Chapter Text
Screeches here, screeches there, screeches every-fucking-where, that and the sound of his speeding heartbeat blurred with the crackles of flames were the only thing reaching his ears.
Then finally behind a whole street littered with cars and open fires, he found the station. Leon doubts he would ever be this thankful to arrive at his place of work...
The other cops here and survivors inside should at least be able to tell him just about what the hell is going on in this city.
—
"Hello...? Is anybody here?"
The station is empty... that's not a good sign.
Not even a single noise greeted him as he explored his surroundings. Really hoping that someone else alive is here.
While looking around he managed to get some handgun ammo and a bottle of first aid spray, 'good at least if something happens I will be able to defend myself.'.
Looking around the surprisingly clean surroundings (clean compared to the outside) he found his orientation letter, but more importantly a working laptop, he pulled up the cameras trying to find any other living soul in the building but no dice.
Then he saw movement on cam 4, someone shooting at and running away from a zombie.
"Not good" He quickly switched cams to see where they ran to. The other cop, now that he got a better look at him, looked slightly banged up. But who wouldn't?
"David! Marvin! You there!?"
'David? Marvin? Are those the names of other officers?' Someone else was alive! There was hope!
"I found a way out! It's in here!"
The cop shot at the zombie again but it stumbled and slumped onto him. And just when he thought he would see another victim fall to the undead, the officer managed to push the zombie away.
"Send reinforcements! East Hallway!"
Leon pulled out the map of the building swiftly, highlighting the mentioned area. "I gotta find that guy."
Not wasting time he got moving, checking the location again and going in its direction, finding a fire safety door with "Keep out!" written on it with some totally not foreshadowing liquid sluggishly leaking under it.
Steeling his nerves Leon pulled the lever connected to the door. It made a single loud beep, which he really hoped didn't lure anything to him, and lifted it as far as it could go. Which wasn't very far and was therefore forced to crawl through... great.
—
Every step he took it sounded like something was sloshing around him, the floor creaking, and the flashlight he picked up at the gas station didn't illuminate crap! He could barely see what was in front of him like this...
"You got this" He said to himself, trying to stay calm, this whole thing was so grotesquely absurd that it felt like a realistic horror movie. 'Zombies huh? What's next, super mutants?' God he hoped he hadn't just jinxed himself there...
Stepping through a white double door he found himself in yet another dark room.
'And the dark trashed hallway gave way to a dark trashed room with bloodstains, who would have guessed' He tried joking to make this thing less terrifying than it was, but he was sure that the second he saw an actual zombie around a corner his heart would beat out of his chest.
Exploring what little remains of what he presumed to be a conference room, and coming out empty-handed, he made his way back to the corridor.
Moving a fallen locker out of the way, he found himself drawing near the sound of rushing water, and most likely the source why this whole damn hallway was so wet. But only found overflowing toilets and more first aid spray.
Exiting the restroom and going further down the hallway, at the end of it he could see a body laying on the ground. 'Shit'
'I swear if that thing moves, my heart will drop to my ass.' Just walking towards it raised his blood pressure!
Walking closer he could see the body in its full mangled glory. "Jesus". Next to him was a door literally chained shut. 'Now how the hell...'
He turned around, and now that his heart calmed down enough not to tunnel vision on a single corpse on the floor, he realized it wasn't the only one. And that there are in fact two more. "Oh..."
While he tried to figure out how he missed two whole dead bodies, a shout rang out startling him.
"OPEN UP! HURRY! OPEN UP!"
"OPEN THIS GODDAMN DOOR!"
Calming his racing heart, and taking an extra second to process what was said to him, slowly walking towards the door and pushing it open, he was met with a very small office, and another fire safety door, that was of course covered in blood.
"I'll get you out!" Kneeling, Leon grabbed hold of the door, managing to lift it enough to allow the guy on the other end to stick his hands through.
"HELP ME! PLEASE! HELP ME!"
