Revolting River

...

"Claire...Claire...up! It's coming!"

A girl screams.

…

Everything's black.

A blinding light suddenly shines.

"Wake up. Wake up," A stern woman's voice commands followed by snapping.

Claire opens her eyes to a bright orb floating above her face. Her eyes adjust, revealing it to be a flashlight being held up by a woman with blond hair done up in a ponytail.

"Look at the light...Hold still…" She moves the flashlight around slightly, "Not infected…" She mutters before she stands up and walks over to Katherine, doing the same to her.

"W-Who are you?" Claire stutters as she rolls onto her side and pushes herself off the ground.

"Not infected…" The woman mutters as she stands up once more.

"Hello?" Claire asks in a louder voice.

"How did you get here?" The woman asks as she turns to her.

"What?"

"How, did you get here? Did you come through the sewers like the others?"

"The others? Do you mean Leon?" As Claire and Katherine get up, they look around and realize Sherry is nowhere in sight, "Wait. Where's Sherry?" That name brings a look of surprise to the woman's face, "Have you seen a little girl, about this tall, blonde hair, kinda like your's? She was with us in the elevator-"

"Why did you take my daughter?" The woman asks, bringing up a pistol, "Are you after G too? Hoping you could use her trade her life for it?" A worried filled expression is covering her face.

"I found her at the police station, we came here looking for her mother when, something, attacked us…" The woman's face grows pale. She lowers her gun and hurries over to the broken remains of the elevator, looking for any signs. The large claw marks in the cement only validate her fears, "Wait, you're her mother,"

"Oh god, he's after her!" She suddenly exclaims, rushing for a nearby door behind her.

"Whose after her? Whose after Sherry?" Claire asks as she hurries towards the woman.

"Her father, no if you'll excuse me I need to go," And she slams the door behind her.

"Hey, wait!" Claire and Katherine run into the room after her, but she's already gone. They find themselves in a small, well lit, room with another door on the other side. THey try to open it, but it's locked.

"That thing that attacked us, that's her father?" Claire mutters to herself, "That's seriously, fucked up…"

"But, why does it want her so badly?" Katherine asks. THey both stand there silently for a moment.

"Let's, focus on finding her before her mother does," Claire interrupts, "I don't trust that woman to take care of her," She leaves the room, Katherine closely following. They go back into the larger, much dimmer, room they had woken up in. The occasional spark comes from the elevator wreckage, and there's no other door around. They walk around the room, hoping to find anything.

"Over here," Katherine states, "The railing is broken, looks like something he might've done. Looking pat the broken railing, they see a corridor a couple meters down going to the left. Claire jumps down first, makes sure the path is clear, then signals for Katherine to come down. They carefully make their way down it, each step echoing throughout the silent air.

The concrete corridor soon makes a sharp right. As they near the corner, a very foul stench starts to attack them. It smells rotten, like a public bathroom, but somehow even worse. Turning the corner, they see the path comes to an end within a few meters, going into something larger. Each step towards the end of the path makes the reeking smell stronger. Coming to the end, they see it connects to a massive tunnel. Several feet below, sits a river of sewage, brown, murky, liquid filled with trash and who knows what else. The sound of rushing water can be heard, but the sewage down below isn't moving that fast.

"Do you think the others came in here too?" Katherine asks as she glances over at Claire with an uneasy expression.

"I hope so," Claire replies, glancing down at the revolting river, "I'd hate to be the only ones to experience, this. I'll go first, who knows if, there's something in the water," With some hesitation, Claire jumps down into the sewage. Her legs are completely submerged into the cold, dense, liquid. The impact caused some of it to splash up onto her face and jacket. As she draws her gun and flashlight, the slow current tries to pull her with it. It's grip is a lot stronger than she expected, able to feel all the slime and gunk latching onto her jeans, pulling on her legs before they eventually lose their grip and slip off.

Turning to the left reveals the source of the rushing water sound. A huge slope going up almost twice the height of the tunnel, has more sewage sliding down into the river, giving it its current. She turns to the right, seeing the tunnel continues, quickly growing a bit shorter. Several large piles of trash and rotten things are built up around the edges. The path continues past them for a few feet before splitting into two paths, one going slightly to the left and the other slightly to the right. The left path is blocked up by a gate of bars.

Scanning the area, there doesn't seem to be anything in the sewage with them. Katherine jumps down, her slightly dirty, white, dress now covered in shit.

"Disgusting," Katherine mutters as she shakes off some of the slime off her arm, "I hope Ben's okay, he hates getting dirty more than I do," They spot a small indent in the side of the tunnel only a few feet from them. A heavy metal door with no handle of any sort sits against the right wall. Next to it is what looks like, a small, thin, fire hydrant looking thing made of blue metal. It has a hole in the top for something to be inserted, with a thick yellow stripe with black arrows underneath it.

"I don't think it went that way," Claire states, "Looks like we only have one place to go, come on," They trudge through the sewage, walking in between the heaps of trash and head down the right path. They notice some large pipes sticking from the walls into the tunnel, fresh sewage still on them. The path only goes on for a few meters before coming to a wall. The wall to the left breaks open to a path leading to a door. Pulling themselves out, they get up onto the concrete, there lower halves soaking wet and dripping onto the floor. Fighting off the incredibly uncomfortable feeling wrapped around their legs, they head for the door.

The door opens up to a walkway, halfway up a massive tunnel. The roof soars high above their heads with the bottom going down at an angle. They can't even tell how far down it goes because it becomes too dark. The walkway goes to the left up some stairs leading to a ladder going up to another walkway. The walkway makes a right, going up more stairs, before turning left again up ac couple more stairs to a door.

The door opens up to a decently sized room that's dwarfed by the tunnel it sits in. Most of the wall on the other side of the room goes further out than the rest. The wall that goes out is made of glass, showing a large metal bridge of sorts, supported by a large metal rod connected to the middle of it. A few feet in front of the glass sits two control boards. The keys to start up the machine are missing. Several burnt corpses lay scattered about the room. A couple of flame grenades sits on the left control board.

Claire stuffs them into her bag and they check out the rest of the room. In the front right corner of the room, is a hole leading down to a small platform leading into another room below. Jumping down, they enter a larger room with several lights brightly lighting up the place. Against the back wall to their right, sits a ginormous control board with hundreds buttons and gauges. In the front wall opposite of them, is some glass looking into a room just filled with piles of trash. Walking up to the glass, they see an unconscious Sherry on a pile of trash.