The 0714 Files: File #1 Inferno (Remake 2)

Epilogue

I open the door and step beyond the confines of the west office into the hallway I remember Raymond telling me leads to the dark room for developing film for evidence and to the armory. The sound of a little girl laughing echoes in the hall, but it's not scary, more like it's leading me somewhere I need to go as I try to pinpoint the child doing so.

It must be why I'm here, in this dark hallway, holding the flashlight in the blood-stained clothing of my uniform that'd been burned up over three months ago. My other hand carries Mathilda. Both are just slightly shaking as I head down the long corridor. On some mission I'm unsure of—

"Madeleine?" I whisper into the dark. And then it clicks, that I'm looking for her, because for whatever reason we split up to search the R.P.D. and now it's been a while since I've seen her.

"Over here," the small voice informs me. In the middle of the hall is a little girl with curly hair and bright green eyes staring back at me in the flashlight. She smiles wide, she's missing a front tooth. Then she turns and runs away, and I follow after without a word, only worry—

There's a body at the end of the hall now. Sitting beneath a broken window, head down and rain pouring through. The knees are awkwardly up and slumped towards each other, overturned palms covered in blood with droplets on the floor, jean jacket laying on the ground to the side as if taken off and discarded...

I catch the white and pink of the orchid drawn on it, and shudder at the stillness of the body ahead. Another lying just beyond that's staring up at the ceiling with a knife sticking from the forehead. Oh god, no. I stop walking, "Madeleine?" I nearly choke on her name.

Those delicate fingers twitch ever so softly, and then they're clenching, balling her hands into fists and that mass of thick, curly hair that'd been hiding her face is moving as she lifts her head—

Her skin is deathly pale. And the denial at seeing the deep bite wound on her neck along with the blood staining the black shirt in a dark stream below sets in. One that I can only presume means she'd been bit and bleed out. My jaw drops and I blink. Then I see those eyes snap up to where I'm standing. The ones I've dreamed about so many times since leaving them behind. Have stolen my breath once or twice at the unexpected tightening of my stomach they've given me when she's looked my way.

They're white.

NO. This isn't happening. Of everyone I've encountered not her. Not—

Those gentle lips drop open and a low growl emits from her throat, echoing in the empty corridor as she stands. Stumbling, awkward and no control of fluidity because it's been lost. Then she's finally standing straight, righted herself properly and stopping. Stopping to then look up at me with an unblinking stare to even momentarily distract me from those white eyes.

A step, then another. Still wheezing those groans and the closer she gets the more her lips curl and those groans suddenly turn into hair raising snarls as she shambles closer to me.

Not her. Not Madeleine. This is a nightmare, why can't I wake up?

A hand raises when she's only a few feet from me in a preemptive attempt to grab me—

Bang! I fire a bullet and it buries into her forehead. Her head is jarred backwards from the violent force as her blood and brains paint the walls and floor behind her.