RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE - The House of Dimitrescu

Chapter 36 - Freezing

'NO!!!' 

Fear ripped through Y/N like a knife as he skidded to a stop beside the girls, throwing himself across them as the icy wind buffered his back from the broken window above the corridor. Beneath his body, the three girls were beginning to splinter and crack, their black dresses paling to grey as pieces of skin began to flake off them, and deep, horribly deep splits began to break open across their flesh and dresses. Roaring with rage, Y/N wheeled around, eyes blazing with anger as he rounded on the Countess, who stood motionless at the other end of the corridor, horror-struck.

'WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!' He yelled, sprinting towards the wall and leaping upwards to slam the wooden shutter closed over the broken window with an echoing bang, shutting off the flow of cold air as he dashed back to the girls, who were gasping weakly as they lay motionless across the floor.

'Bela? Dani? Cass? Can you hear me?!?' Y/N shouted, his heart pounding with terror as Bela's glassy eyes slowly turned to him, her chest shaking with short, shallow breaths as she struggled to breathe. Behind her, Daniela was letting out short, broken sobs as her skin froze and cracked away, and Cassandra's face was a mask of complete and utter fear. 

'How could you do something so fucking stupid?!?' Y/N roared at the Countess, who was still frozen in place a few feet from him. 'Half this bloody castle is made of glass!!! Why the hell would you do that?!?' The Countess blinked, shock and surprise turning to anger as she stalked forwards.

'You dare lecture me?!?' She asked incredulously, raising her hand as if to strike him again, but Y/N's attention had already shifted back to the girls. Grabbing the blankets, he quickly piled them on top of the girls, wrapping them up as delicately and quickly as he could before beginning to drag them back into the main body of the castle. Angrily, he shot the Countess a look so venemous it would've made Cassandra proud, then snarled:

'Shut up and help me! Unless you'd rather watch your daughters die from your actions?!?' 

The Countess flinched visibly almost as if Y/N's words had struck her across the face, then glanced down at her fracturing daughters, her expression turning to horror. Striding forwards, she pushed Y/N roughly out of the way and lifted all three of her daughters from the ground as if they weighed nothing more than the blenkets they were wrapped in, then strode past him into the heart of the castle. Still spitting with rage and with his heart racing from fear, Y/N hurried after her, waylaying her as she paused in the centre of the main hall, glancing around uncertainly between the doors and the dead fireplace in front of them, her mouth half open as she called:

'Zoya-...'

'Bring them up here.' Y/N ordered, sprinting up the stairs and glancing back to see that the Countess had fallen in behind him, her expression fraught with distress as she cradled her daughters in her arms. Rushing onwards, Y/N's feet flew across the carpet as he shot back into Bela's room, slamming through the door with a bang and yanking the basket of wood out from under her bed, hurriedly laying up the fire. 

'Where did you get that?' The Countess asked in a stunned voice as she appeared in the doorway holding the girls. 

'Not now!' Y/N growled, already moving, squeezing past the Countess' huge hips and dashing out into the corridor. 'Put them in the bed!' 

He shot straight into Daniela's room, where the remants of their last fire still smouldered weakly in the grate, and wrapping his hand tightly in a corner of Heisenberg's spare coat, Y/N stuck his hand into the grate and pulled out a glowing log which was still flickering with life.

Rushing back to Bela's room with the log clutched in one hand, he sprinted straight past the Countess who was laying the girls gently into Bela's bed, side-by-side, and threw it into the grate, dropping to his hands and knees and blowing frantically into the hearth, not stopping until flames sprang up from the pile of timber with a faint whoosh.