The lift stopped with a jerk. His eyes red and tears still coating his face, Mercurius
stood and walked to the doors, which opened all on there own.
This hospital…it was alive. The
essence of the people who had lived and worked and died here infused it.
Just like the police station. Just
like the school.
Mercurius walked out into the hallway. He
had no idea where he was…nowhere he'd been before.
It felt…deep. Like he was
under the ground. He couldn't
remember if the lift had gone up, or down, or how long it had been moving.
Other things had occupied his mind.
The air tasted of darkness and death. Even
more than the rest of the town. Something
had happened down here…where it had all begun.
Yes, Mercurius somehow knew this was where the start had been.
This was the birthplace of the Silent Hill he'd become trapped in,
lost, hopeless. The stench of death
was so strong it couldn't be mistaken. Something
terrible had been started here.
He slowly walked forwards. A man,
lost in a dream, that was all he was now. Or
what he wished to be. To escape
this misery, this living nightmare. If
only he could be certain death was really a release…
A presence to his left made Mercurius come back to life.
Thoughts of welcoming death were banished by years of ingrained training,
pointing at the dark figure that had already vanished.
Mercurius frowned…it had been familiar, that presence, so familiar and
yet impossible to place.
There were doors, he realised, in this small place beneath the hospital.
Some where behind him…perhaps he'd walked through one?
He couldn't remember doing it, but that didn't mean he hadn't.
He placed his hand on a door…and immediately pulled it away.
The agonised sobbing of a little girl had come through that door.
Mercurius' hand went for the handle, but it was locked.
Anger rose inside of him, blooming like a dark and terrible flower.
A huge, psychotic kick slammed against the door, which looked some kind
of wood with decomposing paint. It
rattled, but budged not an inch. With
a primeval scream of rage Mercurius dropped his gun and pulled out the length of
pipe he'd used to kill the winged demon, and began to slam it against the
door. He'd let his best friend
die…he would not let a child die too, alone, in this darkness…not if it
meant his life.
With a groan the door slowly opened. Brandishing
the pipe with both hands, Mercurius charged.
And stopped. It was a room, a
hospital room. Like the rest of the
hospital it was destroyed, tainted in this dark world.
A blood soaked bed and bandages, covered in blood and other strange
liquids Mercurius didn't even want to describe were all that remained…and a
chest of some kind. A drip, empty,
lay on its side. He noticed a
picture frame…his hands trembling the Ex-Marine picked it up.
It was empty, the picture burnt away.
The voices made him turn. The dead
nurse, the one called Lisa, was bent over the bed with a girl.
The girl was wrapped head too foot in bandages, and had a jacket
on…Kaufman's jacket, it looked like. It
was the same as the suit he wore at least.
Both figures were insubstantial.
The nurse bent down further. "Alessa? Can
you hear me?"
The girl replied with a vague mumbling, only a few words of which Mercurius
could make out. "Father…burn…contain…"
"Shush, sweetie. You're going
to be OK, you understand?"
"In me…send it away…stop…God."
"Send what away?"
"Myself."
The scene faded away as Mercurius tried to look better at the burnt woman.
He couldn't make her out…not quite.
Finally he left the room, and picked up his rifle.
Something creaked…and the door opposite him opened.
Slowly he walked inside, rifle raised and ready.
The shadowy figure of a doctor and a woman Mercurius didn't recognise were
standing together, in front of a dead body that certainly was real.
From what Mercurius could understand of it, these shadows from the past
were there as the figure that hung there now was dying…he could hear its
screams. It was dried out and
barely recognisable in this time, but he could see it would have been a true
giant of a man when it had been alive. Now,
however, its arms were spread wide and its limbs were missing, while being
trapped inside some kind of…cage-like device.
Suddenly the woman spoke. "Will
this one provide enough power for the summoning?"
The doctor's form nodded. "Yes.
This one was a warrior, but he resented his death.
His spirit will linger much longer than we should need."
"Good…we have no need for week souls. Only
the strong can call forth the God and bring our salvation!"
"What about Kaufman?"
"He is no longer useful to us. Soon none of this will matter anymore, for Paradise will be
born."
Once again the figures slowly faded away, and now Mercurius noticed something
else on the corpse. Its chest had
been pealed open by some kind of explosion…a high-powered rifle slug, maybe,
at close range. But a pair of shiny
metal dog tags hung around its neck…Mercurius slowly looked at them.
They were untainted by the foul corruption of the rest of this place.
The Ex-Marine could feel something…someone…behind him, but he had to
look at the name first. His eyes
widened in horror as he read those terrible dog tags.
It said: Zanatos Kell.
Mercurius turned and ran as his friend's long decomposed eyes watched him,
unseeing, uncaring.
Knight jerked back fast and the sword blow cut into the metal grate yet again.
