Yes, I am alive but things have been a bit hetic here so I had to put the writing on hold. That and I re-wrote this chapter more times than I can count.
-How can you expect to look into the abyss if you cannot look into yourself?
Sin's of the Heretic: The second interlude
Part 1: voices of the disembodied
From the summit of the telephone pole, the solitary raven could observe the entire street with black marble eyes that reflected the rapidly fading light as dusk fell on the town.
Its head snapped up from the banks of fog that whirled about it as the sound of hurried footfall fell upon the raven's ears. Cocking its head, the bird listened with fleeting interest to the uncoordinated sound as it drew nearer.
Its glassy eyes followed the girl that burst from the dark mist as she ran madly. Anyone watching would have thought there must be some nightmarish creature chasing her but the raven saw no one but the girl as she hurtled past bellow, disappearing back into the fog.
Its eyes lingered on the spot were she'd melted back into the thick air before the raven threw back its sleek, black head and let a solitary caw escape from its ragged beak.
* * *
Virgil could hear her blood pumping in her ears as she propelled herself down yet another decrepit street but she didn't care, as long as she got away from that…place.
She'd been behind Jobe when the voices started,
(How could you do this to me?)
goading Virgil with
(you worthless piece of SHIT!)
words only she'd been able to hear. She'd tried to
(I loved you and this is how you repay me?! Well, you got what you deserved.)
ignore them and warn Jobe not to go there but there was no stopping him, no matter how hard she tried to deter him Virgil would have explained but
(HA HA HAAHAHA!!!!)
every nerve in her body seemed to spontaneously combust, searing her with white-hot pain. For a moment back there, she'd actually thought she could smell her own flesh cooking as old wounds ruptured, tearing her tattered skin apart.
So, she'd run.
Like some scarred vermin she'd turned tail and abandoned Jobe to the darkness. But it hadn't abandoned her.
Even though she'd got halfway across town on legs that screamed at her to stop, she could still feel the sick presence of that false church coming after her as she ran blindly, shadowing every step she took.
Without warning, the pain exploded in her chest and Virgil slipped, finally losing her footing. She slammed into the ground, to raptured by the agony that shook every inch of her to noticing the ache that swelled up in her shoulder as it smacked the pavement.
She screamed again as her chest threatened to tare itself apart. Virgil was helpless to resist the voice of the town as it whispered soundless commands in her ear, willing her to succumb to it. A fresh wave of relentless agony washed over the girl and Virgil gave up. She'd gone far beyond the point of caring anymore.
As the world around her began to be tainted by the darkness that had finally hunted her down, Virgil closed her eyes and let the buzzing hum that burnt her ears lead her to unconcisness. With one final hitched breath, she made peace with the darkness and let it consume her.
* * *
The raven had long since taken off from its perch. The town lay sprawled out underneath it as it went in search of the carrion that littered its streets, so absorbed by its quest it didn't notice the sound of another air-born creature stalking it through the clouds of fog.
Soundlessly, the bird's stalker swooped down on the raven, impaling it on mercilessly sharp claws. The tiny bird screamed, letting out a wet, drowned squawk as Wrath regarded its catch before letting it plummet to earth like a stone. With mild interest, it watched as the bird fell, its wings limply spread in some vain attempt to take flight, but this sight only held Wrath's attention for a short time.
It had, after all, much larger fish to fry. Already, the sweet aroma of human flesh filled its nostrils.
Not too far away, a man named Jobe was approaching a car that was emitting a strange hymn of static.
* * *
Virgil opened her eyes but quickly clinched them shut again. The thin, sliver of light that infiltrated her lids set of an explosion in all the regions of her brain and set her eyes ablaze. Blindly, the girl sat up, her sodden cloths clinging to the damp tar-mack, quickly wished she hadn't as her head thudded.
Sitting there, Virgil waited for her senses to start working again.
'So this must be what a hang-over is like,' She mused as she let her toung run around her mouth; it tasted as though some small, fuzzy and already decomposing animal had crawled in there while she was unconscious, looking for a place to die.
Virgil tried her eyes again and slowly the world shifted back into focus. A chill ran down her back when she saw how dark the sky had become, realising that Silent Hill's invisible sun had almost set. It wasn't that Virgil was afraid of the night, but the town's larger and more twisted inhabitancies tended to slink out from the shadows when light had been chased from the streets. To be honest, the girl was surprised she hadn't woken up to the sound of something mauling her arm.
With a groan, Virgil pushed herself to her feet, leaning on the sheathed kantana for support.
Trying to remember what had happened before she'd passed out was proving to be nigh on impossible. Everything was coming back in small, jumbled flashes, as if there was a broken T.V in Virgil's head playing back the events in whatever order it felt like. And then it hit the girl.
"Oh my god" She whispered in a very small voice as shock clenched at Virgil's heart. She'd attacked him…
"No!"
Yes
She shook her head as if to clear the memory from it but to no avail. It was stuck there like a deep splinter, playing over and over again like a jammed record.
