The interior of the church was dark, and as Chris and Heather started to walk down the aisles, the floor creaked and shifted, the wooden slats disintegrating.
"Oh for fucks sake!" Heather swore, dropping her gun and grabbing for both Chris and a pew as the floor beneath her fell away. She missed Chris, but managed to grasp a tiny piece of floor that hadn't yet fallen to pieces, and her legs swung in the darkness beneath her.
"Shit, Cheryl! Okay, don't try and move, I'm going to inch my way over and try and grab you!" Chris holstered his gun, and that was what possibly saved Heather later on. He carefully slid over to her, the beams creaking and shifting around them, but as he reached down to grab her hand, the rest of the floor dissolved, sending them falling.
Heather didn't know how long they were down there before she woke up, but as Chris nudged her, yelling over her radio she realized she didn't care as she focused on the large bladed thing that was trundling towards them.
She let Chris help her up, only having to work her sword out of the gaps in the grating once, and they both turned and ran, or limped in Chris' case, away from the thing.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
Chris waited until they had turned a corner before replying. "Yeah, I think so. I think I landed on something, so my legs a little sore."
Heather shouldered open the only door she'd seen, which opened into what looked like a store room. It was empty of enemies, and Chris sat down on a table and pulled up his pant leg. Heather could see a bruise starting to show, and reached in her pack for a canister of cream that Rebecca had given her. "Here."
She tossed it to Chris, and started poking around as Chris spread some on his leg. The floor had become grating, a dry heat coming up from below, and the walls appeared to be melting. Thick globs of something red rolled down the wall, oozing through the grating and leaving behind the smell of burning flesh and rubber.
"It's the same thing here? It's like when we went into the amusement park and that psychiatric prison/hospital…" Chris passed Heather back the cream, pulled his pant leg down, and hopped off the table. "Where did we fall to, then?"
Heather looked around. "I think this was the basement, but who even knows if this building had a basement. Silent Hill likes to warp reality, obviously, so it could have created this space. I do know that we need to get back upstairs, Dahlia is likely to be by the altar."
"Right. What do you have for weapons now? I saw you drop your gun, and you still have that sword, but do you still have anything else?" Chris asked.
"No, just this and my taser." Heather said, adjusting her belt and checking the katana to double check that it was still there. "Douglas had a rifle, but he gave it to Jill and she took it back with her and Rebecca. Besides, I've taken a few classes, so I'm not just flailing around anymore."
Now that they were both ready, Heather opened the door and stepped out into the hallway. It looked mostly the same as the store room, but there were more monsters. One swung down off the ceiling as Heather stepped out and she dived out of the way.
Chris shot at it, but it moved bladed legs and blocked the shots, before screeching and rushing at him. Now he dived to the side, and Heather pulled out the sword and started to wail on the monster. She dodged the blades and was able to quickly and quietly dispatch the thing, finally able to skewer it's head on the end of the katana.
She used her foot to push the body off of her blade, and watched as it bubbled away.
"That's convenient." Chris noted. "Do these things have names?"
Heather gave him an odd look. "Uh, yeah. That there was Larry, we already ran into Phillip, and we're going to deal with John and Janice and their friends in a few minutes. No, these things don't have names!"
"No, I meant, do you have anything you call the monsters? The things me and my team have faced are called things like Lickers or Hunters. We use it for convenience, really. Plus, I think this is a Susan, not a Larry." Chris clarified.
Heather shook her head, holding in a cough. "No I…excuse me-" she turned away and started to cough, lough wet sounding ones, and a small fleck of bloods splattered in Heather's hand. She tried to hide it from Chris, trying to focus on the quiet hissing on her radio, but Chris noticed.
"Are you okay, Cheryl? Were you hurt?"
Heather waved him off. "No, it's just…it's nothing. Look, we should keep going before whatever it is that's making my radio hiss gets closer." Heather knew it wasn't nothing though. She's already cleansed that thing from her body once before in this town, but she knew it had regrown, and it was bigger and more powerful, invasive, than before. It felt like it did when she'd faced off against Claudia for the last time, in the other church. She would have to get rid of it, and soon.
'But not here. I have no idea how Chris would react to me barfing up a "god". Plus it's not safe.' The static noise was getting louder, and she hurried after Chris as he started to move. Peering around the corner, Heather and Chris could see two more of the bladed things.
"I'll take John if you want to take Janice." Chris said to Heather as he pulled out his knife.
"Sure, just don't get your head chopped off. I don't want to have to tell your sister or your girlfriend what happened." Chris sputtered as Heather moved towards the monster on the left, and started to attack it.
