I promised myself I would stick to one-shots from now on... So much for that. Anyway, the return (again!) of Kate and Barry, this time in a special Halloween special of specialness! Here I have combined two of my loves in one: FMA and Silent Hill! I realize this means this story will appeal mostly to a smaller, more select group of people, but let me mention before you begin reading: you can probably read this with only a general sense of what Silent Hill (or indeed, even FullMetal Alchemist) is about. Although of course being a fan of both is best, as long as you know that the town of Silent Hill is living proof that "fear is a place," and as long as you've read my previous fics in this series, "Sixty-Six" and "Feelings," you can probably still enjoy this story. No guarantees, though. :P
That being said, I need to make a quick note about the universe in which this story is set. Since this is an odd crossover, you're just going to have to accept that somehow you can get to Silent Hill from Amestris. Perhaps it supernaturally manifested itself there, or perhaps this is simply an AU Amestrisized version of the original town... I'll leave that decision up to you. Also, although I love the series in general, this fic is primarily inspired by Silent Hill 2, in that the Order/Alyssa/God thing is pretty much discounted here; instead, the monsters and screwy manifestations that occur in the town are all psychologically tied to the characters that have been drawn there - in this case, that's Kate and Barry. This does NOT mean that they are hallucinations; the idea here is that the town itself takes a person's fears, traumas, issues, etc., and turns them into something real - and really horrifying.
Also... to my fellow FMA fans and Risembool Rangers, I apologize, as in spite of being a crossover this fic is really more slanted toward the Silent Hill side rather than the FMA side. The entire fic will be taking place in the town... that's the whole point of the story. But I will do my best to include as many fun little references and crossover moments as possible, to keep things semi-balanced.
Finally... I have been inspired by Valadilenne's Hatter/Alic fanfic "Sunny Disposish" (you can find it on DeviantArt): for the first time, I am posting a chapter commentary at the end of each chapter. It is not necessary to read this; rather, this is simply my chance to share with you my little notes and point out details and references which you might have missed while reading the chapter initially. (For example, I may use in-text quotes, without naming them as such; in the chapter commentary, I will explain where the line came from, etc.) Primarily I will be focusing on any Silent Hill stuff that needs explaining, as I know readers of the previous fics will generally be FMA fans who may or may not have knowledge about the game.
And now, without further adieu... enjoy! And by the way: HAPPY FMA DAY EVERYONE!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except Kate and my monster concepts (and that only to a certain extent). Everything else belongs to Arakawa and Konami.
Chapter 1: Caught in Monochrome Dreams
"I have never felt an emptiness of self like I did right then and I never will forget that feeling. It was like I crossed over into a realm I could never come back from." – David Gore
Kate felt like she was pushing through curtain after curtain of a thick fog which had been draped heavy and cold over the hallways of her consciousness. The farther she went, the closer the light in the distance got, and she pushed harder, shoving aside the enveloping mist to make her way back to the surface. She emerged at last with a long, deep breath, taking the chilled air in slowly as her eyes opened.
Looking up through the windshield of her car, she saw a dark, blurry, colorless world which differed little from the fogginess in her mind, and made even less sense. She had never been here before, she was sure of it, and she had no idea how she had come to be in such a place now. The last thing she remembered was getting into her car and taking the road east, heading for Liore, with Barry sitting next to her…
"Barry!" She sat bolt upright, looking round wildly for her companion. But the passenger's seat was empty, and the door slightly ajar; glancing over her shoulder at the vacant backseat confirmed what she already knew: he was gone. But where?
She noticed what looked like a parking ticket lying on the dashboard; picking it up, she saw that someone had written the following on the back: Have I caught my heav'nly jewel,/Teaching sleep most fair to be?/Now will I teach her that she,/When she wakes, is too, too cruel.
She stared at it for a long moment. What the hell?
Shaking her head in a vain attempt to clear it, she pushed open her door and got out, wincing a little as she stretched stiff limbs. After locking up the doors on both sides of the car, she stepped back to take a second look around, trying hard to remember what had led to her current situation.
The first thing she noticed was the skid marks on the road behind the car. The area was weakly illuminated by the dim neon sign of the nearby building, a cheap roadside diner. She saw now that it was a miracle she hadn't hit the fire hydrant sitting mere inches away from the hood; clearly, she hadn't parked here in a calm state of mind. She figured she must have swerved to avoid hitting something, perhaps a child chasing after a ball or a stray dog…
No, she would remember that, wouldn't she? She hadn't hit anything, and a quick check of her reflection in the car window proved she didn't have head trauma as an excuse for amnesia. But the question, then, was how she had ended up unconscious and alone in her car, if she had not been knocked out.
