September 23, 5:30pm

As daylight started to dim upon Raccoon City, the sun beginning to set upon the far horizon, a shadow stepped closer towards a beautiful gothic clock tower.  Darkened ochre coloured its facade, a face like the silver moon that would no longer come to this city and a grand marble balcony stretching the length of the building, wide at the base with the tower itself piercing towards the heavens above like a sword.  Two stained glass windows stood perfectly above the clockface, like multi-coloured eyes peering across the landscape.
A fountain-like structure of four curved partitions stood in front of the door, leading up towards an angelic figure shadowed within the growing dark of the evening sky.  The door to the tower beyond her laid between two resting beauties, made of white marble.  The demon smiled at the sight of the place.
	"What a lovely-looking clock tower...hmmm...and yet...I hear it tick no more.  How delightful.  The most beautiful sound is that of a bell without its tongue.  Hmhmhm...souls lie within...I almost feel as if I spoil myself with these strange new worlds."
The creature unsheathed his blades, staring down at the door as he passed beneath the false angel figure, shifting through darkness to pass through the stone sculpture.
	"I have not had this many in my entire existence, in one night even...what was the most I ever took in one night before?  Twelve?  Fourteen?  But tonight...sixty-seven...hhhh...I have not felt such power since I first came into existence., not even when James took me for his little trips around that little port town and all of its subhuman animals wandering the streets.  Heh...the strangest souls I ever tasted as of yet...so sweet...so warm...so...innocent compared to others."
He felt a presence behind the double doors, cautiously putting his scissors upon it.  Or rather putting himself upon the well-carved oaken frame in order to feel out his next prey.  One human walking back and forth with nervous gait, but clearly well armoured and experienced.  The Scissoraptor was intrigued, as he decided to disregard stealth for intimidation, kicking open the doors.  But the moment he did, a violent explosion came right in front of him, blasting him back out into the tower's front courtyard.
	"HAH!" cried out a voice inside.  "FUCKIN' GOT YOU!"
The human ran over towards his kill, a large rifle in his hand with a huge rectangular stock at the back of it.  His red jacket glowed somewhat in the flickering flames of his trap.  He petted his rifle, seeing the remains of his work as a charred monster's corpse, blackening neatly from the explosive fire.  He went for his radio on his chest after making sure the creature was dead for a good two minutes, speaking with a woman on the other end.
	"Guys, it's Nick here!"
	"What happened?!" said the radio.  "We heard a blast downstairs, are you alright?!"
	"Yeah I'm fine, just another fuckin' monster here.  Told ya my trap would work."
	"Dammit Nick, what if that had been a person?!"
	"Well it wasn't was it?!  Looks like a dinosaur for fuck's sake, you think Umbrella are doing some kinda Jurassic Park shit now?!"
	"Is it dead?"
	"...uhhh YEAH, it's burning like an open fire should and all, nothing a li'l gasoline can and a tripwire can't sol-...s-s...h-holy fu-AAAARGH!"

Before the young man could react, the creature had risen up from the flames with ash flowing off of him lightly, the fires still burning upon the scaled flesh as it twisted and blackened slightly like warmed paper.  In one swift movement, the raptor had punched Nick backwards hard against the front table inside of the building.  A stairway was to the right of the table, resplendent pillars with individual lights upon each one half-circling from the stairbase all around to the left side, crimson-brown walls showing the highest of class for such a distinguished clock tower entrance.
Nick was struggling to stand up, his lower abdomen now bleeding from the brutal punch that had punctured his liver, gasping and sputtering red from his lips as he aimed his rifle shakily at the raptor.  All he had was five shots before he would have to reload it.  The creature walked unflinching towards him with every shot as the radio screamed out to him.  All they would hear at the other end were four shots, followed by a most horrifying sound.
	"Nick?!  NICK!  WHAT'S GOING ON, NICK!?  NICK ANSWER ME!"
	"G-GET BACK!  GET THE FUCK BACK!  NO!  N-NO PLEASE, NO-AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-...u-u-u-u...uuuh..."
	"NIIIIIICK!"
His last words were silenced by a crunching of bone, his flesh cracked into the very fissures of his skull now crushed between two sets of teeth.  The Scissoraptor pulled back to see his work, a man now hollow without a face, his skull a wiry red abscess of veins carved out by teeth.  The smallest of movements made by the final utterances of what was left of his throat, before his head slumped back against the table behind.  The raptor smirked curiously, as he picked up the radio before saying:
	"Are you there?"
	"Wh-what?!  Who is this?!  WHO ARE YOU?!"
	"Death."
	"Wh-WHAT!?"
	"Death...is coming...for you."
With that simple message of fear he clicked off before looking around the foyer.  It was certainly resplendent in light and beauty, almost reminding him of a ballroom within a European manor.  He was concerned mildly about the fire still burning however, and simply stabbed at a fire extinguisher nearby with his scissors in order to blast forth a steaming foam.  The oxygen was sapped from the room entirely for a brief moment, not that he minded as he breathed deeply as if to prove a point.  The fires soon died out on both his body and the tower entrance behind him.
	"Stupid mortal.  I cannot risk losing this wondrous body to become a pile of ash.  Now...where shall we go next James?"

