A/N: I'd like to thank Crimson Alessa for her review—very inspiring. I hope this chapter is up to par with the previous ones' standards. :)
Chapter Six:
The silhouette of the Jeep Liberty, although evident in sight, gave no indication of its presence as its silvery contours sifted through the thickly laden ash-fog of the bridge to Silent Hill. Rose recalled the day she had driven across the very same structure on her way out of the star-crossed town. Then, her thoughts had consisted only of her daughter and her husband; she'd been looking forward to seeing him again, and looking forward to reuniting her dearly beloved family. Now, she couldn't seem to fathom the idea that she was on her way into that nauseatingly vexatious venue—that settling whose sepulchral interior was ultimately dominated by fear and misery--for a second time, and of her own free will, besides. Her husband was not beside her, had not been beside her since the night they had discovered Sharon atop the monstrous waterfall. She was certain he was alive--however, reaching him was something she had yet to conjure up a plan for. No, the only one accompanying her that day was the blonde haired cop, her gusty heroine-like friend, turned friend only after having snagged Rose out of the clutches of otherwise undoubted fatality—and after the removal of a certain pair of loathed silver irons. It seemed that nearly having her figure mauled by a six-foot long blade pardoned the mother from whatever sort of kidnapping offenses she might otherwise have been faced with. Cops. They never had been known for their quick thinking and logical thinking abilities cooperating as one process.
Of course, seeing as Rose was anything but a child-abducting head case—all right, so she was a head case…but not a crime-committing one—neither of those thought processes would have been necessary for the officer anyway. Not that heartless Cybil had known such fact at the time. Instead of attempting to arrest Rose for an actual crime, she had cuffed her based purely on suspicion—and the fact that she had fled the scene, which certainly hadn't helped her case any.
Ah, but the musings of the emotionally afflicted Rose were cut short when an all-too-familiar sound filled the cabin of the vehicle. Creaking, boisterous, piercing and entirely unnerving static plunged through the large speakers of the Jeep, despite the radio's having been turned off, racking the women's ears and causing Rose to, yet again, flinch violently and cover her ears. Cybil's voice cried out over the static when she presumably realized that the driver's hands were no longer in place on the wheel; the truck swerved to one side of the bridge; Rose gasped and clamped her palms upon the worn leather in a last desperate attempt at regaining control, and caused the SUV to lurch sharply in the opposite direction. The sound of rubber on damp, ashen-slick road rocketed through the air, bursting through the tiny openings in the truck, and surrounding the two with frightening, pulsing volume.
An instant past and the grating of the metal frame could be heard as the vehicle careened beyond the point of control. The machine crashed onto its side...then its roof…then the opposite side…only to repeat a second and third time, finally coming to a crepitating halt with the passenger side upon the pavement; the ravaged mechanical exterior tilted so that it lay partially—nearly halfway, more so—off the edge of the bridge. Twisted steel and iron wrapped about the truck, the metal spurs of the destroyed guardrail reaching their way through the web-cracked windshield like angry, grappling fingers; though the miraculously uninjured Cybil was terrified for both her own safety and that of Rose's—fearful that the rails might have mangled the driver, seeing as they were protruding from that side of the truck in majority—she was also infinitely grateful, for they were the only reason the Jeep hadn't flown free into the bottomless abyss below.
Blinking to clear her vision, the officer cast a weak glance to further examine Rose's unconscious form; the once amiable face now rest thrown off at an odd angle, and a decent amount of blood sluiced from a rather large wound upon the forehead, spilling sticky scarlet drops upon the black leather seats and the dismantled dashboard. Concern overcame whatever pain she might have been feeling after the crash, and Cybil managed to free herself from the inward-dented door panel and the seat as well—the seat belt had snapped in several places, so it wasn't particularly difficult--making her way with an almost superhuman strength to throw her light weight against the other side of the truck. 'Twas a risk, she knew, but it was one she was willing to take. She stood no chance of freeing Rose from the mess of the Liberty with it on its side.
Very nearly exhausting herself as she did so, Cybil was relieved when the truck at last wobbled and ground against the protesting guardrails, rocking onto its shredded tires. Another few minutes passed whilst the woman regained whatever strength she had used up, and she then went to work on freeing her still palsied friend. The seatbelts she wore had not broken, as had Cybil's, though they were rough-sawn along various edges by the vicious metal of the rails, and although the belts had decidedly aided in her survival, she had sustained numerous injuries from the nylon's force in stopping her motion. Burns from the material paraded about her pale flesh, their crimson flags flown high and sickeningly proud. The cop's nerves were for the most part steeled; she had seen individuals in worse condition than Rose currently was. The difference here lay in the fact that none of those she had seen she had personally known.
Yes, the worry she felt over this woman's almost constant actions must have been similar to what the mother had felt for her daughter. Cybil wouldn't know for sure—she had no children of her own. Either way, the instincts to protect had surfaced visibly in the officer; she forced the driver's side door open and dragged Rose out onto the pavement. Once freed, her injuries were more visible, and Cybil's concern was raised to an even greater height. The bandage on Rose's wrist was soaked through entirely in blood, but that was the least of the officer's worries right now. She focused in on the wound on her head. It wasn't bleeding as profusely as she had previously thought, but the very fact that it had resulted in a lack of consciousness made it serious enough. Internal injuries were more than likely present there. Taking out the crumpled bottled water she had in her belt, Cybil opened it and flushed out the cut, just as she had done earlier with the bullet wound. Ripples of motion flashed through the body which lay splayed out on the road, and moments later the mother's eyes flickered open.
