. "I'm guessing being with STARS and the law enforcement isn't exactly your main goal in life, right?"

"What do you mean?" She said, confused, still bandaging up Richard as she was listening to him.

"Well considering how good you are in the medical field and all, I'm assuming this is mainly going to be part of the beginning of your main resume. And one hell of a story you'll be able to tell about all this. Just about anyone is gonna be wanting to hire you right away after we get out of this mess, whether it be for a medical or law enforcement career."

Rebecca gave a small chuckle, grinning. "Thanks for the vote of confidence. I mean, I still need to go and finish up my remaining years of college in order to get my master's and doctorate, but who knows," she then finished up nursing him and looked down at the ground beneath the bed, still thinking about the many things they still need to do first in order to survive their current ordeal. "I just wish my career and education were the only things I had to worry about right now."

Richard quickly sat up and turned to fully face Rebecca, giving her a determined smile.

"I know," he said softly, "but you have me now. We have each other's back." He then motioned at the only door in the room, the chest still in place, blocking the door. "We can go together and look for a way out of this mansion right now if you like."

"But…" Rebecca didn't know what else to say. Even though Richard was feeling much better and he believed he had enough strength to deal with whatever they'd face along the way, she couldn't help but worry about his well-being. Plus, what about Alex and Chris? They would begin to worry if neither of them saw them staying here anymore. "I don't know… I'm just a bit —stressed out."

Stressed out? Seriously, girl? You couldn't come up with something better to say? Obviously, everyone here is stressed out and now you're showing your insecurities to him?

Richard was still giving her a reassuring look, something he hadn't stopped doing since she's woken up from her nightmare, unknowingly making her even more embarrassed from the inside.

Before he could even say another word to her, there were muffled gunshots heard just outside of the room itself.

One, two, three, four, five…, and then it stopped.

Richard shuddered. "Was that…"

"Could be Chris, Alex, …or someone else entirely," she said in a low voice, not knowing for sure who it was that made those gunshots. Chris and Alex didn't bother killing any of the zombies outside, out of fear that they'd turn into those red-skinned mutants over time. So maybe it wasn't them. Probably someone else who may not know about the mutations after the "death" of a zombie.

Footsteps were heard and a sudden faint sound of a liquid spill followed after. Then there was the sound of fire, burning something as it made crackling noises, turning something to a complete crisp.

Okay, I guess someone may have already found something to burn the bodies now? God, I hope it's what I think it is and not some pyromaniac that may have broken through the house and lit it on fire or something…

"What could they be doing?" Richard whispered, his eyes filled with worry and curiosity at the sound of a fire having been started by someone or something, taking Rebecca off of her own thoughts about what could be happening out in the hallway.

She was about to handle the note she'd found earlier to him, about the crimson zombies that Alex and Chris encountered while escorting him here, Richard apparently not remembering what happened in between that time, until there was knocking on the door.

"It's Alex," the voice said. "Could you let me in?"

Happy it wasn't the complete opposite of what she thought initially, Rebecca quickly slid the chest away and opened the door for him, a sudden wave of burnt decomposed flesh flowing inside the room, making her gag as she covered her mouth and nose with one hand.

"Yeah sorry about the unpleasant smell," Alex said apologetically as he entered the room at an uneven pace, gazing at his steps for a brief moment. "I found a bottle full of kerosene and a half-empty matchbox, hidden underneath parts of the furniture inside a bedroom that me and Chris had completely missed. Now we can get rid of those—" he stopped mid-sentence, noticing Richard now awake and well, putting a smile on his seemingly defeated face, something Rebecca had noticed the moment she opened the door for him. "You're finally awake. How… how are you feeling?"

"Alive and a lot better now," he responded. He wanted to ask him about what he burned before Alex had entered the room, but he quickly noticed something about his odd behavior; his hands were slightly jittery, his tone sounded subdued and his gaze seemed detached from reality as if he was more worried about something else rather than the safety of his own teammates in front of him. "Are you feeling okay, yourself? You seem as though … you've seen a ghost."

