The Mold in Winter (Resident Evil x Male Reader)

Chapter 42: What Lurks in the Dungeon

Y/N POV

For now, it seemed to be best me and Ethan stick together. While the Duke had provided a good area to search for Rose, the question was how would we get to Lady Dimitrescu's personal quarters? We had no idea where they were and we still had Dimitrescu and her daughters to contend with.

We exited the Duke's small room and made our way up the stairs  to the area where I'd encountered Bela before. It seemed both her and Cassandra had moved on from this point so we were free to search.

The door to the right was initially locked but we managed to click it open only to reveal the corridor we'd walked down earlier, a possible shortcut for later but not of any use to us now. Next we went over to the door at the far end, the one I'd tried going through before however this one was also locked, with no way of opening it yet.

That left the winding staircase going up to the next level. I'd not explored this part yet so I was interested, Ethan went up first with me close behind. Up here we found some vases which actually had some of that Lei in it, finally allowing me to get my hands on some. I think between the three vases I shattered I came away with about 500 lei in total.

At the north-end of the hall was a door labelled 'Wine Room' that didn't have much going for it. I did make note of an empty bottle holder on a pedestal but aside from that, there was nothing. On the left was another locked door so that left the door on the right.

Sticking out the door was a sculpture of a face. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that one of its eye slots was empty. Luckily I turned to Ethan gestured towards the eye and said "There we go." Ethan stepped forward with the small maroon eye in his hand, he reached up and sure enough, the eye fit perfectly, there was that satisfying click again as the door unlocked though this relief was short-lived.

As we entered this, I noticed multiple flies buzzing around in front of us. What started out as only a few developed into a full-on swarm that all flocked towards us and began violently biting away at us. 

Ethan began swatting as we stepped back out of the corridor into the main hall. The insects went to the end of the corridor and merged together revealing a laughing Cassandra, she grinned at us and said "I haven't cut open a man in a while, now I have two. Let me string you both up, slice your jugulars and just watch. Taken alive? Dead? Which would you prefer."

Strangely enough, she pointed at me and said "It's a pity mother doesn't want us to just kill you yet. Doesn't mean I can't have a quick taste." Ethan raised his gun and opened fire, I warned him "Ethan, bullets won't do anything to them, trust me I've tried."

We took off running, heading down the new corridor, at the end was a locked door. However just left of that was another which we ran inside. My eyes widened at first as I saw nowhere else to go. Cassandra could be heard yelling "I can't hold back any longer!"

I spat "It's a dead end! Damn it, we're trapped!" We looked around frantically for a moment before I noticed a gap in the wall, big enough for us to fit in, covered loosely with wooden boards.

Turning to Ethan I said "Ethan, help me get these boards out of the way." He nodded, saying "Right." He rushed over to me and with a joint effort, we managed to yank the wood clean off the wall. Turning to the door we saw the swarm of flies slowly seeping through so we wasted no time crawling through the passage and leaping down a hole, crashing through more sticking out boards and landing in a stone brick room.

As we both got back up to our feet, we looked around at our surroundings hoping for some hint as to where we were exactly. My eyes landed on a piece of paper, picking it up I noticed it was some sort of letter.

'June 9th 1958,

It was my first day working at the castle today. I as most shocked to see the other staff were all women! The mistress and her daughters were very adamant they wouldn't bite. It was quite peculiar.'