Unless… She glanced again at the tire tracks on the ground, then at the car. Little shards of memory came back to her, bit by bit, from the car ride that had somehow come to an end in this unfamiliar destination. She and Barry had risen early in the morning to pack everything away before they left; she remembered complaining about how she should have grabbed a second cup of coffee at that café they had stopped at for lunch. Barry knew how to drive, of course, but Kate had been reluctant to turn the wheel over to him, afraid he would decide that running over some poor pedestrian "by accident" would be a nice diversion from the monotony of the trip. She remembered yawning, a lot, as afternoon began to drag on towards evening…
Oh, fantastic, she realized. I fell asleep at the wheel. No wonder she could not remember arriving here; she had driven into town in her sleep. Like sleepwalking, only horribly dangerous. She made a mental note to herself to thank Barry when she found him again; it was no doubt his doing that they had come to a safe stop at last.
She looked around. The streets were completely empty; it was a creepy feeling, standing alone in the fog, and for a moment she fancied she was the only living person in the entire town. She shook it off, and chuckled at her own paranoia as she climbed back into her car.
But when she inserted the key into the ignition, something peculiar happened. She noticed the radio first; none of the stations worked. Each turn of the tuning dial only turned up more dead air, or the occasional spat of white noise. Worse, when she tried to actually start the car, the engine sputtered and shuddered and hacked and coughed like it was suffering from a dreadful case of emphysema, despite running perfectly smoothly earlier. Getting back out, she lifted the hood and checked the parts; everything looked clean. What is going on here? she thought irritably, sitting back down to try again, only to find the results were the same. With a grunt, she shut the door and locked it, and stared hard at the automobile, as though by glaring alone she could will it to work.
She was good with cars, but not an expert; after checking under the hood once more and coming up empty-handed for the second time, she decided she was going to have to take a walk over to the nearest mechanic's for some help.
But first, she had to find Barry. God only knew what he had been up to since escaping from her custody.
She looked around again, wondering where he might have gone. Boy, this place is run-down, she thought, noticing for the first time the splits in the pavement beneath her feet, the crooked, flickering light of the café sign which read Café 5to2, the spider-web cracks splayed out across the pane of the glass of one of the windows. Ghost town much? On the bright side, she thought to herself as she pushed through the door of the café with a loud creak, she could probably find some work while she was there. If there was one thing this town seemed to be in need of, it was a repairman – or, in this case, repairwoman.
The interior of the café was slightly warmer, but not much brighter, than the street outside. The fog, of course, remained outside the door, yet somehow the colors seemed muted here too, as though the life of the town itself was slowly draining away. She noticed she was the only customer in the room, and almost turned around and left before she realized she was not completely alone. There was a man behind the bar, polishing a glass and whistling a strange tune to himself, seemingly oblivious to her presence, though there was no way he could have not heard the little bell on the door chime as she walked in.
The bartender had a pale tan cowboy hat on over his long brown hair, a black vest with skulls and red roses embroidered across the chest and shoulders, and piercings in both ears. As she approached him, he looked up at the sound of her boots on the tile floor, and raised his eyebrows and the corners of his lips in what seemed to be pleasant surprise. "Hey, a customer, huh? Haven't had one o' those in years," he drawled good-naturedly, tipping his hat.
"Really? I couldn't tell." She cast a pointed glance around the empty café. "Sorry to disappoint you, uh, Scott," she said, glimpsing a name-tag pinned onto his vest, "but I'm not really here to buy. I'm looking for a friend of mine." She described Barry briefly, carefully skirting around the topic of his personality except to mention he was rather eccentric. "Sound familiar?"
"Nah, sorry, can't say I've seen him," said Scott as he put away the glass and reached for another. "But I'll keep an eye out. Sure you don't want anything? How about a map?"
She smiled as he handed her one from a stack sitting on the far end of the counter. "What, is it really that obvious? Or did someone write 'tourist' on my forehead when I wasn't looking?"
He chuckled. "Nah. Silent Hill's a small town. Everyone knows everyone, 'specially me. Besides, I can't remember the last time I saw a girl lookin' as lost as you do now."
She thanked him for the map, and dropped a handful of cenz into the tip jar on her way out. She unfolded the map and looked it over, not sure what exactly she was searching for. Now, she said to herself, if I were Barry, where would I… Her eyes found a building marked The Family Butcher, and she nodded to herself. There was no guarantee, of course, but it was a good place to start, anyway. Pocketing the map, she turned and began jogging down Bachman Road towards the butcher's shop.
