I know the last chapter wasn't much so I hope this makes up. The short way we've still got to go may take a while because… you guessed it, I have exams, well mocks to be more pessific, coming up as well as the hedious amount of course work that's just screaming to be done.

Chapter 36: We're all blind in the dark

"You have got to be kidding me!" Jobe slapped a hand to his forehead, giving Angela an almost desperate look but the look on her face revealed that this was far from a joke. That or she had a wonderful poker face in her now slightly more conscious state.

"Please, Jobe, it'll be safer and much quicker if we go this way."

An utterly confused Grace watched as the two volleyed the potential argument between them.

"What's wrong with this way?" She piped, pointing at the heavy, rusting door Vigil had led them blindly to. The sign next to it identified it as the entrance to Silent Hill's own water treatment station.

"Last time Virgil took me down here," He started, turning to the smaller woman for the firs time since he'd vented all his woes at her. "She nearly drowned and I came very close to being eaten by this town's take on Classical mythology. Trust me, you don't want to go down there."

But Jobe left a lot unsaid, partly because he had no ideas how the put word to the feeling of utter dread that had sized him as he crawled through the tunnels of filth. How would you explain feeling as though you'd never see the sun again as the dark closed in around you, the only thing keeping it's ravenous fingers at bay was a tiny flashlight clinging to the front of your shirt that could blink out at anytime. Even a poet might not be able to express the sensations that ripped at his nerves as he'd scurried through there, praying that he could keep up with the ghost that lead him through the countless twisted corridors.

"So? You nearly got eaten up here too, but I don't see you throwing a hissy-fit to walking through town." Grace glanced at Virgil for both support and to avoid the smouldering look the man was giving her. "And if it saves time… well I don't want to be here any longer than I have to be."

Jobe sighed. He was never going to win this one with the pair of them against him. Grace's opinionated nature sure as hell made up for the submissive girl who stood hunched next to her.

'She probably wouldn't be saying this if you hadn't had a go at her earlier…'

"Fine," He turned, stabbing a pointed finger into Grace's face as Angela began to work away at the door. "But don't you ever say I didn't warn you."

Grace just cast his finger a rather bored look.

"A-a-are you two coming?" Angela nervously broke in, peeking out from the darkness of the newly opened door.

"Sure we are." Grace chimed, give Jobe one last look before turning and walking over the grey building's threshold and into it's black interior.

Jobe sighed again, making a move to join them. God, why had he gone and put this barrier up between the rest of them? Sure, Grace had pinched a very sensitive nerve with the words she'd blurted, but that didn't deserve the retaliation she'd got from him. As for Virgil? The girl hadn't looked at him in the same way since that incident in the hospital.

And that was when the harsh slam of metal on metal shattered the silence, snapping Jobe from his meditation.

8 8 8

'BANG'

Angela stated, heart rocketing up into her mouth as the room suddenly tumbled into darkness.

"What the hell was that!?" Grace cried, wheeling round and coming face to face with the now firmly shut door. "How-" She started, but the creases of confusement that had begun to form on her brow fell away as Virgil barged past her.

"Jobe?" She called into the crusty metal surface, thick with coats of rust.

"What was that for?" Came the surprisingly distant voice from the other side. Even though there were only inches between the two, he sounded half a mile away.

"Hey, we didn't do anything!" Angela rolled her eyes as Grace cut in, folding her arms tightly over her chest and glowered at the man on the other side of the door. Last thing she needed was these two breaking into another argument…Even though they were separated by six inches of solid steel, she wouldn't put it past them.

Virgil's hand found the handle, but she wasn't surprised when it refused to budge no matter how hard she tried to shift it.

"What the… I can't get this door open." The words that seeped through the layer of old, neglected metal didn't come as a shock either. "Can you let me in?"

The girl tried again, succeeding only in removing a layer of damaged skin as her fingers fought against the stubborn handle.

