Resident Evil still belongs to Capcom... T_T

- V -

In too deep

Wednesday, 4 p.m.

"That's Neil's car. He must be in there already." Claire shouted when she saw her boss' black, shiny SUV parked in front of the mine entrance. She jumped out of the vehicle. "If I hadn't got lost we'd have arrived at time. Fucking Navigation system!"

"At least we know for sure he's in here." Jill looked around. "But shouldn't the cops be here already?"

"You're right. I'll check that with Lindsay," Claire said dialing the headquarter number on her phone. "Hi Lindsay, it's Redf… What? Why? I see... When is the team arriving? Ok, thank you... Yes his car is here. I'm going in… Yes, I'll keep you updated… Thank you Lindsay." Claire was so angry she almost threw the device away. "They're not coming."

"Why not?"

"They say that they can't investigate the case of a missing person before seventy-two hours have passed since he disappeared."

"Well, we actually know now where he is so he's not missing anymore. Also, he came here on his own will," Jill said staring at the entrance. "I wonder why he came alone. It would have been more intelligent to get here with support."

"Sure. But that's why we are here now." Claire spoke with belief. "A TerraSave team will arrive soon. But I can't wait. If Neil needs help, I have to get in."

Jill remembered how Claire had spoken about her boss the night before. She still believed what she'd told her, but wasn't sure if her friend really understood how concerned she was about Fisher's condition.

"Then let's get in there," she touched Claire's hand.

Both women walked into the mine. The entrance was quite large, but covered with high herbage which made it difficult to pass. Lucky they both wore comfortable clothes. Jill was dressed in a black shirt, blue jeans and sneakers; Claire wore a red jacket over her white tank top, black pants and comfortable leather boots. After thirty feet, they found a door on the left, which led to a small office. Old pencils and newspapers had been thrown remissly onto the desk. Instinctively, the women looked in every corner for useful objects.

"Oooh, ammo!" Claire said happily when she opened a drawer. "Too bad it's for a machine gun."

Jill stared at her fearfully.

"Jill, you can leave if you want," Claire said as she saw her friend's look. "I can handle this on my own."

The blonde shook her head.

"I'm in this with you." She smiled convinced. Suddenly, something on the wall caught her eye. "Look at that. Is that a map?"

Claire looked at the wall.

"Yes it is." She took the plan and had a look at it. It felt greasy and flabby "But this doesn't make sense. This is a plan of a five-floor building."

They shook as a dull sound came from inside the mine. Both women ran out of the office and deeper into the cave. The walls tightened and built a long corridor. Their surroundings dimmed and they weren't able to see what was in front of them any more.

"Don't you have a flashlight?" Jill asked.

"I left it at the office," Claire said and smirked. "It's obvious I spend more time there than on the field, right?"

"I might have a lighter. It won't be a permanent light source, but at least we'll be able to distinguish where we set foot for a while."

"What? They let you play with fire in the hospital?" Claire asked grinning, which Jill didn't see until she suddenly lit up the small space with the flame of her lighter.

"I took it from Neil's house because I wanted to celebrate today all the birthdays I missed in the past years and blow the candles on four cakes." She grinned back at her friend before looking forward. What they saw was the same narrow corridor pushing itself further through the stone. Once they'd seen they wouldn't trip over anything, both decided to go on in darkness, in order not to waste too much gas of the lighter nor to overheat it. Claire before Jill, walked slowly over the rocky irregular surface. After a few more steps Claire got hit by the view of a strange light.

"Jill, I think there's a hole in the floor." She stood aside to let Jill have a look at it. "Let's see what it is."

The corridor ended where, for instance, a hole opened in the ground and a blue light shone from below. A ladder reached down to another stage.

"This is not good," Jill said.

"I have to get down there." Claire got on her knees, turned herself around and slowly started climbing down the ladder backwards. She tried to be as silent as possible in order not to attract the attention of any possible enemies to herself. When she was low enough she took a look at the surroundings.

"Jill," she said when she assured nobody was in the place, "you need to see this."

Jill doubted a second, but then decided to follow her friend, like she'd always followed Chris.

Staring at the space, she suddenly understood the map they'd found. They were standing in an underground installation, with several floors and balconies reaching out of the with metal plates covered walls. The whole structure had the shape of a huge doughnut. In the middle, there was nothing, a huge dark hole of nothing. The ambience was held in the clear light they'd seen through the hole before, and which came from halogen tubes that were placed all over the ceiling.

Jill took out the map.

"Good idea!" Claire said. "Does it match?"

Jill nodded.

"We're on the fifth floor," she said. "And there's an X drawn on the second one."

"Do you think this map was for Neil?" Claire asked.

"If so, he didn't take it. Which means that he could be anywhere in these hallways."

"My intuition says we should go to the marked spot anyway." Claire looked at her friend searching her approval.

"Mine says we should get back and wait for help." Jill stared back at the redhead, but then smiled. "But I never trust my intuition. Let's see what it is Neil was supposed to find."

After having another look at the map, the women saw that the first door in the area led to a stairwell that connected the different floors. With her gun lifted, Claire opened the door carefully and checked what was behind.

"Nothing here. Come in."

"Claire, smile," Jill said. "Someone's watching us."

The small camera was pointing directly to the door. When they started moving forward, it turned around slowly, following their steps.