He heard some noises come from one door nearby, looking in with more caution than before.  A hallway leading towards a small study of some sort, with a little circular table in a corner with two bookshelves.  Beyond them was an end wall with a desk and several chairs, as well as two doors on opposite other walls.  One door was green, with some sort of motif underneath the keyhole that the Scissoraptor recognised.
	"Hmmm...Chronos.  God of Time...No matter where I may roam, time always remains my master...hmmm..."
He bent down towards the keyhole, reading the smaller inscriptions beneath which appeared to be in Greek.  A prayer of some sort.
	"Lera eisai, o opoios apo Kronos apotelese-GHHHK!  GHHHACCKK!"
The demon suddenly vomited a vile viscous substance, seeping into the floor beneath him, a dark putrid liquid that dissipated into the floor, fading away into the shadows.  His shiver of brief discomfort was audible enough to wilt the books around him.
	"F-filthy...hhhh...even the mangled dead of the Hellenic can befoul my tongue it seems.  Even when it is badly transcribed onto an ornament for a study.  ...my 'mother' was right, the Americas possess no culture of their own, so they must become thieves of their homelands, just as they are thieves of this nation."
A dry smile came to his dead lips as he heard more voices from the other door, a standard wooden door that was not locked with any particular inscriptions.  He felt the souls of the living from beyond it, as he listened in on their conversation.  Two women, one short-haired with brown and another of blonde hair with medium length, sitting down on opposite sides of a small round table with a chessboard upon it.  A man of dark skin and short hair was standing up at the far end of the room, looking out of the window beyond.
A typewriter sat on a table to his right, which he mindlessly tapped at everytime he passed, the place appearing to be some sort of drawing room complete with armoire and dresser on opposite sides.  The brown-haired woman sat on a small chaise lounge holding the black pieces of the chess set.  The other woman was on a small single chair holding white.
	"You think whatever killed Nick out there will come here?" asked the man.
	"No," said the woman with black pieces, "those things don't know how to open doors."
	"They can sure break 'em down though, right?  Or yanno, paw at the lock a little like a dog and it'll open enough times."
	"Gary come on!" said the other woman with white.
	"We gotta be prepared!  I didn't lose my job yesterday just to fuckin' die in a fancy room."
	"Why, were you expecting to die in a dumpster?  Like some hooker?"
	"I dunno...why the hell you girls playing chess anyway?"
	"It's here isn't it?  We dunno how long we're gonna be here for, have to pass the time somehow."
	"I was in chess club," boasted the blonde, "so it's cool by me."
	"...checkmate."
A soft clack of a black bishop piece signalled the end of their only game, the blonde woman twitching with shock.
	"WHU-...son of a BITCH-HHHHHHK!"

The smaller woman on a single chair suddenly felt her insides being ripped apart, a giant piercing set of blades sprouting out of her chest just beneath her cleavage, before opening outwards, bloody tendrils dripping down.  The other woman screamed as the white pieces of the board turned red before her, as the blades receded into her friend's belly.  Standing behind her slumped gurgling body, was the demon upon them.
	"JESSIE!"
	"That was a poor move she made."
	"HOLY FUCK!" screamed Gary.  "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU!?"
	"Did you not hear me before?  Death...approaches you now."
	"GET BACK!"
The woman now remaining pulled out a handgun and fired rapidly at the Scissoraptor, shots screaming across the small table as bloodless marks spat onto the raptor's body.  He merely stood, waiting for her to finish as she fired across his arms, his chest, even upwards towards his throat and head.  The shot to his head made him stumble simply from not expecting it, his head rearing as he stepped back by one step to take the impact.  Once he heard the empty click of her gun, he smiled, and simply dug a claw into his head, fishing out the bullet.
	"Took you long enough to aim properly...stupid girl."
Clawing out the metal from the brain of his raptor host, his darkness simply resealed the wound up along with any other injuries, forcing the rest of the bullets out of him before clattering upon the floor.  Before she even had a chance to reload, he swung his scissors with open blades out, slicing into her neck.  The first cut went across her throat.  The second almost decapitated her clean through as she screamed a gurgling breath.  Gary suddenly leapt into action at the sound of his dying friend, crying out feverishly as he swung forwards with a nailed bat.
The Scissoraptor simply grabbed at the bat with his other hand, his fingers pierced by the randomly-placed nails as they spiked through his deadened flesh.  He tightened his grip until the wood shattered within, shards and nails sticking to his skin before jamming his palm straight into Gary's eyes.  Splintered wood and rusted nail dug straight into them, piercing his eyes to become bloody rivers as he fell back with a scream, grabbing his face and struggling to see.
	"MY EYES!  MY EEEEEEYES!"
	"Quiet."