"It's stuck…"Grace commented dryly as she peered over Virgil's shoulder, not sounding to upset about the fact that her reunion with Jobe wasn't going to be happening anytime soon by the looks of things. Muttering something, the girl before her pulled something from the pocket of her worn jumper, the clothing looking just about ready to unravel into nothing but a heap of twine. Resisting the temptation to ask, Grace quietly watched as the girl stopped down, shifting through the small pile of paper squares she'd pulled from her pocket, shifting through it with a finger. Finally having managed to identify the seemingly identical scraps, she picked it out and began to unfold it into a very shabby piece of paper, complete with stains and countless creases that crept over its flimsy surface like a network of veins.

Grace couldn't contain it anymore.

"What are those?"

"Maps." Came the monosyllabic answer as the hunched girl posted her find under the crack of the door.

8 8 8

Jobe straightened up, looking somewhat quizzically at what he held in his hand. She'd already given him one of these so what was the point-

Wait, this one was different. For a start it only showed a small area of the town and it was in far more detail that the larger one.

"What am I meant to do with this?"

"Just go to Saunders Street. There'll be a-a-a building like this on it that you can access the sewers from. Can we meet you there?" He glanced down at the map in his hands. Well, at least it wasn't too far. How much could go wrong in the time it took him to navigate his way there.

Jobe tried not to listen to the little voice that coolly whispered in his ear that he'd just gone and tempted fate.

8 8 8

Grace shuddered. They'd only been trudging through this place for what? Five, six minuets and already she felt like grabbing her hair in her fists and screaming until she was horse. No matter where you looked, there'd be another wall closing tightly in on you, happy to crush you with claustrophobia. Thank god years of smoking had dampened her sense of smell and she was at least saved from having to inhale the full reek of this place. What little she did manage to pick up was enough to make her heave.

"How long until we get there?"

Angela sighed, all to able to hear how the woman's voice cracked, raw panic oozing between the broken lines as she stumbled so close behind her, practically scraping the skin off Virgil's now bear feet with her shoes.

"I think we're nearly there…" She squitinted, pale eyes trying to pierce the invisible shapes that lurked up ahead, scanning for something that stood out against the dark. "Ah, see, all we have to do is go down that service ladder and we're there." She could practically fee the tension let lose its grip on Grace.

"Well, thank god for that. I thought we were going to be down here…" They came to a halt over the round hole in the ground, breaking the pattern of filthy tiles and nameless filth tickling over them. However, when Grace peered into that unblinking eye of black she instantly forgot the one word that was needed to complete her hanging sentence.

"Um, Virgil?" She glanced up at the girl as her stomach started to crawl with sick dread. Where's the ladder?"

Angela had been asking herself the same question. Here was the shaft they needed to take but the familiar iron ladder had, quite simply, vanished. From the raised heap of cracked tiles that lay around the circumference of the manhole in no chaotic order, it looked as though someone had ripped the structure free from the ground, letting it tumble into the dark void below.

Grace, unable to even try and think what was going to happen now, reached for the faithful pack of cigarettes that had accompanied her for the whole of this journey. There had been only one route for them to take while they were down here and now the only two exits had been cut off from them.

"This is bad…" She shuddered, nibbling furiously on the butt of the paper cylinder clutched between her worrying teeth. As she reached for the lighter, that one word came floating back to her, finishing the ultimate sentence.

Forever…

"Shit, this is bad…" Her hand tremored as it tried to light the shaking tip of the fag, trying to ignore the countless morbid scenarios that had started playing over in her head to the sound of her heart fluttering at an insane speed.

Angela said nothing, only staring at the hole. Her foot moved out, catching the edge of a chipped tile.

"What are you-" But the girl remained silent as she pushed her find towards the black circle's mouth, her face pulled into a bizarre grin. She let the chunk of floor teetering on the cusp of the hole, prolonging its fall for only a moment before her toes let go and it tumbled into the black void.

"What was that-" Yet again, Grace was cut off as Angela raised a finger, signalling for silence for only a moment longer, lips twitching as she counted silently.

"Two…three…"

Grace had a horrible feeling she knew where this was going.

