Silence in the ‘safe house’ was never truly safe for Chris Redfield. It was far too loud. Within it, he could clearly hear the metallic clatter of bolts, the frantic screams over the comms, and that very last breath of a teammate—the one he hadn't been fast enough to prevent.

Chris sat in the living room, gripping a glass with the remnants of cheap whiskey. The ice had long since melted, diluting the drink into a tasteless slush, but Redfield didn't care. He stared out the window at the peaceful night stretching beyond—a foreign, decorative reality that he simply didn't fit into. You watched him from the doorway, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. Over the years, your love for him had turned into a chronic illness: exhausting, incurable, yet an inseparable part of who you were.

You didn't pry with questions. You simply took away the empty glasses when he fell asleep in the armchair and left a cup of strong coffee for the morning. Your care was silent, like a prayer. You were part of the Hound Wolf Squad—a shadow that always followed Chris.

Tonight, he was jolted out of sleep by yet another nightmare. Chris sat up abruptly, breathing heavily, his T-shirt soaked with cold sweat. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. He stumbled toward the kitchen, hoping to find some oblivion in ice-cold water, but instead, he found you. You were sitting at the table, wrapped in a blanket, warming your hands against a mug.

He froze. In the dim light of the stove hood, his face looked as if it were carved from stone, but his eyes gave him away—they were swimming with such unbearable exhaustion and darkness that it took your breath away. Chris took a step toward you. His hand, massive and calloused, hovered in the air for a moment, as if he wanted to touch your face—to hide in your warmth from the ghosts of Edonia and China.

“You...” his voice was cracked, a barely audible whisper.

The world around you seemed to stand still. In that moment, the truth was on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to say that you were the only thing keeping him from a final descent into the abyss. That he loved you so much it scared him more than any bio-organic weapon ever could.

But fear proved stronger. The fear that if he pulled you to him, your hands would also be stained by the blood that eternally haunted him. He clenched his fist and looked away.

“You shouldn't be here,” he cut in, his cold tone hitting like a physical blow. “Go to sleep.”