SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

xi. gentle, but firm

In the middle of the casino floor, there's a small fountain. An actual fountain, with a few koi fish swimming around. Their scales red and gold, reflecting the red of the emergency lights.

"Fancy," I mutter, as I sit on the edge of the pond.

"It's a luxury cruise ship, they have shit like this," he explains. "My question is, how are those fish still alive?"

I shrug, and sit on the edge of the pond, and decide to trail my finger in the water. The koi swim up to my finger, circling it. "Does this mean whatever happened here didn't happen too long ago?"

"Looks like it," he says, his jaw clenched.

We hear a click, like a tap opening, and then the water flowing from the little fountain in the middle of the koi pond stops, stutters, and then starts overflowing with red water.

It smells metallic, like rust, but also like blood.

"The hell?" Leon exclaims. In an instant, he grabs me by my forearm, tearing me away from the edge of the pond. "Is that blood?"

Before I get a chance to reply, one of the fish mutates before our own eyes. It triples in size, almost the size of a large dog, and springs up from the pond, a fish on four legs. Its beautiful red scales are now grey and white, and its mouth looks big enough for my head to fit in it. It jumps up in the air, looks around, and sets its sights on me.

Before it can jump again, Leon pushes me behind him and takes aim, shoots it in right in the mouth.

"The water is infected too?!" I say, disappointed and afraid all at once.

We hear the pond's water bubbling behind us, and as we turn, three more fish splash out, their razor sharp teeth glinting in the emergency red light, the blood-like water dripping down their grey scales.

"Shit," Leon grumbles. "Get behind me."

He shoots the first one, and it stays down, and I aim my gun at the second one, but it starts jumping all over, right above our heads, and we both miss a few shots because of how fast it's moving.

"They're too fast!" I shout, panic gripping my throat at the sight of their teeth. Leon is standing behind me, his back to me, and I realise that we're circled by a few more of the mutated fish. I feel his back rise and fall against mine as he calms his breaths.

"We got this," he tells me.

He shoots a couple down which are in front of him, and they split in half as the bullet penetrates their body. I manage to shoot one down, and it flops in front of me, before it shrinks back down to the size of the koi fish, and explodes.

I turn to Leon, simultaneously confused and excited at how easily it died. "Did you see—"

"Clementine, watch out!"

The last one strikes at me, hitting me across the neck and chest with its tail. The pain is immediate, white hot and stinging, like being slashed with a knife. It lunges at me again, quick as a viper, and sinks its teeth into my bicep, and I cry out in pain as I feel its teeth rip out parts of my skin.

Leon pushes me out of the way and shoots the thing, and then quickly draws out his combat knife and stabs it a few times as it lies there, a clump of scales.

When I hear the thing exploding, I try to stand up, but the cut and bite ripples across my entire body. "Fuck," I cry, and feel myself falling back down.