Ok, this did take me a while but it is five pages worth of writing so I hope that makes up for it. Also, I split it up into two bits as this is twice as long as most of my chapters.
I have read the Divine Comedy and I thought it was a wonderful piece of literature and yes; there are one or two references to it in here.
Now if you can excuse me, I think I'm going to lie down for a while…*collapses over key board*
Chapter 11: Behind the veil
Part 1:confruntation
"Virgil!" Jobe squinted his eyes in a desperate attempt to make out the shape of his slightly eccentric companion. Why was she just standing there? It was like whatching a deer caught in the headlights, transfixed by its oncoming, fluorescent doom.
He really didn't like this…
Jobe's hand found itself slowly inching towards the gun that resided in his belt, even though it would probably do more damage if he threw it at whatever had transfixed Virgil.
And then, of course, all hell broke lose.
Without warning, Virgil sprung into life as an echoing splash came rumbling through the tunnel after her as she bolted towards Jobe. She skidded to a halt, sending a spray of the foul water into the air as she nearly collided with him. One of those sickly, bandaged hands shot out and locked around his wrist like a vice and for a brief second, Jobe feared the sound of cracking bone might come splintering from it.
"Run and don't look back." Her face loomed in front of his as Virgil exhaled the warning in one fluid breath. She took off, practically dragging Jobe with her for the first few steps before her hand slipped away, leaving him to fall flat on his ass. From this new perspective, he was able to witness their pursuer come skidding past the corner Virgil had been standing at only seconds before. It slammed into the opposite wall with the force of a freight train, sending a small tremor up the tunnel.
'That thing's HUGE!' Just catching a glimpse of the creature was enough to get Jobe moving again. He scrambled to his feet as it let out a bestial cry of either frustration or pain pulling itself from the wall, taking most of the plaster with it. Its war cry filled the tunnel as the confined space amplified the horse roar. Jobe slammed his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to block the sound out as he ran head long up the tunnel. With blind faith, he chased the ever-fading shadow that was Virgil but the distance between the two was slowly growing.
Their pursuer had begun to move again, at slow lope at first but it quickly began to speed up until it was pounding after them at a crazy tempo. To Jobe, it sounded as though he was being chased by a small elephant that was bent on tearing him apart.
To his horror, Jobe found that he was starting to have trouble keeping his pace. The sound of his ragged breathing filled his ears the shoulder that Greed had sunk its fangs into was begging to throb like a heart beat. The muscles in his legs were starting to tire and he'd lost all sight of Virgil. In the darkness, the passage appeared to stretch on forever, offering no means of escape.
Up ahead, a crease split the shadow like a tiny cut. At first, Jobe dismissed it as his over tiered and under fed brain finally cracking under the strain of all the insanity around him but the line of dim light refused to disappear. On the country, it was growing wider.
'It's that legendary light at the end of the tunnel…'Jobe would have laughed if it weren't for the fact he was being chased by a hundred and ten pounds of rabid meat that was quickly gaining on him. His calves were now screaming at him to stop and the pain in his shoulder was almost blinding. He could feel the hot, sticky breath of his pursuer condensing on his neck into a heavy blanket of moisture. Jobe closed his eyes, trying to prepare himself for searing pain as it lunged at him, impaling him with unimaginable, long claws. Instead, there was an enormous crash as the gargantuan creature lost its footing on the slick floor, collapsing into the dingy water that seemed to flood the tunnel with noise.
Jobe didn't dare look back to see what had befallen it and used the last of his strength to put on an extra burst of speed. The crease of light had expanded into a rectangle as Jobe neared the open door. His foot caught on the step that rose out of the water, sending him sprawling threw it and brought him to the floor. He lay there, desperately trying to refill his wheezing lungs. He didn't care that his face was lying in a thin layer of crusty grime or his cloths were being slowly soaked, he was safe. If he ever had to run again, it was to soon.
"Are you going to lye there all day or are you going to help me?!"
Virgil's stretched voice filled his head, bringing him crashing back to reality. He sat up to see the girl struggling with the heavy iron door that stood between and their pursuer, who was drawing closer with every second.
Jobe jumped to his feet, nearly slipping on the slick tiles as he rushed to join her.
