Silent Hill: Redemption
Part Three
By Musashi
A/N: Yay! It's back -^.^- Maybe I'll develop a
diary-narrative-diary-narrative pattern?? Sorry this one has taken so long. I've
been lazy and working a lot on my doujinshi and my new website format.
Diary of Michelle Rede, Darktime
I'm not sure what day it is, or even what time. It's dark, as if it's night, but...
Samuel has built a fire. I think he used a few ruined books. This book I'm using for a diary, as he found it blank. Ooh, it's cold. I'm moving closer to the fire, closer to Samuel.
I can hear the scratching of clawed hands, the pitiful moans of the demon children just outside the library door. They can smell us, they know we're here. The bloodlust courses through their repulsive gray bodies...
But they are also afraid. They know the danger of fire, and they can smell the smoke. The floor is non-flammable tile, so there is no real danger, but they don't know that. The fear and anger are oozing beneath the door like a black liquid, crawling up my skin... The feelings make me want to cry.
I feel safe, though. I feel protected, and I have ever since Samuel came to save me from myself in the school's clinic.
The creature came towards me, dark skinned, large, leathery wings; a demon, the embodiment of evil and terror. It came closer, and the fear inside of me swelled until I began to scream.
As i screamed, the creature's clawed hands gripped my upper arms, and it shook me.
"Michelle!" Samuel's voice said. "Snap out of it!"
I stopped screaming and opened my eyes. It was Samuel, and the clinic was once again a clean sanctuary of health. Something snapped inside of mea, and I fell against him, sobbing. His arms came around me, gentle and strong at the same time. Comforting.
I must have blacked out, because when I looked up again, we were here in the library. This blank book was sitting beside me, a pen resting on the cover, and Samuel was stacking books ruined by what looked like dry blood in order to burn them.
I shuddered.
I shudder now, remembering what he told me. The phones are out, the electricity is out, and the generator refuses to start. My left hand strays to the shotgun lying beside me as one of the children slams its body into the door. Sam found the shotgun... somewhere. He wouldn't tell me where, and he wouldn't tell me why there was a shotgun in a school. For the moment, however, I control the weapon. Samuel worries that if the creatures manage to get past the librarian's desk we used to barricade the door, they will come to attack me, the smaller of their two targets, their long arms swinging the knives held in deathgrips in their fists.
It's very comforting to write. I feel as though my death awaits me on the other side of the door, but writing I can push these feelings out of mind. But I have to stop now. Samuel had produced some sort of drinks, protein drinks, to have as a meal.
...Yum. Co Ve.
-
Diary of Michelle Rede - Time Unknown.
After we ate, Samuel stretched out by the fire to rest, leaving me to keep watch for a while. I sat beside the fire--the books burned well, if low, and were not consumed as quickly as I feared they would be--with the shotgun across my lap, listening.
The darkness was oppressive, thick with an evil power which weighed heavily on my mind and body. It seemed to mute all sounds, and an eerie silence settled over our safe haven. I could hear my heartbeat as a low thrumming throughout my entire body.
The rapid, rhythmic sound hypnotized me, and I closed my eyes, swaying a bit. The sound seemed to grow louder, as if it was the sound of the blades of a giant fan, spinning, spinning, spinning......
And the sound was broken by a squeak. The thrumming seemed to fade away as I opened my eyes, and I perceived the image of a blood-stained grinding fan retreating rapidly down a long, dark hallway in quick, flash-by-flash strobe images.
The squeak came again, and I looked around. I couldn't see anything. It came from the shadows beyond the firelight. Terror of the unknown pulsed adrenaline through my body, and my heart seemed to be trying to beat its way out of my chest.
I crawled over to Samuel and shook him awake, motioning for him to listen. He did, and his eyes widened as he heard the squeaking.
He made a small pained sound as I dropped the shotgun in his lap. My hands flew up to cover my mouth as what looked like a large-headed baby walked into the light, squeaking. The difference was that it was a translucent shadow of pure black. It toddled towards me, and abruptly vanished. The squeaking stopped.
I breathed a sigh of relief, and Samuel stood. He checked the shotgun's ammunition, then glared at me.
"You're too jumpy," he accused.
"Well, you heard it too." I stood, then screamed and fell backwards as something massive slammed into the door, tossing the desk backwards a few inches. I scrambled over to hide behind Samuel's legs, and he aimed the shotgun at the door.
I searched for my handgun, my fingers curling around the handle as the door exploded inwards. I looked up to see the creature standing in the doorway, partially illuminated by flickering firelight.
It filled the doorway, filled the broken hole that had been a doorway. Four grotesque, deformed arms with too many joints worked to get past the broad torso covered in fur and oozing a dark substance from every pore. The four legs seemed too thin to support the massive upper body, and they were arranged like the legs of a mantis. The creature's head was a deformed ovoid, and the waxy-fleshed face was disturbingly human. One of the two perfectly round eyes looked like it had slid down the melting face, removing the nose, replacing it with a gaping hole. The mouth hung slackly open, too large, half-filled with saw-like teeth.
The monster forced itself into the library and started towards us, arms swinging like a psychotic double windmill.
Samuel fired his shotgun, and the shot impacted on the torso, causing a spray of dark substance to go out in all directions. Droplets spattered on my face and hands, and the smell of decay filled my nose. I fired four quick shots at the creature's head as Samuel shot at the chest again.
One of the arms struck out, throwing Samuel to the floor. The man groaned and pulled himself completely into the darkness, then I heard him collapse on the floor.
