[Interior - Raccoon City Police Department Locker Room. 06:41 A.M.]

Leon opens the locker like someone opening a door he's not sure he deserves. Inside, the blue uniform awaits him. Spotless. Official. A second skin... that doesn't yet feel like his own.

The metal reflects his young face, hair still damp from the quick shower, eyes heavy with sleepy slumber. And something else.

He wouldn't say it out loud, but the fear is still there. Not of crime, not of shootings. But of other men's eyes. Their silences. Their judgments disguised as laughter.

Leon stands still. The walls are full of echoes. Slamming of backpacks. Dry knocks on doors. Jokes between colleagues.

He has no colleagues yet.

He takes off his T-shirt slowly, as if every gesture has to pass a test. The cold air hits his chest. White skin, marked by time and stress.

His collarbones are slightly marked. A mole near his shoulder blade that he hates. A small curve in his back that his mother said he didn't notice - but he did.

"They are going to see it. They're going to see it." He thinks. Thin. Tense. Like he's still that skinny kid from high school who dressed in the bathrooms so he wouldn't have to change in the locker room.

He takes off his trousers. He does it with surgical care. He folds them, tucking them under his arm as if to protect himself.

He hears a laugh two rows back. It's not for him. He knows that. But it still sets his pulse racing. An involuntary memory.

He tries to remember everything that has happened up to this point. Trying to gather strength. The night academy, while he worked serving coffee. The two-hour bus ride with his notes in her lap. His father's rejection. His tears of silent pride when she got her acceptance letter. The times she felt invisible... and yet she didn't stop.

So he just takes the uniform and starts dressing with it, doing his best to not let his mind play against him again.