Chapter III

            Lori looked up from the toilet, which she then promptly flushed.  Her mouth still stung from the acid that rose from her stomach, but she didn't mind it.  She was staring at the wall.  It was covered in blood, also, but had something written in it...

            God, who would touch blood????

            Her head bent down again, to the toilet, ready to throw up.  But, seeing as how there was blood everywhere, she stood up, forcing her disgust down.  Looking to the stain, she started to read.  The words were blurry, so she reached up to wipe them off instinctively...and the words started to glow, just as she pulled back.  She caught a glimpse of the first two words in the message, which read, "Do not..."

            Now more curious than afraid, she put her hand in front of her again, making the letters glow brighter than before.  Her eyes read over the message, and she gasped whenever she finished.  Over and over she read it, finding it more and more disturbing every time.  It read, "Do not trust the one who walks like a corpse, or you shall not find the eye."  Whatever that meant, it couldn't be good if it had the word 'corpse' in it.

            Her head started to thud, hard.  She could feel her own pulse about to explode out of her temples, and the pain welled up inside of her like someone shot her.  A voice started to whisper in the back of her mind, but she couldn't make out the words.  Her feet carried her out of the bathroom, and as soon as she opened the door, something made her feel uneasy, even more so than she had been.  A smell of rot crossed her nose, and the lights were all but bright.  As soon as she took her first slow, reserved step out of the bathroom, her foot clanked against something.  A flashlight lay on the floor in front of her, a pocket-light.  Same thing that mom had...

            No.  She refused to believe that the same thing that happened to her mother was happening to her.  This wasn't even Silent Hill, or anywhere near!  Besides, her mom had that embryo thing inside of her, which Lori did not.  They had checked her a million times, her mother over-protective and paranoid.  But, she thought, this does seem a lot like she told me...

            The voice in the back of her head grew louder, but still incomprehensible.  Smacking the side of her head a few times, Lori tried to hear what it was her mind was trying to tell her.  Just then, she saw something next to the flashlight.  It was black, sleek...had a trigger.  It looked like a 9mm VP70.  She knew what one looked like, and the name, because her dad was a gun expert, heading the local NRA group.  Trembling, she picked up the flashlight first, tying it with a string, which she brought for her hair.  Next, she bent down next to the gun...and slowly slid it into her fingers.  Maybe it was happening to her.  Maybe...this was a replay of her mother's own experiences.

            But...how...?  How can that be?  It's not...it can't be true, can it?

            Her eyes looked around the area, and she turned on the flashlight hesitantly, afraid of what she might see.  When the light shed on the area, everything seemed to be more distorted than before, blood and gore everywhere, bodies hanging from the ceiling, making her want to vomit yet again.  But, she kept it down.  Her first two steps were very slow, and she was totally afraid that there was nothing but silence in the room.

            A person could be seen on the other side of the room, but Lori couldn't make out any details.  Who cares?!  Someone else!  Maybe they can see all this shit too!!!  Running as fast as possible, Lori made her way down the aisle again, to the other person...and stopped when she saw the face of the one she was rushing toward.

            The woman, about 32-ish looking, had blondish-white hair, piercing ice-cold brown eyes, pale skin, and a long flowing black dress.  She looked irregular, almost dead.  Looked like someone her mom had described...Claudia, was it?  A long shot, but she just had to ask.

            "Excuse me, miss??  Is...is your name Claudia???"  Lori's voice broke, and she was getting more and more nervous every second.  A look crossed the woman's face, a mean, but stone-cold, unreadable look.

            "Yes, child...my name is Claudia Wolf...you are Lori Mason.  Welcome to reality."  Her voice was cold, uncaring.  She seemed...possessed, dead, or something.  Taking a few steps, Claudia walked a bit forward.  She walked like some of those zombies in movies.  A bell set off in Lori's head, remembering the warning on the wall.

            Just as those thoughts crossed her mind, Claudia turned to her, and yelled in a voice so inhuman, it couldn't have been from this realm.  It was like from another dimension, or Hell, or something.  The voices in her head also yelled out what they said, and she understood them both...for they were saying the same thing:

            "TU FUI, EGO ERIS!!!"

            At that, Claudia disappeared, leaving nothing but thin air in front of the scared young girl.  A thought crossed Lori's mind, which was weak at the moment from listening to her own mind scream out at her.  What if...what if I can't get through this??  I have no combat training or anything!  This is going to be totally impossible!  I might as well just sit here and starve...  And so she did.  She slunk against a cubicle wall, thinking about how much dehydrating to death would make her suffer, but she knew it'd be better than running into anyone like Claudia again...

            After a few minutes of sulking, Lori heard a yell.  It was not human, like Claudia's yell was before.  It had a demonic ring to it, making her jump up suddenly, gripping at her pistol tightly.  Something moved in front of her, and she strained her eyes to see through the darkness.  The flashlight wasn't helping much.  Though, she could hear a slow padding against the carpet, like feet, or claws, or something.

            Readying the VP70 in her inexperienced hands, she looked into the room to see what was the source of the noise.  A small, white creature stepped into view...and made Lori recoil.  It had no head, only an open, bleeding neck.  Its body was that of a dog, except the muscles were way oversized, making it look like a huge, deadly pillow.  The skin was pure white with a few veins sticking out.

            It yelled again, and Lori just shot, instinctively.  The sound was deafening, and left a ringing in Lori's ear for a second.  It fell to the ground with a dog-like "yelp", and started to bleed.  Lori went over to it, slowly, with her gun raised.  It didn't seem alive, though she didn't know where the bullet had hit.  Slowly, she bent down, examining the body...when it latched onto her leg, making her scream.  The teeth that had grown out of its mutated neck hole bit down on her calf, letting blood flow from her leg.

            Her other leg whipped around, and kicked the monster in the side.  The thing screamed out in what seemed to be pain, and it let go of her leg.  She pulled away as soon as possible, bringing her gun up...only to realize she'd dropped it when it bit her.  Looking back for it, she only saw a spent shell.  Something drilled into her backside, and she propped herself up, taking the obviously-placed gun in her shaking, nervous fingers.

            Still alive, and very angry, the thing stood up, ready to pounce at her again.  This time, she fired three shots, each one making her hands buck wildly.  The thing fell to the ground, and more cautious this time, Lori got up.  It looked dead...but she decided to make it final.  With one strong kick, she slammed her foot into the monster's back, making it whine softly, like a dying animal.

            Her senses were telling her to run, to get to the parking lot, to go home...to find someone.  But, first, she had to find a way out of there.  Running to the elevator, her leg aching from the bite, blood filling her shoe, she jabbed the button.  The elevator did not open.  She cursed under her breath, and rushed into a cubicle marked "C1903B2F".  She knew who worked there; it was her good friend, Matt Kinser.  Matt was a good guy all around, but was a hypochondriac.  So, he carried essentials with him.  A good look in the cubicle, and she found a backpack filled with medical supplies.  Taking a gauze and local anesthetic (how'd he get that?), she jabbed the needle into her leg.  After applying pressure to the wound, she wrapped it several times in gauze, not caring about infection or anything of the sort right then, just about how to survive, to get out of this hellhole.

            Walking down the aisle for the hundredth time, Lori breathed heavily.  This was going to be a very, very long day.  Claudia had said something...something like "Tu fui, ego eris"...from her college days, she remembered her Latin classes.  Trying to recollect that phrase, she remembered what it meant.  Saying it out loud made her shiver.  "What you are, I was...what I am, you soon will be..."  Slowly opening the door to the stairwell, Lori Mason shook as she took her first step to getting out of this nightmare.