Rain's entire being is thrumming with adrenaline. Throughout her time serving in Umbrella's paramilitary forces, as well as during her previous career in the LAPD, she's seen her fair share of messed up things.

But she's never been faced with anything like this before.

The rusted grate is slimy between her fingers.

The hands of the reanimated corpses behind it, clumsily and almost blindly brushing against hers as they attempt to force their way through, are ice-cold and waxy.

Over the sound of her heart thundering persistently in her ears, she hears Alice say, "That mesh isn't gonna hold." Her voice has an almost steady calmness to it despite the severity of the situation, making her seem much more like herself already. "Keep moving—" She barely gets the end of the sentence out before letting out a loud gasp.

Rain spares a glance over her shoulder, being greeted with zombies shambling down the opposite end of the tunnel. 'Great.'

(How did such mindless, uncoordinated creatures move so damn quietly?!)

There's a loud creaking noise. Without warning, her arms begin to buckle. Her boots skid a full couple of inches across the wet concrete.

Alice was right. The mesh didn't hold. It has now popped out of its frame entirely.

With all of her strength, Rain continues to push against it, straightening her arms back out as much as she can, which is not nearly as much as she would like. Spence and Kaplan's tense, sweaty, panic-stricken forms are pressed against either side of her as they attempt to do the same. Kaplan won't stop rapidly repeating variations of "Jesus Christ!" and "Hold it!"

Rain has to bite back the urge to snap at him and ask what the fuck he thinks they're doing. She knows he's terrified. They all are.

This is hell.

It's becoming progressively harder to keep the grate in place.

Their shoes are skidding more and more.

The gap is getting bigger and bigger, becoming dangerously close to being wide enough for the monsters to slip through.

"Hold it down! Jesus!"

When Rain looks again to see what Alice is busy with, she finds her attempting to lay the smackdown on those still approaching from the other side. Like she's a superhero or some shit. For what it's worth, she isn't doing a bad job.

But there are simply too many of them. They keep coming.

Keep getting back up...

"Fuck!" Spence curses.

With urgency, Alice's frigid hands grasp the back of his T-shirt and squeeze Rain's arm. Rain almost elbows her square in the jaw out of reflex, thinking she's one of the infected. "Come on. Up on the pipes," Alice tells them, indicating the massive set hanging from the ceiling above them. She promptly hurries off to keep trying to fend off the monsters. "Quickly, everyone up on the pipes!"

"How are we meant to reach them?!" her obnoxious boyfriend shouts after her.

Matt's gaze darts all over the space, eventually landing on a decent-sized pair attached to a nearby wall. He nudges Spence and points them out with a jerk of his head. "There!"

The two of them break away, leaving the remaining members of Sanitation to keep the grate in place. It's currently a whole foot away from where it was originally installed.

The first to safety is Spence.

Next is Matt, who drags Alice along with him. "Come on! Go, go, go!"

Rain turns to Kaplan, whose eyes are so wide with fear that they're threatening to pop out of his skull. She doesn't want to lose another teammate tonight, another friend. There's no hesitation in her voice when she demands, "Go on."

He doesn't. He only stares at her.

"Go!" she repeats more firmly—practically barks at him, really. "I'll manage. Get your ass moving before I shove my foot up there and make you!"

Kaplan knows better than to try and argue with Rain.

He nods.

And he goes.

Rain releases the mesh, drawing the pistol from the holster at her left hip.

Hastily, Kaplan wipes his clammy hands on his jacket. He successfully makes more than half the climb.

Then, he's stopped by a sharp tug on his leg. An undead researcher has latched onto the fabric of his uniform pants. There's no time to process, to react before it sinks its rotting teeth into the meat of his calf. He cries out in pain.

Alice and Matt are quick to seize him under the arms, attempting to yank him free from it to no avail.

Rain is already whipping toward the sound, firing a shot that strikes the researcher in the dead center of the forehead. It releases Kaplan, and the others get him the rest of the way up.

Not that she gets to see. She isn't even finished feeling the recoil when another zombie clamps down on her previously injured hand, causing her to yelp. The burning pain intensifies, and more red seeps into the bandages. Just what she needed.

