Silent Hill
(A/N: I just wanted to thank varjak for the helpful review she left. . I was so happy to learn how to spell "Yue" correctly!!! D I was really clueless . . . I edited my chapters so that I could add some capitalizations, too ;) Thanks, again!)
Chapter Three: Room of Angel
Each one of the bathroom stalls had been left opened, and there was no sign of Cynthia anywhere. As Katara neared the farthest stall from the bathroom door, she noticed a large hole with some sort of writing around its perfectly circular structure. This hole had also been embedded in the wall, this time being at the subway station.
Katara began to wonder if Cynthia had entered this hole out of curiosity, and she decided to venture inside, hoping to find her.
"I wonder where this leads too . . ." Katara thought aloud quietly as she climbed into the darkened tunnel, crawling to its end.
Vision blurred, Katara's eyes blinked open to reveal that she was back in her bed.
"What???" Katara shook her head, rubbing her eyes with the back of her fists.
"Was I . . . really in that lady's dream?" She asked herself, staring at her bedroom in disbelief.
Before she knew it, she was clenching her head in terrible pain as a strange noise echoed throughout her temples. The sound seemed to be that of metal being shredded along with someone screaming amongst the already deafening noise.
"Where . . . did you . . . go?" A struggling voice whispered in the depth of all the strange sounds.
After what seemed an eternity, the noises faded and Katara's vision was completely restored. The waterbender quickly moved from the surface of her bed.
"That voice sounded like Cynthia!" Katara exclaimed to herself, her eyes coming to a stop on something halfway underneath her doorway. Lifting the old, torn paper in her hands, Katara's eyes began to scan what was written on the paper's surface.
"Through the Ritual of the Holy
Assumption, he built a world.
It exists in a space separate from
the world of our Lord.
More accurately, it is within, yet
without the Lord's world.
Unlike the world of our Lord,
it is a world in extreme flux.
Unexpected doors or walls,
moving floors, odd creatures,
a world only he can control...
Anyone swallowed up by that world
will live there for eternity, undying.
They will haunt that realm as a spirit.
How can our Lord forgive such an
abomination...?"
Katara realized that certain parts of the script had been too damaged to read as she quickly searched for a legible part of the paragraph she had just ended on.
"...It is important to travel lightly in that
world. He who carries too heavy
a burden will regret it..."
Eyebrows scrunched up in confusion, Katara could only think that the "world" the paper she was holding referred to was indeed the subway place she had recently discovered. Katara had remembered the strange creatures she had come in contact with, immediately looking down at her arm.
"So . . . I guess I wasn't in that girl's dream, after all." Katara assumed as she noticed the cut on her arm. It didn't seem to hurt nearly as much as it did in the subway place, and Katara thought that maybe that was the reason why she didn't notice it right away.
"But, who would create such a horrible place, and for what reason?"
Re-reading the last paragraph on the paper she continued to hold on to, Katara shuddered. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed her only weapon, journeying down through the portal to the "Otherworld", which still remained in her bathroom wall.
Standing in front of Katara's door once again, Sokka had refused to give up on his sister. He had no idea of the chains that locked her inside room 302, and be believed that he would somehow manage to get the lock on her door to budge. Toph and Aang stood behind him, in hopes to support him. Aang felt a strangely different atmosphere whenever he stood in front of room 302 which made him feel scared and uneasy. He felt as if someone was watching their every actions and choices, perhaps feeling pity towards them at how miserable they all looked.
Sokka sighed, turning towards the two standing quietly behind him. Frowning, Aang decided to look at the floor as Toph stayed still.
"Don't you think we would've heard Katara shouting for help if she was stuck in her room?" Toph asked, causing Sokka to frown.
"Well, there has to be something wrong! That's exactly why we can't hear her!!" Sokka explained, looking frustratingly at the door.
"Something tells me that she's definitely stuck in there, but I have no idea why we can't hear her." Aang muttered, still looking at the floor.
Walking up behind the small group of kids, the superintendent felt extremely guilty for ever letting anyone stay in that room. It wasn't the first time that someone had been locked up inside.
"The man who stayed in that room before Katara ended up the same way. No one could ever hear him calling for help or even banging on the door to get our attention. Just like his door, the windows to his room were also locked. Peering inside his windows was always useless as you could never see anything."
The gang turned around, intent on listening to the super's story. They were all dying for an explanation.