"Four-"

The sound of something hitting water came floating up the hole and Grace almost cried when Angela confirmed her suspicions by taking another step towards the edge.

"Hey," She grabbed the girl's arm, her fingers digging into the saggy jumper a little harder that she meant them to. "Quit screwing around. That really isn't funny…"

Virgil turned, shooting her a confused look.

"Huh? What do you mean screwing around?"

"Well," Grace let out a nervous laugh. "You're not seriously going to jump down there, right?" The self-reassuring smile on her face was beginning to ache. "I mean, there's another way out, right?"

Angela just dropped her head, speaking her muffled reply into her chest.

"T-t-t-this tunnel, it just leads to a dead end. Sorry."

Grace practical inhaled the rest of the slowly disintegrating cigarette in one breath. The situation was rapidly going from worse to an utter nightmare and all that hysteria that she'd been holding back was beginning to break free of its confides. Virgil said nothing as the woman before her started giggling, a hideously high-pitched sound that lacked any sanity whatsoever.

"Well, I'm sorry but there's no fucking way I'm jumping down there." She folded her arms and turned her back on the girl and that horrible hole, teeth gnashing relentlessly on the end of the fag, trying desperately to find some sort of consolation.

"Grace, please-" But the girl's reply was cut off as Grace shook her head violently, sending the semi-blond pony tail into a frantic dance.

"No!"

Angela's pleading hands dropped limply to her side. Why was she so terrible when it came to arguing with words? Sure, she could beat the living daylights out of the woman in a physical fight but she would be too scared of even raising her fists against her. Anyways, that would be uncivil… but actions do speak louder than words… A grin formed on her face as the idea came onto her.

"Then, I'm sorry to have to do this…"

Grace's eyes snapped open, Virgil's words setting of her internal alarm bells. The woman turned sharply, her heels sliding over the pool of stagnant waste that ran over the ground beneath her feet in time to see Angela take another step, bringing her filthy foot over the black pit.

"WAIT!" Grace lunged forward, but it was too little, too late. The only thing her splayed fingers managed to close on was empty air as the girl lent forward, letting gravity pull her past the point of regaining balance and fell into the hole.

She fell with out a sound, swallowed effortlessly by the gapping black mouth that grinned up from the ground.

Dumb, Grace stared at the empty handful of air she desperately clung onto. Time, it seemed, had chosen to defy the laws of physics and come to a stuttering halt, not that time in Silent Hill had ever obeyed the rules that it was set to follow else where, and Grace could do nothing but stare at her fruitless pick, trapped in the moment by cold horror.

SPLOOSH

The woman jerked back into life as the sound of something much larger than a chunk of plaster hitting the water smashing the silence and setting the rich, pungent air alive as it echoed off the tightly packed walls. The woman breathed a sigh of relief as the sound of wet spluttering came bubbling up from the dark shaft, stepping up to the edge of the hole and peering down into its depths. She still couldn't see a damn thing.

"Virgil?!"

A voice rose from the splashing but the woman couldn't make out a word she said over the sound of the water…it all sounded so hectic…

"VIRGIL?!" Still, there was no reply save for the sound of swirling water and something struggling against it, and that was when it hit Grace bang in the frontal lobe. That horrible, semi-precognition that something very bad is about to pass, call it woman's intuition or whatever you want, but it turned Grace's blood to ice, a fever of goose bumps racing up and down her skin.

'What the hell is going on down there?'

A shout, a ballad of pain and rage came bursting up from the hole and the sound that was all it took to end the woman's dilemma. She was just about to crouch and arm herself with the biggest chunk of rubble she could find when-

"Hello, Grace." A voice behind her cooed softly as a hand planted itself in the middle of her back, pushing her forward and over the edge of the hole. She could do nothing but fail her arms in a pathetic attempt to get back the balance she'd already lost as she fell forward, tumbling into the darkness bellow with a scream.

8 8 8

Hitting the water had hurt. A lot. Angela had tried to scream but that only succeeded in letting a torrent of thick, black water invade her mouth, searing her tongue with its god-awful flavour. It tasted even worse than last time she'd fallen into the sewer's waters, she hadn't thought a feat like that would be physically possible.

