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"Clang——Thud——"
The ascent that had lasted for what felt like an eternity finally came to a halt.
The elevator doors slowly opened.
A thick, heavy odor, a mix of aged dust, mold, and rust, assaulted their senses, making them gag.
They found themselves standing on the second floor of a vast, abandoned hall.
Beneath their feet was a wide concrete walkway that circled the entire hall.
This place might have once been glorious. From the ceiling in the center of the hall hung a massive crystal chandelier, now covered in cobwebs and rust.
But now, that chandelier had long lost its former splendor. Most of its crystal pendants had fallen off, and those remaining were filthy, resembling a giant skeleton suspended in mid-air, emanating an ominous aura in the dim light.
Large patches of plaster on the ceiling and walls curled and peeled off like dead skin afflicted by some disease, revealing the ugly concrete structure beneath, stained with black mildew spots and water marks.
The stone pillars in the hall were coated with a thick, black, sticky substance, like dried tar or perhaps the residue left by something rotting.
On the ground floor, several huge, rust-stained oil drums were scattered haphazardly. Nearby sat a military jeep with deflated tires, its body covered in a thick layer of dust.
The entire space was permeated with an atmosphere of decay and despair, forgotten by time and invaded by death.
Looking at the disgusting, yellowish-white zombie fluids splattered all over himself, Steve felt his stomach churn violently.
He ran to a corner, tore off a piece of greasy canvas covering some crate, and frantically scrubbed himself with it.
He scrubbed hard, as if trying to wipe away the humiliating and terrifying memories along with the filth from his body.
Once cleaned, he took a deep breath, as if gathering all his courage, and walked back to the front of the group.
He patted his chest, trying hard to make his voice sound confident and reliable.
"Don't worry, I won't mess up again."
He straightened his back, striking what he thought was a cool pose with one hand on his hip, the other pointing towards the deeper darkness ahead.
"I'm really..."
Before he could finish his sentence.
"Crack——Crunch——Rumble——!"
A horrifying, grating sound of wood and concrete breaking suddenly erupted from beneath his feet!
The expression on Steve's Face instantly froze.
He only had time to let out a short, strange yelp before the floor beneath him collapsed with a thunderous crash!
His entire figure vanished from the group's sight in an instant.
"Boom——!!"
A massive cloud of dust billowed up from the newly formed hole below, like a gray mushroom cloud.
The entire hall fell into a deathly silence.
Only the choking dust continued to drift slowly through the air.
A moment later.
"Cough... ack... ah... scared... scared me to death..."
A voice, laced with violent coughing and a sob-like quaver, drifted up eerily from the dust-filled darkness below.
Noah, Leon, Claire, and Ada walked expressionlessly to the edge of the large hole and looked down.
Steve's luck was surprisingly good.
Beneath the collapsed floor was a small mound of accumulated dust and debris.
The soft pile of dirt perfectly cushioned the force of his fall.
He was now stuck in that dirt pile in an utterly pathetic posture. Apart from being badly frightened and having a mouthful of dust, he didn't seem to have suffered any substantial injuries.
"Are you alright?"
Leon stood with his arms crossed, looking down at him from above. His tone betrayed neither concern nor mockery.
"I'm... I'm fine! I'm fine!"
Steve struggled to climb out of the dirt pile. While frantically brushing dust off himself, he loudly insisted, trying desperately to save Face.
"Don't worry, a little hiccup like this won't hurt me!"
"Hrrr... hrrr... hrrr..."
Right at that moment.
A low, muffled growl, like the sound of a tattered bellows being pulled, slowly emanated from behind the abandoned jeep.
The sound carried a weight that was deeply unsettling.
Steve's body stiffened abruptly.
He turned his head mechanically, inch by inch.
A grotesquely large, disproportionately swollen figure slowly emerged from the shadows behind the jeep.
It was a zombie.
But it was different from any they had encountered before.
Its size was simply enormous.
Almost twice as wide as an ordinary person.
