Disclaimer: Konami owns all of Silent Hill
His fathers study was a rather large room, and its walls were lined with overflowing bookshelves. There was a very old wooden filing cabinet by the door, and his fathers desk, a mongany antique, sat in the center of the room. There was also a brick fire place and few tattered armchairs that sat in front of it. As a child he was never allowed in this room, and when he became an adult he advoided his fathers home all together. He and his father never had a close relationship. His mother had been the bridge in the small gap that always stood between he and his father, but after she died that gap just got bigger and bigger untill he left home. It was also after his mother died that his father became comsumed with researching Silent Hill. Devon stood up from the desk, and stretched. He decided to start searching for the missing chapters in his fathers bookcases, but before he reach them a loud echoing knock sounded through the house. He made his way to the front door, and pulled it open. To his surprise Jack was standing there smiling at him.
"Jack, I wasn't expecting you to show up here." He said.
"No I know, the NHA sent me to drop off the rest of the stuff from your dad's old office." Jack replied juggling a large box, a briefcase, and a cup of coffee in his hands.
"I didn't think my father still had an office, didn't the Histroical Assication kicked him out for stealing classified paper work?" Devon asked, leading jack into the kitchen.
"Yeah, but he never came back to clean out his office, anyway they have a new member who is taking over your fathers office." Jack plopped the stuff down on the table and then collapsed into a chair. Jack had worked with Devons father for ther last five or six years at the National Historical Assication. His father had been a noted historian with the assication for well over fifteen years untill he was caught stealing from them. Jack; however, was not an historian of any kind, he was the assications chief accountant. Devon peered into the box and found his fathers name plate, a pen holder, and a calendar from the the year 1975.
"Well this is all useless junk." Devon commented showing Jack the old calendar.
"This briefcase was your fathers too, its so old I had to tape together in order to get here in one piece." Jack laughed.
Devon opened the briefcase and was bombarded by an explosion of papers. Jack collected up the papers , while he continued sifting through his fathers briefcase. Suddenly somthing sharp at the bottom of the bag caught his finger. He quickly pulled his hand out of the bag, and examined the cut on his finger. After seeing it wasn't serious, he stuck his hand back into the bag and pulled out the culprit that had cut it. It was a stack of papers that looked like that had been ripped out of a book, glue and all. It was the jagged edge of that dried glue that had cut his finger. Devon knew immedietly that it was part of that book he had just been reading.
"This is part of a book, I have the cover and first chapter, do you want to come to my fathers study and ill read it to you." Devon asked.
"Uh no, I gotta get home to Margo, she gets uh real upset when Im late Dev." Jack told him stumbling over his words. He got the feeling that Jack would have told him any excuse to get of going any deeper into his father creepy old mansion. Once Jack had left he returned to the study, a plate of cookies and more tea in hand, and placed the missing part into the nearly empty binding.
Chapter 2: The place of calling
Screams still pierced the night as we silently made our way through the starlit forest. The rain enhanced the smell of the trees. I thanked God that I could not smell the living flesh of my townspeople being cooked. It seemed that it wasn't enough that they merely died. They were to be made examples of. It was about twenty minutes journey to reach the clearing, but it seemed like an eternity as the old Indian constantly checked for creatures.
When we got there I found the place a little disappointing. I was expecting something grander of a place that was used to speak directly with God. It consisted of a clearing surrounded by a large wooden fence covered with white candles. In the middle of the clearing was a very large upright stone with tribal drawings scrawled all over it in the blackest paint I had ever seen. The way the stone was positioned it demanded attention as soon as you entered the clearing. The chief hurried to the stone and started tracing some of the runes with his fingers.
Suddenly a loud chilling howl was heard from the dark and primordial forest. I looked around to see what made the noise but saw nothing. I instructed the others to get closer to the stone. The other men were reluctant to do so but even more reluctant to retreat were the women. The only thing that would have held them back were the children. They soon found a way around that problem when the Reverend Dumont and Olben Johnston volunteered to take care of them as their bodies were past using in terms of combat. Soon five people stood to face the creature in the dark.
We all brandished some form of weapon ranging from walking stick to frying pan to pitchfork. It was soon apparent that this was not going to be enough as the number of howls grew dramatically. A solitary candle lit up without anyone to give it light. The pure light shone out among the trees revealing a wall of red eyes staring back at us. Suddenly more candles lit up as the red pinpoints advanced at an agonisingly slow pace, as if they intended to make our group in particular suffer the longest. I looked at the others around me. It warmed my heart to see that they had the same look of grim determination set on their faces. I spoke up, "In case we don't survive this; it has been an honour and a privilege to know you all."
