I.
The air became thick and heavy with a certain sense of malevolence. The entire environment suddenly became the four teens' enemy: the grated floors, dilapidated walls, corrosion eating away at everything...it all seemed to be a part of some plan to be rid of them.
The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the bell, all of it appeared to be either targets of severe dilapidation or possessed by some living entity that hungered for each piece of the room, eating away at it slowly until it got to the teens. Regardless of the true nature of the warped room, the realization was that everything had suddenly changed for the worst.
"Heather, what happened?' Christine said, huddling closer to Trey than before. It was merely to know that the people she was now paired with hadn't suffered from the same fate.
Heather gazed around with more purpose than abhorrence. "This...this is Silent Hill."
Just that simple phrase chilled the other three to the bone. It was like the realization had finally hit them that there were larger forces at work...larger than any of them could possibly handle. The gravity of the situation suddenly weighted on them, threatening to crush them.
"This can't be," Michael replied, obviously stunned by the transformation. "It just all changed all the sudden...after you screamed. What is all this?"
"A world of pain and dilapidation. This is what they are trying to resurrect Samael for. To turn everything into this. Claudia sees this as paradise."
"You mean this is supposed to be heaven?" Christine asked.
"Do we really need to see Hell then?" Trey retorted.
"I told you, these people are sick. They don't know what they're doing," Heather replied with a hint of agitation in her voice. There was no telling where Douglas was and now, everything was still reverting back to the transformed Silent Hill. If the entire town was like this, then there was no telling what kind of danger he was in.
Michael fumbled around for the map. When he finally got a hold of it and opened it, he let out a sound of disbelief. "The map. Everything's gone. None of the markings I made are here!"
"Let me see that," Trey leaned over Michael's shoulder to get a close look, simply to confirm Michael's statement.
"It has power over everything. Everything changes. It's like it all is affected by this," Heather passed her hand through the air, motioning to the transformed element of the room.
Michael folded the map back up, suddenly aware of his own helplessness. "We need to get out of here," Michael strode toward the door that they entered from.
Heather gave a warning, "We have to be careful now...there's no telling what we'll run into."
"Could it be something worse than what we've already seen?" Trey asked.
"Much worse," Heather replied as she fell in behind Michael.
"Why didn't I just stay in bed?" Trey grumbled to Christine as they followed behind Heather.
The teens opened the door and descended the stairs into a forebodingly dark atmosphere.
II.
The grated stairs showed a dark and dangerous void below them, which alarmed Michael more. His boots tapped on the stairs lightly, but the sound of rubber on metal still resounded through the hallway, as if the stairs were trying to alert whatever horrors beyond the door of their presence.
He kept his gun as steady as possible, but he could feel sweat forming in his palms, making his grip slightly unsteady. The flashlight was the only thing that gave him a shred of confidence. Somehow, the light stood for something powerful, something that the darkness couldn't capture, couldn't taint. As long as they had the light, it was possible, maybe only slightly, but still possible that they could make it out of their situation. However, the question that suddenly came to his mind was what could possibly be the end state to everything that was going on?
Pondering on it made the situation seem even more hopeless, so he focused on the stairs again.
Reaching the bottom, he found that the secret door leading to the art gallery was slightly ajar. He glanced back at Heather, who had him covered. She nodded, the signal to let him know that she was ready for whatever may be beyond the door.
He turned and slowly pushed the door open.
The art gallery that they had left was completely gone. However, what remained disturbed them even more. A figure was kneeling in front of a pillar that jutted up into the ceiling. The out of place structure wouldn't have been alarming, except for the fact that the man they had thought to have disappeared was affixed to it.
"Father Tom?" Michael whispered. He could see the robe the priest was wearing, but it was discolored with blood that seemed to have originated from everywhere on the priest's body. His head dangled lifelessly, held up by a combination of effort between his neck and chest. Father's Tom's arms were extended above his head, tied together in a painful position, and his legs were tied together as well.
The figure kneeling on the ground turned slowly toward the teens, who now stood together staring at the scene before them.
"You...do you believe?" the young man hissed.
They immediately knew that this new character was dangerous and slightly off. Besides the messy brown hair, blood streaked pale face, dark eyes, and malevolent stare, his gravelly voice clenched the whole package.
"What did you do to him?" Michael demanded, gun pointed at the man.
The man seemed to be unaware of the gun, or simply didn't care. "Are you a believer? Do you worship our lord Samael?"
"Answer me! What did you do to him?" Michael's voice had unexpectedly risen to a decisive command voice, leaving no room for deviation from what he said.