Virgil saw that moment when Jobe had reached out in some vain attempt to help and that act of kindness had nearly resulted in him becoming right handed. All to clearly, she could remember the look of naked fear, which was barely able to mask the hatred that rippled beneath it.
"He hates you, now he'll see you for what really you are."
It was only when Virgil heard the voice that she realised she'd been trying to perform a lobotomy on herself, digging her jagged, pathetic excuse for nails into her forehead.
"You are nothing more than another monster, living in the shadows. Tell me, why did you attack him?"
Virgil locked her hands into fists, still staring with a hideous, burning shameful guilt at the ground.
"I-I don't know"
"Oh come on," The voice raised to a harsh, scratchy tone that made Virgil flinch. "You know why!"
"It-it wasn't him." She stammered in a wavering voice. "For a moment, I could have sworn there was some-someone else…" The girl closed her eyes, practically wiling herself to become deaf as she tried to lock out the voice.
"Really? Who did you think it was?" The voice crooned maliciously as Virgil quivered, rooted to the spot by some invisible presence that chilled her to the bones.
'I don't want to remember, I don't want_'
" Please don't make me do this," She whimpered. The very air around her crack with violent impatiens.
"WHO!?!" It bellowed like thunder, fraying the last of Virgil's already shattered nerves.
"BE QUIET!" She roared, spinning round to face her tormentor, blood pumping through her temples.
But there was no one there.
However, when Virgil saw what lay behind her a fresh wave of panic grabbed her and she froze, helpless to tear her gaze away from what lay before her:
If Virgil had taken another step forward, she could have been standing on the lowest step leading up to the church of Silent Hill. With a yelp, the girl threw herself back, landing gracelessly in a heap. Without thinking, Virgil drew the kantana, pointing it as the building as if it were about to attack her while shuffling backwards rabidly.
"No, no, no, no"
The air thickened, growing musty and rancid, as the church seemed to swell, pressing out against the confines of the surrounding houses. The building groaned like ancient bones, its long shadow chasing Virgil as it blocked out the last few shades of light. It was coming at the girl like some ravenous monster, intent on consuming her_
Virgil's back crashed into something soft. The girl shot a glance over her shoulder and found that she staring up into the eyes of the worst kind of monster.
"Welcome home," It said.
Part 2: Nemesis
Virgil rocketed to her feet, so fast that her head throbbed angrily in protest. The girl winced at the pain but never let her eyes leave the figure before her as she stumbled back.
"Leave me alone."
A momentary look of hurt flitted Claudia's face as Virgil spat the words, still backing away like a cornered animal.
"For a moment, I thought you'd seen the error of your ways and accepted what you are." Claudia slowly shook her head as limp white hair clung to her shoulders, refusing to let them go as if there existence depended on holding on to them. "But I can see that you are here for another purpose."
Virgil halted in her tracks as her foot hit the bottom step of the church's entrance and it dawn on her that she was between a rock and an extremely hard, painful place. There were precious few options still left open to her. Virgil's grip on the kantana's hilt tightened as she regarded the woman before her with both fear and malice.
"Virgil, isn't that's what your calling yourself now" Claudia cocked her head to one side as she asked the question, probing away with eyes that seemed void of emotion. She could feel them, reading every thought as if she were some open book Claudia could leaf through at her pleasure and Virgil suddenly found that she was having trouble keeping the kantana from lopping the woman's head off, despite how hard her hands were shaking.
"What an appropriate name Jobe gave you." A faint ghost of a smile crossed her lips as she uttered the words, knowing she had found a weakness in Virgil's apparently stony exterior, and from the look on the girl's face, she'd exploited it quite nicely.
Any previous fear Virgil had disintegrated as the rational side of her brain was consumed by the bottomless hatred that was born from the subtle threat.
"You leave him out of this!" She snapped back.
Virgil's intimidation grew when she saw that her words had zero effect on unnerving Claudia.
"How can I? Even if he refuses to acknowledge it, he has an important role in the events to come."
Something cold started spreading through Virgil, and the inferno like anger was put out as quickly as it had come on.
"What?"
Claudia let out a short laugh, as if she didn't quite believe that Virgil, who looked like a five year-old who had just taken a crash course in quantum physics, was having trouble grasping such a simple (well, to Claudia at least) concept.
"You honestly thought he came to this town on his own accord?"
The look on Virgil's face was a good enough answer.
"I_I…" She tried but the words didn't seem to want to come together and the baron sentence had collapsed before it had even begun. Virgil's antagonist gave the girl such a look of pity that she broke eye contact and shamefully stared at the ground.
"Ever since his judgment, forces beyond Jobe's control have been at work, drawing him to this place so he can discover his true nature. Even you, a person so against our cause, have played your part in bringing him here."
Claudia raised her head, peering into the low heavens as if to acknowledge some nameless deity that was watching this performance.
"Why not give up this charade you are living and embrace the gift we have given you?"
Virgil gawked in disbelief, to stunned by Claudia's statement to reply. The woman would have had the same effect if she'd said the earth was at the centre of the universe and gravity caused objects to float.
