Silent Hill
Chapter Two: Maybe This is Just a Dream
"I can't believe they didn't believe me!" Katara stressed, standing bravely alone in her hotel room.
Her arms crossed, she stood with her back to the front door.
The only news Katara felt satisfied with was when the superintendent said that since Aang was the avatar, he would let them all stay free of charge for however long they needed. Of course, Aang assured the superintendent that they wouldn't be staying for too long.
The superintendent had also needed help with a new sign for the hotel that he wanted to read "Ashfield Heights." Sokka had asked if he could be of any help by painting a new sign himself, and the super thankfully smiled and said he had appreciated the help. Sokka had gotten the simple job as a way to earn easy money for food and other supplies.
Katara sighed, feeling silly and childish for believing that her hotel room was actually being haunted and that the super had to explain to her that there had been an old doll lying on the bed for the past week.
Perhaps she had grabbed a hold of it in her sleep.
Katara's imagination had led her to believe that the doll was blood-stained, when in reality it had simply been just on old, dirty, raggedy doll.
The waterbender explained her silly fears and her nightmare to Aang and then later to Sokka and Toph. They listened with patience, Sokka explaining to Katara that maybe her dream had just really frightened her into her profound beliefs.
"Well . . ." Katara started, her deep blue eyes slowly scanning the gray bedroom walls surrounding her. "…Maybe Sokka was right."
I probably was imagining those things.
A knock at her door, Katara's head snapped up at the moment of the sound. Opening the door to reveal the smiling face of an earthbender, Katara couldn't help but smile in return.
"Hey, Katara! We're going to look around in some of the shops for a little while just to see what we can find here." Toph replied. "Wanna come?"
Katara nodded. "Sure --- why not? I'd love to get out for a little while."
The Dai Li had returned with Azula's desired information about Aang's current hiding place. Preferring to speak with them alone, Azula had taken the two men outside and away from Prince Zuko's hearing range. Both Ty Lee and Mai grew anxious to hear the news, sneaking the closest to the conversation that they possibly could without being noticed.
Seeking out the perfect moment, Zuko slipped away through the shadows and made his way quietly down to the dungeons where his Uncle was being kept.
Iroh simply looked up at his nephew as he quickly walked in front of his cell, jamming a key into the large metal-plated lock. "Prince Zuko, where did you get the key???" Iroh asked with a scrunched brow, surprised at his nephew's course of action.
"Uncle, just follow me. And quickly!" Zuko rushed Iroh to his feet, running swiftly through a secret exit through a hidden hall Zuko had discovered on his frequent trips that he had made to the dungeon. Bringing food to his uncle, he had once accidentally made a detour.
It had been a long day. Katara had grown so exhausted from her recent lack of sleep that she didn't seem to care at the moment about having another nightmare. Or at least that's what she told herself. She had personally decided to keep the doll out of sight, sitting it on the farthest side of her bedroom . . . AWAY from her bed. With that, she snuggled up underneath warm blankets and did the best she could to brush off any eerie thoughts of the strange doll. A quick moment after resting her head on the cool, fluffy pillow, Katara couldn't open her eyes anymore due to her weariness and quickly fell asleep.
Instead of bloody walls or unimaginable pain, Katara's dreams took her back to Ba Sing Sei. She was the one crying this time --- seemingly crying about her mother. Katara cradled her legs like she usually did, avoiding eye contact with a boy just merely a few feet away from her.
She was telling him through sobs that the Firenation took away her mother.
When the boy didn't reply, Katara lifted her pitiful gaze in his direction.
Instead of Zuko being the boy sitting across from her, it was the little boy from her nightmare.
"I lost my mommy when I was just a baby." The boy began, coming to his feet.
Katara gasped, scooting backwards towards the cave wall. "You're . . . that boy . . ."
The water bender averted her eyes, not wanting to witness another headache.
The boy nodded. "Will you help me find her again?"
Katara froze. "I thought you meant that your mother . . . passed away. How can we find her?" Katara asked, confused.
