Grace & Silver

Chapter 10

Teacher, Third Mercy, and Symbols

Author Notes: English is in italics.

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There is a certain peace that comes with the knowledge of your impending death.

Nabiki carefully walked around the mangled pile of metal that littered the street, as she wearily eyed the amorphous water balloon creatures laying betwixt and upon the jagged forest, completing some twisted form of art. The little slurping and gasping noises emitted from them as they undulated on top of the bloody wreckage made Nabiki shudder in a strange sensation of comfort and revulsion. She supposed that they were feeding on something within the pile, comparing the sounds humorously to Ranma’s own eating habits. What they were feeding on and how exactly they ate were questions she had no intention of finding out; as long as they were thoroughly distracted from her, she was more than content to leave them to their meal.

Those damn whispers were always there now. Chattering away in her ears like some unseen crowd that hid in the shadows with their own intent to tear at her sanity. It was always the same thing too; pity for the shadows, contempt for the rugs, and the water balloon things received a stomach churning mixture of innocent love and damnable fear. Nabiki thought she knew the source of the whispers; that was no great secret, but the whys and how still eluded her. Once again those questions were pushed away in favor of devoting as much of her mental capabilities as possible to assist the instinct of survival.

Still the questions kept coming, why her? Why was it her that was invited to this Hell; she had never even heard of this place before yesterday. There was a gargantuan chunk missing in the picture of what was going on here and that ate at her enough to overcome the near overwhelming fear that was just at the brink of her psyche. Her base instincts were becoming hisses and growls, like a reptile or dog warning of great danger, but Nabiki’s higher functions either couldn’t it or refused to.

Another turn within the maze of sharp scrap metal and malformed flesh lead to another moment of unrefined stealth, as she slipped by what looked like a mass of the black and white rugs and the shadow things writhing upon one another like two snakes. The sounds that came from them were soft groans accompanied by a wet, sucking sound, that only brought Nabiki a greater feeling of revulsion than before. Still the obscenity kept those things preoccupied enough to allow her to walk by them unheeded, so she continued on and ignored the gut wrenching sounds behind her.

One block, and one more turn away from the restaurant now. Nabiki’s nerves had been stretched beyond the breaking point. Her rational mind had become a traitor, as it just couldn’t see anything else than her approaching death now. Boiled or perhaps frozen to death as one of those water balloon things grasped onto her like leeches; asphyxiated by one of those rugs while her body was crushed by that matted pad of veins and flesh and fur; her throat slowly spit open by the shadows, forced to witness their lament and weeping as she bled to death. The images kept coming and the thought repeated again and again; she would die before she left this wretched place.

“Nabiki…”

She screamed. Spinning around in a blind panic waving the blood stained bat frantically. Her screaming stopped short, as a sick feeling entered her mind; she had probably just alerted every single one of those monsters she had passed as to her presence.

“Nabiki…Miss Tendou.” The voice beckoned, the source coming from the alleyway in front of her. It seemed familiar, she couldn’t quite place it, but it did seem like she had heard it once before. As she pondered the voice’s origin, the familiar whispers arose up from the recesses of her mind, a la radio finally coming in contact with a heavily static filled broadcast signal…

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It walked out from the alley slowly, almost staggering as if mortally wounded. A mature woman in a yellow dress that was just a little bit too tight for decency, long brown hair that made Nabiki envious with its vibrancy, and the same hell dragged look that Nabiki knew was mirrored on her face.

“Please help…it hurts so much.” It whimpered as it walked towards her. It looked so human; the face, the eyes, the body… everything a stark change from those awful monstrosities she had been fighting, and somehow that made it even more unsettling.

“Stay back!” She pulled the hammer back on her gun. The click that came from it sounded was absolutely pathetic, far from the imposing sound the movies had shown. Still the creature walked towards her, a look of hurt now on her face.

“Nabiki, please!” The gun in Nabiki’s hands lowered slightly, as Nabiki felt the desperation in the creature’s plea, “I know you aren’t the cruel person she says you are. Please, help me.” She held out her arms to the backing away girl. The long gashes along the underside of her forearms showed. A thin layer of just barely clotted blood covering the telling wounds, right before her elbows the jagged pieces of glass she had used to make the gashes still stuck out of her arms.