Filbar smiled, "Buck up lad. This night is far from over. Look over there." He pointed off to the right where a pair of golden eyes could be seen weaving in and out through the sea of creatures. It travelled at an incredible speed to make its way over to us. "What is it?" I asked. Filbar in a much better mood replied, "Our salvation. Whatever you do, do not harm a black wolf if you see it. All will be explained in a moment just keep watching." And watch I did, as a large black wolf leapt over the fence to land easily in the clearing.
Once inside the clearing something happened. It was as if the beast shimmered with a strange kind of grey light. I tried to watch in fascination, but my eyes were forced to look away. I could hear bones cracking and clicking into place. I forced myself to try and look again. I could make out bare shapes as the wolf changed form. Bones reshuffled under a loose bag of fur-covered skin. It was a totally unnatural sight by anyone's standards. The red dots became larger as the grotesque army slowly drew closer. What was once a wolf's paw now made a human footprint on the grass.
The chief smiled a large grin, "Excellent timing as always son. I'm having trouble opening the gate. The best I could do was to set up the watch candles and by the look of them it seems that there is more to worry about then a stuck gateway. The cracking of branches filled the forest, as the shuffle of slow, painful movement grew louder. My hands began to shake as dread gripped me. Isabel put her free hand on my shoulder and gave me a reassuring look, "We're going to make it through this. Hold your courage close to your heart. We can defeat whatever this demon has sent against us. Remember that God is on our side." With my courage restored I stood in good company, ready to face an army of monsters; and win.
The shaman focused his eyes on the darkness. "Drones. I haven't seen them here in a very long time. They are disfigured almost beyond recognition but I can still recognise a reanimated corpse when I see one. Do not make the mistake of presuming that their human like form houses any soul. These are demonic spirits using dead flesh vessels nothing more. Destroy the vessel and you banish the demon back to its realm. Do not feel remorse when you destroy a vessel even though it might be someone you know. Be ready for anything but hold back while I deal with them."
Filbar looked confused, "How do you intend to deal with so many?" Black Bear silenced the farmer and instructed him to watch. Running Wolf grabbed a handful of grass, smiled then blew it towards the forest. Next he found some blackberries growing in a bramble bush near the stone. He scattered them around the fence, the juice colouring his fingertips a deep purple/red. He grabbed the thin vine, found one of the larger thorns and pricked a vein in his wrist. Running Wolf began spreading the fine spray of blood over the area where the seeds were scattered. Finally he stood beside the stone, with one palm solidly leaning against it, and spoke in a strange tongue. "Em evres ot dnuorg eht dnammoc I. DoG eurt eno eht evres I sa. Eris."
My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as I watched the seeds spring to life and start growing brambles at an alarming rate. Except when Filbar got a closer look at the thorny vines in the candlelight they appeared red. Running Wolf noticed the look of amazement on our faces. "If you think that's impressive just wait until you see this." With that he raised his finger and traced symbols in the air. They probably related to the ones on the stone, I couldn't really tell. The result was what was important and it was a marvel to behold. The thorny brambles crept upwards and outwards. Some wrapped themselves around the nearby surrounding trees and others travelled deeper into the forest. It was not long before a guttural cry broke the near silence of the scene except for the rustling of the vines, as they crept along the forest floor.
I turned around to the shaman, "What did you do?" He answered with a twinkle in his eyes. "I ensured our survival. The vines will dispatch most of this unholy host. Keep watching." I quickly looked back as some of the red eyes stopped and turned to face the others. Glints of metal shone along with the red eyes. The vines were constricting and controlling some of the creatures, making them kill their brethren in swift, violent actions.
The surviving creatures picked up the pace; an inhuman voice like a bird screeching inwards sounded its chilling opinion. "Come brothers they must not survive. For Zanthar." A charge began consisting of about twenty of the demons. Running Wolf became impatient, he shouted again in the ancient tongue. "Ti hsinif, meht llik, su tcetorp. Eris." As soon as the last syllable was uttered the brambles that had wound themselves around the trees became taught and dragged the trees closer to the fence until a crunch was heard. They had made a wall of trees against the army of demons.
Multiple thuds and crashes were heard as the charge hit the wall of living wood. A few of the smarter ones scaled the trees. They laughed when they reached the top and saw their prey. With a terrible cry they descended on the small party of survivors. Sweat soaked our clothes as we finally glimpsed the creatures that were trying to destroy us. They looked mostly human except that their faces split in the middle to show a mouth full of dagger like teeth. Some had wings with red bony arms holding them in place. All of them had at least one arm replaced by a large blade like appendage.
