I have FINALLY finished those exams (hallelujah!) and I would have put this up sooner but I've been away. But enough about me, on with the show!

Chapter 10: Dante & Virgil

The recently renamed Virgil pivoted the chair to face Jobe, holding out his gun. In the other was the file, coated in some sticky tar-like gunk that trickled slowly over the metal.

At first, Jobe had thought she would turn down the name as she stared coolly at him

"And I though you were going to name me after you dog" She'd snorted in response before continuing to try and restore the gun to its former glory. And so an almost silent agreement was reached between the two, at least Jobe took her grunt as a positive response.

"I fixed it as best as I could but it was pretty banged up…" Jobe hardly what she said as he looked down at the gun, or rather the hand that held it. He'd never noticed them before, probably due to the dim light supplied by the dingy light bulbs that tried in vain to illuminate the room, but he couldn't fail to overlook them now.

Gauze was wrapped tightly over her skin, covering everything from her wrist to her fingers in tight, constricting bands. It was clear that the material had lost its pristine, white tone long ago. It, like everything that had spent too much time in Silent Hill, looked as though it was decaying, rotting away. Rusty, brown stains seeped through the Band-Aids as if they had once concealed open wounds but nobody had been bothered to change the dressing, even after they'd closed.

"Your hands, what_"

A look of confusion crossed Virgil's face but it was chased away as soon as she looked down to see what had entranced Jobe. Instantly her hands recoiled, letting the gun fall softly onto Jobe's lap as they recoiled into the sanctuary of the ragged sweatshirt.

He could vaguely make out a hurried "I'm sorry" as the girl hastily rose from the chair and shuffled over to the worm-eaten bookcase. He watched her with concern but realised that this was going to be another one of 'those topics' that was not going to be discussed, much like trying to start a conversation about sex with one's parents. Jobe picked up the gun, along with the cell phone, stuffing the firearm into his belt so it could make friends with the lead pole. He clipped the torch back onto the front of his shirt while keeping an eye on the girl. Obviously, there was a lot more to Virgil than what met the eye but Jobe wasn't sure he really wanted to know what lay concealed beneath her protective outer layer.

"Anyway, it doesn't matter," She continued, pulling what looked like a map from underneath a heavy book.  "We've wasted enough time already, we need to get going." The bandaged fingers began to feverishly fold the map until it was an impossibly small square before it disappeared into a pocket. She rummaged the shelf before letting out a warning "catch" and casually tossing one of the ammo boxes at Jobe, who mealy looked questionably at it. This was probably the closet he'd ever come to holding a loaded gun. He fumbled with the small firearm, nearly spilling all the bullets on the floor while attempting to load it. After numerous curses, he finally managed to slot the last bullet into the chamber.

"God help me if this gun runs out of ammo while some thing is trying to rip me apart." He looked up, only to find the two black barrels of the shotgun hovering inches away from his face. It was a far from comforting sight and that must have been clear from the look on his face.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to re-paint the walls with the remains of your head." Jobe let out a painfully force laugh and side-stepped out of the guns line of fire, just in case the girl got a little trigger-happy.

Placing the now almost empty box of ammo away, he straightened up and stretched.

'Do I really want to go back out there?'  Jobe chased the thought out of his head. No matter how much he didn't want to go back out there, he knew he had to. His friend was still out there and if he turned his back on Phil, he was no better than the things that roamed this town's streets.

 "So how do we get out of here?"

Virgil's face twisted into a mysterious grin as she inserted the kantana into a make shift sheath.

"You'll see, just you wait."

Jobe silently wondered how anyone could get exited about trekking through a sewer. But then again, this was Virgil he was talking about.

*   *   *

Shit. Pure shit.

Those were the first words that entered Jobe's mind as he inhaled the damp air about him. The waste of people swirled about his feet in little congealed puddles as he walked. The only way Jobe could describe the smell was grey, like things had been left to age down here for to long and had finally rotted from the oppressive damp and darkness.

'Things like Virgil...'

The harsh, rotting and horribly sweet odder seemed to be uncensored as it rose up from the tiles that coated the circular tunnel. Water dripped from the ceiling, hanging there and growing fat before falling to earth with an echoing 'plip' as it joined the many puddles on the floor. Jobe's back was soaked through from the artificial rainfall and every now and then, an unsettlingly warm droplet of water would fall on his neck and trace his vertebrate down the back of his shirt. This never failed to send a little shiver up his spine. It felt as if he was trying to clamber out of the gut of some unfathomably colossal creature that had swallowed him whole.

"Oh man" Jobe cursed under his breath as he jumped down from the platform. Within seconds of hitting the ground, he'd felt the cool rancid water seep into his shoes. Casting the beam of light that emitted from the torch down, Jobe watched in disgust at the point where his ankles disappeared into the black water, making it look as though he was wading through mud. They'd only been going for what could barely have been five minuets and already he had no idea where he was going. Virgil on the other hand seemed to know this place like the back of her hand, never pausing as she led him down yet another identical passage way. If it wasn't for the feeble beam of light supplied from the torch, Jobe doubted that he'd be able to see his hand, even if he waved it right in front of his face.

