The Fight For Us Part III | Resident Evil |

9 - Leon

The first thing he notices is the smell, the smell of matches. He doesn't hear it being lit, or see the candle it lights. Leon just smells it. He doesn't think to open his eyes, he's too disoriented to think of anything at all besides smelling the match. For all he knows it's not even matches he's smelling.

But then the smell fades away. Maybe he fell asleep, or something else entirely. Like an ocean tide, he comes in and out of it, gone then barely there. Time itself is a distant memory until his eyes open, and suddenly Leon's there. He's himself, in the flesh.

He's staring at a ceiling, it's wooden and old. Old enough for Leon to briefly consider its structural integrity. This place isn't familiar, and when his eyes wander down onto himself he finds he's had his clothing changed. It looks well worn, and smells like a person that isn't him—or perhaps he's smelling the room in its entirety.

He groans, sitting up from the surprisingly comfortable bed he's been laid on. It's a bedroom, there's nothing inside besides the bed and a nightstand. The drawer has a Bible in it, nothing else. Standing up is harder than Leon anticipates, his legs about give out beneath him. The world around him shakes, his eyes darting all around the room again.
"Hello?" He calls out nervously, and his hand grabs the doorknob that presumably leads out of the room. This place doesn't seem nice enough to have walk-in closets.

The hallway the door unveils is just as wooden and old as the bedroom, maybe even worse. The floor has a long beaten-up rug running down the length of the hall. It doesn't help cover the janky flooring, it might actually exacerbate it. Leon can see every single line of a floorboard, the nails that have begun to lift from the wood, the dents and dings, and the carpet highlights the imperfections—molding to the floor's shape. "Anyone home?" Leon shouts, and there's no response. How'd he get here? Why? It seems unrealistic that the BSAA killed his uncle and abducted him and Rose just to dump him in some dingy house without anything besides confusion and a migraine. But it wouldn't be the first time the BSAA fucked him over.

Leon listens carefully as he creeps down the hall, when he comes upon a descending staircase he pauses. The stairs lead into the dark, unlike the candles that line the hallway.

It looks like the stairs to the orphanage's basement when he was a kid. There was a bad storm when he was young, maybe fourteen or so. Too old to be afraid of the dark, at least that's what the adults told him. The other kids didn't pay him enough attention to notice his fear of the dark. It's one of the earliest memories he still has in the back of his mind, second only to the memory of the break-in.

It wasn't a crowded orphanage. Leon doesn't remember what the name of the building was. It was demolished a year or so after he left for college. When they'd have storms—that knocked out the power, the adults would round all the kids up and they'd sleep in the dining hall. All the tables would be pushed to the walls and they'd have a big slumber party. Kind of. They didn't get to stay up late so that took a lot of the fun out of the night. Even if they did stay up, Leon didn't have any friends. He wanted to sleep, it gave him less time to be left out.

Ms. Emily only asked him to grab the batteries because he set up his pillow by the basement door. Away from the other kids, she figured asking the loner to do it would cut out the hassle. She knew what Leon had been through, but she was a volunteer. She didn't really care about the job. So when Leon expressed his fear, she shoved him inside and closed the door. All he had was a dirty old candle for light.

He didn't scream or cry, no matter how much he wanted to. Ms. Emily wouldn't have opened the door either way, she needed batteries for flashlights. And she wouldn't open the door until Leon grabbed them. So he did. He snuck into the basement with trembling hands, the flame of the candle flickering enough that he had to make a conscious effort to stay still. He couldn't lose his only light in the depths of the dark.

The batteries were on an old shelf just beside the stairs. It truly wasn't that big of a deal, so Leon grabbed them carefully. His heart rate falling back to its normal level. But then the thunder clapped outside, and Leon fell over in horror. His candle and the batteries fell all over the floor. The flame going out he found himself in the dark, his fists clenched a few stray batteries. Like he had his keys in his fists.

