Chapter 1 - A Broken Wing That Cannot Be Mended

Sometimes you don't know when to give up. Sometimes you can't give up. You have to go on. As long as the heart beats blood throughout the body, each breath is a necessity. If your limbs are still active, there is reason to press on. There are still things to be done. Each bullet marks the flesh with a certain fate. The smell of the burning chamber keeps me alive. As my fingers clench this weapon, I am in command of my own fate. No one can stop me from my chosen path. I am to show them how a whole organization can weep at my shoulder, and its walls be driven to dust by one individual. An empire can crumble at any moment. One decision can make it fall, as well as unite. As long as you are on a certain side, you make them that much stronger.

I don't need teammates to help determine a win. They are there to help me remain sane. From what I've seen, only a selected few stay alive to tell the story. I still have nightmares constantly about that city. Raccoon City. At the same time, I feel that it was wrong to demolish a city with survivors who had little chance to make it out alive. But how can someone know you are there, when there's no help? Why should we sympathize on a single individual? Who can know in a city filled with undead that a few hearts still beat with life? Your only help is your two shoulders. You may believe what you want. You may believe that there is nowhere left to go, but suicide is never the answer. When there is still a beat in these veins of mine, I shall move on if there is no tomorrow, because here, there is NO tomorrow. We live in the present. There is no solace for anyone. We live without emotion. Emotions hold us back in the battle. Feeling with concern will kill us. If I do not stop my words now, I might change my fate.

Leon S. Kennedy

The lamplight illuminated the desk as if it were the spotlight from the stage. Both his hands clasped together, as each finger interlocked. The pencil was dropped on the surface of the table, rolling to a stop. Then there was silence. Leon gasped for a breath which was neither hard to grasp, nor easy to welcome. His life flashed before his eyes when he wrote. His words brought back the dark past. Every time he recollected those thoughts, those images, it was hard to breathe again. Fingers smothered the long, dark strands of his hair. He pushed his hair back so he could let his forehead breathe. With those memories, he couldn't and wouldn't forget about the lives that he met along the way to where he was now. Claire Redfield appeared to be only at the age of innocence. He would have guessed. But giving her a gun and telling her that she needed to survive on her own, she was downright fearless. She even scared Leon at times. However, she left him for good. Claire had something in her heart, which she wanted to discover. She was determined to move on, to penetrate any boundaries that kept her away from that objective. At times, it felt she was stronger than he. "Let Me Live." It wasn't some plead, but more like a command. The command inside her head kept her running -- the spirit of an angel, yet the fierceness of god. Something inside Leon told him that he would she would be still among the living. He knew it for a fact.

Leon glanced downward and studied his own words that he wrote upon the paper in pencil. A soft whisper brushed open his lips for the word to become audible in the room. "Yes.." Fingers gripped around the end of the table, and spun around toward his door. The light from the hall gave off a dark figure in the corner of his room. Someone was watching him. His arms were crossed over his large chest. The only visible thing was that he was wearing sunglasses. He gestured to laugh since the room was dimly lit; yet, he still insisted in wearing the shades. A smirk snuggled across the sides of Leon's lips. "You know, Ace, you ought to knock before entering, I could have been startled and shot you."

"Is that a definite, Mr. Kennedy?"

Leon was rather unsure how to answer that. But he shrugged it off with an upheaval of his broad shoulders. He still questioned to himself why the shades were being a nuisance when he stared at the man. Leon's arms rubbed against the leather of his chair; he didn't recognize the chilly atmosphere in his room. Must be that he was only wearing a 'wife-beater,' and some combat pants. His feet clung the soles of the polished black boots he wore. After a silence in the room, he asked, "What can I do you for?"

"I came here to mention that we have a briefing at 1700 hours. You should get suited up." After his sentence, he left rather ignorantly. The man was certainly dressed for combat. The door was closed behind him and he headed south in the hallway.

Leon only stared at his silhouette through the blurry, transparent glass. Soon, he was gone. "I wonder what it is now." He sighed heavily as he picked up a thick coat. The tips of his fingers soaked through the fur of the coat's neckline. Soon after, he placed it on and left the room toward the briefing hall.

-------

"Since Claire is gone, Leon, you'll be here for me, right? I am asking because, well, my parents are no longer alive." She began to cry in my arms as if I was the father who needed to be the consoling one in the group. At times, I felt like Claire and I were married when Sherry was around us. Sherry always thought we were 'in love.' You know how the pre-teens girls are. I was surprised that when we got through the nightmare in Raccoon, that she didn't feel as if traumatized by the death of her parents and the city with the undead. It would be too much for a girl that age. But she reminded me of a young Claire Redfield.

As she clung to me with flowing tears, I finally realized the first time in my life that I felt I was really a father figure to her. She didn't want me to leave her, and I couldn't say no. I pulled her away from me and bent down to look her in the face with a warm smile, "There is no doubt in this world." My fingertip nudged at the bridge of her nose. She could only smile in response with the hug after. My arms looped around her form, giving her a well-deserved hug as well. She put tears in my eyes too.

"I am being as compromising as I can be, Mr. Kennedy. She'll be safe in our hands." His smile was getting on my nerves like never before. He wore a luxurious black suit with a tie, as if he needed to be well dressed to take Sherry Birkin away in the first place. However, his case was agreeably beneficial to Sherry. I couldn't keep her here with me. I needed to get back to what I needed to do: to bring down Umbrella. "We specialize in this sort of thing, Mr. Kennedy. You will not be disappointed. She needs to be put in foster care." He was right. With Claire gone, I had to make some sort of judgment by myself.

"Leon." Sherry began to burst into tears. I broke a promise. My hands pressed through her blond hair, kissing her atop the forehead.

"This is better for you. I can't keep you here all the time." I could only say it. My voice lowered due to my own inner disappointment of making vows. I broke a little girl's heart. Just as if I told a younger one that there was no Santa Claus. She wanted to love me and hate me at the same time. Fighting back the tears, she fled from my hold at once.

"I want to stay with you." A fire grew within her.

"It's too dangerous, Sherry." I dropped my face to the floor. Her things were packed and taken away. It was the hardest thing to ever do. A man in a blue suit grabbed her hand and talked to her as if it was to be OK. When Sherry took his hand, she didn't look at him but only at me. While I stood there, ashamed, those tears from her cheeks bled for me because of my lie. Then, the doors were shut, and I was close enough to say 'I was sorry and wrong for doing it.'

I will be damned in the end.

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