I don't own anything associated with Kingdom Hearts or Silent Hill. They belong to Disney/Square Enix and Konami respectively

Chapter 9

So, this was Ridgeview Clinic.

Paper scurried across the ground as Terra threw open the doors. His ragged breathes, as heavy as the pants of some gigantic beast, rocked his body with their force and served as a rhythm for his steps. Gradually, they slowed to match the beating of his heart, which pounded away like a drum of war. And war he was at: war with the monsters, with the town, with the forces that divided him and his friends. There would be no mercy, no restraint until he found them.

His blue eyes flickered with shadows as he took in his surroundings. He was certain this was the place Ven had called him. The clinic seemed safe enough, but his experiences in this town had taught him never to be sure. They still haunted his mind, the dead men and his terror, but the most frequent ghost was the sirens, the same ones that had been wailing when Ven had spoken to him.

There were no sirens now, nor had the world transformed into that hellish place from before, but still, the fear that the darkness would swallow his friends took hold of him. It hit him in ways he hadn't thought possible and for once in his lifetime, he felt helpless.

He clenched his fists. Remember what Eraqus told you: hold true to the light and the darkness will never win. The shadows in his eyes danced one last time before fading, not that Terra noticed. Earthshaker in hand, he stormed down the halls, the forcefulness of his fury building with every step. Even the darkness seemed to bend away as he approached, so great was the power of his rage. Now if only he had a target to aim it at . . .

He heard sobs. His anger gave way to concern; as unmanly as it was, Ven did have a tendency to cry. He cried when he was hurt, cried on Aqua's shoulder when Terra made fun of him (resulting in a very pissed off Aqua hunting him down), cried when he really wanted Terra to buy him that toy in the shop's window. Aqua claimed that Ven was also talented at pretending to cry, but Terra had yet to witness it for himself.

He traced the sound to a room just as a hound followed the scent of its prey. "Ven?" He rapped his knuckles on the closed door as the sobs quieted. "Are you in there?"

Politeness dictated that he should wait for Ven to open the door, but impatience and worry ordered the opposite. He pried it open, forcing his way inside. The figure he saw was about the right size, but had the wrong clothing, the wrong hair and most importantly, the wrong gender.

"Uh, hi?" he said intelligently.

The raven-haired girl wiped her eyes. Terra, in his sensitive manner, pointedly looked away. As Aqua was happy to point out, he had never been good at dealing with feelings.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She nodded. Under her black cloak, Terra couldn't tell if there were any injuries to show otherwise, but her face said enough.

"You shouldn't be here alone," he mumbled. After scrutinizing every corner, Terra moved to the center of the room so that he was firmly between the girl and the doorway. The girl's mouth opened in a silent O.

Terra missed her surprise, staring hard at the bed on her side of the room instead. "Do you live here?"

"Oh, no, not in this room. What is that?" She pointed a finger at Earthshaker, which was dragging by his side.

"This?" Terra hefted Earthshaker up so that it sat on his shoulder. "It's my keyblade."

"Keyblade?"

"Yes, it's, uh . . ." He thought about how to explain.

"You must be Terra, then," she said quietly.

Terra blinked. "You know me?"

"Yes, Ven told . . ."

The girl's mouth snapped shut just in time for Terra to whirl around. "You've seen Ven?" He demanded. The girl was shaking her head, her hands waved in frantic denial, but Terra did not care about any of that. He advanced on her, unintentionally backing her into a corner, until he was just inches away.

"Where is he?" The girl whimpered as he towered above her. "Where's Ven?"

"I-I don't know!"

"You do." And he was certain that she did. Why, he did not know, but it may have had something to do with the fact that shadows had appeared in his eyes again.

"No, I don't!"

The girl tried to escape, but Terra placed his hands on the wall to stop her. He leaned in and hissed, "Tell me where he is."

"Terra, please, I can't –"

The pent-up anger inside him exploded; Terra drove a fist into the wall with a noise like that of a gunshot, but even that wasn't loud enough to drown out his words.

