Chapter 7: Neoplatonic teachings and climacophobia

For a splitsecond or two after Beth awoke, she was in a state of ignorant bliss. She couldn't remember why she had fallen asleep on the cold floor of room F16 or why she held a key in her blood-stained hand. Then, the disturbing memories came crushing down on her peacefully groggy mind like a truck's wheel on an innocent hare, splattering it over a harsh road of fear and confusion.

"I hope you slept well."

Louise's voice startled Beth quite effectively. She scrambled to her feet and raised the pericardial scissors she had defeated Caliban with earlier. The teenaged brunette sat on the edge of the clammy bed, smiling at Beth's newly obtained instinct to ready her weapon whenever she heard a voice, human or monstrous, pierce the silence.

"Take it easy, Beth. I won't hurt you," Louise assured her.

Beth noticed Dr. Randolph's mangled corpse lying on the floor to her left. He had obviously been dead for hours. There was also a young man's body lying next to Louise on the bed. Blood had poured over the naked corpse from a gash in his neck. The glazed eyes were wide open and staring at the cracks in the ceiling. An ordinary syringe lay in his rigid right hand. "Is that …?"

"That's the third recollection. Caliban. Or rather, Carter Linch Bandfield. You know, the geezer you killed back in the Otherworld," Louise reminded Beth in a casual tone.

"I … I killed him?! But I couldn't know he was …"

"Human?"

"Yeah," Beth nodded. "He looked like … I don't know, some kind of monster or something. Did I kill a real … oh God … a real person?" Beth buried her face in her hands and struggled to form a general view of the situation and its consequences.

"Well, that depends. What's human and what's a monster? Just because someone looks sane and normal on the outside, he might as well be a true demon behind the façade," Louise stated, producing a photo from her pocket and showing it to Beth. It was the same image of Carter Linch Bandfield that Beth had found with the document in the office. Once again, the woman found the look in the black-and-white eyes of the otherwise charismatic 18-year-old unsettling.

"That still doesn't explain why he looked like one of those freaky creatures when he attacked me. Am I going utterly insane, too?"

Louise laid the photo on the corpse's head as a sort of shroud. However, this shroud had an image of the deceased's face on it. "Like the shroud of Jesus," Beth mused, shuddering. "In the Otherworld …" Louise began, but was interrupted by Beth:

"What the hell is the Otherworld?"

"The place you were just in. Flesh growing on the walls, lit candles hanging from the ceiling …"

"Yeah, I remember. So if that's the Otherworld, this is the normal world?"

"No. The hospital is still deserted, you might encounter more creatures out there, there's still a weird fog outside and so on," Louise patiently explained. "Think of this place as a golden mean, so to speak, between the Otherworld and the normal world you're used to."

"And how do I get out of here, back to the normal world?" Beth inquired.

Louise gave an apologetic smile. "I'm afraid you can't. Not for the time being."

"Oh yeah?" Beth's fingers curled up to form fists. "Well, when's the time not fucking being?!"

"Calm down. You will understand everything eventually," Louise predicted. "Until then, I can understand that this must all be very frustrating for you."

"Damn right it is," Beth grumbled.

"Anyway, you want to know why he," Louise gestured to the gory corpse lying to her right, "looked like a monster." Beth nodded and the girl continued: "In the Otherworld, people's thoughts, emotions and ideas basically take physical shape. Their most wonderful dreams and worst nightmares just appear all of a sudden. What happened to mr. Bandfield or "Caliban" was a result of his own feelings. A result of whatever was hidden behind those eyes," Louise pointed to the black-and-white photo which now served as a crude winding sheet. "He was as disproportioned in his manners as in his shape. A deformed mind moulds a deformed exterior …"

"No," Beth shook her head. "I … I don't think that makes any sense."

"Maybe it doesn't. Still, that's how it works in the Otherworld."

"But in the normal world, it's the other way round."

"Yeah, some people think so," Louise replied. "Other people don't. William Shakespeare didn't. Have you ever read The Tempest?"

Beth heaved an annoyed sigh. "What does that have to do with anything?"

Louise chuckled. "It has quite a lot to do with the situation, actually. Have you read it?"

"I guess … A long time ago. I can't remember much now," Beth admitted.

"I've read it, several times. It's my favorite book," Louise said. "I used to read it with my little sister Sharon."

"Your sister …" Beth remembered the younger, silently screaming girl she'd encountered on the street, in the elevator and in the hallway just before the Otherworld invaded the building. "She's got brown hair, too? And bright grey eyes, right?"

Louise jumped up from the bed. "How did you know that?"

"I've met her a few times."

"Where did you last see her? And when?" Louise demanded.

"Uh … I think it was somewhere on this floor. A hallway in the south wing. She acted really weird," Beth said.

"What do you mean, 'weird'?"

"Well, it was just before the shift to that 'Otherworld'. She was screaming, or rather, her mouth was open as if she was screaming, but there was no sound coming out," Beth informed, then added: "It was pretty strange to look at."

"That's … interesting," Louise mumbled. "I can't understand why you'd see Sharon. Maybe Philip knows why … Yeah, I'll ask him," she decided and sauntered out of the room.

"Wait!" Beth said when the teenager was on the threshold to the hallway. "Who's Philip?"

Louise stopped to look back at the bewildered woman. "Oh, you'll probably bump into him sooner or later. He can introduce himself." The girl answered Beth's next query before it had even left her mouth: "And in case you're wondering what to do now, I advise you to find Dean and head for that lovely little town called Silent Hill. It's a little chilly outside, so you'd better go to the first floor safe-keeping room and fetch your clothes." Then, Louise wandered down the hallway to her right, quickly stealing away from Beth's range of vision.

