A/N: A special thanks goes out to all my lovely reviewers. You guys are the only reason I keep continuing this story. I had a massive bout of thought for this chapter, so forgive me if it's slightly confusing at the end. I'll try to clarify it in the next few if y'all don't get it here. Enjoy!

Chapter Eighteen

The way through the abandoned auto field was rough; the ground beneath their feet shifted and swayed in protest to even their light masses; the enormous hill which towered hundreds of feet above them appeared to curve over and glare down at them forebodingly. Cybil had ashamedly admitted to Rose when they had started out that the plant demon had removed all the bullets from the pistol, and only returned the empty shell of said pistol; Rose however, had seemed unfazed, and had merely nodded before continuing on her determined way. Neither knew what was in store for them as they wandered amongst the outskirts of the forgotten, ash-coated town; the small size of Silent Hill convinced Rose that she had little to lose if she searched atop the mountain-like formation however, for she'd ventured into virtually every building elsewhere in the village. She had nowhere else to look but here.

Honestly, she didn't even know what she was looking for. If it was Dahlia, she'd have her work cut out for her; the strange woman was evasive as it were—if she was smart enough to realize she was indeed the subject of the two women's search, she would evade them even more carefully. The cop stuck close by to the young mother, having removed her baton after sheathing the pistol; even if it didn't act as quickly as the gun, she was an excellent handler of it, and could deliver a crushing blow should anything decide to snatch either of them up. Hell—in the past she'd killed one of the miners in the town with a single strike, had she not? Even so, Cybil was apprehensive, and prepared for anything. Or rather, she hoped she was.

The eerie silence of the abandoned lot was discomforting, but neither chose to let on such fact; while at one point in time Cybil had seemed the more dominant of the two, they were now equally matched, with the cop showing said dominance by way of physical strength and resourcefulness, and Rose by pure, unimpeded persistency. Either way, it remained so that fear was not something they wished to share with one another. At least not to a great extent, anyway.

Footstep by wary footstep, the two scaled the side of the surprisingly steep incline, but only with the assistance of a narrow path which proceeded to wrap around the exterior of the hill and provide somewhat of a trail. The going wasn't easy, by any means, yet 'twas manageable for them both, and particularly for Cybil, seeing as she was in much better physical condition than was Rose. For a time the cop allowed her friend to catch her breath before continuing on; she stood guard for the few minutes Rose needed, swinging the baton lazily about the air. When the mother made to stand, she lost her footing due to the narrow width of the trail, resulting in a sudden grabbing motion from the officer which landed on her upper arm and jerked her away from the edge; unintentionally the lady deputy found herself pinned between Rose and the rocky wall behind her; Rose scooted away before Cybil could say anything, and marched onward.

Long at last, the summit of the small mountain was in sight, and then it had been reached; the two women stopped to stare down at the expanse that was Silent Hill, and were perturbed at the unwelcome viewing of a large group of the long-tongued canines which meandered about in no particular direction outside a distant alleyway.

"Let's just hope they stay down there," muttered the cop, trying not to display her worry openly. Unfortunately, Rose saw straight through it, though she said nothing on the matter, instead choosing to remain silent. Turning 'round, she lay eye on a thick patch of what looked to be an ancient forest, whose gnarled trunks and crackled branches caked with dead and rust-colored leaves were just as enticing as they were ominous. Something cold and wet made its presence known a moment past; thin liquid, silvery in the dim light, paraded down her nose and dove off to one side just before reaching the tip; more followed as the rain became heavier and penetrated the thin layers of their clothing, and Rose's self-conscious nature arose upon realizing her thin blouse would shield nothing from sight when waterlogged. To make matters still worse, sirens screamed to life in the distance and jolting both into a state of brief panic, though it subsided considerably quicker in Cybil; she glanced around briefly, noting the darkening skies, and immediately snapped her hand to her shoulder so as to turn on a light she'd forgotten she'd possessed before. The trees did not melt into the sort of Hell that the rest of the forsaken Silent Hill did; Rose didn't have to wait for Cybil's words to know where they were supposed to go; dashing into the blackness of the forest, the sirens were immediately silenced, along with all other noises, save for the heaving breaths that protruded from the women's lungs.

