Chapter 29: Worse Ending
The next time Cybil Bennet woke up, she was in a bright white room.
'Am I in... heaven?'
She couldn't sit up, her head pounding too much and her legs too weak. The moments before being knocked out came and went without warning. And after that, there was nothing. That much made her debate further if she was really alive or not.
The only movement she could get out of her body was from turning her head slightly to the right and to the left. From that, there wasn't much to make out. All there was was the blinding, orderly whiteness around her. To think... she hoped that when she died that she would have done enough good in her life to have her soul sent to Heaven... but if this was Heaven, it sure didn't feel like it to her.
'Don't let me be dead,' she prayed, 'I can't be dead with everything unfinished like this.'
Cybil continued to try and move as much as her body disobeyed. She felt herself force her limbs to cooperate, but they felt like they were pinned to the uncomfortable bed she lay on. When she could get herself to lean back on her elbows, Cybil was finally allowed to look around the room more thoroughly. A small stack of magazines on a harmless blue hued shelf, a pearly white door with a small looking glass in it, a tray holding vomit inducing half-eaten food...
Cybil sighed in great relief. The discovery allowed her enough mental strength to get herself to sit up completely, just as the white door swung open and someone walked in. Cybil knew who it was, but was surprised to see him.
"Captain?"
The man was in his early forties, his thinning black hair slicked back with an overabundance of gel. His green eyes blinked as his muscular arms were folded across his heaving chest. It seemed like the buttons and badges on his police uniform would pop off any second.
"Officer Bennet..." the man reached up and rubbed his bearded chin, checking on the woman with a slight ounce of concern. "You seem shocked to see me."
"Well you're not really known to go out of your way and make hospital visits," Cybil confessed. "Do you have a card tree for me, too?"
The man rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Christ, Cybil, calm down for once. You have a hell of a knot on your head, too, you should lie back and rest."
"I've rested long enough, captain, thank you."
"Call me Trent, okay? Enough of this sophisticated cop to cop bullshit. Clear?"
Cybil nodded. "Crystal clear."
"Good." Trent Haliberg was the stereotypical 'shoot first ask questions later' type of officer, and it was something Cybil never had been able to grow used to. Sure, majority of officers on the Brahms squad were like that, but at least they knew when to go with their gut and when to hang back. Trent seemed to be one who could never control his trigger finger, let alone whatever came out of his mouth. Now, however, it seemed he was a bit different. A bit more collected...
"Now, Cyb," Trent started, "I gotta wonder this. No one's been complaining about that little town for years, after you went there with that what's his name... Harry. So I get word from your partner that you were back there again when I keep telling you that place is off limits, not just for citizens but cops like you as well. And with the place being so dangerous, I need to know this. Considering that there have been a couple disappearances lately, and a murder victim that you had been seen with pops up on Bachman Road for one of our guys to see, what the fuck are you doing out there exactly?"
Cybil flinched. She wasn't ready for an immediate interrogation after she had just woke up from the worst blindside shot she had ever taken. And she had took a lot of those in her time.
"With all due respect, Trent, what I'm doing down there is my job."
"Oh really?" he said, arms falling to his sides as his right foot tapped on the ground impatiently.
"Yes, well, with so many kids trying to head off for a night of partying by themselves, it's a hot spot for disaster..." she trailed off, and that was when one of Trent's sentences caught her.
"Wait... what murder victim?"
"Some kid. Twenty years old perhaps, head was lopped off and left in a duffel bag next to his body. Guy's got two stab wounds in the chest and his legs are all bruised up. Prolly some sick fuckin' terrorist copycat. Wouldn't surprise me with all the crazy bastards in this country. Can't trust anybody anymore, shit I'd lock myself up and throw away the key, I'm that paranoid."
Cybil was speechless. She was trying to fight away any look of sadness she had on her face, but a tear managed to roll down her cheek anyway. She had almost choked on her sobs, but was finally able to speak after her momentary waver wracked in an emotional mess. "Trust is a hard thing to come by these days, sir."
It wasn't nearly what she wanted to say but it would have to do. She feared losing a grip on her mentality in front of her superior, but then again, at this point, what did it matter?
"Something wrong, Cyb?" Trent asked. Cybil couldn't bring herself to answer right away, trying to look at something else other than the captain's fixated stare. "Cybil. What is it?"
