Hey guys! Wowee, been a while, I know. Schoolwork and all. I even got a hundred percent on a math test. YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN IN THE LAND OF LABYDWELL. I mean REALLY.

Anyways, you can't escape this chapter! I want to know how many people read this story, so if you've gotten this far, give me a shout! Review on this chapter, you must. It's okay, I'm not particularly looking for mindboggling critiques or whatnot, just give me a thumbs up or down or something. Or, if you really don't know what to say that isn't simple, answer me this question one! The Dresden Files, ever read it? TELL ME IN YOUR REVIEW! Don't be afraid, I don't bite, I'm not here to mock you like I did that precious flamer I got. :D

Special thanks to George Gershwin, whose music totally clashes with Silent Hill.

Silent Hill 4: Chapter 14

Henry landed on his behind, as usual. Groggily he sat there, crouched over himself as the fuzziness cleared. Groaning, he stood up slowly, still feeling a heavy weight on his shoulders.

"Ah, Henry!" Eileen exclaimed, relief overwhelming her voice. Even a faint smile caressed her lips. He straightened to see her limp up, and before he knew it she released a happy (if not scared) moan, wrapping her good arm around the back of his neck. Henry's mouth moved as she approached, no sounds coming out. Ever so slightly he turned his head towards her as her fingers gently scraped the back of his shoulder. Her bulky cast separated their bodies from each other, as well as making it uncomfortable for Henry's stomach and her ribs. Uneasy but not responding even though she simply just walked right into his personal space, his hand hovered at her waist, awkward and unsure. Squirming, her perfume was overpowered by the blood and pus.

"H-Have you been here the whole time?" He asked. Eileen pulled away almost immediately, pushing him back to further the distance between them. Instantaneously she was fierce and angry at him, her voice entwining around confusion.

"Yeah! And I didn't see any hole either! You just…disappeared all of a sudden!" Her shoulders raised up and down with the intensity of her breaths, as she got more upset by the minute. She looked Henry directly in the eye as she continued, borderline hysterical.

"I can't stay here by myself. I'll be cursed…I know it," The bruise on the side of her face changed shapes every time she blinked or spoke. Henry was strangely attracted to the bruise, as if that was going along with what she was saying. He crossed his arms as he listened, trying to think.

"What am I going to do?" Eileen drooped, wrinkling her skirt in her sweaty palm. She really didn't expect him to say anything for her, much less just give a sympathetic gesture. He surprised her by replying, albeit somewhat softly.

"I might know a way to save you…," He unfolded one of his arms and gestured to her, "Do you know about someone named Joseph?"

Eileen scratched the top of her head and concentrated. She stared blankly at him for a moment before limply dropping her arm to her side.

"Yeah…," She said, still thinking as she talked, "he was the guy who lived in your apartment before you," She limped over to the wall, leaning against it for much needed support. Maybe she should've sat down instead of paced all the time, because though she thought it helped the pain it really only made it worse.

"I think…," Eileen pointed her finger at him as she talked, eventually leaning against the wall on her back rather than her shoulder, "he was a journalist or something…," Her shoulder blades ached from the scars, but he continued to think and speak for Henry's sake.

"He disappeared about six months before you moved in…But towards the end," Eileen looked directly at him, "He started acting really weird…," She was going to say more, but by catching Henry's gaze she realized that what she was saying and what she was going to say applied directly to him. Immediately shutting her mouth, her cheeks would've gone red if they didn't have bruises to cover them.

Henry tapped his stomach and stepped forward, "Yeah, he was doing an investigation. About a religious cult and a man named Walter Sullivan. I got this…letter from him," Eileen looked up and pushed away from the wall, "He told me to go down…down into the deepest part of him, and to look for the ultimate Truth…,"

Confused at his words, Eileen blinked and shook her head from the insanity. Henry remained firm in front of her, forcing himself to look her directly in the eye. He was just so glad that his voice wasn't wavering.