Bringing back his scissors, he kicked a chair towards the struggling man to watch him fall down once more, desperately trying to get back up and grabbing onto things randomly before he found the typewriter.  Bloodied fingers smeared all over the keys as the Scissoraptor simply smiled, walking up and putting his claws on Gary's hands.
	"Well now, this is interesting...do you want to write a last will and testament?"
	"A-AAAAAAH!  SOMEONE!  HELP MEEEEE!"
	"Don't worry, I'm here...but I admit I have never used one of these before.  Let's see...do you want to say something?"
With a fiendish glee the creature guided his fingers across the various keys, typing out a small message before Gary's blinded eyes as he read it out to him.
	"I W A N T Y O U T O K I L L M E...really?  Not a very good will is it, my inferior mortal?  You couldn't even save your friend before I cut her throat so it's not as if you deserve to live like any other mortal.  But, if you insist."
His claws now latched onto the man's neck and slowly began to crush his windpipe.  The raptor's claws soon stained further with blood, dripping profusely out from the man's throat, his darker skin paling from the pressure being put upon it before opening up with glistening red.  With one prolonged crackling noise, his spine soon snapped, as his head fell forwards to barely hang against his chest.  The souls of the three now dead soon flowed into the creature's maw, a horrifying scream of the beyond echoing out across the first floor of the clock tower.
	"There...that's better...hhhhhhh...wonderful.  That makes...seventy-one now?  Strange, the ones of this world do not taste any different from the ones back home.  Hmhmhmhm...it's just as I've always known.  Every mortal, every single one of them, are the same...wretched...beasts."
With one room cleared he headed towards the other end of the first floor, shifting through doors for sake of convenience before reaching back to the main entrance.  Another door the creature found lead towards a dining room, beautifully resplendent with a long oaken table glowing in lights from the walls around him.  Scissoraptor appreciated such classy surroundings, sitting down on one end of the dining hall table and putting his feet up to rest.
He briefly reflected on his life back in his own home world, that wondrous large manor up in an undisclosed forest in Norway where many were fated to die, in the ten years that he had walked upon mortal planes back then.  It had been a long time since he was in such an elegant place.  Though he never needed food or drink, and at the time he was unable to even ask or converse, his hands softly slid along the varnished wood with a slight fondness.  A devious thought came to him out of a playful turn.
	"Maybe I should find more guests to fill these seats with?  We already have three, well, four...hmph, no time, must not waste this opportunity to harvest more strength.  Hhhhh...strange the games I used to play back in that child's body.  ...why does this clock tower even have such rooms here, this isn't a manor truly...hmm?"
He got up from his seat as he heard a strange song come from another door, a sound he had not heard in a long time.  A piano, playing a somewhat familiar low melody, softly bringing him closer.