Panicked, I fired wildly at the monster. By the time the clip was empty, a number of bullets had found their way into the open mouth. With a horrendous bellow, it twisted and writhed until it was a shriveled, smoking husk lying dead on the floor. Soon, that too melted away.
In the silence that fell so suddenlt, I crawled in the direction Samuel had fallen, my hands searching the darkness for him. My fingers brushed the hardness of the bottoms of his shoes. I followed the line of his leg to his waist, then easily found his face and patted his cheeks.
"Samuel? Samuel, wake up!" He groaned quietly, and I felt for the back of his head, discovering there a small lump that was rapidly developing.
"Ah... Michelle." His voice was quiet and hoarse. One of his hands moved to grip my wrist. He moved my hand to his cheek and leaned against it for a moment, then pushed himself up into a sitting position.
"The door is gone, I told him." It's not safe here anymore."
"It's no safer anywhere else." He carefully stood, and I stood with him.
"So, what do we do?"
"We'll push the desk back into the doorway and set it on fire. By the time it burns down, the night should be over."
I wasn't as confident as he was. "This night will never be over," I said quietly. I don't think he heard me.
I fell asleep writing in my diary. I can't believe it. But, well, yeah, I can believe it. I was exhausted.
The fire is almost gone, and I can't tell if the night is over. Samuel's giving me nasty looks and glaring at my diary. It's amazing how much he's changed in the short time since we met.
His accent has totally phased out, and he's acting more with annoyance towards me than with the indifferent stranger-to-stranger courtesy of before.
He just dropped my tape recorder into my lap. I think he wants me to use it instead of writing.
-
Transcribed from the Verbal Diary of Michelle Rede, date unknown
(Cloth brushes microphone as Michelle clips it to her shirt collar)
M- "There. Are you happy?"
Samuel- "Thank you."
M- "Hmph. You're such a pain."
S- "And you're acting like such a spoiled brat. Always scribbling in your diary, leaving your guard down. You'll get us both killed."
M- "Can we just get out of here?"
(Loud crack)
M- "AH! What was that!?"
S- "The desk split. Odd..."
M- "..What's odd?"
S- "Nothing. Come on. Get your bag and let's go. No use sitting around here any longer."
(Footsteps)
M- "The hallway is so dark..."
S- "It's probably still darktime."
M- "It will be dangerous..."
S- "After what you have just seen, you fear the outside more than the in? At least outside we can't be cornered as easily."
M- "...Alright."
(Feet on stairs, a metal door creaks open)
M- "This is the entry hallway. The exit is right over there..."
S- "Right. Let's go."
(Another metal door opens, Michelle screams)
M- "Oh my god of my god!"
S- "What!?"
M- "It's a pit--cages--AHH! Something in there is MOVING!!"
S- "Michelle, stop it! There is nothing there! It's another hallucination!"
(Cloth scrapes the microphone)
M- "PUT ME DOWN!! You'll make us fall in!"
S- "There is nothing there!"
(Footsteps)
M- "You... walked right over it... through it..."
S- "I told you... I'll put you down now."
M- "But... I still see it... Oh god... in that cage... that's Alessa..."
S- "No. No, it's not. You can't believe what you see, Michelle."
M- (faint) Maybe it's me...
(A door opens)
M- "No! I have to help her! Don't pull me! She needs my help!"
(The door slams shut)
M- "No, get away from the door! I have to go back and help her..."
(Something large slams into the door, metal screeches as it bends, Samuel grunts)
M- "What... what was that?"
S- "...that is whatever set that illusion trap for you... Go. Run!"
M- "What about you!?"
S- "Dammit, GO!!!"
(Footsteps hit pavement rapidly, the sounds of the creature hitting the door fade)
M- "I'm alone again... One ally, and I can't even... I can't help anyone..."
(Rocks scrape, Michelle screams, various sounds of scraping, tumbling, falling)
(Long silence)
(Michelle groans)
M- "Ohh... I should have been paying attention... I fell into one of those pits... Nothing's broken. I'm not even bleeding, surprisingly... Hm... I can't see the houses up on the street, but there's a tunnel or cave or something just up the slope. Maybe I can get up there..."
(Rocks scrape)
M- "...There. It's a tunnel, just slightly taller than I am. ...ugh... But I don't have any other options, and maybe I can get to another part of town... Here, I'll just get my flashlight."
(Long silence, broken only by steady footsteps)
M- "This is a long tunnel. My stomach is growling at me. I think I have something in my bag... Yeah. A protein bar. Yuck. Oh well, if I can make myself get into a tunnel like this, I can make myself eat this cardboard. And it's food, anyways."
(Silence again except for footsteps and chewing noises)
M- "Mm. Better than I expected. Oh, hey, is that another opening? Great, it may be a way out. The ground is sloping up now. And... I'm out! Yay! ...Hmm."
(Footsteps stop)
M- "I'm not in town anymore, but I think I can see the town. Right here there is... a house. Two stories, maybe two and an attic, with a pond--a tiny pond--right next to it. It looks so abandoned, yet so familiar."
(Footsteps, plastic rattles)
M- "Oh! What's this? ...A child's toy. A little plastic three-wheeler. Pink and purple pastels, probably a little girl's. The seat lifts up... Huh. There's a locket in here. 'Alessa,' it says on the back. Hmm... this must be Alessa's house... Maybe now we'll solve the mystery. Oh, damn, the tape is--"
(Click)