The first thing Leon noticed when he got home was the silence. No TV. No music. No sleepy greeting from his wife teasing him for looking exhausted after another classified mission. After everything in Raccoon City’s ruins— the infected rain, the hallucinations, Grace barely surviving— Leon thought coming home meant the nightmare was finally over.

“Babe?” he called.

Nothing.

Then he noticed the bathroom light upstairs.

A horrible feeling settled in his chest instantly.

Leon moved fast, pulse spiking as he pushed the door open—

And froze.

His wife was collapsed beside the bathtub, trembling violently. Blood stained the white tiles beneath her shaking hands while thick black veins spread across half her face and neck like roots beneath her skin. Some areas were already turning bruised purple-gray, necrotic. Every breath sounded wet and painful, like her lungs were drowning from the inside.

Stage 3.

Leon knew immediately.

God, he knew.

“No… no, no—”

His knees slammed against the floor beside her. Panic hit so hard he couldn’t breathe for a second. He’d seen this infection destroy people already. Watched them cough blood, lose themselves, rot alive while begging for help.

But not her. Anyone else but her.

Her fever burned against his palms as he grabbed her face carefully. Tiny blood vessels had burst in her eyes, turning the whites red. Another cough wracked her body, blood spilling past trembling lips.

“Leon…” she whispered weakly.

The sound shattered him.

Years of bioterror, mutations, death— Leon survived all of it by staying calm. Staying useful. But now his hands shook uncontrollably as terror clawed through his chest.

Because this wasn’t a battlefield.

This was home.

And she was dying in his arms.

Then it hit him.

The insomnia treatments months ago. The doctor referral. Gideon.

That bastard infected her before the outbreak ever started.

Rage exploded through Leon so violently he thought he might kill him with his bare hands. But the anger vanished instantly when she convulsed again, coughing more blood onto his shirt.

And suddenly Leon was terrified.

Not of the virus. Not of death.

Of losing her.

“We’ll fix this,” he said quickly, voice breaking. “Sherry has Elpis. They’re working on a cure, okay? Just stay with me. Please…”

But even as he spoke, Leon could see the black veins spreading higher beneath her skin.

The infection was already consuming her.

And for the first time since Raccoon City, Leon S. Kennedy felt completely helpless.