"Glad to see you up and about!" Virgil grunted through gritted teeth as she pressed her shoulder to the door that was closing far to slowly. Jobe glanced out of it as he helped push it too.
"Oh shit! That things going to be in here any second."
"Really?!" came the sarcastic retort as she fought with the door.
The door finally gave, grinding shut. Virgil barged past Jobe, pushing him aside as she rushed to the over-sized bolt and went to push it. She'd barely laid a hand on it when the door erupted.
The bolt was ripped free as the creature threw itself at it, obviously not bothering to slow down as it approached the end of the tunnel. The pair were sent flying as the door was torn from its hinges and landed painfully on the less than forgiving floor. Virgil felt the wind rush out of her, leaving the girl lay on the floor gasping like a fish. Wincing she brought her head up, she took her first good look at the creature and hoped (not prayed, she'd given up on that road a long time ago) that it wasn't what she thought it was.
She obviously must have done something to piss fate off.
"What the FUCK is that thing?" Came the cry from Jobe as he struggled to his feet, wide eyed as he tried to comprehend the unspeakably horror that stood before them.
"It's a centaur…" She trailed off as she slowly prepared herself for the imminent conflict that was going to be neither pretty, nor pain-free.
To Jobe's mind, the word centaur conjured up images of mystical half horse, half man creatures that inhabited ancient Greek literature.
He could see where Virgil drew her inspiration from when coming up for a name but he was dammed if these things were frolicking about in Athenian forests.
Its sides scraped the doorframe, as it tried to force its way in which wasn't helped by the fact the centaur was the size of a small car. It looked like a lion that had been skinned and pumped with enough steroids to make Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. Almost all the flesh was missing from its over sized head but a pair of dull eyes rolled wildly in a sunken pool of sagging skin. The centaur's powerful jaw snapped angrily at the pray that dared to deify it, displaying to Jobe's dismay, a set of teeth that reminded him of a bear trap. Strands of thick, viscose saliva clung to its fangs like runny chewing gum.
Due to the lack of skin on the beast, Jobe could see the fibres of large muscles in the beast's leg contract and strain as it forced one of its shoulders into the room, bringing with it a paw armed with clever-like claws that stuck out at weird angles. He felt his stomach turn to water when he saw that one of them turned back on itself, impaling its foot. The creature seemed oblivious to the wound as pus lined it, becoming a raised, furious blister.
He'd begun to slowly backing away from the monstrosity that was trying to drag itself through a door to small for it. He managed to catch his balance as the floor disappeared from underneath his foot as he slid it further back. He snapped his head over his shoulder and felt the small flutter of hope that had kept him going crumple.
"We're trapped." He uttered flatly as he stared at what lay behind him. Jobe hadn't noticed the sound of rushing sewage before but now it came all to clearly like a mocking laugh.
The tiles fell away to form a pool that stretched out to the other side of the room. At first glace, you could be mistaken to believe that you could walk across its surface as it was so stagnant. Little colourful swirls of oil speckled the thin brown crust that lay across the still, dead water like a rotten epidermis, only braking where sewage cascaded down in a mini waterfall from a rusting pipe.
A wave of panic rose up in him as he turned back to the wailing freak. It had managed to get a second leg through the door but still seemed to be struggling, not caring if it injured itself on the jagged doorway. Jobe was surprised that it still couldn't fit, now that its wide shoulders (which were now covered in weeping scratches due to the centaur's forcible entry) were in the room. When he saw the problem, Jobe truly knew where Virgil had got the idea for its name.
There was a lump on its back that Jobe first thought was some hideous tumour, constructed from taunt muscles and flaps of decaying skin. The mass of flesh was so large that the centaur was having trouble dragging it through the door. It let out a whine as the beast violently pulled itself through and suddenly, there seemed to be a lot less space in the already tiny room. No longer constricted by the doorway, Jobe was able to see the quivering hump of flesh that he had mistook for a growth in all its hideous glory.
