Chapter Text
In the Dark with You
The Parish
July 2017, Dulvey Parish, Louisiana
The road to Dulvey Parish was a graveyard of asphalt and swamp water.
Trees clawed at the sky like skeletal fingers, their branches tangled with the thick Southern fog. The air smelled of mildew, rot, and something worse—something sour and chemical, like old blood soaked into wood. Svetlana “Lana” Zamfir adjusted her grip on her sidearm, boots crunching over wet gravel, and narrowed her eyes.
Her orders were clear: recon and containment. But nothing about this mission had ever sat right.
She was BSAA, Special Operations Agent. Codename: Phoenix.
She had bled in Kijuju. She had burned in Edonia.
And somehow, here—on the edge of a forgotten parish swallowed by vines and silence—was where it felt most like death would stick.
The Baker property loomed ahead, its rusted fencing no match for the stories that kept people out. According to the file Lana had received, at least seven civilians had vanished near this land. Locals blamed it on the swamp. Others whispered the Bakers had gone mad.
The truth, she knew from experience, would be worse.
Her comm buzzed faintly, but she ignored it for now. She was scanning for an entry point when movement caught her eye—just past the fence line. A man, hunched over something in the dirt. Civilian? No gear. No radio. Just clothes stiff with travel and desperation.
She drew closer, voice firm. “Hey! This is a restricted zone. You can’t be here.”
The man startled, standing fast. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Late thirties, disheveled, brown hair matted to his forehead. His eyes flicked to her, not in fear—but in something quieter.
Hope.
“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “My wife. Mia. She’s been missing for three years.”
Lana’s spine stiffened. The name snapped through her like a wire pulled taut.
Mia Winters.
She glanced at the object in his hand—a faded ID badge. His grip on it was white-knuckled, like letting go might mean losing her all over again.
“You’re Ethan Winters,” she said.
He hesitated. “Yeah… how do you know that?”
Before she could answer, her radio hissed to life.
“Zamfir. Status.” Chris Redfield. Steady. Commanding. Familiar.
She turned her back to Ethan and lifted the radio to her lips. “Found a civilian. Ethan Winters. He’s looking for Mia. The name matches the Dulvey file.”
Silence crackled in her ear. Then Chris again, sharper this time:
“Get him out of there. It’s not safe.”
She pivoted back to Ethan. “You shouldn’t be here. This is a BSAA operation. I need you to leave.”
But Ethan shook his head. “I’m not leaving without her.”
The conviction in his voice startled her. She’d seen that look before—soldiers in Edonia, clutching photos, refusing exfil until their missing squadmates were found. Survivors who wouldn’t accept being the only one left alive.
“Ethan—” she started, but he was already moving.
He climbed the fence like a man possessed, disappearing into the mist-shrouded woods beyond.
Lana cursed under her breath and flicked her comm off.
For a moment, she stood frozen, letting the fog wrap around her like a shroud.
Chris would call it reckless. Jill would call it emotional. But Lana only knew one thing:
If she let Ethan die out there alone, it would be one more face in the body count she couldn’t forget.
And she’d had enough of those.
She climbed the fence after him.
Branches whipped at her face. The trees whispered around her. Her boots sank into the muck. The deeper she went, the more the air thickened, as if the world itself didn’t want her to cross a line it couldn’t take back.
Lana tapped her thigh—once, twice—where her old Kijuju knife used to hang. Just habit now. That weapon had been torn from her grip in another hell, in another country, during another mission she barely escaped.
This time, she wasn’t letting anyone else fall.
Her pace slowed as she spotted a broken path through the trees. Just ahead, she saw the house—the Baker estate. Feral. Rotting. Not abandoned, but worse. Inhabited by ghosts made of flesh.
She swallowed hard, eyes scanning the windows.
Nothing moved.
But something watched.
She didn’t know how she knew it—only that she’d felt that feeling before, in a dark corridor in Edonia, just before the ceiling cracked open and everything went to hell.
This house was hungry.
And it had just seen her step through the door.