From that moment on, Rosten knew what he had to do. He had to somehow use the signs that Valtiel was giving him to bring forth the Holy Mother without the rest of The Order discovering his plan. He needed an accomplice to help him, but did not know who he could trust. His closest ally had been Claudia Wolf, but when she failed to manipulate Alessa Gillespie to be the mother of God, she was killed. Rosten did not believe that the only way to bring forth the Holy Mother was by incubating the foetus in one such girl. There were tales and depictions of the '21 holy sacraments' that could be used to bring forth the mother, but no Order member knew how to implement them. Valtiel was telling him who was important though. Was he the one to implement the sacrifice? The tattoo on his arm depicting the seal of Metatron burned when Sharon Blake was with him. It was telling him that she was important, and screaming the word 'Darkness' at him.

He made his way to the Wish House, Silent Hills orphanage. There was a sacrifice being held for the children there, and he was to oversee the event.

In the drab, dusty yard stood a tall man in black robes and a flat red hood. In his hands he held a short spear, and was pointing it at the sacrifice, a newborn baby born out of wedlock. The baby wailed in its crib, and was the only sound that rang out through the dry, acrid atmosphere. A circle of solemn looking children stood around the iron plinth on which the crib sat, the intense look of fear, curiosity and anticipation gleaming in their wide eyes.

Rosten entered the circle and donned his own hood. He glared at the executioner through his stunning blue eyes, bowing his head slightly. The executioner returned the bow and Rosten turned towards his infantile audience.

'Today you will witness the cleansing of an infantile spirit. This poor creature, born out of wedlock is a sin, and must be released from his inevitable torment. The Holy Mother says in the Crimson Tome: "…and should a new spirit be released into the earth through the false vagina, impurity and darkness shall consume the child, forever preventing it from ascending to the paradise that waits beyond the gate of life. Therefore, let it be that the child shall be cleansed by the mighty hand of Xuchilbara, for one moment of pain shall save the spirit from a lifetime of agony". Today we follow the teachings of the Holy Mother by releasing this poor soul back into the ether, but do not despair! The boys parents shall be punished for their blasphemy and cast into eternal purgatory,' he recited to the children.

'Why can't the Holy Mother comes and see us Mr. Rosten? Why can't she instruct us in creating paradise beyond the teachings of the Crimson Tome?' came the tiny voice of a young boy; brown haired and green eyed.

Rosten glared at him. 'How dare you interrupt this ceremony? Wait in your room until we have completed it, I will deal with you then!' he snarled mercilessly.

The young boy sullenly slumped off towards the Wish House, followed by twenty or thirty pairs of eyes.

'Pay attention!' screamed Rosten. The children jumped back round in fright and he continued. 'The child shall be helped on his journey to the other world by the blessing of the spear.'

The executioner held the spear out towards Rosten who in turn, sprinkled some droplets of pinkish water onto the blade. He uttered some comforting words of witchcraft and nodded to the robed figure.

'Oh Holy Mother, we offer this baby to you, and beg that you welcome him to your breast, despite his clear sin.'

In one swift movement the executioner turned around, raised the spear, and plunged it through the babies soft, supple chest cavity, a thin pillar of blood squirting in an upwards arc. It uttered a throaty gasp, squealed, and died.

The children watched the grisly ritual with a morbid curiosity that they felt ashamed of. Rosten wordlessly exited the circle and made his way to the Wish House. Entering the small kitchen he grabbed a grubby glass and filled it with water. He was feeling lethargic after the ritual, and downing the cool liquid seemed to still his squirming innards.

He entered the bedroom shard by all the orphans and there, sat on his bed was the young boy, Walter Sullivan.

'Why did you interrupt me Walter? You know what the price is for speaking when you've not been spoken to.'

Walter shrugged. 'I don't know Mr. Rosten. I want to know how to bring my mother back. The Holy Mother.'

Rosten raised a suspicious eyebrow. 'What do you mean your mother?'

Walter avoided the question. 'How come she is not here Mr. Rosten? Why hasn't paradise descended yet?'

Rosten sighed. 'There is a long and complicated procedure my son. She will be here one day.'

Walter gazed up at him with his big green eyes. 'I went to see her in Ashfield at the weekend. She talked to me.'

Rosten leaped to his feet. 'You left the Wish House? You left Silent Hill? There will be a price to pay young child!' he shouted. 'You know the rules! Why do you continually disobey? The Holy Mother will not be pleased by this defiance!' Rosten spluttered in rage and disbelief. Never had a child of The Order stepped so far out of line.

'Please sir! She said that you held the answers! She told me that we could set her free!'

Rosten was taken aback. How could this boy possibly know anything?