	"Is that really true?" asked one woman.
	"I'm sure it is," said the man playing.  "Classical music helps babies become more intelligent."
	"I'm not sure that's true Tyler."
	"No there was a study and everything, seriously."
	"I dunno...I don't think babies understand music."
	"They can understand a lullaby enough to go to sleep right?"
	"I...suppose so."
The woman was sitting on a plush red gilded couch directly next to one door, whilst the man was beside her sitting at the piano playing.  His back was to the wall, as the room only had a beautiful black piano in it and nothing else, apart from two large windows with blue curtains around them in an archway.  Two doors opposite of each other stood on either side of the room, with a third door to the right side of the piano.  The woman was trying to calm herself, her belly incredibly swollen with child as the music slithered throughout the air around her.
	"What song is this?" she asked.
	"Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata," said Tyler.  "Was the first song I ever played fully."
	"You're really good at this you know."
	"Heh...you think your boyfriend'll get here soon?"
	"I'm sure he will...I know he will."
	"He will, I know he will Clara.  How long will it be until your girl's born?"
	"...I don't know."
	"Huh?"
He stopped playing at the rather odd answer, his medium blonde hair swaying across his eyes as he turned to look at her, her long brown hair draped across her shoulder.
	"You don't know?"
	"I-i don't...what with everything going on I-i...haven't had time to think on anything else but surviving."
	"Oh...you got a name for her yet?"
	"...can you just...play something please, I-I'm a little tired again."
	"Okay, sorry, I didn't mean-"
	"It's alright...please."
He smiled politely and resumed playing, picking up somewhere around where he left off as his fingers gently glided across the keys.  He was surprised the piano was in good condition still from recent events, but then again the room itself had been largely untouched.  Clara looked towards the door beside her and asked:
	"I was thinking of going through there to rest up a bit, and-"
	"If you want to go rest, I won't stop you.  You need any help?"
	"N-no I...I think I'll be alright...could you keep playing while I'm through there?  I think your song helps."
	"Sure, I'll keep playing...your baby asleep now?"
	"...yes.  She is.  I hope everyone else is alright...that scream I heard, it-"
	"Was just the wind.  Right?"
	"...r-right.  When you think you hear something, it's always the wind."
	"Just keep saying that...you'll be fine.  Being cautious is one thing, but paranoia's gonna hurt us even more than anything else."
	"...you're always so calm Tyler.  How do you do it?"
	"I just stop thinking about things...I know some people find that hard but...if you just focus on one thing and not let anything else distract you...well, it helps me."
	"Alright...thank you, for helping me.  Don't get up, I'll...I'll be alright."
Claire rubbed her belly slowly, getting up as best as she could with a deep shiver as she cautiously made her way towards the door, as Tyler remained where he was at her behest.  But unbeknownst to them, a creature's eye was peering through the keyhole, at the other door behind her.  The music played on, as the demon pondered to himself at the strange aura that laid within the room that the woman had gone into.

Something unnerved him in that room, in a way he did not want to admit as he turned away with a sneer, speaking only when far away enough to not be heard.
	"Let them stew in their false safety, they won't be moving anytime soon...nnngh...even in a city of the damned that aura continues to impede me from true freedom.  Still...what's two souls compared to who knows how many lie above?"
Returning to the clock tower lobby, he ascended towards the second floor where he sensed another presence.  The second floor was simply a long narrow path of aquamarine tiles, winding around the upper walls with a constant overlook of the floor below.  A door suddenly slammed shut towards one direction, which he quickly rushed off to.  The door was unusual in having a ring-knocker on it, like an old medieval door which he simply shifted through.  Suddenly, a light exploded into his face as a male voice screamed:
	"OPEN FIRE!"
The moment he heard him, the demon brought up his blades and readily expected the tremendous hail of bullets to come hammering down upon him.  Five people were standing around the giant searchlight facing the door, with two smaller studio lights along to the left as they blasted the door with their weapons.  Two handguns, a shotgun and an assault rifle, the fifth one much further away with a sniper rifle in hand.  Only the man with the sniper rifle was able to see what sort of creature it was, for what little time he had left.
None of the bullets came through, simply being struck and severed through the air with insanely fast blades, the scissors striking out to hit almost every single one to either ping off the steel, or be cleaved in half.  Even shotgun blasts and assault rifle barrages were not given the chance to pass through.  Once the firing stopped within a psychotic blast of bullet shards all around the door, the Scissoraptor stood snarling towards the obscene light.  Then he heard the click of a sniper rifle.  Then came the guttural choking scream of the sniper himself.
The scissors had disappeared from him, flitting towards the fifth shooter far along the left of the balcony to rip open his chest, plunging their tips into his heart and snapping his rib in two.  The other four shooters panicked and screamed:
	"F-FIRE AGAIN, DON'T LET IT GET THROUGH!"

