Raccoon Forest – Near Bravo's Downed Helicopter
The forest held its breath.
Mist crept between the trees, clinging low to the ground, wrapping the clearing in a pale shroud. At its center, Bravo Team's helicopter lay broken across the mud. The tail boom had snapped on impact, the rotors twisted into useless iron thorns. The fuselage was blackened and torn wide where the rocket had struck.
The stink of burned fuel hung heavy, sharp enough to sting the throat.
Chris Redfield crouched near the shattered cockpit, his gloved hand brushing the scorched plating. His jaw set hard.
"RPG hit this bird. No way this was an accident."
Barry Burton scanned the treeline with his revolver raised. "Figures. We finally get called in on a missing-persons case, and someone's lobbing rockets at helicopters." He nudged a broken headset lying in the dirt, its cord trailing back toward the wreck. "Pilot's gone. Poor bastard never stood a chance."
Jill Valentine moved carefully among the debris, flashlight sweeping across empty seats and scattered gear. The blood on the floor was thick but not pooled. There were no bodies, no tracks leading away—just absence.
"They survived the crash," she murmured. "But where are they now?"
The clearing answered with silence. No birds. No insects. No wind. Only the faint hiss of cooling metal and the occasional drip of fuel onto hot casing.
Wesker stood a little apart, sunglasses gleaming in the dim glow of firelight. He didn't study the wreckage so much as the mist beyond it. The air seemed to lean toward him, the fog curling like it wanted to whisper in his ear.
Chris rose slowly, brushing soot from his gloves. "If they walked out of here, they didn't go far."
The ground answered with a dull tremor.
Another.
Slow, heavy. Measured like a metronome.
Jill's head snapped toward the fog. Her grip tightened on her pistol. Barry swore under his breath. Even Wesker tilted his head slightly, acknowledging what the others now felt in their bones.
The footsteps pressed closer, deliberate and steady. Not crashing through the forest like an animal—each step was placed, measured, like a soldier advancing on patrol.
Alpha turned toward the sound as one. Chris shifted to the front, rifle steady. Jill swept her flashlight across the mist, the beam catching faint movement. Barry flanked left, revolver low but ready.
The fog peeled back—something walked out of it.
At first glance, it looked almost human. Broad shoulders, lean frame, posture straight as a blade. A torn white medical gown clung to its body, flaring open with each step. Its skin was pale, threaded with black veins that pulsed faintly beneath the surface, crawling like dark cracks in glass.
Then its eyes caught the light. Two pinpoints of crimson, steady, unblinking.
Jill felt her breath catch. She had faced killers before, men and beasts alike, but there was something different here. The glow wasn't wild or bestial—it was controlled. Focused. Like a sniper's scope fixing on a target.
The thing stopped a few paces short of the clearing, head tilting slightly as though considering them. Its arms hung loose at its sides. No roar. No sudden charge.
Chris didn't fire. He lowered his cheek against the rifle stock, tracking its chest, but his finger stayed off the trigger. "Hold," he said firmly.
Barry swallowed, muttering, "That's no lost civvie."
The Tyrant moved again, slow and deliberate. Not closing the gap all at once, but circling. Every few steps, its gaze shifted from one Alpha member to the next, weighing them. Studying them.
It passed the wreckage, dragging one hand along the scorched metal as it went. The black veins crawled brighter across its arm with the contact, a faint shimmer like heat distortion rippling around its fingers.
The hairs rose on the back of Jill's neck. It wasn't posturing. It was thinking.
Wesker's voice was calm, clinical. "Stay disciplined. It hasn't engaged. Yet."
That was when the thing shifted. Its head snapped toward Joseph Frost, the team's mechanic, who had edged closer to the wreck. The red eyes locked on him with predatory precision.
The ground trembled as the Tyrant planted one step forward, heavier than before.
Joseph froze, rifle coming up too late.
The Tyrant moved in a blur—no reckless lunge, just a soldier's advance, precise and direct. Its hand shot forward, clamped around Joseph's throat, and lifted him off the ground as if he weighed nothing.
Joseph kicked and thrashed, boots scraping against the fuselage. His finger squeezed down, muzzle flashes strobing in the fog as he emptied his magazine into the Tyrant's chest at point-blank range.
The rounds struck true—tearing cloth, gouging pale flesh—but the spiderweb of black veins beneath pulsed brighter, sealing over the wounds as if mocking the effort.
The Tyrant's red eyes never blinked.
With a single, deliberate motion, it twisted its wrist.
A sharp crack echoed through the clearing.
Joseph's body went limp, rifle clattering from his hands as his head lolled unnaturally to the side. The Tyrant dropped him without ceremony, the corpse landing in the dirt like discarded trash.
Chris's voice snapped the spell. "Open fire!"
Alpha erupted—rifle bursts, Jill's pistol snapping, Barry's .44 thundering. The Tyrant staggered but didn't stop. Wounds sealed almost instantly, the black veins glowing brighter with each impact.
It moved again, smooth and precise. One arm swept wide, slamming Barry against a tree with bone-rattling force. Jill ducked a strike that left a crater in the earth where she'd stood. Chris's shots stitched across its head, but the monster only turned toward him, eyes burning hotter.
"Fall back!" Chris barked.
Chris slapped his radio to his vest as they pushed through the trees. "This is Redfield! We need immediate extraction, do you copy?"
Static. Then a faint reply. Brad's voice, tight with panic.
"Negative! I can't stay here, it's not safe—"
The roar of rotors cut overhead. For half a heartbeat, Alpha lifted their eyes in relief. But the helicopter banked hard, nose swinging away from the clearing. Its searchlight swept once across the fog, then disappeared into the night.
"Goddamn it, Brad!" Barry bellowed, rage breaking through discipline. "He left us!"
"Forget the bird," Jill snapped back. Her pistol tracked the mist, eyes scanning for movement. "We keep moving, tight formation. Watch your spacing."
Chris's order came sharply: "Fall back!"
The team scattered into the trees, gunfire strobing through the mist. Jill pivoted with them, but the fog swallowed Chris almost instantly. His rifle fire shifted left, muffled by distance.
"Chris!" she called, but her tone wasn't pleading—it was measured, gauging position. No answer.
Barry grabbed her shoulder. "We've got to move!"
They pushed through the trees, the forest pressing tighter around them with every step. The mist grew thicker, clinging to their gear, muffling their breath. Then the treeline broke.
The mansion loomed ahead.
Its stone façade rose out of the fog like the carcass of some ancient beast, windows glinting dully in the moonlight. Ivy crawled along the cracked walls, strangling the architecture in green veins. The front doors stood tall, carved oak, scarred with age but defiant—a mouth waiting to swallow them whole.
The air grew colder near it, stiller, as if the forest itself refused to touch the place. The trees bent away from the clearing, leaving the structure to brood in isolation.
Jill slowed, scanning the grounds with her pistol raised. Her tactical eye catalogued cover points, sight lines, possible entries. But beneath the soldier's checklist came something deeper: a wrongness that clung to the building, a silence too heavy to be natural.
Barry muttered, "That's one hell of a mansion in the middle of a forest."
Jill kept her voice level, though her stomach turned. "It'll have to do. We can use it to escape that thing chasing us."
Behind them, the Tyrant lingered at the treeline, crimson eyes fixed on the mansion. For a long moment, it simply stared, as if calculating. Then it turned away, vanishing back into the mist.
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A/N: Yo, I'm still new to writing, so any feedback helps! Don't just say "MC dumb = story dumb" 😅 — I made the MC naive on purpose so I can show their growth later. Would love constructive criticism so I can keep improving. Thanks for checking it out!