A low moan escaped the priest. Even though the priest had tried to subdue...maybe murder...him earlier, Michael still didn't want to see anyone else fall victim to Silent Hill.
The priest's head snapped up and he stared at them with two sockets, oozing with blood.
"He lost sight of the path...I gave it back to him," the man said, holding two eyes with meaty muscle. The eyes rested in a small puddle of blood in the palm of his hand.
"Yes. I can see now. I can see," the priest moaned, his voice a mix of pain and exhilaration.
The whole scene was dizzying, and Michael found himself almost losing consciousness. It was as if he was in some nightmare, some frightening circumstance that he had so control over whatsoever.
He backed away from the man, still holding the eyes toward them. The others followed suit, inching toward the door, their eyes still fixated on the man. Michael wanted a reason to fire his gun...he waited for a hint of aggressive movement from the man or some sort of sign that they were in serious danger. Michael was disappointed when the man simply sat there, watching them with his piercing eyes.
"You. You will learn to see too. I'll make sure you do," his voice grew to a whisper, making his words that much more menacing and dangerous.
They slipped out of the door and ended up in the hallway, which was now a strange corridor, marked with doors leading to unknown terrors and peril. They quickly moved down the hallway, hoping to put some kind of safe distance between them and the old art gallery. If the man decided to follow them, they would have a clear advantage of distance. They would have no problem stopping him before he got too close to them.
Michael led the way into the room that was the priest's office, one of the first rooms they had entered before.
Closing the door behind them, Trey moved the desk, which had suffered from the same corrosion as the rest of the church, in front of the door.
III.
They relaxed only slightly. This room was well-lit by a lamp in the corner of the room, the crooked lampshade gave the light an awkward direction, so more shadows were created than dispelled. There was a wooden chair in the middle of the room, which was the only piece of furniture besides the desk.
"Who was that?" Christine broke the silence that had settled over the group.
Heather shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe another victim of this godforsaken hellhole."
"Why did this happen?" Michael asked, his question directed toward the condition of the environment rather than an overarching question regarding their presence in the nightmare.
Heather gave a long, burden heavy sigh. "Somehow, I'm still connected to Claudia and this god. It...it was living inside of me, feeding off of me, creating all of this. But I was able to expel it using this strange jewel my father gave me. However, Claudia took the thing and put it into herself, becoming the vessel for that creature. Somehow, it's still using me to gain power."
"So this—it's your fault?" Christine suddenly attacked.
"If that makes you feel better, then fine. Blame me. But it won't get you out of here any sooner. And if I remember right, I saved you."
"It's your fault that Sean," her aggressive posture suddenly went slack and the life drained from her face. "Sean's dead because of this horrible place. I should have known."
Michael realized that he wasn't the only one that had lost someone when he was dragged into this whole situation. Not only his roommate, but Stacy Aspen as well, had been struck down by one of the nameless creatures of Silent Hill. And now, Christine revealed that she too had lost someone. Michael wondered about Trey and if he had lost anyone close to him.
"There's no way you could have known," Trey calmly said.
"You don't understand," Christine said.
"Heather, is there anyway out of this?" Michael asked, trying to dispel the feeling of despair that was threatening all of them.
"I don't know. It comes and goes. I can't control the changes," she explained.
"Are we safe right now?"
"I don't know," she repeated, obviously agitated at being asked questions she didn't know the answers to. "There's no telling at this point."
Michael was discontent with the answer, but he realized that is was the best that he could expect.
"I don't understand. How did we get sucked into this?" Trey kicked at a small dust ball that had somehow escaped the corroded fate of every other surface in the room.
Heather let her eyes fall to the floor, as if she was in some deep memory. "It calls...this town...it calls to those that have unsettled pasts and unsure futures. Somehow, all of you are connected with this town with something that you've done."
"Something that I've done?" Christine replied, struck hard by the comment.
"I don't know. Maybe you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it just wanted to feed off of your fear, anger, and anything else it can drain from you."
Michael listened intently, realizing that Heather's story from earlier sounded less crazy by the minute. Not voicing his opinion earlier, and despite what he had seen with his own eyes, he couldn't believe that there was some grand scheme that had gone on for several years and had now somehow come to fruition. Not only that, but this new plan somehow involved Trey, Christine, and himself as either victims or something far worse. As time progressed on, the idea didn't seem so far fetched, which scared him even more.
"Has anyone ever gotten out of here?" Michael solemnly asked, unsure if he wanted to hear the answer.