They could make out the form of something reptilian, but by the time they were able to fire again, two of them had died within seconds of each other, with clawed hands shoved into their faces.  The force of his strength was powerful enough that he ripped through their entire skulls, their dual screams cut swiftly short by red dripping claws out the back of their heads.  One woman, a young hispanic girl with long black hair who looked barely out of high school, managed to escape the violence and run towards the dead sniper, the fourth victim soon eviscerated by the carving of his chest ripped completely in twain, as his blood sprayed across the night sky.  Both halves of his body were left hanging upon the railings opposite each other.
In both his irritation at being shot, as well as his eagerness to devour more souls, he had not noticed the girl who ran until too late.  With four souls consumed into his eternal maw, darkening teeth of a howling nightly gale, the Scissoraptor headed off along the length of the balcony towards any other rooms that might lie ahead.  The only other room however was far above him at the very top of a ladder, the entrance nestled right beneath the clock face itself.
	"...oh joy, climbing another ladder to another clock tower to hunt down another girl.  Not THIS time."
The survivor of the balcony group hid herself within the machinery room of the clock tower, the only room upon a third floor in the entire place.  A rather quiet area, containing a typewriter on a desk to the left of the only exit towards the ladder, as well as two bookshelves filled with various liquids and items of an uncertain nature.  The place looked more like an alchemist's rather than a room for machines, despite the enormous gearworks in the centre of the room.
A music box the size of a dressing mirror was to the right of the exit, next to one shelf full of jars.  Upon the back wall was two large gears set within a stone mural, with a smaller third one missing between them.  The woman looked around herself desperately for some means of deterrent, looking over the jars before finding one filled with flammable oil.  She opened it swiftly before moving towards the ladder.  No sign of the creature anywhere, but that did not stop her as she readied herself to pour it at the front of the exit.
The moment she stepped back however, she tensed up and turned to her right, feeling a presence nearby.  Nothing but the music box.  She sighed with relief before a hand grabbed her from the left.  She turned and pulled hard before staring straight into the eyes of the Scissoraptor.  Cold and deathly black.  Before she could even try to think of throwing it at him, she felt a sudden strike across her face, falling with a scream as the monster grabbed at the oil jar, placing it back on the shelf.

	"Little girls should not play with such dangerous things...do you know how many girls I knew that ran with scissors?"
The woman was now bleeding down her cheek, caramel skin tainted a reddish hue as she pulled away while struggling to stand back up.
	"G-get away!  GET AWAY FROM ME!"
	"I wish I could tell you so, just so I could warn you of such foolish ways...I lost count after fourteen.  All of them tripped...and fell...right onto my blades."
She stepped back further before feeling something slither up behind her.  Dull metal lengths shimmering in a dark nether aura, sliding along both sides of her waist before slowly pulling close together, pincering her sharply, but not enough to bleed just yet.
	"A-AAAAAH!  GET AWAY, G-GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, I'M WARNING YOU!"
Chuckling at such false bravado out of deathly fear, the raptor walked up towards her before she lunged straight at him, trying to grab at his neck with frightful ferocity before pulling out a long kitchen knife from her jeans.  She planned to stab into his eyes, but instead she found her hand being grabbed by the demon as the knife fell out of her hands.  Slowly he began to crush her wrist, snapping the bone with the same ease as he had snapped a wooden bat previously.  Her screams echoed throughout the small tower room as she saw bone crack out of her wrist.
Throwing her down onto the floor, she hit down onto her back and by instinct pushed her hands down behind her, only further forcing the bone in her right-hand wrist to even further dislocate with agony.  Even when the blades had slowly closed in around her throat, her screams continued as she struggled to find a way out of this.  All she could do was sob and shiver before the Scissoraptor, his smile like a scar upon a cold dead body.
	"Don't move.  Your pain will turn greater if you do...how many of you are in this building?"
	"P-p-please...wh-what are you?  Wh-why are you doing this, what the hell are you!?!"
	"Did you ever scream when you were a child...at night, in your dreams perhaps?"

She nodded shakily, too riddled with both fear and pain to give anything else for an answer as the demon bent down to gaze into her face.
	"I was born...the night you first screamed.  Let me hear you once more, child."
	"N-no...n-n-no...I won't.  I won't die here, I'm not gonna die in this f-fucking city!"
	"Hmhmhm...such bravery...when you ran from your friends who died all around you.  Pathetic."
He grabbed at her face, clutching it tightly within his claws as they rub softly against her red bloody cheeks.  Soon the scissors began to close in, tightening around her neck inch by inch with an eternal slow pace, yet the strength within them was enough to cut deep into her flesh.  She felt her air start to run out, at the same pace of her blood which soon dripped hungrily down her chest, her tears rising to the surface out of the immense agony as she started to scream.  Straight into the raptor's face who began to speak softly, his voice causing the dying woman's soul to wilt even further.
	"Do you see this James?  Do you see what you are capable of?  If only I could show you the things that I have done, with your claws and me as your weapon.   ...why would you squander your gift, my gift to you, for the sake of a different life?  What makes the ones you've slain any more deserving to die than these wretched creatures here?  If you cannot wield me so...then perhaps...I should be the one to wield you."
He did not move his head as he spoke, his clawed thumb stroking along her cheek as the scissors finally tightened down upon the centre of her throat, cutting through the main arteries as her choking fits began.  Blood poured into her lungs, coughing up a ragged tearful shriek as she spat her red fluid upon the demon's face.  He smiled softly, as the blades soon met within the centre of her slender neck, severing completely.  Her body slumped fully onto the floor, the creature now holding her head.  Glazed eyes glistened with her last tears.
	"Hmph...just like the toys my 'mother' gave me...so soft and serene...and just as easy to break."
With a deep shuddering breath he swallowed her essence whole, consuming what was left of her body to take as his demon hunger began to subside.  But only for a short time, which did not stop him from scanning the world above to look for his next prey, placing the young woman's head upon the floor next to her head.  So far he could not detect any more souls within the immediate area, other than one place he knew aleady.  The clock tower was now almost empty, as he decided to investigate the last place with anyone still living within.

