Chapter Four: The Red Pyramid

Makoto pulled the fire escape key closer to her and examined it before checking her map. Sure enough, there was a fire escape on the second floor that led outside to the alley she needed.

'Before I go, I might as well check out the rest of this floor, too.' Makoto thought and stood from her crouched position. There was only one open door on this side of the bars and it was apartment 301. The interior was poorly decorated and bullet holes covered the walls. 'Was somebody being attacked or did they just go nuts…?' Makoto wondered anxiously. 'In this town it's hard to tell…'

The only object in the room was a shopping cart sitting in the middle of the living room. Upon closer inspection, the brunette saw a M92F Beretta pistol inside the shopping cart. The safety was off and it was fully loaded with a clip holding ten bullets. Without a second thought, Makoto tucked it into her belt. 'Unless I find more bullets, I should only use this sparingly… ' She paused and looked over the hand gun again. 'I've never used a gun before… but how hard can it be?'

Shaking her head, Makoto forced herself to think about the monsters all around town. It wasn't like she was planning on shooting an actual person…

With her hopes beginning to return, she then revisited the second floor and was about to turn down the left hallway towards the fire escape when a muffled scream reached her ears. Makoto stiffened before breaking into a run down the dark center hallway where the scream had come from. 'It can't be…Ami!' Although she did not notice at the time, the radio crackled to life and hissed with white noise again. The brunette stopped short when a figure came into view behind the bars blocking the corridor. In the dim lighting Makoto could see a figure with congealed bloodstains on its skin and a crimson pyramid basin covering its head. Its arms were motionless by its sides and it made no move to attack her but even so, the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

'It feels like… I'm looking into a mirror at a carnival with a distorted reflection… No… More like a mirror that reflects your soul…'

By this point, Makoto's hands were shaking and she couldn't peel her eyes away from the demon on the other side who was gazing intently at her, even though no eyes were visible. The brunette's right hand started reaching behind her blindly, trying to find the door knob to an apartment. When her hand finally found it, she turned it frantically and swung the door open to get inside. But still the creature did not move, just simply breathed noisily.

Once she was inside the apartment, Makoto leaned against the door and released the breath that she had been subconsciously holding.

'What was that thing! Is that creature behind everything in Silent Hill? And…' Makoto paused hesitantly. 'Why did it feel like I was looking at a mirror...?'

It took several minutes for Makoto to calm herself down to where she could take in her surroundings. This place was just too weird to try and figure out right now. That's when the brunette noticed an unsettling smell in the air of the apartment that she hadn't smelt earlier. After all, she had visited this apartment less than ten minutes ago. It was the one with the strange clock riddle.

Quietly stepping into the living room to find the source of the smell, she heard a faint static sound and stifled a scream. The TV in the room was on and blood was oozing down the screen. In front of the television was what seemed to be a monster slumped in a recliner. Blood was beginning to form a puddle at the monster's feet and Makoto dared not get any closer, she could already tell from this distance that it was very dead.

"My God… who could've--?" Makoto whispered and answered her own question before she had finished it. "That monster outside…"

'But… I thought this place was completely abandoned. Then again I did see someone on the third floor but still… I didn't hear anyone come in hear and I was only gone for about ten minutes!' Makoto peeled her eyes away from the monster and reflexively covered her mouth, to keep herself from getting sick. The smell of the blood was beginning to become overpowering, but she needed to figure out what to do next before she left the room. 'I should just go…' However, that pyramid head thing was still on her mind. 'Why would it kill a monster?'

Summoning up her courage, Makoto stepped forward cautiously and let the light of her flashlight shine on the corpse in the recliner. What she saw made her quickly look away again and step back to the other side of the room, heart racing. 'Why is that thing wearing clothes like mine!' Pyramid Head flashed across her mind again. 'That thing is toying with me!' Makoto thought, enraged, 'How did it get from this room to across the bars in the hallway so fast? Wait… this was the room with the clock riddle, right?' Makoto left the living room and walked quietly into the bedroom. The clock had been pushed aside and there was now a hole connecting this room to apartment 209. 'So it went through here, huh..?'

Wall particles crunched under the soles of Makoto's tennis shoes as she squeezed through the narrow opening, scraping off loose fragments of plaster from the hole. The next room was ordinary enough. The interior of this room wasn't what interested Makoto, though. It was Pyramid Head out in the hallway. She gripped the handle of the M92F Beretta tightly and drew it out of her belt; double checking to make sure the safety was off. Then Makoto approached the door slowly and turned the door knob, heart pounding in her ears.

The hallway was empty. No Pyramid Head, just the bars blocking the hallway. On her right, though, there was another staircase and Makoto decided to go up to the third floor again. With the handgun drawn, the wooden plank was becoming very annoying to carry, but Makoto only had ten bullets in the handgun. She had to make every single one count.

The third floor was dark and much like the second floor. "Locked… locked," Makoto mumbled as she tried to turn the door knobs to the first two rooms on her left. Her pale hand reached out for the door knob of apartment 307 but paused. From the depths of her jean pocket, the radio came to life again, signaling the presence of a monster in the room. The brunette took a deep breath and adjusted her grip on the Beretta to keep her hands from shaking; then she opened the door swiftly. There were high pitched shrieks from two demons that were being brutally beaten by Pyramid Head in the apartment's kitchen. Makoto slipped silently into a nearby closet, peering out through the narrow openings in the closet door and having second thoughts about chasing after the red pyramid. 'Why is it hurting its own kind..?'

Pyramid Head grabbed the neck of one of the shrieking demons and squeezed tightly until there was a sickening crack. He loosened his grip and the monster fell to the floor, lifeless, with its neck bent at an awkward angle. The second demon was cornered in the cramped kitchen of the apartment, but struggled to get away nonetheless. Pyramid Head slammed this monster's head into the kitchen counter, cracking its head open with ease.

'How can that thing be so strong..?' Makoto trembled.

Blood dripped off the counter onto the floor and Pyramid Head grabbed the ankle of the monster's corpse, dragging it into the living room, leaving a trail of blood behind it. Makoto backed against the wall in the closet. There was nowhere to run and she would surely be killed if she tried to fight Pyramid Head head-on. He stopped, releasing the ankle of the demon he slaughtered. Then he raised one of his hands towards the closet. It was as if Pyramid Head was sniffing out Makoto. 'Please… No… I have to find Ami!'

Without thinking, Makoto raised the Beretta and fired one shot after the other. The bullets glanced off the metal surface of the basin covering Pyramid Head's head, jerking him backwards. Then Makoto fired in panic at the rest of Pyramid Head's exposed limbs. After ten shots, the Beretta snapped repeatedly, having no more ammo for Makoto to shoot. 'Oh God… please, no…'

Pyramid Head groaned and shuffled noisily to the door, leaving Makoto alone in the room, stunned and shaken.

To Be Continued