"Leon! I cleared the way to head underground through the sewers. We are free to make our way down and try to find an exit out of here!" Claire held the radio close to her lips, the eagerness and relief coating each syllable as she spoke. She released the button a moment later and patiently waited for the familiar crackle that would sound over the feed accompanied soon after by the calming voice of the man that had saved her life. Ten minutes passed as she examined the seat that Marvin laid upon. But no such sound echoed from the device. No reply of any kind came, only static and silence.
"Leon! Leon!? Do you copy?" Once again the redhead was greeted with nothing but a buzzing static and silence from her partner.
"Sh*t." She cursed softly under her breath as she lowered the device in her hand. Ocean hues staring at it as if pleading with it to answer her calls, to will him into responding and putting this terror that was clawing up her throat to rest before it turned her blood to ice and froze her in place.
Claire knew what she had to do to put this uneasiness to rest in her chest. She was going to have to traverse back into the station's dark depths. Depths crawling with those creatures that seeked nothing more than to strip flesh from bones. Depths that held mutations that could liberate her head from her shoulders if she made a wrong move. Depths that bounced the echoing sounds of heavy boots throughout the halls made by a creature that relentlessly hunted them. She had to go into the depths and find Leon. If she didn't she knew she would never put this feeling, that left a bitter taste on her tongue, to rest.
She turned on her heels and began to make her way towards the door at the front on the lefthand side. "Claire, where are you going?" Her movements paused a moment although she did not look back to where the voice had come from. Her body trembled ever so slightly as if a single breeze could send her crumbling into pieces. But she had to be strong now despite the gnawing fear. Not just for her brother, Chris, but for Leon as well. "I'll be back…as soon as I find Leon!"
Claire couldn't bare to wait for a response. She couldn't bare to be told once again to only think of herself, to save herself. She had made a promise with Leon. They had sworn they would get out of that nightmarish hell hole and they would do it together. He was the one person that she refused to turn her back on and leave behind in that city of the damned. Her footsteps splashed noisily through those empty corridors echoing in a deafening manner. With each empty room she passed on the way to the watchman's office a panic was raising within her chest.
Come on Leon, where the f*** are you. She rounded the corner, ocean blues falling on the same carnage of ripped apart bodies that greeted her each time she had to walk down this corridor. Her nose scrunched slightly at the smell of decomp that had begun to hang heavy in the air as she stepped over the closet body. She gingerly pushed the door to the office open as she raised her flashlight up before stepping in. The room was dark and the shutter that had once been shut tight, separating the office from the corridor leading to the basement, now stood open.
The half of Elliott's body with a bullet in his head told her Leon had been here recently. The blood that had pooled on the floor was still tacky and wet. Claire reloaded and check her revolver to ensure it would not fail her before she took in a deep breath and headed down the corridor towards the basement. The last time she had spoken to Leon over their radios he had said he was heading to the basement. It made the most sense that he could still be in there and possibly in need of assistance. Something down there was preventing him from calling for help.
The darkness greeted her from the top of the staircase like a mouth opening with a yawn waiting to swallow her. The sickening feeling that had steadily grown in the pit of her stomach was begging her to turn around and run. Every fiber within her was screaming that something terrible had happened below the surface. Something that she would not walk away from if she proceeded. However her loyalty to the rookie officer pushed her forwards as she descended further into the depths.
The atmosphere down here was eerier than even the above ground levels. Claire's raised flashlight illuminated each separate end of the corridors as she turned to look from side to side trying to pick a direction to begin her search. Somewhere in the darkness she could hear the shuffling and the groaning song of the undead accompanied by the hissing sound those skinned freaks with the long tongues made. It seemed that Leon had put very few creatures out of their misery down here. It was a good thing that those creatures were blind and easy to sneak past. A red light illuminated above a door handle told her that the power had yet to be restored.
"Power supply room it is…" She mumbled to herself as she turned to the right and followed the painted arrows and names that lined the walls as a guide. The blockage of the corridor had forced her into the kennels where she was greeted with several dead dogs and the Lickers that had made quick meals out of the remaining corpses. Claire held her breath as she slowly wound her way past them. She was careful not to get too close to their bodies for fear of being detected. She had refused to release the breath she had been holding until the door to the kennel had clicked shut behind her.
Claire rested her back against it with a sigh as she tried to gather her composure and push forward. The corridors down here were nearly pitch black with the generator down making it hard to make anything out in them. The kennels had still maintained their power supply so she had turned off her flashlight to save battery. Though the sounds she heard coming from around the corner made her heart stop. She recognized the sickening sounds of flesh being stripped from bone. Part of her wanted to turn around. To walk back through that kennel and never look back but that other part of her forced her body to push away from the cold steel of the door.
As she rounded the corner and clicked on her light, what greeted her staring back from the end of the pool of light she had created was enough to turn her blood to ice. Any strength she had left failed her as her legs gave out beneath her. Pain flooded her body from where her knees had struck the concrete though she didn't really take any notice. Her mind had gone blank with shock and her body numb. Tears stung ocean hues as she gawked in disbelief. The creature that had stared back at her from the darkness, the creature that had abandoned its kill and begun shambling towards her was none other than the rookie cop that had saved her life.
This truly had to be a nightmare. She must have been so exhausted that she had fallen asleep somewhere safe and just hadn't realized. There was no other explanation as to how this could have happened. Claire felt a scream rising in her throat that she fought back. She gripped the revolver tightly in her hand as she lifted her arm. Hot tears pooled over and stung the cold of her cheeks as she turned her head away before squeezing the trigger. BANG. THUD. A sob escaped her lips as she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth in a feeble attempt to keep her growing grief silent.
"Leon….no….oh god…Leon I'm so sorry…" she whispered softly as she pressed a hand to his shoulder before getting to her feet. The sound of the shot had grabbed the attention of more than she was ready to deal with. She wiped her lingering tears before grabbing Leon's gun, Matilda, off his body. Then she casted his body a final glance before disappearing into the darkness of the corridor. Leon couldn't finish the mission they had set out on together but she would make sure part of his memory at least did.