Heather nodded. "My father escaped. He defeated my mother and took me away from this place as an infant."
"Didn't someone else leave with him too?" Christine quizzed.
Heather looked at the girl with a new interest and a new mistrust. "I really don't know. He never talked about what happened here. I only recently found out about it. Was there someone else with him?" Heather returned the question.
Christine crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Heather. "Maybe we should try to find someway out of here. There has to be something."
Trey looked at the ceiling. "Hey, what are those numbers doing up there?"
The other three gazed toward the ceiling. The number 1593 was scrawled in the same handwriting that Michael had seen several times that night.
"I'll write it down," Michael said as he scribbled down the number in a small notepad.
"There's something here too," Christine said from her spot by the desk. She pulled open a drawer and pulled out a faded piece of paper. It was crumpled and worn, but she was able to make out the handwriting.
"What is it?" Michael asked.
Christine glanced over it quickly. "It's some kind of a page from a log or something...maybe a diary. It says: I have found a piece of my lord. I cannot let anyone else see it...it is mine. I will store it safely in the chest under my bed."
"Maybe it's from Father Tom," Heather suggested.
"The man is something else to be able to write with no eyes," Trey added.
"Talking restriction, Trey," Christine said then turned to Michael. "The chest is under his bed, but wasn't this his bedroom from before? There's no bed in here."
Michael glanced around reflexively for he had noticed since they had first stepped into the room that it was vastly different from the room they were in earlier. However, according to the map, it was the same room from before.
"Well, the bed was in the corner over there, so maybe there's some kind of secret passage around there."
He crossed the room with Heather and began to scout the area. Heather found the loose floorboards and pulled them up, revealing a small dark wood chest. She pulled it out carefully, weary of any possible traps or surprises, but there were none. She opened it slowly and was shocked to find a bottle with an unidentifiable, throbbing piece of fleshy substance inside.
"What the hell is that?" Trey asked.
"There's another page to the note I found," Christine said. "The object I found may not be a piece of our lord, but something completely different. Taking it to Vincent, he seemed excited, certain that it was the way to stop our lord. I immediately chastised his heathen thoughts but he seemed to get wound up over the thing. He tried to take it away, but I was able to keep it from his grasp, telling him I was going to let Claudia dispose of it. I quickly left, and returned to the church. I figure I'll give it to Claudia later."
"Is there anything else?" Heather asked.
"No, it ends there."
Heather looked at the clear glass bottle, stained on the inside by the pulsating object. It was disgusting, yet intriguing to watch. It slithered around aimlessly, or so it seemed.
"Maybe we should hold onto this," Heather suggested, handing it off to Michael.
"What if that flimsy glass bottle breaks? I could have a nasty little creature eating up the food and map."
"Probably not. It looks like a parasite," Trey said as he came closer to Heather and Michael.
"Another one of your biology diagnoses? You were wrong about those eyes the last time," Michael replied.
Trey laughed him off. "Look, the eyes were not real. I don't know what the deal was with putting them in the priest's head. What I can tell you is that they were totally different from the eyes that freak had in his hands. Those eyes were definitely real. And this thing," he peered closer to it, "it looks like some kind of internal parasite."
"An internal parasite?" Christine repeated.
"Just the overall structure of the thing. It has no outer layer of skin, nothing to protect it from the environment, it has no appendages to move freely, and no visible mouth. It probably somehow gets inside of its victim and probably eats their insides or something."
"Well, all the more reason for us not to take it," Michael reaffirmed.
"Look, let's put it in the chest and close it. If we lock it with the key, it shouldn't get out, right?"
"You're a packrat. We can't take everything we find," Michael argued.
"In this place, no matter how obscure it seems, everything has some kind of use or double meaning. It's better to take it with us than have to come back for it. Trust me."
"Just make sure that chest is locked," Michael gave up the argument. Surely, Heather had her reasons for taking everything they came across, and by this point, Michael was too distraught to argue or pursue the matter any father. But what would an internal parasite (if Trey was actually right this time) be doing in a place like this?
"Should we just hole up in here for a while?" Trey asked as Michael put the chest at the bottom of his backpack then stacked the food, map and random other things they had picked up.
A loud thud answered his question. They all stopped moving and barely breathed as they listened for another sound.
The sound that followed shook Michael to the bone. The sound of metal being dragged against wood resounded outside of the room and steadily grew in intensity.
"What is that noise?" Christine's voice was a hurried, hushed whisper.
"We have to get out of here," Michael's brown skin suddenly looked less healthy, like he had suddenly become ill.