The girl made a desperate burst for the surface, praying that in her blindness, she'd guessed that the direction she swam in truly was up. Another moment under the surface of this pool of stuff she didn't even want to hazard a guess at and she'd pass out. Even with her nose clamped tightly shut, she could still smell the unfathomable reek around her, as if it had somehow managed to infiltrate the surface of her skin.

A hand broke free, rabidly followed by the rest of the coughing, spluttering body, throwing itself towards the edge of the rancid pool. Angela thought she truly would die if she had to hang in that dark, thick 'water' a moment longer, rabidly dragging her self up on the ledge her stray hand had blindly caught.

"Virgil?!" A voice, Grace's maybe, came floating down the shaft. The already distorted sound swam in her ears, along with the nauseating residue that flooded them and the girl could only half-heartedly mumble a reply as she tried not to succumb to the overpowering stench around her.

"VIRGIL?!" The call came again. Gathering her senses as she hauled herself up onto the sleek ground, the girl opened her mouth to reply, but the only sound she managed to make was a retching scream as something lanced through her shoulder. The inhuman, living thing yanked the broken rags of cloth and skin up, ripping the girl free of the pool she'd been trying to scramble out of like a drowned rat only moments before. It's funny that salvation and damnation can switch places so very easily.

8 8 8

Jobe didn't bother with the last few rungs of the ladder, leaping free of it the moment he got close enough to the ground to jump and not break his leg. Unfortunately, in his haste, he'd forgotten that his left leg had been to some extent re-arranged by the ravenous teeth of gluttony but was quickly reminded of that minor detail as he landed on it. It was as if someone had pumped the limb full of plastic explosives and just pressed down on the big red button…

He collapsed, his cries shattering the dark as he clutched at the wound in some hopeless attempt to do something to the pain that throbbed away under his skin but no matter how hard he tried, his fingers could never reach the burning under his skin.

"Do you need a little help down zhere?"

Jobe let one clenched eye roll open, trying focus on the figure that had materialised from the shadows, looming down at him with a smile. That voice…it sounded just as happy as the first time he'd heard it.

"Get the hell away from me." Jobe growled through gritted teeth, but Casper only laughed, throwing his neatly shaven head back as he let the heartfelt sound rip.

"Oh, Jobe… You really don't look like zhe kind of man who can refuse a helping hand." He brought his head back down, gleaming at Jobe. "But I guess zhat's just zhe vay you are, eh?" His eyes narrowed as he observed how Jobe's finger's tightened on the fire-axe's slender neck but that smile never left his face, even as he brought his boot down on the busy hand, letting Jobe howl as he felt the bones in his hand shift and grind.

"Tut, tut," He drawled on, teeth pulled into an expression that would rival even the greatest white shark as Jobe tried to writhe free from the heavy shoe's vice-like grip. "Still so resistant to zhe help ve offer you. Each of our lessons, zhe message so clear it makes me vant to cry as you turn a deaf ear, unheard."

Casper lifted his shoe and started to trace a lazy circle around the downed Jobe who was too engrossed in cradling his singing hand to fully listen to the soft voice that floated up into the surrounding dark.

"So, it has fallen to me, zhe right hand of god in zhis whole affair, to open your eyes, something my superiors have failed in."

A blur of motion and a ball of livid pain ruptured in Jobe's forehead. He was barely aware of Casper snapping his foot back from the blazing point of impact, proclaiming something as his vision darkened, clouded over by the lure of unconsciousness.

"You vill see vhat you vere always meant to be, mine friend."

And Jobe knew no more.

A/N: I'm going to warn you now, the next chapter isn't going to be a barrel of laughs so get some morbid music ready…

Thankyou for reading, oh, and if you're looking for something to read in the time it takes to do it, there's a one shot floating around the Hellsing section that may amuse for a brief amount of time under the title of 'I want the sun'.

'Till the next time.