Disclaimer: See Chapter 1
A/N: Writing this chapter was a nightmare, but revising it was hell. I have had serious issues with characterization and describing the action, amongst other smaller issues. And over all, I'm still not all that happy with it. Please R&R, if it suits you.
Chapter 9: Hymns of the Otherworld
"You son of a bitch," said Sam, his voice tired and resigned.
"To be fair, Sam," said the Devil, that smug grin still painted on, "I believe that you're the son of the bitch between the two of us. Considering all that you learned about your birth, you should see the logic in that."
Sam ignored the slight against his mother, not having much sympathy for her at the moment. "Why are y…" He paused, trying to find the words he needed for this conversation. "I have no idea what to say to you, right now."
"Oh Sammy, just looking at you, the way you're carrying yourself, like some sort of warrior. Man did you get that good old-fashioned Silent Hill treatment." The Devil let out a laugh, before saying, "Isn't this place wonderful? A bit melodramatic at times, I admit, but it has a certain charm to it, don't you think?"
"Fuck you," said Sam, drawing out the words and putting as much hate as he could into them.
"Sammy," said the Devil, "that's not nice. That doesn't sound like you at all. You seem a little tense." He stopped for a second to think. "I know, there's this place over in Brahams where you can get a great burger. I'm telling you, it's the size of your head, and the waitresses there…well, you get my drift. Come on, my treat." The look on the Devil's face was so plaintive and honest that he almost let himself get tricked by it
"You're unbelievable, you know that? I get put through the fuckin' meat grinder and all you can talk about is getting a burger!?" Sam yelled, frothing mad.
"No burger?" asked the Devil, sounding disappointed. "I guess you just want to get down to business. Well, I don't know what to tell you, Sammy."
"How about you start with the fact that I was a triplet and we can just go from there?" Sam was already getting sick of his presence.
"It's really quite simple. I wanted you to be born somewhere special, somewhere you could get a good start. The demon Samael had a plan to take form on Earth; he was worshipped as a god by this cult, a bunch of morons that thought they were creating Heaven. The cult was responsible for making his vessel, the body he would take, and they arranged it so that a child would be used as the vessel."
"Alessa," said Sam.
"Exactly. So, they had their messiah, but Sammy –the other Sammy –wanted a back up. Demon are generally big on paranoia, so it makes sense. That's where I stepped in and made a deal with him. I would have you born here and he would get the excess."
Sam interrupted here, saying, "excess? You mean Brandon."
"Yes, Brandon," the Devil smiled saying that name. "It was a great deal, because he can actually negotiate. I guess it probably helps when you don't have a soul to begin with, though. Well, as you can tell, everything went alright and we got what we wanted from it. Now, do you want to get that burger, knock back a few beers?"
"I want to know about Charlie. How did he figure into things? Dr. Kaufman told me that you had no clue that we were triplets."
The Devil's expression darkened considerably at the mention of Charlie. "I don't want to talk about that thing. But, I will say that it is no longer an issue, thanks to Brandon."
"What about Brandon?" asked Sam, a cold feeling lodged in his gut.
"That little scamp, upon learning about Charlie, took care of him quite nicely. But he is a growing boy, after all."
"W,what?" asked Sam, his heart breaking at hearing this.
"Oh yeah, I don't want to get into the details, but it was quite an imaginative display. The sort of thing that, if anyone had witnessed it, they would have been driven quite mad."
"You're lying!" shouted Sam, unbelievably devastated by what was said. Tears were brimming around his eyes, threatening to fall.
"Perhaps, but you just don't know, now do you? Regardless, I refuse to discuss this any further, Sam. Now, what about that burger?" said the Devil, staring intensely at him.
"You can take your Godamned burger and shove it up your fuckin' ass!" Sam screamed, the urge to use his new pickaxe almost overwhelming. He was furious over everything that the Devil had just told him and he couldn't control his breathing. This was something he had forgotten about talking to Satan in the time he had off, his ability to completely get under your skin. The worst part of it was that he knew that there was really nothing he could in direct retaliation to the demon, nothing of any effect. "I do not want to go anywhere with you; I want to find my family, the family you took away from me!"
"I took from you? Sam, I didn't take anything from you. You belong to me and, therefore, have no possessions of your own. I've let you go on thinking that you have some liberties up till now, because I thought things would go easier if you didn't grasp the truth entirely. But at the bottom of it, you have nothing and you are nothing."
"So that's it then, huh? I'm just a thing on your shelf; what else is new?"
"Let's move on, shall we? Seeing as you don't want to go have a burger, will you at least have a cigarette with me?" At this, the Devil produced a pack of Marlboros from his pocket and a fancy golden lighter.
"I don't smoke," said Sam, a little confused by the non-sequitor.
"Sammy, until recent events, you never dry-humped a faceless nurse wielding a lead pipe, while you were in the throes of pure madness, either. It seems like a time of experimentation for you." Satan said this while pulling out a couple smokes and holding one out to Sam.