Mason sighed, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm just… tired, it's all. Nothing to worry about."

Richard nodded.

No. There was more to it.

Richard knew it wasn't just exhaustion that had him looking like this. He had worked with the old man for a whole month now and not once has he ever seen him this way, but at the same time, he'd only known Rebecca, Alex, and the other guy that came along with him, Francis, or Frank, if he remembered correctly, for a few weeks at most.

Who could even blame him? This demon-possessed place can make anyone act irrationally regardless. I mean look at me, I'm a complete mess because I wasn't careful when I should've been.

"Anyway," Mason broke the brief silence between them. "I only came here to let you know that I think I may have found the mansion's back exit out of here, but we need to find four masks first in order to gain access to an octagonal-shaped object that opens it."

Richard and Rebecca stared at him for a moment, with confused looks etched upon their faces.

"Wait, four masks?" Questioned Rebecca. "Why would we need to find four masks for this object you're talking about?"

"You mean this?" Richard took out a mask from one of his side packs. The mask looked dead, ominous, and hollow from where the nose should be "Is this one of the masks that you're looking for?

"Where did you find that?" Said Mason, almost with a fierce tone of formal interrogation. "You didn't even tell me about it when I first found you back there."

Richard responded a bit shyly as he stood up away from the bed. "I uh… I found it in the attic, lying near a big crawl-space in which I was then attacked by that snake when it caught me by surprise," Richard then looked down in defeat, almost looking fully embarrassed. "I should've been more careful. Almost got killed over this stupid mask that at the time, I did not know what it'd be useful for. But I guess now that you know what it does, maybe it could serve some use for you."

As he handed over the mask to him, Mason stared at it for a long time, almost as if it were something personal that he had lost for a long time. The strange behavior both Richard and Rebecca were seeing from him, worried them. This Alex Mason wasn't the same, inspiring person that gave Rebecca the wise advice she's been desperately trying to cling to ever since they went on this godforsaken mission. This was a completely different person; seemingly distracted by something so small as he held it firmly with shaky hands, his body language not showing the same fearless person they've both known ever since they first met him.

Maybe they were just overthinking it. Alex may simply just want to get out of the mansion as fast as possible and looking at the mask was as if it was the first step in the right direction for all of them, probably feeling just as nervous as anyone would be in a place like this.

"...Alright," he finally said, "I'll go and try looking for the rest of them. It's better if we split up for a more thorough search. And the cemetery in the back door of the main hall is where those masks need to go, should any of you find more of them."

"Wait, Alex! But what about—" Rebecca had been shut down by the sound of the door closing behind him.

His behavior was definitely out of the ordinary. Something didn't seem right about him and it was definitely not her imagination as Richard had the same exact look of suspicion as well.

Richard sighed. "So, what do we do now? We can't exactly just stay here and do nothing."

Rebecca nodded and prepared herself. He was right. Doing nothing while Alex was acting strange and with their other teammates still missing, it was pretty counterproductive. They had to go out and look for their people first before looking for whatever more masks they needed in order to escape the insanity of the place.

Maybe if they could at least find Wesker or Enrico, they could help them get some backup from the RPD in some way or another. That, or help find more of those masks, Alex seemed to desperately need.

"Right," she said. "Are you able to walk?"

Richard gave a big grin at her opening the door to her as he did. "I feel I could do anything right now. Ma'am?"

With one last smile Rebecca gave to him, she stepped out of the room she had been staying in for what felt like an eternity, her gun raised and ready as she waited for Richard to lead the way, ready to start their search for any of their team members. They were met with a burnt smell of rotten flesh, which was obvious enough that it was the work of Alex, who burned a pile of bodies he had stacked under the stairs before arriving at the storage room.

"Eugh, did he really need to …burn their bodies?" Richard gasped, covering his nose in disgust. "Is he really that paranoid?"

