Chapter Sixteen
The racket of the double doors of the elevator and shaft being forced apart clanked and scraped about the dark room to which they opened; within moments the forms of two women could be seen to be exiting the elevator, and a flashlight suddenly beamed through the inky atmosphere, revealing to them both that they were being welcomed into an incredibly large basement. From some far off place a boiler hissed and rattled, a disturbing subject should one choose to truly think on it, considering the residents of Silent Hill would have no reason to keep such a machine in operation; the syringe, which had been placed once again in Rose's pocket, pressed against her thigh as they made their way cautiously forward, the mother sticking close by to the cop, if only for the light she possessed. Cybil was still shaken from the moments back in the elevator; if Rose hadn't made it, she quite believed she would have either gone insane, or killed herself, for there seemed no other option should she ever be faced with Silent Hill alone. She'd become completely codependent, or so it seemed, unable to survive on her own in such a horrid place. Rose was her only support, and despite the trouble she was notorious for both getting herself into, and causing in the first place, Cybil Bennett was plenty attached to her.
Something particularly large and cold and wet befell the back of Rose's neck, trailing down her back and making her jump; forward movement ceased and ocean eyes shot upward to stare at the floor above; 'twas only condensation, she reassured herself; Cybil's flashlight beam came to rest just below Rose's face, for she knew better than to shine such a bright ray in someone's eyes. Her gaze was quizzical as she watched the woman reach over her own shoulder and attempt to remove the droplet from her skin; upon passing her hand through the area of light, Cybil's eyes widened and she grabbed her wrist, shining the flashlight on her friend's fingertips. What had been thought mere condensation was nothing of the sort; the substance was far too thick to have been such. With a barely audible gasp, the officer jerked the remaining sleeve of Rose's shirt down low enough so as to remove the tar-like mess from her fingers, silently thanking whatever bit of God remained in this place for allowing that sleeve to be long enough to do so; Rose seemed to have caught on to what had befallen her, and she proceeded to nearly panic, knowing that the acidic entity still remained slipping between her shoulder blades. The cop had no need to voice any command; Rose had already turned her back and removed her shirt in an obvious frenzy.
Cybil snatched the fabric before it could hit the ground and become more contaminated than it was already, and with only slight impairment via her injured shoulder, she used the same sleeve as previously to quickly wipe away the acid, which had already begun to eat away at the pallid flesh of the woman's spine, judging by both appearance and the hiss of pain at the stinging sensation. The flashlight remained trained upon Rose's back as the cop removed the last of the acid, and shook her head at the realization that there would almost assuredly be scars left behind; when she had finished she aimed the ray of the light upward at the source of the substance, and was shocked to see much of the same black, tar-like essence preparing to fall upon her own frame; with a hurried motion she shoved Rose and herself out of range of the entity, only to feel the ground beneath her almost instantaneously disappear.
The flashlight clattered to the stone floor and the pistol as well, having fallen from its holster as thin wires suddenly snapped around the cop's slim form, the presence of barbs amongst the metal becoming known once they had immersed themselves through her shirt and into her flesh; she had been raised above the ground and light though she was, her own weight turned against her in this case, forcing the barbs deeper as they tried to maintain a hold on her. At last a strand wound itself about her ankles, which offered some small semblance of support, and eased the pain to a small extent; in the meantime Rose had torn the soiled sleeve off her shirt and thrown the remainder over her head as she expelled Cybil's name through her lips. She snared the flashlight in her hands and shined it upward, following the writhing movements of the wires and tracing them back to the source; a great hole was present in the earth, and the form of a creature of indescribable magnitude clung within it, tentacles of both a plant-like matter and of barbed iron supporting its bulk. Rose was awestruck, dumbfounded, paralyzed and unable to move or think; Cybil still struggled against the relentless strength of the wires binding her and holding her a dangerous level off the floor. Abruptly coming back to her senses, the mother's cerulean gaze hurdled onto the gun, which she immediately dashed toward and snatched; the barrel was aimed at what she presumed to be the head of the being, but one of the wires ripped it away from her before she could fire, holding it far beyond her reach.
A scented mist spewed forth as the monstrosity opened what appeared to be a mouth, showering the two with something they would rather not have known the makeup of, and instantaneously following, the pain in Rose's knee, and wrist, and back and elsewhere vanished. The bandage on her wrist shriveled and disintegrated, revealing naught but a small scar; the cuts and scrapes littering the rest of her body were treated in an equal manner, and her lungs felt suddenly purified, as if the mist had brought with it a wave of blesséd oxygen alone. To her right, Cybil's movements ceased, and she was gripped with the fear that whatever this giant was had succeeded in killing her friend, but not a moment later and she had been placed not especially gently upon her feet, decidedly as shocked as Rose herself was; the injury to her shoulder had gone, as had the others; the pistol was lightly returned to the holster by a lone tentacle, and the flashlight offered to her palm.
"Perhaps now you will think before you shoot blindly into the face of an ally."
The voice which emanated from the depths of the being's throat was so deep and booming that the gust of the breath pushed both women backwards several steps; the voice echoed throughout the basement, projecting it even further. The two were silent with uncertainty; 'twas not an every day occurrence to have such an alien-like life form speak to them after having just apparently removed them of their wounds. Cybil was the first to recover, having felt the material of her uniform to realize that it too had been mended with the touch of mist; she shined the flashlight on the creature so as to see it more clearly, as the light from the inferno below did nothing in the way of comfortable vision; her own vocals, tiny and insignificant in comparison to the beast's, became heard.