After a few seconds of internal debate, Sam eventually caved and took the offered cigarette. He placed it between his lips and leaned over when the Devil held up the lighter to light the smoke. It was harsh and awful, forcing a deep cough that made his ribs flare in pain. But the feeling of it in his lungs for that brief moment was wonderful.
"Careful there, Champ. Gotta be careful with your injuries, right?" Satan took a puff of his own smoke, exhaling it slowly. The smoke made intricate swirls in the air, before disappearing into the fog.
"What about Alessa?" asked Sam suddenly, smoke trailing out his mouth as he said this.
"What about her?"
"Well, how does she figure into it all? She led me to believe that she wanted me here for a purpose, but given what you just told me, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense." Sam took another drag of his smoke, finding himself actually enjoying it.
"Sometimes, I forget how dim you can be Sammy. Little Alessa merely took advantage of an opportunity presented to her, when you came rolling into town. Try not to read too much into her actions, she's a child and doesn't want be bullied anymore. You remember what it was like, don't you Sammy? Remember when, what's his name –Brian Sandusky –used to pick on you in middle school?"
"Yeah, he would glue my locker door shut and sneak stink bombs in my lunches," said Sam, uncomfortable with this trip down memory lane.
"Well, think back to how you felt back then. What would you have done to get him to stop?" asked the Devil, obviously leading him somewhere on this.
"Anything," admitted Sam, releasing a sigh.
"Exactly. She wants you to play Big Brother Sam and get him to stop, perhaps even get rid of him for her. Alessa is using you, like a tool, to solve her own problems. You don't owe her anything, Sammy, just ignore her."
"I can't ignore this, not when it involves my own flesh and blood. Look, I came for answers, answers that I couldn't trust to get from you. But, the truth is, there's a price for those answers and I've gotta pay that price." Sam took another long drag from his cigarette, letting the smoke sit in his lungs for a few seconds before exhaling.
"Sam, he's your brother and you feel some sort of responsibility to him, I get that. But, honestly, you don't owe him anything either. I urge you to think about this: do you really want to go in there and face him? You might not like what you find." The Devil had a look of concern on his face.
"It doesn't matter; I have to go in there. I have to finish this," said Sam, dropping the cigarette to the ground, before stamping it out with the heel of his shoe.
He walked back to the front door, opened it, and stepped inside the orphanage. Sam neither saw the grin that appeared on the Devil's face, nor heard him whisper the words: "that's my boy."
Inside, he found himself in a large foyer, a grand staircase curving up to the second floor. Sam noticed how dreary everything looked in here and was glad that he never had to grow up in this place. It brought his thoughts to Charlie and he wondered what it was about him that got the Devil all riled up. What did he signify, that Satan was taken by surprise by his existence? He couldn't make a single connection that would explain any of it. For the time being, it was a mystery he was unable to solve and decided to let it go.
He started wandering around the place, not bothering to pay attention to his surroundings. The first floor was made up largely of a massive kitchen and some offices. Sam found nothing of interest, except for one thing; in their records office, he found no files or anything whatsoever on Charlie. Maybe, his name was changed, he thought, trying to wrap his mind around what that could mean. Seeing nothing more for him down here, he moved on upstairs.
The second story consisted of four large dorm rooms and a communal bath. Each dorm had ten bunk beds, with five in a row along both walls. Sam inspected every single area, hoping to find something that would indicate where Charlie slept. The first dorm was a bust, nothing showing that any of the kids who had lived here were even allowed to personalize their space. He searched through the remaining three, coming up with nothing. He was a little frustrated that he didn't have anything to show for his investigation.
A look at the third floor proved a little more fruitful. There were two more dorm rooms up here, both smaller than the dorms downstairs. Six bunks filled each room, their beddings perfectly made. It was as if no one had ever really lived in these dorms, that they had remained empty over the years. Dust coated everything in a fine film, motes of it wafting lazily through the air. The first room was searched and discounted as unhelpful, leading him to the other room. In here, he found little difference from the last, his hopes sinking to rock bottom. Was he missing something? Was there a room he didn't search, or a portion of one he overlooked? Sam inspected the bunks and finally found something of interest.
On the underside of the top bunk of one of the beds, words were carved into the wood. They were written almost like a journal, a series of small snippets with corresponding dates. They stated:
4/09/94 – First day here. Everyone is mean to me and I want to go home. Why did mommy leave me?
4/11/94 – That mean lady who cleans the rooms told me that mommy hated me and I was evil. I tried not to cry, but it was so hard.
4/29/94 – Joey told me about that kid Charlie, who lives downstairs. I knew we always looked like each other, but us brothers? I don't know about that.
5/11/94 – That little witch, Alessa, told me we were special. I told her that I hated her and she was stupid. Talked to Charlie and I hate him. Everyone here likes him, but I think he's stupid.
9/07/94 – I just got let out of the hole. I don't care about Charlie and I'm glad he's gone.