Continuing with his story, the super spoke on about how the troubles with room 302 came to be. "People knew him by the name of Joseph Schreiber, who, as far as I know, was a journalist. He did many reports on a nearby orphanage called "Wish House", saying how the orphanage was run by a cult and that they were brainwashing the children who stayed there. It was later shut down, due to the fact that police had investigated further into Schreiber's report on Wish House, only to find that he had been correct. Of course, this had taken place only days before he had somehow been locked inside his room."
As the super talked about the history of room 302, Prince Zuko and his Uncle had heard Sokka trying to open the door earlier, watching and listening curiously and anxiously to the group as they spoke with the superintendent.
Zuko had wondered how both he and his uncle had been lucky enough to find the Avatar, but then he realized that he wasn't trying to capture him any longer. He wasn't used to acting casually around the monk, simply because he had never had a descent run in with the boy. Zuko began to wonder what it would be like to be by the Avatar's side, shaking his head soon afterwards at the idea.
Prince Zuko would've never imagined himself even thinking of such a thing, but looking back at his uncle, Zuko's mind was made up.
He realized that even though it would take him a while to get warmed up to the group, especially the Avatar, he knew that the boy needed to master firebending. Zuko quietly snorted at the thought of actually trying to teach the Avatar himself and thought that maybe his uncle wouldn't mind.
Perhaps he could gain the Avatar's trust if he could somehow figure out how to help the waterbender that he traveled with. From the looks of it, it seemed that she was stuck in her room and the room's key was of no use. She wasn't answering her brother's shouts to her either, apparently.
Having the challenge of finding the waterbender in the first place, Zuko would also have the challenge of gaining her trust as well. Raising a hand up to his scar, Prince Zuko remembered how the girl had wanted to help him. She was so close to using the water she had retrieved from the oasis to heal him . . .
"Joseph Schreiber was murdered in that room, and police discovered that the numbers 15121 were carved into his upper-back. If you ask me, it seems to have been a copycat murder from several years ago when ten people were killed in ten days in a variety of ways, some too gruesome to speak of. Each of their hearts had been taken, and numbers were carved into the bodies, ranging from 01121 to 10121. A name was also carved into them. I think someone by the last name of Sullivan . . ."
Sokka gasped. "We have to get Katara out of there! What if that CrAzY murderer is still out there!?" Sokka asked in horror as the super shook his head.
"I don't know exactly what's wrong with room 302, but something tells me that it's not just the room itself. I think there's something wrong with this whole hotel . . ."
Sokka, Aang, and Toph gulped uneasily as they looked nervously down the halls of the hotel, not noticing the two firebenders that hid nearby.
"Okay, it's not like you weren't scaring me before, but now you're really starting to scare me . . ." Toph said as the super redirected his eyes from the hotel rooms to the children standing in front of him.
Sliding through the end of the hole, Katara's feet touched the hard surface of the subway's restroom floor. There was still absolutely no sign of Cynthia, and as Katara's eyes began to scale the open bathroom stalls, her heart leapt at what sat in the stall next to her.
Right hand smothered in heavy blood stains, a mannequin that appeared to be, at first glance, Cynthia, sat motionless in the stall. Strangely enough, the doll seemed to be reaching out to Katara with the bloody hand, holding a bundle of coins. Taking a closer look, Katara hesitantly retrieved the coins from the mannequin's hand in hopes that they would be of some use in the future.
The waterbender didn't want to stay in the restroom any longer, and so with one last glance at the awkward doll, Katara quickly made her way out of the restroom's exit.
The sniffers she had killed were still strewn out over the concrete floor, causing Katara to step over them as she continued down the hall. Up ahead of her was completely dark. Tightly gripping the rusty pipe in her hand, Katara readied to swing at anything that looked even a little like the sniffers.
To her horror, she heard a strange noise close by. It was quiet when it moved away from her, but unfortunately, the sound was growing much louder.
Katara looked in every direction she possibly could; only to realize that trying to see anything was completely useless.
Everything was pitch-black, and it seemed that the air was growing cooler and heavier. Katara's heart began to pound. She felt frozen in place, and sat in silence as the noise grew even louder.
Thump-thump . . .
Thump-thump . . .
Thump-thump . . .
She began to wonder if the noise coming from her heart could possibly be heard by whatever was haunting her.
A sudden sharp pain shot through her chest as she fell to the floor. Katara had been attacked by something snarling and panting rapidly. As it leapt into midair for the second time, the sound of a jaguar echoed ferociously into the atmosphere.
Breaking into a quick run, Katara couldn't bring herself to fight back. Fear filled her heart and clouded her mind.
Am I losing it?
Stopping at the instant she saw light, Katara nearly screamed as sharp teeth hooked to the back of her leg.
