Clock Tower 3

Chapter Fourteen: Scissorman

"It's no use struggling, Alyssa." Ralph said as he continued to restrain her. "Now be a good girl and go to sleep, so that I can take your heart and use it to create a new Entity."

The girl could feel herself starting to weaken from the grip of his arms around her neck, but Alyssa also had no intention of simply giving her heart to them. There were too many people counting on her; the dark man had her mother, and that pale girl, Jemima, was doing who knows what to Dennis, so instead of trying to pull away, she backed up toward Ralph as hard as she could while hooking her leg behind his.

Clearly the pale guy had not been expecting this, made obvious when he cried out in surprise as they both fell down, and it allowed her to escape his grip enough to scramble away. Readying the Rooder bow as she scooted underneath the nearest bed, Alyssa sent a glowing arrow toward him, but Ralph did a sort of sideways spin, avoiding the arrow while jumping to his feet.

"Nice try, Alyssa." He laughed while pulling a set of what looked like long golden daggers out from behind his back. "Now hold still."

Leaping up onto the bed, the pale guy plunged the daggers down through the thin mattress, making Alyssa gasp as one of the blades struck the floor only an inch from her head. The blades quickly retracted, and she had to roll out of the way to avoid the next stabs, causing her to scoot out from under the bed and keep going until she was underneath the next one.

Still laughing, Ralph jumped down and overturned the bed that he had been standing on, and then he did the same to the one that Alyssa was currently hiding under, making her have to crawl under the next one… and then the next one… and then the next one until she found herself under the very last one. The pale guy continued his pattern of overturning them, but this time he received the shock of his life when he flipped it over to see the Rooder bow aimed at him.

There was no time for him to react this time as the glowing arrow slammed into his face, making him cry out as he was thrown backwards. As with Chopper, a glowing chain formed, anchoring Ralph to the spot, so Alyssa fired again and again, but he was still able to roll and spin his way to avoiding them, regardless of his now limited field of movement. The girl continued to send the glowing arrows at him as she got to her feet, moving back toward the door that Jemima had taken Dennis through, and then rushing through it while Ralph raised his blade to sever the chain.

Once through, she found the gurney, but it lay on its side, apparently having crashed into the nearby wall, and that was when Alyssa realized that she was inside a stairwell. There were probably only seconds before Ralph freed himself, so she turned and ran up the stairs, reaching the entrance to the second floor and running through it just in time to hear the door being kicked open back downstairs. Now in a long hallway, she tried each door on both sides, but none of them were opening, and the pale guy's footsteps could now be heard coming up the stairs.

"Alyssa!" Ralph's voice called as it got closer. "Come on, I only want your heart!"

Finally the knob on one of the doors turned, so she opened it and ducked inside, closing it and locking the bolt just as the stairwell door was heard opening. Dropping down to the floor and hugging her knees up against her chest, the girl tried to be as quiet as possible, hoping that her pursuer wouldn't find her. As she had done, Ralph could be heard checking each door as he moved down the hall, and she shut her eyes tightly when the knob above her head started to shake.

"Don't be like this, Alyssa." He continued, starting to walk away. "If you come out now and surrender to me, I promise to make it quick."

Not moving or even opening her eyes until his footsteps could no longer be heard, Alyssa finally did, and breathed a long sigh of relief when she realized that she was safe for the moment. So she got to her feet, and looked around the room for something, or rather anything at all that could maybe get him to stop moving long enough for her to use the Rooder bow. However, except for a corner desk, the room was empty, but in the flickering emergency lights she was able to see that there was something on the desk. It was a couple of pages with handwritten notes just like the ones that she had found in her grandfather's room.

July 15th, 1998

During my research into Rooders and the Entities that they fight, I have stumbled onto an incredible document. It is an account of a ceremony known as the 'Ritual of Engagement' by which a person can actually be transformed into an immortal Entity by obtaining the heart of a Rooder and drinking her blood on her fifteenth birthday. Though I am disgusted by the nature of this ritual, I must admit that there is a part of me that cannot resist the allure.