Sam let out a breath, his nerves keeping him on edge. Brandon stayed here, as well, it seemed. It was hard to figure out what had happened from what little information there was written. He surmised that Brandon was dropped off at the orphanage when he was about seven by whoever was supposed to be taking care of him. Apparently, at some point Brandon did something to Charlie that got him punished. That last entry mentioned something called 'the hole.' It must've been used for discipline, but what was it? Perhaps more importantly, where was it? Thinking it over, he concluded that it had to be located in the basement.
He recalled briefly spotting a narrow door at one end of the kitchen. At the time, he figured it to be a closet or a pantry and passed it by. Heading back downstairs, he reached the first floor and went straight to the kitchen. The door did indeed open up to a flight of stairs leading down. Taking them slowly, he turned on his flashlight again.
At the bottom was another door, which opened out into a medium-sized room. Boxes and old furniture were packed everywhere, filling the space almost completely. It stank of mildew and moth balls down here. He could see a door to his left and a narrow hallway extending out to his right. Choosing the door first, he opened it up to find a small office. The purpose of this office eluded him, with nothing visible to indicate what it was used for. After looking through it for a moment, he saw nothing that would constitute as a hole and moved on.
Next up was the hallway, which led to two doors. The first door was up on the left and the second was located down at the end. Sam tried the closest door first, finding himself in a utility room of some sort. There was a boiler and a furnace located in here, with a few boxes stacked up in one of the corners. He was about to leave, when he heard it. It sounded like someone was sniffling, the noise they were making just barely audible. Poking around the room, he tried to find where it was coming from. His search led him to the space behind the furnace, where he could see a small door in the wall. It wasn't exactly hidden, but it was most definitely out of view.
Sam could hear the sniffling much better and could tell that someone was crying from the other side of the door. It sounded like a child, or at least someone young. He opened the door and poked his head inside. The room was small and cramped, sunken down a few steps from the entrance. It was made entirely of concrete, with a small pile of rags stuffed in the corner that was obviously used as a bed. A small figure was visible huddled up against the far wall, their head pressed into their knees.
The door creaked on it's hinges, getting the other person's attention. The figure lifted their head, revealing that it was Brandon. "Oh, it's you," said the boy. "Go away."
Sam, ignoring the boy's demand, entered the room and approached him. "Hi Brandon," he said softly, "what's wrong?"
"Nothin,' I don't wanna talk."
"Brandon, I think we do need to have a talk." Sam sat himself down on the floor next to the kid, setting the pickaxe against the wall next to him.
"'Bout what?" asked Brandon, looking a little curious.
"Well, it's about your parents, your birth parents. Do you know who they are?" Sam knew he needed to be careful here, but was uncertain how else to approach the topic. He was just so inexperienced at dealing with children and could only wing it.
"I know they left me when I was born and that I have two brothers."
"Yes. You see, Brandon, I'm one of your brothers. Did you know that?"
Brandon, not looking anywhere but at the floor, said, "yeah, I knew."
"Okay," said Sam, "that's good. Where have you been staying all this time? Was it here?" he asked, hoping to have that mystery solved.
"Sometimes I do. But I sometimes stay at the school." Brandon's voice was dropped to just above a whisper.
"It must get awful lonely, being here all by yourself. Do you miss having anyone around?" Sam asked, trying to avoid the topic of Alessa.
Brandon only nodded in response, not wanting or unable to articulate a response.
"Listen, Brandon, I know that it must've been hard being alone all this time. You're adoptive parents left you and then everyone left, didn't they?"
"Y,yeah," responded the young boy, his voice hitched with sobs. The loneliness and the emotional pain radiated off him like it was a physical presence. Sam could feel his eyes watering at this, himself.
"Would you like to leave here and, maybe, come with me?" This was it; it all came down to this. No thought was given to how he would be able to look after a young boy, considering how hard of a time he had looking after himself.
"Really?" asked Brandon, lifting his head to look at Sam. The hopefulness in his gaze cut Sam to his very core.
"Yes, really." He gave what he hoped was an encouraging smile.
"You wouldn't leave me, like the others?"
"No Brandon, I promise I will never leave you." The moment he said it, Sam knew it to be the truth.
Brandon suddenly launched himself at Sam, wrapping his arms around him in a bone-crushing hug. He was crying openly, loud and unrestrained. "Thank you, so much," he whispered, his face buried in Sam's neck. Sam put his arms around Brandon's back and rubbed it soothingly. "I've been s,so l,lonely. I just wanna stop being alone," he continued.
"I know," said Sam, "I know. It's gonna be alright now, okay?" He made shushing sounds as Brandon cried out all his pain and anguish onto his shoulder. While doing this made him feel all sorts of awkward, he knew it was important. This little boy, his brother, had been completely and utterly abandoned by everybody, a victim of the cruel plans of others. Sam thought back to all the times in the past when he had plenty of time and opportunity to find his lost brother and rescue him, feeling like a world-class failure for not doing it. Logically, he knew that it wasn't his fault that he had to suffer, not having known anything of Brandon's existence back then. In his mind though, logic took a back seat to martyrdom.
