Silent Hill: Redemption
Part Two
By Musashi
Michelle Rede slowly woke again. Events were jumbled in her mind; in fact, when she realized that she was out in the fog again, with the bodies of the two dead mutant dogs lying near her, she wondered if the entire hospital ordeal had been a dream.
She pulled the micro recorder from her jacket pocket and rewound it a bit, then pressed PLAY.
"...Let me out of this nightmare!" her own voice called to her, panicked.
"It was real," Michelle whispered. "Then how...?" She cut off at the sight of something red moving through the mist towards her. A muttering voice moved with it.
"Demons and darkness, I swear this is something out of a horror movie... What's going on in this bloody town?" It was a man's voice, low and irritated, tilted by a faint European accent.
Carefully, Michelle stood, pulling her gun from her pocket. She gripped it tightly with her right hand, then snapped it up, pointing it at the red as she supported it with her right fist with her left.
"Whoa!" The man, noticing her, threw his hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. "Hold your fire! I'm unarmed!"
Michelle lowered the gun, but only slightly. "Who are you?" she demanded.
"I should be asking you the same question," he replied warily. "So far I 'aven't seen a single normal 'uman in this bloody town, and now I find one pointing a gun at me? What brings you to Hell?"
"I don't think that's any of your business!"
"Well, you 'andled yourself well with those demon dogs, it seems. I don't know why you'd be afraid of me then, seeing as I'm not 'alf as dangerous." He smiled charmingly at her, ruggedly handsome face lighting up with the expression, even as his pale eyes narrowed. "I'm not even armed."
"I doubt that. You would be dead if you've had experience with these things" she kicked a dog to illustrate "and weren't armed."
"Smart girl." The man took a step back and bent over, pulling a knife from the top of his combat boot. "I admit that it's not a match for your gun there, though."
"True..."
"My name is Samuel. What's yours?"
The gun lowered a few inches more. "Michelle."
"Excellent. Well, Michelle, as you are better equipped for this Hell-on-Earth than I am in means of weaponry, and you look a bit jumpy with none to watch your back, what say we stick together now that we've found each other?"
"I suppose..."
"Excellent. Now, I'm not much fond of standing around in the open like this. The map I picked up from the touristry department-" Michelle quirked an eyebrow at him, but he continued. "-says that there's a school not far from here. Schools should be secure buildings, right?"
"You talk a lot."
He laughed. "So I 'ave been told!"
"You're going to attract the monsters." Thus said, she headed off in the direction of the school. How she knew which way the school was, she wasn't sure.
"'Ey, wait..." Samuel came after her, jogging a bit to catch up with her determined headstart.
"What?"
"We need to stick together, or we should be getting in trouble..."
"Whatever..." Michelle already felt irritated by this handsome stranger's mannerisms, and wondered how long she would have to put up with them.
-The minute Michelle crossed the threshold into the school, she sighed. It was dark, although it had been light a moment earlier. She looked at Samuel.
"Do you have a watch?"
He nodded, the movement sending semi-long black hair into those disturbingly pale eyes. "It's 'alf-past one."
"In the afternoon?"
He nodded again. "Odd how dark, eh?"
"Indeed." Michelle felt a disturbing apprehension as she crossed the small vestibule and pushed the double doors open. She stepped into the hallway that the doors led to, Samuel's large form a strong presence just behind her.
A sickening feeling spread from her stomach all throughout her body as her first steps squelched on the floor. She pointed the flashlight down, following the beam to the thin layer of sticky blood that covered the tile. Looking down to the doors at either end of the hallway, she saw that no tile was left uncovered by the fluids.
Bile rose in her throat and she pushed past Samuel, back into the vestibule. He looked at her oddly, even more so when she started to scream.
The floor of the vestibule, spotlessly clean moments before, was covered in vomit.
"Michelle!" His hands gripped her shoulders. "What's wrong!?"
"Don't you see it!? Don't you see it!?" Her voice was panicked, even to her own ears. "The blood in there, the... the..." Bending over, despite his hold, she threw up onto the floor.