Being illuminated by the light, the creature revealed itself to be a sniffer. This one was larger, covered in blood, and shades of pink and purple tinted its rotting hide.
Jamming the pipe into its face, Katara freed herself of the knives that dug through her skin. The sniffer yelped out in pain as it sunk to the floor, squirming around helplessly.
The waterbender took off without wasting another second, coming to what seemed to be a turnstile. Using the coins she had found in hopes that they would work, the turnstile let Katara slip through, hesitantly heading for more insanely dark hallways.
"Cynthia!" Katara shouted through heavy pants for air as she made her way down the stairs in front of her.
To her dismay, there was no answer. Instead, Katara was welcomed by another light at the bottom of the stairs.
She heard the moans of another being as she had climbed further, still not yet completely being able to see the hallway that lied ahead of her. Katara didn't know how to react to the creature crawling out of the wall as she entered the brightly lit hallway, pausing her movements to listen. Grabbing her mother's necklace, Katara stood in terror. She unconsciously held her only weapon tighter than she had done so far as a ghostly monster reached for her, falling to the floor and breaking through the fleshy strings that binded it to the wall.
"I wonder if that man we saw back in Ba Sing Sei was the murderer that the superintendent was talking about." Prince Zuko thought, causing his uncle to rub his chin as he remembered what the super had said.
"Strangely, he was holding an axe. . ." Iroh suggested, looking up at his nephew.
The two had been sitting in room 303, discussing Zuko's idea of actually siding with the Avatar. His uncle had happily agreed, asking how Prince Zuko was ever going to gain the boy's trust.
Zuko had explained that he would rescue the water tribe girl, but honestly . . .
He didn't know where to start.
Iroh didn't have any ideas either, and as the two sat in silence, Zuko had remembered the super's conversation with the Avatar about room 302 and the murder that had taken place in that very room.
"Do you think that he was the one who brought us to that forest?" Zuko asked.
Thinking for a moment, Iroh nodded. "I believe so, Zuko."
Zuko sighed. "Then I guess we're involved in this, too . . ."
If the man in the coat was the murderer, then the water tribe girl was in grave danger. He was in fact out there, hiding somewhere and most likely readying his next pursuit.
Prince Zuko needed to think of something soon, or else there would be no hope in ever seeing the girl alive again.
Katara had bravely charged after the ghost, swinging her pipe fiercely into its side. It only sounded as if Katara had decided to beat a body bag, trying to strike the ghost once more. Despite the amount of power Katara had sent along with her blows, nothing seemed to work. The ghost ignored her attempts and steadily floated towards her, slouching over as if it was dead in midair.
Being around the ghost gave her a somewhat painful headache, causing the waterbender to think of it as ghost fever. The area around her flashed red as long as she was in the monster's presence.
She had come to find that no matter how many times she stroked the ghost, it wasn't going to give up any time soon.
Katara decided to run down the next flight of stairs, that, unfortunately. . .
. . . Led into even more darkness.
"I hope there aren't any more of those monsters down here . . ." Katara whispered to herself as she entered the final floor that cached the Lynch Street Subway, itself.
"Get me out of here!" A familiar voice pleaded, banging on one of the many doors that lead into the subway's interior.
"Cynthia?!" Katara exclaimed, feeling relieved that she was still alive.
"Thank God you're here . . ." Cynthia gasped, quickly looking behind her as if someone was there.
"You have to let me out of here, quickly!" Cynthia warned, her face furrowing into a terrified expression.
"Who locked you in here??" Katara asked, noticing that the door couldn't be unlocked like other doors.
"I don't know his name, but he's a tall, shady character with long dirty-blonde hair. He's wearing a dark blue coat --- please find the switch that unlocks this door!"
Katara nodded. "Don't worry, I'll find that switch."
With those words, Katara quickly took off to the far end of the subway to her left, coming to a part of the hall that emitted a strange, bright red light. Next to the light was an already opened entrance on the subway, leading into a small control room with many small switches and gears that operated various devices.
Katara's best guess was a large red switch with a bloody hand print stained into its surface, pressing it in hopes that Cynthia would no longer be trapped alone.
Listening, she could here clicking sounds stepping their way at a quick pace towards Katara. Looking into the room, Cynthia smiled. "We should hurry."
With a nod, Katara stepped out from the subway control room, leading Cynthia back down the hall to the newly opened door that she had once been stuck behind.
"Why are we going this way?" Cynthia asked, looking down at the waterbender in front of her.
"Trust me --- it's definitely not safe to go the other way." Katara explained, remembering the ghost that was probably still wandering around in the hallway she had abandoned.