Several minutes passed by without either of them saying a word, Brandon having long since grown quiet. He clutched at Sam as if he were some sort of lifeline, his grip on him unwavering. At the moment, Sam couldn't think of another place he wanted to be. All the pain and suffering he had endured in this hell, was worth it to be able to find his brother and be with him. His thoughts turned to Kyle, how he needed to reconcile his differences with him at some point in the future. There was nothing worse than having family that you never talked to, nothing at all. For now though, this was a good start. "How about we get out of here, okay?"
"Okay," said Brandon, lifting his head to look Sam in the eyes.
"Alright then, but I have one more thing to ask you," said Sam, not realizing how dangerous of a mistake he had just made.
"What's that?"
"Could you tell me about Charlie? What happened to him?" Sam didn't want to leave this place a brother short.
Brandon tensed noticeably in his arms, his body going stiff and rigid. He suddenly got up and backed away, his eyes alit with new-found suspicion. "Why do ya wanna talk about him?" he asked, his emphasis on the word 'him' expressing extreme dislike.
"Well, I would like to take him with us, too. He's our brother, Brandon, he needs to come with."
"I thought you were different from all the others, but you're just the same. Everyone likes him so much, even you. I hate him!" Brandon quickly darted out of the room.
"Brandon, wait!" Sam shouted, getting up and grabbing his pickaxe. He ran out after his brother, hoping to catch up with him.
"Leave me alone!" Brandon screamed, sounding further away than Sam thought he would be.
Sam left the utility room and started down the hall to the stairs, not noticing how everything was changing around him. It wasn't until he reached the staircase, did he see what was happening. It was as if the world around him was flying away like ash from a campfire. Flakes of wall and floor started floating up into the air before disappearing, the spots they came from looking darker and more vile underneath. He knew what was happening the instant he noticed it. This place was transforming before his eyes into that horrible Otherworld and he was going with it.
The boxes and the furniture that were being stored in this room started to dissolve and break apart, leaving nothing behind. Looking up the flight of stairs, he saw the walls dissipating and they ended up reaching upward into an empty darkness. He turned around to see that they way he had come had completely vanished, the edge falling off into the abyss. It took a good minute for the transformation to take place, Sam being left speechless in the face of it. When it was done, he raced up the staircase in the hopes that he could actually catch up to Brandon.
For several minutes, he raced up the stairs that never seemed to end. It was a little dizzying to look to either side, an extreme sensation of vertigo overtaking him every time he did. Sam kept his focus on the steps, one after another all the way up. The stairs were slowly beginning to curve, he noticed. He acknowledged that it was difficult to tell if that was really what was happening, since there were no walls or ceiling to speak of to help him see if there really was a curvature. All he was going on was the individual steps he saw, as he raced up them.
Eventually, Sam began to grow tired. His body, having already gone through a lot, had little energy left to get him up very fast. Pretty soon, he was going to need to take a break if the stairs continued like this for much longer. On top of it, it was disorienting to have no walls to look at. Turning back, he realized he could no longer see the room he had come from. He was standing suspended in the middle of that nothingness that he so despised. Fear clutched him in that moment, like it had never clutched him before. For all that he had witnessed, all that he had encountered since arriving in Silent Hill, nothing compared to being here in this overwhelming darkness. His flashlight didn't really do him much good here, having little beyond the stairs that it could bounce light off of.
His pulse was racing and he was having a hard time breathing. Sam couldn't stand up on these steps any longer, fearful that his center of gravity was way too high and he was in danger of falling off the sides. Sitting down on the steps, he tried to get himself back in control, but couldn't. This was the beginning of a most dreadful situation; Sam was having a panic attack. There was no reprieve for him in this scenario, only him and the chasm. He sat there, his head between his legs, trying to contain himself and failing miserably.
All he could think about was how much of a failure he was. Nothing he did came to a good conclusion, just a series of fuck-ups that his idiocy had incubated into maturation. Sam Oliver wanted to just give up and let himself fall into that deep bottomless hole, so that he could just deal himself out entirely of this bullshit. Brandon was gone, his location completely unknown and Sam just knew that he had screwed that situation up permanently. There would be no happy ending, where he got his brothers out of here and took them with him back home. This was it, the end of his newfound family, before it even got the chance to begin.
He stayed there, sitting on those steps overlooking oblivion, for an eternity. His mind was consumed by his own self-pity, propelling him further into catatonic despair. Silent Hill had taken everything from him, his brothers, his innocence, and even his very humanity. There was no going back, there couldn't be. Sam was positively drowning in fear and sorrow, the surface he yearned for looking further and further away with each passing second.