Stumbling and tripping most of the way in, Rose collapsed to the ground after a few hundred feet, Cybil doing the same whilst shoving her back up against a tree if only for the comfort of knowing nothing could reach her from behind. Rose merely lay flat out with her hands and arms splayed out on either side of her head, her knees bent and placed nearly atop one another; had she not been moving her head from side to side, her figure would clearly have been one of a lifeless corpse. The beam from the shoulder light on Cybil's uniform shone into the all-too-quiet darkness; something glittered in said beam, refracting the light and twinkling innocently at her. Unwilling to allow Rose to see and pursue it, the officer shifted to place the ray upon her friend, effectively shielding the peculiar reflection from the young mother's ambitious eyes.

Propping herself up on her elbows, Rose examined what little she could see of the environment in which they currently found themselves to be locked within; forward an instant and she had sat up entirely, blinking her eyes and making a brim of her hand; Cybil took the hint and dimmed the light, aiming it downward as well, carefully avoiding the area in which she had seen the gleam.

"Why is it so quiet in here?" inquired the mother uselessly, standing up. She moved around a bit, looking up at the trees and doing her best to scrutinize them in the dark.

"Beats me. Can't say that I'm unhappy with it either." The cop rested her head against the base of the tree and expelled a deep sigh. "What I wouldn't give for a few hours of this, and a real fucking bed too."

"There's something over here!" Rose's voice was shockingly enthusiastic, a striking contrast to Cybil's more weary one, as she shouldered through the thick branches in the opposite direction as to which the officer had expected. The curiosity withheld by the Da Silva woman was incredible; Cybil's mind raced back to the words of the giant demon that had spoken of curiosity; was Rose only acting upon her curiosity because she'd trusted the being? It was unclear, but the woman was compelled to follow her friend lest she become the victim of some horrendous accident during which her only chance of survival would be Cybil herself; the skies were maleficent in their dingy hue as the two women crashed through a final barrier of tremendously protestant net of intertwined twigs and vines.

There didn't appear to be any monstrosities nearby, but Cybil wasn't about to take any unnecessary risks; she brandished the baton like a knight his sword, and then her violet eyes snapped to Rose's light frame, standing perilously close to the edge of what, from Cybil's position, looked to be a sheer, vertical drop. She hurriedly made her way toward her friend and reached out an arm to direct her a safe distance away from it, and then proceeded to gaze into what Rose was undoubtedly captivated by.

Beneath them lay a more thin layer of smoke and ash than what had been seen to choke the Hell-birthed Silent Hill; it slithered its way between the iron rail supports of the bridge, and viewable beyond its deceitful grey-ish coloration was an abnormally bright series of greens and blacks and yellows. Yes, beneath the bridge lay an identical bridge, and identical surroundings, but in full color, severed only by that one layer of ashen fog. 'Twas as if they were looking down upon their exact position from above. Cybil subconsciously moved forward another step or so, making sure to keep Rose back a few safe meters.

Bruising beneath her knee-high leather boots, the ground suddenly gave way; once solid stone transformed instantaneously into butter; the young cop's form was lost over the edge as Rose scrambled backward to avoid toppling over herself. A scream ripped from the blonde officer's throat as her baton was violently wedged between several lifeless tree roots erupting from the side of the mountain; she clutched desperately at it, calling on a good ten years of experience and training, as well as physical strength to prevent her hands from detaching themselves, all the while crying out for the help which Rose could never provide.

In the meantime, the panicked mother searched wildly through the dark until she came upon a vine which looked strong enough to support Cybil's weight; a part of it was still twirled many times around an enormous tree, giving it strength; Rose felt her way down its length until she reached its end, picking it up and throwing it over the edge of the cliff. It dangled before the woman, and she relinquished her hold on the baton so as to grip it with both hands and scurry part of the way upward. When she could go no further she called out to Rose, begging her to pull her up and over onto blesséd earth once more; she could not, the mother realized as she struggled to do the obviously impossible. Cybil would die here, and once again, 'twould be of her own doing.