"You'll see."
Eyes snapping open to the light of day, Katara shot up in an instant. Not ready for the sight ahead of her, she gasped in shock. Heart pounding, Katara felt feint. Her blood ran cold and a crisp chill filled the atmosphere.
There were chains strewn and bolted across the inside of her door. Holding her shaky hands to her mouth, she carefully and cautiously neared the patchwork of chains.
A bloody trio of words breathed their presence into the door's dark exterior, sounding a chilling whisper of someone exhaling air.
Don't Go Out
Running towards the secret exit, Prince Zuko occasionally peeked over his shoulder to see if his uncle was keeping up. Just as Zuko reached a close distance to the already opened door, it was slammed shut by a man who had just entered. With a blank expression on his face, the man watched as Prince Zuko and Iroh came to a sudden halt in front of him, who was blocking them from the exit.
The man smiled, amused by Zuko's angered expression.
"Get out of my way!" Zuko commanded, noticing something out of the corner of his eye after he had spoken.
The man was holding a small axe, covered in blood. At the instant Zuko noticed the weapon looked as if it had been used, his heart pace quickened. A terrible intense pain shot through the temples in his head as he looked up into the man's face. He cried out in agony, stumbling to the floor with his hands over his head as if it would burst.
Iroh shot out his hand, producing a bright flame that he had hoped to knock the man down with. The man didn't move, letting himself be caught on fire as if he could feel no pain. Iroh had never seen such a thing in his entire life, and was caught unexpectedly off guard.
The man placed his hand on Iroh's shoulder. His touch was unbearably painful, and Iroh couldn't remember the last time he had felt dead on his feet if there ever was a time.
Whispering unhearable words beneath his breath, the man let go of Iroh, letting him fall unconsciously to the floor.
"Soon, Mother . . ." The man whispered, opening the door behind him.
Looking down at the two unconscious bodies that lied before him, he led them to a forest he particularly called "The Red Forest", remembering how the blood of his past victims had stained the leaves of trees and their blood-hurdling screams echoed throughout the fog covered atmosphere.
His mother would be reborn through the Ritual of the Holy Assumption, and he had never felt closer to his destiny. . .
No matter what she did, nobody seemed to hear her cries for help. Her screams didn't seem to be enough, and neither did her decision to slam her hands repeatedly against the door. Katara sobbed, tears flowing down her face as her attempts to get help grew even weaker and weaker.
"Why c-can't you h-hear me?" Katara whimpered, sliding hopelessly to the floor.
She was horrified beyond her wildest dreams. Katara had hoped with all of her heart that everything was all just another nightmare that she would wake up from at any given moment. Closing her eyes, Katara had collected her emotions enough to say another prayer.
"Yue, please . . . help me through this nightmare . . ." Katara began, her heart nearly stopping when she heard a heavenly sent sound ringing in her ears.
Sokka was knocking at the door. "Katara, are you awake? Hello?! Katara???"
The waterbender shot up quicker than she had ever done and her head began to spin. "Sokka!!! I'm right here --- can you hear me?" Katara banged on the door in strong hopes that he heard her.
"Katara? Open your door!" Sokka was starting to wonder if Katara was in her room at all.
"Sokka! My door is chained from the inside! I can't come out!!!" A tear ran down her face as her brother once again called out her name, knocking on her door. It was no hope.
Katara was trapped inside room 302 with no chance of leaving any time soon.
Sokka grew worried. He had to tell the others that Katara wasn't answering her door, and he had enough common sense to know that Katara would never ignore him like that, let alone sleep through loud bangs. He was positive that she was inside, but somehow . . . it seemed like her door was locked and that Katara couldn't get the door open, herself.
The super had all of the keys to the hotel rooms, so Sokka figured that it would be a great thing to try if the super could use the key for room 302 to get Katara's door unlocked for her.
"Katara, I don't know if you can hear me, but I'm going to get the superintendent to try to get your door open! I wish I knew what was going on . . ."