"Forgive me," she began cautiously, her normally steady, authoritative tones quaking now, likely in concern. "But I don't believe acting in such a way as you have was the best manner in which to show yourself an ally."
"Unfortunately I was not able to do you any good without having better seen your injuries," the creature said calmly, as if all would be explained with that simple answer.
"So you nearly kill me instead?"
"Cybil!" interjected Rose worriedly.
"That's just the way things are here, and if you don't like it, I can always reverse the deal," it retorted, whacking the tip of one wire tentacle upon the stone floor just a few inches from her feet, no doubt a threatening gesture. Flinching, Cybil fell silent, and Rose took the opportunity to attempt to make amends with the being.
" You…said you were an ally…" the young mother pried softly from her place, and looked up at it. "Besides the obvious," she stated, gesturing to her wrist, "what exactly do you mean by those words?"
The steady sound of the personage's breathing was the only sound present in the room for a long moment, its cold breath softening so as to be sure not to send the women sprawling to the floor, until at last, the plant-like cranium raised itself slightly, and it spoke yet again.
"You have seen that your entrance into the church was only partially successful," said the monstrosity, swinging the end of one wire absentmindedly, and stretching the enormous head toward Rose. In the light of Cybil's flashlight, no eyes were visible on the appendage, which was unnerving to the young mother, to say the least; however, it must have been able to see, as it had spoken earlier of a need to view the cop's injuries before it could mend them.
"Are you implying that there is something left unfinished?" Rose inquired quickly, her expression betraying the hardened fear she was currently harboring. "I did everything that was asked of me."
"Alas, you were not asked to complete the all of the proper tasks. Have you not wondered why it is you are still drawn to this place against your will? Have you not bothered to let curiosity win over you, and lead you to the source of your continued presence here?"
"Of course I have," Rose snapped testily, and then toned down her words. "Why do you think I'm here now?"
The being pulled the head away from her now, and one of the vines slithered forward and placed itself beneath her chin, lifting her face momentarily, and then dropping away to disappear into the red-hot pit from whence it had come; Cybil watched warily from her place beside Rose, her hand resting readily upon the pistol, though it remained in the holster. The voice, slightly louder and more insistent this time around, filtered through the dank air once more.
"You are here now to find a cure for your daughter's ailment."
"How encouraging," Cybil muttered to herself, rolling her eyes. "It talks, and it states the obvious."
"I'd hold your tongue if I were you, lady deputy," the beast snapped, jabbing a vine against her upper arm so as to get the point across. "I am the authority in this world…not you. Do not tempt me." It now turned its attention to Rose, continuing its speech. "Now, I believe you will recall a woman by the name of Dahlia Gillespie."
Rose's eyes shifted from where they had rested worriedly upon Cybil's form, to the putrid-looking creature before them. "Yes," she said firmly, staring at the being with narrowed eyes.
"Perhaps you will also recall her role in the creation of this Hell?"
"She was an unsuspecting mother who'd been brainwashed by the words of that religious fanatic Christabella."
Barbed wire slashed at her skin as it wrapped around her body and lifted her into the air, much as had been done with Cybil, though with sufficient support so as to prevent serious injury. The cop's voice could be heard shouting in protest to the action and the pistol was freed of its imprisonment within the holster; another strand of wire made quick work of snatching the weapon and removing the bullets, projecting them downward into the inferno beneath the stone floor, and tossing the empty shell of a gun back to the frustrated deputy. She struck out with her flashlight at one of the twisting vines and so connected hard metal with soft, spongy matter; the great head shook resignedly, before a particularly large vine-like tendril complete with enormous thorns forced and pinned the woman to the ground; one of the thorns pierced straight through the shin of her right leg, passing between the two bones present, driving into the stone beneath, and resulting in such an outcry of anguish from the downed officer, that it pained Rose more to hear it than it probably did Cybil to feel it.
"She was not unsuspecting!" the beast bellowed, causing pieces of the floor above to crumble and fall to the stone below, while ignoring the groaning of the wounded cop; the barbed wire tightened considerably around Rose's waist; she sucked in the still purified air with cautious motion, unwilling to allow her midsection to expand enough to place it in danger of being sliced open by the barbs any more so than it already had been. "She conceived that child by way of sin! Alessa does not understand the complications of allowing her mother to survive whilst slaughtering all the others! The child is innocent, born of the sins of another; completely beyond her control such events were, though now that they are no longer, she does not understand. She does not understand, and she does not wish to believe."
Rose's eyes were wide with both fright and confusion as the monstrosity boomed onward with its speech and its explanations; she said nothing, only tried to tune out the sounds of her friend who still lay bleeding on the floor, trying to allow the lord to speak and finish before the blood loss became fatally low.
"Dahlia Gillespie is the source of this Hell. The darkness of Alessa is just as innocent as the goodness of Alessa. Your daughter. She is the innocent, and you, her mother, have sinned as much so as hath Dahlia. For your friend's and your daughter's return to the world from whence you have come, one sinner…one mother…must perish."