Hey, guys! Jorden the Jynx here! I am sooooo sorry that I haven't updated in so long. College is kicking my ass here lately, and plus I'm working on other fics.
This chapter contains a lot of breaks, and it might be confusing. But because of future chapters, it's necessary that I do this. This chapter is for those of you who don't understand the concept of Silent Hill. And I don't mean the movies. I mean the real stories told in the videogames. It explains a lot about it, but I left a few things out. Would hate to make Tamara seem like she's obsessed with the games like I am .
Anyway, my disclaimers are in my profile! I hope that you enjoy!
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Otherworldly Scrapbook
Blood.
She wanted blood.
The bedroom would never be normal again, she realized. The fan's shadow over her slowed to a stop. Wonder why that was.
She'd fainted twice while Walter had raped her. The rose was making her insane as well. Somehow she felt like it had already been three days. But that wasn't right… was it?
She was still bound, but the barbed wire had loosened enough to where she could move. It was still painful, though. Now she was caught about her waist, too. Damn that Walter. Trying to keep her still the best he could.
She was also wondering how she wasn't dead from blood loss; she wasn't even lightheaded. Was she dead, or was this something Walter had done? She was healing over and over again. It almost made her wonder if she would have any scars from this experience.
It didn't matter, really. She wanted blood. She needed flesh. She craved the beating hears of humans and demons alike.
How long had she been transformed, anyway? She sat up, no longer flinching from the barbed wire stabbing into her limbs, waist and sides. Where was Pyramid Head?
Don't be too active, Tamara. Not when hungry.
She turned around, empty eyes burning. "Tamara is not here."
The bogeyman had two Sniffer Dogs. There are no spare humans in the Otherworld or in Silent Hill. This is what you will have tonight.
The Sniffer Dogs seemed to know their fate. They came to the edge of the bed, sitting down and bowing their heads. She struggled, but somehow managed to get up and stand. So this was the limit of her mobility? Standing? Damn Walter again.
"I will want something larger tomorrow," she told him, before looking down at her prey. She reached down to pat them, trying to avoid them with her bladed fingers.
Her eyes were still burning. Seemed Tamara wanted to cry. "I am sorry, you two." Her inhuman voice echoed throughout the dark room. "So, very sorry."
Hiei knew she was a monster when he felt the hunger. The sun was going down. He'd blocked out most of the pain in the night, but his limbs and back were still sore. He really felt as though he was at a loss.
But hopefully he wouldn't be after he looked in that photo album.
Tamara kept it in a drawer in the end table on her side of the bed. Good thing she'd always trusted him, and didn't lock up the drawers before she'd gone away. She'd never know about this though. No way in hell. He'd be killed. Tortured first, even though that would be difficult, and then destroyed.
The scrapbook already looked worn with age. It was dark red and the covers were thick. There was no place for a photo on the front cover. He'd never noticed the indentation on the inside cover. It looked like it opened. Where the hell had she gotten this thing? It was like she had been trying to hide something else.
When Hiei managed to get it open, there was a small book inside. The leather covers were dry and cracked, and the pages yellowed. What was this? Hiei had never seen Tamara write in a journal…
The first half wasn't in her hand-writing. It was in chicken-scratch worse than her own. But the back half was all hers. Again, what was in here?
He skipped to Tamara's starting page, and began to read it quietly to himself:
He's dead. Whoever had this before me is dead. I killed him, and stole his book and his camera and his pictures. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't immediate. I led him around this world for three days, letting him write and take his photos. But, unfortunately for him, my appetite caught up with me. I had to eat him. Last time I eat someone with kidney stones, by the way…
My name is Tamara. I'm seventeen. I'm a monster in something called the Otherworld. I live in Apartment 205 in South Ashfield Heights apartment complex. Great place, really. Now, on the next page I'll tell you all about this place and how it all started. But look at the pictures as you go. It helps.
Well, I love how I feel when I'm writing to someone else, at least so far. It isn't like anyone will ever see it. I guess it's just because I get lonely sometimes. There's only two people to actually talk to, and the one I like doesn't have a head. So yeah. I get lonely. But fighting can be good, you know. I get a lot of practice. Our only rule is no killing. We only kill outsiders. But anywho, let's move on…
So Tamara constantly ranted when she was younger, too? At least the girl was social, he supposed.