"Let's do that. There must be something down there." He gave a curt nod towards her to spark some reassurance. Eileen looked down to the floor, every now and then shaking her head.

"Okay, I'll do it," she said after a while, "You're the only chance I've got…," Lazily she pointed her finger out, her expression becoming sorrowfully serious, "I'll stick with you." Maybe she didn't still trust him, but she learned the hard way that she still needed him here, for moral reasons. Henry blinked a few times at her, as if surprised, then looked away. Perhaps Eileen was seeing things, but she thought that a little color was in his cheeks. She couldn't be sure. Really the only time she paid attention to him was when his face was most definitely red with such color that she thought he was sick. If anything else, if he was blushing now it was giving normal color to his cheeks, because his skin was pale from lack of sunlight.

Leading the way he exited back out into the emergency hall, looking back and forth in case there were more monstrosities. The elevator shaft was open, revealing a rusted chamber of gears and body parts. An unstable chain link plank stretched across the span of the chamber over to the other side, where the tile dipped down beyond sight in a staircase. Blocking the path was a simple gate. Taking the small key he received from Joseph out of his pocket, Henry uneasily stepped out onto the plank, hearing Eileen following close behind him. Sometimes her steps caught in the linked plank and she had to shake her leg free. Unlocking the gate he let Eileen go first through it so she wouldn't have to deal with the plank anymore.

Ascending a multi-story staircase were three patients, one woman in front, two in back. Henry pushed himself in front of Eileen, axe readied. Descending down the stairs, he gave the axe his best swing, hitting the patient square on and hard with his higher ground. The monster crumbled immediately, tumbling down the stairs. Eileen and Henry stood at the top and watched as it fell all the way to a landing, lying still. Cautious, they both advanced as the two patients below kept climbing upwards. Eileen kept her purse raised to attack, self-conscious in the back of her mind of how ridiculous she might look.

They were just about to get ready to swing at the two patients when the previous one rose up before them. Startled, they froze for a moment, Henry recovering before Eileen. Attacking quickly he stifled the patient's attack, making it crash down the stairs again. Undeterred, the two other patients kept ascending the stairs until they were stopped by a rather comical act as the previous patient bowled into their legs, taking them both with it. All three of them toppled down the stairs, stopped by the wall at the bottom of the stairs and landing in a heap. Henry sucked in a breath through his teeth, and ran down the stairs, using his long legs to stride and skip steps. Eileen gave a grunt of indignity and tried to follow the best she could down the stairs without tripping.

Henry reached the bottom of the stairs before any of the pile got up. Thankful, he began to make sure that each of them were dead. While he was struggling with the second to last one who seemed to refuse to die, the third patient recovered and stood up, beginning to climb the stairs toward Eileen. Failing to successfully kill the one he was standing over, he looked up at the staircase, feeling a nail being thrust into his chest.

"Eileen!" He called, watching the back of the monster as it approached her. He turned to go protect her when the nearly dead patient gripped his foot with mechanical force. Nearly tripping and falling over, he grimaced and tried to hack away at the monster as quickly as possible, hearing the footsteps of the patient become more concentrated as it prepared to attack. His vision of Eileen blocked by the monster's body, he struggled to regain the upper hand, trying to focus on earning his freedom so he could go help her. The patient would not let go of its vice-like grip, and though it had no mouth Henry could tell that it was grinning savagely. Guttural sounds echoed around him as Eileen fought back to the best of her ability, until he heard her cry out in shock. Henry froze as he looked up, seeing her handbag cartwheel down the stairs to the bottom, ending in a pool of blood that sent ripples to the edges.

A cold shiver wormed through his muscles. He didn't move for the longest of time, his eyes fixed on the purple purse that was slowly being soaked with the blood, the red staining the fabric slowly like an ocean bleeding onto dry land as it swelled and expanded. Giving a burst of strength he finally wrenched his foot from the patient's grasp. Eileen's pained screams bounced off of the walls, piercing his ears. Some of them had a spot of anger to them, but they were few and far in between. Stumbling forward he climbed up the stairs, gripping the axe hard and ready to go berserk as soon as he came within range.

