A/N - Rewritten for your pleasure.
I jumped to my feet. Him again! And I'd thought he was finished with, the damn bastard! I drew my gun from my belt and waved it at him. "You get the hell away from us!" I yelled, "I shot you once and I'll shoot you again!"
He raised his eyebrows in amusement. "And you think it'll work this time?" He smirked. "You're very wrong. You shoulda killed me with those shots, but here I am." He spread his arms, then flapped a dismissive hand at me, "You're nothing to worry about, and shooting you would be a waste of ammo. But I see you won't give up chasing the mother of the god, and you keep turning up with the girls, so I guess..." He turned with a sigh and strode up the aisle to the altar, where the girls had been watching our reunion with bated breath. He moved around the altar, keeping it between him and the girls. That's still weird, even thinking about it now...
He got to the altar and stood where the blonde priestess, Claudia, had stood. He held up the book of rituals. With his back to the god in the glass window, he raised it up to the air, muttering something. If that was weird, though, what he did next was just… I don't even know how to say it. He took a long black object out from his coat, and cut his forearms open with it. Holding his hands over the book, he let the blood drop onto the old yellowing paper, eyes closed, his lips moving in spell or prayer or... something else. The air above the book shimmered like above a fire and I could hear a faint crackling.
He opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and plunged his hands into the book. Flames ripped up suddenly from the open pages, raced up the Dark Man's arms and overtook him. Angela started forward to try to get to him, to help him or something, I guess... Kate was faster, though, and yanked her back, struggling, out of the reach of the searing fire. The Dark Man paid neither of them any attention, though; he just kept staring into space and muttering under his breath, swaying slightly, but not falling.
How he stood there, I just don't know, but he somehow stayed standing, eyes wide open, teeth gritted, a blazing column of fire and darkness. His skin turned red with the burns and began to crack and bleed. Just as I was sure he was finished, the sirens sounded again. My vision blurred, and as I lost sight of things, I saw the Dark Man fall forwards onto the altar. But he also fell through the altar. I should have cared more about that, maybe, but I wasn't there anymore. I was falling, floating, and nothing mattered.
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I fell through darkness, and landed hard on my feet, in a row of ugly wooden pews. I was in another chapel, but this one was darker, the air was thicker. Once again, I wasn't alone. Across the aisle, I could see Kate and Angela. But more importantly, between us, in the aisle itself, were Claudia and Alessa. The three of us stood in our places, watching the blondes, the woman and the girl, arguing again. Over a dead body? Alessa stepped forward, shocked.
"What did you do?" she gasped. The guy on the ground musta been someone important to her. Poor bastard.
The priestess was calm, dismissive "Oh, nothing important." The dagger in her hand said it all. She'd just killed this guy, and it was 'nothing important'.
I approached the railings separating the pews from the aisle and leant forward to watch more closely, but couldn't lean out beyond the pew tops. Somehow I just felt pressed back, restrained from going out further. So I stayed where I was. I could hear and see ok anyway. I guess, after all I'd seen so far, a dead body shouldn't have bothered me, but somehow the careless way he'd just been dismissed got to me.
Alessa spoke slowly, "You're not going to run? ...I guess this is the end."
"No, the beginning," said Claudia, "As Vincent said: The time has come."
A pause. "Alessa, I'm saddened that you didn't agree to this on your own. But I thank you for nurturing God with all the hate in your heart. It's time for Mankind to be released from the shackles of sin that bind them."
Shackles of sin? The chick was nuts.
Alessa was desperate now, pleading for sense. "But a God born from hate can never create a perfect paradise!"
"Happy people can be so cruel," sneered the woman in black. "Is it so hard to believe that sympathy could be born from pain and suffering?
"Why do you reject God's mercy?" she asked angrily, "Why do you cling to this corrupt world? You know that only God can save us."
Alessa sneered. "And save you too? Happy ending? I'd rather go to Hell."
"No. I don't expect to be saved," said Claudia slowly. "That's fine.
