//closed starter / @petrokhelidon
It's an odd feeling coming back here after such a long time. The city looks different, but he figures a B.O.W. outbreak followed by the missile strike of a desperate government and nearly two decades of abandonment will do that to a place. Perhaps the biggest surprise is how much of the city he does still recognize while walking its streets, despite the crumbling buildings, now mostly overgrown by nature trying to reclaim what's rightfully hers, that barely contain the echoes of a once bustling city.
He arrived about an hour ago, leaving the drop off point just outside the epicenter of the missile strike behind and turning towards the inner city. He's been steadily making his way further towards what remains of the former art museum turned police station, the dark clouds above an oppressive and foreboding companion.
He hasn't encountered anything yet. Not even wildlife. No birds, nothing. And while that means he hasn't encountered anything mutated either, the supposed calm makes him more uneasy than impending combat would. Professional paranoia makes him jump at shadows that aren't there and he actively has to unclench his jaw and lower his shoulders to ease the tension in his muscles.
At least it isn't raining. He thinks and the city, mercifully, isn't on fire and overrun by the undead like it was the last time either. In fact, it is eerily quiet. The only sounds in the empty streets being those of his own footsteps and the occasional rustling and whistling of wind inside empty shells of the surrounding buildings. If he wasn't aware of the history of this place he might even have found his surroundings oddly tranquil. The leaves and grass and greenery left unchecked for almost twenty years have begun to cover much of the asphalt and cement, have broken through old brick and curled themselves around rusting metal bars of gates and fences; serving as a reminder that ultimately everything would return to nature.
To anyone unaware of Raccoon City's past it would surely seem hauntingly beautiful. But Sasha remembers the city as it was, and he remembers what it became, too.
His hands curl a little tighter around the handgun as he comes closer to his destination. It's an almost cruel twist of fate, that he ended up taking the same route he did all those years ago, closing in on the same gate he'd passed when he was running for his life back in 1998. The gate itself is no more, broken down by rust and bend in places by a force Sasha doesn't want to think about too closely. One side hangs pathetically on one remaining hinge, the other lies crumbled on the floor. He steps over the rubble surrounding it, careful not to lose his footing as he makes his way towards the fire escape that somehow remained standing throughout all of this. From what he has seen it's still one of the easiest points of entry into the station, and even if it wasn't, nostalgia if nothing else commands him to enter this place through the door up there, no matter how little of the second floor is still left standing.
He makes it about halfway up the stairs before he stops in his tracks, his ears picking up on a faint sound that's too deliberate to be attributed to the movements of a broken down building. Someone is here and judging from the fact that Sasha doesn't hear anything else for a long while after he stopped moving, he has a feeling they're waiting for him to come through that door.
He takes a deep breath before adjusting his grip on his handgun again and moves further up the stairs until the handle of the rotting door is within reach. A half-gloved hand curls around it, bare fingertips brushing along the worn metal. He slowly pushes the handle down before shoving the door open with enough force to have it swing open fully to reveal the room on the other side. With one swift movement he steps inside, gun raised.
Nothing could have prepared him for the sight that meets him. It's bright blue that finds him first. Sasha's eyes zero in on the icy, calculating glare he's met with before he realizes he's also staring down the barrel of a gun and for a brief disorienting moment it's as if he's back when it all began. Drenched from unrelenting rain, exhausted from hours of running, afraid of everything that may lurk in the shadows. He freezes and his breath hitches as for a split second he swears he sees a young man in RPD uniform before him, eyes just as wide as his own, hands trembling just the same from fear and exhaustion.
But then, Sasha blinks, and the man before him isn't the young man that greeted him back then, not anymore at least. He's older for one, his hair longer and darker than he remembers. The lines of his face are sharper, his eyes colder, but no less stunning for it. The gear he is wearing is more sleek, properly fitted, his moves smooth and certain, the grip on his handgun secure until he, too, seems to get overwhelmed by what he sees and Sasha's heart aches at the flicker of emotion that passes over his face, there and gone in a flash. Sasha lowers his gun first, searching for something to say and coming up empty.
God, it's been so long.