"I got you." He reached and started to pull him towards him, managing to only pull half of him through before he met resistance. "Gimme your other hand!"
Just as he grabbed it, something bit the officer from the other side making him scream in pain. Leon froze for a second, before he tried to pull harder, "Hang in there!".
It felt like he was playing tug of war with the damn things!
He felt something give and was able to pull the cop away from the door. What he was not ready for was to see the floor painted in the guy's blood and guts, his lower half being devoured by zombies who were reaching from the bottom of the door towards their unfinished meal.
"Oh my god!"
"Jesus Christ..." Just looking made him sick. God, he felt like he was gonna throw up...
Near the now dead man's hand lay a notebook. Before he looked at it he shut the door, he was not taking risks after what he just saw... Moving away slightly he allowed himself to skim through its pages.
Closing the notebook and walking away from the safety door with his gun trained on it like a hawk, he heard noises behind him, turning around just in time to see the beautiful face of a zombie cop who just barged in through the door.
He could swear his heart stopped for a second, before he knew it the zombie was dead on the floor and his gun out of bullets.
He reloaded and ran for it, only to almost make it back to the main lobby before he was interrupted near the press room. "Jesus! They're everywhere!"
He made it to the safety door, prying it open to slip under it, but a hand grabbed his leg before he was fully out. "Goddammit!" It grabbed his shoulder and just when he thought he would be dragged back and eaten...
A hand, a human hand this time, dragged him forward. "Watch out!"
"I got it."
Leon looked up only to see the zombie get crushed under the door, and a living breathing human being standing near him. He felt so relieved that he wasn't alone here, but then he remembered Claire. She was still out there and god knows what happened to h— no, he shouldn't think like that.
The officer in front of him looked really injured, putting pressure on the wound in his abdomen.
"You're safe... for now," the guy said before he slumped on the door behind him, breathing heavily.
"Thanks..." Leon took the time to take a few breaths and calm himself.
"Marvin Branagh."
"Leon Kennedy..." he said taking deep breaths. "There was another officer... I-I couldn't... I couldn't..." The words died on his tongue, he couldn't save him.
Before he could say something stupid he was interrupted by Marvin extending his hand to him. "Here..." Accepting the help, Leon allowed himself to be brought to his feet.
"I'm sure you did what you could, Leon."
—
"Does anyone know what started this?" he finally allowed himself to ask the one question that has been eating him alive for some time now.
"Not a clue," Marvin answered not even looking up from his laptop. "But honestly, all you need to know is that this place will eat you alive if you aren't careful."
"Yeah... well, I was supposed to start last week and I got a call to stay away." He said reloading a gun. "I wish I'd come here sooner."
"You're here now, Leon. That's all that matters."
—
"This is not how I imagined my first day..." He mumbled under his breath as he made his way through the newly opened area.
Marvin's words still stuck with him...
"If you see one of those things, uniform or not, you do not hesitate."
The lieutenant gave him an order to save himself first, but he wasn't gonna just leave him behind. He already failed to save Elliot, he won't fail to save Marvin...
Not to mention he should also go look for Claire, he hoped she was ok...
Walking into the almost hospital looking part of the station almost gave him whiplash. The long hallway lined with what he could only assume as beds (because he still couldn't see shit in here), and a boarded up window at the end of the hallway already told him that things will get stressful.
Just being in a small hallway like this already made him jittery.
Walking further he cursed when he noticed the body of an officer after almost stepping on it, being distracted with the radio message and not being able to see clearly.
He knelt down near the body to hear the transmission better only to notice deep gashes on the officer's face and neck, angling the head back only to see that said head and his throat had been sliced in a way that made it stretch out in ways that were just... disgusting. "Oh... Oh what the fuck..."
Hearing the clatter of cans behind him he quickly stood up and raised his gun, and was greeted with a body impaled at the mouth. 'For Christ's sake...'. Only to then yelp when the body came falling down and landed almost on top of him.