January 13th, 1999

My continued investigation into this Ritual of Engagement has yielded another discovery. It is a tale that details the life of one named Lord Burroughs, and the document contains a strange triangular crest, said to be the key to become an Entity for the one who solves the mystery of said crest. I must admit that I have been unable to decipher it, but perhaps the answer lies out there… somewhere else.

January 5th, 2000

I have trudged around this blasted continent until my shoes are almost worn through, but I am no closer to discovering the location of the ancient castle of Lord Burroughs. I believe that there I will find the clues necessary to solve the triangular crest's mystery… but where is it?

Given her grandfather's obsession with unlocking the secrets of the Rooders, of which his wife, daughter, and granddaughter were all part of, it was understandable that his curiosity would lead him to studying the Ritual of Engagement, but it was still disturbing. Could this research have been where the dark man had learned about it? Had he met Alyssa's grandfather somewhere out there in the continent, and used what he learned to come after her. If so, then what had he done to her grandfather?

This was just another of the many things that the dark man would have to answer for, and he certainly would once Alyssa got to him. Of course, to do that, she would have to somehow get past Ralph and Jemima, but she couldn't just leave Dennis with that… with that… that bitch. Anger started to flow through the girl's body as she readied the Rooder bow, imagining the pale girl inflicting onto her childhood friend even a portion of what Chopper had done to her, and now she was ready to continue on.

"Hold on, Dennis." She whispered to herself as she unlocked and opened the door. "I'm coming."

The hallway was silent as she stepped back into it, and in the flickering lights there was no sign of her pursuer. This was the only possible way that Jemima could have gone with Dennis, so Alyssa kept the bow ready while she continued down the hall. The girl moved slowly, trying to not make any noise with her footsteps as she passed room after room, but then her next step sounded heavier… like, a lot heavier… as if had been made by someone else.

Quickly spinning around, she found herself face to face with Ralph, who smacked the bow off target, causing the glowing arrow to harmlessly strike the ceiling. As for the pale guy, he grabbed Alyssa and shoved her up against the wall, taking out the daggers again, and holding them together so that the blades were on each side of her neck, like a giant pair of scissors.

"I'm the winner." He said happily, moving up against her. "Now, I know it's frightening, the thought of screaming and crying while I remove your heart… and there will be plenty of both… but that's not half as bad as what I'm going to do to you when your spirit is trapped in my realm forever. Still, through the pain, the humiliation, and my having my way with you in every sense of the word… you will always have a clear view as Jemima does the exact same thing to Dennis."

A surge of anger suddenly made the girl see red as she thought of Dennis being put through the hell that her pursuer was describing, and this caused her to risk having her throat cut when she grabbed him by the shirt and slammed her knee into his groin. Ralph groaned as he stumbled back a bit, freeing her from the blades, and allowing Alyssa to swing her arm, striking him in the head with the object that was the center of the Rooder bow.

Taking only enough time to let off a single shot with the bow, the arrow missed when the pale guy dodged, but this was really only to give the girl a head start as she sprinted down the hall. There was another door up ahead, and she could hear Ralph's angry growl when he ran after her, but she didn't look back. She just kept running and running, crashing through the door, and then her foot got caught on something.

The girl had been at full sprint, so there was nothing to stop her from falling on her face, but to her surprise it wasn't a hard floor that she landed on… but dirt. Dry, rocky dirt that skinned her knees as she fell, but when she looked back toward her pursuer, the door, as well as both Ralph and the door were just gone. The sky was black, but the full moon allowed Alyssa to see a few scattered dead trees in the area around her… as well as a really old looking stone wall with an open metal gate.

Getting to her feet, and approaching the wall, she saw that beyond the gate was the courtyard of an equally old looking castle… a castle where a large clock tower at the top was the predominant feature. Looking back for a second, and seeing nothing but more dirt and dead trees, it was obvious that this was the way she was supposed to go. So taking a deep breath, and hoping that Dennis was okay, she stepped through the gate and into the castle courtyard.