Wake up in the sewer (S1)

The (S*) on the Answer means that the story enters a certain deviation from the canon storyline. Counterparts of Leon's and Claire's story with the same (S*) note together combine into a complete story.

Claire losses Sam to the blonde vampire, and her brief reunion with Sherry is interrupted by a grotesque monster. She is knocked **** in the chaos, and wakes up in a darker place alone...

Chapter 7 - What Remains In Life

“Claire...Are you alright...Can you hear me...Claire...”

She didn’t know exactly how long she’s been out. In her semiconscious state, she heard Sherry crying, but everything was like a dream. She couldn’t move her eyes or her body. She could feel the pain and fear in Sherry’s echoing voice, yet she could do nothing.

Claire finally regained some consciousness as she felt a sharp pain in her head. She was confused at first, but after putting back pieces of memories in her dizzy brain, she struggled to get up.

“Sherry?” She looked around and found herself in an underground facility alone, and Sherry was nowhere to be seen, “Sherry, where are you?”

Her voice echoed in the room and no one replied. She gasped for air and calmed herself down before checking herself for injuries. It was extremely lucky that she didn’t get bitten by those vampires when she was ****. She’s basically fine except for the terrible headache.

After making sure she’s alright, Claire felt an overwhelming feeling of lost and emptiness. She leaned her back against the wall to catch her breath, hoped that it could ease the headache.

Cryings and screams were echoing in her head, which was making her painful. The faces of Dustin, Sam and Sherry flashed by her eyes.

She lost Dustin to that tentacle monster, lost Sam to that blonde bitch, and now she couldn’t even protect Sherry...She tried to help. She did her best, yet it was not enough.

But she couldn’t give up. She had to keep moving. Sherry was still out there and she still needed her help. Claire shook her head for a few times to keep herself clear and **** herself to proceed.

She stumbled into the next room with her dizzy head. It looked like an office of the Umbrella cooperation. The notifications on the wall indicated that Umbrella has been using the sewer system, which was where Claire was now, to conduct pharmaceutical experiments.

Among their recent products, a virus named T-Virus ν strain caught her eyes. It was a retrovirus that could be transmitted through bites from the infected hosts. The early stage symptoms of this infection included fever, anaemia and the physiology of the victim would completely change in less than 24 hours. When the transformation was done, the victim would have red eyes and grow fangs, and...

“Jesus...” Claire gasped in shock as the symptoms completely matched the ones of the vampire virus, “Umbrella...is behind this incident?”

Umbrella was a big company and it has quite a positive reputation among the citizens. How long have they been doing these experiments? Wait...Sherry’s mother is working for Umbrella, too...Could she be around here? Claire wanted to look for more information. Although she didn’t find anything solid like the names of the scientists, she did find some kind of report on the table.

It was written by an Umbrella scientist, predicting the intelligence, physical abilities and reproductive behavior of their latest and greatest creation - the G-Virus. There was no doubt that the monster Claire had encountered, the one Sherry called “Daddy”, was the result of his G-Virus infection.

That last part of the report, which indicated that the reproduction of G required a close match on DNA, gave Claire goosebumps.

“Oh, my god...So he was chasing Sherry all this time.” She didn’t dare to think what would happen if that monster got to Sherry. She needed to find Sherry before the worst happened.

The other door across the room was locked, so she had to go back to the elevator room and jumped down a rift to travel deeper into the facility. Soon she found herself in the large sewer system under the city.

This place was also infested with vampires, most of which were sewer workers and Umbrella employees. She needed to tread carefully.

She was planning to get to the monitor room first to check the whereabouts of Sherry, however, the passageway that could directly get there was locked, so she had to make a detour.

Claire went to the upper waterway. According to the map, there was a lift in the work room that could lead her down to the middle waterway and towards the monitor room. Unfortunately, the door to the work room was locked, too. She was upset and sighed helplessly. Seemed like she needed to find yet another way now.

