Chapter Text
“Hold on!” The words tear from Claire’s throat.
The catwalk beneath her shuddered violently. Bolts snapped free as the metal framework screamed under the strain, the air thick with heat and the stench of burning metal. A beam sheared loose with a deafening crack, scraping past her shoulder before tumbling into the ravine below.
Claire sprawled across the platform, ribs grinding painfully against the jagged edges as she stretched over the edge. Below her, a woman dangled in the open air, suspended over the void. Strands of dark hair whipped across her face in the rushing wind, debris rattling down like a storm.
"I've got you,” Claire gasped.
The platform lurched again, and somewhere beneath them, steel shrieked as the structure continued to buckle. Her fingers slipped slightly, slick with blood, dark streaks running down to her knuckles. It pooled between their clasped hands, turning the grip loose.
“Wait—” she cried, reaching desperately with her other hand.
Claire lunged forward, stretching as far as her body would allow. Her fingers brushed the woman’s wrist, but it was too late. The hand slid free. She clawed at empty air as the body plunged into darkness. The cry that rose in her chest caught and lodged painfully in her throat as the world dissolved around her.
Then, the blare of her alarm clock cut through the nightmare.
Claire sucked in a sharp breath and lay motionless, eyes fixed on the ceiling as the dream refused to release its grip.
Each pulse of the alarm dragged the image back with it, the falling figure, dropping lower and lower until the darkness swallowed her whole. Her gaze settled on the slow spin of the ceiling fan, and a dull ache spread through her chest as the final image burned behind her eyes.
With a groan, she reached over and silenced the alarm. The room fell quiet again, and she shifted back to the pillow, allowing herself a moment of stillness before the day demanded its due.
Slowly, she pushed herself up, moving through her morning routine on autopilot. She brushed her teeth while packing her bag, wandering from room to room as she gathered her scattered notes, glancing at the clock repeatedly. She was running late today.
In the kitchen, she started a pot of coffee, hoping the familiar routine might steady her thoughts. Instead, the machine sputtered, rattling in stubborn protest before jamming completely, as if the morning needed one more complication.
Claire stared at it for a moment, then brought her hand down on the lid with a frustrated smack. Hitting it always did the trick… right?
Nothing.
“I don't have time for this today,” she muttered.
She quickly tied her hair back, grabbed her bag from the counter, and headed out.
By the time Claire arrived at the office, most of the staff had already settled into their desks. She passed a few coworkers in the hall, offering quick good mornings before slipping into her cubicle. The sun had just begun to crest the horizon of DC, spilling light across the tall windows behind her desk.
The outbreak in Baltimore had erupted only two days ago.
What began as a cluster of patients admitted to the hospital with high fevers had escalated overnight into a suspected potential bioterror attack. Federal authorities had locked down the site, and TerraSave had been asked to assist with medical relief once the situation stabilized.
Claire shrugged her bag off one shoulder, took out her laptop, and sat down.
Her inbox loaded slowly, the familiar clutter of messages appearing one after another: logistics reports, supply confirmations, and a handful of cold leads she’d been chasing for weeks. She began scanning through them, mentally sorting what needed attention first.
Near the top sat a logistics update from the distribution team. Claire opened it and skimmed the details:
Subject: Vaccine Shipment Distribution Update
Shipment ID: BALT-VX-041
Destination: Johns Hopkins Hospital
Delivery Status: Partial arrival confirmed
Manifest Summary:
Batch VX-041A — 120 doses received
Batch VX-041B — Delayed in transit
Estimated Time of Arrival: 14:30 EST
Sending the relief team with only half the vaccines wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t unusual either. Terrasave had been stretching its reserves thin, responding to outbreaks left and right. There had been more attacks this year than she cared to count. If anything, she could deliver the second batch in the afternoon while the team handled the morning shipment.
She marked the message and moved on.
Then one email caught her eye. The sender's address was unfamiliar.
“If this is another one of those damn phishing schemes…” she muttered under her breath, shaking her head. With a shrug, she clicked it open.
Subject: Don’t Send the Relief Team
Body: They won’t survive.
