Chapter 24: The Crimson One

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.

-Matthew 19:6

Beth could not even begin to imagine that the being before her was actually God. If anything, it seemed like the Devil incarnate. The lean torso and muscular legs rose from the waters like a travesty of a mermaid, an apron of scaly skin wrapped around the body. Enormous wings unfolded, even larger than those of the Harpies, and curved blades hung from the tips of both wings, reminiscent of the Reaper's scythes.

The head was a mass of horns, strange appendages and long, razorsharp teeth, all wrapped under a layer of glistening, reddish skin. It stretched up from a ridicolously thin throat, which seemed to consist of nothing more than bones. It was hard to comprehend how this thing could still be alive, and nigh impossible to discern any facial features, save for two black eyes between the upper horns.

The most disgusting part, however, was the figure strapped onto the unholy God's torso like an infant carried by its mother. The little girl's hair still floated over her head as if underwater. Her outstretched arms and joined legs were bound by black ropes across the wings and legs of the God. It did not take a Christian priest to notice the similarities between Sharon's position and the most well-known crucifixion of all time.

Beth raised her shotgun with shaking hands and trained it on the God's head. If that thing moved one inch towards her …

Philip simply kept smiling. "From the depths of Her sleep, She has returned to us."

Louise spun around and glared at the priest. "You told me Sharon would come back," she said, her voice seething with frustration.

"And she has come back." Philip gestured to the God towering above them. "God has brought her back to you."

"But it wasn't supposed to happen like this!" Louise refused to look back at the abomination. "You lied to me. You said God would take care of us … Well, that is no God."

The smile vanished from Philip's face, and he frowned at the heretical girl.

"That … That's a monster," Louise said.

Philip instantly reared back his fist and smashed it into Louise's face. She stumbled back a few metres and landed on the cold, unforgiving ice.

"Traitor!" the priest hissed and walked up to the fallen girl. "You disappoint me, Louise. After everything I did to help you and your sister, you disappoint me. Even as God stands before your eyes, you deny your faith! Foolish, ungrateful traitor!" He delivered a hard kick to her ribs.

Louise cried out and rolled onto her side. She accidentally pressed her injured left palm against the ice, intensifying the pain. Warm blood and tears of anger trickled over her face. Philip was just like the rest of those stupid, uncaring creeps. She should never have trusted him …

Beth watched the events unfold with a blend of horror, anger and pity whirling through her mind. She wanted to help Louise, but the invisible barrier was probably still in the way. Besides, she couldn't risk taking a single step closer to the God.

Her thoughts were distracted as the door to her left burst open. Dean rushed out, heading for the middle of the ice, a scalpel clutched in his hand and cold determination in his eyes.

Louise smiled. She could lift the barrier as easily as she had created it, and there was no doubt in her mind as to what Dean had come here to accomplish.

Beth opened her mouth to tell Dean about the barrier before he smacked into it, but she remained silent, as the man continued across the ice without even stumbling.

Philip frowned at the relieved look on the heretic's face. "What are-"

The sentence was left unfinished there, as Dean ran up behind Philip, raised the scalpel and slit the priest's throat across the Adam's apple – just like Doctor had taught him. Philip never even saw his murderer. With a choked rattle, he collapsed in a pool of warm, red blood on the once so cold, colourless ice.

Dean stood above the corpse and panted for breath. The mental patient strained his ears, but no further orders came from Lord. He turned around and scanned the area. Lord was nowhere to be seen, and both Doctor and Mister had vanished in the hospital room. Dean felt relieved and immensely horrified at the same time. He was free …

Louise scrambled to her feet.

Philip's blood trickled over the edge of the ice and dripped into the lake.

As if awakened from apathetic contemplation, the God rose to its full, majestic height and stretched its wings out until the blades at their tips scraped over the circular wall. Sharon opened her mouth wide, head lolling back against the God's chest, and let out a scream of agony. It sounded more like a metallic cacophony than a human voice, however. Beth recognized it as the noise of tires spinning over a road – a vehicle skidding out of control …

The huge wheel that constituted the ceiling began spinning around at a ludicrous speed. The spokes cast blurred, whirring shadows across the ice. The rusty noise merged with Sharon's scream, and the cacophony was worse than anything else Beth had heard in this world.

Without further warnings, the God swung its right wing down. Dean simply stood petrified and watched the scythe-like blade's descent.

"… maybe I'll get to see her again."

He had accomplished what Lord wanted – revenge for her death. Doctor and Mister had left him alone. What else was left for him in the world of dull reality? His old life in the hospital, the psychiatrists asking him the same questions over and over, giving him the same drugs that never cured him. Was that really worth fighting for?

"NO!" Beth screamed as the blade swept through Dean's chest, leaving a deep gash in its crimson wake. The man slumped to his knees and dropped the scalpel. The surgical instrument clattered onto the ice, but the sound was drowned out by Sharon's metallic screech. Dean collapsed forwards. His corpse disappeared into the red waters of Hooper Lake.

Beth's finger had been resting on the trigger for minutes, and now, she finally fired the shotgun. Bullets plunged into the wall and bounced off in all directions from the spinning ceiling. A few shots hit their target, though. The God reeled for a moment, while Sharon screamed even louder.

Angered by this attack, the God swung its wings down to crush Louise. Shrieking, the girl ducked and ran away from the creature. The blades caught Philip's corpse, lifted him from the ice and sent him flying up into the enormous wheel. With a sickening crunch, the body was mutilated between the whirring spokes. A grotesque rain of organs and limbs was flung down all over the ice.

Trying to ignore the blood spraying over her, Beth focused on aiming and firing at the God. This was difficult, as her hands were shaking, her eyes blurred by tears and her mind brimming with panic.