It was as if a man was growing up from the centre of the creatures back. The waist that connected the two entities was little more than a mass of that fibre like strands, giving it an anorexic look. The bones of its rib cage were clearly visible underneath thinly stretched skin and there were deep, empty hollows under its collarbones. The head appeared to have been flash fried, as all its features were lost in a mass of contorted skin, all except for the mouth. The head seemed to share its other half's oversize teeth. They were to large to be contained by its mouth, protruding from writhing lips that made wet noises as they ran over its dentures. In one place, a canine like fang had punctured the lip like some bizarre piercing, and remerged from the flesh.
Its arms trailed limply down to the floor, coming to an end just above it and swayed lifelessly. The ends of the over long appendages seemed to have ballooned up into huge swellings of corrupt skin and fluid. Their structure looked like some living pendulum as they moved back and forth at a hypnotic tempo.
While Jobe just goggled at horror (We must remember that the most terrifying thing to him a few hours ago was the wrath of his girlfriend if he didn't call) at the behemoth. Mean while, Virgil had swung the shotgun from where it rested across her back. Jobe was snapped back to reality when the familiar 'chu chck' of the weapon being cocked reached his ears. He'd watched enough movies to know what was coming next.
Virgil raised the firearm, aiming down the long barrel of the gun although in the small space, she probably didn't need to worry too much about missing.
'BOOM!'
The shot tore trough the air, drowning out the centaur's cries. In the small space, it sounded more as though some one had let off a small bomb in the room as the explosion resonated from the weapon. Jobe flinched, his hands slammed down on his ears in some self-preservation reaction.
The after echo of the blast became nothing more than background noise as the centaur's piercing scream rose in volume, with a sound like electrical interference. The tiny metal balls had peppered the bestial head and blood seemed to ooze, dripping from countless wounds. At such short range, most things would have been reduced to a mass of gore or a stain on the wall but the centaur's skull was thicker than Oxford's English Dictionary. It was going to take a lot more than a bullet or two to penetrate the many layers of bone.
The beast howled and lurched towards the pair, its top half threw itself back, dragging one of its wrecking ball fists back with it as it picked up momentum.
Jobe took a step back as the creature stumbled towards him, gnashing its great fangs at him. He didn't see the fist coming at him until it was to late. From the corner of his eye, he registered the mass of tan and off-white looming up but by the time he'd turned his head, the fist smacked into him with the force of a bulldozer. Jobe felt his feet leave the ground the living sack carried him up for a moment before the laws of physics took over and he collided with a wall, hitting it hard enough to send a wave of pain to every nerve. He was barely aware of slumping back to the floor as the world swam about him, shifting in and out of focus. He felt as though he'd gone a hundred rounds with Mohammad Ali
Virgil watched in horror as Jobe smacked into the wall, back first. There was no way of shooting at the centaur now without hitting the now motionless man as it prowled towards him, towering triumphantly over the figure that lay crumpled on the floor.
Her hands fell away from the shotgun and locked on to the kantana's hilt. With a violent yank, the wicked blade was free of its scabbard and she was running towards the beast that was already getting ready to pummel into Jobe with its gargantuan fists.
This was probably going to be as successful as taking on a tank with a peashooter, but then, she'd been in much uglier situations than this.
Part 2: Revelation
Jobe felt something warm seeping through his closed eyelid as it refused to open.
'Not like it matters…'He could see well enough with just one. The centaur dwarfed him, like some living monolith. Even if he couldn't see, he'd know it was standing inches away from him just from the smell. The thing reeked of damp. When Jobe's brother had shot that dog, he'd pleaded with his little brother to help him hide it. The only reason why he'd agreed to help Samson was because his brother was cold enough to threaten Jobe with blackmail. So the two boys hid the dog under the porch. It was only a few weeks later when that horrible stench of rot and decomposition began to waft up from underneath the house that they were discovered.
When Jobe's father could no longer stand the repulsive odder, he had pulled up the wooden planks that made up the porch. The smell of the corpse hit the man like a heat wave, Jobe remembered all to well how he'd gone running down the steps that lead to the house cursing till he was blue in the face.
The snarling abomination smelt just like the explosion of gasses that escaped when the wooden planks were ripped away by his inquisitive father.