Claire leaned back in her chair, staring at the screen. For a moment, she considered dismissing it outright. TerraSave received its fair share of strange messages from conspiracy theorists claiming the start of the apocalypse; however, something about this one felt different.
How did they know relief was being deployed today?
She leaned forward slightly, her gaze drifting to the clock in the corner of the screen—7:54 a.m.
The team scheduled for Baltimore would deploy at 9:00.
Claire’s fingers hovered over the keyboard before she typed a quick reply.
Who is this?
She hesitated, then added another line.
What are you talking about?
She hit send.
The chime of a new notification made Claire straighten immediately.
You still have time.
Her jaw tightened as she typed back.
If this is a threat, you need to be clear. Patients are waiting for those vaccines.
The reply appeared almost instantly.
Pull them now.
A chill crept up her spine. There was something unsettling about the certainty in their tone. She chewed the inside of her cheek, weighing the possibilities. It could be a hoax, someone trying to interfere with TerraSave’s operations. Or worse, a legitimate warning.
Her fingers found the keys again.
What exactly is going to happen if I don’t?
Delivery Failure:
The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try double-checking the recipient's email address for typos.
Claire stared at the screen. That couldn’t be right; she had just been corresponding with the sender only seconds ago. She leaned back slowly, folding her arms across her chest as her thoughts swarmed. Patients were already waiting on those vaccines, and pulling the team now could delay treatment at the height of their infections. But sending them in after a warning like that didn’t sit right either.
She scrolled back to the initial message in the chain and scanned the sender's address. No recognizable domain, no organization attached to it, and now the system insisted the account didn’t even exist.
If she brought this to her supervisor, he’d tell her to ignore it. It must have slipped past the spam filter, just like the dozens of other bizarre messages TerraSave received every month. Claire exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand along the back of her neck. Her eyes drifted back to the logistics report still open on her screen.
Batch VX-041B — Delayed in transit.
Right, the shipment delay, the team couldn't fully deploy without the second batch anyway.
Grounding the relief team over a message from a sender that technically didn’t exist still sounded ridiculous. But a logistics delay? No one would question it.
She pushed back from her desk, and a moment later, she was standing outside her supervisor’s office. Claire knocked once before stepping inside.
“Sir,” she greeted.
Her supervisor looked up from his desk.
“There has been a slight delay in the vaccine shipment,” Claire said. “Only half the batch arrived this morning. The rest are expected sometime this afternoon.”
Her supervisor leaned back in his chair, nodding understandingly.
“I’ll contact the hospital administrator and see what their course of action is,” he said. “We’ll hold off for now. Thanks, Ms. Redfield.”
Claire nodded before she turned, shutting the door gently behind her. She made her way down the hall and relayed the update to the relief team stationed near the operations room, advising them to remain on standby until further notice.
Back in her office, Claire settled into her chair and pulled up those leads she’d left off on, forcing herself back into routine.
She was deep into her report when a gasp echoed through the office, making her glance up from the screen. Across the room, several of her colleagues had gathered around someone’s monitor. One person stood abruptly, covering their mouth as the others leaned closer to the screen.
“What is it?” someone asked.
Claire rose from her chair and walked over, weaving between desks until she reached the small crowd. She leaned forward as her eyes settled on the screen. On it was a news broadcast with a bold red headline stretching across the bottom.
BIO TERROR ATTACK ON JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL
The camera wobbled across the parking lot as it shakily tracked a figure that moved unnaturally fast. Its silhouette was human at first glance, but the proportions were all wrong. It had long, spindly limbs that twisted at impossible angles, muscles bulged beneath raw, stretched skin. Its head tilted too far on one side, revealing a distorted jawline and teeth that gleamed like shards of glass as it prowled the perimeter of the hospital.
Claire’s stomach twisted. She had faced countless B.O.W.s, yet this one felt familiar in a way she could not place, but the fear it stirred was all too real.
The camera jerked as the creature lunged, crushing a car hood beneath its clawed hands. A wet, gurgling sound tore from it, carrying a faint, almost human undertone that made the hairs on Claire’s arms stand on end.
Then the feed went dead.
That email was a warning, and the sender had been right.
Claire barely had time to collect herself before the footage cut to a news anchor in the studio.