"In that case, I'd rather go this way. That strange man didn't go this way, I'm pretty sure."
"Which way did he go?" Katara asked, walking further as Cynthia answered.
"I'm not sure, but he said he'd be back, so we'd better hurry."
Katara's eyes wandered, examining the strange objects that hung from the gates that were awkwardly placed in the subway. Some of them appeared to be different parts of mannequins and others seemed to be torture devices. Eerily, they were covered in blood as if they had recently been used.
Katara had wondered who would put up gates and leave such horrible and strange things hanging from them in a subway.
Cynthia sighed as she had also noticed the strange things throughout the subway. "This is the worst dream I've ever had."
Minutes had gone by, Katara and Cynthia finding their way through the twisting and turning maze of the subway. To their misfortune, some rooms were stuck shut and others were just locked. There had even been a ghost in one of the sections, and Katara had been almost too scared to move since the encounter.
It had unexpectedly reached into her chest and attacked her heart, causing everything around Katara to change to a bright white. She had no control over herself for a few moments, but fortunately the monster was disrupted when Cynthia had decided to lunge at the creature with her purse, angering it.
Katara fell to the floor, gasping for air as she clutched her chest in extreme pain. Cynthia had grabbed a hold of the waterbender's arm, pulling her up into a fast run. "We can't stop for too long!" she shouted back to her, leading Katara through a door that turned out to be the last door the two had to venture through.
This time they were led to a section of the subway with an open entrance leading out into a hallway, being the hallway on the opposite side of the Lynch Street Subway.
Walking out of the subway's nightmare of a maze, Katara could hear the sounds of two more ghosts bleeding through the walls.
"Oh, no . . ." She breathed. "Hurry!" Running to a door at the far end of the hall to her left, Katara listened to Cynthia's clicking heels as she ran away from the sounds of the ghosts.
Door slamming shut behind her, Katara froze, catching her breath. Strangely, the door had shut on its own as soon as Katara had entered the new room, lighted by bright red colors.
The door didn't budge, and Katara realized that it was shut for good.
"Cynthia!" Katara shouted as she banged roughly on the door.
Her fists grew sore the more she tried to make it budge. Cynthia was, once again, stuck alone.
Katara could only hope for her well being, and looked up to the large familiar hole tunneling into the side of the wall in front of her.
"I guess I should check up on Sokka and the others. I'm sure their still trying to figure out what's wrong with my door . . ." Katara figured as she climbed into the hole, once again waking up in her bead.
Without hesitating, she ran directly to her door, checking through the peep hole in order to see what was going on.
The only one standing outside her door was the super. He looked at the door with an irritated expression, not quite understanding what was happening on the other side. Katara frowned.
If only she had a way to communicate with them, then she could tell them everything. Maybe they could make her feel something other than absolute animal fear. Katara wanted to see them again, standing together in front of her door. She wanted the chains to just disappear so she could step out into the real world, away from this alternate reality she had been trapped in.
Katara looked sadly at the chains that strapped her door and at the words that told her not to leave.
Turning around to grab her weapon, she froze at the site of a desk that looked like someone had moved it while she was gone. It sat in a crooked position, and once Katara moved it, she had decided to move it over away from the wall it had once sat against. She had discovered a small passage which looked to have been carved into the wall's exterior with an ice pick.
Next to it was a large area in which someone had tried to burrow through the wall in order to get into the other room in means of escape and freedom. What sat in the center of the dug up wall was a small hole going through to the other side only large enough to look through.
Katara began to read the passage, her eyes squinting at the smallness of some of the words.
The faint hope I had is slowly changing
to despair.
I've somehow managed to tunnel this
far, but no matter what I do, I can't get
any farther.
The hallway, the windows, the walls...
It feels like this room is stuck
in another dimension.
No one ever noticed...
Slowly bringing her sapphire eyes up to the hole, Katara gasped at the site of the firebender sitting on the other side.
The waterbender's heart filled with anger in remembrance of his sudden actions towards them all in Ba Sing Sei. She scooted backwards, away from the wall and the site of the banished prince of the firenation.
"There's no way I can warn Aang about this!" Katara stressed, looking hopelessly at the chained up door.
Sighing, she grabbed the pipe that rested against the wall beside her bed. Katara needed to make sure that Cynthia was safe, heading through the hole in her bathroom wall without wasting any more time being angry.
Once back in the Otherworld, Katara ended up back in the red lit room. She noticed a ladder leading downward to another floor.
"This'll have to do." Katara assured herself as she climbed to what seemed to be another room lit by red lights.
