A/N: I don't own anything from red vs blue or Silent Hill.

Silent Gulch chapter 19

"They're still following us," Alessa said, staring over Church's shoulder. He hadn't put her down since they'd left the room.

"I know, they won't shut up," Church said, irritated that he was still able to hear the pointless conversations of the other soldiers. How they could talk so loud or about such pointless topics he didn't know. They'd spend a good amount of time on which game console was better, the Playstation 117 or the Xbox Square Root of Awesome.

"You're moving slower," Alessa observed, sounding a bit worried. The growing emotion in her voice was making Church feel much more at ease with her. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm just tired," Church replied. "Fighting monsters and having a pyramid freak beat you up really wears a guy out."

"We should rest, let you become less tired. Maybe let some of your wounds heal up," Alessa said.

"I don't think we should stop. It's not safe to stay in one spot for too long," Church said.

"I'll be less safe if you die of exhaustion or blood loss," Alessa pointed out. "Then I'd be left with the jerk and the others."

Church topped looking at the girl. "Guess it's impossible to argue with little kid logic," he admitted, setting her down.

He leaned against the wall and slid down, using the wall so he could sit up rather than lying down on the gross ground. Alessa was at his side a moment later, snuggling up under the protection of his arm. There was something comforting about the little girl's presence. There was something about how she trusted and believed in him that made him happy. He supposed that someone actually having confidence in him was what he needed. After the years with Blue Team who never had confidence in him it was a nice change of pace. He easily slipped into sleep, though his dreams were haunted by the monsters he had seen and fought.

When Church woke, he had expected to find Pyramid Head about to kill him like he'd seen in his dreams. Instead he woke to the Reds and Blues sitting around him. Caboose sat happily to one side of him while Tex sat on his other side. Alessa was between them, still cuddled up to him. He wasn't sure exactly which of the two options was worse.

"What are you guys doing?"

"We were following you, but you stopped," Tucker answered.

"Why are you following me? I thought I was making everything up," Church said, not keeping the anger from his voice.

Tucker rolled his eyes.

"Well, we have no idea what to do and you have a plan. That's better than anything we have," Simmons said. "So we'll find this woman, find out how to get home, and then you can kill her."

"I never said she knew how to get back. I only said she seemed to know what's going on," Church corrected.

"So what's your plan to get back?" Grif asked.

Church glanced down at Alessa. "I don't know," he admitted. He hadn't really given getting back to Blood Gulch much thought. "I've been a bit busy keeping us alive."

"You seriously haven't thought that part out? Also, that girl is seriously starting to freak me out," Tucker said, earning a glare from Church. "Seriously, how do you know she's not going to turn on you? You said the monsters don't attack her."

"She's still afraid of the monsters. She's been helping me; why wouldn't I trust her? Besides, we both hate Danena, that's enough for me," Church replied. The little girl shivered, clinging tighter to Church.

"I thought you hated kids," Tex commented.

"I'm not heartless. She's all alone in a world of monsters. I may not really like kids but I can tolerate one if it's a case like her," Church said, pulling the girl closer to comfort her. "Can we just drop it? Even if you don't like her she's staying with me."

"Well, how about we get to what we figured out," Sarge said. "Those twelve statues in that room, we think, were the Chinese zodiac."

"That doesn't make sense. These people talked of one god like they were more of a western church with one god not an eastern church with many gods," Church said.

"Does she know anything about it?" Simmons pointed to Alessa.

"She knows a little. She knows stuff about the monsters, but she doesn't seem to like this religious stuff that Danena preaches. She might know a bit more but I haven't asked. Wait…" Church paused, thinking. "She said something before we came into this building. She said I wouldn't like what I would find. She said no one ever did. That means there have been others."

"There have been others. They come and bad things happen to them," Alessa said, surprising the group. "My dad and I came here when I was little. I was having dreams. It took me from him and he fought to save me. There have been others, though."

"Know anything about the Chinese zodiac being important?" Simmons asked.

"I don't know what the Chinese zodiac is," Alessa said. "But since that crazy guy was here, it's been growing stronger and expanding into new things. It might be taking from other religions to make minions."

"Wait, who's the crazy guy?" Church asked.

"I don't know; he's in the book, the last story," Alessa said.

"What book is she talking about?" Sarge asked.

"I think she means this one," Church said, pulling out the bible he'd taken from the church.

"Yeah, that's the one," Alessa said. "That's the book that they keep the records in. Danena tried to destroy a ton of them, said they were evil. Kind of funny, her calling something evil."

"Let's see, the story of the first, story of James, the return, the room, the Shepherd brothers," Church said, reading the titles from the index.

"The last one, the brothers," Alessa said, pointing to the title.

Church flipped through the book to the page the story started on. The solders sat in silence as Church skimmed the story.

"Well, it's the story of a guy named Alex and his brother Joshua. Apparently Alex starts having these dreams where his brother is in danger, so he goes back home to find his brother. He goes on this big quest and in short it seems that a deal was broken with the gods of Silent Hill, and so it unleashes hell on his town and in the end nothing really gets settled, like the deal isn't fixed. Seems it isn't bound to the town anymore," Church summarized. "I guess if you have more area you need more big bad guys to keep the people like us from messing things up."

"Then why are we here?" Simmons wondered. "None of us have had dreams about this place. None of us are from here."

"Maybe we don't have to," Church said. "If it's expanding, then maybe it can reach people not connected to the town," he reasoned. "The question is just why does it want us for."

"How do you know it wants us for some reason?" Donut asked.

"Why else would we be here? It could have just left us at Blood Gulch if it didn't need us," Church explained.

"I'm with him; it must need us for something," Tex agreed.

"Now you understand why I'm looking for Danena," Church said, standing up. "Then let's get moving. We aren't going to find out anything just sitting here."

"We just found out a ton just sitting here," Tucker pointed out.

"Well, the only thing else we can learn from sitting around is what monster's going to kill us while we sit around," Church said.

"Point made." Tucker stood up. "Lead the way," he said, letting Church take the lead.

~End chapter 19~

A/N: Well another one bites the dust… Hope you enjoyed chapter 19. Just realized I probably get a much bigger kick out of the stupid little things I put in (Like the PS117 and xbox awesome squared). Oh well, I don't do this for you, I do it for me. Please review cause I do like feedback. Just because I don't do it for you doesn't mean I don't like hearing from you.