Her gun falls into one of the many puddles of nasty water on the floor.

She drives her elbow into the temple of the offending monster, then brings her foot up and delivers a harsh kick to its chest. The kind she'd use to bust a door in. It staggers back further, toppling into part of the horde.

Rain bends over to retrieve her weapon. She fumbles to do so. She's shaking like crazy.

'Goddamn it, Ocampo, get it together! You're better than this!'

Finally, she gets her fingers wrapped around the grip and rises to her feet, prepared to shoot at anything else that dares to get too close.

Instead, her ready-to-fire position slackens significantly at the sight of the figure in front of her, positively saturated in blood and clad in ragged black.

"...J.D.?" Rain's breath leaves her. Her throat tightens. Everything seems to slow down.

She's never had a weak stomach, but seeing the guy she considers—considered her best friend in such a terrible state does make it churn a little. He looks like a walking crime scene. There's so much exposed viscera. In some places, the wounds are deep enough for the white of his bones to peek through.

(...Though, for a person who was torn apart by an entire mob of flesh-hungry monsters, most might consider him surprisingly intact...Rain, however, struggles to register that. She can't possibly. The reality of J.D.'s brutal death is now crashing into her full force.)

All she can hear is his agonizing screams, the pleading repetition of her name as his hand slipped out of hers, sending a fresh wave of guilt coursing through her veins.

There were more days throughout the week where the two of them saw each other than ones where they didn't.

They were always at the bar, Umbrella's shooting range, their places, or somewhere else hanging out, giving each other shit and messing around.

They had seen through numerous missions together, survived a whole lot...

For quite a while, an unspoken agreement had existed between them. To watch one another's backs no matter what. And Rain can't help but feel like the fate J.D. suffered is entirely her fault. That she's let him down. Failed him.

He's staring at her with his glassy, lifeless eyes as she trains the barrel of her pistol between them.

...

She can't bring herself to squeeze the trigger. Not on him.

She can't even fucking move. Her entire body has locked up.

J.D. moves a pace closer—

Then, he raises his own handgun, blasting a few holes through a maintenance zombie coming up behind her.

It isn't often that Rain is rendered speechless, yet she is utterly unable to get a word out as she watches her dead friend rejoin the fight.

Watches him cover her six.

Rain has a clear enough mind to keep shooting and not stand there uselessly, but her thoughts are racing. Science was never a strong suit of hers, but based on what that artificial bitch had prattled out in her chamber, Rain was under the impression that something like this? The virus didn't make it possible.

How is this possible?

What is happening?

Rain will have to question it later. For now, she makes sure to open fire on any infected that reach for J.D.

When they head for the pipes, they do it together, back to back. The rest of the group can only watch the scene unfold below with equal parts shock and confusion.

"You go first!" J.D. says.

"There's no way in hell I'm leaving you in a position to die again!" Rain grabs a fistful of his torn sleeve and forces him in front of their way out.

Once he's left her enough space, Rain climbs after him.

She gets her upper half through. As she goes to get the rest of herself to safety, J.D. and Kaplan speed the process up by pulling her by the straps of her shoulder pads. She doesn't bother to shrug off the help.

"...Are you both okay?" Alice's brow is creased with worry.

"Yeah, we're fine."

Rain's features are still stuck making an expression of disbelief. She can't tear her attention away from J.D. "You... You..." Her eyes narrow. She pushes him. "The fuck's wrong with you?!"

"What?" J.D. questions cluelessly.

"You didn't say nothing for a long time. You just stood there! I thought I was gonna have to blow your brains out, man! You couldn't have given me a heads-up? A 'Rain, I ain't a zombie, you don't gotta shoot me'?" She gives him another push.

"Oh..." He offers an apologetic grin. "My bad?"

Rain rolls her eyes. "You're a moron." She can't even get any proper irritation into the remark. It has quickly faded, overtaken by relief.

Her displays of physical affection are typically limited to friendly punches and shoves, nudges, and the occasional shoulder squeeze. But she hugs J.D. She hugs him tight, not giving a damn about getting bloodier and dirtier.