Monsters and FBI Agents
Leon is gone for ages, and, unfortunately, Marvin is too weak to talk to. You tried, at first, to converse with him to get to know the man a little better, but after the first few questions you could tell it was getting harder and harder for him to respond.
You offered to change his bandages but he only refused, telling you to keep ahold of them just in case, and as much as you wanted to argue, you chose not to.
He was too kind to tell you to shut up, but you understood that you weren't helping, so eventually you laid off and moved on to look around the area some more, sighing internally when Marvin warned you to be cautious before falling asleep again.
At some point you wandered over to the storage chest you and Leon were filling, deciding to rummage through it, and took it upon yourself to take the two medallions you both found and put them in the Goddess Statue.
You put the two in and it shifted for each, almost open after settling with the second. Once you guys get that third one in there, it will open up to the two of you and you can get out of this hellhole.
But...
You still haven't found Alex.
The two of you have combed through almost the entire station at this point, checking every nook and cranny for supplies, but she hasn't shown up dead or alive.
At this point you're beginning to even wonder if she was ever here in the first place. Maybe she came and left once things went downhill. She's smart, so goddamn smart, maybe she knew it was a lost cause and dipped early on.
It's hard to admit that she might be dead, so you don't. Until proven otherwise, you're going to assume she made it out.
She must have.
These thoughts cause tears to fill your eyes, so just as fast as they came you begin blinking them away and move on to something else.
30 minutes pass by before you see any signs of Leon again, in the form of him jogging through the left side area where you both came across the mangled officers when you first arrived.
The moment you see him you drop everything and rush over, placing your hands on his arms and looking all over for any signs of harm.
"Jesus! You were gone for so long!" You cry, patting along his biceps for signs of injury. "Are you okay? How did it go?"
Despite everything, he chuckles.
"I'm okay. And everything went about as well as you'd expect." He sighs and pulls out the shotgun ammo, "I ran into another one of those Licker things, I had to kill it."
Your heart drops at the mention of that thing, mind wandering to worst case. "Did it hurt you?"
"No, just startled me for the most part. But... I found out why they're called Lickers."
You don't know if you even want to ask, but you ultimately do. "W-Why?"
Leon bites his lip and seemingly contemplates telling you before he lifts up his arms and exposes a torn and bloody slice of skin along his side. It's not a bad wound, merely a graze for the most part, but it still shoots a spike of concern through you,
"It has a huge tongue, kind of like a frog. It shot out and cut me after I blew the cell." He explains, dropping his arms back to his sides. "It's just a scratch."
It might just be a scratch, but that tongue is a full on sword waiting to stab anyone it catches.
"Jesus christ... This place sucks." You grumble, taking a step back out of his personal space. "But I'm glad you're okay."
"That makes two of us." As he says this he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the final gold medallion, brandishing it to you proudly. "I got it."
Finally you're beginning to believe that this nightmare will end when you see that golden circle, looking back towards the statue with a glimmer of hope in your eyes.
"Follow me!"
You snatch the medallion from his hands and rush over to the statue, placing it in the only empty socket and stepping back as the top of the statues base twists and slowly drops down to make a staircase leading into a gated doorway.
The rookie officer looks at the structure inquisitively, then at you, then back again. He steps up close and grabs the doorknob, twisting it slightly to open the gate.
It creaks open a bit, then he shoves it open the rest of the way and shines his flashlight down to get a glimpse of what lay before you. "So it goes underground... huh." He peers inside for a few more seconds, then looks back at you and Marvin. "That's it then. That's our way out."
He smiles at you dashingly, very triumphant, then jogs from the door towards Marvin. "Detective Branagh! Marvin!" He approaches, "It's time to go."
You follow him close behind and grimace at the sight of him, all pale and weak.
"Hey, Marvin..."
The wounded mans face twists, and when Leon gets close he lunges forward and growls at him like one of those things.
Leon flinches back and crouches next to him, but he doesn't panic and instead says in a firm voice, "We need to get you to a hospital. Right now."
"No, no... I- uh," he looks discombobulated and a little confused, much worse than earlier, "Save yourselves."
