BLUE - Resident Evil

s e v e n

Chapter Seven: State of Denial

"What the hell is this place?" Barry Burton started, the torch that was attached to his shoulder strap illuminated the dark path ahead of them—the sound of water dripping down from the pipes echoed throughout the tunnel as their silent footsteps splashed onto the puddles that flooded the tunnels.

They had lost the horde of infected a while back, leaving themselves some peace of mind as they explored the maze-like underground caverns—but it had been almost an hour and they still hadn't found a way out, and Jill's hope in finding Alena alive started to wane with each passing seconds.

"It's an Umbrella's secret lab." Jill answered him, her gloved hands seemed to be out of place as she clenched them into fists and opened them back, she had nothing on her to defend herself. "They've been experimenting on humans all this time—now I don't know what kind of fucked up products that they're trying to make but those monsters... I think those were the failed results."

"So Umbrella just... let them loose?" The man glanced at her with a confused frown.

"I don't think so. Some of them were Umbrella's workers." She stated. "And the entire place is wrecked— something terrible must have happened here. Maybe one of their subjects got out...?"

Jill frowned at her own words. Something did not quite add up— if Enrico was right about them being sent there, what was the point when everyone was already dead? Wouldn't the spies be notified about the incident? Or was that the whole reason... to eliminate all S.T.A.R.S. members?

Barry turned to her with a huff. "Look, Jill. I'm not saying that I don't believe you. But the RPD would've known about this—we would know. There's no way the Umbrella could hide this place from us. And human experimentation...? We would've received reports on missing people."

"That's because Umbrella has someone in the team to cover their tracks." She could see that he didn't sit well with that as he shook his head, his face scrunched in denial at the thought of someone close to them would've betrayed them. "And that person's been working for them all this time."

"What do you mean 'has someone in the team'? You think one of us is a traitor...?"

She could not believe it as well. She looked at him, her lips were pressed into a thin line as she answered him. "They've killed Enrico." – That made the man stop in his tracks, his brows knitted together as he looked at her in shock, his lips parted to say something but she stopped him.

"I met him just after I left Alena." Jill licked her lips, his blood still stained her hands and she could still see his cold lifeless gaze staring back at her. "He looked like he knew something and he... he told me that we were sent here for a purpose. That everything has been planned out."

"Something big is going on and I don't think we're meant to survive the night." She turned to him and noticed how he tried to hide his face from her, his shoulders drooped as the news of his friend's death started to set in— Jill was silenced for a moment, letting him attune with his own grief.

Enrico was a good man, he had always been like an older brother to everyone on the team— he was the first person to notice her closeness with Alena and advised her to go for her heart, and she still remembered how happy and supportive he was when she told him about their relationship.

Even in his dying moments, he still warned her about the traitors, he still cared for her...

"Do you know who it was...? The traitor. Did you see who killed him?"

Jill shook her head. "They ran before I could see them." – she then followed close behind Barry as he continued their walk through the narrow tunnel, she could see that Enrico's death had sparked something within him, his shoulders were tensed and his jaw clenched but who could blame him?