Her field of view almost entirely filled by Cybil's head, she jumped slightly, startled, and most likely would have scrambled at least a few feet away, had the cop's hands not pinned her to the ground with a surprisingly strong force for having just been involved in a rather large-scale vehicular accident—even if her injuries were minor. Overpowered by far, and calmed by the familiar sound of her friend's voice, Rose settled, allowing Cybil to finish cleaning the wound, and to place a small scrap of bandage over it. Once she had finished, she questioned the mother, examining her irises and pupils with a penlight, and then at last allowed her to sit up, which Rose did happily. A brief wave of dizziness nearly overcame her and sent her back into the silent realm of unconsciousness, but she managed to fight it off and eventually get to her feet. Exterior injuries littered her body, but none so serious as the one on her forehead, and even this wasn't enough to stop the mother from retrieving the answers she had undoubtedly come in search of. Sharon was still first and foremost on her mind; Cybil couldn't help but admire the determination and will evident in the other woman. She was like some sort of enormous hundred-car freight train, unable to be impeded.
A lost sort of gaze was pitched toward the totaled Jeep; how on earth had she managed to roll it? She hadn't been driving at any ridiculous speeds. Baffled, Rose put a hand to her head and shook it, tipping just enough so that a hand was placed firmly on her shoulder so as to steady her; the concerned tint in Cybil's eye had yet to vanish completely, and she questioned the mother a second time, specifically interested in how she was feeling as far as her head went. Of course Rose answered with an unnervingly unworried tone, and her answer passed off as acceptable. It was one of the many aspects of her character which she had learned to manipulate to her advantage—though only when she truly needed to do so, as she did now. She was generally a truth-telling character, and even complete strangers saw her in this light.
Soft static still emanated from within the confines of the smashed truck, and an instant past, a sharp thud and scrape could be heard; one of the wires anchoring the guardrails to the blacktop let loose; the metal sprung back like a coiled spring, the force of the release hauling the contorted mass of silver and metal and leather with it, and in the blink of an eye the truck had vanished over the edge of the bridge. No sounds were heard that signaled any bottomed impact. It was to be assumed that the vehicle was still falling.
"Shit!"
Rose's voice broke the silence following, and she ripped her shoulder away from Cybil's hand which, until that particular moment, she had forgotten still lay upon the mother's shoulder. Her blue flares torn at the knees and shins, and speckled with red, combined with the ripped collar of her blouse which hung so as to leave part of her shoulder unclothed, the woman was the very picture of one unkempt in a horror-movie fashion. She proceeded to stride in circles, wincing every other step at a brief pang of malaise that pulsed through her left knee and thigh. The onset of infection, perhaps. Cybil, standing nearby, said nothing, but found it more appropriate to remain quiet and allow Rose to come to her own conclusions about what to do and where to go next. Yet remaining in her classic cop-like stance was tiring, and unsettling, and she at last lay hand to the loaded pistol in her utility belt. Weakness and fatigue abruptly swarmed her body, and she sank to the ground, the leather of her pants creaking slightly and almost soundlessly as the motion took place. Rose's attention didn't snap to her friend on impulse, but rather it was a good minute before the mother realized that the normally dominating female was now crumpled on the rough road covering the bridge.
"It's nothing to worry over, Rose," the cop said when Rose opened her mouth to speak. "I'm just a little tired."
"Right," the blonde replied, sounding relieved, but only just. It was discomforting to believe that Cybil was actually human, that she had weaknesses and vulnerabilities just as did Rose herself. The mother however, chose not to think about such things if she could help it—she was much more inclined the believe that no matter where she went, or what she did, or what terrors might befall her, the police officer would always be by her side, fully capable and able to fight off those terrors and play the heroine. "But we can't just sit here," she continued with an uptight tone to her voice. "Those…those things could be anywhere. And I, for one, am not comfortable in letting them within fifty feet of me."
Cybil raised her head and gazed up at her with tired eyes, the dark, puffy circles beneath them evident, but her expression was nonetheless one of resignation. Yet again she would chase after the woman with a death wish. Yet again she would put her own life at risk just to be sure Rose's wouldn't be placed anywhere that might greet her with a fate similar to the one that the cop had almost faced herself. Yet again she would watch as Rose turned a blind eye to reality and logic. And all for the sake of her daughter. Love was far weaker a word than could describe what dedication Rose felt toward her family, and the daughter of foreign blood. Shaking her head in a barely noticeable fashion, Cybil made to stand.
A sudden splitting noise cracked the air, and both women felt the ground beneath them shudder. Put in place the fact that they weren't on solid ground, and panic very nearly ensued. The pavement began to crack, and Cybil instinctively made a mad grab for Rose's uninjured arm, seizing it and wrenching her forward as the road literally disintegrated beneath their feet. In the distance the sky darkened to a hideously aphotic violet, and warning sirens screamed to life, their wailing heard for miles around, eventually ceasing only to begin their bleating again. Cybil's clenching hand was the only source of Rose's continued balance, for the pain in her knee was far more extreme when she attempted to gather speed on unsteady footing. As the last bits of the bridge turned to ash before their eyes, the two tumbled onto the edge of the cliff, collapsing to the dirt road, the sirens stopped. Whereas Rose had noticed the darkness turning to ash at the end of each cycle in her previous visit to the town, the bridge had formed ash at the beginning of said cycle. Cybil laid eye on the giant billboard before them, two dim lights aimed down upon its surface, one flickering unendingly. Welcome to Silent Hill.
An omen?
Never.