With those words, Katara's heart sank as she listened to her brother walk away. She couldn't help but wonder if she would ever escape her apartment room. Katara would give anything to see her friends again.
Slowly rising to her feat, she examined the message on the door.
"How could I possibly leave with all of these chains . . ."
A violent explosion sounded in the bathroom that was across the small hallway from her bedroom, both being inside room 302. Katara wandered what had just happened, not letting fear get in the way of any kind of escape.
She had secretly hoped that maybe the Firenation was attacking the hotel because they had found out about Aang being there and that her room had been hit with one of their attacks. Katara had almost made herself smile at how silly she realized that sounded as she said it again in her mind.
Walking cautiously out into the small hallway that connected the bathroom to her bedroom, Katara opened the door with any already wide-eyed approach. There in the side of her bathroom wall, a very large hole had been embedded. It was dark and damp, and as Katara froze at the hint of there being someone in the hole, she heard faint noises of children's voices echoing throughout the tunnel.
Taking a deep breath, the waterbender decided to crawl inside the hole. She first examined a pipe sticking out of the wall from where the hole had started, yanking it the rest of the way out as it appeared to make a good weapon for defense. Katara no longer had the canteen full of water with her --- she had let Toph drink it while they were looking through the town shops. Katara had somehow forgotten to refill it.
"Just my luck . . ." Katara huffed, staring down at the rusty, sharp-edged pipe that she held firmly in her hand.
Not knowing what to expect on the other side, Katara lifted herself up into the hole's entrance, becoming swallowed up by its darkness. The only thing guiding her was a bright light at the very end of the tunnel, which had Katara imagining it as a pathway to freedom.
She pressed forward, dragging her body through the other side. Stepping slowly and cautiously out onto the stained concrete floor, Katara realized that she had been led to a subway station. She had never seen one before, but had heard about them in stories about the Earth Kingdom using underground subways to transport several people to Ba Sing Sei at a time.
Even refugees were known to use the subways quite often, as it was a quick way to the safety of the city.
Katara examined a long stretch of stairs that lied before her, taking them to a lower elevation. As her eyes examined the walls of the subway station, Katara felt that there was something different about the place. There were large, bent up gates that blocked several intersecting halls, all leading to separate rooms that Katara didn't exactly think were a good idea to try to reach. She still wondered why they had been blocked off so urgently. It seemed that someone was desperate to hide something . . .
Katara noticed that the lamps that hung on the ceiling of the subway station weren't enough to decently light the halls, and she had come to a pitch dark part of the hall she was venturing. She was thankful that there was light when Katara turned the corner, walking down a new hall.
There was someone ahead, and it seemed as if the person was lost. Katara had realized that the person was a woman who looked to be just over twenty, strangely walking back and forth in a thinking frenzy.
"Thank goodness that I'm not the only one stuck down here!" Katara exclaimed quietly, not wanting to disturb the stranger ahead of her.
Feeling leaves pressing into his back and prickling his hands, Prince Zuko opened his eyes to a gray, stormy sky that painted the scenery behind a canopy of tall trees. He felt as if he had been asleep for hours, trying to remember what had happened the last time he was awake.
Remembering the terrible pain throughout his head that had caused him to black out, Zuko shot up from his resting spot in fear. To his relief, his uncle was already awake, sitting next to a fire he had made in order to keep warm in the chilling climate of the forest that was unknown to Zuko.
"I'm glad to see that you're awake, Prince Zuko." Iroh smiled calmly, moving from the fire to his nephew's side.
Meeting his uncle's face, Zuko looked away in guilt and shame. He had so much he wanted to say to his uncle about how sorry he was for everything that had just recently happened.
"I forgive you, Zuko."
Iroh understood how his nephew felt, even without being told. He simply smiled at Zuko, who turned around with a somewhat of a surprised look on his face.
"How?" Zuko asked under his breath. "I don't even want to forgive myself for . . . betraying you, Uncle Iroh." Zuko cringed with the word "betraying", feeling so angry at himself for falling, once again, for his sister's lies.
