Tenebrae | By : Raptor6411 Category: +M through R > Resident Evil Views: 13262 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0 |
Disclaimer: I do not own Resident Evil, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story. |
Her mind spun in free
fall.
Ashley dreamed a
multitude of memories and memorandums let’s set a race on the beat dow nroadwhat willyouworshipwhentheymeltthegoldifyoucanfindthetimethenyoumightmove
mecountingallthewrappersandthrowingtheminthebinhereinthecarwe’restuck
andslowwithredlightscaughtonthedashboardalwaystheradioisturneduploud
whoneedstotalk,changethestationjumptheditchandhitanotherdrivebyand
nowI’mcaughtbetweenthebeltandtheseatthisneverwasanopenrunoutstreet
ifyoucanfindtheliesthenyoumighttrustmereadbetweenthelines,checkthec
abinetsweloadtheglovecompartmentlikeawasheranddryerIwashmyhands,
ItakeastepbackbutIlovethatspeedysensationripitoutandtossthoseblown
outshoeswecouldbefakebutthat’sforyoutochooseifyoucanseethesignsthen
youmightfindmecountingallmychangeandspittinginthewindalltherage,it’s
inthenewscheckthestands,Ifoundanotetheredoyourememberwhatwecame
hereforIfoldthedollarsbutthenlessismoreifyoucanfindthetimethenyoumight
movemeifyoucanfindthetimethenyoumightfallasleepintheglowoftheheadlights
closeyoureyestothewindshieldstaccatobreakingoverwristsandheadsmangled
metalinfullswingthecarcrashissingingmehomesweetnotesofshatteredclimax
downthewindowshardstothegutterfendersscrapeliketeethonwireopenwidehood
trunkconflagration,spitinthemirrorrainhidesyourtearswithgasolinerainbows
waitingforafireforasparkoffsomethingotherhugtheroadwithrubberslickgrip
thenlaymedowngentleinsteelenfolding,coldandrawwithpowertospareinyour
burningbellyheatmeupordownwhichevercomesfirstIcan’tbeparticularwith
wreckagetobackmetostackmeuprubbleandasphaltisrubbingintolacerations
theglassundermyskinburnslikepinpricksbutI’llsurvivetowalkfreeyetI’llclawmy
wayouttoagrayhomecomingyoustillhavemilestoskidoverweighstationsand
weightyroadfullofpeoplewithoutdestinationspointhemintherightdirectionbackto
meandthebentframeprisonwithfirestolightthewayandbloodonthebumperthey’ll
knowitwhentheyseeitandhowcouldtheynot
It landed in a frozen
moment. How easily it all came back.
That
old familiar feeling.
_____
She could barely breathe inside the cabinet, the air musty
and choked with dust. But the terrifying sounds of struggle coming from below
made her cower beneath the moth eaten coats and jackets, too afraid to even
crack open the door for a second.
Even with the cabinet to muffle the noise the cacophony was
deafening. Not a second passed without the house resounding with gunfire and
screams. Outside the now seemingly fragile walls seethed a mass of raging
humanity, howling for blood. She flinched as a particularly loud shot echoed up
the staircase. Something heavy hit the wooden stairs and rolled downwards. A
window shattered.
Luis was yelling something, his words incomprehensible
through the firefight. Ashley couldn’t tell if Leon
responded, and there was the banging of heavy footsteps charging up the
stairway. The cabinet doors suddenly clapped violently against their frames as
something heavy was dropped against them with a sound that was nearly deafening
in the small space. Ashley clapped her hands to her ears and came close to
screaming.
A gun was going off on the second floor where she was now,
but she wasn’t experienced enough to distinguish whose it was. Other sounds
were leaking through her wooden surroundings- the clatter of booted feet up
ladder rungs and the growling of madmen. With a shudder she realized they were
scaling the house, and now her protectors would be forced to defend both
floors. The gunfire from downstairs continued unabated, so at least she knew
neither of them had yet been killed.
A shout came from close by. “Leon!
Get up here!”