'She told me that… that I would be the conjuror…'

There was a great flash of light, and there sat Walter Sullivan, but as a fully grown man. Had he always been a fully grown man? Rosten was feeling shaken. He jumped to his feet and pointed a shaky finger at Walter.

'What is this heresy?' he trembled.

Walter smiled. 'She said you'd show me the way.'

'I do see how I can help!' Rosten shouted, unused to such bizarre circumstances.

Walter ran a hand through his shoulder length brown hair. 'I don't understand George! She said you'd know what I was to do?'

Rosten was very flustered, but then a thought hit him. Diving towards Walters's small bedside cabinet he ripped out the draw and emerged with a small, red, wrinkled book: a copy of the Crimson Tome.

'Yes, yes. I discovered something Walter. A dark secret from aeons ago… It will be hard to find… I must go back to my study. Look, I don't know what just happened, so I'll say this. I'm going to leave now, and at 8 o' clock tonight, you are going to come to my office. There is much to discuss. If you do not arrive, then I shall assume that the whole thing was some deranged dream of mine and dismiss it as a mental breakdown. Do you understand?'

Walter nodded vigorously. 'Yes. She said you'd show me the way, so I shall do anything to bring forth paradise.'

Rosten made for the door. 'Tonight then. Tonight…'

- - - - -

Philip awoke with a horrific headache. He somehow managed to stand up, and through severely blurred eyes, he could see that he was in a small, white walled room. Was it the same room that was behind the door? He turned round and gazed into the corridor which was just as rotted and diseased as before. Yes, he was in the same place. The inside of the room was just like the normal world, with no decay in sight, although it was a bit grubby. He shut the door and made his way over to the bed. A pristine white sheet covered what looked like a human body.

He picked a chart from the bedside cabinet and read the name aloud.

'George Rosten.' The same guy from his vision? Most definitely. Tentatively, he drew back the sheet, and was amazed to find that there was no corpse, no demonic nurse or the deformed evil monster version of George that he was half expecting, but a careful arrangement of rolled up towels that were laid out in a human shape. Lying on the chest of this decoy was a scrap of paper, although this time not red. It was a small, crumpled sheet of brown parchment that flaked when he touched it. Being very gentle he managed to turn it over and view the side that was written on.

It was covered in near microscopic writing in a foreign tongue that he did not understand. The title of the piece however, was written in bold, curling English. It read, 'The Lost Chapter', but that did not mean anything to him. He frowned and scratched his head. He wanted to take it with him, but knew it would be reduced to dust if he tried to pick it up again. He pulled the map from his back pocket and stabbed a hole through the room with the end of his knife.

'I really could use a pen at times like these…' he sighed.

- - - - -

Thump, Thump, Thump, Thump

Geoffrey found it increasingly difficult to keep up with Katie in the dark, twisted labyrinth. The thumping seemed to echo all around him, sapping the spirit from his bones and making him slow down, like he was running through water.

'Hurry up!' Katie screamed at him.

Geoffrey grimaced. 'I can't…'

He turned his head behind and saw the silhouette of the great executioner marching rhythmically only a few meters behind him. The pointed iron helmet gave it the appearance of an animated tower of church; a grotesque edifice of unseen evil energy that had been raised specifically to end them to their deaths. His eyes widened in fear, and the adrenalin produced gave him the energy to increase his speed, thus losing the Pyramid Head in the darkness from whence it came.

'How the hell do we get out of here?' Katie rasped, finding it difficult to speak as she ran.

'I don't know. How did you get in here?' Geoffrey asked. 'I came in through a tunnel that came out from the back of Foresbrook town hall.'

'I don't really know. I was chased by that horrible Pyramid Head thing, and I kind of just ran down here. From a subway,' she replied, once again with difficulty.

A sudden turn in the road led them into a street; a street with houses.

Geoffrey was confused. They stopped running and stood for a second in the comforting glow of a streetlamp.

'I thought we were underground? I ran down a long tunnel that sloped downwards. Why are we outside?' he mused.

'I don't know. Come on, we have to hide!' Katie protested, grabbing his arm and dragging him into the town.

By nothing but torchlight and the occasional island of orange streetlamp light they navigated the town; ducking through alleys, cutting through gardens, clambering over walls and rolling through hedges.

Chuckling to himself, Geoffrey grabbed Katie's shoulder just before she attempted to jump another wall. 'I think we've lost him', he smiled.

Katie returned the smile, but hers was weak and empty. 'What's happening here? Who are you?' she questioned, her eyes full of pain and fear. She clearly wasn't taking it as well as Geoffrey which was to be expected. He was a 30 something year old man with a gun in his right hand and years of experience in handling smashed up corpses. She was just a young woman with probably no experience in the real world at all.