“Please Nabiki,” the creature barely held back a sob, seeing it’s potential salvation retreating fearfully, “I want to get out of here, she’s hurting us. Please help me!” She begged. “She’s making us like it…force feeding us her dogma…help please…”

Nabiki almost decided to blow the monster’s brains out when an idea clicked on inside her mind. This creature…what if it really wasn’t trying to hurt her? True it could be a trick, a simple attempt to lure her near then attack her, but then again there was that poor creature in the Medical Clinic. If anything that thing tried to help her. So should she trust this one? Like the other one it had looked like someone had been beating on it for a while. The pros and cons weighed against each other and came up even, so she flipped a coin in her mind. It came up heads.

Slowly Nabiki lowered her firearm still keeping it ready if she needed to use it after all. “Miss Hinako?” She said cautiously as she took a little step towards the creature.

“Oh…oh thank God.” The creature that looked like the Furnikan teacher said sobbing. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

“I could say the same.” Nabiki replied keeping a distance from her. “Do you know what the hell is going on?”

The woman shook her head. “No, no. All I know is being at the wedding and seeing…seeing…” Miss Hinako broke down sobbing again. “It was horrible.”

Nabiki did something very stupid. She walked up next to the poor woman and put a hand on her shoulder. Before she knew what was happening the thing had sprung up and had wrapped her hands around her. Nabiki panicked for a moment, then she noticed that the only thing Miss Hinako was doing was holding her, crying. A moment of confusion and then Nabiki found herself returning the hug, sobbing just as hard. Relief washing over her in such force that she started sobbing again.

“Miss Hinako, please tell me, what is happening? Who are you talking abou-“ She stopped dead as she felt something where her hand was. Her lower hand was on Hinako’s stomach area, in an attempt to support her, and under her hand, directly under the skin, something moved.

Hinako groaned and held her stomach. A barely human sound coming out of her mouth. She looked even paler than before, if that was possible. Nabiki stated to back away. “Are you okay?” As soon as the words left her lips she realized what a stupid question that was.

“O-ohh God…” Hinako said in a studdering whimper, before she collapsed to her knees in a series of dry heaves. A horrible gagging sound came from her throat, heralding a mixture of several bile and blood that dribbled from the corners of her mouth.

Nabiki ran up to the woman to see if she could help. There was no way she would let her only true lead to some real answers go. “Miss Hinako! Please, what’s wrong? What’s wr-“

“It hurts…” Hinako said as another stream of life fluid and gastric juices came out of her mouth, staining her yellow dress. Nabiki couldn’t stop staring at the two lumps writhing around under her skin. The two moving bulges came into contact with each other, there was that horrible pause, the moment where all involved parties realized that something truly horrendous was about to occur, marked by Hinako’s piercing scream.

It wasn’t the scream that caused Nabiki to panic. It wasn’t that under Nabiki’s hand she had felt the sensation of a water balloon popping from being over filled. Nor that it was followed by a small amount of blood flowing down her legs. The sound wasn’t it either, a muffled bang and then a sound of a wet pop and a little dripping noise complete with a soft hiss. It was that right after the scream, when Nabiki realized what had just transpired, that Miss Hinako’s stomach had just exploded, that was when she started to panic.

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Please let me die. He whimpered pathetically. The hard, calm voice had gone away and with it all of his sense and planning. Just this thing was left, and he begged it, God, anyone to make it go away. Every time he did that horrible soft voice would come back and respond in the same way.

How can I go away? I’m you. Now, open the box and load it. Remember when you did this before? Don’t worry, I helped you then, remember? There are better places to put these than in your own skull.

Sobbing he complied, or maybe he was just doing things he wanted to, either way he wanted to die. But he knew he was far too much of a coward to even try.

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One of the lumps crawled up from her mid-section and towards her right shoulder. Nabiki backed away from Miss Hinako was the lump finally reached the scabbing would along her arm. Slowly something pushed through the membrane, causing fresh blood to drip down her arm. Its head broke through so suddenly and receded as quickly that Nabiki didn’t have time to register what it was. It did it again though and then she realized what it was. A blue… fish?

