East Hallway — RPD
The front doors were already open.
Leon S. Kennedy came through at a walk that wanted to be faster and made himself keep it controlled, one hand on his sidearm, cleared the entryway and stopped.
High ceiling. Emergency lighting. The smell hit immediately, coating the back of his throat.
"Hello?" His voice went out and didn't come back. "RPD — anyone—"
Nothing.
A desk near the stairs overturned. Phone off the hook. On the far wall, a monitor still running — security feed, four quadrants, three of them static.
The fourth: a corridor. A man crouched against a metal shutter, hands pressed flat against it, talking straight into the camera.
Leon leaned in.
"— east hallway, there's a passage — I have a notebook — please, someone has to—"
The man looked at the camera.
Leon was already moving.
He cut toward the east side and saw it before he reached it.
The shutter was already coming down.
Not fully closed — but close enough that if he slowed, it would be.
He didn't slow.
Dropped into it at a run — one hand hitting the floor, the other catching the edge as he lowered himself fast. The gap was tighter than it looked — lower.
He turned his shoulder and drove through.
The metal scraped across his back, stopping him for half a second. He exhaled hard, flattened further, pushing forward with his legs.
His belt caught.
A sharp jerk at his waist.
He twisted without stopping, yanked himself free, and dragged through the rest of the way, boots kicking once against the tile before clearing.
Came out low on the other side, one hand still on the floor, then pushed up into motion again.
Didn't stop.
Two steps in —
The bathroom corridor opened to his right.
Something moved there.
Impact. Close. Sudden.
A shape hitting tile. A struggle.
He turned his head just enough to catch it — movement in the dark — nothing clear —
And kept running.
"Hey — !" His voice carried ahead of him. "Hold on — I'm here — !"
Bathroom corridor — same moment.
The door swung in and the thing came with it.
No gap. It drove forward before the door had fully opened and she had half a second of its face before her arm was inside its mouth.
The teeth drove in and held.
She went backward into the frame, pulled, gained nothing, pulled again and felt the drag without getting free.
Her free hand found the door frame.
She pushed hard.
The jaw shifted.
The pressure dropped sideways — not releasing, just losing direction, the head jerking left in a short hard tick. Holding. Returning.
The teeth still in contact. No force behind them.
The hand on her sleeve spasmed open.
She wrenched her arm back.
The drag registered as a line of heat. She was moving before her feet had fully found the floor — stumbled into the opposite wall, shoulder first, used it to redirect, found the women's restroom door with one hand and hit it wrong, palm slipping before she grabbed again and drove through.
Lock. Left hand didn't find it on the first try. Found it on the second. Threw it.
Then just the door and her breathing, both of them shaking.
Elliot was already at the shutter.
On his knees. One arm through the gap, the other braced against the floor, trying to force himself forward.
"Help me — !" His voice broke. "I found it — east passage — notebook, I have the — "
"I've got you." Leon dropped, got both hands under the shutter, drove it up. "Come on, come on — !"
Elliot pushed. Got his shoulders through. His chest.
Leon let go of the shutter and grabbed him — both hands locking onto Elliot's forearms, pulling him forward.
"Keep moving — !"
Elliot slid further under, gasping, half through —
Then resistance.
From behind him.
Elliot's body jerked.
"— it's — it's got — !"
Leon pulled harder. "Come on — !"
Elliot screamed.
Leon shifted his grip, one hand losing purchase, catching again — now on Elliot's wrists, pulling with everything —
The shutter dropped.
Fast. Hard.
The impact snapped through the corridor.
Leon staggered back.
Still holding.
For a second he had him.
Then he didn't.
The weight in his hands changed.
Gone.
His grip closed on nothing.
The upper half of Elliot dropped forward under the shutter.
Leon stared.
Didn't move.
The sound behind the metal changed immediately. Movement. More than one.
Restroom — same moment.
She was on the floor with her back against the door, one hand pressed against the wound.
Outside: the hallway shifting. Further away — a voice rising, then cutting off.
A sound she felt in the floor more than heard.
Then a gunshot.
She pressed harder.
He stepped back.
The first shape came through the dark. He fired — missed. Fired again — hit the shoulder. It kept coming.
"Shit — "
He backed up fast, heel catching a chair. It tipped. He went sideways into the lockers, used them to stay upright, gun still up, firing again.
The body dropped.
Two more behind it. Too close.
He moved.
The notebook — on the floor near the shutter. He grabbed it without stopping, turned, ran.
The gap.
He dropped before he reached it, momentum carrying him forward under it. The metal slammed into his back harder this time, shoulder catching, pulling through —
Something grabbed his leg from behind.
He kicked free.
A hand caught his arm from the other side and dragged him out.
Marvin Branagh.
"Move — !"
Marvin hauled him up and hit the release.
The shutter sealed behind them.
Leon hit the wall with his back. Breathing hard. Notebook still in his hand.
He looked at it.
Opened it.
Restroom.
The sounds had moved to their edges — distant, filtered through the door and walls, reduced to shape without detail.
She looked at her arm.
The bleeding was wrong. Present but sitting at the surface — slow, without pressure.
The skin at the edges already darkened.
Heat moving up toward her elbow. Slow. Not following her pulse.
Her left hand still shaking. She pressed it flat against the tile and it pushed back.
One more gunshot, far south.
Then nothing.
She looked at the drain.
Her arm burned.
She waited.
Nothing resolved.