I know that the last chapter sort of lost that Silent Hill Feel to it, but hopefully this one will make up for it. It adds a new character, location, and a staple creature for all the games. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Chapter 11.

As always,

David Struve

Richard lay weakened on the bed. Despite his best efforts he'd been unable to gather the strength to stand. All he could do was watch the ceiling as he imagined the knives lowering themselves closer and closer towards him.

After a half-hour he could see plaster falling from the ceiling, and after one full hour he could see the dimly gleaming blades fully extended from where he lay. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would die in Silent Hill now. His death would be terrible and his suffering immense, but he would protect Sarah.

Two hours and the knives were only three feet from his body. The bag he'd assumed to be saline proved to be a painkiller, and finished at the same time the clock struck the second hour. Walter had assured that he would feel ever millimeter of the blades.

One hour remained.

Sari'torunia, the demonic vixen of fire, was what they had called her back when she had served the darkness in Silent Hill. That was the only name she'd ever known, and it had been the name gifted to her upon surviving the orphanage. In that foul place, there had been none worthy of names. She could remember how tears of joy had streamed down her face when the Master of The Order spoke it to her. Even after leaving the city Sari'torunia had kept it with her, assuming the name Sarah Tunia Carthage.

It was only after several years of going by Sari that she'd understood that it was a double play in words. No one could deny that her fiery red hair didn't fit the role, but it also played on the speed with which she engulfed the arts of the Dark Wing.

Walter had never know that she had more than a passing interest the ways of fighting, but had been suspicious of her even then. He'd always been jealous of the trust that went on between her and Richard, and had eventually forbidden her to be taught.

A few rebellious youths had continued her training, and within a year she'd been certified as one of the Dark Wing. While she wasn't nearly as skilled as Walter, she'd been sent on a few missions and added a third meaning to her name. None escaped her fury once it was set into motion.

She'd made an exception only once, and that had been on the urging of Father Jeremiah. After leaving Silent Hill, they had been tracked for several years by an unknown figure. Sarah had been forced to kill over twenty of the Dark Wing to keep themselves safe from an entity they'd come to call The Tracker.

After eluding The Tracker for ten years it seemed that the struggle for survival had finally ended. Then she'd seen a familiar face. William Bernshaw had been sitting in a coffee shop she passed as she walked to work.

It couldn't have been a coincidence. She was living in a town of only 4,000 and the odds of him just happening to pass through were astonishing. He would have been killed at that moment except Father Jeremiah had made her promise to not kill any that could give them information on the town. Who better to capture than the youngest adept and favorite to be Master of The Order?

Or so they had thought. Only after she'd confronted him did she discover that he went by the name Richard Asbury, and had absolutely no memory of Silent Hill or the atrocities that had happened there. Someone had implanted a false set of memories, covering from the age of five through present day. As far as Richard knew he had been born in New York and moved to the Midwest after his parents were killed in a car accident. His remaining family had died while he was in college for a degree in Religious Symbolism.

Originally, she and Father Jeremiah had wanted her close to him only to ensure this wasn't another ploy to discover their plans. Over time, however, she'd seen that without The Order controlling him; 'Richard' was a pleasant person to be around.

That had been almost ten years ago and though there had been a few problems with the past, it hadn't consumed them until a few days ago. Sarah had seen an article in the paper talking about murders in the area around where Silent Hill had once stood.

Richard hadn't been able to understand why she'd felt so strongly about going back to the town and in part she was glad. That meant that whoever had put his new memories in also wanted to ensure he wouldn't become the person he once was. The other part was sad because she was finally going where he couldn't.

Today marked the third day she'd spent dodging the creatures of Silent Hill. At first, she'd brought enough equipment to decimate a small town. Riot shotguns, a military style PSG-1 rifle, Uzis converted to automatic fire, twin 9mm pistols, a .45 Desert Eagle, high explosives, and enough ammunition to bring down almost anything in the city.

Now, she was down to only a few dozen shots for one pistol, seven shotgun shells, a full clip of .45 ammo, and one bullet for the rifle. The rest had been used either escaping from large amounts of smaller creatures, from the demons, or in the case of the explosives planted strategically around the city.

There was only one building she hadn't set the explosives in yet, quite possibly the most dangerous building in Silent Hill…the Hospital.

Richard could smell the rust and metal of the knives, could see the stains on several of them from sacrifices. In the background the clock ticked, each second counting off in staccato rhythm.

Two feet.

Sarah carried only the 9mm handgun and shotgun, preferring to leave everything else in the lobby of the hospital. With a shoulder holster for the pistol, and a rigged back strap for the shotgun, it was easy to carry both at the same time. Unfortunately, the rifle had been damaged by a creature, destroying the strap on it. With only one bullet left, there was little Sarah could do with it besides wait for the right time.

Now she had the shotgun in both hands, sweeping it carefully from side-to-side as she crept through the darkened hellhole that had once been Brookhaven Hospital. This was where Alessa had been tortured endlessly for years and where Sarah had finally decided that The Order was purely evil.

Now she was being forced to return.

Only this time it was different. The florescent lights no longer cast a silvery glow over the polished tile floors. Innocent nurses didn't walk the halls making their rounds, and the white-washed walls no longer sparkled. Even the antiseptic smell had been replaced by one of blood and death.