The second lump had left the mid section and was crawling up her back. The first fish ran back up the length of the arm and the two met at the right side of the creature’s head. A quick sharp pop sound, and the Miss Hinako monster’s eye burst. The milky white substance that once were eyes dripped down its face, as the right side of her skull became distended and warped. The fish then slid down to her throat where they met again.

The pop sound was a lot louder now and the damage was a lot worse. The whole front of the throat was ruptured as if the monster had swallowed a firecracker, and Nabiki was spattered with bits of skin and flesh. She looked back at the thing and saw that it was still trying to move towards her, making little gagging noises with what remained of her larynx. Nabiki’s eyes widened further, as she began to notice, oh so slowly, Hinako’s heavily damaged face began to knead back together in spite of the bulges caused by the foreign organisms maliciously traveling beneath her flesh, subtly beginning to heal what couldn’t possibly be rectified naturally. She realized the real extent of the older woman’s suffering; the cycle of pain would begin and again, while permanently taking out whatever was within reach. The blue fish and its companion red fish, fighting fish now that Nabiki could see their large dorsal fins, splashing around in the hollow before they split up and began to swim around within the creature’s body.

“Please…” Nabiki raised her gun. “Please, go away. I don’t want to shoot.” But she did. Every part of her logical mind was screaming at her to shoot. If those blasts kept getting bigger and bigger then she could be in danger, a bone fragment flying out could easily do a lot of serious damage. And it was the merciful thing to do, the poor thing was in ever lasting pain. But… the more the thing pleaded, the more human it became, the more familiar it was, the more she realized that this was Hinako in physical anguish and hellish torture. The tears running down its cheeks from what was left of her tear ducts as it gagged fueled Nabiki’s own. It would be a favor for it just to shoot the thing.

But she couldn’t, as much as she wanted to she couldn’t tighten her finger around the trigger. It was the same with that thing in the clinic, but then again, these weren’t just things. These were people she knew; even trusted; she just couldn’t take herself to put a bullet in Miss Hinako’s head, finishing what her curse had started. So she backed away, until she couldn’t any more.

Pressed against the side of some building, she could only beg as the creature slowly crawled forward, its arm held out in a plea for help. Then, with a bang that did not come from within, Miss Hinako’s face was blown out from behind. It collapsed to the ground, body and fish unmoving, as the gore, blood, and remaining eyeball fluid dripped off of Nabiki’s face.

Nabiki’s mind just stopped, overwhelmed at what had just happened. For a moment then entire world seemed to go away for a while as she tried to regain what she had left of her mind. When she came to her senses again she was crouched down low, her hands cupped around her mouth. They were covered in fluids, and her stomach stung in pain. A sound of footsteps and a voice approached her.

“Wow, that looked close.” Mercy said putting what she felt was a comforting and steadying arm on Nabiki’s shoulder. “Good thing I got where when I did, huh Nuku?”

Nabiki responded by hitting the woman alongside her head.

"KONO AMA!" Nabiki screamed, delivering another fierce punch to the American's face with her burnt hand; it hurt like hell, but her fury allowed her to ignore the pain. Nabiki didn't care as she stood over the fallen woman, tears falling down her cheeks. "BAKA! SHE WAS NO MONSTAH! SHE HERUP US, PROBABRY! KUSOBAKA!" She kicked her hard in the shin and then collapsed to the ground sobbing.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mercy screeched as she backed away. “Is this the thanks I get for saving your life?”

Nabiki started to catch her breath again, quickly trying to form the proper English words. “You could have killed myself as well! What happen if you miss with that shotgun weapon?”

“That would never happen, I’m a damn surgeon with this thing!” She snapped back with a line from a movie Nabiki was familiar with. “My Brother-in-Law Jeff taught me everything!”

Nabiki almost opened her mouth to reply, but something made her hold her tongue. Perhaps it was her Lizard Brain again, acting in self-preservation, or her rationale coming back to the fore. The pause allowed Mercy to regain her feet and the two girls to let their tempers cool a little.

Nabiki was the first to break the silence. “Sorry…that…that monster looked like someone I did know before.”