After mustering up all the strength she could, Cybil forced the words from her lungs. "Permission to speak freely, sir."
"Go the hell ahead," Haliberg said with a shake of his head, "like we're not having a normal conversation already, what's the deal?"
"I don't think I can work under your command anymore, captain."
Trent eyed Cybil with worry. She was in command even longer than he was, and even though he rarely showed concern, the thought of Cybil not being around at the precinct didn't make sense. However, she seemed so shaken up that he couldn't bring himself to try and alter her decision. If something caused her to want to leave the police force, it must have been something terrible.
"Okay," he mumbled finally, "okay."
Cybil took a deep breath and looked around some more. "How did I get here? How long was I out for?"
"Doctor said you were here overnight. Said someone saw you knocked out in the backyard of someone's house and called for an ambulance." Cybil nodded. It was all too much for her to bear, and after all that, there was nothing else to do. Nothing else other than to just let it go.
---
Cybil's red, paint-chipped Saturn slowed to a stop outside of Adrian Mason's house. She had just dropped off her badge, uniform and weapon off at the precinct and had no real reason to go anywhere else but home. In a fresh batch of clothes, she felt human again- not like a robotic cop not meant to show signs of remorse, and with that, there wasn't much else to do but go home. However, she couldn't bring herself to do that- not without checking the house one more time. Maybe Trent was wrong... maybe Ade would be sitting outside with his dog, right as rain. Cybil knew better, though... her superior was never wrong about anything like this, and now was no exception.
The house seemed to be empty, although it probably wouldn't be for long; not when officers caught wind of it once being the home of a headless murder victim. And whenever that was, the yellow tape and wooden boards would be soon to follow.
"Nice house..." she moused out softly as her eyes blinked fervently to help shade the headache she was plagued with.
'Nice guy, too... how could he have done something like that?'
She glanced at the steering wheel, then back at the house, then back at the steering wheel...
'...I should just go, before I feel even worse.'
Cybil was ready to do just that, but something compelled her to look at the house one more time. And when she did, someone stepped out the front door.
"Hm?" It wasn't Adrian, but his friend from last night that dropped by there. "Must have been stuck there all night, having to take care of the baby and the dog..." speaking of the dog, Howler was curled up in the man's arms, seemingly comfortable enough as he walked down the first couple of front steps before he took a seat.
'God, how's he going to react when he finds out his friend...' the thought forced Cybil out of her car, to walk up to the clueless friend sitting on the stoop.
"Hi," Cybil greeted plainly.
John narrowed his eyes in bewilderment, obviously a bit taken back since he had no clue who this person was. "Um, hello," he responded reclusively, "do I know you?"
"Ah no," Cybil stammered, "I uh... I was.. friends with Adrian. My name's Cybil Bennet, I'm a.. well, was a police officer. From the branch over in Brahms." She reached out to shake John's hand and he accepted, Howler leaning forward and obtrusively sniffing Cybil's hand and forearm. The blonde woman smiled and stepped back, brushing her bangs away from her eyes as she attempted to continue her statement. However, she could think of nothing else to say.
"Hm, were you the officer drivin' that car Ade got into last night?"
It was Cybil's turn to throw a shady look, a bit stunned by the man's observative nature. "Yes. Yes, that was me alright."
John nodded in compliance. "I see. So, what was that about? I mean, I assume you're here about him... what, is he in jail or something?" Cybil was right, he really didn't have a clue.
"No, no, nothing like that... I, erm..." her sentence trailed to a stop. A long, looming silence passed on soon after, and John had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something told him that he knew what she was going to say.
"He's dead, isn't he?" Cybil recoiled from the question, as if she had been shot in the heart. Yeah, he was very observative.
Still, Cybil couldn't answer with a word. No word could have brought out the grief she felt over having to send such terrible news to someone, someone she didn't even know for that matter. No sorries, no words of sympathy, nothing she could say would make things any better. John knew that already simply by the expression on her face, so why should she bother to make her answer any more blatant?John seemed shocked by the news none the less. He didn't cry, or anything that severe, but he looked shaken never the less. "Ade was, a bit intense. After he found out his brother died an' all I guess I couldn't blame him, but.. you could tell something was wrong. He just seemed to have so much more on his mind but never wanted to expose on anyone else. I dunno if that was because he was afraid or just felt it wasn't anyone else's problem, but..." John looked down at his former friend's dog, and frowned, "but anyway what happened? Did he kill himself, or-"
"Murdered," Cybil cut him off. "I know it doesn't mean much from me but.. I'm sorry. God... I'm so sorry."