"Don't go through the rest of your life without forgiving yourself for the mistakes you make. I understand that you wanted to earn you father's love back." Iroh replied, placing a reassuring hand on his nephew's shoulder. "And I will never think of you as anyone else other than my son, no matter what your choices are."
"Thank you, Uncle Iroh." Zuko had, for the first time in a while, been able to smile again. As much as he wanted to hate himself, Zuko knew in his heart that Iroh's words were true.
"It's been hard for me to accept it, but lately I've begun to realize that I never had my father's love and respect that I drove myself to capture the avatar for. I never will."
Frowning, Iroh felt that Zuko had thought a lot while in Ba Sing Sei. He felt that Zuko would take a while to fully recover from his discovery for his heart was broken and Prince Zuko had no idea for his future.
"My brother's never understood what it is like to have a deep love and concern for other people, the most important being family. Sadly, Azula is his mirror image, and I feel that she will also never be able to truly love someone other than herself."
Zuko nodded, trying to cope with a side of his father that he didn't want to know was true.
The prince and his uncle sat alone in the quietness of the forest, thoughts overflowing in their minds. In the silence, Iroh could hear a very slight mumble of distant voices. He realized that it may have been coming from a nearby town, which meant a place to stay and to get descent rest.
Telling Zuko about his discovery, the two headed off through the thick brush of trees and fog to the sound of people.
"Do you know how we ended up in this place??" Zuko asked, turning to Iroh as he walked.
"Now that I think about it, I'm not quite sure. I think it might have something to do with that strange man in the coat we saw." Remembering the pain that seemed to emit from the man's hand, Iroh winced.
"I wonder why I got that terrible headache when I tried to see his face . . ." Zuko replied, a strange feeling that they were being followed.
"So . . . you think this is a dream?" Katara asked the woman.
"Yeah, and a terrible one, too." Cynthia replied, watching Katara's face turn into utter confusion. "What else would it be??"
Looking around, Katara didn't know how to answer Cynthia's question. Maybe everything was just a terrible dream . . .
Katara sighed. "We should stick together --- just in case." Katara eventually said, looking down at the weapon she held.
"Good --- I was beginning to wonder when I'd be able to look around for a change. I mean, without feeling unsafe. I'll follow you." she replied, stepping behind Katara.
Katara gulped, not knowing what to expect at all whatsoever. She inched her way forward, first with small steps, then eventually with larger, braver steps. Katara felt that the woman behind her felt just as frightened. At least they didn't have to be alone.
Katara walked down a new hall she had just turned on, nearing a bathroom --- two separate rooms for women and men. The waterbender froze as she turned around to the sound of Cynthia feeling nauseated.
"I think I'm gonna puke!" She stumbled, holding onto her stomach as she walked at a quick pace through the bathroom door.
Katara could only wait for her, standing in patience with her back against the wall that stood parallel to the bathrooms.
I hope she's okay . . .
Standing in front of Katara's door, Sokka had explained to Toph and Aang what was wrong and they had told the super of their problem. The superintendent was glad to help, finding the key that he needed for room 302 and inserting it into the room's doorknob. For moment, it budged around noisily on the inside of the lock, clicking and popping. With difficulty pulling the key to the room back out, the superintendent grunted at the strange fact that the key wasn't working. He examined the key, double checking the room number it was intended for.
"That's strange . . . The lock won't budge." He banged on the door. "Hello! Can you hear me??"
"That doesn't seem to work." Sokka sighed. "I don't understand what's going on!"
Aang frowned. "Don't worry, Sokka. I have a feeling that Katara is okay, whatever is going on. We're going to find a way to open this door --- I'm sure of it!"
Deep down inside, Aang felt just as worried for Katara. He wasn't sure at all if they would get her door open any time soon. Aang could only hope for her safety, whatever was happening on the other side of the locked door.
Feeling that Cynthia had been in the bathroom for a bit too long, Katara began to grow worried.