Just before he was about to hit the patient in the small of its back it uttered a loud throaty sound. Eileen responded with a vicious 'Go to hell', and before Henry's eyes the patient was thrown to the wall, Eileen's cement cast pushing its head into the concrete. There was a loud crunch as its skull collapsed, and the monster fell to the ground, dead.

Eileen stood there, panting hard. Her shoulder was bleeding with a new wound that had caused her to drop her handbag, but nothing else appeared to be harmed. Blood and acid splattered her cast, dripping from it and pit-pattering on the stone steps. Henry looked on in shock, part of him relieved. He lowered the axe slowly as no other monster seemed to stir dangerously. Eileen returned his stare, her face drooping in weariness. Opening his mouth, Henry had all intentions to say something but nothing came out.

"Ow," Eileen said softly, wincing, "Ow…,"

All too soon her face scrunched and creased in all ways possible, and her knees buckled below her, crumpling from the intense pain. Pushing the corpse aside with his foot, Henry stepped up to meet her as she wobbled and fell forward. Holding out his arms and dropping the axe he tried to make her fall as cushioned as possible on him. Sobbing to replace her shrieks, Eileen pressed her body into Henry's. When the pressure hit the cast it sent another bolt of massive pain to her head, so she placed a hand on his collarbone to keep distance between them. Tears streamed down her cheek as she began to sob out more expressions of her pain, her eyes watching the acid and blood drip down between Henry's shoes. He didn't hold her in his caution to make sure he didn't harm her further.

Eileen kneaded his shirt within her desperate fingers, just managing to talk between wheezing breaths.

"Ow owowowow! I'm never…doing that again…!" she cried, burying her forehead into Henry's chest and rubbing it back and forth. He glanced down at her cast, stained with the marks of battle. He had never had anything in a cast before even though he climbed lots of trees when he was small. Seeing the blood and acid trickle down the stairs from the puddle between his feet, he figured that the plaster of the cast was only to set the wound or bone, and not to protect it from harm. Her arm had slipped from the leather strap around her neck, and she was dangling it weakly in between them so as nothing would touch it.

"Are…you okay?" Henry asked quietly.

"No!" Eileen coughed in mid-sob, squirming, "I wish I was!"

Henry sealed his mouth. After a long while Eileen declared that she'd be alright for the time being, and they broke apart to go further. He picked up the axe again as she bent down and picked up her blood-soaked purse without a word, shaking the loose droplets off. She'd avoid fighting with her cast for as long as possible—the mind-shattering pain was too much for her to bear on top of all the other injuries she possessed.

The patient that had stalled Henry from helping Eileen was crawling up the stairs with its arms, not being deterred by the fact it was almost dead. Henry gave it a sound kick to the face, and when he heard a satisfactory snap he bitterly stepped over it to the door at the bottom of the staircase. Eileen pretended not to notice his savageness. On the door was the red symbol of the cult that he had seen before on other doors and cult bibles. Opening it, he and Eileen stepped into a world of fog.

It was hard to see as it was, but the lamp post that was immediately set outside the door somehow made it harder. The area was made up of a giant spiral staircase that wound forever downward, or so it seemed anyways; they couldn't see how far it really went due to the fog. Underfoot the stairs themselves were stable, but their rackety look and the weakness of the railings suggested otherwise. There was a blood trail on the steps that led down. The entire staircase led down. Down, down into the deepest part of him. Henry looked out into the fog and swallowed hard. Eileen stood next to him, waiting for him to take the first step. And so he did, descending down into the foggy abyss.