"Where is Ven?"

The girl had scrambled to get away from him after his punch landed next to her head. She had failed though, and now she held her arms in front of her in an attempt to protect herself.

"Please!" she sobbed.

His rage froze over. The chill of horror filled him instead. He flexed his hand, staring at the hole in the old wall, then at scratches on his knuckles. I wouldn't have really hit her, he told himself. But Terra wasn't sure. Everything that had happened just made him so angry, it was natural he would want to blow off some steam. Without Aqua or Ven to spar with, or monsters to fight, he was viable to take it out on any perceived obstacle he encountered.

Come to think of it, I've just been angry a lot lately.

"I'm sorry," he said sincerely. Terra staggered away from the girl, ashamed to meet her eyes.

"Don't be," she told him. "I'm the one who should apologize."

"No. That was my fault."

"But you were right." His chin snapped up. This time, he clamped down on his emotions. Xion sniffed, her eyes glistening. "Ven's here," she said, "but the darkness has taken him. You can't save him, Terra."

"No." His voice was hoarse. "There has to be a way!"

"There isn't."

"I refuse to accept that," he growled.

"Terra . . ."

He ignored her. The cool wall greeted his sweaty forehead as he leaned against it. His eyes were clenched shut in concentration. There had to be something he could do, he just didn't know what.

"Terra, he's not in this world anymore; he's in a different one, a dark one. I don't know if you understand. . ."

He swallowed hard, gasping past the vice that closed around his throat. "I understand completely."

The girl said, "The only thing you can do is leave before it gets you too."

Leave? The word echoed in his ears. There was no way he would ever abandon his friends. The very thought brought heat to his blood.

"No." His nails dug into his palm. "No way."

Black flames rippled down the length of his keyblade. "I can't leave him," he muttered. The flames swayed, stroking his arm, but its touch was cold, not hot, and Terra shifted in discomfort. As he did so, he suddenly became aware of a weight in his pocket. He reached for it, taking it out.

His Wayfinder was warm on his palm. Terra stared down at it, unaware of how close he cradled it to his chest. "There's always a way," he murmured.

The dark flames on his keyblade vanished, but they were not gone; they had merely found another host, gathering at his hands instead. They swirled around them in a sphere of darkness, darkening in intensity as the moments passed. He noticed them for a fleeting moment, but that seemed so trivial when compared to the other problems he faced. His fingers tightened around his Wayfinder, so that his veins began to bulge and so focused on that he was, he didn't see the darkness eat away at the wall when he placed his other hand upon it.

"Terra!"

As his support suddenly vanished, Terra stumbled forwards. Only with luck did he prevent himself from tumbling through the dark portal that had opened up in front of him. It remained there, calling to him, a mist of darkness arising from its center.

Slowly, like a dirty window being wiped clean, the black interior of the portal revealed what lay beyond. It was a room whose features seemed the same as this, but at the same time, it was something else completely. Fire was the first thing Terra saw; it peeked out from holes in the walls, dropped from the ceiling and smoldered below the mesh of the metal floor. The light they cast did not make the room brighter, but created an illusion of blood that drenched every inch. In it, Terra could see that the shadows were stirring, creeping along the walls in a way that seemed oddly human.

"H-how did you do that?" the girl asked.

"I don't know!" he replied. He reached forwards, half-expecting an invisible barrier to bar his way. But there was no resistance as his arm passed through the portal, only a sensation of heat.

"What is this?" he asked.

The girl tiptoed closer. She deliberately stood behind Terra, one hand on his arm as she peeped around him. "The dark world," she whispered, "but this one isn't yours. . ."

He looked down at her, and the girl caught his silent question. "The dark world's different for everyone. This one can't be yours, because it's his."

"Ven's?"

A few moments passed. Then she nodded. That was all he needed to hear.

"Terra! What are you doing?"