How long he sat there, was a mystery. All he knew was that it didn't matter if it was a minute or a millennium; they bore the exact same value to him. The desire to leave this place and get back to some modicum of civilization grew stronger and stronger, as he sat there. The question was: did he deserve to escape? Was this the punishment he should emplace on himself, to wander this hell for the rest of his days in atonement? Sam could only think about how that burger was starting to sound pretty nice, just then.
After letting himself fester in depression for so long, he got it in his head to get up and continue his walk up the stairs. Sam stood up, careful to not overbalance and fall off the edge. He took a look at the steps ahead of him, counting over a dozen that were visible to him; the rest eluded his vision entirely. Starting up, he took it slowly and calmly, putting one foot in front of the other. The march up the rest of the way was long and more than a little exhausting, his body and his mind both at their limits of endurance.
When he reached the top, Sam stopped in absolute confusion. His path up the stairs ended abruptly, when he came to a door standing there in the open space with nothing visible on the other side. It was just a door and nothing else; he reached out and swung it open. It revealed a hallway, complete with walls, floor, and a ceiling. All of it was made out of that familiar metal grating, rusted thoroughly and looking like it wouldn't hold up a feather, let alone a fully-grown human being. Eager to put the purgatory of that infinite stairwell behind him, he stepped through and let the door fall shut.
The hallway was straight and narrow, stretching out before him into a darkness his light could not penetrate. Interestingly, he could see an outer layer of grating completely surrounding the corridor; it was tight and cramped, obviously some sort crawl-space. What it was for, he couldn't say. All he could tell was that there were no means of gaining access to it, none that he could see at any rate. Pressing on, he began walking down the hallway, hoping to find Brandon somewhere down this way.
After more than a few minutes of walking down the hall, he came upon a couple of doors. They were positioned opposite each other; their frames were of solid iron. He couldn't see the outer walls of either room, but given how he had just recently entered a door in the middle of an open space to get here, that wasn't entirely surprising. Sam first tried the door on the right, which led to a small room made entirely of slime-coated concrete. The room was completely empty, so he backed out and shut the door.
The door to the left led into a somewhat large room, containing a large metal desk pushed up into the far corner and a frightening collection of massive blades –the kind Pyramid Head wielded –set leaning against the wall next to it. In all, there were precisely seven of these blades sitting there. Looking at them made Sam paranoid, his mind filling itself with the notion that it could come here at any moment.
He quickly walked over to the desk and rifled through it, coming upon a manila folder of all things. Sam grabbed the document and poured through it, finding it to be a police report. His eyes first spotted Charlie's name, centering his focus on what it said about him. According to it, he was reported missing by staff from the Pleasant Valley Children's Care Home. Reading on, he learned that the report came in at 07:12 on the 17th of June, 1994, when the morning caretaker found his bed empty during morning wake-up call at 0:600. Apparently, the police responded quickly, but closed his case-file only eight days later. He was missing and presumed to have run away, an A.B.P. put out on him for that time-frame. No evidence was ever turned up in the investigation.
Sam furrowed his brow and thought back to finding Brandon's makeshift journal under the bunk. It had stated that he met Charlie in April or May of that year, just over a month before he vanished. A sick feeling in his gut manifested itself at the possibilities this information brought up. It lent credence to the Devil's statement that Brandon did something terrible to Charlie, a thought that sickened Sam even further. Closing his eyes, he cursed softly to himself, fighting the sting of oncoming tears.
He gave himself a minute, before setting down his pickaxe and shrugging off his backpack. The folder was shoved inside and the bag zipped back up. Sam put the backpack on again and grabbed his weapon. It was time to leave; he had taken too long in here, as it was. Exiting the room, he was subjected to a strange loud noise.
It sounded like someone was banging a stick against a large pipe, almost producing a rhythm with it. The sound came from everywhere, the floors vibrating slightly because of it. Tightening his grip on the pickaxe, he continued walking down the hall and kept his eyes peeled for danger. He made his way ever deeper down the passage, the sound accompanying him every step of the way. This went on for a great deal of time, the volume of it beginning to give him a slight headache. Sam kept his mind mercifully on his surroundings, shielding him temporarily from the awful weight of the truth shouting at him from the recesses of his mind. This march down the long hallway went on forever, the blandness of it annoying the hell out of him.
As time went on, he began to hear another noise, just barely audible above the pounding beat that had followed him along for the longest time. It was a perfectly measured pulse, sounding almost wet and making him think of a heartbeat. As he was walking, he started seeing movement in the shadowy exterior area of the corridor. Looking closely, he could see something thick and long running the length of the crawlspace. It pumped like a vein in time with the new sound, the look of it slightly nauseating him. Continuing further, he started seeing more of these bizarre tendrils attached to the outer shell of this odd tunnel, located on the floor, walls and ceiling. Soon enough, it was completely infesting the outer cage and the pulse it produced grew all the more louder. Sam eventually came to a large door, taking up the entire area of the wall at the very end of the passage. He opened it and stepped through, entering untold depths of this terrible nightmare.
