July 24, 1998 – 22:31 hours
Raccoon Forest, Arklay Mountains
The helicopter had landed in a clearing veiled by moonlight and mist. The air was humid, clinging to the skin like wet gauze. Somewhere beyond the trees, the forest breathed—deep, heavy, and unnatural.
Chris Redfield was the first out, boots crunching on brittle pine needles. He swept the area with his M92F Beretta, the polished steel of the barrel catching a flicker of moonlight. Jill dropped beside him moments later, silent and ready.
"Joseph, Barry, sweep north," Wesker ordered, eyes hidden behind his black sunglasses, even in the darkness. "Jill, Chris—take the western perimeter. Secure the area. Look for Bravo Team's bird."
The command was crisp, emotionless. Wesker was always like that—too calm, too perfect. Chris didn't trust it. He had known soldiers who smiled like Wesker before. They were usually the ones who didn't flinch when people died.
Jill leaned toward Chris as they began moving through the underbrush.
"Something's off," she whispered. Her breath left faint trails in the cool air.
"Yeah," Chris replied. "It's too quiet."
Even in the middle of nowhere, a forest had a rhythm. Crickets, frogs, the occasional owl—something. But this? Nothing. The silence wasn't natural. It was the kind of quiet that fell over a killing field.
They found the wreckage in less than five minutes.
Bravo Team's helicopter had crashed at an awkward angle, smoke trailing upward like a signal flare. The tail rotor was mangled against a tree. A dark stain soaked the pilot's seat.
Joseph kneeled by a corpse half-covered by branches. It was mangled—ripped open, bones shattered, organs half-missing.
"This was Kevin…" Joseph muttered. "No sign of the others."
Then the barking started.
Low. Distant. And hungry.
From the edge of the trees, they came—three of them at first. Dogs, once. Skin peeled back around jaws permanently locked in a snarl. Coats torn and falling off in strips. Muscles exposed. Blood crusted. Eyes white, milky, and dead.
Cerberus.
That was the name Umbrella had given them in the lab reports that would only come to light much later. But here, now, in the forest—they were monsters.
"RUN!" Barry bellowed, opening fire. One of the creatures yelped and spun mid-air, half its face blown off. But the others didn't stop.
Chris grabbed Jill by the arm, pulling her into the trees. The STARS scattered.
Gunfire cracked in the distance. Joseph screamed. A wet, sharp scream that didn't last long.
Jill's heart pounded. Branches slashed at her arms. She heard heavy paws behind them, the growl of something feral closing in.
They burst into another clearing—and saw it.
A mansion.
Huge, looming, almost impossible. Classical architecture straight out of an old European estate. Columns, stone steps, and tall, arched doors. The very air around it seemed colder.
Chris reached the doors first, kicked them open, and waved Jill in. Barry dove in right after, panting, eyes wide. Behind them, the snarling halted at the threshold.
The doors slammed shut.
And then—silence.
Inside the Spencer Mansion
22:44 hours
The lobby was vast. Marble floors reflected the glow of a grand chandelier. A staircase curled upward like an invitation to nowhere. Dust coated the railings, yet the air smelled strangely sterile.
Chris lowered his weapon slowly.
"We all here?" he asked.
Jill counted heads. "No... Wesker's not with us. Neither is Joseph."
Barry's lips tightened. He holstered his revolver, breathing hard. "Wesker's smart. He'll find a way in."
Chris didn't say what he was thinking: Wesker could be dead—or worse.
"We need to secure this place," Jill said. "We regroup, search for the others. And we find out what the hell is going on."
They didn't yet know what lay ahead—the locked doors, the twisted experiments, the things that should not exist. But something had brought them here. Something ancient. Rotten. Hungry.
The nightmare had only begun.