Terra paused, half of his body already through the portal. "I'm going after him."

She grabbed his shirt, tugging. "You can't; the darkness will devour you."

She was looking up at him with such pleading eyes, ones that reminded him of Ven. That only strengthened his resolve. Gently, he pried her fingers off, guiding her hand to her chest. "That's something I'll have to risk, then."

The girl's bowed head was above her closed hand, which in turn, was in line with her heart. "You three really are great friends."

"We are." He ruffled her hair in an attempt to ease the sorrow on her face. "Will you be safe if I leave you? There are . . . things wandering around."

"I'm not in any danger. Be careful, Terra."

"I will," he vowed. "It was nice meeting you. . ."

"Xion."

"Nice meeting you, Xion."

Guilt filled him as he turned his back to her. Despite Xion's claims, Terra couldn't help but feel as though she was in danger; those monsters he had seen, armed with blades and claws, should be able to easily take down a young girl like her. But the place he was going was far more dangerous, and Xion lived in Silent Hill; surely she knew what she was doing.

"Terra," Xion said as his foot passed through the portal, "I'm sorry this has to happen to you and your friends."

"I know."

It was a shock to go from the snowy town to a blazing hellhole, because that was exactly what it was. When his chest entered the dark world, when his heart entered, shadows rose from the floor. Their wispy forms solidified, the ends of their arms split, forming fingers; yellow eyes held him fast in their sight. The inferno under his feet reached up, spitting orange embers that grazed the barrier between them. Already, he was sweating from the heat.

While the door to the hall had been shut in the other world, it was open here, and Terra knew exactly what that meant.

He gripped Earthshaker tight and braced himself.

Compared to this thing, the neoshadows had been nothing.

That wasn't to say that the fight had been easy. Ven still winced as he walked; one of them had slashed him in the leg and it was only luck that had saved him. He had healed the wound, but an ache still struck deep whenever the leg shifted.

But though sharp their claws were, at least he was capable of bringing them down in one well-aimed strike. This thing, not so much. It was huge. Ven stood on the clinic's roof, two stories above ground, and still it was taller than he was. The bottom half of its body was concealed from him, lost in the fog. The upper half towered above him, yellow eyes staring down like two blinking suns. A darkside heartless, he thought Aqua had told him once; certainly, this one had the size.

Ven lunged out of the way as one of its hands came crashing down. Surely, with that much power the roof must cave; but the hand seemed to sink through the concrete instead, and as it returned, it brought a pool of darkness with it. From there was born dozens of tiny shadows, scurrying towards him as they followed the scent of his heart. They were easy to take care of, and Ven did so, swooping and twirling in an elaborate dance. As his keyblade cut through the last, the darkside swept its hand across the roof. Wayward Wind did little to block it, and Ven went flying, rolling to a stop at a fence on the building's edge.

Or, the fence that used to be there. The Darkside attacked once more, and although Ven scrambled out of the way, the fence could not. It fell to the ground far, far below in a shower of sparks. That meant that next time, there was no safety net.

"Thunder!" he cried, distracting the heartless long enough to get to his feet. He followed that up with a quick Aero spell, flinging the debris the heartless had created right at it. The darkside hardly paid it any mind; it swatted it away like a fly.

The roof rocked again as the hand came down. Ven staggered, but the shadows rushed towards him, unhindered. Not that they were much harder to dispatch than before. However, what Ven failed to realize is that they were only a distraction for the bigger predator.

He first became aware something had gone wrong when he was face-first on the ground. The clinic groaned as the Darkside shifted its weight, reaching for him. Ven rolled over, swung his keyblade, and the spidery fingers retreated, but only for an instant. The next moment, as if an elastic chord connected them, they snapped back, dragging the body with it. The Darkside's body blotted out the sky, and save for the heart-shaped hole in its chest, all Ven could see was black, and the hand that was falling down . . .