However, Leon doesn't drop it. He stands again and reaches for his arm to help hoist him up, insisting, "Come on, I've got you-"
"Go!" Marvin turns away, you can only imagine that his face is twisted in pain.
You look away from the scene, already knowing how this will play out. Leon isn't going to get his way this time; Marvin won't budge, and he's so weak you're almost certain he might die just trying to go down those steps.
"Look, we can still all make it out of here. If you just give me-"
With a slow draw, Marvin pulls out his sidearm and points it at Leon, obviously not intending to shoot but wanting to make his point, "It's too late. I tried, but I couldn't stop it..."
The infection or this whole mess? You can't help but wonder if he feels a shred of responsibility for how things went down here.
"We can't let this thing spread anymore than it already has." He continues, looking between the both of you somberly, "It's on you two now. So go..."
You look to Leon with your own deal of sadness, reaching over to place your hand on his arm, "We understand, Marvin."
Leon bites his lip and looks away, most likely defeated, and says nothing.
The dying man looks away and down at his bloodstained hand, lost in thought no doubt, and also says nothing more.
A few beats of silence pass by, then Leon pats your shoulder and heads towards the gated door again. "Lets go."
You follow, but not without a quick, "Goodbye, Marvin." On your way out.
The statue shuts on you once you're both inside, and then you're both left with only the brightness of your flashlights to light the way.
"I won't let you down..." Leon mumbles on his way down the stairs, seemingly to himself. "We've got this."
Once you both enter the main part of the room, the lights along the side flicker on, on their own. This reveals some sort of secret underground office, one lined with books, a desk, and some sort of replica of a huge house.
The room is small and seemingly safe, so you break away from Leon and begin to look around on your own. He doesn't protest.
You find some shotgun shells, which you promptly hand to your lovely partner, and some things on the desk, but other than some weird valve thing there's not much to find.
"There's an elevator thing over here." Leon calls while you're rummaging through the desk, catching your interest.
"Is that the way out then?" You wonder, following him over to it.
"Only one way to find out."
The doors open upon your approach and you both get in, although you do internally question how safe of an idea this is.
You go ahead and press the button, bracing yourself against the wall as it begins its descent further into the ground.
From across the elevator Leon watches you, smiling a little too himself at the way you look before asking, "Not a fan of elevators?"
"Not particularly, no." It feels like you're falling very slowly and very violently every time you go into one of these damn things, but you try not to complain too much about it given that this is probably the safest you've been all night.
"Don't worry, it feels pretty sturdy."
"Gee, that makes me feel so much better." You sass, though it does make you smile a little as well. "But-"
The elevator comes to a quick stop, and you do as well.
Immediately you're greeted with yet another dark, dingy room. There's railing everywhere and it doesn't smell great.
"Please don't tell me this place is infested with those things too..." You whisper, subconsciously stepping closer to Leon.
He doesn't say anything back, only flashes his light ahead and steps out cautiously, "Watch my back, I'll lead."
Down the stairs you go, silence eating away at you until you both take a left into a more lit area. Only, it appears this well lit area might just be more dangerous than the deep dark looming behind you.
A large groaning figure clamors away above you, the sound of metal hitting metal ringing in your ears as you both press against the bars and out of sight of whatever the fuck is up there.
"What the..."
The noises continue to fade until they disappear altogether, and at that moment you realize the nightmare will never be over.
"We can't catch a break." You whimper, stepping up close to him as he continues to walk along the metal grated path. "Nowhere is safe."
He doesn't stop to look at you, but he still replies as calmly as he can, "I'll make it safe. For us. We'll handle whatever that is."
Hopefully he's right.
There are pipes and metal everywhere you look, and when the small area leads to just another you're unsurprised to see a pit of more metal, steam, and pipes. It's all this area seems to be made of.
Down, to the right, and there your path is blocked by a fallen filing cabinet.
"How do we know this is the right way?" You ask, unsure about venturing further.
"We don't. But it's the only way that has light so..." Fair point. "Mind watching my back while I get that?"
"Of course." Like you'd do anything different.
You keep your gun by your side and watch as he grasps the sides of the cabinet, slowly shoving it to the side and returning it to the proper position when-
Crash.