"Alessa, my dearest... For the pain I've caused you, I deserve no mercy. Even if it was to save mankind, it was too deep a sin. It was hubris for me to try to hasten the day of Her arrival. Sacrifices were made, and those are my sins."
The body on the ground gasped, struggling to lift his head. "If you feel so guilty about it, why don't you go to Hell!" He spoke to the girl in front of him, "Heather, use the seal!"
"Vincent?" said Claudia, surprised. I couldn't blame her. I mean, to figure yourself all high and mighty and then to have your dead enemy still live? That's gotta suck.
The girl reached into her jacket pocket and brought out a white disc with a red seal drawn on it. The priestess recognized it in an instant. "The Seal of Metatron!"
"Now your stupid dream is over!" spat the man on the ground.
"Ohhh, that's just a piece of junk," Claudia sighed. "What do you think you can do with that? Do you really think it can kill God? I'm sorry to see you fell for my father's foolishness." She walked around to his side.
"What?" gasped Vincent.
"You're pathetic," she mocked.
She lunged down suddenly, plunging the dagger into his heart. She stood up again, hands together prayerfully. "But God loves even you." She turned to the girl, Heather or Alessa, the kid didn't stand a chance. "Now Alessa, there's nowhere else to run."
The blonde girl swayed and staggered with pain. Her skin turned blotchy red, she seemed to blur somehow and screamed out, bent over with pain and clutching at her belly. She collapsed to the floor, bloody blotches crawling and mingling over her body.
"Just accept it, Alessa," said that bitch of a priestess. I tried to run out from the pews to help the kid, but couldn't get past the railings. That force pressed me back again, whatever it was. Across the aisle, I could see Angela hide her face in her hands. Kate yelled out, but I couldn't hear her. She hit out at the air, as though thumping some invisible barrier. Guess we were both stuck.
"The pain will disappear," said Claudia smugly.
"Oh, I've been waiting so long for this." Joyous now, she smiled. "Even as a child I saw the coming of this day. I knew that I would be a witness to it, Judgment Day!" She watched the kid's agonies in delight but...
Suddenly things weren't going her way no more. The girl's skin turned back to its real ivory white color. The priestess gaped. "Alessa?"
Alessa stood up, furious. "Shut your stinking mouth, bitch!"
She swayed, put her hand to her heart to steady herself, and drew out a pendant from inside her top. She opened the pendant and looked at something small and red inside.
"What are you doing?" asked Claudia.
The girl ignored her, turning the red tablet over in her hand "Dad..." she murmured. She screwed up her courage and swallowed the tablet. Immediately her skin turned red again and she fell to the ground. She started to retch, and Claudia looked pleased. I was just confused as hell. I mean, I knew some girls at the schools I'd taught at had made themselves throw up to 'keep in shape', but there's a time and a place, ya know? Plus which, I've never seen a girl less in need of a diet. Except maybe Katie... Anyway, back to Claudia in the chapel...
"She's nearly here," she smiled. The smile turned to a frown as she realized something was still wrong. "What is it? Alessa, what have you done? What did you swallow?"
Alessa ignored her and retched harder. With a liquid cough, she spat out a... thing. A bloody fetal creature fell from her mouth onto the cold floor. She got to her feet and staggered back a few steps as the thing on the ground twitched obscenely. I felt the bile rise in back of my own throat, such things as that... I just... I dreamt about it, ya know. That horrible bloody heat of the thing. I could feel it even from that distance. Or maybe that was just my mind. This place is enough to crack anyone's nut. Alessa, though, took it in her stride.
"Looks like God didn't make it," she sneered. Shakily, she walked back up to the thing on the floor, and raised a boot to stomp it.
"Stop!" Claudia cried out.
She rushed forward, faster than Alessa could walk. She pushed the girl back and scrabbled on the ground for the worm, holding it up in her hands "God is...!"