The fake cop was fumbling with a clip, trying to reload his gun before
the monster split him down the middle.
The office was a mess. The fight
was still going after about five minutes. Knight
was bleeding from a dozen nicks and cuts, but the Pyramid Head was in just as
bad a state, oozing blood from any number of wounds, its helmet dinted and
ruined. It seemed even this unholy dreadnaught of destruction could
be slowed down and hurt…however, if it could be killed was another question,
still unanswered.
Sara screamed as another huge blow sliced the air right in front, and a piece of
that corrupted shot up and slashed her cheek, razor sharp and vicious.
Pyramid Head was ignoring the woman, for now, to face the fat cop with
the gun who was doing his best to kill him.
"Get out of my town!" Another
bullet from the Desert Eagle slammed into Pyramid Head, and then Knight jumped
back and dodged from that terribly overhead blow.
"This is my town…I take what I want, I took this job, I took those
woman, and you ain't gonna take it all away from you piece of shit!"
Without warning the monster did something it hadn't done before, and thrust
the huge bladed sword forwards. Knight screamed as it sliced deep into the arm already
injured by the battle with the nurses, and screaming with rage and pain still,
he emptied the clip into his tormentor. And
to one side of Sara Cheryl said, "Stop."
And to the other Alessa said, "Die."
The monster stopped, and the siren called out.
It looked around, and then slowly placed the huge sword on the ground,
then moved it up so the long blade was pointing into the sky.
Then, with a harsh cry [Relief. My
torment has ended] it hurled itself upon the sword.
Knight stood, panting, trying to regain his breath.
"Hah! I won!
It's my town now, and no one can take it from me."
"Never be sure of anything. Not
in Silent Hill."
Mercurius was slumped against the doorway, Rifle held in one hand but rock
steady. It light was off, but the
laser was aimed right at Knight's heart. The man looked down, saw the red dot that promised his death
if he didn't co-operate, and looked up again.
"Merc, old buddy, it was all a mistake…"
"Yes, it was. Throw the gun down,
Knight. And the SAA too.
You won't need them any more. Oh,
you might as well drop your ammo too."
Grudgingly, the cop dropped the stuff as he was told.
"So are you going to kill me? Or
leave me for those monsters to kill?"
The Ex-Marine bent down and picked up the stuff, and threw a pocketknife
to Sara. "It's too late for
either of those, I'm afraid. You're
a killer and a rapist of men, woman and children. You've been condemned."
He slowly put down the rifle and picked up the SAA.
"Rifle was empty. I didn't have time to reload.
This one's for the needle, Sheriff."
The gunpoint came up...but only to Knight's knee.
Then Mercurius pulled the trigger. Click!
Nothing happened. Knight
grinned. "Looks like that one's
empty too." He pulled a small,
snub-nosed Mauser from behind his back. "This
one ain't though. Last requests?
Its nearly time for you to cry."
Mercurius pulled the trigger again. Again,
just a click. The white haired man
looked at the gun, and smiled. "There's
a song, one you might have heard of."
"Oh?" Sara watched on, unable
to do anything as the insane man slowly raised that gun to Mercurius' chest.
The grin on his face spoke eloquently of death.
"Which song is that?"
"Click Click Boom." Mercurius
pulled the trigger again.
The fat man flew, his gun flying away and glittering into the darkness.
He staggered back to the wall, blood spreading from the hole in his
shoulder, and he slumped to the floor. His
eyes, now small and vicious like some small predator, glared at Mercurius as he
helped Alessa to her feet, his back turned.
His mouth opened, to threaten? To
curse? Who knows, now? Something was impatient of waiting. Behind him, Knight heard children laughing…
Mercurius pulled Cheryl to her feet and cut her ropes too.
"We better go before they get here.
This isn't going to pretty." He
moved fast, grabbing anything of use while Knight looked back over his shoulder,
his mad eyes terrified.
And so they were outside before Knight started to scream.
They'd gone and left him.
Everyone left him in the end. But
that didn't matter…nothing mattered to Knight.
He stood up and looked around, trying to see where those laughing
children were. Children
laughing…he'd always hated that noise.
They'd made fun of him when he was a kid.
And so he'd made then cry when he was all grown up.
Something in the corner of his sight startled him, and he turned.
Nothing. But he could have
sworn…he could have sworn he'd seen a little girl.
The first one he'd made cry. The
first one he'd killed.
There! He span, and again there was
nothing. It was always just out of
sight, just a little too fast for him to see.
"Where are you…? Who are you?!" Those
eyes, full of insanity, hunted the room, looking for the laughing.
And all the time it grew noisier and more terrible.
The fake cop shuffled in a slow circle, searching, shouting at the children to
show themselves. The laughter grew
with each moment, until finally Knight screamed and fell to his knee's,
folding his hands over his ears and ignoring the pain that screamed from his
shoulder.
