Ryan stood behind the other two, face pale, breathing shallow, every inch the shell-shocked civilian still reeling from his first kill. A college kid in over his head.
Only he knew how calm it was behind the mask.
Everything so far had gone exactly as he'd expected.
Barry glanced back at him. "You holding up?"
"Yeah." Ryan let his voice waver. "Just... scared."
His gaze drifted to the corner where Derek lay, and something genuine twisted in his chest. A quiet, complicated grief.
Derek was his friend. They'd come out here to hike, nothing more. Two college buddies on a camping trip, and now one of them was lying on the floor of a nightmare, rotting from the inside out through no fault of his own.
Ryan's assessment was clinical even as the feeling lingered. He doesn't have long. The virus will finish what it started soon enough.
Jill caught the direction of his stare. "What is it?" she asked softly.
"His name's Derek." Ryan's eyes dimmed for a beat as he looked at the crumpled figure. "He's my friend. I'm sure of that much. The rest... I can't let myself think about yet."
Jill's expression softened. The kid had saved her life minutes ago. That bought a lot of goodwill. "Proper introductions, then. I'm Jill Valentine, S.T.A.R.S. Alpha Team. This is Barry. Don't push yourself. Staying safe is what matters. Stick with us."
"Thank you." Ryan dropped his head, letting just the right amount of helplessness show through.
"Do we... do we really have to keep going deeper?" He timed the question well, threading it with a tremor of panic. "That thing back there was horrifying. I don't know if I can handle more."
"We have to." Barry's tone left no room for debate. "Staying put is a death sentence. We move together. Nobody splits off."
The three of them were about to set out when a faint scraping sound drifted from the corner.
Barry whipped around, instantly alert. "Who's there?"
Jill drew her pistol in one fluid motion, sights trained on the source.
Ryan exhaled through his nose. Here it comes.
On the floor, Derek's fingers spasmed. His arms bent at a wrong, inhuman angle and pushed his torso upward. His eyelids cracked open to reveal slivers of milky gray where brown irises used to be.
The skin darkened as they watched, going rigid and ashen in real time. A faint thread of decay curled into the air around him.
Jill retreated a step, pupils shrinking. "How... what happened to him?"
"The virus." Barry's voice was hard. "He's not human anymore."
Jill fired first.
Bang!
The round punched into Derek's chest. He staggered, paused for half a second, and kept coming. As if the bullet meant nothing.
Jill's breath hitched. "Shooting the body doesn't work?"
Ryan knew exactly why. He kept the panic on his face and said nothing.
Only destroying the brain would put a zombie down for good.
Barry figured it out a beat later. Veteran instincts. He barked the order without hesitation.
"The head! Aim for the head, it's the only way to kill it!"
The thing that had been Derek snarled, lurching toward them on stiff legs.
"Ryan, get back!"
Barry took aim. Beside him, Jill adjusted her sights upward.
"On three. Both headshots!"
"One... two... three!"
Bang! Bang!
Two rounds struck the skull in near-perfect unison.
The zombie's body seized. Its forward momentum stopped dead, frozen for one suspended instant before it collapsed face-first onto the stone floor.
It didn't move again.
Silence filled the hall like floodwater.
Jill lowered her weapon slowly, chest heaving, the adrenaline still burning through her system.
Barry shouldered his rifle, face grim.
Ryan stared at the body on the ground. His friend's body. The grief he'd been holding at arm's length sank through him and settled somewhere deep.
There'd been nothing he could do. Nothing except stand there and watch his buddy turn into a monster, then watch two strangers put him down.
This is only the beginning. In a mansion like this, death and transformation would keep coming, over and over, until there was no one left.
The three of them gathered themselves to move on. Passing the front entrance, Jill reached for the door handle on instinct and pulled. It didn't budge. The door wasn't locked. It was sealed, jammed tight from the outside.
"It won't open," she said, frowning.
"Doesn't matter." Barry shook his head. "Mutant dogs are all over the grounds out there. Open terrain with no cover. Walking out that door is a death sentence."
He broke the silence that followed. "We can't stay here any longer. West wing, now. We move together, watch each other's backs."
Jill nodded, resolve hardening behind her eyes.
Ryan understood the full picture with perfect, sickening clarity.
None of this was accidental. Wesker had orchestrated it from the start. The front door was a dead end. The grounds outside were a killing field. The only path forward led deeper into the mansion's guts.
From the moment they'd crossed the threshold, every one of them had become test subjects for Umbrella.
His gaze fell one last time to the still form on the floor. Something heavy lodged in his chest, a knot of grief that wouldn't dissolve. Derek had been his friend. That was real, and it hurt in a way no amount of foreknowledge could blunt.
He turned away and followed the others into the dark.