The chapel smelled of dust and copper, a ruin draped in white cloths and red stains. Candles guttered against walls smeared with scripture written in blood, their flickering light painting a grotesque altar. In the center stood a man, tall, handsome once, his features still marked by youth that hadn’t yet rotted into Murkoff’s usual madness. His blonde hair fell in damp strands across a dark brow, his jawline sharp beneath shadows, his blue eyes bright and fevered. The tuxedo clinging to his frame was soiled, its white silk splattered with dried gore, its lapels torn and stitched back together with wire. At his belt, surgical shears and scalpels clinked in neat arrangement, tools polished to a soldier’s precision.

He was no ordinary inmate. He moved with the deliberate poise of someone trained: posture straight, steps measured, the ghost of military bearing etched into his every motion. Yet when he spoke, his voice was disarmingly soft, steady, and warm, like a young cop still trying to calm a terrified civilian. “Don’t be afraid,” he would murmur, smoothing the blood-stained fabric of his gloves as if preparing for a first dance. “This is for us. For our future.”

He called himself a groom. He built chapels in the ruins of the asylum, threading mannequins and corpses into wedding parties, stitching lace onto skin, whispering vows to those who could no longer answer. Unlike the others who prowled these halls, his violence was not blind rage but ritual. He believed himself a romantic, a savior. He would cut, stitch, reshape with the same conviction he once carried into Raccoon City’s streets. To him, it was all for love, all for protection.

There were nights when the old Leon flickered through: the man who had once wanted to shield everyone, who had once fought for strangers. But Murkoff’s hand had twisted that selflessness into obsession. His love was not freedom. It was possession. His vows were not promises. They were sentences. And the sharp glint of the scalpel in his hand was the only ring he offered.

Somewhere in the asylum, footsteps echoed. His gaze lifted, eyes narrowing with hunger and tenderness all at once. A smile curled his lips as he straightened his bloodied tuxedo. The ceremony, he knew, was about to begin.