“...Authorities confirm that the DSO has already arrived on site and is working to neutralize the threat.”
Around her, the office was suspended in fear. Her colleagues whispered urgently to one another, and some stood frozen, their eyes fixed on the screen.
Suddenly, Claire’s supervisor appeared at her side.
“Redfield,” he said sharply, his voice cutting through the distressed murmurs. “Once the DSO clears the threat, we’re sending in the relief team immediately. I want you to coordinate all intelligence on this B.O.W., everything that comes out of that area goes through you.”
Claire nodded, already running through the steps in her head.
Sirens still rang faintly through the streets when Claire arrived at Johns Hopkins.
Emergency vehicles lined the streets, their lights flashing in restless pulses of red and blue. The west wing had taken the brunt of the attack, and an entire section of the outer wall had collapsed, leaving gaping holes that exposed support beams and dangling cables.
Claire stepped carefully over scattered debris as she approached the temporary triage area set up across the parking lot.
Several rows of cots had been arranged across the cracked asphalt. Nurses and paramedics moved quickly between them, their medical carts rattling across the uneven gravel.
The lot itself looked like something out of a war zone. Cars had been overturned or crushed completely, their hoods and fenders warped like aluminum cans in a crusher. One sedan had been nearly split in half, its body gouged with jagged claw marks.
Claire reached into her bag and pulled out a small camera, raising it to eye level as she snapped a few photos of the wreckage. When she lowered it, she noticed a dark smear that stretched across the side of an overturned ambulance. Claire stepped closer, crouching slightly to photograph it.
Blood.
The pattern spread outward in violent arcs across the metal paneling, flecks scattered across the pavement; impact spray.
Nearby, two nurses carefully repositioned a patient whose arm had been wrapped in thick gauze. The man winced, his teeth clenched as they adjusted the splint.
Claire approached them.
“Excuse me,” she said gently. “I’m with TerraSave. Were either of you here when the attack happened?”
The nurses exchanged glances, then one shook her head.
“No,” she said quickly. “We were called in after.”
Claire nodded in understanding and stepped back, scanning the lot for someone else willing to speak. That was when a familiar voice cut through the noise behind her.
“Claire?”
She turned.
Leon Kennedy was striding toward her across the parking lot, weaving through the wreckage. He wore a tactical vest and gloves, and faint streaks of blood marked the sleeve of his shirt.
Claire blinked in surprise.
“Leon?”
He stopped a few feet away, brow furrowing slightly. “What are you doing here?”
She exhaled. “TerraSave was supposed to deploy vaccines for the patients this morning.”
Claire shifted the camera strap on her shoulder. “My boss wants a full report on the B.O.W.,” she said. “Transmission risk, behavioral patterns, whatever I can gather from witnesses.”
Leon nodded once, smirking. “Well,” he said, “you’re in luck.”
Claire raised a brow.
“I’m the one who took it down.”
Claire sighed. “Of course you are.”
“If you’re headed to look at the body, I can walk you there,” he offered. “They moved it to the morgue not too long ago.”
“Yeah,” she said. “That would help.”
Leon tilted his head slightly. “You’ve got your media clearance with you, right?”
Claire held up the TerraSave identification badge clipped to her red jacket.
Leon gave a short nod. “Good enough.”
He gestured toward the hospital entrance, where several federal agents were standing guard near a security checkpoint.
“Come on,” he said. “Before someone decides they don’t want visitors.”
Claire fell into step beside him as they made their way across the damaged lot and into the hospital.
The hallway to the morgue was eerily quiet compared to the chaos outside. Pale emergency lights cast a harsh, sterile glow, and the smell of antiseptic hung heavy in the air. Two agents stood outside the double doors. Leon flashed his credentials, and they stepped aside, clearing a path.
Inside, the temperature dropped sharply, and Claire rubbed her hands together instinctively. Stainless steel counters lined the walls, cluttered with equipment and specimen trays. At the center, an examination table had been reinforced with restraints. The creature lay partially covered by a white sheet, though it did little to hide the grotesque form beneath it.
Leon stepped forward and pulled the covering back.