The décor was less than friendly here. Henry did his best to ignore it, glancing once before keeping his eyes on the stairs he was walking on. Blanketing all noise, the fog made this place silent. The only things Henry could hear were his and Eileen's footsteps and her breathing. The thing he concentrated on the most besides where he was walking were the sounds of Eileen's footsteps. He heard clearly when she had stopped to gape at a hanging feminine body, pierced multiple times in the abdomen with railway nails and encased in a cage as if on display. There was no face to display pain, only the body swinging there in the bleak grayness. Afterwards he heard her rush up to him, her broken steps clattering on the metal. He slowed his pace instinctively until he could feel her presence not but a foot away. Resuming his normal pace, he felt her constantly close to his back, never allowing herself to get more than a few steps away. Never did she look up to stare at the many female bodies again.

Eventually they came to a fork in the road. The spiral staircase veered off into the center where a piece of suspended broken wall blocked it off. In the middle of the wall was a hole, completely open and looking rather dangerous to enter. Henry glanced back Eileen, knowing that she could only see the section of wall. He felt a very bad presence emanating from the hole. Aside from the possible note and medical supplies, there was no reason for him to return to the room right now. Eileen panted beside him, her hot breath ruffling strands of her hair. There was also no need for him to scare her again. He ignored the suspended wall and continued to descend the stairs, passing a display case with a gurney.

The stairs ended although more of them spiraled downward past these. At the end was a wall with nothing behind it, a lamp post shining on a plain white door. The white of it had been almost violated by the circular cult marking painted on it. He waited until Eileen caught up with him before opening the door.

They entered into a dimly lit facility room, full of deserted shelves, gas tanks, pipes, and electrical wires. Carefully Henry navigated through the awful light until they could see better, the fluorescent bulb above the door no longer blocked out by valves and reservoirs. Another white candle was placed on one of the shelves, the wick end of it sticking out in the open. He picked it up, the smooth wax comforting, and put it in his pants pocket, the wick still poking out. Unlocking the door beneath the light, he tried to push the presence of Eileen's stare away.

He could tell she didn't like him. As soon as they both got out of there she'd take off to the authorities or something. She was going to stay with him until the end, she wasn't an idiot, in all aspects of the situation. A bloody man carrying a soiled axe wasn't exactly the ideal individual to be trekking around with, regardless of the monsters. As much as he idolized her she wasn't mutual in that aspect, and if he wanted her to stay he'd have to back off. Pushing the door open, he stepped forward, keeping his mind on the drive to continue.

Immediately he was pounced upon by a gorilla charging him on all fours. He had barely enough time to cry out before he was tackled, the door squealing on its hinges as it flattened out against the wall. Eileen screamed as both bodies tumbled into her, laying her out flat and crushing her. Henry struggled, wrestling with the writhing mass of muscle screaming at him. Beneath him Eileen choked and wriggled. Gritting his teeth, he pushed upward with all his might, attempting to lift both himself and the gorilla up at the same time. They hadn't smothered her completely, at the worst Henry's head was being pushed into her midriff. The muscles in her stomach tightened and twisted as she dragged herself out from underneath him. Henry kept his focus on keeping his body off of her until she broke free, falling prey to two sensations of muscles. One came from the gorilla, the thickness of the muscles tightening and pushing down on him, eager to suffocate and throttle him, forcing fear into his weak body. The other was the slithering movement of Eileen underneath his back. Though she was stiff and hurt the way her smooth muscles frantically undulated brought a hidden ecstasy to his brain, helping the adrenaline pump through his veins faster.

His face grew hot from the strain to keep the gorilla away from him, even after Eileen crawled away from the fray. It didn't matter that he was weakened from the constant battling—even in normal condition Henry would be no match for the gorilla. He felt himself get pressed into the concrete, his ears ringing from the mutant's screeching. Growling in frustration, he began to kick and flail his legs wildly, trying to scrape them harmfully against the gorilla's groin area.