Chris recovered and dashed in with his knife, and when Heather pulled away from the dissolving body, she turned to see Chris land the finishing blow on his monster. "John didn't give you any trouble, then?"
Chris pulled out his knife and put it back in its sheath. "Didn't even know what hit 'em. Anyways, why did you say girlfriend?"
"Huh? Well, you and Jill seem pretty close; I just assumed you two were an item." Heather replied, taking the lead and walking back to where they'd fallen in the first place.
"Well, we are close, but we're not…uh…dating or anything. We're just friends! And colleagues! So…" Chris was getting flustered, and Heather's laugh turned into another cough, leaving Chris to take down another bladed monster while she crouched, trying to hide the blood that was coming out each time she coughed.
The threat gone, Chris bent and pulled Heather up. "Are you sure you're okay? You shouldn't be bleeding like that just from coughing."
"No, its…its hard to explain." Heather sighed, frustrated, and wiped her hands on her pants, leaving two streaks of blood. "It's because of the town. Lisa said that the longer I'm in this town, and the angrier I am, the faster it will grow, the 'God' thing."
"Oh, that's, uh, great. But you have that stuff, right? You can get rid of it?" The room they'd landed in first was wide and empty, showing nothing besides a series of paintings hanging on the walls. Heather looked at one behind Chris, and realized that they were the same as the ones she'd seen in the other church, the one with Claudia, but someone had crudely pained her face over the 'God's' mothers face.
"Yeah, I can. I just want to be somewhere safe and clean and away from Dahlia before I try and get rid of it. Last time, Claudia, well, she, uh, ate it and it tore her apart and started to grow, so I had to kill it. I'd rather nothing here decide to eat the thing." Heather replied, and Chris looked revolted.
"She ate it. Why would…" He shook his head. "Okay then, I don't really want to know, but if there isn't anything here anymore, I think we should head back the other way. We're bound to find stairs somewhere."
"Of course, saying that means that there's a possibility of us falling another story." Heather said, before moving closer to the wall.
More monsters appeared between Heather, Chris, and the stairs, but they were able to either kill or maneuver past them. Approaching a door, Heather could see a small indentation and a note.
"Oh for fucks sake, another puzzle? I am so sick and tired of puzzles now." Heather groaned as Chris read it out loud.
"'Bring the first tooth of the God born of the false mother and pass into the light'." He looked at Heather. "Do you know what that means?"
She nodded. "Yeah. We have to go back to where we fell. There were paintings there, most of them with my face added on top. I bet there's one there that hasn't been altered."
The both trudged back, annoyed by the backtracking and taking it out on the things that appeared between them and their destination.
Back in the big room, they found themselves with three choices. Or, rather, Chris found himself contemplating three choices and Heather already knew the solution.
"That one there." She pointed to a painting with a photograph of Claudia pasted on top.
"Are you sure, what about these other two?" Chris asked, gesturing to a painting of Alessa, and to one with a crayon drawing labeled 'Cheryl' pinned to it.
"No, those ones are right. That one there is Alessa, and that is Cheryl, the old Cheryl, so they'd count as the 'True Mother'. That's Claudia, in that picture, so I know for sure she's the false one." Heather said, before moving forward and examining Claudia picture. There was…something in the portraits arms, and Chris pried something out of the picture, where Heather assumed the things mouth would be.
Now holding a sliver of bone, they walked back to the puzzle door, Heather shuddering in pain as the thing inside her started to wiggle. 'Being in this church, so close to Dahlia, must be making it more active, making it grow faster.' She thought, placing her hand on her stomach and breathing through her mouth.
Heather let Chris deal with most of what came their way, as she was feeling sluggish and slow, before they stopped in front of the puzzle door. Heather leant against the wall as Chris inserted the sliver of tooth, despite the risk of getting whatever was on the walls on her clothing, and tried to catch her breath.
The door opened, and Chris turned to her. "Cheryl, are you sure you're okay? You can go back to that one empty room, and I'll go ahead. Then you can deal with your…thing." He offered, but Heather shook her head. It was too risky, splitting so they were both alone. Not to mention she had no idea what would happen if Chris did take out Dahlia, what would happen to the rooms down below.
"I'll come with you. It would be better if we stuck together in this place, in case something happens." She said, and Chris nodded and started up the stairs. As Heather followed, the door behind them slammed, and a disturbing grinding noise started up, making the both of them move up the stairs a little faster.
Chris flung open the door at the top of the stairs and stepped out, training his gun on an old woman who was standing beside an altar. Heather moved away from the stairs, standing just in front of Chris, coughing and glaring at Dahlia.
"Oh Alessa! Have you come to see your mother?" the old woman, Dahlia, asked, leaning against the altar, hiding something in her hands.