Rebecca found herself coughing due to the unpleasant heavy smell the burnt corpses were emanating. "I was going to tell you earlier that these—", she continued gagging over one of the worst smells she has experienced in her whole life as she immediately stepped away to the other side of the corridor, "...sorry, I was trying to say that these things don't completely die and can revive themselves into powerful crimson variants unless they are either decapitated or burned completely. Although now knowing how disgusting that smell is, pfff… I wish we could somehow go for decapitation instead."

Richard stared at her for a few moments, blankly into space, as if he tried remembering something just now.

"I think I now remember. Vaguely, but I do now. I was being carried by Alex and at some point when I turned my head to see what Chris and Alex were ranting about, there it was… a steaming, yet scary-looking red-skinned zombie … grown claws, sharp teeth… I think that's what caused me to have that horrible nightmare earlier."

Rebecca didn't even want to think about it. She never wanted to know what they were like, yet the process of how these seemingly dead things can come back to life for like what, the second time? Third time? It was just as intriguing for her to study as a young chemist and medical officer herself, to see what type of cross-genus virus would do this kind of thing, but she wished she'd never have to encounter them at all.

Which is most likely inevitable since who knows how many of these things were shot down by other STARS members, unknowingly making them more powerful than ever.

Putting all those disturbing thoughts aside, she decided to suggest where they should go next.

"Should we first follow through the first floor?"

With nothing else to go by, Richard nodded, hopeful that they could find anyone else alive.

Before either of them could go any further, there was a distant sudden wave of continuous crashing noises, both of them standing perfectly still, listening as they stared at each other with gazes of confusion.

"You heard that, right?" Asked Richard immediately after the silence settled in again. "I hope I'm not the one going crazy…"

"You're not," she reassured him. "Unless we both are if we heard the same crashing noises and don't even know where to start looking at the source where it came from."

It was hard to tell where any sound was made inside the building due to the way the mansion was structured. The walls usually would eat a lot of loud noises, making it hard to distinguish if anything they heard was even real or not.

"Let's tread carefully. Probably some zombies tripping over stuff elsewhere in the mansion," Richard responded, trying to sound more logical and confident.

Rebecca silently agreed as the duo continued heading further up the back, now entering through the door into the F-shaped corridor, seeing broken glass on the ground from the shattered windows up front.

Maybe that's what caused the noises?

Couldn't be though as it didn't sound anything like glass breaking so this must've already happened way before.

Richard motioned to turn to their right, hoping there wouldn't be anything dangerous getting inside, passing by a door where they heard a couple of zombies, hitting their palms against the door on the other side.

"Talk about a horror movie…" Richard joked for a bit, though immediately regretting it since their entire ordeal inside the mansion has pretty much been a horror movie on its own.

Rebecca briefly smiled at him ever so slightly. It wasn't time for jokes, but she really needed one up to this point, even if the joke itself perfectly described the seriousness of the situation they were still in.

Maybe those zombies were the ones causing all those noises recently…

She couldn't be sure, but it made sense as they were all locked behind the door in which Chris had mentioned they found the diary since the lock itself had a carving of a sword. It was the same type of lock that the key Rebecca had given to both of them earlier could open.

Finding their way to another corridor, they found themselves inside a series of different routes to take. On their right, however, they saw a couple of corpses, one of which was missing almost half of its head, while the other was already red-skinned, its claws on all four of its limbs, long and sharp. Its body slowly began steaming out of every orifice it had, standing up maniacally. It seemed as though it had already sensed their presence, the smell of their fresh blood and meat forcing the zombie into a sudden rage of bloodlust in its glowing white eyes.

Both of the Bravos couldn't believe it. What they have just witnessed was the end result of a zombie's dead corpse coming back to life, its skin as red as it could be. It looked almost mummified, yet as if something had possessed it to become a fearsome creature, as though it had been craving to feast on the duo for ages.