Just when she was about to turn around and leave, she heard someone unlocking the door from the inside. Whoever that might be, she couldn’t take any chances. As the door opened Claire pointed her gun at the man, who also reacted quickly and aimed at her, too.

“Claire? You’re OK!”

She was wide-eyed with astonishment when looking at the man. Even before she saw him clearly, she couldn’t believe that she would hear this familiar voice again. He looked a bit pale, but she would always recognize the face with confidence.

“Leon? Is that...really you?” She slowly lowered her pistol and looked at him in disbelief. There was blood on his shoulder and that looked like a gunshot wound.

He’s alive...He’s alive!

“Who else could I be?” Leon smiled and looked behind her, “Where is the little girl?”

She sheathed her gun and just walked up to him, hugged him tightly and buried her face in his chest in silence.

There was a moment when she thought she had lost Leon too, that she had lost everyone. She was feeling lonely and didn’t even know if she could find anyone alive in this nightmare again. Seeing Leon OK brought the remaining lights of hope back into her life.

She really just wanted to cry out aloud, but her brother would always tell her not to, so she was trying to calm herself down. Leon didn’t move a bit and didn’t wrap his hand around her, and she could feel his embarrassment from his not doing.

She released Leon and stepped back. She was a little surprised to see him blushed but her teary eyes made her no better.

“I’m sorry...” Claire’s voice trembled, “It’s just...so good to see you alive.”

“Me too.” Leon nodded.

“By the way, what are you doing in here?” Claire was trying to put up a smile and asked.

“Long story. I am looking for an FBI agent named Ada who knew what Umbrella had done.” Leon shrugged casually, “What about you?”

“Sherry and I were attacked by that monster, the one we encountered in the underground facility of the police station. We took an elevator but the monster crashed it and we fell in here.” Claire relived the horrible scene in her mind and shivered, “We were separated after that.”

Leon frowned and started to think, while Claire remained silent. She really wanted to ask Leon for help, but the FBI thing seemed to be urgent, too.

“Listen, Claire, this place is far more dangerous than the police station. I think we should stick together.” Leon made up his mind, “Let’s find Sherry first, then we try to figure out where Ada goes.”

“That’s a good idea.” Claire breathed a sigh of relief.

“I checked the monitors before and couldn’t find anyone. If it’s Sherry we’re talking about, I bet she would be hiding somewhere.” Leon grabbed a map from his pocket and checked it for clues, “Here. The middle district. All the waterways and pipelines converge in there. We should check there first.”

“Yeah.” Claire nodded optimistically and the duo set off.

Things became different as the hungry vampires on the way started to lunge at them again, mostly at Claire. Leon and Claire had to shoot their way out when there were too much of them.

During a fierce fight, a bullet hit the metal pipe behind a vampire, bounced back and scratched Claire’s arm. It wasn’t until the battle was over that she noticed her arm bleeding. Luckily, the wound was shallow and she should be fine.

“Huh. Who said the jacket is lucky?” Claire looked at the hole on the red jacket and smiled.

Suddenly, she heard some strange growls coming from behind her. Was there another vampire still kicking? Was Leon OK? She quickly turned around and was ready to shoot, only to witness the most horrible scene tonight.

Leon, with his red eyes, was staring at the drop of her blood on the ground. Between his growls, Claire could clearly see a pair of sharp fangs in his mouth.

When Leon looked up and stared at her, her body moved by instinct and pointed the gun at his head, but her brain went completely blank.

“No...Leon...Not you too...” Claire’s voice was trembling.

How!? He was completely normal a few seconds ago! Even if he got bitten during this fight, he wouldn’t have turned this quickly!

Leon was slowly approaching. The reasoning mind told her to shoot but she didn’t. Her right arm was shaking. She lacked the courage to shoot and her tears couldn’t be held anymore.

The fanged demon in front of her was one of the people she admired the most. And all he craved now was her blood.

She mocked at herself as she came to realized that she did lose everyone.

What was the point of fighting, if there was nothing left to fight for?