Resident Evil: Rebirth

Well, here we go again. I can’t wait to see how someone tries to manipulate nature for their own selfish gain this time, thought Leon, as he diligently paced along the forgotten trail.

It had been over a decade since these woods were traversed by humans, since the destruction of Raccoon City. For Leon, it was merely a stroll down memory lane.

He had been feeling sentimental about his unofficial job as BOW Exterminator and felt that the best way to approach this possible new danger was to face it the same way he did when he faced what he considered his most dangerous mission of all: with a determination to accomplish it.

True, every mission of this sort since his one-man war with Saddler had been considerably more dangerous, but they were all based on Saddler’s Plaga creations. Leon, living through all the different hells that plagued the world from both Umbrella and Saddler, didn’t let the experiences give him a false sense of invincibility.

Most of the time it’s close calls, and the rest is just luck, he thought, keeping up his pace.

What had haunted Leon the most about walking through these God-forsaken woods was not the threat of being caught in a sneak attack, but the overall lifelessness of the place. The silence was deafening, with every sound registering as a possible Licker, modified Ganado, or some other horrific freak of nature seeking to kill him.

Leon’s sentimentality stretched to his apparel and weapon choice as well as his thinking process. Underneath a jacket resembling the one from the Illuminados war, he wore a Kevlar vest, which housed his trusted knife. Keeping an M-16 assault rifle on his back for heavy enemies, he held aloft a simple 9mm pistol with flashlight.

“I guess I’m early for the party. No one’s shown up yet”, he said into his phone after pulling it out.

“Well, Leon, I don’t need to tell you that the best time to be on your guard is when things get too easy, do I?”, Hunnigan replied.

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. Have your satellites picked anything up that I should look out for?” he asked, keeping his eyes focused on his surroundings.

“There’s still too much interference from the leftover radiation in the atmosphere above the city and the recent “Raccoon disaster rebirth” didn’t give Washington much incentive to look too deeply into the surrounding area.”

“Knowing my luck, the radiation’ll be the least of my worries” he responded, swearing to himself that something just moved in the bushes in the distance. “Keep me posted, Hunnigan. I think the guests are starting to arrive.”

Ending the call, he entered combat mode as he started to approach the bushes where he believed he saw something move. His beliefs were proved accurate, as there was a person shivering and whimpering on the ground as though just escaping torture of the worst possible kind.

The former cop in Leon wanted to help the man up and ask what was wrong, but his newfound instincts told him that with any situation like this, the weak aren’t always so weak.

Using the trees as a point of reference, Leon stayed two trees away from the man, deciding it was safe to see if he was infected or not.

“Sir, are you alright?” he said in an elevated voice to compensate for distance. He allowed the remnants of his police training to override in that instance.

The man did not reply, but just merely kept whimpering, keeping his face out of Leon’s sight. The fact that the man technically refused to let Leon look into his eyes immediately set off alarm bells in Leon’s mind. He readied his gun and pointed it at the man’s head, saying, “I’m just gonna ask you this one time: stand up and let me see you.”