With a loud, inhuman growl, it began charging at them with a dense haze of fury, moving in full excitement.

"Run to the nearest door in the back!" Richard suggested as panic began settling in.

Rebecca nodded and did as she was told. Both of them fired at the raging creature, which stopped at nothing, even while bullets were spilling chunks of blood and flesh all around its body, from its chest cavity all the way to its head. It was almost as if its skin was made out of iron itself.

Before they knew it, they had run out of ammo and all they had to protect themselves was the can of bug repellant Rebecca had been saving for emergencies only. It was at this moment that they wished they had combat knives for further protection as their remaining equipment was all still left inside their wrecked helicopter.

Having already ran to the nearest door and with the crimson zombie closing in on them, Rebecca hoped that the door was already unlocked, turning the knob as it smoothly turned and by miracle, opened to a room that was brightly lit, yet seemingly devoid of any creature or mutant.

Rebecca immediately hopped inside as Richard followed, closing the door behind him and hoping the crimson zombie wouldn't barge inside with its full fury. All they kept hearing was banging on the door as violent screeches and scratches were followed on the other side, the duo hanging onto the hope that it would stop or grow tired soon enough.

As the seconds flew by, the growling monster showed no sign of stopping. The angry zombie just kept bashing against the door, almost as though it could eventually rip the door to shreds, their time running out.

Rebecca shuddered. "What should we do?!"

Richard immediately began looking around the room, which seemed to be a bar of sorts. "Look for anything useful before that thing gets through. Ammo, knives, blunt weapons …anything!"

Without a second thought, she instinctively began looking around the oak counters, under a grand-looking piano, over the shelves, anywhere that someone could potentially store or hide anything of use. The place was well-decorated, probably the fanciest place they've ever seen in the mansion by far. Liquor bottles were on display in the back, though most of them were all empty, and Rebecca immediately thought about breaking one of them and using the broken bottle as a weapon to stab the steaming, crimson zombie still outside, desperately trying to get inside.

Just in front of a row of liquor bottles, however, there was something that caught her attention.

"Found some clips!" She called out. There were a couple of magazines just hidden in plain sight, enough for both her and Richard to have a full clip's worth of ammo. She tossed one to Richard, who was on the other side of the room, looking through the shelves, filled with mostly full liquor bottles.

Richard nodded and reloaded his weapon, now having heard the growls growing louder as the creature was now destroying a part of the wooden door, creating a small opening for itself before it immediately blew the entire door open, an enormous amount of brute strength none of them has ever seen on an ordinary human being. The steaming zombie had its full attention on its closest target, Richard, who was now backing away as he, along with Rebecca behind the counters, began shooting at it in its almost bald head for as much as they could.

Half of Rebecca's shots kept missing, while Richard began struggling to keep the raging zombie at a distance, now finding himself falling on the ground as he tripped on a fallen liquor bottle, the zombie now preparing itself to feast on him. Richard began grunting and pushing it away using his uninjured arm against its jugular, feeling the intense heat of the zombie's steaming body, its breath throwing the worst smell he's ever experienced in his whole life.

"No!" Rebecca yelped.

She was not going to let Richard die. It was the last thing she wanted to see; a teammate dying helplessly in front of her. She couldn't risk shooting at the crimson head as there was no guarantee that the clips she had found could even be hollowed rounds, potentially harming Richard in the process as well.

Quickly looking through for an alternative, she grabbed an empty glass bottle nearby, breaking it against the counter, and ran to stab the zombie right on its left temple, blood squirting like a small geyser created by steaming water. Having already been shot multiple times in the head by both STARS members, it found almost no strength to continue standing up and pursuing the duo, spasming just before it died completely, a pool of its own blood now being created around where the bottle had been struck on its punctured skull, its steaming body slowly coming to a sudden stop.

Rebecca sighed in deep relief as she saw the death spasm, looking at the creature completely disgusted, almost having puked inside her mouth just by the sight of it.