John looked up at Cybil and shook his head, giving her a half shrug. "Why?"
Cybil rubbed at one of her eyes, in effort to keep tears from revealing themselves once again. She wasn't close to it yet, but she just wanted to make sure she remained that way. "Because I.. I could have helped him."
Another one of those long and uncomfortable silences. Finally, John stood up and made his way down the rest of the steps, dog still cradled with care in his arms. "I'm going to take the dog with me... and figure out how to let my 'rents keep it in the house." He brushed by Cybil smoothly and made his way towards his car down the block. He didn't get far when Cybil was able to turn and get his attention once more.
"Hey..."
John turned around. "Yeh?"
"What about the baby?" Cybil asked.
And that was when John said something that, to put it bluntly, perplexed the shit out of her.
"What baby?"
Cybil's eyes widened. 'What is that supposed to mean?'
"Um," she stuttered, completely caught off balance by John's reaction to her question, "Adrian's baby? Where is she?"
John gave a small, faint smile. "He tricked you, too? He told me to watch his kid but there wasn't one. And if there was, I definitely didn't pick up on where it was." Before Cybil could further ask, John was already at his car.
'And he probably doesn't want to hear anymore from me, either.'
She tried to think about it. She was sure Adrian brought the baby into the house with him...
'I saw Mia, too... that couldn't have been a...' before she could finish her thought, that crippling headache swooped back with a vengeance. Cybil crashed to her knees, clutching the sides of her head in a great deal of pain. But then, along with that came an even worse pain originating from her right arm- as if a needle pierced through her skin.
"Gah..." she struggled to her feet and looked at the house in front of her. The door was wide open, almost inviting Cybil to head inside and have a look around. Cybil stumbled up the front steps and into the home, slamming the door shut behind her.
"Upstairs..." she gripped the railing nearby and guided herself carefully up to the second floor. Adrian's bedroom was to her immediate right as she noticed by the rock posters scattered inside, visible through the open doorway. Cybil felt like falling over, but managed to grasp the sides of the bedroom entrance to keep herself vertical. She glanced around the room, eyes peeled for anything that moved, crawled, inched. The soft cloth that had been keeping the child warm was strewn along the large bed, but no newborn in sight.
"Can't be..." she turned and looked around the room some more, saw the dresser drawer on her right. Saw empty syringes and perscription bottles laying there unabashedly.
"Oh... oh, Adrian... Adrian what did you do..." Cybil looked at the label on one of the syringes.
10cc White Claudia
To be taken every eight to twelve hours.
Below that was Adrian's signature. Cybil looked at the next syringe- same thing. The labeling on the perscription bottle had more or less the same thing written on it.
'But I saw her,' those tears Cybil didn't want showing up had strolled down her face effortlessly at that moment, 'how did I see her and he didn't?'
Another sharp pain in her arm caused Cybil to wince. She rolled up the sleeve to her navy blue sweater, and stared at the mark there in disbelief. A small dot, a dot that represented tainted flesh, and was a dot small enough to only come from...
Cybil looked down after the broken vase, almost forgetting what she had clenched in her trembling fist. Unballing her right hand, she shuddered at the sight. Two locks of hair, one blonde, the other black. Before she could so much as drop the hair to the ground, something smashed against the back of her head and sent her stomach first against the desk, and had eventually caused her to crumble backwards to the floor.
Raven stood over Cybil's prone body, watching the unconscious officer carefully. She wouldn't pose a threat, not after she was through with her.
With a smirk, Raven hefted Cybil over her shoulder and carried her to a room where she knew her and Cybil would be able to conversate quietly to themselves, without any intrusion by the man whom without his actions, neither of them would be in this position in the first place.
Once she got situated, Raven placed the cop in the chair she preemptively set up, and immediately bound her wrists, ankles and trunk with torn cloth. This would keep her from fighting what she was about to do, in the event Cybil woke up before, or in the middle of it. Raven took a syringe fully loaded with a puss white fluid, and brought the tip of it to the motionless woman's arm. Raven let a finger quickly trace the soft skin, almost entranced by how pure the woman's flesh was, but she could not be distracted by such a trivial thing.