He tried to shy away from it as the centaur stood motionless, staring at him with those vindictive eyes. Waiting for the final blow was even worse than receiving it. From where Jobe lay, he could see the muscles in the human like growth tense up as it prepared to swing one of its mammoth arms into him.
A roar tore through the air, but despite its inhuman tone, it did not originate from the centaur.
Virgil landed on its spindly back and somehow managed to keep her balance. Both heads turned, a look of surprise was almost visible on the more humane. The girl continued to scream as she let the sword fly in a smooth arc, interrupted only by the spindly neck of the less monstrous face.
Jobe heard the sleek grate of metal as the blade severed tissue and bone before the kantana remerged from the other side of its neck.
Yet still the beast stood and time seemed to stop as it stared at Virgil.
That was, until the head tumbled from stopping shoulders, hitting the floor with a wet smack as a geyser of blood spurted from the point where it had, just moments before, been attached to its body.
A scream of pain erupted from its huge mouth, shattering the stillness that had enveloped the room like fog.
The arms of the stalk like growth thrashed weakly, but due to their horrendous weight, that was all they could do. The centaur screamed again but this one was filled with an uncontrollable fury and it bucked violently. Virgil ducked, grabbing a fistful of the saggy flesh of the creature's back in a desperate attempt not to be flung into the nearest wall. Jobe was barely able to roll out of the way as the over-sized freak of nature ploughed into the wall, oblivious to whatever damage it was causing to itself. The beast grated along the rough tiled surface, many of the ancient ceramic slabs were torn free as they caught on its side.
Jobe watched in horror as it charged like a mad dog towards the stagnant pool while Virgil still clung to the centaur's back. He truly believed that the pair would go flying from the ledge and into the murky water as the distance between the centaur and the pool's edge rapidly closed but it was not to be. Despite its tremendous mass, their tormentor was able to stop on a dime, skidding to a halt on the slick floor. With a cry of surprise more than anything, Virgil was torn from the centaur as the rag of decomposing flesh was ripped free and she went flying over its drooped head.
Unable to do a damn thing, Jobe watched as the girl was propelled through the air before smacking into the water and was swallowed by the stinking mass. The only evidence of her short flight was the black hole in the water's crust and the ripples that lazily expanded from it.
For a moment, the over-sized monstrosity looked at the water in fascination before snapping its dumb gaze onto Jobe who had now risen to his feet, a look of sheer loss plastered across his visage. It hung there for only a moment before rage clouded over it like a storm. He was sick of being chased and hunted like an animal. Seeing the hungry look in the centaur's eyes just pushed him over the edge and his fear was consumed by the desire to cause whatever the hell it was in front of him some pain.
"Hey fuck-face, you hungry?"
It laboriously turned and lowered its head in preparation to charge. This little creature was beginning to become a pain.
"Chomp on this!"
As the centaur leaped towards him, Jobe pulled the gun free from his belt and began to fire wildly. A volley of bullets rained down on their target, digging themselves deep into the beasts's skull. One whizzed past its head, taking a strip of skin with it. By sheer luck, one managed to find the creature's fleshy throat, tearing through tendons like paper.
Its war cry shrank to a strangulated warble as the centaur lost its footing while a bullet carved its way through its brain. Even though the centaur's journey had been a short one, it still had enough momentum to hit Jobe like a speeding car. He dived out the way as the mass of flesh and muscle slammed into the wall with a bone-splitting crack as its hardy skull splintered on impact.
Jobe gasped, taking deep gulps of air as he watched the centaur's hind legs feebly paw at the ground before finally giving up and collapsing in a heap. The adrenalin rush was starting to die down, replaced by a deep repetitive thud in his ears and…
"VIRGIL!"
He ran to the water's side, calling her name but the only answer he received was from his distorted reflection and the never-ending spillage of water from the rusting metal pipe.
Was this all Silent Hill was good for, inflicting loss after loss upon him? He felt like screaming until the flesh of his throat became raw but somehow, he just didn't have it in him.