The prison uniform it wore, now unrecognizable in its original color, was stretched taut over its abnormally bloated muscles, looking as if it might burst open at any moment.
Its skin was a sickly grayish-white, covered in large patches of dark purple lividity and horrific wounds oozing yellow pus.
Its Face retained only a vague semblance of human features and a foul-smelling, gaping maw stretched to its ears from the rotting of its facial muscles.
However.
When Steve got a clear look at the massive, terrifying zombie.
The expression on his Face instantly became incredibly strange.
That adolescent-specific, feigned arrogance and toughness crumbled instantly.
It was replaced by an extremely complex, bizarre look, a mixture of grief, anger, and despair.
Slowly, he raised the two cold beretta pistols Noah had given him.
His arms trembled violently.
His teeth were clenched so hard they audibly ground together.
A storm of agony churned in his brown eyes.
He stared fixedly at the enormous zombie lumbering step by step towards him, his finger resting on the trigger, yet unable to pull it.
Inside him, it was as if two beasts were engaged in a brutal, savage fight.
It was a struggle so intense it felt capable of tearing a person's Soul apart.
The four people upstairs didn't have nearly as much internal drama.
In their eyes, it was just a larger, seemingly more durable moving target.
With almost no communication.
Leon and Ada were already preparing to jump down through the hole.
Claire also raised her MP5, aiming its muzzle at the zombie's head.
However, just as they were about to act.
"Don't shoot!!!"
A shrill, almost mournful roar erupted violently from Steve's throat!
The immense pain and despair contained in that voice caused the four about to act to pause momentarily.
They were all stunned.
Simultaneously, their gazes shifted from the zombie to the nearly broken boy.
Only Noah, upon hearing this roar, narrowed his deep black eyes slightly.
He glanced at the tattered prison uniform on the zombie.
Then he looked at Steve's Face, completely contorted with extreme agony.
A thought flashed instantly through his mind.
The enormous zombie downstairs seemed to pay no heed to Steve's shout.
Its completely clouded eyes were fixed "on" the only living being before it.
A louder, greed- and hunger-filled growl rumbled from its throat.
It was getting closer and closer to Steve.
Ten meters.
Five meters.
Three meters.
The foul stench, a mix of rotting flesh and death, was already assaulting his senses.
"Father!!!!!!!!"
Tears, scalding and bitter, streamed down Steve's Face.
With every ounce of his strength, he let out this heart-rending, desperate cry.
Immediately after.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!..."
The two beretta pistols finally spat tongues of liberating flame.
The deafening gunshots echoed wildly through the vast, empty hall.
Steve was like a madman, squeezing the triggers.
He wasn't aiming.
He was simply channeling all his rage, his frustration, his sorrow, and his despair into the torrent of bullets pouring forth.
One round, then another.
They slammed mercilessly into that colossal figure—once so familiar, now utterly alien.
Bullets tore through rotting flesh and shattered bone.
Under the dense hail of fire, the massive zombie was forced back step by step, bursts of dark red mist erupting from its body.
It finally fell.
Its enormous frame crashed heavily onto the cold concrete floor with a dull, heavy thud.
It twitched a few times, then fell completely still.
"Click... click..."
The crisp sound of firing pins striking empty chambers came from the gun barrels.
Both magazines were completely spent.
Steve's arms dropped limply to his sides.
The two beretta pistols, still trailing wisps of smoke, clattered to the ground from his slackened grip.
He could hold on no longer. His knees buckled, and he fell heavily, kneeling before the now unrecognizable corpse.
"Ugh... ugh... AAAAAHH—!!"
Clutching his head, he let out a pained howl, like that of a wounded beast.
The agony suppressed for too long, in this moment, engulfed him completely like a bursting dam.
The four of them dropped silently from the second floor.
They landed on the ground with almost no sound.
Claire watched Steve kneeling on the floor, weeping as if his heart was being torn out. Her blue eyes were filled with pity.
