July 23, 1998 – Over Raccoon Forest, Bravo Team Helicopter
The rotor blades hammered the night sky, steady as a heartbeat. Rebecca Chambers sat near the rear, clutching her medical kit like it might steady her nerves. Her first field mission with S.T.A.R.S., and already her stomach was a knot.
Rebecca was the youngest member of S.T.A.R.S., barely eighteen, her short-cropped brown hair framing a face that still carried a trace of innocence. She wasn't built like the hardened soldiers around her, but she carried herself with quiet determination. A plain medic's vest sat over her fatigues, her pistol holstered awkwardly at her hip, as though it still felt out of place there.
Around her head, tied snugly, was a faded red bandana — not part of any issued uniform. She'd kept it since middle school, a gift from Jack Hale. Back then, she had been too shy to tell him how much it meant to her, so she wore it now, a small comfort in the middle of Bravo Team's first mission in Raccoon Forest.
Bravo Team had been briefed: investigate the murders in the Arklay Mountains, a string of missing hikers and half-eaten bodies. Officially, it was an "animal attack." Rebecca wasn't so sure.
Enrico broke the silence, his voice calm but edged. "Eyes open. Locals say people vanished along Route 17. If we find survivors, Chambers, you're first in. Everyone else, standard search-and-rescue formation."
Rebecca nodded quickly, forcing herself to look out the window. The forest stretched endlessly beneath them, a sea of black treetops shrouded in fog. For a heartbeat, she thought she saw smoke in the distance — charred wreckage glowing faintly between the trees. She blinked, unsure if it was real.
Then the world exploded.
A streak of fire cut up from the forest. The helicopter jolted violently as the fuselage shuddered under the blast. Rebecca slammed against her harness, ears ringing, alarms shrieking in her skull.
"We're hit! We're hit!" the pilot shouted.
The cabin shook apart, metal screeching. Loose gear rattled. Bravo Team clung to whatever they could as the nose dipped hard. The forest rushed up to meet them, fast and merciless.
"Brace!" Enrico roared.
Rebecca squeezed her eyes shut as the chopper plowed into the treeline. Branches shattered, glass burst, and the night dissolved into fire and screaming metal.
Crash Site – Moments Later
Rebecca's eyes snapped open. She gasped, choking on smoke. Her ears rang so loud she could barely hear her own breath. The helicopter was a broken carcass around her, torn metal jutting from the earth like bones.
She forced herself upright, unbuckling her harness with trembling hands. Forest was already dragging Kenneth clear, shouting over the fire. Enrico hauled Edward to his feet, blood matting the man's hair.
Rebecca turned toward the cockpit — and froze.
The pilot was still strapped in, his head slumped against shattered glass. Flames licked across his uniform. The canopy had caved in around him. She knew instantly there was no saving him.
Her stomach churned. She had treated gunshot wounds, patched broken bones in training — but this… this was different.
"Chambers!" Enrico's voice cut through, sharp and commanding. "Get your kit and move! We need to regroup!"
Rebecca staggered clear of the wreckage, medical bag slung over her shoulder. Her boots crunched on glass and mud. Behind her, the helicopter roared higher as fire spread through its ruined body.
She dropped to her knees beside Edward. Blood ran down the side of his face, pooling beneath his ear. His eyes fluttered, unfocused.
"Stay still," she told him, her voice steadier than she felt. She pulled gauze from her kit, pressing it firmly against the wound. "You've got a concussion. Don't move too much."
Edward groaned quietly, his hand twitching toward his sidearm even as Rebecca held him down. His gaze shifted toward the tree line, tense, watchful.
Rebecca followed his eyes but saw only fog and shadow. She swallowed hard and taped the bandage into place, though her hands trembled.
Nearby, Kenneth cursed as he tried to put weight on his ankle. She hurried over, quickly stabilizing the joint with a wrap. "You'll be fine, but don't run on it."
Enrico was pacing, scanning the treeline. "We regroup, then we move out. Forest, check the gear. Chambers, keep them on their feet."
Rebecca nodded, but her attention was drawn again to the smoke rising beyond the crash site. Darker, heavier. She hesitated, then followed it through the fog.
Her boots squelched in the mud as she pushed past a line of charred pines. And then she saw it.
Burned-out Humvees. A prison transport on its side. Wreckage scattered across the dirt road like bones. The smell hit her like a punch — rot, blood, fuel, something sour that made her stomach turn.
"Captain!" she called. The rest of Bravo hurried up behind her. Silence fell over the group as they took in the scene.
Forest whistled low. "Military convoy. Fresh, too."
Enrico crouched by one of the burned-out vehicles, his face grim. "So that's what we saw from the air."