Leon ran, ran faster than he'd ever had up the stairs. He didn't even notice when he broke his foot, he just wanted out. And when Ms. Emily finally opened that door he screamed, feeling the pain of his foot and making himself a spectacle of the orphanage. He never saw Ms. Emily again, and the other kids called him Screamer until he left.

But he's older now, older than Ms. Emily even. And he's seen worse than whatever monster the dark has to offer him. So Leon descends the steps. It's cold, oh so very cold. "Hello!" He shouts, now on the lower floor. To his left, he finds a living room of sorts and a kitchen to his right. It's old. Not just in quality, but in model. The oven is heated by wood, and the couches are handmade. It reminds him of Spain. The door in between the rooms calls his name, it looks like the front door. Or something similar. Maybe a basement.

But he finds the door locked. No, barricaded. A large plank is slid in front of it, and another is towards the bottom of the door. Leon takes them away, pulling them out of their places and dropping them to the stone floor. He hadn't even noticed the change of flooring in the dark.

When he opens the door however, he finds himself staring into a forest. Snow-caked and freezing, footprints lead in and out of the house. "Where... the fuck am I?" Leon mumbles, looking outside.
"My home." A voice replies from behind him, Leon turns around so fast he hurts his neck. And he sees a man. He's old. Has to be in his sixties. "Sorry, didn't mean to startle you. But we need to keep the door closed right now." The stranger then nudges Leon out of the way, slams the door closed, and places the boards back in front of it.
"Why does it need to be closed?"
"Look for yourself." The stranger then slides a curtain to the side, Leon hadn't even noticed the window in the living room.

He doesn't see much more than the expected. Snow. Icy trees. The forest and its cold greenery. That is until he hears a howl, like a wolf. Leon sees a creature appear from the forest, staring at the house it looks like a person. But it's not a person, it looks dogish. Like a mix of a wolf and a person. A werewolf.
"What is that?" Leon questions the man standing behind him. He's breathing heavily.
"We don't know. Lycan's is all we've been calling 'em. But they're far from werewolves." The man's explanation doesn't help. Too many questions. Too much information all at once.
"How'd I get here?" Leon questions the man, sliding the curtains closed.

"I found ya after yer chopper crashed. Heard the crash a few nights ago, then some rustlings, then nothin. You were the only 'live one I found."
"There was nobody else? Did you see a kid? A girl, little? Brown hair?"
"No, not dead or alive. No girls, oh but I did find this," the man then produces something from his back pocket. Leon can't tell what it is until the man sets it in his palm, it's a shoe. One of Rose's. Her Skechers.
"Fuck." Leon says, rolling an aglet in between his cold fingers.

His head shakes, thoughts and worries hitting him like gunfire. He knows she wouldn't run off alone—she'd be too scared—but even if she had, what's to say those things haven't got her? And if she didn't, how'd she disappear from the wreck?
"It belong to that kid yer lookin' for?"
"I, uh... yeah. I need to go."
"Go?" The man inquires before taking a small step back to let Leon move, his eyes follow the shoe in Leon's hand as he stuffs it into his front pocket, one that's too small for the shoe's width. It tears the denim a bit as he stuffs it in.

"My daughter's out there in this, I... gotta go after her." Leon then places his hand on the barricade, hands lifting the splintered wood.
"Only thing yer findin' out there is yer death kid."
"I'm willing to take that chance," Leon mumbles as he lifts the wooden plank out of its place.
"Woah now, hold yer horses. Before ya go out 'ere like an idiot we should see Maria. I'm sure she has some stuff she can spare, guns and ammunition. The works." The stranger could have said that in the first place, he almost did. But a curious part of him wondered if this random American man would really have the bravery to run outside and face a Lycan.
"Okay... Yeah. Let's go." Leon says, he'll have a better chance at finding Rose if he's alive.
"She's just behind us. Shouldn't be all 'at hard."