Chapter Four: Stranger In The Darkness

Logan woke to darkness, though he wasn't that surprised by it. Rather, he was bothered by the fact that the dream he shared with Harry involved information coming from him that he wasn't even aware of. What was all this information about Dahlia and Alessa? What was really going on…? Wait, where was he?
The slow realization came over him that he was no longer out in the open. No, he was trapped inside some place, some building. A wood flooring pressed against his face as he remained lying on the floor. The cold from the outside night and fog filtered into the old, dilapidated building and chilled him to the bone… night?
Logan rose with a painful lurch to look through the window. Yes, it had changed to night. Had he been unconscious that long, or had the siren been a prelude to the change of reality? Yes, that had to be it; this was the real darkness, Dark Silent Hill.
Stretching out more, Logan noticed the room he was contained in was barely larger than him, a sort of mini-storeroom in the attic of wherever he was. Either way, he couldn't see much of anything outside with that damn fog. If only it wasn't so dark.
He stumbled around in the black until his hands finally found a doorknob. With a bit of force, the door creaked open, revealing more darkness. He could barely see anything at all. Damn it…
Blind, Logan fumbled forward slowly, mainly tracing the outlines of objects. He couldn't tell what anything was in the freezing darkness, but he somehow determined his exit by means of stairs was somewhere ahead… A sound to his left; his breathing increasing, Logan cast a glance in the direction of the noise. What the hell was it…?
A slither or a raspy voice, something of the like coming from the left side of the room, but how big was the room? How much space was separating them? Was it another demon? What kind? How deadly? Whatever it was dragged its feet towards him, navigating painfully slow around the objects in the path between them. Despite the cold, Logan felt his terror-sweat drip from his chin. What the hell, what the hell…?
Unable to bear the uncertainty and fear, he bolted for the door that he hoped to exist on the opposite side of the room, moving as fast as he could away from the creature that now matched his speed behind him, knocking over boxes or shelves or whatever behind him, the noise rising up to echo throughout the building as much as he could detect it over his own pounding heart beat. To his great luck, the door he thought was there truly was, his hands finding the doorknob, flinging the door open for him to swing behind and slam it shut. The demon ran straight into the door and slammed itself against it, trying desperately to get to him. Not even waiting to take a breath of safety, Logan hurried down the stairs to the bottom.
A hallway awaited him, that fact only being able to be determined by the closeness of lines that appeared in the pitch black. The terrible choking darkness was so thick that any silent creatures would be able to kill him, no problem. Logan prayed that there wasn't anyone in Silent Hill that was deaf and feared such soundless killers.
A doorknob reached; Logan tried to turn it, but it wouldn't work. The door didn't even seem locked, just broken. Logan cursed and continued following the wall, hoping to find someway out of this gloomy nightmare.
At last, one, after three others. He opened the door and found a pocket flashlight waiting almost too conveniently for him on top of a small table in the middle of the tiny room barely bigger than a closet. The light was aimed up, but it still gave enough light for him to find it. Thank goodness, some kind of light.
Logan moved forward to quickly take the prize, but he paused just before grabbing it as he started to gain the impression that something wasn't right; well, something more than Silent Hill in general. He looked closer at the light and noticed thick spider webs over it. That couldn't be too wrong, could it? Something moved in the shadows…
His eyes trailed up until he saw what really awaited him in the darkness: a giant spider filling the entire ceiling of this large closet area. However, its body was decaying, as if it had mutated to this state and immediately began to rot afterwards. The stench alone was enough to prove its unnatural existence, and the clumps of flesh hanging onto the skin only by spider-web slings were nauseating in sight. It had fangs capable of ripping off his head, and seemed very prepared to.
His heart loud enough to give him away, Logan glanced back out of the corner of his eye to make sure the door was still open, then grabbed the flashlight and bolted for the door. The giant spider dropped down the very next instant and slammed into the door as it swung shut behind Logan. The wood seemed to start to give way, cracking at the hinges while Logan stood and tried to regulate his breathing and sanity. This place was a nightmare…
Logan placed the pocket flashlight in a high pocket of his jacket, then cursed softly. He hated Silent Hill for being like this: drawing on the pain and fear and evil of the people inside, yet aiding them just enough to keep them going and fueling the dark power…
The door cracked again; the spider would be free soon! Not even checking the other doors, Logan ran straight to the end of the hallway and opened the last door, finding it thankfully leading to a much larger room containing maybe a dozen bookshelves, holding endless numbers of books, no doubt. The high windows were useless in this darkness, and even his light could barely penetrate it.