The water beneath his feet exploded in a torrent of muck and sewage, soaking his already sodden trousers and something threw itself most of itself on to the ground. Violent coughing erupted from her mouth as Virgil began slipping back into the murky water. For a second, Jobe was too dumbfounded by her entrance and almost let her torso fall back into the pool. He grabbed one of her arms, pulling the choking figure to their feet but she instantly collapsed again in a fit of retches, still clutching the kantana. From the way she was going, it sounded as though she was going to cough up her lungs. Her body heaved and there was a wet splat as Virgil vomited the contense of her stomach on to the already filthy floor, Jobe would have been more than happy to help but he had no idea how she'd take it.
Finally, the coughing subsided and Virgil shakily rose to her feet. Her clothes sagged, hanging of her and giving the girl the appearance of a drowned rat.
"Are you going to be_"
The words died in Jobe's throat. Virgil's hood had fallen, plastered to her back under the weight of stagnant water and what it revealed was disturbing to saw the least.
Scar tissue corrupted every inch of skin in long white strands, and the skin itself looked as though it had died. It had gone a pale shade of its former colour and almost all her characteristics were lost in a sea of charred flesh. More of those bandages ran across Virgil's face, strapped over the sharp bridge of her nose and travelling up towards her eye before it was obscured from view by an untidy fringe of black hair that flopped lifelessly over her face. The other eye stared at Jobe; it was the colour of off milk. The colouring of the iris had faded into its pale backdrop but the pupil was still as sharp as ever.
Jobe barely had time to notice other details (how frayed and greasy the hair that framed her face was and how the skin on the left nostril had been all but burnt off, giving the already starved face a skeletal look) before a spark of suspicion shot across the lone eye. A hand darted up to her face and the suspicion instantly dissolved into horror.
Jobe snapped his gaze away, becoming completely absorbed by the filth-flooded cracks that ran between the tiles but the damage was already done.
"Don't look at me!" Virgil seemed to fold in upon herself as she cried; her already damaged voice grated with stress. Jobe took a step forward and was about to offer a word of comfort but slunk further back, so fast that she nearly tripped over her own feet.
"No, please don't_" Virgil raised her arms, as if to ward off a blow and it dawned on Jobe that she was actually afraid, no petrified of him.
"I'm not going to hurt you." He offered in what he hoped was his most reassuring tone as he place his gun back in the belt. Virgil's arms lowered somewhat and he saw that distorted eye peer at him between her ragged fingers. The pupil had dilated to the size of a pinhead in the dazing glaze of the torch.
"Why would I want to anyway?"
"The others did…" Jobe felt his brows knit together.
"What others?"
Virgil's arm's dropped to her side, the hands locked into angry fists.
"Every one! And don't think you're the first person to come wondering into this town that I've tried to help,"
Jobe notice the fists were starting to shake violently. Her head stayed fixed on a spot on the floor as the words were spat from her mouth. "But when they see me for what I am, they think I'm no better than one of them!" She pointed vehemently at the bloody corpse of the centaur that lay motionless where it smashed into the wall. "They think I'm some kind of monster. That's why I can't leave, because I belong here with them!" She practically screamed the last words, taking deep, shaky breaths through teeth clenched so tightly together that they could shatter like crystal.
"But your not." Jobe's words seemed to harder than the centaur ever could, and for the first time, she looked at him face on. She tried to say something but quickly thought against it.
"Your nothing like those," Jobe gestured towards the crumpled body. "Hell, you save my life. That makes you just as human as me."
"Y-you aren't disgusted by me?"
"No." That wasn't entirely true and that made Jobe feel all the more hypocritical.
Virgil shifted her weight from one foot to another uncomfortably, like an embarrassed child.
"Sorry…" She pulled the hood up, hiding that horrible mask of bandages and warped skin.
"Don't be. Now," He began in a completely fresh tone, trying to forget how he felt. "How do we get out of here?"
It wasn't that he despised Virgil for what she was. He pitied her and he hated himself for that. He didn't believe in that felling, that you felt your self higher than someone else and in the position to look down on them, whish they weren't what they were.
But here he was doing that right now and every time he looked at the ragged ghost of a human that was Virgil, he felt that deep sense of pity.
He'd wanted to know what was behind the Veil, and now that it had been revealed, there was no way he could ignore it.
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Mmmm, you see that button there, isn't it so nice and shiny? Don't you just want to press it? Go on, you know you want to.