She could hear Leon
let off a few more shots to cover his retreat then dash upstairs. There was a
multitude of panicked shouting follow by a distant impact shortly after, and
Ashley guessed he must have pushed down one of the ladders. Someone cursed.
There was the terrible ripping sound of a parasite emerging from its host.
Then it was over.
The gun blasts ceased and omnipresent crackle of torches
faded away. In the silence a door closed downstairs. Footsteps approached her
cabinet. There was the brief grating of wood against wood and then the cabinet
doors were opened, bringing in not fresh air but the stench of blood and bile. Leon’s
haggard face greeted her eyes as she squinted against the sudden light.
“You okay?”
Unable to speak she nodded, rising shakily to her feet. Leon
took her arm and helped her up and out. She averted her gaze from some of the
corpses, trying hard to suppress her gag reflex. She tried to concentrate on
other things, distracting herself. “Where’s that other guy?”
“He ran off after they all left. I don’t know what he thinks
he’s doing, but I’m not going to follow him. We have to keep moving.”
Ashley felt shaky at the very thought of more fighting. “We
can’t stay here for a bit?” She pleaded, already knowing the answer but
desperate for some sort of handle on the situation.
“No,” Leon
said firmly. “We really need to keep moving. I saw a couple ways out from the
windows, let’s go down there.”
Ashley didn’t move, leaning against a table and taking deep
trembling breaths.
“Miss Graham,” Leon
started, then paused. “Ashley. I know you’re scared.
But our best chance to get out of here is to try and avoid them.” He put a
comforting hand on her shoulder. “I think you can do this.”
He was just saying that to make her feel better, she
thought. She wasn’t brave like him. Nothing in her life previously had prepared
her for this kind of situation. Still, his hand seemed warm and strong on her
shoulder, and she drew strength from it.
_____
“…Bad feeling about this,” Leon
mutter almost to himself. Ashley couldn’t help but agree. The structure seemed,
if not haunted, then at the very least dangerously unstable. The moon reflected
off the corrugated metal sheets of the roof and cast the scene in an eerie
glow.
Leon
nudged her, pulling her attention away from the unsettling sight. “You probably
should hide. I’ll check it out, see if we can stay here for awhile and maybe I
can fix my transmitter.”
She bit her lip, torn between two illusionary safeties- the
one brought by secreting herself in some nearby brush or the one gained from
his close presence. She wasn’t at all sure she wanted to be left alone outside,
or that she wanted him to go inside by himself.
Leon
was looking at her. “Ashley?”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?” She ventured.
“You’ll be safer out here than in there if something
happens. You’ve got room to run if you need to.”
“But what about you?” She said
worriedly.
Leon
smiled wryly. “If it comes down to that, I’ll probably be running right behind
you.” His face grew serious. “If I don’t come out in fifteen minutes though,
you need to get as far away from here as you can.”
She opened her mouth to protest, horrified at the thought. “Leon-“
He cut her off. “Ashley, you need to promise me you’ll do
that. Don’t come in after me, don’t stick around to
see what happens next- just run. Your legs will be your most valuable asset if me and my guns aren’t around.”
Was it her imagination, or had he been actually eyeing her
legs as he said that? Probably imagination. Leon
had proven to be deadly serious thus far, and the situation didn’t call for any
other frame of mind. “Leon..”
“Promise me.”
“But where-“
“Ashley,” He said, looking her in the eye now. “Promise. You need to do that.”
She sighed. “Alright. I promise.”
“Okay. Go hide over behind that woodpile,
you should be able to see from there.”
She did so, crouching down in the uncomfortably cold leaves.
She watched as Leon
cautiously turned the handle to one of the doors, peering inside before
slipping through.
The next thing she heard was the screech of tortured metal.
She watched with disbelief as the door handles twisted themselves in the wrong
directions. Jumping to her feet, she raced to the door and tugged futilely at
handles, her promise quickly abandoned in her need to save Leon
from whatever trouble was befalling him inside, but was unable to move them.
The sudden explosion that ensued shook the structure to its
very foundations and knocked her to the ground.
Stumbling back to her feet still dazed from the blast,
Ashley stood unsteadily and took the scene in before her with absolute horror.