Worried about the spider, Logan closed the door behind him, then jogged through the room in search of another exit, preferably stairs or a direct path outside. He would have ran full speed out of fear, but the uncertainty of what the darkness contained was enough to slow him down. Reaching the end of the long room revealed one shelf that was knocked over and leaning against the wall, all of the books scattered upon the floor. This close to one side of the room, Logan finally realized the true extent to which Samael's power perverted the world: the wood of the building was warped and breaking down, terribly ruined and barely able to sustain the rest of the building; Samael's power destroyed… What was that leaning on the shelf? Logan looked closer to the form in the darkness and realized there was a dead and bloody body lying upon the fallen shelf, as if it was the cause of the accident. The sight was certainly disturbing because of the mere sight and stench, but what intrigued him was the shotgun lying upon the floor beside the body. Magic aside, a shotgun would be a pretty good weapon to hang on to in this madness.
Just as he picked up the blood-covered weapon, the door to the hallway he had escaped burst apart, revealing the horrible spider, or at least he assumed it to be in the darkness. The creature's many legs pounded upon the ground in a dead run towards him, but the darkness veiled his location. Logan began to panic, not knowing exactly when or where to shoot. Where the hell was the thing? Praying it worked, Logan shot into the darkness towards where he remembered the hallway to be. The shot rang and echoed throughout the entire building more than likely, and when it finally dissipated, only silence prevailed; but…
Logan glanced around uselessly, terror still choking him. Was it dead? He strained to hear any movement at all, regardless of its owner. Was it there…? Bloody fangs dropped down from the ceiling and appeared from the darkness right before his face. Logan screamed, and thus felt power flow through him and escape in the form of brilliant beams of light shooting everywhere. A huge burst of energy surrounded and shot out from him, illuminating the entire room in one great blinding display. All of Silent Hill must have seen the light escaping out the windows of the library.
Darkness resumed. Logan found himself on his knees, clutching at his chest while breathing heavily to the point where he feared not breathing at all soon enough. Before him lay the bloody carcass of the spider, charred beyond recognition. He knew of the power inside of him, but how strong was he, and at what cost did it come? Who, what, was he, really?
The terrible pain in his chest fading away, Logan rose to his feet, his breathing still a little shaky. When would he escape this place? When would Samael be destroyed? Casting all questions aside for now, Logan found the exit once again and opened the door, finding more stairs down awaiting him. He could only pray that there would be no more horrors waiting for him.
The stairs echoed as if to taunt him during his descent. At last he reached the floor he hoped to be the ground level. Shotgun and flashlight prepared, he stared out at this new area, finding something he certainly had not expected. Despite being a duplicate of the upper floor with its rows of shelves and windows, instead of a giant spider awaiting him, a woman in a tight, flowing, blue dress stood at the opposite side of the room, bathed in the night-like blue that seemed to gently cover the entire room and make everything glow. Was this color natural or a product of her?
Whether her features were blue by the strange light wasn't entirely apparent, but along with her peculiar outfit upon her rather attractive body being blue, so were her eyes the most sparkling and haunting blue. Her hair was completely black, though, long and merging with the remaining darkness in the far reaches behind her. The strangest of smiles was upon her face as she stared at her hands.
Unsure what to really say, Logan allowed the woman to first ramble to herself: "What power inside of me… I can't believe it… It's all I've ever dreamed of…"
That couldn't be good… Shaking his insecurities away for the moment, Logan called out to her, "Hey! Lady!"
The sight of her slowly glancing up to meet his gaze with her creepy one was enough to instantly distrust her and fear nightmares of her. That smile spread more upon her face before she said, "You, you doubt the power I carry. You think you can steal my life away. You think that you control the world and can take from people whatever you want. The reign of people like you ends here."
Considering everything that had happened to him lately, Logan was not exactly thrilled to see the strange woman slowly raise her left hand at him. He muttered under his breath, "Oh shit, not cool."
The next moment, a powerful blue energy blast pierced the air and struck him painfully in the chest, flinging him back completely into the wall, shaking the entire foundation of the building. As he collapsed in a world of pain upon the floor, he heard sirens begin to ring once more as the woman smirked at him and casually walked away. What power… How could she…? What was going to happen…?