Alessa was shocked. "Claudia!" she gasped. Claudia tipped the fat, bloody worm into her mouth and began swallowing it. Alessa covered her eyes in disgust. I woulda done the same, but had to watch in morbid fascination as the crazy bitch's throat pulsed with the slimy worm's squirming progress over her teeth, along her tongue, and into the dark recesses of her throat. She gulped, and the thing was swallowed. I could just imagine it working its way down into her, making itself nice and comfortable. And ready.
"Alessa," said Cl/audia, getting back to her feet, "you cannot kill God." Her skin started turning red like the girl's did. "I will... I will birth God..." she groaned. "If you can't do it Alessa...
"...I will..."
She stumbled to the head of the room, towards a big oblong hole in the floor. Where an altar, a holy place, would be in any normal church. But here... an unholy of unholies, maybe?
"Claudia!" cried Alessa. "Claudia!"
But Claudia was too far gone to hear. She reached the oblong hole and stood uncertainly, facing the painting beyong. She swayed and, just as she was beginning to fall, something reached up out of it and dragged her down. Some huge monster, but it moved too fast for me to see anything. I just got the sudden impression of something all arms and grabbing and clasping, fetid love, and then it was gone, taking the priestess with it. The hole was ripped open now, a neat oblong gap mauled and gaping. The girl wasted no time, but grabbed her pistol from her pocket, checked the load, and jumped down.
Finally able to move beyond the railing. I approached the hole myself and saw Angela and Kate doing the same. We were all too fixed on what would happen next to even wonder how we'd gotten here together. Not that we didn't already know. That damn man in black. I leant over to look down and Kate leant beside me. A hand landed on my shoulder and jerked me back, but hard. Kate got the same rough treatment. We landed flat on our asses and watched as that familiar black shroud approached the hole and knelt at the edge. Alessa's voice rose up from the darkness beneath.
"You can't be dead! I was going to kill you!"
A pause, then:
"This is God...?"
An unearthly gurgling scream, and the sound of gunfire. Alessa was in trouble, and only with that damn handgun! Me and Kate started scrambling to our feet, wanting to help the girl, but the Dark Man threw a hand up in a 'stop' gesture, and we were both knocked off our feet. Knocked off, I tell ya, like he'd just floored us with a two-by-four, though there was three feet open space between us.
"This is her fight," he said, not turning, "Whatever happens, it's gotta be her that does it." He leaned forward and watched the battle happening below. We approached again, but slowly, and with no intention to jump down. Getting knocked back that hard makes ya sore.
It didn't take long. All the hate in the kid's heart may have nurtured the 'god' in front of her, but that was nothing compared to the hatred she directed at destroying the thing, and soon it was clear that none of the fire tricks it threw at her would help it. When she got in close to beat at it with a sharp Japanese sword, it flailed at her wildly and too late. Soon it just fell to the floor, and didn't get up when she came in for the final strike. She kicked at it viciously. The kinda fury that drops a TV on a dead man's head just to prove a point, when everyone knows he's already dead. Go ahead, kid, I thought, Kill it just as dead as you like, though it'll be years before it stops killing you in your dreams. But here and now, kill it. Finally satisfied, she turned, her pocket flashlight highlighting the ring of razor-sharp spikes that had kept her in the arena with the god that failed.
"Is this the end?" she asked the air, lost and bewildered.
"I guess it's time to roll the credits." Her voice cracked slightly and she began to sniffle. "Daad..." she wept. She collapsed to the ground and sobbed. The man in black nodded to himself and watched her. After a while, she finished crying, and forced herself to get up. As she began to walk away from the corpse, the Dark Man fell forward, grabbing us on the way down. We fell with him to the chamber below, and landed heavily on the corpse of the god. Of course, he landed on his feet, and caught Angela as she fell, before setting her down on the ground, too.
Alessa stopped in her walking and turned suddenly, surprised. Muzzily I wondered how she could now see us when we'd been invisible all this time.
She couldn't, apparently, she just cocked her head, listening, and then I heard it too, a whisper just about audible. The air in front of her shimmered and she frowned, readying the handgun again as the shape in front of her got more visible, but not more solid. A ghost of some kind, I guessed. Kill a demon 'god' and just when you think you're safe, a damn ghost. But she didn't seem scared. Not that she would, I guess, but her face broke into sunshine as she recognized the tall, dark-haired figure in front of her.