'Fucking hell I feel like my heart will beat out of my chest'
He took a few seconds to calm his breath, there was no way in hell he was going in further when he just about almost shit himself.
—
...It took Leon some time before he felt ready to move forward.
As he neared the end of the hallway he saw a zombie walk up to the window and scream at it once. Leon was either too tired or too stressed to do more than lightly chuckle as he walked past the window. 'One hell of a first day this is...'
Then he heard the sound of glass breaking behind him. 'For fuck's sake'
—
One stabbing to death later, he made his way through a double door. Finding himself in a very messy office area, 'Looks like a hurricane swept through here...'
On one of the desks he managed to find a report of events that happened here not long ago.
So he read, about the refugees, the sudden attack on a police man, the officers who were unable to contact the outside world, and now what little left remained here...
"So that's what happened here... No wonder this place is crawling with zombies..." 'With so many refugees here, the virus would spread like crazy among them..'
Walking up to the blackboard he grabbed the bloodied map on it and using some furniture climbed up to a broken window to get to the other side. Dropping down and looking to the right he was met with yet another zombie, this one deciding to pick a fight with a vending machine.
—
Making his way further in, Leon found a handful of gunpowder, and of course more corpses, scavenging any ammo he could find for later and trying not to get taken by surprise.
Finding a safe in one of the further rooms and fiddling with the mechanism for quite some time granted him a hip pouch for his trouble, but that was about it.
More reports, more mentions of just how many people died here while Leon was unaware, and then the fact that the operation report was written by Elliot... Elliot who Leon wasn't able to save after the guy found the supposed tunnel and was making his way back.
That still left a foul taste in his mouth.
Walking around the long straight of combined desks, and arriving at the front, he found a piece of paper addressed to him. 'Heh... my first assignment and it's to unlock my desk.' Looking up and seeing a sign reading "WELCOME LEON" was really hammering home that the zombies here he's putting to rest would have once been his coworkers and friends...
Shaking his head to rid himself of these thoughts, he decided to focus on the locks.
—
7 minutes... 7 minutes is what it took Leon to unlock that goddamn desk.
'At least I'll be able to put Matilda to good use' Quickly combining the mag with his current pistol, as he heard groaning and gurgling. 'And it seems like pretty soon too'
Looked like all the zombies in the room that he previously ignored simply to conserve ammo had decided to move their lazy asses.
Shooting down zombies was as annoying, terrifying, and honestly sad as it was before. They just wouldn't stay dead! And that was honestly making fighting them feel pointless, not to mention hes technically killing his coworkers...
Making his way to the locker room unit, reading the note, and finding out that the person who broke it didn't repair it before the outbreak made Leon sigh inwardly. 'Now where am I supposed to find some spare keys?'
He barely started typing locker numbers when he heard a shriek that made him freeze and whirl around.
Turns out another zombie was banging on the door. "At this point I'm gonna go down with a heart attack soon..."
Disposing of it with a few clean shots, he made his way down the last remaining hallway. 'Another one?' Leon sighed inwardly as he saw yet another zombie attempting to break the window.
He spotted a few planks of wood near the stairwell, and not wanting to waste ammo if he didn't have to, he grabbed them and quickly made use of them.
—
Entering the closest room, it turned out to be one of the only rooms in this building with fully working lights. Finding some notes on herbs wasn't what he was expecting, but then again more surprising things happened today.
—
Upon exiting the room after searching it clean, he made his way up the stairs. The zombie at the window was gone, but the window was intact so no worries.
What was worrying was the noises coming from what felt like above him. Heavy grunts and the sound of metal, as if someone is slamming something. Going up carefully, he saw a zombie apparently dead on the stairwell, but having learned his lesson from before, he blew its head open just to be sure.
But not long after he made it to the second floor the noises stopped.
"That's totally not concerning." He mumbled.
Entering the only other available room he once again found himself face to face with yet another lock. After another fight with the fucking thing, he finally managed to pop it open and got his hands on shotgun shells. "Great, now I just need a shotgun."
