GRAVEDIGGER ━━━ leon s. kennedy

five.

Had she been an animal, she would have torn the iron and stone down with her bare punches. It was only a fucking door buried six feet under, doors were made to be opened. But this was Vera's own special grave perhaps, gifted by all the bodies she had put underground -

(because if they were condemned to a hell so undeserved, she also had to lose something to preserve the balance; so they would gift a tragedy to her in comradeship, in the kindest good spirit they could conjure up)

- but what use were her hands if she couldn't use them to get rid of a simple obstacle such as this? She should be able to dig her way back up, that's what these were for, yet she could do absolutely nothing. Nothing.

Vera Kaplan was useless for the first time in her life.

She didn't register the pain of little papercut-like sores opening in her hands, and the pulsing ache in the bones of her fingers the more she kept banging on and rattling the iron gate, and slamming her palms on it interchangeably. A repeating, broken record played from Vera, the single pitiful thing coming out of her mouth being, "Please open the door," - and its other iterations.

She had lost her voice, pushed away the gentle hands that tried to pull her back, entirely deaf to the consoling voices trying to reach her or reason with her. Vera couldn't even hear them at all. She had to get Marvin to open this up and join them, he couldn't stay behind. Why would he stay behind?

From the small window just above her eye level, when she stood on her tiptoes she could see into the main hall, and the tiny back of her father turned away from the passageway as he sat slumped over on the couch, not answering her whatsoever - the only audible noise being his loud and shaky breathing and the faint whimpers of pain.

Why won't he look at me? Why won't he answer me?

Why is he abandoning me?

Some other part of her wasn't registering the situation at all, entirely contrasting the panicked breakdown of her body. It was that of a kid who had come back home from school and was waiting for her father to get the door; because that door had never been left closed before to shut her out from the house no matter what kind of shit she'd gotten herself into.

That door would always open to reveal the welcoming of a smile, a hug and a hair ruffle, the unique smell of home would envelope her within the arms of one person.

"Marvin, I'm not going anywhere until you open this!" She struck the door with an open hand, a strong sound resounded back in the narrow corridor down the stairs ringing in her ear. Her jaw clenched and unclenched. "I won't. I will cement myself here and wait and not even one of god's angels coming down will move me to some bullshit salvation! You understand!? I'm not fucking leaving you here! I don't know what possessed you to think you could will me away if you locked me out, because I refuse to be the subject of some heroic sacrifice. This isn't fucking fiction, I'm not leaving my goddamn father behind!"

All energy was sucked away from her lungs as she heaved for a second, the surroundings in deafening silence as the only answer she got back was the lingering echo of her begging.

Vera had been begging and begging for what seemed like forever.

To a wall. To a literal wall. She couldn't even see Marvin if she didn't exert herself to reach the tiny barred window above.

Then came the tipping point. The last drop on a glass about to overflow.

A wrath nothing like she'd experienced before broke out of her. Ripped its way out.. "LOOK AT ME!"

But there was something behind that scream sizzling with anger, something taking cover behind it. Its name was grief - desperation, nothing more than a trapped woman aimlessly tossing explosives in a battle of soldiers she'd got caught up in, terrified for her life, alone, and helpless.