The building was on fire! With a moan she sank back to the dirt, hand covering
her mouth. If Leon
was still alive, then he was trapped in a burning building. She was alone, and
without him to guide her, she was doomed.
Hope sparked back into her heart when the resounding noises
of gunfire began coming from inside. Scrambling back to her place of safety,
she could only wait anxiously as the sounds of fighting intensified and the
flames grew higher. Smoke began obscuring the moon, and it soon became harder
to see. Sections of collapsed wall began lighting small patches of surrounding
forest with a firelight glow.
She only started to truly breathe again when a familiar
figure flung himself through one such opening to roll
singed, but mainly unharmed, on the cold forest floor.
Leon
was soot blackened and grimier than ever but seemed none the worse for wear as
he beat out a small fire on his pant leg. Shielding his face from the flames,
he ran over to Ashley’s position.
“Are you okay Leon?”
She asked in wide-eyed worry, gripping his now darkened arms in her own pale
hands, as if to assure herself he was in one piece.
“Fine,” Leon
mumbled through a cough, still suffering somewhat from mild smoke inhalation. “I
got the key.”
“Key?”
“I’ll explain on the way. This bonfire is a little too
obvious for my taste.” Gripping her firmly by the hand, he moved them back off
towards the gate.
_____
“Wrong country.”
The little man on the balcony’s smile wavered a little,
uncertainty tugging at the corners. Of all the responses he had envisioned to
his mocking greeting, a non sequitur hadn’t been one of them. “Wrong country, Mr. Kennedy?”
“Yeah.” Leon
pointed in a generally northward direction. “France
is that way. With a good horse, you might be able to get back before they miss
you.”
The strange man was beginning to understand the edges of the
joke, but still attempted to hold his smug superiority in place. “And why would
they miss me in France?”
Leon
frowned. “Napoleon? You’re Napoleon, right? Short, ugly face, gay hat. You fit the bill. This is Spain.
Although come to think of it, I can’t imagine why anyone would miss you.”
Salazar realized he was being played for a fool. “A brave attempt, Mr. Kennedy. But it will take more than
that to get under my skin.”
“It’d be easier if I had something sharp.”
Salazar gritted his teeth. This was not going the way he had
planned it in his head. “Empty threats my American friend. You’ll never get the
chance. You see, we want the girl. You, on the other hand, are not worth a
penny. You can die.”
Leon
smiled, and it was feral. “You first. I’d like to know
if all midgets go to Heaven.”
“Then I won’t be seeing you in Hell,” Salazar snarled.
“I’ll take the elevator down. You’d better bring a step
ladder if you’re going up though.”
If there was one thing that set Salazar’s brain on fire, it
was tall people who looked down on him. “¡Usted morirá aquí!” With his bodyguards in tow, he stormed
away, leaving the newly risen stonework to block Leon’s
path.
Ashley gave Leon
‘the look’. “You just have to infuriate everyone don’t you.”
Leon
shrugged. “He started it.”
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” She sighed.
“I’m all over it.”
While AFF and its agents attempt to remove all illegal works from the site as quickly and thoroughly as possible, there is always the possibility that some submissions may be overlooked or dismissed in error. The AFF system includes a rigorous and complex abuse control system in order to prevent improper use of the AFF service, and we hope that its deployment indicates a good-faith effort to eliminate any illegal material on the site in a fair and unbiased manner. This abuse control system is run in accordance with the strict guidelines specified above.
All works displayed here, whether pictorial or literary, are the property of their owners and not Adult-FanFiction.org. Opinions stated in profiles of users may not reflect the opinions or views of Adult-FanFiction.org or any of its owners, agents, or related entities.
Website Domain ©2002-2017 by Apollo. PHP scripting, CSS style sheets, Database layout & Original artwork ©2005-2017 C. Kennington. Restructured Database & Forum skins ©2007-2017 J. Salva. Images, coding, and any other potentially liftable content may not be used without express written permission from their respective creator(s). Thank you for visiting!
Powered by Fiction Portal 2.0
Modifications © Manta2g, DemonGoddess
Site Owner - Apollo