Chapter 9: I Feel Safer By Your Side
Underground Station – Control Room
CRASH! The reinforced glass shatters with a bone-chilling screech. Jagged shards fly in all directions as an abominable figure bursts through—eyeless, its brain exposed, with curved claws and a long, slimy tongue lashing out like a wet snake. Rebecca jolts backward and screams. Instinctively, Richard grabs her arm and drags her behind some cover, positioning himself between her and the creature. Body tense, he lifts his weapon in steady hands, shielding her as he takes aim.
"BANG! BANG!" He fires twice. The bullets barely slow it. The Licker shrieks in fury, drawn by the echo of gunfire.
"The door, Rebecca! The panel!" Richard shouts urgently. Rebecca stumbles toward the control console, hands shaking as she pounds the keys. Sparks dance on the console and error messages flicker across the screens.
"Richard, it's not responding!" she panics.
Suddenly, the creature leaps forward. Richard rolls across the floor, narrowly evading the claws that shred the monitor where his head had been moments ago. He fires again—click. The gun is empty.
"Shit," he curses under his breath.
"This way, Richard!" Rebecca calls. She yanks open a side hatch leading to an adjacent room. The next chamber is a dusty old security storeroom, packed with metal crates, rusted shelves, and barrels stamped with the faded Umbrella logo.
Richard throws himself inside and slams the door shut. "We need to seal this door!" he grunts, but there's no time. A deafening BOOM rattles the door as the creature rams it. BOOM! again. The heavy metal door shudders violently. It won't hold for long.
"Find a weapon!" Richard shouts, already tearing through the crates. He pries open a box—nothing but broken test tubes clatter out.
Rebecca rips away a tarpaulin. "Here!" she cries. She points to a battered metal crate bearing a red stamp: "Containment Forces – Emergency."
Richard kicks the rusted padlock with all his strength. With a screech of tearing metal, the lock snaps open. He yanks off the lid. Inside, wrapped in an old blanket, rests a Remington M870 combat shotgun with its barrel cut short for close-quarters battle. Beside it lies a small case holding five gleaming shells.
Richard lets out a tense laugh. "I never thought I'd be so happy to see one of these."
With trembling urgency, he rips open the case and loads two shells with firm hands, ignoring the cold sweat on his face. The breech snaps shut with a metallic click. Ready.
BOOM! The side hatch explodes inward. The Licker crashes into the storeroom with a blood-curdling howl, muscles bulging with rage.
Rebecca lets out a strangled cry. Richard doesn't hesitate. BOOM! The first blast tears the creature's left shoulder clean off. It howls and reels, but stays upright. BOOM! The second blast slams into its torso, ripping through ribs and spilling organs. The Licker roars and staggers backward, flinging itself into a rusty shelf with a sickening crash.
The beast, still alive, throws itself at Rebecca. She screams as it lunges; she slips and falls to the floor. "No!" Richard shouts, firing again. BOOM! Point-blank at the creature's back, the third slug tears through with a final muffled crack. The Licker lets out one last agonized screech as its skull slams against the wall. Its body convulses wildly and then goes still, limp and silent.
Richard surges forward. He brings the shotgun's butt down on the Licker's skull with all his might. Then he grabs a heavy, rusty metal bar from the floor and begins to pummel the creature's head. One, two, three brutal strikes—each blow drives the bar deeper into the beast's gray mass. At last, the horror lies motionless.
Everything goes quiet.
Rebecca, gasping, crawls to her knees. She wipes a smear of dark blood from her temple with the sleeve of her jacket. A thin trickle of crimson drips from her split lip. Her legs tremble beneath her – a stark reminder of how close she came to death. The dim light reflects off the dark pool on the floor, painting the scene in shades of crimson and shadow.
Richard props the shotgun against the metal wall and sinks down next to her. He breathes raggedly, each inhalation harsh and strained. Every muscle in his body aches; each heartbeat thumps in his ears like a relentless drum. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, trying to steady his racing thoughts.
After a long moment, he finally murmurs, "Are you… okay?"
Rebecca swallows and touches a scratch on her neck. "I… I think so," she manages weakly.
Richard closes his eyes and takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Now we're really screwed," he says grimly, forcing a half-smile.
Rebecca collapses onto a nearby metal chair. The seat creaks under her weight, as if even the furniture is protesting the tension in the air. "My legs are still shaking," she whispers, staring at the floor. "It's like my whole body wants to keep running, but it just can't."
Richard sits beside her, back against the wall, the shotgun resting across his knees. His fingers are slick with old and fresh blood, and he breathes hard. The room falls into a heavy silence. The flickering light overhead casts distorted shadows that seem to dance around them.
Richard finally breaks the silence. He looks at her. "So… how old are you?" he asks softly.
She blinks in surprise. "What? Why do you want to know that?"
He gives a rueful shrug. "I mean… how old are you? You don't exactly look like someone who should be in a place like this."
Rebecca musters a tired smile. "I'm 20… I was doing my internship here. I just wanted to help people."
Richard lets this sink in. Then he tilts his head, studying her. "And now here you are, stuck in this nightmare with a man you met yesterday, armed with a shotgun that's louder than my damn heartbeat."
She smiles faintly, though exhaustion and relief mix on her face. "It could be worse," she says softly.
"Uh-huh?" he says, raising an eyebrow. "How's that?"
She leans forward. "You could be an idiot," she replies with a smirk.
He exhales a low, humorless laugh. "Yeah… Yeah, I am, actually. I just pretend really well that I'm not."
