A Star's Descent

Chapter Six: The Investigation

A Star's Descent

By evolution-500

Disclaimer: House of the Dead and Resident Evil are properties belonging to SEGA and Capcom respectively. I do not own any of these characters.

Chapter Six: The Investigation

In the eighth car, Enrico Marini trudged through the hallways with his subordinates, his composure slightly disconcerted.

It took all of the self-control within his body to keep himself from falling into a hysterical mess. Refusing to think about what he had witnessed for the sake of his own sanity, his lips pursed and jaw clenched as his mind shifted into a more productive operating mode.

The Marine within was telling him that the only thing to do was to push forward and salvage what they could find, knowing that things would get progressively worse from here on.

It was hard to provide a definite assessment of the Bravos' situation.

Somehow, they had unwittingly crossed over from the boundaries of everyday rationality, spiralling downward to some nightmare world of insanity, horror, and dark secrets, a world where specters were made tangible, no longer the subjects of fairy tales and campfire stories.

Moving his team back to the previous car to search through the passengers' private quarters, Marini entered a room by himself and looked around at its contents.

On the right side of the room was fancy desk with a chair, its top concealed beneath various scattered papers. To the left was a black bunk bed, its occupant, a man in his mid twenties, lying peacefully underneath the blankets. As he came closer to inspect him, Marini saw the tell-tale sucker marks on parts of the cadaver's skin.

He frowned.

He had been less than inclined to believe the albino's self-proclaimed innocence. Part of the Bravo wanted to believe that the youth was just some crazed hick, and that these visions were the result of being exposed to some sort of elaborate booby trap cleverly set up by him, but the more rational part of Marini poo-poohed the idea. It was too inconsistent. He had felt those damn lips just barely brush against his face when the owner tried to take a bite out of him. Since that incident, Marini was forced to uncomfortably accept what the albino said as fact and had since treated the other bodies with heightened wariness, determined to not have a repeat of history. The first time was more than enough.

Seeing the marks on the man as he slept discouraged him. He knew the futility of his actions, but Marini proceeded to check for a pulse, for some sign of life, of hope even. Finding nothing, he shook his head in disgust, sickened by how many lives were lost. As his hand brushed against the blanket, Marini's eyes crinkled at the sight of what looked like a small journal held loosely beneath the sleeper's arms. Pulling it from the dead man's grasp, he opened its cover, curious to see if there was anything within that could shed some light on what was happening here.

He blinked as he read each sentence. He double-checked to see if he was reading the journal correctly, and then he triple-checked. What he found raised more questions.

From what was written, it was obvious that the passenger hadn't arrived for the pleasurable experience of sightseeing.

'July 14th - Orders came from the boss today. Looks like we're in charge of investigating the remains of the Arklay Mountains laboratory. We're moving in two groups, with us in the initial group, assigned to start checking what's left of the abandoned experiment.'

The Bravo Captain raised his head from the page, confused by this revelation.

A laboratory, here, in the Arklay Mountains?