The door took him into a massive chamber, with catwalks and platforms everywhere. An eerie orange glow was emanating from below, casting everything in a strange light. He found himself at the top of this cavernous space, a flight of steps leading down into lower regions. Sam took the stairs down, seeing that it made a ninety-degree turn at a landing about twenty feet down and continued going lower from there. A sound could be heard faintly, coming from somewhere below. It was vaguely electronic-sounding, like a strange buzz that was almost musical in nature. Following the sound was the only thing he could think to do, hoping that doing that would get him where he needed to go.
Eventually, the stairs bottomed out into a platform, a cat walk extending out from it and leading away from the outer edge of the space. He started along it, getting a glimpse of what looked like pillars of fire shooting out from somewhere in this dark stratum; it was the source of that odd light. Sam followed the walkway until it led him to the opening of a cement enclosure, the interior of which was pitch-black. Stepping inside, he found himself in a small room with three doors.
The first door was positioned to the left and the two remaining doors on the far wall. The door to the left, the one he was closest to, yielded zero results and he moved on to the next one. It didn't hold up much better, leading to an empty room. The last door was the one that he struck gold on. A staircase heading down was what he found on the other side.
The staircase was roofed and walled by concrete, a foul stench emanating from the narrow passage. He descended them quickly, anxious to get down to the bottom and find Brandon. It was a somewhat long trip, but only took a fraction of time it took to traverse the flight of stairs up through the abyss or the long hallway after that. The stairs opened out into a metal cage, another flight of stairs going down from the right-hand side of it. These stairs were encased by the same metal grating, taking him to an open platform with some sort of large pillar located in the center.
When he reached the platform, Sam saw that the pillar was actually an elevator shaft. Walking over to it, he pressed the call button and the door opened up. He stepped inside and checked the panel. Like the last two elevators he had come across, it only had up and down buttons on it. Pressing the down button, the doors slid shut and he began his descent. A faint thrill coursed through him; this was the end of the road, for good or for bad. It took a full minute to reach the bottom of the shaft, before the doors opened up.
A wide walkway stretched out before him, leading to a massive square platform with a large circular hole in the middle. Four gigantic poles were jutting up into the air from the four corners of the platform. The poles, he could tell, were the source of those great jets of fire. He could see them burning powerfully hundreds of feet above him. In front of the hole on Sam's side, the familiar form of Brandon could be seen facing away from him.
"Brandon!" he called out, hoping this would go well.
"Leave me alone! You lied to me!" screamed the boy.
"No, I didn't. Please, just let me talk to you!"
"No! I don't wanna talk to you! All you care about is him!" Brandon was facing him now, a deep scowl set on his young face.
Sam moved closer, lowering his voice, "I don't understand. Please, just tell me why you think that?"
"Everyone always liked him better. He was just a stupid orphan from day one and everyone wanted to be with him. My mom left me there and I was always compared to him; nobody wanted to be my friend. And now you want him instead of me. I hate him!"
"No, that's not true, Brandon. You're my brother and I love you, but he is our brother, as well, and I just wanted to make sure he wasn't lost here, either." Sam hoped that his words reached the kid, needed them to in a way he had never needed anything before.
"Oh, you say that now, but that would change. You would start liking him more and you'll just leave me somewhere like my mom did. Not that any of that matters anymore, since I took care of Charlie." The mention of his brother's name was spat out in disgust.
"What do you mean, Brandon?" asked Sam, hoping and dreading the answer equally.
"You wanna know what I did to your precious Charlie!? I ate him!!!" Brandon screamed out in vicious satisfaction.
"W,What?" asked Sam, unable to wrap his mind around what had just been said to him.
Brandon continued, "that's right, I ate him up and he's gone from my life for good. You made me think you cared about me; I won't allow you to get away with that." With that, Brandon turned back to the hole and he let himself fall into it.
"Brandon, no!!!" screamed Sam, trying futilely to reach him in time and failing. Brandon disappeared into darkness and Sam's heart broke completely. He had failed him and now he was dead. Sam let the pickaxe drop from his hands, no longer caring if he encountered any opponents. On autopilot, he walked clumsily up to and around the circular hole, with no particular place he was headed. He briefly considered following his little brother into oblivion, not wanting to go on any further.
Just then, a deep rumbling could be felt in the metal grating, rising steadily in intensity. It was coming from below and heading his way. Sam tensed up, uncertain of what was coming. A sick yellow glow was pulsing out from the hole, spilling it's diseased light over everything it touched. He saw a hand reach up and grasp the platform, another soon joining it. He saw several more hands grip the edge of the hole, spanning the entire circumference. Soon, their numbers were uncountable and he took a step away from them. When the hands were grabbing all available surface space, they acted as one and pulled themselves up simultaneously. A twisted mass of flesh spilled out over the lip of the hole, a slew of arms that were poking out of it's folds in no discernible pattern went with it. All the new hands found purchase on the metal flooring and pulled, as well. More of that hideous blob came into view, rising like dough.
