9. Leon

The corridor was deadly quiet; it was an absence of sound that gave Leon and the horrible sense of Deja vú. Leon walked through the darkened hallway with his handgun raised and on alert. The place was a complete mess: tables overturned, papers scattered on the floor, broken chairs. It was an image to which Leon had already become accustomed to after so many years in service. There was no sign of other people in the vicinity. The medical center could not compare to a large-scale hospital since it only attended cases related to the BSAA and Terra Save. The number of people in the building was much less than in a conventional hospital, but still, the absence of people was unsettling.

Suddenly, Leon felt something grab his arm, and instinctively his body reacted, intending to respond to the attacker. However, as he turned around, the man felt grateful that his reaction had not been as immediate. Claire was standing behind him. She was holding on to Leon's arm with an agitated expression.

Leon opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but before the man could articulate a word, Claire's pale hand covered his mouth while her free hand brought a finger to her lips, motioning him to keep quiet. Leon noticed that Claire was looking back with a look that could only be described as a prey trying to escape from its hunter and the agent looked over her shoulder, but all he saw was the dark and desolate corridor. He couldn't stop himself from wondering what had Claire so nervous.

Claire looked at him and pointed at the reception desk on the right side of the room. It was a circular table that originally was orderly and impeccable, but at that time, it was a mess. Leon did not need words to understand the message Claire was sending him, and the man followed her behind it; both crouched behind the desk, and Leon looked at the woman questioningly.

Claire looked at him with concern and horror. Her cerulean eyes connected with his, and Leon saw that she was pointing to the other side of the table that hid them. Slowly and silently, both peered over the table.

What he saw, then, made his stomach squirm in disgust. A creature was standing on the spot they'd been just a couple of minutes ago; it had a humanoid form with a pale skin that almost seemed to glow in the darkness. It had a large hump on its back and unnaturally long arms; he noticed that one of those arms was dragging the lifeless body that had been once - judging by the uniform- a medical staff member.

Leon had never seen anything like it in all his years of experience with monsters; the creature had no face, only a wide mouth that parted its "face" vertically in the center. It's breathing sounded loudly as the air passed through a double line of sharp yellowed teeth.

The creature raised its head and began tilting it from side to side. Leon's hand had automatically traveled to his handgun, but Claire stopped him. Her hand grabbed his with some desperation that made Leon look at her concerned, but Claire only shook her head and motioned him to stay silent again.

The monster suddenly let out a guttural roar that made both of them jump. The creature threw its prey aside, and the body hit the wall with an unpleasant sound; before Leon could even absorb what had just happened, the monster had disappeared down the adjacent corridor at an inhuman speed.

Leon's heart was beating fast. He let himself sit in the safety of their hiding spot and looked at Claire. The woman curled against the desk, hugging her knees with such strength that her knuckles were turning white. He noticed her trembling under the dim light, and he automatically grabbed her hands, trying to get her to relax. Claire looked at him, and he could sense the gratitude flowing from her. With a quick movement, Claire began writing on Chris's notepad. For some reason, she had bothered to bring the thing along.

"I'm sorry...we better avoid talking for now…" he read under the dim reddish light.

Avoid talking; that was the reason she had brought the thing with her. So that she could speak to Leon without talking out loud. Understanding her idea, Leon took his phone and quickly typed a reply.

"You know what that thing is?"

Claire bit her lip and nodded slowly. He wondered if the question had been a little too blunt, but she was already writing again.

"I do. They are dangerous monsters. They are blind, but they are good at tracking noises. We can avoid them as long as we stay quiet.

So that's why she had begged him to stay quiet. If he had made that shot, the creature would have found them. Claire had saved him from a nasty fight. The situation was sure going to be hard with their communication

restricted.

"It's a new B.O.W, isn't it?"

Claire nodded.

"A terrible one. We need to warn Chris…."

Leon nodded. Telling the older Redfield was an urgent matter. Otherwise, it'd be a matter of time before the BSAA came in blasting doors and shooting their machine guns as they usually did, and if what Claire told him about that monster was right, that would be like painting a target spot on themselves. Leon typed a quick message to Chris and later one to Hunnigan as well. Chris's reply came almost immediately, and he showed Claire the screen after reading it. Claire had smiled at her brother's words, and Leon couldn't help but wonder when the last time he had seen her smile like that had been. It wasn't her sarcastic smile, nor the teasing one he was used to, but one innocent and caring. She gestured to Leon in a way that he knew she was asking if she could borrow his phone, and Leon passed it to her knowing that Chris would appreciate a reply from her rather than his.