The creature’s limbs were abnormally elongated, the muscles beneath the skin swollen and stretched as if they had grown far beyond what the body could contain. Thick tendons bulged beneath the blotched flesh, and bones protruded through its forearms.
Claire stepped forward to get a closer look. Beneath the layers of mutated flesh, there was something else: a partially intact torso trapped within the monstrous growth, the original body almost cocooned inside. Torn threads of a hospital gown clung to patches of the tissue.
Claire felt her breath catch as her eyes scanned up to its face, or what remained of it, frozen mid-transformation. One eye had been swallowed by the infection, bulging out of its socket, and the other still resembled something tragically human.
Her mind recoiled at the sight, and the cold morgue seemed to recede around her. The fluorescent lights faded into the distance, and the echo of claws scraping against metal filled her ears, as a monstrous arm forced itself between elevator doors.
William Birkin’s distorted face pressed closer as the steel bent outward, his mutated eye rolling wildly in its socket. A deep, guttural roar tore through his throat, vibrating through the floor beneath Claire’s feet. The shaft shook, and Claire shielded Sherry with her body and could feel her small fingers digging into her wrist as she clung for safety.
One of the forensic pathologists swiveled in their chair, and the scrape of it against the floor pulled Claire out of the memory.
“Claire.”
She blinked, and the morgue snapped back into focus. The first thing she noticed was the sharp bite of her nails into her palms. She jerked her hands back, fingers trembling.
Leon was watching her carefully now, because he had seen it too. Not the memory itself, but the recognition behind her eyes.
“Come on,” he said, reaching for her arm and guiding her toward the hallway.
They stepped out of the morgue, the door swinging shut behind them. Leon released her arm but stayed close, leaning against the wall.
“Look,” he said after a moment, his voice low. “Whatever this thing is… we’ve got it covered.”
Leon continued, his tone softening. “If it turns out to be something bigger, we can bring in the BSAA, but right now, it’s contained.”
Claire let out a slow breath, and Leon studied her carefully, noting the tight line of her jaw.
“Just get what you need for your report,” he said. “Photos, documentation… whatever they need.”
He hesitated, then added, “But don’t go digging into this one.”
Claire’s gaze drifted to the floor. “There’s… something else I have to tell you.”
She pulled out her phone, pausing for a moment as if reconsidering, then she unlocked it. She scrolled through her inbox and pulled up the email.
“This morning, before relief was supposed to deploy the vaccines, she said quietly, handing over her phone to Leon, “I got an email.”
Leon’s expression sharpened as he took the phone from her hands.
“An email?” He asked, scanning the message.
Don’t send the relief team.
They won’t survive.
Claire sighed as he read it over. “Tried replying to it, but it bounced back… said the sender didn’t exist.”
Leon forwarded the chain to himself and handed the phone back.
“I’ll have my team look into it,” he said. “See if there’s anything we can trace.”
Claire slipped the phone back into her pocket.
“You think it’s connected?” she asked.
Leon glanced past her to the morgue.
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” he said.
Before Claire could respond, a voice spoke from behind them, a medical examiner.
“You two with the federal team?” she asked.
Claire introduced herself quickly.
“I’m with TerraSave,” she said, flashing her badge, “I’m compiling a report of the B.O.W.”
The examiner nodded, glancing at the medical chart in her hands.
“The man you saw beneath that… abomination… was Daniel Parker. He was admitted around six o'clock this morning.”
Claire frowned slightly, jotting the information down on her notepad.
“As a patient?”
The examiner nodded, “High fever, neurological distress, delirium.”
Claire’s gaze drifted to the doors of the morgue. “That tracks with early symptoms we’ve been reporting since the outbreak started.”
“That’s what the nurses thought,” the examiner replied, grimacing.
“And then he attacked one of them.”
Leon straightened at that, pushing off the wall and crossing his arms.
“Security cameras caught it,” the examiner said, motioning for them to follow her.
The room they entered was small and dimly lit, with monitors lining the walls, showing live feeds.
The examiner gestured to the man sitting at the main console. “Pull up the footage from 9:56 a.m.”
One of the screens flickered, showing the west wing hallway in grainy detail. A man staggered down the corridor, gripping his IV stand as it rattled beside him.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Something’s wrong with me.”