"B,Brandon?" he asked timidly.
In response, the thing let out a deafening roar. It sounded unlike anything he had ever heard. It shook his body violently and it made his vision go grey and everything receded to the background for a second, before fading back to normal when it stopped. Sam backed away several more feet, as the atrocious thing pulled itself up further. It began leaning in his direction and looked like it was about to fall over on him. Sam looked for a way to escape, seeing a short flight of stairs leading up to another platform.
He ran for it and took it up two steps at a time, getting thrown down when he reached the upper landing, as it crashed to the floor behind him. His world was spinning and he was momentarily stunned by the crash. Getting up to his feet, he ran away from the edge of this new platform, away from that amorphous monstrosity. Sam turned to see another set of stairs to the right, going up to a narrow walk way that hugged the wall. Seeing that it was his only option at the moment, he made for them as quickly as his legs would take him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his pursuer overtaking the small platform he was escaping, rapidly. It was pulsing and growing, being propelled in his direction by those wretched arms. If he hadn't been desensitized by everything Silent Hill had thrown at him beforehand, Sam would have most certainly been driven mad by the sight of it.
The walkway followed the wall for several meters, before making a right into the open space of the chamber's center. Platforms and staircases to other areas could be seen on the right-hand side, practically floating in position. His legs burning with an urgent fire, he threw himself toward the turn in the walkway and hoped that he made it. The sound of twisting and tearing metal almost pierced his ears with their high-pitched squeal. It was chasing after him, gunning for him with pure intent.
Sam rounded the corner and followed this new section of the walkway, passing a small flight of stairs up on his right. His goal was the long stairwell he could see that seemed to race up into the higher regions of this place. He was no more than thirty feet from them, when a number of those arms grabbed a hold of the railing and the thing that was once his brother was pulling itself up onto the walkway; the steel was twisting and bending under it's weight. Skidding to a halt, he turned back and ran for those stairs he had passed just a few seconds ago, trying to maintain his balance at the same time.
Taking them up, he found himself on another platform that stretched out to his left, with more stairs continuing up straight ahead. Sam ignored the platform and made his way up the next set of stairs. He could feel how close it was behind him, swallowing the path in it's putrid embrace. The grating shook and rumbled, as it consumed everything in his wake. Taking them up, he saw that they continued up across an open expanse and lead to a tower-like structure, with a series of open floors stretching up into darkness.
Below him, he could see how big that sick mass of flesh had gotten; it was stretching itself out in thick tendrils and grabbing onto whatever it could find. It was nauseating to look at, even out of the corner of his eye, and he choked back his own bile as he ran. The stairs began shaking violently, threatening to throw him off the side. Sam kept his balance and strained himself to go just that little bit faster, knowing that it was right behind him and close to catching up. Up ahead, the moorings that kept the stairs attached to the tower were starting to shake loose, coming dangerously close to pulling it free from the structure. It was only feet away; he could do it.
The moorings broke loose and the stairs started to list to the side, about to teeter over and fall. Sam jumped as far and high as he could, wishing he really did have a four foot vertical leap at that moment. He could hear the stairs groaning and buckling, just starting their rapid descent below. His fingers managed to find something to grab onto just off-center from the gap in the railing that the stairs had been connected to. The weight of his body almost dragged him from the edge and into oblivion. Sam looked down and saw that the staircase he was just on was dangling loosely on the far side of the chamber, the disgusting thing hanging with it.
Desperately scrambling for a better grip, Sam hoisted himself up, while he tried to find a toe-hold to brace himself up with. It took all his strength to get his body on solid ground and to slide himself forward, so that he could get to his feet. Not taking another second, he zoned in on the stairs leading up to the next level and ran straight for them. He was out of breath, his muscles felt like lead, and all the injuries he had acquired here, were all screaming at him to stop. But he could not do that; he had to keep going. The instincts that dictated survival, would not allow his own desire to die to take control, forcing him to run onward and upward.
The stairwell up was located in the far corner of the tower and ran up in a square-like shape. He ran up them as fast as his legs could carry him, all the while feeling the foundations of the structure shaking from somewhere down below. It had latched on to the tower and was racing up toward him, slowly eating the entire thing just to get to Sam. His heart felt like it was going to explode, his body driving itself upward with unknown reserves of energy. For what felt like an eternity, he raced up flight after flight of stairs and losing some sense of direction in the doing of it. The structure was rocking more and more intensely, with everything starting to shake apart. He definitely didn't have much longer to get to the top, not with how structurally unsound this place looked.
Sam, quite unexpectedly, reached the top of the tower and found himself on an open platform. A walkway was nearby that would take him to the outer edge by the wall. Suddenly, he was thrown to the floor and began sliding down the direction of the open space in the center of the chamber, the walkway he was gunning for was torn away. His fingers scrabbled for purchase on the metal grating, barely managing to get the slightest of grips. Still, it was enough to keep him from sliding any further down to the edge. He got his feet under him and launched himself to the side and grabbed the railing. This was just done as the supports failed and the tower began to fall over, taking him with it toward that open area.
