BLUE - Resident Evil

t w e n t y - f o u r

Chapter Twenty-Four: Into the Depths of Hell

"... But that doesn't explain the rumors about the orphanage." Ben Bertolucci's voice came through the voice recorder that was held in Ada's hand, and Alena had to lean down so that she could listen to it as well. "I-I just find it way too coincidental Umbrella's one of the benefactors."

"You told me this interview was about the new scholarship Umbrella set up." Alena pursed her lips when she heard the familiar voice, and let out a small hum.

Ben scoffed at that. "Come on, Annette. Nobody cares about that." He could not get to the Head of Research for the G-Virus, Dr. William Birkin, so instead he went after his wife, who was also one of Umbrella's top researchers—smart. "They want to know about the G-Virus and the—"

"Where did you hear about this?" Annette started to sound defensive.

"—and that big fucking sinkhole in the city which, by the way, rumor has it goes straight to your underground lab." Ben kept pushing the buttons. "Now, are you going to talk to me or are you—"

"This interview is over." It sounded like Annette was leaving as the sound of a chair scraping against the floor was heard in the background, and followed that was her walking away.

"Bitch." Ben cursed, and with that, the recording had stopped.

"Is that the intel that you guys needed?" Leon asked from behind them as the three entered the main streets of Racoon City, the rain bucketing down on them and the cold wind blew against their path, the weather was just as ominous as the situation that they were in.

Ada had her hand shielding her face from the rain, and she took a glance at the blonde woman next to her, seeing that Alena did not even bother to cover herself as she stared at the street ahead, lost in her own thoughts—and she turned to Leon. "Unfortunately, no. Ben didn't come through."

"Well, what exactly are you looking for?"

"More info on the people responsible for this mess." The half-truth. Ada looked down at the voice recorder and pursed her lips together, she then kept the device in one of her pockets, thinking that she might need it later on. "What about you? Are you trying to save the world or something?"

Leon chuckled at that. "No, I... I told Officer Branagh that I'd bring help. " He glanced at Alena for a moment before shifting his gaze back to Ada, and he motioned his head at the blonde. "And I want to know what's going on around here. I... I want to help you with your investigation."

"I think it's better if we handle this on our own, Leon." Ada saw that he was about to argue with her but was stopped when Alena turned to them, her hand gesturing to the dead road ahead of them.

"Road's a dead end."

Leon looked over to the collapsed road and saw that it had sunk a couple of feet under, forming a giant sinkhole in the middle of the city. "Jesus. Wonder what's happening here." – he did not listen in to the voice recorder but he did hear a 'big fucking sinkhole' and wondered if this was it.

Ada searched around for another route that they could take and found a gun shop next to them, just almost at the edge of the road. "Why don't we go through this gun shop?" She pointed at it and the other two agreed on her suggestion before all of them ran through the rain and into the store.

While both Ada and Leon dried themselves from the rain, Alena explored the familiar store—the gun shop looked like it had been ravaged, the weapons' cases had been breached in and there were no single bullet boxes left on the shelves. But what could she expect in times like this...