“Ah,”Mercy replied nodding in understanding. “That’s happened to me too. God this place gets to you doesn’t it?” She chuckled, almost vapidly in a way that rubbed Nabiki the wrong way, “Man, I feel like I’m one step away from going insane. Anyway I did owe you one for the bump on the head earlier. Oh, by the way, here.” She tossed Nabiki two boxes of bullets. “My gun jammed up and broke, so they’re no good to me.”

“Thank you.” Nabiki said taking the ammo. She didn’t mean to be so curt, with the need for conversation eating away at her, but each and every time she looked at that girl the bile just rose in her mouth. Somehow that woman had found time to do her makeup, as there was a fresh layer of lip-gloss and eyeliner on her face. Hell, she didn’t even look like she had a scratch on her, and she had changed her shirt. Even now she was primping herself up in the reflection of a store’s glass window. The more Nabiki saw of her, the more there was to find that she didn’t like about her. The unnerving thing, she felt a slight pang of hypocrisy from her thoughts.

After a moment Mercy sighed, turned away from the glass, and looked up at Nabiki. “We even?”

Nabiki just winced at the thought of being ‘even’ with this woman. As if you could put a cost on things like ethics, or humanity. Lord she hated this wretched woman; she always seemed to have to put a definitive value on everything. Not to mention all those irritating little things about Americans that she hated, the perfect teeth, the obsession with appearance, and lets not forget all of the things she said. Who could stand a person like that? But putting aside her bile for a moment she nodded regaining her composure.

“Hai… yes.”

Mercy nodded and walked away into the darkness, moving further into the malformed town. Nabiki scowled, sighed, and then finally collapsed against a wall of a building. She didn’t want to look at what kind, especially if there was a reflective surface on it. It wasn’t home to something trying to kill her and that was enough.

She could see the restaurant, looking perversely normal amid the hellish landscape, a half a block away even through the all prevailing darkness. With it being such a short distance away, she figured if something appeared she could make a break for it. The truth of that statement was questionable, but gods be willing, there would be no need to test it.

Nabiki hurt all over, physically and emotionally. Her watch had gotten broken sometime between the clinic and now, so she had no idea how long she had been there. What was weird was that she didn’t feel hungry or thirsty, and as much as her wounds ached she didn’t feel exhausted. Her duffle bag however, seemed so heavy now. Stopping for a second she decided to lighten her load a bit.

She wasn’t fully thinking of the potential consequences as she unloaded much of the bag’s weight; away went the water bottles, the second change of clothes, the half-full box of protein bars, and anything else she felt she didn’t need. The only things she kept were her weapons, the gun, the first aid supplies she had lifted leaving the hospital, the bullets Mercy had given to her, the picture of the two people, the notes and testimonials of Mr. Burlew, and the storybook with the pages she had collected.

She was about to move on when she caught something out of her eye. That design with the circles had been recreated on one of Burlew’s pages! She started to read it, desperate for any new information.

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The cult of Silent Hill, known as ‘The Order’, uses this symbol to show their faith. It is known as the ‘Halo of the Sun’ the two outer circles represent charity and resurrection. The three inner circles arranged in a triangle represent the past, present, and future. The parallels of this to the Holy Trinity are obvious, and most likely the result of the original cult reinterpreting Judeo-Christian elements with regards to Western pagan faiths.

The symbol is drawn in red, sometimes black. However it is NEVER drawn in blue. This reverses the meaning and makes it a curse against the cult’s God and a heresy. This is apparently similar to an upside down crucifix. DO NOT think that a blue ‘Halo of the Sun’ will form any kind of protection. The red or black one calls for help from the cult’s God, I shudder to think what might emerge if you call for its Devil.

Of the three sects within the cult the Sacred Ladies sect does have a ritual that uses the heretical ‘Halo of the Sun.’ It is a cleansing ritual that has only been performed once, said to be used to first purify the land around the lake. The heretical halos appear ‘To mark the lairs of the sinful, so they might be found and purged.’

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The treatise went into details about other rituals that either had to do with ‘Grand Executioners’, numbered people, reeds and snakes, or some twice-dead Madonna. Nabiki looked but couldn’t find anything else on the ‘Cleansing’ ritual.