Her kind nature wouldn't allow her to ignore a youth experiencing such immense suffering.
Instinctively, she wanted to step forward to comfort him, to pat his shoulder.
A warm, strong hand pulled her back.
Claire turned her head, looking at Noah with confusion.
Noah simply gave her a gentle shake of his head.
His voice was very soft.
"Some things, he needs to figure out for himself."
He looked at the youth kneeling before the cold corpse, crying like a child. His gaze held no sympathy, no pity, only a profound, unfathomable calm.
Some pain is an unavoidable part of growing up.
No one can bear it for another.
Claire looked at Noah's calm profile, then at the figure not far away, already completely consumed by grief.
In the end, she stopped.
Sometimes, the cruelest kindness is to simply stand by and watch.
Steve knelt on the ground, his mouth moving subconsciously, murmuring the same words over and over again.
"Father... father..."
His voice was hoarse and despairing, like a blunt knife sawing back and forth across everyone's heart.
It was impossible to tell how much time had passed.
Steve's sobs finally began to subside.
He slowly raised his head and stood up from the ground.
Turning around, he looked at Noah and the other three. His eyes, now swollen and red, held no light.
"My father..."
His voice was so raspy it sounded sandpapered.
"...was once a lowly Researcher for the Umbrella Corporation."
"He was clever, but... also very timid, very cowardly."
"He'd had enough of that life, being treated like a tool, with no dignity. So, he stole some of the company's confidential data, planning to sell it and take me... take us, far away."
"But... he was discovered."
At this point, Steve's body began to tremble uncontrollably again.
He took several deep breaths, barely managing to suppress the immense sorrow threatening to erupt once more.
"Because of this... my mother, they... killed her."
"Then, my father and I were brought here..."
His voice grew softer and softer.
"He was always so timid, so useless..."
A smile, uglier than crying, suddenly appeared on Steve's Face, filled with self-mockery and hatred.
"Why did he do something so stupid... He was an... incomprehensible fool..."
"A hopeless... idiot..."
He cursed his own father, yet tears once again, traitorously, streamed down his Face.
He wiped his tears roughly with the back of his hand, then plopped down onto the floor.
Leaning against the cold jeep, he hugged his knees and buried his head deep between them.
His voice came out muffled from between his knees.
"Let me... let me and my father stay here a little longer."
"You go on ahead. I... I'll catch up."
Noah walked over and crouched down beside him.
He didn't offer any words of comfort.
He simply placed the two Ingram MAC-10 submachine guns he had taken earlier from the security guard's body beside Steve.
Skillfully ejecting the magazines, he pulled two fully loaded spare magazines from his own Tactical Backpack and reloaded the guns.
The crisp click of a round being chambered sounded particularly sharp in the silent hall.
After doing this, he took an unopened bottle of drinking water and a high-calorie compressed ration bar from his backpack, placing them next to the two submachine guns.
Standing up, he looked at the youth curled into a ball and said calmly:
"Your father would definitely want you to live on."
Steve's body jolted violently.
He slowly raised his head, looking into Noah's eyes, which remained calm and profound even in the dim light.
He was silent for a long time.
Then he reached out and picked up the two cold, heavy MAC-10s.
Compact, yet radiating a deadly sense of menace.
He also picked up the water and the ration bar, stuffing them forcefully into the inner pocket of his oversized denim jacket.
He looked at Noah and gave a firm, heavy nod.
His lips moved, and finally, only a single hoarse syllable came out.
"...Thank you."
Noah said no more.
He turned and, with Claire, Leon, and Ada, walked towards the large, sealed iron door on the other side of the hall.
Leon walked at the front, pushing hard against the heavy door.
"Screech—"
With a grating sound of friction, the door was pushed open.
The light from beyond the door illuminated their silent, resolute backs.
Without looking back, the four of them walked straight out.
The vast, deathly silent, decay-filled hall was left with only Steve.
And beside him, the cold body of his father—who would never again nag at him, be disappointed in him, or hold expectations for him.
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