Just before him, He could just about make out Virgil staring back at him, crouching slightly so her head didn't scrap against the low ceiling.

"Guess I picked a bad day to wear my new shoes, huh?" The girl merely made one of her indistinguishable grunting noises before turning tail and began loping down the tunnel like some overgrown shaggy wolf.

To quickly it seemed that Virgil disappear from sight, swallowed up by the claustrophobic darkness and already, the sound of her footfall was beginning to melt in to the chorus of whining pipes and dripping water. It was almost as though the town wanted him to lose her, for him to get lost in this incomprehensible labyrinth of drains and tunnels. Jobe's flesh began to tingle as he mulled the thought over and quickly scurried after her. He really didn't fancy the idea of wondering around this place on his own, who knew what was down here with them in the dark.

*   *   *

God only knew how long they'd spent meandering through the underground complex. Time seemed to have grinded to a halt, letting the minuets play on for hours and Jobe was finding that his companion hadn't done anything to make the journey any more bearable. If anything, she seemed oblivious of Jobe's existence. But then, there were some upsides. The tunnel they were in had widened out in all directions allowing the pair to walk side by side and neither of them had to crouch low anymore to avoid grazing their heads against the rotting curve of the roof. Jobe's feared that if he had to walk bent low for any longer, he might not be able to stand up straight ever again. Even now, his back still twanged with cramp.

Light seemed to be filtering in from somewhere as well. It wasn't much but at least Jobe could now barley make out his surroundings.

"Do the words 'greed' and 'wrath' mean anything to you?" Jobe just couldn't help popping the question; it had been gnawing away at the inside of his head for most of the journey, growing steadily from an irritating niggel to full-blown ravenous curiosity.

"They're two of seven sins that pave the way to hell." Virgil's voice kept that same monotonous tone that echoed dryly of the sodden walls and for a brief moment, Jobe whished she wouldn't be so melodramatic and revert back to being over-apologetic or just plain irritable. At lest then she had some character.

"But they're just words, that's all."

As the words left Jobe's mouth, she seemed to slow but just for a second and in that brief space of time, he could see apprehension. Or maybe it was pity.

"Sometimes, words and feelings can be a lot more than emotions or a group of letters. Especially here."

"So what, that snake back there was some kind of manifestation?" Jobe jabbed his finger back over his shoulder in the direction he guessed they'd come from, a look of confusion began to cloud his face. Virgil cocked her head to one side, as she tried to find the words to describe what was so clear in her head.

"Think of it more as an embodiment."

"Let me guess, there's just something about this town that brings this kind of stuff to life." 

One of the girl's fingers snapped up in front of Jobe's face, bringing his sentence to an abrupt close. Virgil stood completely still, not even breathing as se tried to latch onto whatever sound had caught her attention. All Jobe could hear was the sound of dripping water and the irregular rusty groan of the pipes.

"What is_"

"Shh!" She hushed him angrily through dried lips and as her warning died away, Jobe heard the low moan. It sounded like a piece of dying machinery on its last legs. The noise made his brain tingle, as if someone had pulled a nil down a chalkboard. The pair of them seemed to have become instantly frozen to the spot, waiting for the sound to come again and confirm itself. They only had to wait about ten seconds for the echoing growl and when it reached their ears, it sounded uncomfortably nearer.

Virgil's finger, which had been hovering in front of hr lip all this time, fell away to her side.

"Stay here." She began to walk away and to Jobe's horror, towards the direction the moaning was coming from.

"Are you completely insane!" He hissed angrily though clenched teeth. The last thing he wanted was for Virgil to go and get her self killed.

A "Maybe…" came floating back up the tunnel.

 Right now, she was acting like one of those people in a horror film who the audience hate. The kind of person who dose something really stupid, resulting in them getting butchered like a pig while the audience scream out warnings and throw popcorn at the screen. Right now, Virgil was playing that part quite nicely.

Jobe glared at her in frustration as she lent around the last corner they'd taken, whishing she'd come back.

In the dim, almost nonexistent light, Virgil could barely see anything as she peered up the tunnel but…

'What?'

She squinted her eyes as she tried to force them to adjust to the dark. There was something down there, she could just about make out its form, framed in the light but whatever it was so still that it melted into the darkness surrounding it, making its size impossible to judge. Subconsciously, she felt one of her hands fall onto the hilt of the kantana. Maybe going back to Jobe wasn't such a bad idea…

"Virgil!"

The agitated call came again and the thing in the dark jerked as if it had been waiting for Jobe to say something, to give away their position.

'Because this thing's been hunting us ever since we came down here.'

In the silence, she could hear a soft splash as one of its feet came down, closing the distance between them. As if she and the thing in the dark were in some terrible waltz, Virgil took a step back and with horrifying clarity, she knew what it was before them and that they would be severely fucked if she and Jobe didn't run like hell. Now.

She span around and shot back down the tunnel as the darkness came crashing after her.