Everything was so quiet and lonely . . .
Heart nearly leaping out of her chest, Katara watched as the men's restroom door creaked open, not yet revealing who was on the other side. She never saw anyone enter the bathroom, not knowing what to expect to come out of hiding.
Two large, monster-like dogs charged out of the bathroom, strangely roaring like jaguars. Jumping in horror, Katara quickly moved out of the way, watching as the creatures killed and began to suck the blood from one of their own kind with their tongue like suction tubes.
Readying her weapon, Katara crept up behind the sniffer closest to her and hit it as hard as she could with the pipe she held. Crying out in pain, the sniffer roared, turning around to charge at the terrified waterbender.
It hit her before she knew it. Katara fell to the floor, two sniffers pulling violently at her clothes and snapping at her arms. Blade like teeth cut into her skin like a knife through butter, causing Katara to scream.
"Get off me!!!" Katara shouted, shoving the pipe forcefully at one of the sniffers attacking her. Fortunately, it was enough to knock it over. The sniffer yelped and struggled on the floor, squirming as it suffered. Katara didn't hesitate to finish it off with one final blow, leaving only one more to defeat.
The sniffer roared, charging at her only to be painfully hit by the edge of Katara's pipe. It, too, fell to the floor, squirming as the other sniffer had before it.
Katara didn't even have to think about killing it. She had stabbed the pipe through it faster than she thought she would react to something so unordinary.
Falling to her knees, Katara breathed heavily. She had never seen something so disturbing to look at --- so unreal. Their flesh appeared to be rotting. Looking at the dead monsters, Katara's teeth clenched at the bite she had received. Her left arm throbbed terribly, and Katara didn't have anything to heal her wound with.
She had feared that the scent of blood would attract more of those creatures, forcing her to risk her life killing them as well.
"Just what I need! First, I find out that I'm stuck in this weird place, and then I find that there are monsters here, too. This is insane ..." Katara looked to the men's bathroom door, her heart pumping faster as she had feared to see what else was inside.
Stumbling to her feet, Katara walked into the women's bathroom.
"Cynthia?"
Azula was furious once she was told that the Avatar had gone to a place off of the map, threatening them to find a better answer.
"B-But Princess! It's impossible to find news about his exact location. He's decided to just . . . disappear!!!"
Azula grunted, her arms crossed in irritation. "You are useless to me. I've come to find that perhaps you're not trying hard enough, so there's no point in wasting any more precious time. I'll find the Avatar myself . . ."
"What about us?" Ty Lee asked, Mai wondering the same question as the two walked outside.
". . . And of course with the help of you both." Azula finished, a smirk spread across her face. "Let's get started, girls. We have a long trip ahead of us."
Azula whistled for their uses of transportation to come to them, being large lizard-like animals. They were quick and agile, being able to reach far distances at a quick pace.
Taking off into the distance, the man in the coat watched them, this time wielding a blood-stained pickaxe known as the "Pickaxe of Despair." Smiling, he turned and walked away, simply disappearing into the shadows.
Welcoming the new customers, the superintendent had given both Prince Zuko and Iroh their room numbers.
Being later in the night, Sokka, Toph, and Aang had been told that they would try to find out what was wrong with Katara's room the next morning. It had taken a while to convince them that they had to wait, remembering how Sokka had wanted to try with the key, himself.
With that, the super had told them that he had a long story to tell them about room 302. He remembered how the last person who stayed in that room had the same problem . . .
And was never seen again.
He hadn't expected the same thing to happen twice in a row, especially since he believed that the murderer had been arrested some time ago.
"Thank you, Mr. Sunderland." Iroh said gratefully to the superintendent, walking to his room, which was right beside Zuko's.
Once reaching his own door, Zuko read the number to himself.
"Room 303"
(A/N: Okay . . . so maybe I couldn't add as many monsters as I thought I'd be able to in this chapter. The sniffers were a start, though! Be ready for more, coming up soon in my next chapter. ;)
TTFN