Beth followed towards the doorway, but came to a halt when the thick door inexplicably slammed shut a few feet before her, sending a breath of stale air flowing over her body. It reminded her of the doors in the elevator where she'd first talked with Louise. "Goddammit, I hate that trick!" Beth kicked the door, which didn't even budge a centimetre.

It was only five seconds later that the heavy door creaked ajar, soon pushed the rest of the way by Beth's hand as she bolted into the hallway, eyes darting from side to side. The candles and masses of vibrant flesh were gone. Non-organic, sterile surfaces once more gleamed in the light from the overhead tubes humming on a low, dull note. This humming was thankfully the only sound left; the ambient cries and moans of the Otherworld were gone as well. Of course, there was no sign of Louise.

"Great," Beth commented. She looked down at her blood-smeared patient's gown and realized that Louise had been right about one thing: She would need some warmer clothes outside. Beth studied the map to locate the 1F room the girl had mentioned. It was half as large as the lobby and marked 'Temporary safe-keeping room (for patients' clothes)'.

"Well, there's no way I'm going to bother hooking up with Dean again. I'll go to that room, get my stuff and get out of the building. Then I can think about what I'm going to do next," Beth decided and began walking down the hallway.

---

Kyle Coppola trudged down the steps in the stairwell. The elevator was out of order now, so he had to use the stairs to get to the first floor, where he planned to try the lobby doors again. It had been five minutes since the place had returned to its seemingly normal version, and he felt indescribably glad to be back. He thought he'd have gone crazy himself if he had to spend one more second in those demented hallways …

Sobs.

Kyle froze on the last step before the landing, midway between the doors to the fourth and third floors. Asking himself the same question Beth had asked herself when hearing Caliban for the first time – "Was that just my imagination?" – he proceeded down the stairwell.

In his right hand, he held a sleek black handgun which he had found in a desk-drawer while exploring the 4F offices. The gun was relatively easy to wield and had eight bullets left, with room for a total of ten bullets. It had been fully loaded when Kyle found it, but he'd fired two shots at a particularly vicious Bedridden chasing him in the Otherworld.

When he reached the third storey landing, Kyle winced at hearing the same pitiful sobs again. It sounded like a young woman, but this place had taught Kyle not to trust everything his senses told him.

The middle-aged cab driver approached the door and let his fingers give the polished wood a light push. The door noiselessly glid half-open to reveal a horribly familiar, pupated figure curled up on the floor in front of the elevator. "Was that thing sobbing? No … It has to be someone else nearby."

Kyle raised the handgun to aim through the doorway. While the Nymph had its back to him, he might as well take the opportunity to get rid of that freak. His index fingers tightened on the trigger and the deafening shot rang through the stairwell and hallways. The bullet tore a hole in the cocoon surface and a mix of blood and pus squirted from the human-like body inside. The Nymph screeched and whirled around, soon dragging itself towards Kyle with animal ferocity. "Oh fuck …"

Kyle managed to fire three more shots aiming for the creature's head, but before he could hit the proverbial bull's eye, the Nymph rammed into his shins and he fell backwards until his back collided with the steel banister. As the subsequent pain boomed through his ribs, the pistol left his hand to seek a new home on the bottom of the stairwell, settling on the floor several storeys below with an audible clatter that echoed in Kyle's ears like ominous death bells. "Oh FUCK!" Kyle yelled out loud as he fell painfully to the floor of the landing.

The Nymph wasted no time in grabbing hold of its victim's shoulders and pulling him head first into the pupa. Despite his fear of getting the matter in his mouth, Kyle screamed for help as loud as possible. He thought he heard a door open and shoes pounding the hallway floor, but maybe that was just a hopeful side of his imagination as well. Putting his hands against the edge of the chrysalis, he fought to stay out of the Nymph's cramped abode, but the deranged being just cackled on and easily dragged him farther into the warm, gooey world inside.

Then, Kyle heard a number of dry whacks somewhere above him and the Nymph squealed in agony, letting go of its victim. The latter immediately scrambled out of the pupa and up to his feet. It turned out his saviour was an unnaturally thin, redhaired woman in her early twenties, thrashing the Nymph with a rusty, metallic bar.

"I, uh … I think it's dead now," Kyle remarked.

The young woman nodded and stepped back from the bloody heap, arms falling to her sides. "Who … are … you?" she said, scant of breath.

"I should be asking you that. You just saved me from that … thing," Kyle glanced at the dead Nymph. "I don't know how I'm ever going to thank you …"

"Just say thanks. I'm Shelley Tate," Shelley said and reached out a hand.

"Thanks so much," Kyle said and shook hands with her. "I'm Kyle Coppola. So, what are --- hey, what's wrong?"

Shelley's eyes widened and her face turned pale, her gaze fixed on something behind Kyle. The man turned around, but didn't see anything unusual about the stairwell. "Shelley? Are you okay?"

"C-can't breathe," Shelley gasped, staggering through the doorway to the corridor, where she dropped the metallic bar and slumped down with her back to Kyle. After a while, her breathing slowed down and her pulse went back to normal. Kyle gingerly laid a hand on her sweat-dripping shoulder. "What happened? You looked like you were gonna be sick," he observed.

"I … I'm okay," Shelley stammered and got up, legs shaky. "It's just … I have climacophobia."

"What's that?"

"Fear of s-staircases. Especially when they're …" Shelley paused and stood there with closed eyes for a few seconds, until the lump in her throat had cleared away. "Specially when they're g-going down."

---

A/N: Apologies for letting you all wait so long for such a short chapter. And yes, fear of stairs is a real phobia known as climacophobia (whoa, I actually did research! Thank God for Google). Tune in next week, -E.P.O.