Taking his eyes off of the journal for a moment, he turned to the page of the scrapbook, and his eyes widened. Tamara was in all eight photographs, either pointing or talking or loading her gun. But the backgrounds were all different. In a few she looked like she was indoors, and then in the woods. Hell, there was one where she looked like she was lying on the forest floor.
She looked different from when Hiei knew her. Her eyes were almost lifeless. Her face was gaunt again. He had to think back. Had her eyes been like that when they'd met? Almost like an animal, with nothing but instinct in her mind?
She only looked like that right after she turned back into her human form. After the monster had its fill.
He's using time manipulation, Pyramid Head told her. You know this place is strange like that.
She wasn't listening, sitting absolutely still as she watched the wounds on her legs heal. "Going to make me relive it, huh?" she asked aloud. "I hope he knows that I'm the real immortal here. No matter what he does, by sunrise, it's like it's never happened."
Did you hear me?
"Time manipulation. The Otherworld has always done this."
To its victims, yes.
"I'm not a victim."
Then why do you feel like you haven't fed in three days, when you finished only moments ago?
The demon stopped, and painfully turned her head toward the bogeyman. "I am not a victim of the Otherworld."
Tamara, it may not be of the Otherworld, but maybe of Walter. You are his victim now.
She hissed, snapping her head back down. "I told you, Tamara is not here."
Hiei had looked through and memorized the pictures throughout the first half of the scrapbook. Tamara had been right. There are things here that no one should see.
Whoever had owned the camera had not just taken pictures of the seventeen-year-old girl. He'd seen many demons as well. At least, Hiei would have called them demons. Tamara would have just called them monsters. There were these weird, muscular things that could have been dogs, but their skin was green with rot and their tongues dragged the ground. Hiei was pretty sure that they didn't even have eyes, they were so disfigured.
But why hadn't this man died sooner? Tamara had once said that these dog things attact anything that was up for grabs…
Then again, this man had been her dinner, and not theirs.
He sighed, shaking off the thoughts of Tamara and the dogs and the other monsters. He had to read up on Silent Hill. And the Otherwor4ld. He opened up the journal again, sighing quietly as he settled into the pillows once more.
The Otherworld originally began with this crazy cult called the Order. The Order is a cult of many sects, the ones mentioned here are called the "Order of Valtiel" and the "Order of the Holy Woman." The infamous serial killer Walter Sullivan was an Order member, in the Valtiel sect. I used to be a member myself. But let's stop all that. The main focus isn't the Order. It's what they did.
Their main goal is to hurry up the end of the world. If they manage, then apparently they get access to Paradise. Their deity, known only as "God" or the "Sun God" (usually portrayed as a woman), was gonna come down to the earth and strike down the sinners.
That explains why there are nothing but women in the paintings, Hiei thought, remembering the photos of various paintings in the scrapbook, and then continued:
The Order used this goal to justify their own sins. They killed innocent people and beat the shit out of children. They burned teenagers for being different and accused them of witchcraft. Anything for "god."
There was a woman, however, who changed everything. Her name was Dahlia Gillespie. She was the leader of the Sect of the Holy Woman in a town called Silent Hill. It was a pretty decent place, minus the evil cult crawling around every shadow.
Anyway, Dahlia had some sins on her plate as well. Poor bitch has been judged for it, too, I hope. It's all her fault that I'm here. Well, it's her fault that Ashfield had its own Otherworld, anyway.
Dahlia had a daughter, but she wasn't married. A daughter with dark hair and eyes. A daughter that was born with psychic powers that were so powerful that she was singled out. Her name was Alessa Gillespie. And she changed the fate of Silent Hill.
Wait… Alessa? She'd once been human? Gods were not born of human beings… he kept reading. Surely Tamara explained.
Alessa wasn't exactly popular growing up. Her powers made her an outcast. She was hated for what she was. The other kids mocked her, calling her a witch and a devil and a freak. They even picked on her because she didn't have a dad like the rest of them.
The Order knew what she was. Dahlia did, too. Alessa was the Holy Mother, the Mother of God, the virgin who would give birth to their deity so that the Order could prosper again. That's why she had those powers. Because they were the abilities of the deity who'd been prophesized to return through a girl like her. And a certain ritual had to be performed.