She lent a hand towards a relieved Richard, helping him stand up.

"Are… are you okay?"

"That's the second time you saved my life," he said, gratefully, "I owe you double."

Rebecca gave half a smile, slightly blushing. "What are teammates for?"

"Friends," he corrected as he winked. "What are best friends for?"

Ever since Rebecca was assigned to Bravo, Richard knew she was going to be a great addition to the team, which he had been proven right on multiple occasions after this whole mission began.

He then began looking around, inspecting the only door out of there now having a broken frame, now completely useless to keep any intruders from coming inside. "Well, so much for privacy. Right?"

Rebecca ignored Richard for a moment, her attention fully put on the grand piano itself that was in the center of the room. She began reminiscing about the time when her mother paid an instructor to teach her how to play the piano for at least several years. At first, it wasn't all that bad. If anything, she actually ended up enjoying the lessons as much as she could, especially when the instructor himself was pretty handsome looking, which made the piano lessons far better for her. However, after at least a couple of years went by, she finally figured that piano or even music, in general, wasn't exactly her thing as much, wanting to quit after that, but her mother insisted and for the next two whole struggling years, it was then when her mother finally let her quit for good.

And to think the last time I played the piano was a couple of years back, maybe I could still practice a bit more here…

…no, it'd be a waste of time. We still got much more to do here than spending time practicing something you decided to quit for good.

"Is Rebecca home, yet?" Said Richard as he waved a hand in front of her, throwing her out of her inner thoughts. Home wasn't the right word, but he knew Rebecca would know what he meant.

"Sorry, I was just…" she hesitated to say more for a moment before deciding against it and shrugged it off completely. "Nevermind. We should definitely continue where we left off."

Richard leaned against the piano, still looking at Rebecca as she went inside the small space where the shelves were located.

"You can play around with the piano if you want," he suggested with a smile on his face. "Plus, we definitely need something to take our minds off of all this mess around us. At least for just a quick moment."

Rebecca turned to face him, a happy expression slowly growing on her face. "I'm not… I mean… I haven't touched a piano in a while."

Richard quickly picked up something near the piano underneath and found a small sheet of music. Although incomplete, it was something he wanted to hear play from Rebecca.

"Here's something to start ya with; Moonlight Sonata."

Excited, Rebecca skipped over the disgusting corpse they had just killed earlier, trying not to let its terrible sight take away her excitement, and grabbed the piece of music Richard had found earlier. Moonlight Sonata was one of her favorite pieces she has ever played. Back when she was in her early teens, she put in so many hours practicing and trying to learn it. In fact, it was this piece of music that made her decide that being a pianist wasn't exactly for her. It was definitely a beautiful, delicate tune, but she would always somehow manage to butcher it every time she'd try to play it.

She grabbed the old, yellowing sheet of music from Richard and put it in front of her as she sat on the wooden bench, gazing at how amazing the piano looked, despite the conditions inside the mansion. It felt somewhat wrong to enjoy yourself for a moment while your teammates were still somewhere in the mansion, fighting zombies, dogs, snakes, or other infected creatures, yet this was probably going to be the very last moment she'd be feeling like home and full of serenity, completely outside from the horrors of the mansion itself.

She hesitated to play the first key of the piano, the very first note of the music itself, not sure if she should begin. Immediately after, she felt a soft touch on the back of her shoulder.

"Just relax and play…" he said softly.

His smooth voice motivated Rebecca to calm herself down and take a deep breath. A short moment later, she began playing the piano as she tackled the first few measures of the sheet of music. As the first melancholy sounds rose from the piano keys themselves, breaking the sudden silence around them, she found herself more relaxed, letting all the anxiety and fears slip away from her mind and current reality itself.

If only the keys weren't so stiff.

She was doing the best she could and although her tempo was quite off, she was managing to hit the right notes, the strength of the melody growing as she went on. A sense of calm and relief flew all over the room as Richard slowly grew a wide grin while watching Rebecca play the piano. It was the best feeling they've ever had since arriving at the mansion, the best feeling since everything went sideways.