The other locker, that was (thankfully) without a lock, instead contained a dead body, which Leon shot... as soon as he got his breathing under control that is.
"Goddammit... My heart can't take this." He leaned on the wall for a good second.
—
He was really starting to get sick of the damn puzzles. It took him an absurd amount of time to get the pattern on the portable safe right. His reward? A key part for the terminal downstairs. "Fucking hell..."
Going down the stairs, he heard screams, looking up and seeing nothing only to almost get hit by a zombie who turned out to be near him. 'I could have sworn I heard that shit upstairs!'
Shooting it hopefully dead, and recovering from his mini heart attack, hearing glass shatter and screams that sounded like they were right behind him spooked the shit out of him, only to realize that the bastard wasn't in fact dead!
Leon might have put more bullets in that zombie than strictly necessary...
—
After finding the last missing key piece (thank god), and looting the entire locker room, he made his way to the third floor.
Finding Mag ammo in a locker and a key on the desk, he opened up the door and headed in deeper down the moonlit hallway.
—
"What in the—!?" No, he saw that. There was something crawling on the fucking window.
He stood in place a good few meters away from the window in case whatever that thing was came back.
Only after hyping himself up a bit was he ready to move on down the hall, finding a note addressed to any survivor.
"Skinned alive—? What?" Apparently those nightmarefuel creatures are called "lickers" and they are blind but have very good hearing, at least according to the note.
Opening a nearby door the first thing he noticed was a hole in the roof letting in light. 'Oh yeah one of those creepy bastards will come through here.' And started moving slowly in case he was right.
He thankfully didn't find a so-called "licker", but he sure as hell found something. A guy. A pale and injured guy that was slumped against a wall, eyes closed, dead to the world.
Another odd thing he noticed was the shirt, or the lack thereof. The only thing keeping him modest was what from this angle looked like a belt around his chest.
Who goes shirtless when zombies are running amok? How did this guy even get here? But his chest seemed to be moving... So he is still alive... right?
Leon approached slowly, the only blood he saw on him was dripping down his face and it had long gone dry or so it seemed. He crouched but kept Matilda in one hand, ready to shoot if this thing lunged at him like the others.
Leon's hand was just above the young mans pulse, when his eyes suddenly flew open.
And unlike before when his blue eyes met the cloudy white of the undead, this time they were met with the most brilliant blue eyes Leon has ever seen.
If Leon wasn't this tired he'd most likely realize that the eyes were in fact glowing, not to mention slitted. But at that point he had so many close calls and stressful situations in the past few hours that details like that just went over his head. Just like the stranger's supposed white hair, but that could just be excused by using dyes.
"Hello? Are you just gonna keep staring at me? That's kinda creepy ya know?" The guy said snapping Leon out of his thoughts.
Leon flinched, pulling his hand back quickly and clearing his throat to act more professional and decided to do his job as a cop. "Sorry. I'm Officer Leon Kennedy, and you are...?"
"Dante."
"Well, Mister Dan—"
"Ew. Don't call me that, it makes me feel old and shit." He was interrupted by the young man in front of him. "Just Dante."
"Ah–, ahem‐ well... Dante... are you injured? I see there is— or rather was blood leaking down your forehead. If so please allow me to take you to the main lobby, there are medical supplies there."
"Hm? Oh this?" He said pointing at his head, "It's nothing." Swiping his red coat sleeve on his face for a few seconds before most of the dried blood was gone. "There."
"I see, but I would still prefer if you got that checked out, in case it got infected, or you had a concussion." Leon stood up, hearing his knees creaking. 'Sigh 21 and my joints already sound like unoiled doors... man I'm tired, but at least there's another living soul here even if he's... peculiar..'
"Sigh, fine. But only because you asked so nicely mister officer." The guy gave him a mischievous smirk, and honestly? Leon appreciated that, a sense of normality tonight would do him wonders...