"What is it?" Heather asked, pointing her gun toward the door.
Michael ignored the question and glanced around the room. He looked at the chair then looked above it. The faint outline of a square door was visible directly above the chair. Judging the distance, they would be able to reach it if they used the chair. The desk was higher, but Michael wanted everything possible, even if it was only a flimsy desk, to be in the creature's way.
"Let's get out through there. Trey, you go first. Help the girls up form there, I'll help them up from here."
"What about—" Christine began.
"There's no damn time. Trey, get up there now!"
Trey moved quickly, aware that Michael's urgency was not something to be taken lightly given the situation. He stood on the chair, which was a little less sturdy than he would have liked. However, it allowed him to push open the door, which opened to a second floor room. Heather handed him her flashlight so he could check the room. Poking his head up slightly, he flashed the beam around the room. It looked simple enough with table and chairs lined up, despite the blood, rust, and filth that covered everything.
Trey pulled himself up quickly, without much difficulty, then turned back down into the room. He thrust his hand down as Heather told Christine to go next. She obeyed without argument.
When Christine was in the room above, Michael told Heather to go. Before she could open her mouth to protest, he said, "Get the hell up there now."
Heather moved quickly. However as she mounted the chair, she heard a sickening crack and splintering wood. A large blade partially protruded through the door, then was yanked out again.
The blade plunged through the door another time, the door offering no resistance, simply falling apart under the pressure.
"Hurry up!" Trey called from his spot. Heather thrust he hand up and was lifted from the chair.
"That chair isn't gong to hold," she said as Christine and Trey pulled her into the room.
"Come on, Mike!" Trey screamed as the door was torn off the hinges.
Michael's eyes widened as the figure shambled into view. The horrible, crazed expression, as well as the deformed face now turned towards Michael. The too familiar blade dragged behind him as he took a step towards Michael.
Michael didn't even hear the shouts of the others as he jumped on the chair. To his dismay, but not surprise, the chair toppled over. When he rose from his fallen position, he saw it was in multiple pieces, broken, his only way out suddenly destroyed.
The creature seemed to sense this because he slowly made his way toward Michael, his blade tearing up the floor behind him.
"Michael, grab my hand!" Trey screamed.
Michael looked up and saw the three horrified faces of the people he now relied on. He got to his feet and leaped toward Trey's hand. Grabbing on, Trey grunted as he attempted to pull Michael up.
The creature reared back and swung his blade at the dangling body.
"Michael!" Christine shouted.
In next moment, Michael pulled his legs up, the blade just missing the lower half of his body. The blade cut through the air with a strong sound, making Michael cringe as he tried to thrust his legs into the passage.
Christine and Heather grabbed his legs before they fell back down again, and between all of them, managed to pull Michael into the room. He rolled to the side and Trey slammed the door shut. He and Heather flipped over one of the tables and pushed it over the door, hoping that the creature wasn't agile enough to follow them.
The teens realized they had been holding their breath. They let out deep breaths filled with fear and relief at the same time.
"We have to get out of here," Michael panted.
They stood and glanced around the room.
"Oh no," Christine said.
Squirming figures affixed to the wall through some kind of fleshy membrane seemed to be reaching for the teens, despite the membranous restraints. The final piece of the scene told them that they were in serious trouble. They reeled at the oozing, bloody holes in the place of where eyes should have been.
Notes:
wrath: Thanks for reading and reviewing. I'm glad that everything is coming together in the story and keeping you hooked. I hope this chapter keeps up the suspense
Richard B. Sampson Jr: Thanks for checking out this story too. It's definitely a different direction from my other stories, but I'm glad it is coming off well so far
Rodarian: Let me know what you think of this chapter, and if it puts you in mind of anything else
Cat: I'm glad the puzzles aren't too corny and transparent. Hmmm...you pose an interesting question about the painter...maybe the teens will get the chance to meet him or her...I'll keep that in mind. Yeah, I figured it was time that Christine stepped up her game a bit, but there is more to her than meets the eye...
Shortey: Glad to see you liked the chapter...hopefully, this keeps up with the Silent Hill imagery and creepy atmosphere
Crimson Alessa: Thanks for the hug...it gave me enough fuel to pump out this new chapter. Let me know what you think
Skittlefratz: Yes, Heather can be quite huffy, but I think she will soften up a bit. The more she hangs around the other three, the more she can separate herself from her intertwined fate with Silent Hill
Fallen Angel-2009: Hey, I'll make sure to check out your story. Hopefully, the teens will find out exactly what Christine is up to and why she is so mysterious