An abrupt surge of motion nearly pulled Rose Da Silva backward and off her feet; a figure stood behind her, its colossal head of crimson-rusted iron aimed in her direction as it if could see the goings on, whilst scarred but muscular arms dragged the vine—and Cybil—upward effortlessly; not moments later and she lay face down upon the ground, breathing hard. An upward glance was cast in time to see the Red Pyramid release the vine and clutch a six-foot blade instead; in the background a scraggly human figure crouched in a poor attempt at stealth, her physique vanishing as the light came and the savior dissipated into ash. Not far from where the two were splayed out there rested a small, crooked structure of wood and stone; Rose scrambled to her feet and practically dragged her friend into it, setting her at last upon the moth-eaten excuse for a couch which was placed just inside, across from a damaged stove and blackened sink.

For a good few minutes, naught but the sound of labored breathing could be heard within the shed as both Rose and Cybil struggled to return the lost oxygen to their hungry lungs. When near silence was reached, the cop raised irises of violet to claim blue; the tattered and tangled blonde locks that made up Rose's hair were swept backward and tucked away behind her ear by way of Cybil's quaking fingers. The mother pulled away instinctively, her mind reverting to the moment in the street in which Cybil had removed herself from a similar, albeit more extreme gesture; she wished not to make the moment into something it would never be. An expression of surprise, and perhaps even hurt, crossed the young cop's features as Rose did so; tearing her eyes away, she sighed resignedly and shifted to lean back against the rather uncomfortable couch. Rose eyed her perceptively.

"Tell me that triangle-head…thing…didn't just help you." Cybil's gaze was centered elsewhere in the small cabin, avoiding Rose's.

"You should be happy about it. If I'd been alone, you wouldn't be here right now. And it would have been my fault. Again."

"It wasn't ever your fault Rose."

Silence.

Tense silence.

Finally, Rose looked in her friend's direction, and took the initiative to force Cybil to return her gaze, reaching out as the cop had once done to her and turning her head to face the sea blue of her own sorrowful eyes. "Sometimes I wonder what it is that we want out of this place," the mother said softly, dropping her hands back to her lap and her sights back to the floor.

"Something more than either of us are getting, I presume," Cybil retorted easily.

"I want a cure. For Sharon, I mean. I want to see Chris again, and I want to go home. Why can't I just go home?"

"Because Sharon is a part of this place Rose. And you're a part of her. Silent Hill wouldn't let its people go thirty years ago. What makes you think it'd let you go now?"

Rose was thoughtful for a brief minute.

"I know what's really happened. I don't pray to a God that's not here, and I eliminated those who did. Except for Galia, her followers, and Alessa's mother. And I blindly adopted a part of the sinner's daughter. I've replaced Dahlia—and her sin—with myself. Shared sin now."

Cybil stared at her in confusion, her words making little sense to her.

"What are you talking about? Dahlia was hated for however it was she conceived that child. You had nothing to do with it."

"No! Christabella tried to dispose of the sin, and it didn't work!" cried Rose, shaking her head with wide-eyes. "Alessa was still the sin, and Sharon is a part of Alessa. The mother of the sin was the sinner. I willingly led myself into that trap. I've become the sinning mother. And in order to get us out of here, the real sinner has to die, because the sin had no control over her own conception, meaning she was innocent!"

"So that's what the plant meant?" Cybil asked wearily, her brain not entirely following the twisted trail of intended logic that Rose had lain out before her. "But why would your death have any significance if the real sinner was still alive? The plant said that one of you must perish—why, if Dahlia is all that matters, would it imply that your death could free us too?"

Rose's sea eyes opened wider, if it was even possible, and she stared at the cop with a horrifying realization present on her face.

"Oh god. Cybil—I think—I think I am Dahlia."