Claire Redfield, a young college student

Diving into Raccoon City, Claire Redfield has but one goal: to find her older brother Chris, who seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth a few weeks back. Unaware to her, a bloody nightmare awaits...

Chapter 1 - Lost Girls

Claire Redfield, a 19 years old college student, was riding her motorcycle to Raccoon City at night. She hasn’t heard from her older brother, Chris, a cop stationed in the city, since early this month, which made her worried a lot. She made up her mind to go check on him this morning, without saying goodbye to her friends in the college, so she decided to make a phone call at the Mizoil gas station.

“Yeah, I’m almost there. You know me, I’ll be fine. I’ll be back as soon as I find Chris.” She reassured her friends repeatedly.

After hanging up the phone, she walked into the ominous rainy night.

“Why does everyone think I’m going to get in trouble?” She smiled calmly.

Suddenly, she heard gunshots coming from the store. Before she could act on it, dozens of “humans” started to rise from the bushes surrounding the station and growled. She looked around and saw those monsters with red eyes and sharp fangs pushing down her bike and closing in. She pulled out her SLS 60 pistol to defend herself, but she didn’t think it would be enough for all of them. On a second thought, she tried to take refuge in the store.

Just when she opened the door, a young man in a blue jacket, being chased by a red-eyed security guard, immediately pointed his gun at her.

“Don’t shoot!” She cried out with her hands in the air.

“Get down!” The man shouted firmly.

She quickly crouched and almost at the same time, the man pulled the trigger and took down a monster which was about to grab on to her. That was close, she gasped. The man ran out of the store and locked the door behind him, shutting the monster inside. Seemed like the store wasn’t safe, either.

"You alright?" The man asked.

"Yeah, I think so...Thanks." She stood up while breathing heavily.

"You can thank me later, when we're safe." The man looked at their surroundings and held his gun more tightly.

The situation hasn’t changed. They were surrounded by dozens of blood thirsty monsters. With two of them and less than 10 bullets, it was impossible for them to take down all these monsters.

The bald guard slapped on the door behind them, which caught their attention. Through the window on the door, Claire saw a blonde, with a weird smile and blood all around her mouth, walking out of the storage after she broke the lock. The monster that just got a head shot started moving again and was about to get up. There's no time to lose. They must find a way to escape.

"Come on!" The man yelled and headed to the police car.

Right, that was their only hope now. She bravely followed and pushed aside a monster in her way. When she finally made it to the car, the man already found the key and started it.

"Hold on!" With a smooth turn, the car headed straight towards the city, leaving all the monsters behind.

"What the hell is going on?" She looked around anxiously.

"I don't know..." He shook his head, "Hopefully, they'll have some answers at the police station."

"Wait, you're a cop?" She asked in surprise.

"Yeah, Leon S. Kennedy. You are?"

"Claire. Claire Redfield." She smiled in relief.

"Live around here?" He tried to release the tension in this small car.

"No, looking for my brother. He's a cop, too." Claire was clearly more relaxed.

"Well, it's a good thing we found each other." He sighed, "I don't know what to expect anymore..."

After a couple minutes they arrived in Raccoon City. The Emergency Broadcast System was at work and advising all citizens to take shelter at the police station due to the citywide outbreak. However, aside from the broadcast and the rain, the city was in dead silence.

"Oh my god, this is so unreal..." Claire lowered her head in frustration.

"The police station's not much farther. They'll know something." Leon assured her.

"Yeah, but...what if we're the only ones?" She crossed her fingers and looked at her companion, the only human alive she saw tonight, "What if there's no survivors..."

"No. There's survivors. It's a big city...there has to be." His voice was becoming lower and lower, as if he knew it was just some kind of self-consolation to keep him going.

Claire understood the desperation in Leon's words and stopped talking. She feared that Chris might have fallen victim to this crazy shit. What if she found Chris but he already became one of those monsters? He was the last family she had. What was she going to do if she lost him, too?