'My name is Geoffrey Simmons, but you can call me Geoff. I don't know what's going on around here either. I came to Foresbrook with a friend of mine. We were on police business, looking for school bus that crashed in that area…'

'That was my bus!' she interrupted forcefully. 'Me and a friend managed to get out, and we went to Brookhaven Hospital with this guy called Philip to get some help for everybody else, but then it all went weird and I woke up in a subway tunnel…' she said, wiping her eyes and sniffling as she did so.

Poor girl. She'd clearly had a rougher time than he had. They seemed to be safe for the moment though.

'Well, we're in this together so you can trust me, OK?' Geoffrey soothed.

She nodded and got to her feet. 'We need to find somewhere to stay. I'm really tired.'

Geoffrey nodded, suppressing a yawn which seemed to be triggered when she mentioned sleep. Where was safe in this nightmare? He daren't sleep for fear of waking up in the process of being eaten.

'We'll find a place, and you can sleep whilst I keep watch,' he decided.

'OK. Aren't you tired?' she asked.

He scratched his head. 'Yeah, but you need sleep more than I do. I've only been awake for an hour or so, so I shouldn't really be tired at all. It must just be this, this nightmare place getting to me…'

'We should find somewhere. C'mon,' Katie hastened, dragging Geoffrey to his feet. She suddenly felt an awful biting pain thrust itself into her side. She shrieked in pain and collapsed onto the hard ground.

Geoffrey was concerned. 'What is it? Hat's wrong?'

She scrunched up her face in agony as Geoffrey helped her into a sitting position. 'On the bus… when it crashed… I hurt myself.'

'Is it bad?' Geoffrey asked. He was no doctor, but figured he should see how she felt before attempting to move her.

'I don't know,' she groaned. 'I think I've prob… probably, got a few cracked ribs or something… I'll be fine, just give me a minute…'

The effort of trying to help Geoffrey to his feet had put too much strain on the already damaged ribs, causing one of them to crack in a painful and awkward position.

Geoffrey let her support himself on him, and he gingerly held her up, not wanting to do more damage than what had already been done. Slowly they began to hobble back out into the street, the only sound cutting through the still air being Katie's frantic breathing.

'Let's get in here,' Geoffrey said, letting her go for a moment and trying a nearby door. 'Fuck! Is every door in this place locked?'

'Kick… it down!' Katie struggled to say, leaning against a streetlamp for support.

He stood back and kicked the lock with the bottom of his foot, hard. There was a splinter of wood and the door rattled in its frame. He stepped back and kicked again, blasting its rotten frame out of the doorjamb and into the darkness beyond.

'C'mon,' he said, taking her by the shoulders and leading her to the entrance.

They entered into a small dark foyer that smelled of what could only be described as death. They felt horribly vulnerable with no door, and thus decided to penetrate deeper into the building.

Down through the peeling, musty corridors they wordlessly stumbled. It was in this period of silence that the true effect of their situation seemed to hit home to Geoffrey. He struggled to keep himself from bursting into tears; as although he continued to pinch himself, he wasn't waking up. Katie was less affected for the most part, as concentrating on the pain in her side kept her mind clear of most other things. One thing did keep coming back to haunt her though; the Pyramid Head. What was it and what did it want? She sensed that there was some difference between it and the other monsters she'd seen skulking around. Was it in superiority, or did they both have different agendas?

'This room will do,' said Geoffrey, helping her through a sturdy oaken door and into a small, bare box room.

She sat down against the hard wall and sighed. It wasn't going to be a comfortable night.

- - - - -

Philip resumed his search of the hospital. He was more frantic than ever to find Rachel and his mother. He felt angry with himself for entering the room of George Rosten, and had a terrible feeling that his defiance of Rogers letter would somehow come back to bite him on the ass. Almost as expected though, the next room he came across, despite being a complete contradiction to the map, was room 163; the room of Jimmy Stone. Like Rostens, this seemed separate from the red and putrid chaos that infected the rest of the building, and he felt eager to experience the normality that would encase its four walls. He entered the room, but there was no flash of light, only a low, inhuman groan. The air seemed to vibrate around him and hideously painful migraine wormed its way into his brain. Crouched on the other side of the bed was a hunched, blackened figure that's mere presence seemed to warp the very air around it. It moaned again, and stood up to face Philip.

'He found it… the Lost Chapter…' came a strange ethereal voice that seemed to be implanted directly into his head, like the migraine was some kind of crude side effect of a telepathy that the figure had not yet entirely mastered.