A giant, fleshy, thing jumps down in front of him, resembling a human, and grabs Leon by the front. It shoves him forward, then down towards the ground in front of you violently.
With trembling hands you raise your gun and fire a shot into the huge arm by its' side, fear shooting through you as it doesn't even flinch.
Leon cries your name, "Run!" But you fire off another shot into his head this time as he slams Leon down into the grate.
The metal below them gives out, and then they both fall into the smoke below, crashing to the ground violently.
"Leon!" You scream, scrambling over to the edge.
He grabs his chest and wheezes, somehow staggering to his feel despite landing on his back like that. He glances up at you briefly, yelling in a panic, "Stay there!"
As much as you want to jump down and help, you have no time to make that decision before the man-creature gets up and swings the metal pipe his mutated arm holds. It bounces off the wall, not even close to hitting your companion. It's almost as if he doesn't have full control over it.
Normally you freeze, but this time you're going to do something. Anything.
You rise to your feet quickly and look across the hole in the floor, taking a moment to psyche yourself up before you lunge forward and hop the gap.
Great, the easy part is over with.
You can hear gunshots and groans running through the pit below, but you focus on trying to find anything to get him up or to stop that horrendous monster.
Leon calls your name again from somewhere below, "I'll keep it distracted! You find a way out!"
"No! I'm not going to leave." You yell back despite your better judgement, looking around wildly for anything to help.
Then the groans and thudding footsteps continue, no response from Leon.
What you have to assume is some sort of explosion sounds to the left, but you ignore it and comb through the strange observation office for any signs of anything helpful.
There's nothing. At least nothing that you can see at the moment.
You rush out the opposite end of the small office and see a ladder attached to the ground you're standing on, but when you try to deploy it, it doesn't budge.
There's probably a mechanism in the office that-
You hear cry and some sort of crash, and against all your better judgement to figure out how to get the ladder to work, you look towards the source of the sound to see what's happening.
There, a little to the right below you, is Leon and that monster. Only, Leon is on his back, seemingly in pain, and the monster-man is stalking forward menacingly from down the small hall.
Leon has his shotgun out and he's patting his pockets for shells desperately, but he's out.
Without a second thought you jump down into hells pit right beside him, yanking the shells you found out of your pocket with one hand while you shoot at it with the other.
He calls your name helplessly, but all you do is step closer to him and drop the shotgun shells in his hand.
"Hurry!"
Immediately he loads it back up and cocks the gun, and right as the mutated freak is on you both, he fires twice and it begins to scream and stretch.
It staggers, crying out in what you assume is pain, and trips over the railing into the abyss below.
There's a crash and splat of the body hitting the ground, and then there's silence once more.
Slowly you lower your gun back to your side, staring at the place it disappeared as if it'll pop right back up all over again.
"What the fu-"
Before you can finish your statement, loud metal screeching resounds behind you as the ladder suddenly comes loose and hits the ground.
You both stare for a moment, but he looks at the ladder while you try to glimpse into the office. Unfortunately, there's too much steam for you to see, but you know for a fact that somebody would've had to trigger the mechanism to make it release.
"Somebody's watching us." Leon whispers, grabbing your forearm and pulling you closer to his side. "Did you see anything while you were up there?"
The answer is no, but not because you didn't see anything. It's because you were too panicked to see anything else.
"No..." You whisper back, shaking your head as you say it, "But it has to be a person., You can't get the ladder down manually. You have to trigger it."
He nods, then trudges forward towards the escape.
You climb up after him and say nothing, focusing on the cold metal biting into your hand as you climb up.
"Why didn't you run? Why did you jump down like that?" He suddenly asks, voice soft as he's returns to his feet. Once he's up, he turns and reaches his hand out to grab yours as you reach the top as well.
You accept the helping hand and let him hoist you up, biting your lip anxiously as you think over what you're going to say. "I..." You don't continue.
"You shouldn't have jumped down here like that, you could've been killed." Leon states firmly when you grab his hand, hoisting you up. He doesn't step back when he does though, so your chest bumps into his and he leans slightly over you. "But... you also saved my life."
Any protest you had dies then and there when you hear the way he talks to you, the way his voice softens again at the end.