Raven dabbed the needle slightly, and after becoming sated with the droplet of liquid that trickled freely, Raven delicately slid the steel tip into the enticingly beautiful skin. But it wouldn't be beautiful for long. Beautiful on the outside still, surely, but on the inside it would carry a poison not deadly, but something ultimately much more sinister. Something that brought out the worst in the human emotion.
It always did that- it was always what the liquid was meant to do. Maybe a few hallucinations would toy with her mind, but that would be nothing compared to what else it would bring out. Hatred. Guilt. Grief. Every sorrowful word in the book. Things she will never forget, and never be able to take for granted again.
Cybil grabbed one of the syringes harshly, and with a shrill scream she flung it into a nearby wall. Glass shattered and flew liberally about the room. There was no room to hide her sadness anymore, and no more reason for it. For the first time in a long time, Cybil let her cries be heard without any fear of them. She had no one to explain her emotions to- she rid herself of the burden of the police, and no longer had a friend to share her troubles with. No wonder she couldn't bring herself to marry anyone. 'Ruin two lives with one person's own demons... can't do that.'
How she managed to walk outside once more, Cybil herself couldn't even explain. She would have had to do it anyway, though, she had to live life no matter how hard it was.
Cybil eased herself down the first front step, gripping the side railing for support. She stepped down another stair. And another. When she reached the bottom, a startled gasp snapped her out of her laments. "Ah, excuse me!"
She looked up slowly, and glanced at the young woman in front of her. She was around eighteen, at least no older than Adrian was- and looked a surprising bit like him. Blonde hair, hazel eyes, except she seemed to have an equally miserable look on her face as Cybil did.
"No worries," Cybil muttered softly in a weak attempt to be friendly. That was when she noticed the girl's features even more. She had numerous bruises on her face, cuts on her arms... she looked like she'd been through a war. She had a bookbag slung over one shoulder and a crumpled, torn piece of white lined paper clutched in her hands. "Are you okay?" the ex-cop asked. Even feeling like shit, she couldn't help but want to assist anyone else feeling bad. Afterall, she knew how terrible it was to feel terrible.
"Umm," the girl stammered, not seeming like the one who wanted to engage in conversation. She glanced at one of the cuts on her arms, and it was then that she wasn't going to get away with saying 'I'm fine'.
"Er, do you know if Adrian Mason lives in that house?" she finally questioned nervously, biting her bottom lip in anxiousness.
Cybil turned, and looked at the home she had just wandered out of. She pointed to it. "This one here?"
The girl nodded. "Yeah."
"No... no one lives there. I'm sorry."
The girl obviously looked even further dejected at Cybil's answer. "It's alright. I was just hoping I could find him, that's all..."
"I'll ask around for him.." Cybil mumbled in indifference, not knowing what else to say. She was way too shaken to break the truth to the woman.
"Thanks," the girl answered subtly. She was on her way past Cybil when Cybil asked one more question.
"If I find him, who should I say was looking for him?"
The girl turned her head slightly, but not enough to make full eye contact with the adult. "Heather. I'm his cousin." And with that, the woman named Heather walked on.
"It looked like a man through the fog, but I just had one of those instincts that somethin'... somethin' wasn't right about him. And now I'm not so sure if it's a blessing that I didn't get to see him or not. Sort of took my mind off of it though when I met someone who was in the same trouble as I was."
Adrian then began to lean back, slowly growing more and more intrigued with the story and caring less and less about how frightening it would be. "Who was it?"
"This man... he was looking for her daughter, he said. Managed to find her, but she couldn't be helped when we got there. Gave birth to a little girl, though... almost as if her life would start over with that baby, really. And it's sad... I read a police report from a man who was helping his daughter on another Silent Hill case that said he died recently. Name was one I wouldn't forget.. Harry. Harry Mason."
"No... no more, please..." Cybil nearly choked on her own sobs. Resting her head on the steering wheel of her car, her eyes snapped shut from the sting of their tears. Cybil Bennet accepted her misfortunes and grievances all at once. And now she would have to live with them. Probably not exactly what she deserved, but then again, life isn't always fair.