A nurse rushed past him, reaching out to steady the man.
Suddenly, his body jerked violently, bones shifting beneath his skin with unnatural force as he screamed.
“Please—help me—!”
His arm lashed outward, striking the nurse. She went crashing into the wall with a sickening crack.
The examiner cut the video without warning, leaving a heavy silence in the room. Claire’s stomach knotted as her pen hovered uselessly over her notepad.
Claire couldn’t sleep that night, didn’t even try. She was slumped over her laptop in her bed, staring at the notes she had taken at the hospital. The footage of the man screaming in agony was seared into the back of her mind.
With a heavy sigh, she typed the man’s name into her search bar and hit enter.
The search results stacked up: old traffic violations, voting records, previous addresses.
She clicked the link for his current residence. It was an apartment in Baltimore, barely ten minutes from the hospital. Other addresses appeared, each one more ordinary than the last… until one made her blood run cold.
1392 Fox St., Raccoon City.
She blinked, wondering if the harsh glow of the screen was playing tricks on her, but when she opened her eyes again, it was still there.
Her phone buzzed against the bedsheets, making her flinch. She scrambled across the bed, reaching for it, and answered.
“Hello?”
“Claire, I had Hunnigan run a diagnostic on that email address. Turns out the sender used self-destruct software. All we could find was that it was active for only five minutes before being wiped. I know that doesn’t help much… just let me know if you get any other strange messages.”
“Yeah… yeah, thanks.” She hung up abruptly, slamming her phone into the sheets, then balanced her laptop on her thighs again.
Fox Street, Raccoon City.
She tried to picture the street, wondering how many times she’d ridden past it on her bike to visit her brother at the station all those years ago.
Her phone buzzed again.
“Jesus—what now, Leon?” she muttered under her breath, flipping the device over.
Unknown:
Careful where you poke around. Some things bite back.
Somewhere deep beneath the city, a lab sat tucked away, quiet except for the sound of heels clicking against polished floors that echoed in the vast space. The laboratory lights were dim, the room illuminated only by the glow of idle monitors.
Ada Wong stepped up to the central console.
The display was locked behind an access prompt. She rested her fingers on the keys and began typing. The login interface flickered away, replaced by a terminal window as lines of command code scrolled rapidly down the screen.
The system paused for a moment as it processed, and then the directory opened. Rows of archived research populated the monitor in green text—genetic datasets, viral simulations, and experiment logs buried deep within the facility’s internal servers.
Ada scanned the file list briefly before selecting one:
STRN_BETA_REGEN_MODEL
The screen shifted into a molecular viewer. A three-dimensional lattice appeared, displaying two distinct sequences against a black background.
Host Genome: T-Virus Exposed Individual
This sequence represented human DNA from a prior exposure, but remained dormant, leaving only subtle alterations to the host genome and traces of cellular damage.
“So it never really leaves you…” she said in awe, studying the DNA.
Experimental Strain: STRN_BETA_REGEN
The second genome behaved differently. Segments branched outward in irregular formations, growth clusters forming and collapsing as the program mapped mutation patterns. The sequence rewrote itself continuously, generating new structures faster than the model could stabilize them.
A calm, automated voice sounded through the speakers:
“Simulation running.”
The two genomes drifted closer inside the lattice, their strands beginning to fuse. Fragments of viral code aligned as the system calculated compatibility.
“Stabilizing.”
For a moment the model held, then a dense node began to swell at the center. Surrounding strands bent inward, unstable, compensating for the sudden growth.
“Simulation failed.”
The lattice split apart, the model collapsed before the program automatically reset.
“Still trying to make it behave, I see,” she said to herself.
Ada reached into her coat and slid a flash drive into the console to transfer the files. A chime echoed through the speakers as the transfer completed. She removed the drive just as her phone vibrated against the metal desk.
Ada glanced down, smirking at the message that lit up the screen.
Red:
Who is this?
She let out a soft, amused hum. "Took the bait… just like I thought you would," she murmured, fingers already typing out a response.
Ada:
Someone who knows how that city has a habit of claiming its own.