Heartless couldn't speak, but the darkside made some kind of noise: a rumble, like that of an earthquake, which caused flakes of plaster to bounce and dust to fall. There was a streak of brown, and then the heartless reeled back, swatting at the air. And before it had found its balance again, there was a roar – a human one – and Terra lunged out of nowhere.

He slammed down in front of Ven in a kneeling position. Earthshaker served as support as he stood. Keeping his eyes fixed upon the Darkside, he extended one hand back towards Ven, grasping the other's hand tight when he took it. Within an instant, Ven was pulled to his feet, teetering to a stop just in front of the older apprentice.

"Terra, what . . . ?"

"Don't talk; just fight."

Ven set his jaw and nodded.

Together, they charged. Ven took a weaving path, slipping in and out of range and trying to sneak past the darkside's guard. Terra just went straight for it, fending off the dark orbs that emitted from the darkside's chest. A couple made contact, but Terra shrugged them off, countering with a swing that sent several back at their master. It didn't even flinch.

"Terra, watch out!"

Terra heeded him, and leapt back as the darkside's fist crashed into the ground. "Cover me," he ordered.

Ven didn't have Aqua's long-range arsenal for this sort of task, but he did have his speed. After throwing his keyblade in front to clear a path, he ran towards Terra, sliding under the Darkside's claws. Wayward Wind circled back like a boomerang and Ven caught it, letting the momentum carry his arm in a powerful blow.

The darkside had summoned the shadow heartless again, but before their yellow eyes had a chance to blink, Ven tore through them. Meanwhile, Terra had leapt upon the darkside's arm, racing up it straight towards the head.

Terra snarled as the darkside began to retreat. He dug in his heels, struggling to keep his balance. Ven watched fearfully as he rose higher and higher, but Terra knew what he was doing. With one hand clinging to the heartless' arm for support, he aimed between its eyes whilst his keyblade glowed with the telltale signature of a shot-lock.

It seemed as though nothing happened at first, that Terra's attack had been useless. Then, gradually, like a building buckling under its own weight, the heartless collapsed. Its essence melted into a black cloud, split in half by Terra as he dove to the ground. He landed hard - Ven could feel the vibrations of his impact - but Terra stood without pause, his breathing easy.

"Wow!" Ven cried. "That was so awesome!"

Terra grinned and ruffled his hair. "I'm surprised you didn't give that a try yourself."

"I would have," Ven lied, "but I was distracted because you know, it was really big and trying to squash me!"

Terra chuckled. "The Darkside heartless are more of an annoyance than anything. Someday, you'll be able to face one without hiding behind me."

"I was not hiding behind you!"

Terra had been staring into the distance as Ven said that, and now his smile faded. "Come on," he said, "we need to figure out how to get back to the normal world."

Ven swallowed. He glanced up; the sky was a murky black, with red flashes lighting up the clouds like a distant flame.

"Aqua's going to be okay, right?" Ven asked.

"She's not in this world. I'm not even supposed to be here."

"What do you mean?"

Terra shrugged. "I'm not sure myself; it's just something that your friend, Xion, said to me."

Ven had perked up upon hearing Xion's name and with that moment of extra awareness, he saw something shift in the corner of his eye. He turned before Terra could react, and his eyes widened. Standing right behind them was another monster. This one was bigger than both of them, with a strange pyramid-shaped helmet on its head and a giant knife that was already raised for an overhead swing.

"Terra!"

Terra whipped around . . . just in time for his face to twist in fear before the knife slammed into his stomach. It wasn't the blade that hit him but the dull end – he was that fortunate – but the force was so great that he skidded across the roof. He scrambled for a hold as he began to slide over the edge; with one hand he found one, and he dangled there.

Ven ran as fast as he could. He could picture Terra's fingers weakening in his mind and though he couldn't see him, he seemed to be dropping further and further down with each moment that passed.

Ven reached; his fingers brushed the tops of Terra's knuckles just as the latter's strength finally failed. Terra fell, and all Ven could do was scream as he was swallowed up by the darkness.