Sighing she packed the notes away again and walked the last half block to the Lucky Jade Restaurant. She was not surprised at all to see, painted on the door, the heretical Halo of the Sun. The Eye of God staring back at her from its position at the top of it.

Nabiki adjusted her grip on the bat and entered the restaurant.

She sighed and shook her head ruefully. At least now she truly knew what she had been suspecting she had been doing so far.

Descending further into sin.

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Author’s Notes: Yay! 50+ reviews! Thank you so much to everyone, especially those of you who have been with this from the beginning. As always many thanks go to WFROSE, for his help. And all commentary is welcome and wanted, be it good or bad.

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Omake!

“Ryoga, look out!” Leon cried out as the boulders came bouncing down the road.

“Get back!” He cried back in his heavily accented English. “And cover Ashley I’ve got this.” And the boy in the yellow and black actually ran towards the boulders that were rolling down the hill.

Leon gaped as the bandana wearing youth charged up and struck the oncoming boulders with just two fingers. He was even more awestruck when the exploded into harmless rubble. Coming to his senses quickly, he picked off the Ganados that had launched the boulder, before they could get more or alert any of the others.

“Man Ryoga, I don’t know what we would have done without you!” Ashley chirped happily as she gave the boy a hug. Thankfully they could understand each other well, Ryoga did know some English, Leon was taught Japanese during his training, and Ashley had spent a year in Japan in an educational program.

Ryoga blushed deeply and mumbled some thanks. To be honest he was a little scared of her, not because of what she said with growing within herself and Leon (He didn’t understand that part anyway) but rather because Leon had pulled him aside and had explained that if he so much as touched her the wrong way he would be shot dead on the spot with the biggest gun he had in that carrying case. That would have been the thick rod like thing with the bulb at the end.

“So…umm…where are we going now?” Ryoga asked the brown haired agent.

“This way.” Leon motioned down the path. “I think we might fi-“ Leon began another violent coughing fit spitting out large amounts of mucus and blood. “Crap. It’s happening faster. Come on we need to get moving.”

The trio ran down the direction that would hopefully lead them to safety and a cure for their condition. As dire as the current situation was his mind kept drifting back to Nabiki. His thoughts were rudely interrupted as a crossbow bolt whizzed past his head. A group of Los Illuminatos members had ambushed them!

“Ashley get down! Ryoga, watch her!” Leon snapped as he fired at the group of Los Illuminatos advancing on him.

Ryoga nodded making sure that Ashley was safe behind him. The message that he was a terror in hand to hand must have gotten around as the only people accosting him were the ones using crossbows. It was getting hard to dodge them and make sure Ashley was safe.

Seeing that Leon would still be a while with his dance partners Ryoga charged forward hurling two of his bandannas at one of the cultists. The man fell down, and Ryoga incapacitated him with a hard kick to his head, knocking him out. Ashley’s scream caused him to whip his head around and swear. Three Novaistadors had flown down behind them, and with the cultists as a distraction; one of them had grabbed Ashley.

"Leon! Give me a boost!” He yelled and ran towards the American Agent. Nodding, Leon cupped his hands into a platform, and hoisted up when Ryoga jumped onto it. Leon, Ashley, and the two Illuminatos, watched in fascination as Ryoga lifted into the air, landed on top of one of the metal clawed men, kicked off it hard, sending it crashing to the ground hard, then he kicked the second flying monster in mid air, crashing it into the one holding Ashley, causing it to lose its grip and drop the girl, who was caught in mid air by Ryoga, and land a little inelegantly on the ground on his back.

Leon, and the two remaining cultists gaped. “Madre de Dios…” One of the cultists mumbled. “Est el Diablo!” They both dropped their crossbows and took off looking absolutely terrified. Leon couldn’t help but smile and laugh a little.

“Mr. Hibiki.” He said helping them both off the ground. “When we get out of this, you are going to have to teach me some of those moves.”

“Yes, sir.” Ryoga said. “Ashley, are you aright? I didn’t hurt you or any th-“

Ryoga was cut off as Ashley kissed the boy on the mouth in gratitude. Ryoga responded in the way that he always did when in situations like this. He passed out cold.