Claire took her time to write down the message and the blonde agent used the spare minutes alternating between watching her and looking around for any other enemies. When she finally gave him the phone back, he immediately wrote her a message.

"We can't stay. We need to move."

He saw the agreement in her look.

"Rooftop. If we can stay there until the sun rises. We'll be ok, but we need to be sneaky. I don't know how many of them are here."

Leon nodded, refraining himself from smiling. Claire's quick thinking never stopped to surprise him.

"We are close to the rooftop. We can make it," he wrote back.

And he saw the woman nod. The plan sure sounded a lot easier than done. Leon wasn't exactly familiar with the layout of the building, and even though it was small, there were many corridors and dead ends that could easily devour them. The emergency lights prevented them from seeing the bloody mess that the place had surely become, but he knew the darkness was making Claire upset. He could see her hesitated with each step and the tension of her body as she followed him closely.

She is scared, he thought, and he wondered what kind of horrors she'd gone through for her to be terrified of the darkness like this. Claire was the woman who could walk through a zombie-filled city at the veil of the night, break through underground laboratories chased by monsters, and make her way through a foreign island with nothing but walking corpses.

Claire was human. He knew that, and it was normal for humans to be scared. He was scared all the time, after all. Unconsciously, his hand had grabbed Claire's and squeezed it with reassurance. In another situation, the woman would have complained, giving him a teasing comment about how his little charming gentleman manners did not affect her. Claire would tell him he should save them for more impressionable ladies instead, but this time it was different. Claire said nothing, nor did she try to release herself. She stood there looking at his hand, almost as if she wasn't sure it was real, which made him hold it firmer.

And so, they walked through the death filled corridors in silence and holding hands like a fugitive couple trying to elope.

They crossed paths with another of those monsters when they had taken a wrong turn. Just as Claire had predicted, the thing didn't even notice them flattened against the wall as it passed by. They were lucky enough to find the center's layout on one of the walls, but they soon realized that many of the corridors seemed already blocked.

So far, they had not met any survivors on their way to the roof, and as much as Leon hated to think it, they were probably the only ones left alive; and he realized that, if Claire hadn't been with him, he too might have been dead already.

There was suddenly a ruffling sound, and he sensed Claire flinch under his grip. At first, he thought it was another of those things, but then he heard growls, familiar growls. He looked around and quickly pushed the woman into one of the empty rooms and waited.

Oh, great. Zombies.

Leon looked around, concerned. Avoiding the "Silence Monsters" had been easy so far, but now that the undead had joined the equation, things would get complicated. He was pondering what options he had to fight them without making too much noise when he felt Claire tugging his arm.

"Let's wait. They will handle them for us; you'll see…"

Leon hesitated, but Claire squeezed his hand and looked outside. The group of zombies was moving erratically around the corridor. They were getting dangerously close, and his hand automatically rested on his handgun. Leon waited, but as Claire had told him, it hadn't been necessary; three of the faceless monsters had appeared in a blink, and in a matter of seconds, they had cleanly wiped out every zombie.

It hadn't been a nice picture. It wasn't exactly the first time Leon saw B.O.W.s eating each other; he had seen them eight months ago when he had been dragged to Germany with Claire, after all; but at the time, it hadn't looked so….disgusting.

Claire pulled his hand slightly. She nudged her head at the corridor, and he nodded. Slow and quietly, the duo sneaked out of the room and walked past the eating creatures down the hallway.

It took them a few minutes- that felt like hours- to reach the emergency stairs. They cross paths with some zombies in the way, but Leon had been fast enough to stealth-kill them before they caused enough noise to attract unwanted attention. He had seen Claire wanting to help, but she had hesitated, and by the look on her face, she had seemed conflicted.

It took another few minutes for them to finally reach the door that would lead them straight to the breathed in relief, but as soon as Leon's hand had pushed the door open, hell broke loose.

The alarm began ringing loudly.

Claire looked at him, the panic evident in her eyes and her face pale as chalk.

"Shit!" he groaned, forgetting about staying quiet and grabbing his gun "Run, Claire. RUN!"