Rebecca turns her gaze to the closed door. The silence is thick, but beneath it they can hear the constant hum of the complex's machinery.
"Richard…" she says quietly.
He looks back at her. "Yeah?"
"Thank you… for not leaving me," she murmurs.
Richard meets her eyes. In that moment, the tough facade he'd been holding up finally drops away. "I wouldn't leave without you," he admits, voice steady but soft. "Not even if I wanted to. And believe me… sometimes I do."
She nods. There are no promises, no grand declarations. Just two survivors taking a moment's breath between nightmares. Even that… is something.
Suddenly, a distant beep cuts through the silence. A device somewhere in the complex is powering up. A system… or a trap.
Richard's jaw clenches. "Power must be back on some level," he mutters.
He forces himself to stand. "Time to move," he declares, steadying himself against the wall.
Rebecca pushes herself up as well, still swaying slightly. She grabs her flashlight and double-checks that her pistol is ready. Together, they limp toward the door, each step uncertain but determined.
Abandoned Infirmary
Rebecca gasps and covers her mouth. "Oh God…"
Richard swings his flashlight beam around the room. It's a long, narrow infirmary, bones of hospital beds corroded by rust, their frames sagging under old, blackened sheets. Broken glass jars and scalpel fragments litter the floor. In one corner, an overturned wheelchair lies beside a dried brown stain on the tile. Water drips from the leaky ceiling, forming tiny puddles on the stained floor.
"This place… hasn't been used in years," Richard says, his light falling on a rusted sign barely legible on the wall: INFIRMARY.
They step inside slowly, as if expecting the dead to stir.
On an old medical cart, Rebecca discovers something surprising: a glass jar filled with dark green dried leaves and another containing finer bluish leaves. A soaked notebook lies underneath them, its pages swollen but still partly readable:
"[Internal Log – Containment Medical Area]
The use of natural compounds has shown minimal side effects, with positive results in subjects exposed to biological stress.
Green: Stimulates partial regeneration and provides circulatory support.
Blue: Neutralizes mild toxins and reduces fever.
Combined, they have a gradual recovery effect – not instantaneous, but effective for up to 30 minutes.
Dr. Hanlon's note: "They don't heal broken bones. But they give them enough strength to run, even while bleeding. Damn Umbrella.""
Rebecca's eyes widen. She swallows hard and carefully takes a handful of each herb. "These are medicinal herbs," she says, voice hushed. "According to this, they were given to personnel exposed to bio-weapons. Not to heal them… to keep them operational."
Richard sinks heavily onto a bare gurney. His arm wound is still gaping, but at least the bleeding has finally stopped. He reaches out a hand. "Give me those," he says. "I need that… whatever they promise."
Rebecca tears some leaves and crushes them in her palm. She pours them into a half-empty bottle of isopropyl alcohol, making a crude, foul-smelling tincture. Bracing herself, she pours it onto Richard's wound. He doesn't cry out—just squeezes his eyes shut.
"It burns like hell," he groans through clenched teeth.
Rebecca nods, already doing the same for herself. She pours some over a deep cut on her side. "That's good," she says, trying to sound encouraging, even though both of them are trembling.
They wait, half-dread and half-hope. Minutes pass. Then slowly, they feel it: a faint jolt. It's as if their hearts suddenly find a stronger beat, as if the fog in their minds lifts ever so slightly. A surge of energy – false, synthetic, but unmistakably there. They clutch at it gratefully.
Richard exhales a breath he didn't know he was holding. "It's not magic," he says, voice clearer than before. "But it's something."
He rises to his feet, shotgun still in hand, feeling steadier now. "We have to get moving. We have to get out of this godforsaken place…" He trails off, a shudder passing through him. "I… I'll have nightmares about this place for a long time," he mutters.
Rebecca casts one last look around. The stained walls, the jars with faded labels, the soaked medical notes that will never reach anyone… It's a gallery of mistakes and horrors.
She turns back to Richard. Quietly, she says, "Thank you."
He looks at her, and for the first time since this nightmare began, there's no bravado in his eyes. "I wouldn't leave you," he says quietly. "Not even if I wanted to. And believe me… sometimes I do."
Rebecca nods. There are no promises, no sure words. Just two survivors, breathing in the same rare, small moment of peace between horrors. Even that is something.
A distant beep echoes through the silence. A hidden system is powering up somewhere. A trap resetting… or something else.
Richard's shoulders stiffen. "Time to move," he whispers.
He stands up fully now, flashlight in one hand, shotgun in the other.
Rebecca straightens, breathless but alert. She checks her pistol and grips her flashlight tighter.
Together, they limp out of the infirmary and back into the darkness of the station, ready to face whatever comes next.
Author's Note: As a responsible writer, I don't endorse consuming strange herbs, but those forgotten concoctions really deserve a second look. After all, that blue plant wasn't exactly glowing with promise.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing doesn't stop the hunger… but it sure leaves you too broke to eat.If you enjoy what I do and want me to keep creating instead of turning into the village square juice vendor (something I've seriously considered), your support on Patreon would be like a warm coffee for my soul… and maybe even food for my stomach.
Here's the link—no pressure, no drama, just love and a lot of worn-out keyboard keys: on my Patreon I upload 10 extra chapters every Saturday. They're in English, with some small narrative changes, but nothing too drastic.
👉 [patreon.com/Dalaraamater]
If you'd like to support me with a one-time donation instead of a Patreon commitment, here's my secret Ko-fi link. Every $10 milestone reached will unlock 5 extra chapters of the most-voted story here on Webnovel.
https://ko-fi.com/dalaraamater