SAVEGUARD ⟼ leon s. kennedy

xix. nothing left but you

𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕞𝕖𝕟𝕥𝕚𝕟𝕖

𝟙𝟝:𝟛𝟘

"Clementine..."

I open my eyes: the edges of my vision are still black.

What just happened?

"Clem... The grenade..."

It's Leon's voice, but where is he?

I rub the back of my head and realise that's where the stinging pain is coming from. My fingers come away bloody and warm. Wet and red.

"Leon...?"

And then I see it, the thing that threw me into the main doors that lead back into the ship, with strength unrivalled.

Half-fish, half-human. Scales instead of skin, tentacles instead of hair, spikes instead of eyes. Skin dripping grey with whatever it contaminated the pool's liquid with.

Abnormally large. Too strong for just us two.

Adrenaline takes over my body and I find myself standing up, hurrying to my feet. My body has a sudden mind of its own, but I am grateful. I see Leon strewn across the deck, his face curled up in pain, the gash in his thigh reopened, blood swirling around his legs.

The memories come back like a lead bullet deep in my chest.

He took that hit for me.

He's on the floor because he threw himself between me and whatever this thing is. Without a second thought.

One second he's pointing a gun at me, the next he's jumping in front of the rampaging monster so it doesn't so much as touch me.

When the thing tried to finish him, it found me, with nothing to protect Leon from it except my own body.

"Leon, where's your gun?!" I scream, shaking my head to focus on the present.

"The grenade..." he moans in pain, pointing to the sky-blue heavy grenade close to his head.

I sprint to get it, and run back up to him. Some sort of other-worldly strength enters my veins, because I manage to drag his body around the corner, forcing and willing myself to be strong despite his groans of pain slicing through my heart like knives.

"I got you," I keep telling him. "You got me too, right?"

He whimpers a strained "yes", his face scrunched up in pain. I try not to look at how much blood he's losing, just try to focus on getting him behind the corner, so we have some shelter before I throw the grenade: our literal last hope.

"Aim for its mouth," he groans, propping his upper body up on his elbows. "You got this."

I nod at him and steady the shaking in my hands.

The thing is throwing everything it finds around: umbrellas, deck-chairs, empty glasses. It looks like a hurricane made out of scales and tentacles.

I take a deep breath, and hurl the grenade.

It catches on the thing's tentacles, close to its 'chin'. I close my eyes, and as I do, I feel Leon pull me down close to him, his arm around my neck, turning my body so that my face is shielded from the explosion, and I'm facing him as the grenade explodes, our faces a mere few inches away from each other, our eyes locked, our adrenaline-fuelled breaths intertwined as we hear a splatter of organs, skin and scales splash somewhere close to us.

The whole moment takes a couple of seconds, but to me, it feels like it stretches out over a few minutes. The intimacy of him pulling me down and holding me close to him, as he looks at me and silently tells me it will all be okay... How his matchless sky-blue eyes look like they want to tell me things he just can't bring himself to say yet...

In that moment, I don't know what will happen to us next, but I know that whatever happens, wherever this mission takes us, Leon will never do anything to hurt me, and I know that I would protect him with my life.

I move away from him, I want to see if that thing is dead, but as I do his grip on my arm tightens. I look down at his fingers digging into my skin, and he does too, and instantly lets go, like he can't believe he just did that.

"I'll be right back," I tell him, my cheeks hot from his touch.

He clears his throat and throws his head back, his eyes closed.

I peer over the corner, and the thing is now... Split in half. Half of it is blown up, chunks of flesh and scales and God knows what else dripping in the pool.

The other half, some sort of horror that my eyes can't understand. I can't even tell where the tentacles end, where the human limbs begin, I don't understand how this thing is still standing, how it's moving, how it's making the noises it's making...

My breath gets caught in my throat, and I stumble back, falling on my ass. I scuttle backwards, but the thing is getting closer to me, the sounds escaping its chest louder than my thoughts. One of its tentacles whips forwards, oozing something disgusting and black, hitting me across the chest. The strike hits me square in the chest and makes my head fall back from the recoil, and I feel the ground digging into the back of my head, the pain screaming out red hot. I feel the wet squelch of the bloodied part of my skin against the decking.

It's close to me now, I can't hear anything over the loud ringing in my ears. I have no firearm, no grenades, no strength left. Nothing.

"Get down," I hear Leon say, and my instinct is to obey him.

I duck down, and Leon is somehow standing up behind me, emptying a small handgun into the creature.

My heart rate is skyrocketing before Leon has emptied the entire magazine. I feel blood trickle out from the bottom of my head, right where my neck begins.

It's warm, and I start to think about how nice a hot bath would feel right now.

"Leon, I think I'm going to pass out," I hear myself say, but it's quiet, like we're not in the middle of a death-match, but somewhere peaceful, like I've just told him I'm taking a nap.

"Clementine?" I hear him ask.

I think I feel his hand under my neck.

His voice sounds distant, kind of like he's in another room, or I'm underwater. "Jesus... Alright, stay with me Clementine," I hear.

And then, I think I hear the sound of a helicopter, but really, I have to be imagining things, so I close my eyes, to rest them for a second, so maybe the blood will stop trickling out of the back of my skull.