September 29, 1998

At a gas station, just outside of racoon City, a beautiful woman with brunette hair tied into a pony tail was inside a phone booth. The speaker was placed against her ear as she spoke into receiver.

"Yeah, I'm almost there. You know me, I'll be fine. Don't worry, I'll stay away from him. Sounds good. I'll be back as soon as I find Chris. I will, but I gotta go".

The brunette stepped out of the phone booth and into the pouring rain. Her red jack and grey tank top were slick with water and her hair stuck to her skin.

"Why does everyone think I'm going to get in trouble" she asked herself.

The sound of breaking glass came from inside the gas station, causing the brunette to swivel towards it. Slowly, she walked towards the building and pushed the door open. "Hello? Anybody here?" she called out into the darkened room.

A torch on the ground before her was the only thing that illuminated the rows of shelves. Her hand wrapped around the base and she brought it up in front of her.

The sounds of a struggle could be heard from deeper inside the building.

Moving around the shelves, the brunette saw a man wearing the stations uniform. He was slumped against the wall and holding his hand against his neck, with blood on and around him.

"Are you okay?!" she asked in a panic, but the man simply pointed into the employees only area. "Wait here, I'll check it out" she told him, before stepping through the doorway.

The noises from before were far louder now. The brunette could almost make out a voice.

"God damn, zombie fuck!".

She definitely recognised the voice, though she wished she didn't.

Pushing the door into the store-room open, she was met with the sight of a familiar face.

"Connor?!" she cried out to me.

I looked over at the source of the voice to see Claire Redfield standing there.

"Claire?!" I cried back, before remembering I had a zombie to deal with.

Pulling out a knife from a pouch on my back, I held it up and quickly drove it deep into the zombies temple. For a second, I feared it would keep going, until the zombie went limp and collapsed to the ground.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" I asked, finally turning to face Claire.

"No, you don't get to ask the questions right now" she told me. "You just killed that guy!".

I turned to face the zombie, "he was already dead".

"What the hell are you talking about?" she asked. Clearly, she didn't believe what I was saying.

Instead of telling her, I shone my torch over to the police sheriff lying dead on the ground. Part of his neck had been ripped open and teeth marks were clearly visible around the wound.

Claire's eyes went wide at the sight of the second corpse, before she began inspecting the zombie. It's skin was pale, and it had milky white eyes. Muscle was visible through tears in it's face and neck. Not to mention it had no lips.

"Holy shit" the brunette muttered.

"Yeah, so unless you want to end up these thing's human take out..." I told her after retrieving the key to the closest door.

"... Aim for the head".

Claire shock her head before turning to me as I walked away. "Hold on, why are you here?" she asked me as I reached for the door. "I got a report that some of the zombies from the city had made it out here. I came to keep them contained" I replied.

I looked through the window in the door. Everything seemed to be calm outside, though I had quickly learnt that meant nothing.

"Wait, so the city's crawling with these things?" she asked.

"Yeah, most of the survivors are dead. There are only a few of us left".

We fell into a silence as I put the key into the lock.

"What about Chris?" Claire suddenly asked as I began to open the door. "Nobody's seen him for two weeks" I responded.

Quietly, I poked my head out the door and looked around. My hand was resting against my holstered pistol as I began consulting with my partner.

'V, any of them out there?' I asked the symbiote.

'Three, maybe four. Shouldn't be much trouble'.

I pulled my gun up and slowly began treading through the gas station. My foot steps were light, and I was acutely aware of where each zombie was.

Suddenly, one of the zombies knocked something large over. It smacked against the counter and awakened every undead fucker in the building.

'Shit!' I thought as they started coming towards us. We couldn't do anything in such a confined space.

Claire raised her gun to fire, but I grabbed her arm and pushed her forwards. "Forget it, just run!" I told her as we circled around towards the exit.

Another zombie knocked over one of the dividing isles and tried to lunge at us. It almost managed to grab my hand, but a black spike shot out and severed it's hand at the wrist.

We were about to burst through the door when a human pushed the door open and raised his gun at Claire.

"Don't shoot!" she cried out at him.

He peeked around behind her, before replying.

"Get down!".

Realising what he meant, Claire ducked down just as a zombie dove at her. A single gunshot rang throughout the area and the undead monster dropped to the ground behind her. "We gotta get out of here" Claire stated as the three of us left the building.

"You two alright?" the man asked. He had dark blonde hair that was parted to one side. He wore a blue jacket over a matching shirt and white t-shirt beneath.

"Yeah, I think so. Thanks" Claire replied.

"I'm good" I followed up.

The sight around the gas station was horrifying. Fifteen of the undead horde had made it out here and were slowly approaching us.

We each raised our guns to fire, but it was pointless. Even if each of us landed a kill shot, there'd still be at least six left.

Another one slammed into the glass behind us. It lacked a nose and had the same pale eyes and stretched skin as all the others.

"Holy shit" was all Claire could say.

I began looking for a way out of the situation. We had used our bulkier form to get here, so I had no vehicle to escape with. Luckily, the sheriff's police car was sitting there with the doors open and keys in the ignition.

"Come on!" the blonde yelled, before ducking under a zombie's grab and making a beeline to the driver's seat.

He managed to get to the door and quickly yelled out to us, "get in!".

Claire shoved a zombie back before diving into the passenger's seat beside him.

One of the zombies tried to grab me. In response, I raised my foot and slammed it into the zombie's torso, sending it skidding across the ground.

Taking the opportunity, I opened the back-seat door and dove across the seats. A black tentacle wrapped around the door and slammed it closed behind me.

"Hold on!" the man told us, before slamming his foot onto the pedal and taking us out of there.

"What the hell was that?" Claire asked me.

"I'll explain once we get to the city" I replied while rummaging through my pack.

My hand clasped around a small, rectangular device that was blinking red.

With a simple click of a button, the whole gas station went up in flames.

"What the hell?!" the blonde man cried out as he used the mirror to stare at the billowing flames.

"I couldn't let them get any further out of the city" was all I replied.

We sat in silence for a bit, before the blonde man spoke up. "I'm Leon. Leon Kennedy. You are?" he told us.

"Claire. Claire Redfield"

"And you?" Leon asked while looking back at me in the mirror.

"Connor. Connor Adams".