Something moved beside them across the empty wall.

Richard quickly aimed his gun at the source of the sound, catching him off-guard as Rebecca got startled herself. She spun to look around, pushing the bench behind her. She'd almost fallen to the ground when all of a sudden, a moving piece of the wall began to slide upwards, the last notes still having lingered for a short while through the cool air. It slowly rumbled to a gentle halt.

For a moment, none of them moved. They waited for something terrible to come out and catch them by surprise, Richard still holding his gun and pointing it at the small, empty space.

But nothing happened. The room was as quiet as it was just after killing the crimson zombie.

That could explain the stiffness of the keys…

…were they connected to some sort of mechanism somehow?

"Just an empty… secret room?" Richard guessed, still staring down at what could be inside said room, slowly lowering his gun.

Rebecca shrugged. "I– I don't know. You don't think I somehow activated some sort of death trap, have I?" She wouldn't be surprised if it was a trap of sorts, considering the number of surprises the mansion has thrown out at them so far. If mutant creatures like big snakes, large rabid dogs, and crazy murderous zombies can exist, what's stopping the mansion from having death traps of its own? Still sitting on the bench, she hesitated whether or not to check it out herself.

"I'll go have a look around. Stay here," said Richard with a firm voice as he slowly approached the small, hidden space that had revealed itself before them. Somewhat a bit relieved about what Richard had told her, she couldn't help but feel useless about letting Richard go, while she simply sat there, doing nothing but wait.

However, if anything should happen to Richard, say he gets injured by some hidden arrow trap or gets trapped inside somehow, she could either go get help or see if she could open the door herself again by playing the exact melody she had played earlier.

At least I could still do something to help.

Rebecca saw Richard move closer towards the pedestal of a statue of sorts, looking as though it was the same composer of Moonlight Sonata; Beethoven. There was a large glass panel to his right, revealing what seemed to be an overgrown greenhouse, stuffed with so much plant life all around the other side of the large glass frame.

Richard, who was already inside, crouched down to pick up a journal of sorts, looking old and extremely worn out. While having the journal in his hand, he continued inspecting some sort of thick, golden emblem embedded on the pedestal, a similar design Rebecca actually remembered seeing before, back when she was with Alex.

"Oh right," she said loudly. "I think I remember seeing that in the dining room's—"

Before she could finish her sentence, the wall immediately came sliding down at a steady rate, sealing Richard inside as she saw a glimpse of him taking the golden emblem out of the hollowed slot inside the pedestal.

"Richard!" She banged on the door in vain as horror was slowly setting in on her, thinking that he might've trapped himself in there for good.

She quickly ran back to the piano in order to unlock the door once again to see if it would work. Before she even had a chance to hit one note, however, the small section of the wall slowly rose up again, seeing that Richard had put back the golden emblem where it belonged.

Relieved, she ran back to him, heading inside as she realized it would only stay close whenever that emblem was moved out of its place.

"I'm still here," said Richard as he stood up, grinning. "So what were you trying to tell me again?"

Rebecca pointed at the design of the golden emblem. "I've seen this before. Like at the fireplace in the dining room. But why would someone rig this place just to keep that and this journal hidden?"

Richard shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe they have some sort of importance? Like the journal may have incriminating evidence of sorts and this golden emblem may be the key to something else, like that mask I found back in the attic."

Seeing that they now had a specific objective to do, Rebecca offered to go back to the dining room and double-check to see if their combined theories were correct, while Richard stayed behind and proceeded to read what the journal actually had inside.

Author's Note: Yes, Richard will play a much bigger role in the story, unlike the first game and its remake. I've always liked his character and wished that the remake and even the novelizations brought a bit more life to his overall character. This is just a taste of what's to come as his role will be similar to playing the Nightmare scenarios in Umbrella Chronicles. :)