"I'm not Alessa, not anymore." Heather replied, narrowing her eyes and placing her hand on the hilt of the sword. Her body shuttered again, and Heather winced. Now she knew that she couldn't wait until they reached another place to use the Aglaophotis, and she stepped backwards.
"Chris, keep an eye on Dahlia. I need to-" Again Heather started to cough, one hand on her mouth and another scrambling for the crystalized liquid. She could care less for what Dahlia had hidden, she was more worried about the thing inside of her coming alive and destroying everything.
"Cheryl! What the hell is wrong?" Chris said, glancing at her while she crouched, her racking coughs forcing her down.
Heather grabbed a piece of Aglaophotis and swallowed it, before starting to cough and heave, feeling something large and slimy and painful moving up her esophagus. Partway up, it seemed to get stuck, and Heather found herself getting dizzy, and she reached into her mouth, able to reach and grab something pulsating and rubbery. The lack of air from the 'God' in her throat, the urge to just swallow it back down, and the pain in her head made her much more weak and determined, and she ignored whatever Chris was shouting, focused on removing the 'God' thing.
Finally, Heather spat it up, a large lumpy thing around the size of her forearm, and she sat on the ground, panting, before grabbing her sword out and stabbing into it. Blood and other fluids oozed out of the wound, and Heather forced herself to stand, before bringing her foot down on it, causing it to rupture. Lumps of something splashed out, and both Chris and Heather now had god guts adorning their shoes.
"Cheryl, look out!" Heather finally paid attention to what Chris was shouting, and she looked up to see Dahlia throw something, the Flauros her mind helpfully provided, into the air. It started to glow, and before Heather could do anything, a light hit her and everything started to hurt.
Chris watched, horrified, as Heather fell to the ground, convulsing as Dahlia cackled. She paid no attention to him as he raised his gun, instead raising her arms to the roof, screaming out the name of some blasphemous god, before he shot.
The old woman fell, and Chris moved forwards, suddenly overwhelmingly angry with her. He shot her body again and again, until his gun clicked empty and he realized what he was doing. Shaking himself from the feeling, he knelt by Heather, who had stilled, but was still unconscious. As he picked her up, the church started to crumble, and he pushed his way out of the room, shouldering the door open.
Chris could hear the roof falling in, and started to move at a much faster pace. He emerged into the street, but it was so dark he could barely see. He took a moment to adjust his flashlight before running onto the street from the church steps as it fell behind him.
He turned to look back at it, the rubble pile large and menacing, before Heather's radio started to crackle and he started to run. As he moved, the town began to change even more. After every step he took, the asphalt rose, becoming ash and revealing grating, heat coming up from below, matching how the church had changed.
"Cheryl, Cheryl, can you hear me?" He jostled the woman, but she made no noise and he had no choice but to keep running. Things were crawling out of the wood-works, getting closer and closer to him as he maneuvered around sudden potholes and debris that was littering the ground. Chris had no idea where he was going, he only knew that he needed to find shelter for him and Cheryl, and fast.
Monsters started moving behind him, pushing him away from side streets and swiping at his feet as he ran, shifting Heather so she was easier to carry, before reaching a break in the ground. Without even thinking, he threw Heather over before jumping himself.
He checked to see if the toss had injured Heather, cursing himself for thinking throwing her was a good option, but didn't seem to find any new injuries. He grabbed her up again, and started dodging larger monsters. Chased around a corner, Chris found himself at the edge of a black hole, ground on the other side too far away to safely throw Heather or to jump. He turned to go back, to find another way, when something large stepped out of the darkness and started to move towards him.
Chris looked at the menacing thing that was advancing. He set Cheryl on the ground in front of him, and drew his weapon. He aimed at the thing and started to shoot, but his bullets seemed to just bounce off of it. And to make things worse, he could see smaller enemies making their way towards him as well. As his gun clicked, empty, he lowered it, staring at the thing as it moved closer, and reached for a clip to reload. But before he could bring his gun up again, it had raised its arm, and swung.
Chris cringed, waiting for the pain, and death that would come as it knocked them over into the dark pit he was standing in front of, into god know what below.
A/N: UHG I feel like this chapter is too short too :C But I'm not too sure what to change or add to make it longer. Sorry!
I'm sure the confrontation with Dahlia seems weak, but I never saw her as a big fighter, as she's more prone to getting others to do her work for her. Idk.
Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! And thank you for readying~ U3U
(And I'm sorry...I just...uhg, I don't know what to do to flesh this out, so instead I'm going to just try and work on making the final chapter [yes, the final chapter] better than this one.)