The solitary sound of her boots' muffled thump-thump-thump against the fractured concrete of the sidewalk struck her as horridly lonely, and her footsteps began to quicken along with her pulse. It was true the weather was not exactly inviting in terms of casual strolls or outings, but surely someone else had to be out on the town besides herself. She nearly broke into a run before stopping herself, torn between the need to laugh at her own foolishness and the strong desire to break the silence and simply scream out Barry's name.
Just then –
She froze. She was not alone; she had heard something, she was sure of it. Ah – there it was again: a peculiar, semi-mechanical sound, like spare parts tossed together in a bag, being dragged along the ground. It lasted for a moment – draaaaag – and then a pause. Then – draaaaag.
Whoever it was certainly was taking their time. Either that, or perhaps they had a limp… "Hello?" She resisted the urge to speak in whispers, telling herself there was nothing to fear in breaking the silence, even as the hair on the back of her neck began to stand up. "Someone there?"
There was no answer, but the sound continued to draw closer. Clank. Clank. Clankclankclank. Skreeeeek…
Slowly, a shadow began to emerge from the dense gray of the fog. Only, it wasn't a body erect, as she had been expecting. It was something on the ground – was that a person, crawling up the street? "Hello? Hey, do you need…"
The word help died on her lips as, taking a step forward, she brought the figure into full focus. Person was not remotely the right word for the thing on the ground coming towards her, though it might once have been human. It still had the silhouette of one – but the flesh was gray and mottled like a corpse's, and the head was tilted at a brutal, impossible angle, suggesting a broken neck. It wasn't even entirely made of flesh – half of the distorted, faceless face was exposed rusty metallic sinews, like the inner muscle-like workings of automail before the outer casing is attached. The left arm was the same; she could actually see the gears turning and the synthetic ligaments straining as the creature pulled itself forward along the ground. Its legs, a mishmash of metal and raw skin, dragged uselessly behind it, a trail of shed pieces of rotted flesh and broken parts left in its wake.
Clankclank. Crunch. Skreeek…
She screamed, and its head twitched violently in her direction. It lurched forward with a sudden, terrible speed, slashing out with the claw-like fingers at the end of its automail arm, slicing through the bottom of Kate's jeans and just scratching the surface of her lower calf as she stumbled back away from it.
She did a quick about-face and fled, running blindly in the opposite direction, not caring where she went, as long as it was away, away, away. She heard the creature lurching after her, its fractured and disjointed parts rubbing together with horrible crunching and shrieking sounds as it gave chase.
It was surprisingly fast – but terror carried her faster. Although she soon left the creature far behind, she kept running, until she skidded to a stop at a building located at the end of the street. She barely glimpsed the name on the sign – Al's Electronics – before throwing herself at the door, beyond caring whether or not the store was open. The door had been locked once, but the lock was broken, and she all but fell across the threshold in her desperation to get inside. She slammed the door shut behind her, and when it would not lock, she pulled out the chalk she always carried in her pocket and sketched a quick transmutation circle on the wood, quickly fusing the door with the wall using alchemy.
She backed away until she hit the sales counter, her hands clamped over her mouth to prevent herself from gasping noisily for air. Cautiously, she climbed over the counter and crouched down behind it, listening in the deafening silence for the tell-tale sound of clinking, dragging mechanical parts…
She waited for a full twenty minutes, each of which lasted an eternity, before slowly standing up again, having heard nothing at all besides her own racing heartbeat. She closed her eyes, and took one long, slow breath, then another. She counted to ten before opening her eyes, telling herself what she had seen had not been real. She was over-tired, she was disoriented and confused; her mind was playing tricks on her. Perhaps she was dreaming, or perhaps she had lost the ability to tell the difference between waking and not.
Part of her wanted to call out for someone, to ask if anyone was in – but it didn't take a genius to realize there was no one in the store with her. The lights were off, and the place was dead quiet; she was alone. Again.
She glimpsed something shiny on the counter out of the corner of her eye; turning to it, she realized it was a revolver. A revolver with bloodstains on it. There was blood on the counter as well.
She felt panic rising again like bile in her throat, and swallowed hard. Do not scream. Do not lose it. Don't think about it. Just take it. Clenching her jaw, she forced her arm to move, her hand to reach for the gun, to pick it up and wipe the blood – still wet, she noticed, her stomach churning – off on her jeans. She checked the chamber: five out of six rounds were left. She clicked it shut again, checked the safety, and shoved the gun into her belt, wondering briefly where the missing bullet had gone.