I closed my eyes and held my pitchfork high, waiting for certain death to take me. It never came. I looked up to see that their descent had been cut short by multiple vines mimicking the form of a noose. The vines had broken the drones' necks with the combined speed of the beasts' descent and the impact of their sudden mid air stoppage. As I watched the grotesque mixtures of flesh and metal turn in the firelight I stared in a hope that I could recognise them and that they were not one of the townsfolk. I had to look closer at them; I don't know how to put it. I guess I felt compelled to know that they were finally resting in peace. I got to about two paces distance from the nearest corpse. They were human as I looked at the back of the head I could see where monstrous claws had compressed the poor victims skull into a ball shape. These poor souls must have been tortured beyond measure. I used my pitchfork to turn the body around a bit, as the torso had become entangled in the trees. I dropped the fork and fell to the ground while retching in horror.
I looked up again to make sure which resulted in the rest of my stomach contents being released. There before me twirling in the candlelight was the twisted, butchered corpse of what used to be my father. I made the sign of the pyramid with my fingers across my body before scampering back to the others at the stone.
Running Wolf looked pleased with himself as he smiled grimly. "Interesting. That was better than I could have hoped for. I was only going to hang them in the hope of deterring them a bit while you escaped…Right. Now we'd better get that gate open hadn't we." I came to stand near Filbar and Isabel Johnston. "Are you all right? What happened over there?" I shook my head, the taste of bile still fresh in my mouth. "Nothing. I just hadn't expected their faces to be so disturbing that's all. I mean even looking at one of them while it was dead still wanted me to violently throw up. How could such grotesque creatures exist? I saw large clumsy stitches made from God knows what running all over their bodies. Meaning that they were made. As similarly as you or I going about our daily business." The blood drained from their faces when they learned that someone could become one of these things.
I omitted the part about my father. Things were bad enough without Isabel examining one of the creatures only to find that her Meric had become one of them. Anyway it was probably easier to look at them without seeing any humanity left in them. It may have even have helped Running Wolf to kill them with that belief in his heart, but I saw the pain and suffering in that face and it was certainly not the face of a demon to me. My father suffered much to be in that state. I tried to put his face out of my head. In all probability death was a release from the constant pain of housing a demon in a body made up of unearthly body parts. With that knowledge I turned my back to my fathers gently swaying corpse and concentrated on watching Running Wolf.
We stood and watched in silence as Running Wolf approached the stone where his father was there to clap him on the back. "I'm glad someone is enjoying themselves today." The shaman gave his father a sideways glance, "Speak for yourself. I was happier hunting rabbits." Black Bear laughed and was the only one to do so. He stood back to give Running Wolf space to work with the stone. I tried to see the symbols that he worked with in order to take my mind of my father. I was still fascinated by the power of this place and how one man could channel so much of it.
I managed to get a glimpse of the last symbol that he touched. It was the symbol of our church. I recognised it instantly as it was all over town. It was rumoured to double as a protective rune against evil but I later found out that it was designed to summon God so that she could walk freely amongst us. Although up to that point in my lifetime I had never seen it used. It was now at this time that I got to see what it did.
The black markings of the stone seemed to move and flow. Each one formed a small black hole before linking with another and then another until eventually a large round doorway was formed. Two large circles framed the hole with ancient runes inscribed in between them. The runes vaguely resembled what had originally been on the stone but had obviously changed down the years. The chief put his arm out to stop anyone going through. "Before you go through, be sure of your faith or you will suffer the consequences. My son and I will stay here as we both have unfinished business here. You must hold Zanthar in place. If he is allowed to spread past the place of the silenced spirits it will not take him long to realise that this world is here for the taking."
When all in the group had assured him that they were either strong in faith or too young to be judged then he let them through. We were all nervous and a little frightened, as we couldn't see anything but darkness in the tunnel. In the end it was the Reverend Dumont who persuaded us to go, "My children I know you are scared but time is short so I will make this quick. We have seen too much not to go. We owe this duty to God as she has brought us this far and saved us few out of so many." He wasted no time in taking a quick look around before stepping into the tunnel. We watched as he crouched to make his way through the tunnel. He disappeared out of view and suddenly a white light appeared as if from nowhere and the small dot that was the Reverend Dumont completely disappeared from sight. I looked around the group and gestured that they could go before me "After you." The Johnstons stayed fairly close together.
I remained the last to pass through into God's realm, partially because I wanted to make sure that if any demons planned a surprise attack then I would be there to give the others a fighting chance to get through. A beautiful white light surrounded them and caused them to vanish from sight. I didn't see too much of what happened to the others as I became more paranoid of an ambush. Finally it was my turn to enter into the hall of judgement.
Please R&R I am going to post chap 3 right behind this one and then have an ending paragraph with Devon so it looks like he read both 2 and 3 together. Thanks Karry!
