[color=6b8e23]“Well, you’re certainly a brave one, miss Claudia.”[/color] Michael said with a respectful nod as he piled out of the vehicle, and did his best to hide the annoyed look as he took in the stairs. He grunted slightly with each step, moving slowly so as not to hurt himself as his arthritis made itself very much known. As he reached the top of the stairs, he looked back down the short stairway with a brief mutter. [color=6b8e23]“Not looking forward to going back down.”[/color]

As the pair approached the old building, Michael braced himself. He didn’t know if the riots and all this mess had gotten into the school before the students were evacuated, and while he knew himself capable of putting a dead kid to rest, he wasn’t sure about Claudia. A full-grown person who turned was one thing, but some of these high schoolers were still practically kids, at least as far as he was concerned. [color=6b8e23]“Miss Claudia… I dunno what we’re gonna find in here. And if those freaks got in, it certainly ain’t gonna be pretty. Just… brace yourself.”[/color] He allowed her to open the door first, moving in behind her with his gun pointed at the ground, but at the ready.

The foyer was a large and open space that, on any normal day, would’ve seen a lot of foot traffic, the original flooring having been covered over with linoleum tiles with a symbol of a shield emblazoned with a raccoon and a scroll below it reading [i]Raccoon City High[/i] painted on the floor in the center of the room. Two staircases went up either side of the room’s far walls, one blocked by stacked desks and the other blocked at the top by a steel scissor gate that prevented access upstairs. Three hallways were immediately accessible, one on either side of the room and one down the center between the stairs. On the bright side, the lights were on, at least in this part of the foyer. What took away the old man’s hope that this would be easy, however, was the sight of a mauled police officer lying dead against one of the stairwells, and the blood on the floor of the foyer combined with the distinct lack of bodies.