Honestly, I don't know much about the ritual itself, except that it's supposed to impregnate the Holy Mother with the god. Other than that, I only know that Dahlia performed it alone in their house, and made it look like an accident.
After her prayers and other bullshit, Dahlia set her house on fire while Alessa was sleeping inside. Her own fucking daughter. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Who does that to their seven year old daughter?
Alessa didn't die. Not everyone in Silent Hill was bad. She was saved by a firefighter, her entire body burned up and black.
But there were Order members in Alchemilla Hospital. Or, I think there were. They hid Alessa in the basement there, and Dahlia and the others were bribing a doctor. Everyone else thought Alessa had died in the fire.
But, as much as it sucks, she survived. And the ritual had been a success. She was pregnant. And she was just a little girl.
At least they'd declared Alessa a "saint." The Mother of God and the Daughter of God. What a load of bullshit. Then again, they learned soon enough what a saint she was.
The director of Alchemilla Hospital was named Michael Kaufmann, knew about Alessa. He had ties with the order that was centered around drugs. He bribed a nurse (Ms. Lisa Garland, if I'm not mistaken) with narcotics so she could keep an eye on her. Sucks that she looked at Alessa wrong and Alessa took her eyes out using nothing but her mind.
Alessa couldn't give birth to the god inside of her; she'd been too young. She was kept alive with her mother's witchcraft and the powers of the deity. The "demon" as I call it, was eating away at her soul, and ripping her mind apart. It's actually portrayed as evil and cruel, this god. At least, that's what all the books say.
She used her powers after seven years, used them to expel the god and send it away with the only bit of goodness she had left. And for seven more years, Dahlia kept Alessa in agony to lure the "new" Holy Mother to them to combine them once and for all.
To keep this from happening, Alessa once more used her powers and her hatred and her spite to take out the whole town. In the real world, Silent Hill is a toxic wasteland. But the Order members (not all, Dahlia and a few others got out) are trapped there. Already dead, but they don't know that. They still fight for their god, claiming Alessa's ritual as a failure. In my opinion, I think that they know better. They all do. They're just delusional, being in their own hell and all.
Dahlia was returned to Silent Hill, but not before leaving her influence on a single young mind. She moved to another sect, the Valtiel sect that was in Ashfield. She told a young orphan named Walter Sullivan that the only way to "wake up" his mother was to perform the 21 Sacraments ritual.
That isn't the fucked up part about that, though. Walter had been born in an apartment and abandoned in it. Dahlia told Walter that his mother was literally the apartment he'd been found in after birth. And Walter believed it, and still does.
Poor Walter. He grew up having that cult's beliefs shoved down his throat. He didn't run away like I did. He stayed. He didn't leave the Wish House, the orphanage in Ashfield that was run by the Valtiel sect) until he was eighteen. He got a job at a pet store during college, but got fired for killing the animals there. That almost breaks my heart.
Anyway, when Walter began killing, he took the hearts of the first ten of his victims. The ritual calls for it. I don't know the names of what they symbolize, but 11/21 is the one called the "Assumption." This is the suicide part. Walter killed himself for the ritual, or so they say, when he was in jail. There is a body, but it's here and not in the real world. The grave, which is actually in Silent Hill, is empty. But he's here.
Walter Sullivan is the ruler of this Otherworld, and will start killing again soon. Right now he's still attempting to understand the world he's created. Which means chopping us into little pieces sometimes.
Unfortunately, though, it's not the same. Now we go all nightmarish at night, the way Silent Hill does. Alessa consumed the Otherworld here, Walter's world. I guess it's more roaming around for me, but Walter isn't happy with it, even though it's been two years now. He thinks his mother is the "Holy Mother" and Alessa is a fraud. I think she's more real than the apartment he thinks gave birth to him. Apartment 305, above mine, in fact.
My question is this: Since Walter doesn't believe in who Alessa really is, with him being a devout believer and all, doesn't that make him a blasphemer?
Hiei kept reading, but only skimmed the part talking about the Wish House. She'd already explained on that. Instead he read about the monsters and their weaknesses. There was also information about the Silent Hill monsters and even Pyramid Head. Hm.