	"Gus, you there?!"
No reply came from the radio.
	"Jimmy?  Carl!?  Guys, where are you?!"
Still nothing on the radio, as Tyler sat at his piano while playing a slower piece with one hand, using his radio with the other.  He hoped Clara would not hear him with the music still playing, his anxiety rising in his voice.
	"Anyone, answer me PLEASE!  ...dammit!  God...what the hell is going on out there?  I swear I've been hearing things lately, we all said to check in every ten minutes right?!  ...I should go look, maybe I should-fuck dammit."
As his nerves turned shaky with paranoia, his finger slipped and hit a bad note, damning the song to a sudden halt as Clara's voice rang through from the door beyond.
	"Tyler?!  You alright?!"
	"Y-yeah sorry!  Sorta lost my focus there a bit.  You okay in there Clara?!"
	"Yeah I'm...I'm fine!  Um, random question!"
	"Yeah?!"
	"You think this holy water's safe to drink, I'm real thirsty!"
	"...um...I don't think that's a good idea Clara."
	"It's just water, why would that be a bad thing?!"
	"Better safe than sorry, look, I'm gonna go find some water for you, I think Gary had some on him!"
	"Okay!  D-don't be long alright?!"
	"Alright!"
With the perfect opportunity to scope the place out, Tyler left the safety of his piano to head out into the other rooms.  Exiting out to the first floor foyer, the sight of Nick's body with face torn off made him turn white with horror, seeing that a small scene of violence had occurred with fire burns and a punctured extinguisher.
	"H-holy...f-fuck Nick...no...n-no..Jessie warned me about...something but...who could have done this?"
He examined Nick's body cautiously, but was unable to tell what sort of creature had done the deed before racing off towards the tower's drawing room.  His only weapon was a tazer in his back pocket, relinquished from a dead police officer four hours ago as he swiftly ducked through the study before finding his destination.  He thought he could shake off the shock of the dead body in the foyer, but the sight of three people eviscerated in the drawing room made his knees turn weak, almost falling back.
	"H-hoh my god!  ...G-GARY!  JESSIE!  LINDA!  ...wh-who...who did this?  Th-this wasn't zombies, c-couldn't have been zombies...f-f-f-fuck, oh god, why is this happening, what did we-...no...I need to get water, where is it?"
Struggling to maintain himself with a moment of pause, he picked his way through the bloodied room before finding a backpack that had been laid near the window.  He knew it to be Gary's owing to the red-and-white colouring it always had, trying to ignore the horrifying message upon the typewriter where Gary laid as he went back towards the piano room.  Then he stopped, frozen by the strangest sound.  The sound of a piano playing.  The one time he had ever become terrified by the very touch of a melody upon his heart.

It was a soft melody, a simple one too like something a child would play.  He opened the door cautiously as he readied with his taser.  The moment he entered however, the song had stopped.  The piano remained bare and empty.  Tyler slowly made his way towards the grand instrument, no longer trusting it as he gently played a few lower keys.  Nothing seemed to happen, despite it still working as he flipped up the backpack's cover to get a bottle of fresh out-of-town water, before heading to the door where Clara was.
	"Clara?  I'm back!  I got some water."
	"OH, that's great, is everyone okay?!"
	"...they're okay yeah.  Gary...heh...kinda trying not to lose his head so it uh...didn't help when I asked for his water."
	"He took plenty enough from the store, he has enough for everyone.  Lemme get the door open."
The door soon opened a small crack, just enough to get the bottle of water through as Clara's hand gently took it.  Tyler smiled unseen, his sorrow apparent were she able to see him through the door before closing it.
	"Thank you."
	"No problem...no news on your boyfriend yet though."
	"He'll be fine...I'll be fine too."
	"How's your leg?"
	"Not as itchy now thanks...that was a nice song you played just now though."
	"Uhhh yeah I...thought it'd be something nice and...soft for your girl."
	"Thank you...I'll uh, let you get back to-...h-hoh god."
	"Wh-what?"
	"...the baby...the baby's kicking.  Hoh...oh god it's a miracle!  My baby!  Sh-she's okay!"
	"Wait, hold on, was she not okay before?"
	"O-OH no no just...I got worried she...she wasn't moving as much before but now I feel her moving so it's okay, it's okay Tyler, everything's okay!"
A whimper of tearful joy came from behind the door, the man smiling at her relief even if he was rather confused on why she was so elated more than usual.  Especially after how the past day or so, she had been rather subdued and somewhat sullen.  But he put it down simply to the mental trials of a mother-to-be and said:
	"You just rest up, we'll be out of this soon okay?"
	"A-alright...ohh my baby girl, I was worried so much..."
Walking away he sat back down at his piano, sighing heavily as the pressure turned greater on him.  He wasn't sure if anyone else was alive, and he did not want to risk anything by going out to the second floor just in case.  Instead, he began to play another piece that he enjoyed, helping him to calm down.  Erik Satie's "Gymnopedie".  He began to speak to himself, masking his words with the song.
	"What am I doing here?  ...I'm doing my best here Greg, I'm trying to keep her safe.  I don't think she's well either, something's wrong with her but I don't wanna think it's...just the two of us now I think.  I just want to keep her safe, not for you but...she's my friend like you were Greg...I hope you get here soon-SHIT!"

