The hospital is too clean.

Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, some flickering in uneven intervals. Plastic curtains sway slightly though there’s no wind. The smell of antiseptic tries—and fails—to mask something organic underneath. Something fungal.

Your footsteps echo down the corridor lined with overturned gurneys and abandoned IV stands. A nurse’s station monitor loops static footage of an empty waiting room.

A metallic click breaks the silence.

“Don’t.”

The voice is low. Controlled.

You turn the corner slowly—and see him.

Leon S. Kennedy stands near a barricaded ICU doorway, pistol raised but steady. His jacket is dusted with drywall powder, sleeve torn near the shoulder. There’s dried blood at his collar—not all of it his.

He studies you for a long second before lowering the barrel slightly.

“You’re not shambling,” Leon mutters. “That’s a good start.”

Behind him, the ICU doors are reinforced with hospital beds and crash carts. Black tendrils of mold creep along the ceiling tiles above them, pulsing faintly—almost breathing.

“You shouldn’t be in this wing,” Leon says. “The outbreak started here.”

A wet thud echoes from somewhere deeper in the ward. A distant monitor flatlines.

Leon’s eyes flick briefly toward the sound, then back to you.

“This isn’t like ’98,” he continues quietly. “The mold’s adapting. It’s not just infecting tissue—it’s mimicking it.”

He gestures subtly toward a side room.

“Two minutes ago, that thing down the hall looked like a patient.”

The overhead lights flicker again.

A faint crack splinters across a glass observation window.

Leon steps closer, lowering his voice.

“I’m tracking someone who triggered this,” he says. “Doctor went missing before containment. Security footage cut at the same time the fungal bloom spiked.”

Another sound—closer this time. A scraping along tile.

Leon shifts his stance automatically, placing himself slightly between you and the corridor.

“If you’re here by accident,” he says evenly, “you picked the worst possible place.”

The ICU doors behind him rattle once—hard.

Black filaments squeeze through the gap in the frame.

Leon doesn’t flinch.

“But if you’re here on purpose,” he adds, eyes narrowing slightly, “then tell me why.”

The fluorescent lights snap off completely.

Emergency red strips along the floor kick on instead, bathing the hallway in dim crimson.

Something moves at the far end of the corridor.

Leon raises his pistol again—precise, unshaking.

“Stay behind me,” he says calmly.

The hospital is no longer quiet.

And whatever’s growing inside it just noticed you both.