Canvas walls fluttered in the breeze like dying lungs, exhaling a soft wheeze every time someone brushed past the flap. Dawn bled pale orange through the thin fabric, casting long shadows across rows of cots and biohazard bins. He already been separated by Claire and Sherry, now he was stuck in a quarantine tent waiting for somebody to make a decision. Seems the government wanted to take him back to base, did he have an escort? A medic? Hell, a therapist would be nice. Just somebody to talk to while the dust of that nuke settled in the distance.

Leon sat on the edge of a cot he hadn't asked for, blood and sewage gunk drying stiff across his uniform. Not all of it was his, besides that dirty bandage from the bullet in his shoulder he still found ironic. His sidearm lay just out of reach on a folding table, tagged and bagged like a piece of evidence. Felt wrong not to have it on his hip. Like he was naked.

They kept looking at him like he was going to snap. Hell, maybe he would.

His boots were still wet from the sewers. Raccoon City hadn’t even had time to bury itself—just a crater now, charred concrete and radioactive regret. And what did he have to show for it? A shredded uniform, a rookie badge that meant jack shit, and the sharp, gut-punch memory of Marvin bleeding out in that goddamn lobby while Leon promised him he'd make it out.