A powerful sting of a dark chord from the piano came, as a giant pair of clawed feet suddenly slammed down onto the keys, followed by a body stained with blood and handprints upon dark brown scaly flesh.  Tyler could barely move before the scissors clamped down on his neck, plunging down from below before trapping his throat between them, with no hope of escape.  He stared up at the creature's eyes, deadened black where light itself would not exist as it spoke a foul voice.
	"I once learnt how to play the piano.  I hated it...until I learnt that music, when used in the right way, can become the most terrifying thing to a mortal being.  A song that comes out of nowhere, a strike of the minor chord to bring fear down unto one's heart...isn't it wonderful how you worthless degenerates can be so easily fooled by your basic senses?"
	"H-h-hhhhh...h-hhhhh..."
	"Tyler?!  TYLER?!  YOU OKAY!?"
	"C-CLARA!  STAY INSIDE AND LOCK THE DOOR, PUT SOME WATER ON THE DOOR TOO!"
	"WH-WHAT!?"
	"JUST DO IT!"
	"You do realise you are about to die and that she is next, correct?"
	"I don't...I-i...wh-what the hell are you?"
	"Amazing how many of you ask me this.  I am the Scissoraptor, once I was but the hollow spirit of one not even a man, but now I am reborn as this magnificent creature."
	"A-a-are you...one of Umbrella's freaks?"
	"No.  I do not know this...umbrella."
The tightening of the scissors upon his neck made him choke and gasp, blood softly slipping out down onto his shoulders.
	"Are you going to fight me...or will you go quietly into the night?"
	"You...y-you killed everyone didn't you?"
	"Yes.  I will say this...your friends fought to the very end, which I found unusual.  Normally most of my victims run...and hide...and beg for God to save them."
	"I don't care what you want...I've seen everything this city can take away from me.  My family's dead, most of my friends are too.  I promised I would keep Clara safe, and I won't fucking let you hurt her because I know she will be safe from you."
	"Oh?  And how do you plan to do that?"
He could say nothing.  He knew he was dead, but all he could do was stand defiantly before the monster, lifting himself up from his seat with scissors still upon his throat.
	"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms."
	"Shut up."
	"Therefore put on the whole armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may-GHRHHHHKK!"
Tyler's throat was sliced from the sides, blood letting out as the Scissoraptor pulled away his blades swiftly before binding the man's hands together in his claws.
	"If I cannot take God from you, then I will take away your art instead!"