On the far end of the chamber, he could see another tower that looked completely infested. He didn't question why he didn't see the other tower when he was still further down and closer to the base, nor did he wonder at why it wasn't toppling over as his was. Sam didn't want to ride this thing all the way to the other side, fearing the consequences if he did. Looking around, he saw another platform about midway along. It was somewhere about ten feet from his falling platform and about twice that below, a long expanse to jump, he admitted, but he had no choice in the matter. Timing it as best as possible, Sam braced his legs and prepared to leap off the side –the difficulty of which was in the rapidly shifting angle of the floor underneath him. With a deep breath, he hunkered down and pushed himself off the edge and sailed through the air toward his intended platform.
Sam cleared the railing and smashed painfully onto the floor, rolling several times before stopping. It was that impact that kept him from springing back to his feet, his body in too much pain to make a serious attempt at it. His world whitened out and all sound faded away for a brief moment, before it rushed back into him like a vacuum. Everything shuddered at the impact of the falling tower against the one that the monstrosity had taken over. The sound of it echoed out through the enormous space, drowning out the thunder of his own heartbeat for a second. He started crawling away from the edge closest to the towers and saw the bottom landing of a set of stairs just mere feet away from them. Somewhere off to his left, he could see the uppermost corona of flame from one of the four pillars below.
Once he had pulled himself up the first few steps, he was able to finally get his right leg under him and stand up. His left leg was just about useless, but he was up and could make quicker progress again. He just couldn't afford to take that much time; his life was still in mortal danger. Reaching the next platform, he started limping over to the next flight up on the left-hand side. The abomination chasing him could be heard growing bigger and reaching higher and higher, closing in on him without reserve.
The dark and terrible rumbling of it's roar exploded through the air, his vision once more fading into a scratchy grey. He swore he could feel every cell in his body vibrating intensely in the wake of it's call. It went quiet once more and he continued heading for the stairs. Reaching the stairs, he suddenly felt the platform shake from impact. The thing that had once been Brandon had made it to the area he had jumped to from the tower, proving that he was still being closely hounded by it. Taking it a step at a time, he looked up to see something that frightened him to his very core.
It had stretched it's body like putty into a series of tendrils filled with all those strange arms and was reaching up the walls and slithering around catwalks and platforms everywhere around him. He had been so focused on the bulk of it that he hadn't been able to see what it was doing elsewhere. Sam was pretty much completely surrounded on all sides, his avenue of escape shrinking in at a shocking speed. Almost any hope he had left of surviving had gone out the window; the end was fast approaching.
Taking the stairs a step at a time –the best he could do in his present condition –Sam reached the next level up. The platform buckled violently and he was thrown again to the floor, rolling over once onto his back. He found himself staring at it head-on, it's arms reaching out for him in a sick attempt at a hug. Raising his arms up defensively, he braced for what was sure to come. In that moment where the fingers of the closest hand brushed against his clothing, it seized up and withdrew quickly.
He could feel it, the thrumming of his own power. It had saved his life earlier against Pyramid Head and he had tapped into it once more to do that very same thing. The monstrosity was being forced back until it no longer had a single grip on his platform and then it was thrown away into the lower depths. No sooner after it fell from view, did it let out another terrible scream, this one even worse than the others before it, his vision going almost completely black. When it passed, Sam rolled over onto his stomach and pushed himself up to his feet. Hobbling over to the edge, he looked out into that dark expanse and saw that the thing had fallen onto the fire on it's way down. An ugly burn mark mottled the flesh around the area that must've hit the flame.
Focusing his mind as best as possible, he tried to access his powers once more and reached out to the four pillars of fire. As one, all of the flaming jets shot like arrows into it's flank, scorching it furiously. The flames climbed up and out, consuming the flesh it touched. Sweat poured down Sam's face, his body pulsing with energy that burst out of him and flew straight for the fires. In relatively quick order, the flames licked ever upward around all the tendrils of it's mass. It then exploded in a bright powerful blast; Sam, having been driven to his knees by the intensity of what he was doing, was -for a moment -wreathed in flames. The atrocity against the natural order burned all around him like the fires of hell itself. A rain of ash began to fall down around him.
The fires burned through everything and ate away at the dark environment around him, changing the very composition of his surroundings. It was purifying the world, burning away the darkness that had infested this place. Sam let his arms fall to his sides and he bowed his head, exhausted and miserable. Nothing mattered anymore; he had killed his own brother. The Devil had tried to get him to kill someone once before, just to corrupt him. Back then, Sam had gotten around it, but now that circle was complete. Up until that second, the target of most of his hate was Satan, but now it was all focused in on himself. That was when he heard it, the sound of an infant crying.