Rebecca swallowed hard and moved closer. Her eyes caught something on the ground: a bloodstained folder half-soaked in mud. She picked it up with trembling fingers, flipping it open.
[CONFIDENTIAL] – Umbrella Corporation – Asset Transfer Report
Subject: PFC Jack Hale – Prisoner Transport
Rebecca froze. Jack…?
Her chest tightened. The name hit her harder than the smoke in her lungs. Jack Hale — the boy she'd known in middle school, the one she'd been too shy to talk to without blushing — his name was stamped across a prisoner manifest.
Enrico looked over her shoulder, eyes narrowing. "So that's who they were moving. A soldier gone bad."
Kenneth frowned. "Think he's the one who shot us down? Fits, doesn't it? Military training. Prisoner transport goes sideways. Then suddenly, Bravo takes a hit in the same airspace."
Forest muttered, "And these MPs? Maybe he took them out on his way out. Wouldn't be the first guy to snap and start killing his own."
Rebecca's hands shook. She wanted to speak, to argue, but her eyes drifted over the bodies scattered in the mud. Torn uniforms. Shredded flesh. Blood pooling under ruined helmets.
And the bite marks.
One soldier's arm was stripped to the bone, gnawed raggedly. Another's throat was chewed open, the edges unmistakably torn by teeth.
Rebecca's breath caught. "No… it wasn't him," she whispered, too soft for the others to hear.
Enrico stood, his jaw tight. "Whether it was this Hale or not, he's gone. If he survived, he's armed, dangerous, and unstable. Stay sharp. We move out."
Rebecca hugged the file against her chest, heart racing. Jack Hale — a convict, tied to a massacre, blamed for shooting Bravo down. But only she had noticed the truth: something else had torn those soldiers apart.
Enrico's eyes swept over Bravo Team, their faces lit by the faint glow of fire through the fog.
"This prisoner is dangerous; we can't leave him running around the forest. Bravo Team splits into pairs. Sweep the area. If you find him, don't engage — report in. Understood?"
The team nodded, checking their gear and radios. And then, one by one, they vanished into the mist.
Rebecca swallowed hard. She hugged her medkit closer, the red bandana on her head damp with sweat. She hadn't said a word about the bite marks she'd seen on the MPs. About her suspicion that Jack wasn't the killer. That truth sat heavily in her chest.
Alone now, her boots squelched against mud as she followed a trail through the trees. The silence was unbearable, broken only by distant growls that echoed through the forest.
That was when she saw it.
Through the fog, looming in the dark, the silhouette of a train stretched across the clearing. Its headlights glowed faintly, burning pale beams into the mist.
The Ecliptic Express.
Rebecca's breath caught. The massive passenger train sat strangely still, as if frozen mid-journey. Windows cracked. Doors ajar.
She stepped aboard, pistol raised with trembling hands. The interior was eerily quiet. Blood smeared the polished floor. Bodies slumped in the seats, their skin pale and gray.
Then one of them moved.
A man in a torn business suit rose slowly, his head hanging to the side. His jaw sagged, a wet growl rattling from his throat. White eyes fixed on Rebecca as it staggered toward her.
Her heart hammered. She lifted her pistol, both hands shaking so badly she could barely line up the sights.
"Stop—stay back!" she cried, voice breaking. Her finger hovered on the trigger, but fear locked her muscles.
The zombie lunged.
Rebecca screamed, squeezing the trigger — her shot went wide, shattering glass. She stumbled back, fumbling with the pistol.
Then another gunshot split the air.
The zombie's head snapped back, a dark spray hitting the window. It collapsed at her feet, twitching once before going still.
Rebecca froze, breathing ragged, pistol still shaking in her hands. Slowly, she turned toward the source of the shot.
A figure stood in the doorway of the train car, smoke curling from the barrel of a pistol. His tan prison jumpsuit was smeared with blood and mud, his face pale but alive. Blond hair. Blue eyes.
"Rebecca?" Jack Hale said, his voice low, almost disbelieving.
Her heart lurched. Childhood crush, high school memory, now standing before her as a convict branded a murderer.
"Jack…" she whispered.
And for the first time since the crash, the fear in her chest eased — replaced with something else entirely.
(A/N: This is a rant from me to you guys. I just replayed RE0 and realized they all split up. Like, what? Bro, you're high. You don't split up when there's a killer on the loose.
Let's talk about Rebecca Chambers. How the hell do you lose your only medic? She's basically the battlefield medic — and somehow she ends up wandering around on her own, doing nothing for the team. She's supposed to be support, not solo… anyways, that ends my rant.)