"Infiltrating somewhere isn't as easy as in the 90's anymore, is it?" Claire laughed nervously.

"Let's move on. They know we're here, so it's too late to turn around and leave." Jill gave her friend a convinced glance and smiled.

Claire nodded. They walked down the stairs slowly, expecting anything to happen. When they reached the half landing, the lights went out.

"What's happening?" Jill hooked her fingers into Claire's jacket.

"I don't know, but try to stay calm, okay?" the sudden darkness had confused her for a second, but Claire was already focusing on everything that could be perceived with other senses than the sight. She heard a pumping noise coming from downstairs, followed by running footsteps.

"Don't breathe," Claire pushed herself and Jill into the nearest corner and stood protectively in front of her friend.

"It's coming closer," Jill whispered as she heard the footsteps running up the stairs and directly towards them.

Claire held her gun firmly as she lifted it with both hands and pointed straight forward, in complete darkness. Although it was complete illogical, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the approaching noise. A disgusting grunt joined the sound of the footsteps, the redhead bit her lower lip. Whatever is was, it was close. It had just reached the half landing platform where they were standing. Claire knew the moment had come. She held her breath and shot.

The grunting stopped and they heard the thing fall onto the floor. Jill was about to take out her lighter to see what had attacked them, when suddenly the lights turned on again. The view of the creature next to their feet hit them hard. It was a male humanlike being, whose several body parts looked like sewed together, just as Frankenstein's monster, with fresh scars all over his body. His now dead eyes were blood-filled and from his mouth dripped a foamy saliva. His grey, dirty shirt and jeans tightened heavily around his swollen body. Claire had shot him right into the head, but the wound was barely bleeding.

"This doesn't quite look like the G-Virus or Las Plagas," Claire said.

"It's definitely not Uroboros either," Jill added, kneeling down next to the creature. She looked at her friend. "You did great," she said, pointing at the head. "Perfect shot."

"Pure coincidence," Claire said. "Next time you'll do it." She winked.

Jill smiled nervously before getting on her feet again. They continued walking down the stairs.

'Very good shooting abilities - Probable knowledge about different types of virus and parasites - calm'. Though the words were written on a paper they echoed through the room and his head. The young, clear blond man looked at the screen. He couldn't believe how those two women had been able to find the facilities. Fisher was supposed to come alone and those bitches would only be a hassle. He leaned back in his seat and combed his ear-long hair out of his face with his fingers. The good thing about it was that he had finally found a new toy to play with. The previous weeks had been boring the hell out of him and those women were just the perfect target for his games. He was going to make sure that experience would be their last one. A maleficent smile popped onto his lips as he thought about leading them to the basement. It would surely scare the shit out of them. He typed something on a computer when suddenly the phone rang. He answered.

"… Yes, he's come. But he's brought an unpleasant present. Two women… I'm not sure. He could have been followed without knowing it. But they fell into the trap, I don't think they'll survive for long… Their names?... Sure, I can see if they are related to Fisher in any way… Don't worry. It's all under control… "

He hung up and made a grimace. So he couldn't just get rid of those women. He was not amused about the decisions his boss had been taking lately. But he was sure, sooner or later, he'd get his reward for loyalty. He decided to just follow instructions and get the complete profile of the two ladies for his boss. What were they calling each other? Julie and Clara? He started looking through the several databases they had stolen months ago, and in which they had also found Fisher. He didn't find any matches related to him, except a girl called Julia Matthews, but who turned out to be a seventy-year-old ex-secretary of the FBC who'd retired years ago. He understood he had to do a more generic search if he wanted to find something and decided to run through the databases one by one, starting with TerraSave. It was the most obvious choice, so he wasn't surprised when among high-valued members he found a woman called…

"Claire Redfield!" He frowned. "She won't happen to be…" he clicked on her name and opened her file. "Yes, she is." A grin formed on his lips. "Then the other one must be... Jill Valentine. Hhm?" He looked back at the screens where the pictures of the security cameras were shown. "How mysterious. You don't look quite dead to me, Miss Valentine."

Neil was stunned by the size of the underground facilities. He remembered the case of this mine years ago since young Claire Redfield hadn't been speaking about anything else back then. But he was sure that neither her nor anyone could have imagined that someone would secretly turn it into a lab. He walked through the room, the dim light almost causing him to throw down several test tubes. Most of what seemed to have been liquid samples of some substances had all turned into dry dust and he guessed the lab had been abandoned already several years ago. He suddenly saw a monitor showing images of a security camera. He couldn't believe his eyes.

"Claire! Damn it! What are you doing here?" He spoke, even knowing she wasn't hearing him. He suddenly forgot why he had come in first place. He identified the room they were in and had a look at his self-drawn map. He holstered his gun and climbed back into the air duct.

Hello everybody! I hope you all had (or are still having) a wonderful Christmas time and that you enjoyed this chapter. The next one will be a little longer.

Thank you all so much for reading, reviewing, loving or hating this. Special thanks to Thebigticket21 for the support. What would I do without your every week's encouraging words? :D

As you all see, I love getting reviews ;). You can also tell me if you don't like the story. I can totally handle bad reviews. Every opinion will be helpful to improve this hahaha

One last thing: Unless I get really inspired, this is the last chapter for 2016. So, read ya next year!

Thank you!