The sky had been sinking since late afternoon. Heavy clouds smothered Raccoon City, and the air sat thick and suffocating.
Ryan stood at the stove tossing vegetables in a skillet, the sizzle and scrape filling the quiet apartment. Jill leaned against the couch in the living room, running a cloth along the edge of a spare knife, her gaze resting on the overcast street below. Calm on the surface, but a tightness lived in the set of her jaw that never quite went away.
After the mansion, she'd insisted on submitting her report up the chain. The entire department had been compromised by Umbrella long before she ever walked through its doors. Chief Irons cited psychological instability and forced her onto suspension. Her sidearm was confiscated, her access revoked, and plainclothes surveillance locked onto her around the clock. S.T.A.R.S. existed in name only. Former teammates kept their distance, conversations drying up mid-sentence whenever she entered a room. She'd been cut out of every operation, every briefing, reduced to a civilian under soft house arrest in her own apartment.
The smell of dinner drifted through the rooms. Ryan brought two plates to the table. Jill set the knife aside and sat down, her eyes flicking instinctively toward the bedroom closet. Everything they had was in there. Every weapon, every piece of gear, quietly accumulated through back-channel contacts over the past weeks. Their entire margin of survival, hidden behind a row of hanging jackets.
"Since the suspension, I can't even step outside without a tail." Her voice was low, edged with a frustration she couldn't quite swallow. "Everyone at the precinct acts like nothing happened. Anything strange on the streets gets filed as a routine disturbance and buried."
The signs had been multiplying for weeks. Pedestrians moving with a stiff, glassy shuffle. Neighbors vanishing without explanation. Unmarked vehicles hauling cargo through the streets in the dead of night.
Ryan listened in silence, his fork pausing mid-motion.
He knew what had happened after the mansion. Umbrella hadn't destroyed the virus. They'd turned on each other instead, factions fighting over control. One side wanted the whole thing covered up. The other had already decided to use Raccoon City as a live testing ground for the t-Virus. The so-called transport leak was theater. Someone had deliberately ruptured the containment vessels, letting the virus seep into the sewer network and water treatment system. Trace amounts fed into the municipal supply. The city got none of it, no quarantine, no containment, nothing. They watched from a distance and took notes, logging transmission rates in dense populations, infection efficiency, biological mutation data. This disaster had never been an accident. It was a massacre engineered by corporate ambition.
His expression stayed level. His voice dropped. "It's worse than what we're seeing. Prepare for the worst."
Jill nodded. She'd always been the type to stare danger down head-on, but the suspension, the surveillance, the isolation, all of it had worn her down. Around Ryan, she could stop pretending she wasn't tired.
After dinner, he cleared the dishes. Jill slipped into the bedroom to check their gear. She confirmed every firearm and box of ammunition was secure, then went through the first aid kits, tactical vests, and packs one by one, making sure everything was within reach. The system was clean: organized by category, concealed, invisible to anyone who didn't know where to look.
Her hands moved with trained precision. S.T.A.R.S. habits died hard. Every detail accounted for. No margin for error.
Rain hit the window without warning. In seconds, a downpour swallowed the city whole.
The roar of it drowned out every sound from the street. Ryan crossed to the window and drew the curtain back a sliver. Down below, the surveillance vehicles hadn't thinned. Two more had joined them, headlights dark, just sitting there.
The net was tightening.
"They have no intention of letting me leave this city," Jill said quietly.
Ryan took her hand. His grip was warm and steady. "They won't stop us. I'm here."
She leaned into his shoulder without a word. Outside, the storm hammered harder, as though it meant to drag the entire city under. The apartment was dark. Streetlamp light bled through the curtains, outlining the two of them pressed close together.
Time blurred. Then the television in the living room snapped on by itself, hijacked by an emergency broadcast signal.
The image shook. The reporter's voice pitched high, cracking with panic.
"Breaking emergency report... mass violent attacks in the city outskirts... police have cordoned off the area... all residents are urged to stay indoors immediately..."
A few seconds. Then the feed cut to static. White noise filled the screen.
The room went silent.
Jill was on her feet in an instant. Every trace of fatigue, every softness, gone. Her eyes locked on the screen. Suspension didn't matter anymore.
"It's here."
Ryan stood beside her, expression calm, already prepared.
The rain kept coming down.
The fall of Raccoon City had begun.