Instead of the hospital she remembered, Sarah saw one where the halogen light strapped to the shotgun was the only thing keeping her from perfect darkness. It illuminated the scratches and horrors that had happened after she'd left.

There had been rumors that Alessa had taken her revenge on the town by drawing everyone into Dark Hill. If that was true, it explained the corpses strewn around town and the creatures. Yet there were also rumors that Midwich School, Brookhaven Hospital, and The Order's Headquarters were the worst. Before she had doubted that it could be any worse than other sites…now she knew better.

Blood was liberally splashed along the walls, with unintelligible words written underneath. Papers covered with crusted red lay everywhere, scattered along shattered desks, littering the floor, and stuffed into every crevice and crack in the walls. The parts of the wall not spattered with crimson showed cracking paint and bare stone underneath.

Deep cuts marred the walls, some caused by scalpels but others from fingernails being repeatedly drug along the stone in a never-ending agony. Whoever had made them had suffered mind-numbing horror and pain.

'This cannot end well.' Sarah thought to herself. She'd faced several lesser demons, even managed to destroy one permanently…but this was a different kind of creature. Anything in the hospital would have long ago been driven insane by pain and rage. For the first time since she'd entered Silent Hill, Sarah was truly terrified.

The shotgun clacked twice as she double-checked her count of the shells inside. She'd been correct on her first count, and now she wondered about whether seven shells would be enough. The demon had taken nearly fourteen before dying permanently, but she hoped that it would be an exception.

Creeping further into the hospital, she passed under an ornately carved marble arch. Slashed deeply into the heavy stone were words that chilled her more than the mist outside.

'God help us!' One carving read. 'Mercy!' Another.Perhaps the worst was simply 'Make the pain stop!'

Just after the arch was the nurse's reception station. Inside the thin glass was what had been meant to be a small sanctuary where those on duty could take a fast breather while others scrambled to do their duties. Sarah had been there several times and seen enough nurses taking advantage of the facility to know it had been a perfect idea.

Now, however, the darkened and enclosed room merely served to provide another shelter for whatever creatures could be roaming the building. Sarah took no comfort in the thought that there might not be any. Despite the fact that one had to cross the hospital to get to almost any location, many creatures would be drawn to the building because of the pain and suffering it entailed.

She was pleasantly surprised that nothing rocketed out of the darkened windows as she drew closer to them. Only a few yards separated her from the front door of the station when the doorknob rattled, a quick and violent burst that caused the windowpane to rattle. One of the peeling letters on the pane fell at the shaking, leaving it to say S l t ill urse at on. Sarah couldn't tell what it had originally said, nor could she remember.

With the windows as dark as they were, she could see no forms moving behind them, and instead chose to drop into a low crouch and move the final few yards in a fast shuffle. When she finally ducked beneath a set of duel windows, she crouched only two feet from the peeling metal doorknob.

Again it jangled viciously, this time accompanied by a low moan that was not so much of rage as of suffering. Still, Sarah made her move quickly, jumping from her crouch to stand in front of the door and snap her foot out in a fast forward kick.

After so many years of rot and decay, the oak door didn't crumple inward as much as shatter into shrapnel that flew throughout the small station. A roar of pain quickly replaced the low moaning, and as her light cut a swath through the dust flying in the air, she saw the final curse of Alessa.

If there had been one group of people that had been the worst to Alessa it had been the nurses. Though they had tried to care for her as best they could, many had been servants of The Order and had kept her in terribly agony from her never-healing burns. If there had been any doubt as to the creation of Silent Hill before, all doubt was now dispelled from Sarah's mind. The proof lay on the ground in front of her.

Even the purity of the halogen light couldn't brighten the bloodstained, tattered, and torn uniform that had once been the nurses of Silent Hill. The dingy gray color looked natural in the dusty room, as did the spatters of blood on the uniform around her hips and legs.

As she raised her hands to ward the brilliant light away from her face, Sarah saw what had caused so much blood to cover the uniform. Each of the poor woman's fingers had been shredded down to the bone, many having the tips worn down past the first knuckle from her constant scratching to escape.

Lanky, stringy black hair covered the rest of her face. That, mixed with the terrible shadows in the room prevented Sarah from seeing anything else about her face. The nurses' arms were also affected by Silent Hill, being as white as a fish's underbelly with infected sores leaving bloody trails down the pale skin. Sarah nearly gagged as the nurse tried to rise, revealing broken splinter's of legs that had long ago turned to bone shards, preventing her from moving except with the most excruciating pain.

That didn't stop the monstrosity from bellowing in rage and jamming the shattered bone-stump into the rotten floor to gain a foothold. As she forced the shard of her thighbone through the wood, white splinters flaked off and blood began to pour from the already shredded skin of her leg.

Sarah backed away, finger tightening on the shotgun's trigger. She didn't want to use the weapon to kill the nurse, instead she wanted to draw the pistol she had and fire with that until the poor creature was out of her misery. Ignoring both, she turned and ran.

She ran directly into two more nurses, both carrying dragging steel pipes behind them. The first nurse had been merely a diversion, put in the most obvious place so that the unwary would be easy prey.

Sarah was trapped, and above her…Richard waited.