Its empty grey eyes seemed to stare directly into his soul. They were somehow dead and emotionless, and yet full of passion and life. Philip was rooted to the spot by a combination of fear, and unearthly power. He had not, fortunately, lost the ability to speak.

'Are you Jimmy Stone?' he asked the translucent spectre.

Its hooded head bobbed slightly in agreement. 'I am what is left.'

Philip narrowed his eyes. 'What exactly are you? Are you a ghost? Can you… can you help me?'

The hooded figure took a step towards him. He'd noticed how it didn't seem to have any arms, and he wondered why that was so. 'I am what is left,' came the monotonous response.

Philip was getting concerned. The distance between him and Jimmy Stone was getting less and less, and yet he was still unable to move. Sweat broke from his brow. 'Please, what are you?'

'I am what is left.'

Philip became suddenly enraged. 'What the fuck are you?' he shouted.

The force of his outburst seemed to halt the ghost, but still, the answer was the same. 'I am what is left.'

Philip noticed as he neared that Jimmy Stone did indeed have arms, but they were somehow closely wrapped around his body. 'A straitjacket…' he murmured. 'Is there a mental institution or an asylum round her?'

The figure turned towards the bed, looked at it intently, and then…

…Philip seemed to awaken, and the ghost had gone. He could also move again and he generally felt chirpier and more alert, like the entire experience had been a dream. He knew that it hadn't been, and was wondering how he could have awoken from consciousness? He walked over to the bed and looked for whatever Stone had been looking for. The bed was freshly made and not creased in the slightest. Nobody had slept in it recently. There was a chart on the end of the bed, and that was the only pint of interest. He picked it up and read the neatly scrawled notes.

Name: James Stone

Injury: Fell down the stairs. He claimed that he was 'battling a demon' and that is what caused the fall. He said that he was not afraid of the demon because he had been waiting for it, but it was being 'controlled by the wrong person'. After this point he remained silent and cathartic for some many hours, despite constant questioning. Admitted to Silent Hill Asylum to be treated for schizophrenia.

Philip mused over the notes. So Jimmy was in an Asylum somewhere close. He felt that he urgently needed to speak with this man, but refused to leave the hospital without first finding his girlfriend and his mother. He did not quite know how, but time was running short.

Spurred on by newly released adrenalin, he ran aimlessly down the corridors in search of room 201. He knew he was on the right floor… He just knew it. The map said otherwise, but he'd learnt not to trust the map as it had lied to him on multiple occasions.

He turned another corner and was met by a small group of demonic nurses. The hissed at him and advanced creakily. He turned the other way, running back down the corridor he'd come from, but was blocked by yet more nurses. There was no way out of that section of corridor except the few rooms along either wall. He tried one of them; locked. He tried another; locked. A nurse slightly ahead of the rest clawed at him, and his response was to separate the head from her shoulders with a well aimed, adrenalin fuelled kick. He tried another room; jammed shut. Two nurses clutched at his clothes, and he felt hard, steely fingers dig deep into his arm. He felt the muscle rip under the skin and yelled in pain. He swung his knife round in reflex, hitting the nurse in the arm with such a force that it completely severed the hand. Kicking the other nurse away he stumbled and fell to his knees. He reached for the last door, knowing that he'd never have the chance to try another. He pulled the handle; it opened! Despite his throbbing arm he scrabbled to his feet, narrowly avoiding the swing of a lead pipe, and threw himself into the room, slamming the door behind him. Searching frantically he grabbed a battered chair, jamming it under the handle forcefully.

'Ph-ph-ilip?' croaked a weak and wispy voice. He turned around slowly, and there she was; Dahlia Snow. Philips mother. She was much frailer looking than he remembered, and was covered in plastic tubes, wires and small circular pads.

'Mom?' was the only word he could muster.

'Philip… Why- why is Ro-oger… Why is he… doing this? How?' she groaned, sparkling tears sliding down her cheek, changing course as the filled her wrinkles.

He ignored her. 'Where's Rachel Mom? Where has he taken her?'

Dahlia shook her head. 'Why son? Why?'

'Where has he taken her!' he yelled, thumping the edge of the bed in frustration.

'I do not know… he… your father… The Order… Wal… Walter… Sulli…'

He looked at her chart instinctively. On it was stuck a small shred of red paper. Unlike the previous notes, this was covered in a ghastly scrawl…

'Why did you not listen to me brother? Don't you respect me? I looked after that fucking alcoholic bastard for so long Philip! Our father; YOUR father! You owe me your respect dammit! Don't worry, you're going to pay! You're little girlfriend? I'm gonna fuck her up so bad! But I'll be reasonable and give you a chance to save her pretty white throat… The roof. Now!

Roger xxx'