Disclaimer: I do not own Silent Hill. Silent Hill © belongs to, and will forever belong to, Konami. This is non-profit only. I only own the characters in this story.

Author's Notes: If you guys get the chance, please say thank you to betweenheavenandhell for his insight and for helping me through my writer's block.

Editor's Notes: Review etc folks, things are nearing the start of the conclusion so your support is needed to see it through till the end.

IMPORTANT:

I am sorry. I've been busy with work. I work during the week now and I just haven't been in the mood to write. However, today was my day off and my editor basically wrote this chapter himself! So don't thank me, thank him. I owe him a lot for taking a load off of me. Thanks Neo!

The Truth That Lies

Chapter Nine: Nightmarish Waltz Part I

The walls loomed high as she ran, lurching from left foot to right erratically. The ceiling seemed to tower above into pitch darkness, swallowing the light from her torch.

I'm suffocating! she thought, collapsing onto the floor in mid-run, panicking as she felt the surface grime rise and swell like an oily tide, tugging her into it tainted embrace.

Above, an oak box speaker- once part of the hospitals broadcast system- spat to life as it swung back and forth on a single wire. Like a pendulum counting down the seconds she had left, blearing a cheery tune in distorted tones.

"We've only just begun… To liiiiiive," it crackled as dust rained down from the shadows above and the floor rumbled with invisible footfalls.

Kyla grasped at her throat, clawing at it as if that would restore her air. He was behind her – she knew it – but the pain that gripped her chest would not go away.

Smoke billowed by on seductive tendrils, whispering dark purposes.

Managing to pull herself forward against the slick surface of the floor, Kyla set her wide, terrified eyes on the only open door she could see, knowing she didn't have the strength to stand and try another.

Hot, it was getting so hot, the sweat beginning to roll down her back, over her brow, in her eyes.

Panting, she hauled herself into the tiny, dim room ahead and pulled the door shut with her foot before breaking down completely.

"What the fuck did I get myself into?!", she cried between broken sobs when no one answered, "I WANT TO GO HOME!!"

"We've only just beguuuuun."

Kyla jumped as something began scrabbling against her door, the sound of tiny nails on wood grating on nerves far past raw. A shiver went up her spine and yelled for it to go away.

Tap.

Tap.

TapTapTap

TAPTAPTAP

"GO AWAY!"

The handle rattle and danced a squealing metallic tune, as if whatever was trying to turn it didn't have the right appendages for such an operation.

She wanted to pass out – get the inevitable pain over with. She knew it was coming.

"Let me out, let me out, let me out," she chanted, clasping her hands to her head so hard she feared she might crush it.

Screwing green eyes shut, Kyla curled up tightly, the overpowering stench of cleaning supplies vying for dominance with the intoxicating smell of smoke as she kicked over a bottle of something in the process.

"I shouldn't have come back here," she whispered, registering dimly as the chemicals she'd spilled began to steal a lethargic blanket over her mind, that she couldn't feel the floor below her anymore.

"We've only just beguuuuun…"

"…What… when was I…" floating, she was floating, becoming light as air… so why could she feel herself falling?

"I don't even know anymore…" Kyla murmured as the world suddenly turned silent, "What… am I?"

Fog, all she could see behind her eyelids, was fog.

"I'm dissolving…"

As she passed out, the last thing the brunette heard was the distant sound of sirens.

XXXX

"Chris…?" Kyla called out hands fumbling blindly in the dark as she searched for the small switch. The one that muscle memory told her was there, where it always was, but of sleeping doubts, not yet controlled by a half conscious mind, whispered uncertainty.

Suddenly it was there, tactile relief flooding her mind as the small plastic stump was flipped upward and the world outside her window lit up with the eerie orange tint of a new dawn.

"… How…" it had been night just then… hadn't it? What time was it… when was it? The memories refused to come; yet she did recall thinking that the whole world vanished when you turned out the light, once upon a time.

"Just a childish delusion", she muttered, staring blankly at the fog swirling around her feet, obscuring the floor, numbing her feet to the point she couldn't be certain if she was standing or flying.

"I'm dissolving Chris..." the brunette whispered, a dangerous smile cutting over her face for the briefest of moments before being swallowed by a more rational confusion, "Help me… It's coming apart, because of that… place"

What place?

"The hospital… I went there when mommy and daddy burned… and I left…something behind," Kyla's eyes darted left and right, chasing a thought that slipped away, stumbling out of her room and down the corridor.

"I need… to find it?" she clutched her head painfully as something inside seemed to rebel against that idea, growling in unspoken words as the walls smoldered around her.

Ahead she could just make out Chris' room, the one right at the end of the house, all alone. From it there watched two dull eyes, peering through a crack in the wood.

Don't go there Ky. Only bad things can happen.

"I need to find it, it's lost. I thought I could leave it there but it won't let me" warm tear fell as she staggered, the numbness spreading up her legs.

… Perhaps… it's best.

Kyla stared dumbly as the door at the end of the hall opened, just a bit, and a pale skinny arm reached out, hand outstretched for her to grasp.

Take my hand, and you'll find me… but I can't protect you from what might find you.

For several trembling seconds she just stood there, unsure of or just unable to understand the choice being offered to her.

Hesitantly, her own slender hand reached for his as the numbness groped ever higher.

As her grip met his, Chris' fingers suddenly locked around hers, his touch searing her own with crimson agony, charring it's way down to the bone, blasting away the numbness with rivers of fire as the ground opened to swallow her whole.

As she fell, her brother's voice offered up one last parting phrase.

In Mens Rea Veritas

XXXX

Kyla hurt.

Her eyes opened slowly, the pain in her right hand trapped beneath her, ushering her to roll over – subsiding it for the time being.

With eyes that shied from the light baring down from the dusty neon fixtures above her she lay lifeless atop what felt like a small padded mattress. The kind used for camping or for…

Rotating her head stiffly to one side, Kyla could just about make out the shapes of a dozen or so iron bars that served as the wall on the opposite side of the small rectangular room she had come to in.

Their shadows stretched out over the more conventional wall beyond them, the distance from them to it suggesting a narrow corridor running perpendicular to her current locale.

Bare walls save for the little bared window set high above her reach and a small, unspeakably filthy bowl she could only guess was supposed to be graced with the title 'toilet' confirmed her gut reaction.

She was in a jail cell.

Even as she made an attempt to find an even vaguely plausible explanation as to why she was here, her mind began filling in the blanks. A cascading rain of bile, confusion, anger and terror that made her stomach heave and her hand- red with fine scars she couldn't remember possessing- ache.

"Chris…" she'd seen him, in that place… her… home? Yes the house they had all lived in before the fire. However surely that had been only a dream… hadn't it? The details were already growing fuzzy. But then what else had been a dream? Was she still in Silent Hill, had she ever really gone to that hospital, was Chris really missing?

How had she gotten from the apartments to the hospital, and then to here?

And why did those sirens sound so familiar?

"More questions… wonderful," she bit out sarcastically, grunting with the effort tit took to drag herself upright of the small cot that was her cell's only furnishing.

Apart from having no idea how she got here, things were looking up.

There was light which meant the building had power, there was no sign of the omni-present rot that had consumed that…other, place so completely, no monsters or creeping presence stalking her.

If not for her injuries she might have been tempted to write the whole thing off as some weird dream. The result of one too many after work drinks, after which she'd simply been pulled in by the cops and left in a cell to sober up.

"Yeah… if only."

As if to add insult to injury, her hopeful fantasy was further crushed by the rather clearly open and unlocked cell door.