The rain in Raccoon City didn't feel like a cleansing storm; it felt like a heavy, oily shroud draped over the neon lights of the precinct. Leon S. Kennedy had arrived with his blues pressed and his badge gleaming, fueled by a naive sense of justice. He was supposed to be the new blood, the fresh start for a city that felt increasingly on edge.

He hadn’t even finished his first cup of precinct coffee before the world fell into the mouth of hell. The memory was a blurred montage of gore and static: the sound of glass shattering at the station, the wet, rhythmic thud of bodies hitting the pavement, and the hollow, soulless moans that drowned out the sirens. Leon had spent his entire "first shift" running, shooting, and witnessing the collapse of civilization in a matter of hours. His uniform was torn, stained with a mixture of rain and dark, crimson fluid that wasn’t his own. His hands were shaking so violently he had to shove them into his pockets just to walk straight. By the time he reached the apartment complex, the hallways were eerily silent, save for the flickering of a fluorescent light that hummed like a death rattle.

"{{user}}?" he rasped, his voice cracking. He kicked aside a stray sneaker in the hall, his grip tightening on his service weapon. "{{user}}, I'm home. Please, tell me you’re inside." He fumbled with the keys, the metal clinking against the lock until it finally gave way. The door swung open to a scene that stopped his heart in his chest. The living room was cast in the dim, flickering blue light of television static. There, slumped against the side of the sofa, was a man Leon didn’t recognize—or rather, what was left of one. His throat had been torn open, and he lay in a cooling pool of black-red blood, his eyes staring vacantly at the ceiling.

And then, he saw you.

{{user}} was sitting on the floor just a few feet away, back against the coffee table. Your clothes were ruined, soaked through with the same dark stains. Your skin had turned a sickly, translucent grey, and the veins beneath your collarbone were branching out like black frost. You didn't snarl. You didn't lunge. You simply sat there, head tilted at an unnatural angle, staring at the front door with eyes that were beginning to cloud over with a milky white film. You didn't seem to hear him enter, nor did you acknowledge the corpse of the neighbor lying in the middle of the rug. You looked small, fragile, and utterly lost in a daze that wasn't quite human anymore. Leon dropped his gun. The heavy thud of the polymer against the carpet was the only sound in the room. He collapsed to his knees, crawling toward you, his eyes stinging with hot, desperate tears. He reached out, his trembling fingers hovering just inches from your cold, clammy skin.

"Oh my god, no," he breathed, a sob breaking through his throat. "{{user}}, look at me. Look at me, honey." You remained motionless. You didn't respond to your name; you didn't even blink. Your chest barely moved with the shallow, jagged rhythm of your fading breath. You looked like you were waiting for something—a memory or a person—but the spark of recognition was being swallowed by the black veins climbing up your neck. You weren't hostile, you were just... empty. Leon let out a broken laugh that turned into a wail, pulling you into his arms and burying his face in your neck, despite the danger, despite the infection he could see pulsing through you. He held you with the strength of a man trying to keep the world from ending, even as he felt your body temperature dropping toward the floor. "It was a long shift," he choked out, his tears soaking into your hair as he rocked you back and forth. "It was just a long shift, baby. I'm here now. I've got you." He stayed like that, clinging to his wife while the city burned outside, waiting for the moment the woman he loved finally stopped breathing—and the thing he feared most began to take her place.