*Sorry for the insanely long wait, ladies and gents. But here at last is Chapter 4. I promise to try harder about updating in a more timely manner.*

Chapter 4

Silent Hill: Corruption

Diana was grateful to see that the door to the stairwell was not locked. A strange, but welcome fact. She'd ceased being surprised at what doors were and weren't impassable, unconsciously coming to believe that whatever ways were open to her were completely random and had nothing to do with the slacking of the staff. There was so much going on right then that couldn't be explained that this answer made just as much sense as any.

Wondering what other obstacles might await her on the path to Control, Diana was so deep in thought that the state of her surroundings were gradual in dawning on her. A strong, mildewy smell pervaded the stairwell. She could see the mold, too, dark and diseased-looking, growing thicker and thicker the further up she went. When she got to the ground floor landing, it was locked.

Of course, she thought with a sigh, there's no way it could have been that easy. Fighting the desire to do violence to the door, she turned and started heading upstairs. She was only about halfway up the next flight of stairs when she heard something snuffling and snorting somewhere below her.

A head rounded the corner, bowed between a pair of hunched, naked shoulders. It wasn't a human head, though- oh no. The creature was bipedal, but that was where the resemblance ended. Sickly pale skin shot through with blackened veins was stretched tight over a disfigured frame. Instead of arms at its sides, it looked like its arms had somehow grown inside its body, pulled toward its front until they erupted from its abdomen as a pair of obscenely long-fingered hands.

Diana stood frozen with shock and horror. Her skin went clammy and her legs threatened to buckle. Of all the impossible things that had happened today, she'd never even remotely considered the appearance of monsters. Before, it had only been events occurring which should not have been possible, but could be reasoned away. This was something that shouldn't even exist.

For a short eternity, both woman and creature were stock still. Then it reared back, the underside of its eyeless face lifting to reveal a vertical maw of sharp, uneven teeth. With a gurgling howl, it began to hunt, lurching towards her on shuffling footsteps that grew faster the closer it got to her. Despite its ungainliness, it had no difficulty with the stairs and its proximity is what finally convinced shell-shocked Diana to move. She bolted like a bat out of hell, slipping on the mossy, crumbling floor and scrambling wildly higher. When she came to the next door, her hand slipped off the handle, it was slick with the cold sweat of fear. She tried it again, and to her desperate dismay, it too was locked. The shuffling thing was getting closer, so she turned and kept running.

The next door proved to be just as useless, and with the shuffler right behind her now, she had no choice but to turn around and face it. Good thing she did too, as its hands had hold of her jacket and was beginning to pull her close. She could smell the decayed reek of the thing's breath, huffing at her while it salivated in anticipation. Unable to shake it off, it clung to her like a limpet. Woman and monster fought desperately, and Diana was knocked heavily to the ground, stairs slamming into the back of her head. She knew if she succumbed to unconsciousness there would be no going back, and she held onto awareness with a tenaciousness that surprised her. Somehow, she maneuvered the shotgun into her hand, poking the barrel into the monster's mouth, and with a squeeze of the trigger, she blew its head open.

The monster tumbled back down the stairs and Diana lowered her gun with shaking hands. Her eyes widened when she saw it scrabbling around on the landing, trying to get back up. How was that possible after a point blank shot to the head? She shot it again, her aim more deliberate this time, and the remainder of its head exploded in a vile-smelling mess of rotten meat. Breathing hard, she walked back down the stairs with uneven footsteps, wanting to make sure it was dead this time.

She poked it carefully with the tip of her shotgun, watching it closely for the slightest hint of movement. The sound of its last breath bubbling out of whatever it had that passed for lungs caused her trigger finger to twitch reflexively. She tried to shoot it three more times before she realized that her gun was empty. Raising her foot, she stomped down with her boot on the twisted carcass over and over again until she was positive nothing was left to move.

Unable to come to grips with what had just happened, Diana bolted up the stairs again even though there was nothing after her now. She acted on pure instinct, just trying to get away from there. Her brain felt as fuzzy as her vision was going, and soon she was at the absolute top of the stairs. She found a door at the top, and with fumbling hands, wrenched the handle down and jerked the door open. She slammed the door shut behind her and stood there, swaying on her feet and hyperventilating. She was on the roof.

Diana felt her bile begin to rise and stumbled over to one corner before vomiting over the side of the roof. The rancid taste of regurgitated jerky filled her mouth and she continued to heave past the point when there was nothing left to heave. Then she fell to her knees, with the sour taste of gall slowly beginning to fade, leaving only the bitterness of a shattered perception of reality in its wake.

It is never a comfortable thing to have your perceptions shaken. Perceptions are the filter through which we interact with reality, our safety harness from the horror and difficulty of the world around us. We rely on it, are supported by it. Whenever someone is forced to face the fact that reality isn't what they thought it was, it feels terrible. Diana's idea of reality had been ripped to shreds so brutally that she was reduced to a quivering wreck right there on the roof of the prison. For several long, agonizing minutes she lay there, curled in on herself and trying to shut out the world as she now knew it.

Slowly, the system shock of her now twisted reality began to wear off, leaving Diana calmer, but with a newfound sense of edgy awareness . Bracing herself against a crumbling concrete wall, she pushed herself to a standing position and took careful stock of her situation. She'd bumped her head when she fell and her back was bruised, but her most pressing injuries were the cuts on her hand. Because of the abuse she'd put it through, it was once more seeping blood.