"Thank you."
You stare up at him like a deer caught in headlights, not expecting him to outright thank you for putting yourself, and possibly him, in danger. But here you are.
"I-I just..." You glance away briefly, then back into those entrancing blue depths of- "I couldn't let that thing kill you."
And all he does is stare back after your admittance.
"You've been protecting me this whole time, and I needed to do the same." You finalize, realizing how sentimental you just sounded. "I want to keep you safe too, Leon."
There's silence as he considers your words, feeling oddly warm inside by what you said, then he lets you go and takes a step back. "I'm grateful that I got stuck with you of all people."
It's a shared sentiment.
"Me too." You look up at him with a tiny smile, then suddenly remember just where you are. "We should probably get moving."
As if a spell has been broken he clears his throat and shakes his head rapidly, turning and heading towards the set of stairs to the left, "Right, this should hopefully take us out of here."
And now the moment is done.
You both jog up the stairs with your guns drawn, glancing around cautiously as you go when you come up on another office looking space with a big control panel.
"Oh, maybe this is how they, whoever they are, helped us." You grumble, getting caught on a large lever sitting smack dab in the middle of the panel.
Before your better judgement can kick in, you reach for it and yank it downward. This causes a large catwalk visible through the window to begin shifting to the right, and it connects two walkways leading to another new area.
"I guess we're going that way." Leon says, already halfway out the door. "This place keeps getting weirder."
You're hot on his heels as he delivers that little one liner, feeling that nothing is more real than that, "You could say that again."
And down another long pathway you go, looking down at the battlefield that could've killed all of you at almost any time not even 5 minutes ago.
What was that thing? Where did it even come from? Why isn't it like any of the other things you've seen so far? That and the Lickers. They're unlike the majority of monsters that roam the area, they're different and much stronger. Not to mention it had a weapon even. It has a little bit of intelligence, somehow.
You're only vaguely aware of your surroundings as you try to sort through these raging thoughts, following Leon mindlessly through yet another room and up another ladder.
"What's up there?" You call when he suddenly stops, trying to look around his body. It's hard though, given that his, albeit nice, butt is in the way.
"A metal cover. It's not locked, but..." He trails off and lifts it slightly, looking around the immediate area for any signs of danger. "I don't see much. Looks like a parking garage."
After he confirms what he's seen he lifts the cover further and shoves it our of the way with a grunt, pulling himself out quickly and pulling his gun back out just in case.
"Looks safe. You can come out." He calls down, still looking around the area.
You pull yourself up and out as well, heart dropping when you see the metal shutter closing off the outside world from inside.
"We're still trapped..."
"Maybe there's a keypad we can..." The sound of distant howls catch his attention and stop him from finishing his thought, confusion painting his features. "We'll just go ahead and ignore that for now."
Agreed.
"Well lets go check it out!" You confirm, striding past him towards the mechanical thing next to the shutter.
You mess with it a little, trying to see if there's any sort of panel you can pull off or keypad you can finesse, but it's just a card reader.
Frustrated, you smack the machine once. "Fuck, it needs a keycard."
Sudden growling catches your attention, followed by Leon's, "Oh you've gotta be kidding me!" and when you turn to look you're faced with the long nose of a black police dog, undead just like every other goddamn thing in his city.
Before you can raise your gun you're being shoved out of the way by Leon, causing you to crash to the ground beside him as the dog-monster pounces.
Barking and a struggle go on just behind you, but your gun has clattered away a few feet ahead. You scramble to grab it, panic making your fingertips numb and your dexterity a lot less efficient.
"Get off of me!"
No no no no no.
Your shaking hands wrap around the handle of your gun and you flip over in an instant, but when you try to take aim you realize you can't guarantee that you won't shoot Leon's hand off.
But if you don't take the shot, he'll get his throat ripped out.
Decision made your face sets hard and you begin to squeeze the trigger, but someone else beats you to it.
The dogs neck explodes with blood, and it collapses to the side.
Relief fills you instantly, quickly replaced with trepidation from the sudden save.
"Hey... who's there?" Leon calls, sitting up on his elbows slowly.