Grateful she had ended up in an electronics store, she headed out from behind the counter and surveyed the merchandise. Her eyes landed upon a row of swivel-head clip-on flashlights hanging from a rack nearby, and she seized one, ripping it out of the packaging without a moment's hesitation. After a short search, she located batteries as well, and popped them in. Switching the flashlight on, she found a little comfort and confidence in the soft white light that streamed out from the bulb.
She shone the flashlight around, looking for anything else that might be useful. There were rows of radios on the far wall; hopeful that she could contact Central, she grabbed a small walkie-talkie type. After quickly removing it from the packaging and inserting the proper batteries, she switched it on – and groaned. No matter what channel she turned to, she seemed to get only silence or faint static.
Wait – was that…?
"Central Command, do you read me? Central, come in! Colonel Mustang, are you there?" she called frantically, but she got no response. The voices she was picking up did not seem to have heard her. She turned up the volume a bit, crossing her fingers for a familiar voice. She heard what sounded like a woman crying; an older male's voice was trying vainly to comfort her.
"Shhh… dear, they'll find her, I'm sure of it," the man was saying. His lack of conviction carried through clearly in his voice, even through the static. "It's only been one night. I'm sure she's fine…"
"She's not at home, and she's not at Monica's," the woman sobbed. "They said she told them she was going straight home. Where could she have gone? What if…"
"Don't say it. Don't even think it. She's all right… Our daughter is all right. She has to be…"
"I told her not to walk around alone at night – I told her!"
Something vaguely resembling a chime sounded off in the background; Kate heard the woman gasp.
"Wait here," said the man; a chair scraped against tile, then footsteps led to the creak of an opening door. Another pair followed quickly after; Kate guessed the woman had followed the man after all. "Mustang, what are you— Oh, God. Laura – did you find her?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Bailey…" said what sounded like Roy Mustang's voice – but it was different, somehow. Younger, perhaps.
"No," cried the woman in anguish. "She's not – she can't be – please, God, no!"
The woman's bawling faded away, along with the static and other noises, until Kate was left with nothing but dead air and a deep sense of dread.
Suddenly, far too close to the storefront for comfort, Kate heard an awful scraping sound, like that of a knife being sharpened. She almost called out to it, thinking perhaps it was Barry – but something (perhaps her survival instincts kicking in) told her no, she did not want to attract the attention of whatever was on the other side of the door. As silently as possible, she backed away, carefully avoiding the store's merchandise and the discarded wrappers she'd left on the floor as she made her way towards the back door. She crouched down against the wall, out of sight of anything that might be at either entrance, and waited for the noise to cease. She switched off her flashlight and radio.
The scraping seemed to draw closer for a moment, stopping just outside the door. Kate held her breath; gently, oh so gently, she pulled out her signature gloves bearing deconstruction transmutation circles, and tugged them on over her numb fingers. She waited, hands poised and ready for action should whatever it was decide to enter the shop.
But the critical moment never came – after a long pause, she heard the noise grow softer again as the source headed away again, continuing past the door and heading on down the road. Kate did not make a move until long after it had passed out of hearing distance.
Rising a little unsteadily, she flexed her hands. The hell with this, she thought, pulling out the map again. Screw the butcher shop. I'm going to the police station. Maybe they can tell me what the hell is going on here. Plus, I can check in and see if they've already arrested Barry for something.
Chapter Guide
The bold italics indicate the line/section from the story that I am explaining. The non-italicized text is the explanation. Sorry for the crappy ffnet formatting.
The title of this fic, "Here Comes a Candle," comes from a line from an old English rhyme called "Oranges and Lemons." It was also references in Silent Hill: Origins. That's all I shall explain for now... but I promise it will be more relevant later. You'll see. (Muahaha.)
The title of this chapter comes from a line from the song "A Rain of Brass Petals" from the Silent Hill 3 soundtrack. The verse goes, "A human caught/in monochrome dreams,/I scream to wake up/My voice drowns deep underground;/Only the dead can hear me,/see me…" It's also a fun bonus that the phrase reminds me of the first opening theme for season 1 of Black Butler: "Monochrome Kiss."
"I have never felt an emptiness of self like I did right then and I never will forget that feeling. It was like I crossed over into a realm I could never come back from." – David Gore
David Gore is a serial killer who preyed upon young, attractive women with his partner in crime, his cousin Fred Waterfield. They are both currently incarcerated in Florida.
