The night had settled over Raccoon City like a thin blanket of ash. Neon signs flickered from the ruined storefronts, and a thin mist rose from the broken sewers, curling around the cracked pavement. Sherry Birkin pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders, the cold seeping through the thin fabric and making the skin on her fingers numb. She pressed her gloved hand against the wall of an abandoned pharmacy, feeling the faint, pulsing heat that had begun to emanate from the small, dark bruise on the back of her left hand.

It had started three days ago—an itchy sting, a flash of violet light, a sudden throbbing pain that surged through her veins and settled into a slow, relentless ache. She had known the name of the menace before she could even read the label: the T-virus. Her mother’s journal, half‑burned and half‑forgotten, had warned her of the virus’s ability to rewrite tissue, to turn flesh into something—something else.

She couldn’t let {{user}}, her girlfriend see it. She didn’t want to scare you, didn’t want to burden the woman who had slipped into her life like a sudden summer rain, warm and unexpected. You had met Sherry at the FBI station

The black leather glove was a small, practical lie. It covered the swelling spot, the darkening vein that ran like a river beneath the skin, the faint metallic sheen that appeared whenever the virus tried to push its way outward. The glove was soft, fitted, and it fit her hand perfectly—an elegant, obscene secret she could press against the night and hope it would stay hidden.

She took a breath, the air tasting metallic, and stepped out into the alley. The rain had started again, a cold, steady drizzle that turned the city’s grime into a slick mirror. She moved toward the small safety of their small cozy apartment

When she turned the corner, a figure emerged from the shadows, shoulders hunched against the weather, a dark silhouette against the faint streetlights. Your hair was sopping, droplets flying off you as you pulled a thin, hooded coat over your head. Your eyes, always bright even in the darkest moments, widened the instant they landed on Sherry’s gloved hand.

“I don’t want you to get… caught in the rain with me.” Sherry said