Resident Evil Series Fan Fiction ❯ Tenebrae ❯ Scenes from a Waking VI ( Chapter 15 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

It was so dark.

Ashley fumbled with the old flashlight she had pulled out of a desk drawer, it’s aluminum casing corroded with age. Mentally crossing her fingers, she thumbed the switch. To her relief it worked- the light emitted was a musty yellow and not very strong, but it would be enough to illuminate her surroundings.

A woman stared back at her from over a blackened fireplace. The painting was covered in a thick layer of dust and its subject glared rather menacingly from the frame. Ashley nervously avoided her gaze, already fairly freaked out by her surroundings. The rest of the room was crowded with ancient looking furniture and it was obvious this entire area of the castle hadn’t been used in a long time.

What was this? Curiously, Ashley reached out her fingers and brushed the strange ceramic plate surmounting the stonework. At her touch it fell from the fireplace and clattered noisily on the floor. She held her breath, hoping no one had heard.

After several moments passed without incident, she bent down and took the square. The edges of it were lined in specific patterns, like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle. The shapes there reminded her of some sort of strange key. Going with a gut instinct, she pocketed it. After all, you could never know when a strange ceramic square might come in useful she thought to herself somewhat giddily, and suppressed a bout of nervous laughter. Now was not the time to lose it- she had to stay focused and concentrate on getting out of here and getting back to Leon.

Suits of armor lined the cobwebbed hall in a rusty cavalcade. She moved passed them as quietly as possible, wrestling with a growing sense of unease. It was completely silent- she could hear nothing but the sound of her own harsh breathing. The thick layer of dust on the floor muffled her footsteps and the entire scene took on a dreamlike quality.

Around a few corners the hallway ended in a larger space, a room hosting a pedestal surrounded by more of the ubiquitous plate armor mannequins, weapons raised in ghostly salute. Not wanting to approach such a strange display, Ashley hesitated at the entrance. Taking a firm grip on her courage, she took the first step over the foyer and slowly made her way to the platform.

What she saw there made her mentally groan. Another puzzle. What was it with this castle and puzzles? It just didn’t make any sense. She frowned at it, already frustrated with its nature. Leon was better at this sort of thing than she was. Peering more closely at the oddly arranged squares, she tried to decipher their purpose.

At least one aspect of it was immediately apparent- the individual squares matched the one she had pulled from the fireplace. So all she had to do was figure out what the puzzle was and she already had the missing piece. Reaching down she found to her dismay she wasn’t able to pry any of the objects from the pedestal top. But she saw she could move them in two dimensions in their setting, the now obvious goal to rearrange them to form a picture. But a picture of what? She didn’t want to start pushing them around without knowing what the final result was supposed to be.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too oblique a mystery. All the tiles were edged with blank space that provided the clues to the proper order. She felt somewhat proud of herself as she placed the last missing piece in the form of the fireplace square in the arrangement, completing the puzzle.

And nearly died from fright when a doorway across from her ground open with a noisy shudder.

Biting her lower lip, she hesitated. It could be some sort of trap. Of course, everything she had done so far could have been some sort of trap. She was on the clock- it was only a matter of time before they found her again. She had to get out. She had to get back to Leon. Taking a deep breath, she drew up her courage.

The only way out was through.

---

Ashley whimpered in her sleep.

Ashley?

What was more terrifying than being chased by living armor?

Ashley? Can you hear me?

Bury it. Bury it so deep that it never happened.

Ashley, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.

Not yet.

---

“NO!â€

Leon fell through the trap door and her heart plummeted with him.

For a few awful moments it was all she could do to keep herself from collapsing. Salazar cackled on his meaningless throne, kicking his little bowed legs in gruesome mirth. Ashley closed her eyes.

“Hmm?†Salazar was no longer laughing, and leaned towards some sort of tube. “Where is the satisfying sound of one’s impalement?â€

A different sort of sound blasted through the room as a gunshot rang out from the pit. Salazar screeched like a banshee and clapped one hand over the ear that had been pressed to the device. He emerged from the fit of extreme pain in a stuttering rage. “Enough games! Kill him! MATAR!â€

One of the creatures that had stood watch over her, partially hidden in a deeply cowled robe, moved silently away to carry out his master’s orders. Ashley opened her mouth to scream some warning to the man trapped below but was interrupted by a sharp shove to her back, courtesy of Salazar’s other minion. As she was herded away, she was able to take one last hopeful look at the pit.

Leon would survive. He had to.

---

Ashley swallowed a strangled shout and stood against the wall in unthinking horror.

The gurgling, staggering thing let out a scream like fingernails on a chalkboard as Leon fired at close range with his rifle. The sharp crack of the report left her ears feeling like they had been packed with cotton. Not waiting for it to draw any nearer to them, Leon grabbed her hand and pulled her with him through the gate.

It was some sort of disposal area, discarded wrappers and worse things moldering amongst rusted bulkheads and sewage water. An unpleasant stench wafted throughout the place but Ashley was all but deadened to it. Her own clothing was soaked in far worse things than food remains. Taking her customary position huddling behind Leon, she tried to view the oncoming creature objectively.

It was a nightmare of gray sludge and spiky protrusions, molded into a shaky humanoid form that seemed somehow intrinsically wrong in its shapes and contours. The monster was like a half finished sculpture or something collapsed on a potter’s wheel- a failed piece of artwork. Its skin bulged in random places like it contained rodents running underneath the jellied epidermis. Noting those bulges moving contrary to the motions of the limbs, she couldn’t help but wonder if that wasn’t the awful truth.

She had something underneath her skin too…

Leon fired again. This time the creature rocked backwards, the needle lined mouth gaping in terrible agony. A red substance too thick to be normal blood spurted out of the wound like a stinking jam. A second consecutive shot ripped the jaw from the wobbling head and sent it spinning into the floor. Leon cursed as if he had missed. The third shot to the torso made the thing reel backwards into a stack of barrels- the fourth bent it double at the stomach and sent it crashing down.

Working the bolt, Leon ejected a casing that had stovepiped. Ashley saw him grimace quickly at the chamber, coated with a thick layer of filth. She had heard him grumble several times about the state of his weaponry, but he had no time to clean it. Raising the rifle back to his shoulder, he took careful aim at his heavily bleeding foe, which was only now just beginning to rise. The final shot tore through the beast where the heart would have been.

It was like he had hit some sort of killswitch. The monster’s body pulsated wildly and, letting out one final wail, it literally exploded from the inside out.

Leon’s body shielded her from most of the gore. Raising her head again, she viewed the mess left behind. The blood and skin had mixed together in a revolting spatter with the consistency of paste. Closing her eyes briefly in disgust, she turned to follow Leon who had already moved towards the next bridge.

Something caught her eye and caused her to stop. Amongst the filthy puddle of remains, something moved.

A fat and wriggling mass squirmed from the pool like an eel on dry land. It was too coated in gelatinous blood to discern all of its features, but there was no doubt where it came from. It had been inside the creature. Something hot rose in the back of her throat.

Was one of those inside of her?

Without warning she vomited painfully, emptying what little contents her stomach held on the metal floor. She came up, gasping for air and retched again. Leon was quickly back by her side. A warm hand covered her shoulder.

“Ashley?â€

Unable to answer she could only look back at the limply flexing parasite. Leon followed her gaze and suddenly understood.

Drawing his pistol he sent the leech to join its host.