"Gift?" She echoed flatly before her face creased with anger. "You call this a gift?" Virgil waved on of her twisted hands in front of the woman's face as she ranted. "You turned me into a god-damn freak!"
The look of hurt reappeared on Claudia's face but this time it lingered as she drew closer to the girl reaching out to her in what could have been an act of reassurance.
"Please try to understand_"
Virgil slapped the hand away, cutting the woman off mid-sentence.
"Don't you touch me!" The words come out in a low menacing hiss, full of darkness that surprised them both. "I am not your friend and I am not your Alessa."
Virgil almost felt sorry for her antagonist when she saw the effect her words had had on her. Almost.
Something seemed to break in her, instantly the air of collectiveness evaporated from Claudia and Virgil suddenly noticed how weary she looked. Virgil began to wonder if her fear had been misplaced. What, if anything, could this tiered, old witch do to her?
"You are so bitter, Virgil and I know how you suffered_" Virgil shot her a dirty look, silently questioning how much she knew about suffering, crossing her arms in an act of quiet defiance but let Claudia continue.
"And that is why we offered you a place in god's eternal paradise." Claudia closed her eyes as she resumed her preaching, not noticing the dark scowl the girl before her regarded her with. "Just like all, your deeds have been judged. I don't think you understand the privilege you have received, for only a bear few can join god's ranks and help usher the people of this sinful earth towards redemption."
For a moment there was silence and Claudia wondered if Virgil had finally seen the light: That was until choked snort shattered the still air.
"You've got to be joking," The girl tired to stifle a laugh as she signalled to their impotent surroundings. "If this is your so called paradise, I'd rather go to hell!"
Claudia menancollany looked away as Virgil's mocking words died away.
"You truly wish to see hell?" the woman's head snapped back faster than it should have been able to. The icy blue eyes locked on to Virgil's, their coldness had been fully restored. Something dark burned within them and the girl quickly found herself remembering why she had been o so afraid of this woman. She began to step back but the damage had been done. Virgil had mocked the Promised Land one time to many.
"Then so be it!"
Claudia's iris's rolled to the back of her head and her whole body seemed to go taunt and stiff. The air surrounding the pair buzzed as if it were super-charged with invisible electricity that tingled Virgil's every nerve.
"NO!" Virgil cried, and this time it was her turn to reach out to Claudia with desperate, outstretched, pleading fingers.
"One day Virgil, you shall take your rightful place at god's side,"
The very air that filled Virgil's lungs tore itself out of her in a raspy gasp, leaving the girl gasping dryly as a wind picked up, blasting past her. Even the light was unable to hold its footing against the cold vent of wind as it was carried away on the gale's breeze. Darkness hungrily enveloped the street, obscuring the dismal surroundings in a dark, foreboding vacuum. Virgil's wide, frightened eyes locked pleadingly with Claudia's but to no avail as she clasped at her throat, trying to force air into it but none would come.
Panic took hold of the girl as reality fell apart around her and she grabbed the kantana. The primal, self-centred level of Virgil's brain kicked into overdrive as her body began to loss touch with the world. Claudia was a threat to her survival and the catalyst of all her pain. Therefore, Claudia had to go.
Virgil raised the blade over her head with shaky arms that seemed barely able to support the oriental sword. It hovered there, indecisively for a moment before coming crashing down on the woman's head. In the split second it would have taken for the kantana to reach its lethal destination, the ground beneath Virgil's feet shifted, accompanied by the air's sudden loss of static buzz.
The sword hit the ground with an empty 'clank', bouncing off the mesh of rustic, pleated iron that had replaced the tar-mack. The thin metal lines criss-crossed over an impenetrable dark chasm that stretched far beyond Virgil's field of vision, echoing the scorched black sky. She didn't need to look twice to know where she was.
Virgil's head snapped up to the spot where Claudia had stood only moments before but she too had vanished, along with the rest of normality. Virgil's eyes skipped over her new surroundings, confirming her worst fears. Everything around her was a twisted shadow of its former self: The houses that lined the street looked as though they'd been abandoned a thousand years ago to rot and fester. Some were even engulfed by creepers of twisted metal that rose up from the ground, ensnaring the trapped houses like ivy.
It was when she saw the transformation the church had undergone that Virgil let out a dry scream and bolted in to the darkness, trying n vain to forget what lay behind her. The small, almost insignificant building had warped into the obstinate monolith that still woke Virgil up at night in a bed of her own sweat. Its bricks and mortar had twisted into the stuff of nightmares, so she ran off into the unfathomable darkness, not daring to look back and forgetting all about Jobe.
Somewhere in the shadows, a raven cawed.
+++++++
What, you thought I'd forgot about Claudia?
I wasn't going to do this chapter origionaly but I thought it might be worth writing as Virgil's going to be out of the loop for a while (muttering to herself in some dark corner no doubt) and I wanted to do something with the pair.
Don't worry, we'll see what befell Jobe next chapter.