She stood still, stunned. "Dad! I thought you were..."
The shade in front of her nodded. "I am. But He let me say a last goodbye first. A last favor, maybe, for helping out."
"He?" she asked, confused.
"Metatron, the one Dahlia talked about back then. But nevermind about that now. Heather, my little girl…Or Cheryl, to give you your real name."
The ghost stepped forward, tried to stroke her hair, and shook its head gently (and sadly, I thought. But how much can you tell from a ghost?) when its hand went right through her.
"You always were my little Cheryl, you know that? Not a replacement, not the original, just... my little girl, always loved as though you were my own. Then, and now, and always."
She smiled, a tear leaking down her cheek. "I always was, even when we ran from that bad man, and changed my hair, my name, everything about us. I still remember it. Just about.
The name you gave me first was the one I kept in my heart, because you gave it to me." Her face screwed up with the effort of not crying, though the tears were flowing out freely now.
"I wanted you to know," said the dead man, "how proud you made me. How much I've always loved you. Even when I feared you were a demon I couldn't believe it completely. You were always so precious, so when you were given to me, I gave you the name of my first daughter. To keep her alive in you, and you alive in me." He began to fade. "I don't have much time left, Cheryl. Promise me you'll remember this. Remember me. Remember that I love you. Always have, always will." His voice sounded more urgent now, with their time coming to a close.
"I'll remember," she choked through her tears. "Dad, stay! You told me you were the strongest man in the world! Don't leave me! Who will... who'll I go to? Who'll look after me now?" She was openly crying now.
He shook his head slowly, and I could almost see the smile on his face. "I was, Cheryl," he said, "for as long as I had you, I was the strongest man in the world. I came through Silent Hill and back to find you, and I kept you safe. When she came to find out about you, I wouldn't tell her anything, even when she was killing me."
"Dad!" she wept, as he faded further, "Stay! Please! I need you, Daddy!"
"Goodbye, Cheryl." His voice, calm and sad, hung in the air, his image almost gone. "We'll meet again some time…
"…I'll be watching over you, make me proud."
"Watching over me?" she sniffled, "So you'll be there?" But he had faded completely. "Dad? Dad? What do you mean? How can you leave me? Dad!"
Silence was the only reply. Slowly, accepting the silence, she turned to leave, still sniffling. She caught sight of the god at our feet. Not of our feet, though. Just as well, she wouldn't have wanted us butting in on that, and I wouldn't have wanted to. Not for anything.
"You did this." she hissed at the dead monstrosity. "You and your damned monsters! Just you hope they don't try anything again to bring you back! I'll find whole new ways to make you suffer for what you've done to us."
She spat at it, and threw her handgun down onto the floor. "So much for you. I was right, you weren't much of a god to be killed by a human."
She straightened up, took a deep breath to calm herself. "I guess I don't need all this anymore." From somewhere on her she took a shotgun, an Uzi, the Jap sword, and threw them down with the handgun. "You'll rot and ruin, and they'll just rust."
She fingered a taser thoughtfully. "I'll keep these though," she said to herself, "my own things. The stungun Dad gave me, and the knife that I got to feel tough." She smiled, and laughed a little. At herself or the world around her, I couldn't tell.
"Feel tough, eh? Yeah, after all this, I don't think I need to worry about all that anymore. Lipstick and pretty smiles and feeling tough. I know who I am now. Who we are, and that'll do just fine."
With that, she turned on her heel, jumped lightly up onto the spikes, disappeared into the shadows, walking out and back into her own life. Whatever that might be. Whatever she chose to make it.
We stood in the darkness, with the dead god under our feet, the heap of used weapons in front of us.
We stood in the darkness, and waited for someone to speak.
A/N - Major Major Major thanks to Gaia Faye for her exhaustive beta-reading of the original draft. This is the final draft, now, though. Period. :-)