After reviving Ryoga the trio resumed their quest to stop Saddler and escape. They had arrived at a point overlooking what looked to be part of a foundry. A huge steel door set in the middle of a steel floor, it was far too quiet for comfort, and no sign. “Ashley you stay here. This looks like another set up.” Leon said motioning for her to hide.

“Leon?” Ryoga asked as the two men made their way down.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know of a place in America called Silent Hill?”

Leon stopped and turned to look at his companion. “Why are you asking that?”

Ryoga shrugged in reply, “Someone I know is… there.”

“Silent Hill,” Leon sighed. “I’ve never been there, I’ve just heard stories. I really hope your friend is okay. If so much as half of what I heard is true…” He trailed off, his focus shifting.

“What have you heard?” Ryoga asked a creeping horror crawling up within him. Leon opened his mouth to respond when suddenly another noise was brought to their attention. A dull booming thud came to their ears, and then another and another with some form of regularity. Leon’s eyes narrowed and he hissed out a word.

“Gigante.” He held his hand up and motioned for silence. The booming thuds continued but the regular rhythm had gone, now was some strange set of pounding, like someone dropping multiple heavy burdens at once or…

“Two pairs of feet…oh God, there’s two of them coming.” Leon turned to Ryoga. “Go back to Ashley, keep her safe. Do not leave her side.” He said turning to the location where the sound was coming from. Ryoga started to head back where they had left Ashley in a, hopefully, secure spot.

An inhuman roar behind him made Ryoga turn around. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Two enormous monsters that looked as if they had walked off a set for some fantasy movie were attacking Leon. He almost spun on his heel to go help him when he saw the American trigger a trapdoor, plunging one into certain death, and was dealing with the other one quite well. Ryoga returned to his task to rejoining Ashley.

He didn’t get lost this time…well…he didn’t get lost THAT much. About 30 yards off or so, but he did find someone, and it wasn’t Ashley. A large imposing man with sunglasses in a military uniform was standing there in front of him.

“Who are you?” Ryoga demanded. “Where’s Ashley?”

“Don’t worry kid,” The man said in excellent, if slightly accented, Japanese. “The girl’s safe, and the Boy Scout down there will be back with her soon enough. I didn’t come here for her anyway.” Ryoga never saw the hand that hit him. It was just too fast, the next thing he knew he was pinned on the ground with the soldier on top of him.

“Sorry kid.” The man in the beret said, his face showing nothing but malicious glee. “The boss doesn’t want any complications here, and you’re about as complicated as it gets.” He took out a rather large and wicked looking knife. “You are good though, so out of respect, I’ll try make this as quick as possi-“

“NO!” Ryoga kneed the man in the stomach as hard as he could. A hard grunt and the grip loosened just enough for them to break free.

“Uggh, you little sonova-“ The man pulled out a gun and Ryoga again felt his feet respond in the defense mechanism of running as fast as they could. The world seemed to blur as he heard gunshots go off behind him and the screams of those gigantic abominations.

When Ryoga caught his breath he noticed that he didn’t hear the shouts of his companions or enemies anymore. “Ashley?” No response. “Agent Kennedy?” Nothing.

He looked around and for a moment felt elation, he was back in Japan! True it was the middle of the night but there was no mistaking the classical building styles. Also, as luck would have it, there was a light in one of the houses. Wonderful! He could get some directions back to Nerima, find out what the hell was going on, and alert the proper authorities to Leon and Miss Graham’s plight. Things were starting to finally be looking up.

He knocked on the door softly; looking around he marveled at the pretty red butterflies when he turned back to the door there was a young girl staring at him in fear. Before he could say anything she raised an old camera and took a picture, the flash blinding him momentarily.

“Ah! Why did you DO that?” He yelped staggering back, spots dancing before his eyes.

The young, black haired girl lowered the ancient camera to stare at the boy blinking at the flash. Before Ryoga knew it she was hugging him in relief, sobbing, thanking God that he was alive. After a while she stopped crying and spoke.

“Oh thank God! You have to help me and my sister get out of here!”