Have I caught my heav'nly jewel,/Teaching sleep most fair to be?/Now will I teach her that she,/When she wakes, is too, too cruel.
The first of the infamous Silent Hill memos makes an appearance in Kate's car. (And by first I mean first in this story; this was never a memo in the actual games.) This is the first stanza of Philip Sidney's sonnet "Song 2" from Astrophil and Stella. That it's on a parking ticket is a nod to one of the memos from SH: Origins. I wonder how the memos come to exist; do they just appear out of nowhere, or does crazy ol' Dahlia Gillespie run around leaving notes for people to find at random?
She saw now that it was a miracle she hadn't hit the fire hydrant sitting mere inches away from the hood; clearly, she hadn't parked here in a calm state of mind. She figured she must have swerved to avoid hitting something, perhaps a child chasing after a ball or a stray dog…
The original SH game (and SH: Shattered Memories) begins when Harry Mason wakes up in his car, having crashed it just after entering Silent Hill, and realizes his daughter Cheryl is missing. A lot of the games have openings like this, and at least one involves the protagonist swerving to avoid hitting a mysterious figure (dun dun dun), which leads of course to the car crash. Also, the dog is probably gonna be the only reference to Groaners, Worm Heads, Double Heads, Sniffer Dogs, or Ferals that you get in this story, because I simply do not do skinned pets. It's a personal choice.
Little shards of memory came back to her, bit by bit…
Ahaha. "Shards of memory" = Shattered Memories, geddit?
Boy, this place is run-down, she thought, noticing for the first time the splits in the pavement beneath her feet, the crooked, flickering light of the café sign which read Café 5to2…
Café 5to2 is one of the first locations Harry visits in the first game. As for the splits, flickers and cracks… well, Fog World has always been rather dilapidated anyway, but in this story there is an emphasis on it for two reasons: one, it represents the state of Barry's mental health, and two, it's the town's way of screwing with Kate and her obsession with fixing broken things.
"Sorry to disappoint you, uh, Scott," she said, glimpsing a name-tag pinned onto his vest…
Note the cowboy hat and duds. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Scott McNeil, English dub voice actor for Hohenheim of Light in the first Fullmetal Alchemist anime, making a cameo as a bartender with a southern accent. I want his hat.
Her eyes lighted upon a building marked The Family Butcher, and she nodded to herself. There was no guarantee, of course, but it was a good place to start, anyway. Pocketing the map, she turned and began jogging down Bachman Road towards the butcher's shop.
The Family Butcher is a location straight from SH: Origins, and Bachman Road (named after Stephen King's pseudonym, Richard Bachman) appears in several of the games.
…the flesh was gray and mottled like a corpse's, and the head was tilted at a brutal, impossible angle, suggesting a broken neck. It wasn't even entirely made of flesh – half of the distorted, faceless face was exposed rusty metallic sinews, like the inner muscle-like workings of automail…
Say hello to the monsters I hereby dub Gearheads. They vaguely resemble the Lurkers from SH: Homecoming, but with automail modifications… sorta like the Terminator. Again, the theme of being broken; the automail parts and their state of disrepair are an extension of this. The split between flesh and metal is also meant to suggest duality; two very different elements forcibly meshed in one body.
She barely glimpsed the name on the sign – Al's Electronics – before throwing herself at the door…
A nod to Alphonse Elric; the fact that Kate gets the radio here is an oblique reference to how Al's first display of alchemy occurs when he fixes a broken radio in Liore.
"She's not at home, and she's not at Monica's," the woman sobbed.
Named after Monica Rial, English dub voice actress for May Chang in FMA: Brotherhood.
"Mustang, what are you— Oh, God. Laura – did you find her?" "I'm sorry, Mr. Bailey…"
If know your VA's and didn't get this one, you should be skewered by the Ultimate Spear. This is of course a reference to Laura Bailey, English VA for Lust in pretty much every dubbed FMA production ever. Laura is also the name of a uber-annoying girl-child in SH2; although I wouldn't mind throwing her to the wolves, this isn't literally meant to be her.
Suddenly, far too close to the storefront for comfort, Kate heard an awful scraping sound, like that of a knife being sharpened.
Similar to, but not exactly the same as, an enormous blade being dragged along the ground, possibly by an extremely tall, humanoid figure sporting a pyramid-shaped helmet of sorts. Ah, but careful – don't jump to any conclusions just yet…