The scissors, alive by the force of evil resonating inside them, crunched through the wrists to cut both of his hands off, bloodied stubs of flesh and bone as Tyler screamed with agony.  But not as much as when the Scissoraptor grabbed both his arms once more after allowing his victim to experience his full horror, and forced both radius and ulna bones out through the wrist, before plunging them straight into his eyes.
Blood and matter streaked down his face as his head reared back, his screams crying out as his head collapsed awkwardly onto the keys of the piano.  A last sour note as the creature stepped off the piano onto the floor.  A smile of satisfaction came to him before heading towards the locked door.  The moment he touched it however, the aura he had felt before suddenly turned stronger, forcing him to pull back.
	"What...oh...you cannot be serious."
Risking a little pain to himself, he pushed a claw into the keyhole with a little phasing trick as he undid the lock, pushing the door open to see the one thing he did not want to see.  A small chapel room, beneath the clock tower.
With an altar at the far back of the room, a small church organ on the left and a red-curtained shelf on the right, the two rows of pews with bibles tucked in pockets was like a gauntlet of pain for the demon to walk into.  He stayed at the door's threshold, casting his eye over the place with a few stained glass windows all around the room, the candlelight upon the altar giving it a warm holy glow.  The only thing out of place strangely was a box for storing items, made of silver and glinting in the light.  Clara laid on the altar, some cushions having been propped up for her.
	"N-n-no...please...oh god help me."
	"If there is one place that God will not come, it is most certainly this wretched city."
	"T-...T-tyler...oh god Tyler..."
She began to weep, breaking down as her belly heaved with growing sorrow soon approaching her.  Yet the demon did not come near, for the moment he took a step forwards, he touched upon something liquid.  A sizzling burn came to his feet as he stepped back.
	"AARGH!  ...holy water.  ...well played.  Even if it probably is infected with the dark side of science...hmph...ironic, perhaps?  Pure in spirit yet deadly in science...not that either one of them mean anymore to me than the other since neither can explain me to you."
	"You...you really are a demon aren't you?  Tyler...T-tyler was right...they do exist...I never believed in God until...oh god...I'm sorry Tyler...I'm so sorry..."
	"Indeed.  There are stranger things in heaven and earth than you can possibly imagine."
	"Did...did you cause all this?  Or is this all Umbrella's doing?"
	"As much as I would love to take credit for this, no, for I despise the undead.  A dead mortal able to walk amongst the living, is even worse a nuisance than one who's still alive."
	"He told me...when hell is full, the dead shall walk the earth...but he did not know if...if it was the devil who did this or...or Man himself."
	"Hah...are you going to claim that Man is his own demon?  Because I find that highly insulting."
	"G-go to hell...you can't kill me in here anyway."
	"Indeed, your odious christian friend planned well for this...I am surprised, to say the least.  And all the more do I hate you and those around you, for you are now alone, in this chapel."
	"I'm not alone...my baby...my baby's here with me."
	"...how pathetic that a mother must hide her child's death."
	"Wh-what?!"
	"I sense only ONE soul now before me...am I not correct?"

Clara turned away with shock, clutching her belly harder as she struggled not to weep once more, her gasping subdued before saying:
	"...but...but...no...I thought...sh-she's still here, she's still alive in me I can feel her!  I thought she died before, Tyler never knew.  Neither does Greg, I...I thought she was dead."
	"And whatever made you think that in the first place?"
	"I couldn't feel her move...she was moving weaker and weaker with each new day...ever...ever since..."
	"The bite on your leg?"
	"Wha-...y-yes."
He looked to see that indeed her leg had been bitten, the woman revealing it by pushing down her clothes to reveal the painful bite deep into her thigh.  The skin was rather red, rotting and itchy as flakes of skin started to fall off with each movement.
	"How did you know?"
	"I can smell the rotting flesh from here, I know it is difficult for you humans to understand that SOME creatures are far better than you with our senses alone.  Your weak little minds cannot even reach beyond that."
	"But she started moving again!  I thought everything would be alright now...everything...would be alright."
	"No.  It will not.  The sickness of the undead has spread unto you, and you will pass soon from this world where I shall take your soul before leaving this place...but you will at least have one last gift in life before you go."
	"Wh-what's...that?"
	"The gift...of childbirth.  And I think it's just about time for her to come out.  Don't worry...she'll do it herself, and I am sure that your child is...very...hungry for its mummy."
Her eyes widened with a sudden fear now in her, looking down on her belly as she felt something kick.  It was a lot harder a kick than she expected, groaning as a pain started to awake from inside her.  Scissoraptor merely watched, sensing a rather familiar scene that had come forth from his memory.  It almost reminded him of how he had come into the world.  Clara screamed as her belly bulged, something pushing out of her by its own will as her muscles were forced apart slowly, over an agonising ten minutes of her flesh being stretched from within her.
She could only stare down at herself before the most intense of agony burst forth from her womb, ripping down through her uterus as blood sputtered down her legs, onto the altar table.  The last thing she would remember, was the sound of her baby's scream.  It wasn't a scream for help, nor was it a plea of warmth.
It was a scream of hunger.

James woke up the moment he heard that scream, a far-away echo fading through the back of his mind.  His eyes twitched with a sudden horror, a fear unknown dwelling deep from within him.  He struggled to calm his breaths, panting hard, his arms wrapped round his chest with a cold feeling he knew all too well.  The visions he had seen, brief and fleeting as they were, left plenty enough sights to his imagination for what horrors the demon had done with his body.  His eyes suddenly hurt, forcing him to wince and press hands into his face.
A shivering sob escaped him weakly.  He knew that he had not gone anywhere while staying in Michael's house.  But what he had done in the hours before he met him, whatever he had done, he knew that they would not remain just dreams and nightmares to him forever.  It was now 5:00am.  September 24th.