"Michelle, calm down. There's nothing there. Close your eyes and take a deep breath."
She followed his instructions, feeling an inexplicable calm flooding her mind and body. When she opened her eyes again, the floor was perfectly clean. Turning, she saw that the hallway floor was clean as well.
"What...?"
"Maybe your day has been a bit more stressful than I thought," he mused, and she wondered at his sudden change in manner. "Perhaps you were 'allucinating something. Look: the nurse's office." He guided her into a room that looked like a doctor's examination room. For a brief instant, she saw the image of rusted walls, rusted tables, and a blood-soaked gurney in place of the sterile examination table. A shriek rose in her throat, but as quick as the image was there, it was gone, chased away by Samuel's reassuring presence.
He made her sit on the examination table, rummaging through the medicine cabinet. She couldn't see the words on the white label of the bottle he drew from behind the glass doors, but she could see the red cross on it. One of his hands touched under her chin, the other holding the bottle.
"Drink," he said, in a such a firmly gently voice that she couldn't help but comply. The queasiness left her stomach, the faint pounding in her head fled, and the terrible taste in her mouth was washed away.
"There," he said. "That's better now, isn't it? Just rest for a while; I'll go see if I can find a phone."
"You... don't go out there!" The panic returned in full force, and she gripped his hands. "There's something out there! I can feel it! Don't leave me alone!"
"We can't very well stay here for the rest of our lives, Michelle," he said quietly. "Now, I won't leave you alone for very long; give me ten minutes. If I don't find a phone, I'll return straightaway. Same if it doesn't work."
"And if you do? If it does?"
"Then I will call for help and come right back." He squeezed her hands reassuringly. "You will be alright, Michelle. Trust me."
And for some reason, she did.
He walked out, closing the door softly behind him. Not wanting to let her mind idle, Michelle hopped off the exam table and opened the medicine cabinet.
Curious, she picked up a small, clear glass vial. A cork was in the top, and small chunks of some white power littered the bottom. Beneath the vial was a red-backed notepad holding pages of hurried scrawl.
She took the notepad as well and sat back on the table. She pulled the cork from the vial, and an alluring, intoxicating, and somehow familiar aroma filled her senses. Automatically, she shoke one of the chunks from the vial and set it in her mouth to dissolve as she read the notepad pages.
"Dreams aren't real; nightmares are. Or so it seems. This school is a horrible funhouse for demons. Bloody fingerprints on the piano upstairs. Blood all over in the office.
"When I went into the clock tower, I found a metal-grated tunnel. When I came out of the tunnel--on the other side, mind you--I was back in the school, but a dark school of rush, blood, and bodies.
"This place must truly be Hell. Where is Cheryl?"
The words began to blur and dance before Michelle's eyes, letters twisting to form horrific images: cavorting demons, grinning skulls, bloody corpses.
Nausea assailed her stomach as the room spun, turning once again into the rusted room she had seen upon entering. Blood from the surface she sat on covered her hands and soaked into her jeans. She jumped off in a panic and backed into a corner.
Something rammed into the outside of the barred window by her head, the loud sound causing her to shriek and jump. Clawed feet scratched the glass in a futile attempt to get in, to get to her.
Another thud drew her attention, this one on the other side of the door. A moment later, the door began to open. She stood in wide-eyed horror as a demon, dark as the pits of Hell and taller than any man, walked in. It was the personification of darkness, of evil, and it had leathery wings half-folded behind it. Hands, wickedly clawed, gripped her shoulders. Michelle screamed.
End Notes: Cliffhanger! Bwah... Remember: In Silent Hill, nothing is as it seems. "Trust no one.".... .... ... Oh, wait, that's from the X-Files. Oh well. Silent Hill is a giant episode of the X-Files anyways, isn't it? I was going to make this one longer, but I decided that this was a good place to end off. Feedback, people! Ask questions! I'll try to answer them. Any theories about Samuel? How about theories about Michelle? What's the connection? And why didn't anyone say "Co ve" this chapter? Bwah.. the secrets of authors...