Diana started patting her pockets, searching for something better to bandage it with than tissue. That's when a whole new horror began to dawn on her. Somewhere along the line, she'd lost her spare clip of rifle ammunition. She didn't know if it fell out of her pocket when she tumbled down the hole or during her struggle with the thing on the stairs, but the result was the same- she was down to fifteen rounds. There were ten bullets left for the rifle and five for shotgun shells left, meaning is there were many more of those shuffler around, she was going to have to find another way to defend herself soon.

With shaking fingers Diana loaded the remaining shells into her shotgun and slid the strap over her shoulder. She also made sure the safety on the rifle was off. It wasn't the best weapon for close combat, but it would have to do once the shotgun ran out. A faint hope that it wouldn't be an issue lingered in the back of her mind, but she wasn't counting on it. Considering the number of crazy things she's experienced so far that day, the odds were against the thing from before being the only creature she'd have to contend with.

Diana's eyes raked the rooftop, looking for any other way to get back down inside the building without going back the way she came. Spying a maintenance hatch on the far side, she tried it and was both relieved and disturbed to find it unlocked.

This just isn't right, she thought. If she remembered correctly, this section of the roof was right over Segregation, where they housed all of the more… problematic inmates. She was starting to get the feeling that she was being herded, though why and by what she had no clue.

Throwing open the hatch, Diana descended a rusted ladder that was nailed to the wall of the small room below. She forced herself to keep a firm grip on the rungs, ignoring the sting of her injured hand.

After a moment's fumbling, she found the light switch. Fuse boxes lined one wall and across from her stood a solid metal door. Instead of a standard keyhole, it sported a speaker box with a button off to one side. Her shoulders slumped when she realized that she should have expected this. Most of the doors in this part of the prison could only be opened from the picket in the middle of Segregation or the facility's Central Control room. Normally this just meant better security, but right now it was yet another obstacle placed in her difficult and convoluted path.

She was so tired. Tired of hurting, tired of the weirdness and silence, and tired of nothing ever being simple. Wanting to crumple again like she did up on the roof, instead Diana shoved self pity to the back of her mind in the interests of finding a way through the door.

Not knowing what else to do, she pushed the button on the speaker box. It squawked, and she blinked in surprise when her own voice began drifting out of it, faint and nearly drowned out by white noise. She was sure it was her voice, because she remembered the conversation very well.

"…..Sir, we can't….. seriously wrong….. going to report this….."

The words were from a conversation she'd had several weeks ago with Captain Taylor, a tall, thin, and balding man with all the appeal of a severe case of athlete's foot. One of the inmates had gestured her over to his cell door, wanting to gripe to her about how the guy two doors down was getting special treatment. He accused the lieutenant on shift of bringing the guy contraband- everything from marijuana to a cell phone. When she brought the issue up with Taylor, he'd squirmed for a while and refused to look her in the eyes. Eventually he just hemmed and haahed before telling her that it was just "one of those little things, no big deal, not going to hurt anyone so we look the other way. No need to stir things up, right sweetheart?"

Aside from the rank sexism in his response, it was just one of the many times something she'd reported was dismissed out of hand. She left that meeting steamed, telling the captain that he'd be hearing from the Bureau of Prisons soon. Yeah, right. Turns out they were used to hearing complaints about this place. Somewhere along the line, someone had probably greased a few palms and she doubted it would take anything short of a death on premises to get people to do anything about the corruption at Toluca Prison. The last time they had any sort of serious investigation was when that Sullivan guy offed himself with a spoon a few years back. Even though she hadn't been working here then, she could picture how the staff here responded to the incident- a quick scrub of the place, a shakedown to get rid of all the contraband and give the worst employees some paid time off to keep them out of the way. Then everything could go back to normal once no one was looking at them.

How in the world was this playing here and now? The sound cut off, and a loud click emanated from the door, jerking her away from her memories and back into the present. The door was unlocked. Gingerly she pushed it open, leading the way with the barrel of her gun. Nothing. The hallway was empty, but she heard sounds in the distance, as if they were coming through another thick door. Her radio began to crackle again and she tensed up. Pushing the button, she made sure it wasn't someone trying to get through, but once again it was only static. That could only mean one thing.

Diana stepped cautiously through the door, looking all around for the source of the interference, but she couldn't see anything. Shadows moved behind the window of the door to the nearest cell block and she moved in for a closer look. The sounds grew louder, and now she could hear voices. There were a lot of the gurgling moans like she'd come to associate with the shuffler, but there was also something new…

There was a person in there.

They were yelling themselves hoarse, but whoever it was, they were alive and keeping decidedly unpleasant company at the moment. Diana squatted down in front of the cell block door and opened the bean hole to peer through. Sure enough, a pair of the monstrosities were throwing themselves at one of the cell doors, bashing their revolting bodies against it in an attempt to get at whoever was inside. She didn't know or care at this point who was inside. Any other human company was preferable to the damnable isolation thus far. She also wouldn't feel right leaving someone behind with those things, even if they couldn't get through the door.

She took careful aim through the hole, exhaling slowly. Then she pulled the trigger and a loud BOOM echoed through the cell block. One monster was on the ground in front of the cell with its head blown away and the other one had turned and was making its way to her door in search of whatever made the noise. Her stomach churned but she forced herself to wait until the shuffler was right at the door before pulling the trigger on this one, blowing a hole through it too. Praying it would work, she quickly stood up and pressed the button to open the cell block door. The lock popped and she quickly stepped inside while the things lay squirming on the floor. Not wanting to use any more ammunition on them, she went to each of them in turn and stomped them until there was nothing left to get back up.

She looked around to see if there were any more, but the coast was clear. When she turned to face the cell's occupant, her face grew hard with her mouth pressed into a thin line. Of course, she should have known.

"It just had to be you, didn't it?"