Once her feet landed on the floor, her heart began to pound as she heard a sound that made her heart ache just by hearing it.
More ghosts.
Katara broke into a quick run, her long hair dancing around in the heavy air as it swayed behind her.
Turning on heel, she zipped past a ghost, not wanting to be around by the time it had freed itself from the confinements of bloody chains that strung it to the wall.
Coming to a blood-stained door at the end of the room, Katara didn't hesitate to swing it open, shutting in securely behind her.
She was once again led into an open area with train tracks for the Lynch and King Street subways and a long dark hall ahead of her; lit enough for her to see what was in front of her this time.
Katara could hear the growls of sniffers up ahead, feeling only a little relieved that all of them were smaller than the one she had last encountered. Readying her weapon, Katara inched her way forward, sneaking up on the nearest monster.
It seemed to ignore her presence, the other three doing just the same. They appeared to be too busy sniffing around the benches and trash that lied on the floor, and so Katara took this chance to sneak past them, unharmed.
Quietly making her way around the other side of the wall that sat not too far away from the small group of sniffers, Katara had lead herself to another set of stairs. She quickly made her way upward, almost running up the stretch of steps.
Something darted out through the wall directly in front of her, causing a scream to slip out through her mouth, already hiding in her hands as she fell to the floor.
The creature roared violently and swiped at her, reaching for her legs as she slid them up to her chest in fear that it would reach her.
Giving up on trying to grasp her, the creature slipped back into its hiding place, which was apparently the wall.
Slowly rising, Katara steadied her position for a moment, preparing to dart past the monster.
Okay, on the count of three . . . She thought to herself, readying herself to run as fast as she could.
One . . .
Two . . .
Three!!!
Her legs carried her forward as fast as they could possibly carry her. The monster had dove back out of the wall, now behind her. She continued to run, not wanting to look back at the frightful creature. As she dashed up the stairs, other monsters rushed out after her as well, failing their attempts to reach her.
Finally reaching the top, Katara panted heavily. She felt so relieved to be away from the wall men, her heart practically melting in her exasperation at the first monster for making her scream. She didn't want to attract any unwanted attention, especially from that man in the coat . . .
Katara made her way into the new hall, short enough that Katara could already see another set of stairs leading up to a higher level.
Taking a deep breath, she dared to venture up the steps. This time, there were no wall men.
Instead, Katara was welcomed by Cynthia's makeup items strewn in a messy pile on the dark gray concrete floor. Katara felt uneasy about entering the small room next to the items scattered on the floor.
It had a large glass window, and the waterbender could already see that it was smothered in bright red blood. Hesitantly walking up to the door, Katara removed a placard that had been placed on its surface, showing a woman and reading "Temptation."
The door creaked open, and Katara's heart sank at the person she saw lying motionless on the floor.
"C-Cynthia . . ." Katara gasped as she ran to her side, looking over what appeared to be multiple stab wounds on her body.
Raising Cynthia's head with her right hand as Katara sat next to her, a tear slid down her cheek as she saw the blood covered not only the woman, but the entire room as well.
"This . . . is just a dream . . .right?" she asked, struggling to speak through the blood taking over her mouth.
Katara nodded, looking down at the suffering woman she had tried to save, but failed.
"Did that man do this to you?" Katara asked in a quiet tone, Cynthia struggling to keep her eyes open.
" . . . I . . . I feel like I'm dying . . ." Cynthia muttered.
Taking Cynthia's hand with her free one, Katara assured her that she would wake up and this would all be over.
Katara struggled to hold back tears as Cynthia stopped breathing, her eyes remaining open.
The waterbender gently brushed a hand over her face, closing her eyes. Letting go of her head, Katara examined something that had been carved into Cynthia's chest.
"16121"
Cradling her face in her hands, Katara began to cry, feeling unimaginable guilt towards everything that had just happened . . .
Everything that wasn't ever meant to be.
You lie, silent there before me
Your tears, they mean nothing to me
The wind, howling at the window
The love you never gave
I give to you
Really don't deserve it
But now, there's nothing you can do
So sleep, in your only memory
Of me, my dearest mother
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry
Oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
So insignificant
Sleeping dormant deep inside of me
Are you hiding away, lost, under the sewers?
Maybe flying high, in the clouds
Perhaps you're happy without me
So many seeds have been sown in the field
And who could sprout up so blessedly if I had died
I would have never felt sad at all
You will not hear me say
"I'm sorry", where is the light
Wonder if it's weeping somewhere
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes.
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry
Oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry
Oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry
Oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you to cry
Oh well
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye
Goodbye