There's an outline of a woman in the darkness, but you can't make out much of her face or figure in the fog. You only know it's a woman because of her response, "Stay sharp."
On cue the undead dog begins to growl and rise again, and in response Leon instantly raises his weapon and shoots it straight through the head once more.
It's nose twitches, and then it's dead.
Dead-dead, hopefully.
The woman starts walking towards you two, so, on instinct almost, you raise your weapon and point it at her.
She's gorgeous, you realize, as she circles around the two of you with her own gun raised and poised to shoot. "Lower it." She warns, looking between the both of you.
It feels superficial to be pointing guns at each other, honestly, because she can't shoot the both of you and you're certain neither of you are going to actually shoot her either.
She's the first live person you've seen in ages, and she seems pretty helpful all things considered.
And then she pulls out the badge.
"FBI."
"Oh..." You feel embarrassed.
"Sorry... thank you-"
That damned thing starts to rise again, and the gun she has pointed in Leon's direction fires off two more shots into its head.
"For your help." Leon finishes, looking back up at her.
She doesn't reply to that, beginning to walk off to the side. "I'm surprised you two have made it this far." She stares you down for a moment, smirking almost as she does.
Leon rushes back to his feet and goes to your side, grasping your elbow and upper arm to help you to your feet as he speaks, "FBI, huh? What's going on here?"
Asking the right questions, you see, but you don't get the answer you want.
"Sorry. That information's classified." She doesn't even look back, she just keeps moving forward.
"Wait, where are you going?" Leon calls, taking a few steps forward.
She sighs almost exasperatedly, turning to look at him with a new frown, "Look. Do yourself a favor: stop asking questions and get you and her out of here. Before it's too late."
You don't love the sound of that.
The mystery woman keeps walking away towards one of the locked doors, somehow unlocking it all on her own despite it being inaccessible this whole time.
"Hey! I'm not done talking to you!" Leon calls, sighing when she disappears regardless. "Damn it."
"Well, there goes the only person who might know anything about all of this." You grumble, tip toeing over to the hopefully dead dog on the ground. "Man... I love dogs."
"Hey," he grabs your arm and looks down at you with worry, "Are you okay?"
Are you okay? Is he okay?!
You shake his arm off and grab his shoulders like he does to you all the time, frowning really hard, "Me?! Are you? You-You pushed me out of the way! Why would you do something like that?"
You know why, but it still bothers you. He could've died doing that.
"The same reason you jumped into harms way to save me."
Okay... fair.
"W-Well... I see what you're saying but..." You can't even argue. It's true. "Lets move on. Was she really an FBI agent? Are they actually here?"
"I mean, she had a badge and she seems to know what's going on. I just wonder what she's doing here."
"Well whatever her goal is, hopefully it can bring this whole mess to an end." And you mean it too. If the government is getting involved, then that means the outside world is aware of what's going on here. Right?
Leon seems to feel the same, his gaze lingering at the doorway where she disappeared. "Until then... we need to find a way out of here."
Speaking of.
You glance around the room and suddenly realize that most of the once red lit doors are now green, which can only mean that when she unlocked that door she disappeared through, that she also opened all these other ones.
"Wait, Leon look!" You jog over to the door to the right, the one next to a sign that reads 'Keep Area Clean,' and turn the handle a little to show that it's open.
You don't open the door all the way in case there's something inside, of course, but you feel good about your realization.
The brown-haired officer follows you over and looks up at the glowing green indicator above, "How did she do that?"
"I don't know, but now we can hopefully find the card that goes to that thing and get out of here." You take a step back from the door and pull out your weapon, "I think that maybe... maybe Alex got out too. She wasn't anywhere in the station, and Marvin didn't know her so... so maybe she's somewhere out there in the city."
Leon smiles at your optimism, although it doesn't appear to quite reach his eyes. "I'm sure she's waiting out there somewhere for you to find her. Once we get out of here, we can try and look for her nearby."
It's dangerous and not guaranteed to work, but the fact that he's willing to help you look fills you with a grateful joy.
Filled with a new sense of determination, the two of you press onwards.
Who knows when the night will end for sure. All you two know is that you're stronger together and many steps closer to getting out of this nightmare.
Or so you think.