For a few minutes there was only silence in the car, before it was broken by another bad situation. The road ahead of them was blocked by barricades and dozens of abandoned vehicles, which prevented them from driving further.

"Look like we're walking from here." Leon said. He knew the risk but he had no better options.

It was at this moment Claire noticed something was moving at the side of the road. In the dim light, two of the monsters were ferociously biting a man on the ground. One of them heard something and looked up at the car with a bloody mouth.

"More like running." She gasped in horror.

"Yeah, good call." Leon nodded.

But before they could do anything, they were surrounded by monsters. These ones were moving faster than those they encountered at the gas station, probably because these ones have feasted on more blood in the populated city area.

"Leon! We gotta back up!" Claire yelled but was interrupted by the dazzling headlights behind them, "What the..."

An oil tanker was charging towards them at full speed. The trucker, unusually pale, looked blankly at them with a strange smile on his face and didn't seem to have any intention to slow down.

"Holy shit." Leon looked at Claire in despair and shouted, "Claire, get out! Get out NOW!"

Their efforts were in vain as dozens of those monsters were still blocking the door. They could not get out of the car and they could not evade the tanker. All they could do now is hold on to something in the car to minimize the damage.

The tanker crashed directly into the car, pushed it right into the car wrecks. Fighting the dizziness, Claire jumped out of the car before the huge explosion of the oil tanker caught it. She stood up with her legs still shaking and looked at the flames in despair. Did Leon make it? Was she all by herself now?

“CLAIRE! CLAIRE, YOU OK?” The man yelled behind the flames.

“YEAH! I’M ALRIGHT! HOW ABOUT YOU?” She was so relieved that it took her a few seconds to breath before she responded.

“I CAN’T STAY HERE! IT’S NOT SAFE!”

The moment she heard this she realized the explosion caused too much attention that a dozen of monsters were approaching her. The situation was worse than before. They’re unable to regroup here.

“GO ON AHEAD! I’LL MEET YOU AT THE STATION!” She yelled at the flames while avoiding the monster.

“I’LL BE THERE!” Leon’s voice could hardly be heard.

She quickly ran from the crash scene as far away as possible and took refuge in the Paul’s Burgers canteen. She pulled a sofa to block the door before turning on the flashlight to check the surroundings. No monsters or corpses in sight, but there were a lot of blood on the ground.

“It’s like the end of the world...” She gasped.

The problem was, she did not 100% sure where the police station was, and searching around blindly could be deadly. She was hoping to find some other survivors or some map of this area in this canteen. She grabbed her pistol with the flashlight and started to search this place.

It was quiet in here and she did not intend to make any noise. She found nothing useful in the dining area so she slowly approached the kitchen. It was at this moment, she heard a sound like a closet closing came inside of it. Well, those...vampires? They didn’t need to use the kitchen, right? So, she’s almost sure that there were survivors hiding in it.

She carefully opened the kitchen door and found out that the UV disinfection lamps were on. There was an electronic timing device attached to wall that indicated the lamps were only turned on for several seconds. That meant someone was in here just now.

“Hello? Anybody here?” She shouted quietly.

A closet slowly opened and a young girl with black, short hair peeked from the inside. The moment she saw Claire she happily rushed out to greet her.

“Oh my god! You’re human! I thought...I thought...” She was too excited to finish the sentence.

“Yeah, I’m Claire.” She calmed a bit too.

“My name is Samantha. You can call me Sam.” The girl smiled in relief and walked to device on the wall to turn off the lamps. Everything went into darkness before Claire turned on the flashlight again.

“What’s with the UV lights?” Claire asked curiously.

“Those monsters seemed to be afraid of the UV lights. When this shit happened, I was working in the kitchen with the UV lights just turned on.” Sam took a deep breath and continued, “One of the monsters tried to get me but got burnt in the light. I had been hiding in the here since then.”

“Well, do you know how did this happen?”