The monstrosity lumbered across the lake, flokes of ice bursting aside in front of its legs. It appeared slightly weakened and slowed down by the bullets, but clearly not injured. A few horns were ripped off its head, as Beth tried to train her shotgun on the being's travesty of a face. The black eyes glared at the woman, unblinking since they had nothing that could even resemble lids.

Louise walked backwards until her back pressed against the cold, thick wall. Realising that escape had become an impossibility, she slumped to a sitting position and buried her face in her hands.

'Now my charms are all o'erthrown,

And what strength I have's mine own;

Which is most faint.'

The attempt to resurrect Sharon had been a hideous failure. The girl had been reduced to a screaming corpse, strapped onto the chest of a demon. Philip had deceived Louise. She had thought of him as her Ariel, but he was truly Caliban. Now, she had to experience the consequences of trusting him. At that moment, she wanted nothing more than a release from the pain.

The God granted her wish.

As the creature swung its right wing down, the blade sailed horizontally through the girl's skull. Louise sat limp, no longer feeling the coldness of the ice below her. A brown-haired scalp flew from her head and sank into the lake.

The God then turned its undivided attention to Beth.

Within seconds, it had reached its third victim and was raising both wings for another lethal attack. The crucified Sharon still continued her scream, sounding anything but human.

Beth fired again. At such close range, it was nigh impossible to miss the target, and the bullets plunged into the creature's thigh. Finally showing a sign of weakness, the God fell onto the ice to support its weight on the tips of its wings. As the being's face reached Beth's eye level, the woman was astonished by the complexity in its bizarre features. A cornucopia of horns and tongues all jutted out towards her.

Beth squeezed the trigger, only to be rewarded with a quiet click. Out of ammo. She searched through her pockets, but no more boxes of shotgun shells were left. "No, this isn't happening, this isn't fucking happening …"

The creature tilted its head slightly, as if intrigued by the sound of a human voice. Its triangular, pitchblack eyes seemed to bore into Beth's mind. The God was not pleased with what it saw there.

Somewhere in the nearby wall, a door burst open.

The monstrosity raised its right wing. Moonlight and shadows of the wheel's spokes raced over the surface of the razorsharp blade …

Beth closed her eyes, giving up.

With a sickening splatter of blood and jelly-like, black lumps, an iron bar plunged through the God's head and crushed its right eye. Sharon's scream now sounded completely metallic, a screech of rubber against icy asphalt. The God reared like a panicky horse and rose to its full height. Its head slipped in between the spokes of the huge wheel, where it was instantly mangled and reduced to an explosion of blood, bones, tainted flesh and horn fragments. The rest of the God's body whirled around for a second before falling to the ice, dead.

Beth looked down at her saviour. Shelley stood motionless, still clutching the blood-smeared bar.

Beth broke the silence. "Thank you."

Shelley just stared at the fallen carcass of the God. The ice was starting to crack under the creature's weight. "What the fuck is that thing?"

Beth couldn't offer any explanation.

Louise started crawling across the ice on her hands and knees. Her brain was visible as a pink-greyish mass, arching over the top of her head. She soon reached the spot where Dean had fallen. His scalpel lay on the edge of the ice. The girl picked up the surgical instrument and crawled onwards to the God's torso.

Sharon was still bound to the creature in a travesty of crucifixion. Her scream had trailed off to silence, her mouth closed. Louise started working on the ropes, severing them one by one. First the ones that had been wrapped tight around Sharon's wrists, then the ones binding her legs. The silvery blade easily cut through the black ropes, and Sharon fell to the ice, landing on her stomach. Louise gently turned her around and cradled her head in one hand, holding her shoulder in the other.

Sharon's bluish lips quivered. A rasping whisper emerged: "Louise?"

"It's me, Sharon. I brought you back."

"Is it o-ov-over?" The girl shivered and coughed violently. Filthy lake water trickled from her mouth.

Louise nodded. It was all over.

"Remember back when we were all living together there, and everything was okay? Why did that have to change?"

The corner of Sharon's mouth twitched slightly upwards in a weak attempt to smile.

Louise pulled out the photo from her pocket and showed it to her sister. In the photo's blurred image, both girls were sitting on the swings in their old backyard on a sunny day. In the photo, both girls were alive, smiling.

"Why did that have to change?"

Louise let go of the photo, as the crumpled surface began to widen. The colours grew sharper and brighter. The images of Louise and Sharon vanished, leaving the backyard deserted. Sunlight shone out from the picture and illuminated the night. The sounds of that day could be heard – a dog barking from afar, the neighbour's sprinkler system, a few cars out on the street. The photo had simply turned real. It grew to the size of a doorway, a few feet before Louise's unblinking eyes.

"Sharon, we have to go now."

She took her sister's hand and helped her up. The sunlight filled both with a warmth that they had not felt for years. The girls stepped forwards, Louise leading the way, across the threshold, into the world beyond the photo.

"And no one's going to take her away?"

"No one."


Perceptions differ – especially in the realm of Silent Hill. Why neither Beth nor Shelley saw these last moments of the Barkin sisters' lives, one can only guess. If we were to follow the events through their eyes, we would simply see Louise lie dead, her scalp missing, while Sharon's corpse was still strapped onto the defeated God.

And as the creature fell headless from its encounter with the spinning wheel, it landed on the frozen lake, where the ice finally gave. Cracks spread through the white surface with lightning speed. The ice uttered one last groan, then disintegrated completely.

Beth and Shelley fell into the warm, blood-coloured waters. Both women were pulled down by currents, sinking into the depths.

The waters filled Beth's vision. She could see nothing more than one colour. One colour flooding and devouring everything else.

Crimson.


'Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air; into thin air.'


A/N: No, that's not the ending. Click the nice shiny button down there for an epilogue of sorts … And there's links for sketches of the God in my profile.