True art is an explosion

Claire remembered that she took a hand grenade from the S.T.A.R.S. office, which was hanging on her belt. Instead of trying to reach the pistol, she swiftly grabbed the grenade. With one less hand to hold it back, the vampire bit down with all its strength, only to bite on a metallic object.

The cold, hard metal nearly broke its fangs as it painfully rolled backward, crying. Claire removed the safety ring and, by kicking the vampire’s stomach, distanced herself from it.

“Boom!”

A few seconds later, a huge explosion, miraculously synchronizing the lightning sound outside, took out its whole head. Its body quickly lost control and dropped from the broken window to the ground.

Claire peeked out and nervously looked at the headless corpse. Hopefully that was enough to neutralize it permanently. It not, she’d better find more flame rounds to do the trick next time.

She pulled herself back to lean on the wall for a short rest. She wiped the sweat on her forehead away and took a deep breath. Worrying about what could happen to the little girl, she could not spare any more time for her own rest now. She ran to the door at the end of the hallway and unlocked it, hoping to find the little girl hiding in the next room. Ironically, she rushed into the bright room only to find herself again pointed by a gun by the cute first-day-at-work police officer.

“What? Leon?” She laughed at her bad luck.

“Claire? You made it into the station! Well...sorry.” Leon was happy to see a friendly and put down the gun in embarrassment.

“It’s OK. How are you doing?” She looked around the room quite nervously and didn’t find any vent in it. The little girl must’ve gone to some place else.

“Not so well. I was searching three statues for three medallions to open a secret tunnel for us to leave the station. But the unicorn medallion in this statue is missing.” Leon pointed the statue behind them to her and, after noticing her strange behaviour, asked in concern, “Are you alright?”

“Have you seen a little girl around here? Blonde, about 11 or 12 years old?” She sighed with her fingers crossed.

“No...? Who is she?” Leon was confused.

“I don’t know. I just came out of the S.T.A.R.S. office and saw that girl running in this direction. She crawled into a vent and I thought she went into this room...” She was a bit upset at this moment but she knew what she must do next, “She must’ve been hiding and traversing in the ventilation system. It’s too dangerous for her to stay here alone. Leon, I’ll go look for her.”

“OK. I’ll keep searching for the medallions. Here, take this radio. We can keep in touch if something comes up. Also there is a king statue in the art room, second floor east wing. Someone took a photo of it with this book. I don’t what this is about. Hope you can find out.” Leon handed a radio and a strange-looking, red book sculpture to her, “Be careful. This station is like a maze.”

“Yeah, I noticed, thanks. Hey, I think you could use this.” She grabbed the cutting tool from her pouch and gave it to him, “I saw some of the doors were chained. Perhaps the missing medallions were hidden in those rooms.”

“Great.” Leon seemed very excited to get the tool and smiled, “Good luck, Claire.”

“See you.” She waved her hand before running out the room.

There was a small, broken open ventilation shaft behind the misplaced bookshelves. She noticed a waning trail of wet footprints, due to the rain on the corridor, leading straight up to the spade door. Walking through the door she was back in the main hall. Now...

Leon was searching the west wing and, if the little girl were there, he would probably find her and protect her. But if the little girl had gone to the east wing...She’d better check there.

“Please be OK...” She prayed and started running to the other side.

Going into the east hallway she saw a vampire being burnt by fire from the helicopter explosion. The monster made a few more steps before collapsing on the floor and slowly turning into a pile of dust. This confirmed her theory that fire could be lethal to these monsters. Finally she knew one way to kill these things.

Regaining confidence she entered the art room carefully. She immediate noticed the king statue at the end of the room, with its left hand detached and placed on the desk beside it. She took the book sculpture from her pouch and, placing it in the detached hand, attached the combination onto the statue. The king’s right hand rotated a certain angle and released the staff it’s been holding.

“That’s creepy, even by the standard of an art museum collection.” She took the staff dubiously.

The moment the staff left the statue, a hidden door on the floor behind it was opened, revealing a ladder leading into the complete darkness down. Another secret passage? Claire stared in the hole with doubts, but since she got nowhere else to go, she climbed down the ladder cautiously.

“That’s a long way down...” Without other objects of reference Claire kept counting the ladder steps. By the time she reached the bottom, she was sure that this was at least two floors below the ground. The entrance of the tunnel before her was two meters high, which was easy enough for her to go through.

She turned on the flashlight to assess the surroundings and, while wondering what this long, dark tunnel would lead her to, noticed a ventilation shaft on the left side of the wall. The fence didn’t have much dust on it, meaning either someone has been keeping the maintenance or someone just used it a little while ago.

She followed the tunnel carefully and reached the end without any danger. Before her seemed to be a secret interrogation room. Through the one-way mirror she saw a round, bronze medallion on the desk inside, with a unicorn-like symbol carved on it.

Was that...Claire was both surprised and puzzled. So what Leon was looking for was hidden in this place. But...by who?

“Won’t budge...” She tried to open the door but it was clearly locked.

After muttering to herself she heard a light gasp on her right. She quickly turned around and saw a figure hiding behind a locker at the corner.

“Hello?” Claire warily stared at the locker, with her other hand holding the pistol in the holster.

A blonde, little girl peeked out with her pretty blue eyes. She was wearing a school uniform, blue and white, with black trousers and a cute, little wristband. There was some dirt on her face, meaning that she must’ve been hiding in the station for a long time now. This must be the girl Claire saw before.

“Hey...It’s OK. I won’t hurt you, I promise.” Claire bent down and slowly approaching the girl.

The little girl looked totally in fear and was too shocked to say a word but make gasping sounds. She looked at Claire’s eyes for a moment and quickly looked away, as if she did not know whether the person in front of her was a human or a mind-controlling vampire. After confirming the person’s mortality, she was still holding her shaking hands behind the locker.

“Here...you can take my hand.” Claire reached out for her with a sincere smile, “I’m Claire. What’s your name?”

The little girl looked at Claire’s hand and, after a moment of hesitation, held it with her cold, tiny hand.

“Sherry...”