“No...Everything went wrong in just one night...My older sister, Stephanie, called me and told me to leave the city a week ago. She went missing afterwards, so I decided to stay and look for her.” Sam shook her head and sighed, “I went to the police but, there were too many people missing these days, they said they were short-handed...And suddenly those monsters were everywhere. Mrs.Hanson...she owned here...said she was going to find her husband, but...she never...”

Sam started to shiver as she spoke, so Claire gave her a hug to comfort her. She couldn’t help but ponder that it was literally unreal for a citywide outbreak to take place in just one night. Remembering what Chris has taught her, she suspected that someone was organizing this disaster behind it. Also, she believed that Sam’s sister, Stephanie, might know something.

“It’s OK. Hey, I’m also here to find my old brother. We could look for them together.” Claire smiled with optimism, “And my friend and I are going to meet at the police station. Maybe we can both take shelter there. The police may have some leads on your sister, too.”

“I...I don’t think that’s a good idea.” Sam objected the plan, “We can hide in here. There’s food and water, and the UV lamps to keep those things out!”

That did make sense. As Claire was planning their next moves, a strange feeling of silence made her uncomfortable. She turned around and noticed that the timing device for the UV lamps went black. She tried to turn on the UV lights but nothing happened. The electricity of this room must have been cut off. Samantha covered her mouth in fright.

“Where is the power distribution box?” Claire pulled out her pistol cautiously.

“It...it’s in the basement...Through a stair on the other side of this floor...” Sam shivered, “What are you gonna do...”

“I’ll go take a look. You just hide in here, OK?” Claire held Sam’s hands tightly and assured her gently, “I’ll be fine.”

After getting nods from Sam, Claire went out to search the basement. Every a few seconds she heard some slashing sounds coming from it. With the flashlight, she saw a slightly fat lady in a pink dress sabotaging the distribution box with a fire axe. The movements of the lady were stiff, like she wasn’t doing it in her own mind.

“Hey! What are you doing?” Claire yelled at the lady and tried to stop her.

The moment the lady turned her head around to stare at Claire with her hollow and lifeless blue eyes, she froze. She could clearly see two puncture wounds on the lady’s neck which were still dripping out blood.

“My master wants me slash...My master wants me slash...” Muttering to herself the lady kept swinging the axe.

With another slash the box was completely destroyed and the power of the whole building was off. The electronic lock on the storage door behind the lady was unlocked due to the outage, and a male vampire with blood down the corner of his mouth walked out. He gazed at the lady with a wicked smile.

“You’re doing good, Melina. Though you’ve already tasted my bite, I don’t want to share the eternity with you. Finish yourself.” With the vampire’s command, the lady turned the axe around to aim at her neck.

“No!” Claire shouted in panic.

The lady, Melina, swung the axe without any hesitation and nearly chopped her own head off. When her corpse collapsed, the vampire finished the decapitation with a kick. He took a deep breath with satisfaction and then looked at Claire.

“Well, well, I didn’t notice there’s an audience here. I just wanted Samantha, but I don’t mind adding you to the harem.” The vampire licked his fangs with a evil smile, “Come, child. Accept my gift and embrace your eternal beauty.”

When Claire was gazed by the vampire, she was immediately struck with a strong headache. She backed up a few steps and could barely keep the balance. But she clearly knew that now wasn’t the time for her to rest. She shook her head to clear herself and fired the gun. However, the shot missed the head because she hasn’t been able to aim precisely. The bullet merely scratched the vampire’s shoulder and the wound almost healed instantly.

“You can disobey my commands? Fascinating!” The vampire was more excited, “Now I must have you.”

The vampire grabbed the axe and used it as a shield to prevent a direct head shot, and it was extremely helpful. Claire tried to shoot his leg but that was only wasting bullet and time. Knowing nothing more she could do, she retreated to the first floor and tried to find something to block the staircase.

It was at this moment she realized that the gunshots were attracting all the vampires on the street. They have breached the front door and some of them have already stumbled in the kitchen.

“Oh, no...Sam...” Claire sighed in grave despair.