And then it stopped.
Knight opened one eye, and looked around. Nothing.
He was safe. And then a hand
clapped around his mouth and his eyes went wide. It was only a little hand, a girls hand, but it was like a
steal clamp. And then she whispered
the words he always said before he hurt someone.
"Now its your turn to cry."
Someway away from the Station, Mercurius wasn't sure
where, they stopped. Everything was
black, but in one direction he could hear noises and see some kind of light.
People? Survivors?
A new kind of monster they hadn't come across yet?
He didn't know, and he was too tired to care.
It seemed so long since he and Zan had walked into this town…Zan…
"Where's Zan?" He looked up,
into the wide eyes of Cheryl. A
glance told him those of Alessa and Sara were on him too.
Boring into him, those accusing eyes, seeing what he had done…
"He's dead. There was something
in the hospital, and we had to run, and he fell…I couldn't save him.
I tried, but I was too scared…" He fell to his knees, dropping his
reloaded rifle and sobbed into his hands. "I
heard him screaming, begging me to come back, but I couldn't."
Sara knelt next to him, hugged him to her even as the tears came to her eyes
too. The two girls stood, silent
and watching, but Sara thought she saw something in their eyes.
Alessa pulled the huge black coat Zanatos had lent her closer around her,
as if trying to get some of the warmth, some of the spark of life that Zan had
possessed from it.
"Jeez…you all look like someone just died."
They all turned to look as the towering figure of Zanatos Kell limped out of the
darkness. "Where's that fuck
nut Knight? I have words to say to
him and a shotgun to ram up his anal passage way so I can blow his guts out."
Sara shrieked and flew to hug him, even as Mercurius looked at his friend in
complete amazement. "I…heard
you. I heard you screaming.
I heard you die. And…in
the basement…"
Zanatos grinned as he patted Sara's shoulder.
"Must have been the monster…I sure as hell ain't dead yet.
I dunno what happened though…I woke up about a mile North of here,
shotgun next to me, that great sword stuck in the floor.
Don't ask me how I got there. But
I did get me some more ammo…whoo, I love bullets."
Like a man in a dream, Mercurius slowly walked up to him…and pinched his
friends exposed arms. Zan blinked,
and then smacked him on the side of the head.
"I ain't dead yet fool. Stop
with the pinching already…sheesh."
And then the huge man was engulfed in a whirlwind of people as everyone tried to
hug him, even Mercurius, and they were all talking and laughing and grinning.
So that was why none of them saw the monster lurch out of the darkness
until it was almost too late.
It was huge, and its four limbs had a spidery appearance to them.
How something so huge and of such a sickening yellow colour could of
moved up on them unawares is a mystery. But
it was almost on the group, looming out of the shadows, when they finally saw
it. It was Alessa who screamed the
warning, but it was Zanatos who took action.
Using those huge, gorilla like arms, Zanatos literally hurled everyone away from
him…and the monster. And then the
shotgun came up and spat death. The huge yellow thing slowed its advance, and that gave
Zanatos time to move before it could strike.
Mercurius, stunned by the fall he'd just taken and the sheer brute
power that Zanatos had just shown, fired of a snap shot that went wide of its
mark, and tried to get to his feet. The
SAA, Mauser and Eagle were all in his belt, so the woman couldn't fight unless
he got a gun to them. He started to
move towards them while lining his powerful rifle up for another shot…this
time at what he thought was the things head.
With a fierce grin Zanatos kept on firing into the thing as he backed away, his
huge shotgun ripping vast chunks from the slow moving beast as it lumbered after
him. It was taller than him by a
good foot, but too slow to catch him. He could see what he figured were probably ribs exposed in
its chest now. Finally a round
slammed into the side of its skull…making it turn to see what was attacking
it. Unfortunately the first thing
it saw was Sara hugging to the two younger women to her, and it began to advance
on them.
And then Mercurius was in front of her, handing her a gun…the big Desert Eagle
Knight had used. "Shoot!"
Letting the girls go, she raised it in both hands…and fired.
The round exploded through the thing, staggering it, but nearly blowing
Sara clean off her feet.. And then
Zanatos was there, running, swinging that huge sword…and he sliced all the way
through its neck.
Even as the thing slumped, Sara lowered the gun.
"Zan…your leg…"
But Zanatos was looking at something else.
Alessa and Cheryl were both glowing, and around them the strange Marks
that Sara knew to be the Mark of Samael had formed and were glowing too.
Lightning of many different colours flared and sparked between the two.
Out of the terrible, death-ridden air that was as still as the
monster's fallen body a wind suddenly shrieked out of the blackness, nearly
knocking Sara over. Over its
screeching she heard Zanatos yell something about running, getting away from the
terrible pair of girls…and then a bolt of lighting snapped away and struck her
in the chest, and the darkness swallowed Sara.