A soft snap echoed over the noise of the brawl, and the gorilla reared up in pain, the fleshy head from its chest shaking with the force of the howl it gave out. Henry chambered up his leg and kicked it squarely in its hidden balls. Scrambling, he managed to scrape himself away before the gorilla collapsed to the ground. Eileen stood in the door way, having just pulled the stinger-like tail of the mutant so hard she dislocated its tailbone. Henry stumbled as he picked up the axe and ran to the door, slamming it closed behind them and locking the squeaking gorilla in the room. Eileen looked at him urgently as he panted excessively. Pain sharply cruised through him, particularly from his broken rib that had been quiet for the longest of time until it just got violently agitated. Running a sweaty hand through his mop of a hair, he shook his head.

"I'm fine. You okay?" he coughed.

Eileen opened her mouth to answer, but it took a while of choosing her words before finally deciding, "I'm not sure how to answer that,"

Henry blinked in understanding before cautiously walking down the narrow hallway. More sounds and hoots of gorillas in the distance bounced off of the walls, and as he knew from experience, the gorillas were fair game at ganging up against someone unfairly. Eileen followed, though her steps were more carefully thought out than before.

Henry tried to keep as quiet as possible. He wanted to avoid combat at all costs, for the last two times they had been encountered Eileen had gotten hurt or nearly killed. It was unlikely that they were going to have more lucky encounters like that where they both came out relatively unscathed. Holding her hand to keep her close, they uneasily slipped past a few romping gorillas, nearly getting caught by one. As they slinked by, taking advantage of the gorilla's general stupidity, Henry looked back to find an escalator leading up to nothing, his first entryway into the alternate subway. The mechanical whirring could barely be heard above the tromping and hooting of the gorillas.

The hall outside the washrooms was empty, though there was the lingering presence of evil and death hung in the air. Eileen sensed it too, so when Henry asked if she'd like to take a break she refused and said that she wanted to keep going. Skeptical, he trudged forward, feeling the presence thicken as they neared the turnstiles. The hooting was far behind them now, no longer an immediate threat. There was nothing but a ghoulish air to be had in front.

And black threads on the floor.

Staring at them curiously, Henry and Eileen looked at each other. The threads were grouped together in bands, stretched out into a trail that snaked around the Lynch turnstile back to what appeared to be the King turnstile.

"Hair?" Eileen suggested aloud. Henry shrugged. They were pitch black, and no light reflected off of them even though the fluorescents above were shining as if they were brand new. He leaned his body so he could just see past the Lynch turnstile, wondering if he could see where the hairs were leading to. Numbers and chalk lines laid out by policemen littered the far side of the King turnstile, and in the midst of so much police work was a body.

Stiffening, Henry motioned for Eileen to stay put. He had consciously pushed his memories of Cynthia away from his mind, pretending not to notice the significance of the area. But now, was he being forced to remember her? Creeping forward he felt the ghoulishness of the room intensify, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He kept his eyes on the body. It didn't look like Cynthia—the hairs on its head were long and black, the source of the trail he followed. They were dead though, as the skin was pale. Though relieved he felt a little uneasy, and when the body groaned and twitched he nearly jumped backwards. Wondering if they were still alive but badly hurt, Henry took a few steps forward, tentative.

Multiple feminine cries sifted through the air, of different volumes and voices. The body uncurled, its head twitching and jerking from side to side, finding its sights on him. The eyes were covered by its lengths of hair, but Henry could tell it was studying him, reaching out a hand to crawl forward. Every now and then its body made spasms that suggested a deep, spiritual pain, sending a small warning signal to Henry's mind. He froze in his steps, watching. The body reached forward and crawled right through the turnstile as if it was nothing.

Henry backed up, hands instinctively thrown up in defense. The body, the ghost, righted itself and stood, feet hanging just above the floor. Pumps, a scanty skirt, enlarged breasts, jewelry, but most of all the number carved brutally into her left breast.

16/21.

Cynthia.

Gripping the axe Henry nearly fell backwards.

God no.

Oh God no.