Grace & Silver Chapter 2

Variable and Veil

Disclaimer: Ranma belongs to Rumiko Takahashi. Silent Hill belongs to Konami. This is just for fun please don’t sue.

Author’s Notes: Everything spoken and signs that are in bold are in English. Everything else is in Japanese.

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Nabiki tugged her windbreaker tighter against her form, as she walked down Nathan Avenue, conscious of the unusual chill and murky dampness that rose with the dull and thick mists from the lake. It wasn’t unbearable, but it was just enough to make walking around miserable.

She took a moment to re-examine her tourist’s brochure, ignoring its proclamations of the splendors of this delightful resort town. She skimmed past the cheerful picture of the purple mascot of the amusement park, Robbie the Rabbit and studied the map of the town included in the brochure.

Much to Nabiki’s irritation, Pete’s Bowl-A-Rama was located in West South Vale. Her oh-so-friendly taxi driver had dropped her off two miles away from town, and from the map, she figured she would have to walk down the nature trail, down into town, and through East South Vale; a half an hour long, cold, wet, miserable, long walk.

Silent Hill was living up to its name quite well. Nabiki had yet to see any people, in fact the only thing she had seen that counted as living creatures were the trees in the greenbelts planted along the streets.

“It’s quiet. Too quiet.” Nabiki smiled at the classic cliché. Even if it was a stupid thing to say, didn’t make it wrong. The only sound was the muffled wind as it blew through the trees that provided her only greeting as she approached the town. As corny as it was, Nabiki still felt like she had walked into the opening scene of a horror movie. Of course, if Burlew and Gosunkugi were right then she wasn’t that far off.

After a long and uncomfortable trek, she reached the bowling alley, and took a look around. The park was a few blocks away, barely visible in the mist; that was probably where they took the picture.

‘Well this was a great idea,’ Nabiki thought to herself. ‘Now what? Hope that a clue comes crashing out of the blue?’ Right then, as if on cue, the sound of pins crashing down and the blaring sound of a ball game became audible from within the bowling alley.

“You have to be kidding me...” she stated dryly. She sighed, as she entered the building. ‘Well as long as I don’t have to strip down to my underwear I suppose I’ll be okay. After all,’ She smiled ruefully. ‘Virgins never die in horror movies. ‘Course if that were the case pretty much all of the Wrecking Company would survive, too.’

Pete’s Bowl-A-Rama fit almost every one of Nabiki’s stereotypes of American Culture; the 50 lanes, empty pizza boxes and beer cans that littered the floor, right down to the score display overhead with the amusing names of POO and ASS. Truly this was the cholesterol encrusted, post bypass surgery, proverbial heart of America.

Nabiki’s wry grin left her face; someone had been here, very recently too as the machinery had just began to reset the pins for the next bowler. The ball return caddy was making that soft humming noise, as it reclaimed the sphere from where it had landed. Apparently after a futile attempt to take out the number six pin and pick up a spare, such a shame, POO would have to settle for a measly 9 points.

Phunk!

The black ball pushed itself out of the return chute, and rolled into its waiting position in the caddy. Nabiki was just about to leave this physical homage to Middle-America, when the return shoot started to have complications.

CLACK-CHAWCHAWCHAW-KIKIKIKI-PHACKSHAAA-PANG! Clatter clatter clatter

A gun rested in the ball caddy. Perfectly intact, scratch-less, and presumably working even after the complications it experienced from its emergence from the womb of the machinery below.

Nabiki was amazed, she had heard all of the nasty jokes about the American gun crazy culture but this was pushing even that image. True she could picture some overweight man in a backwards baseball cap taking a gun to a bowling alley, but to actually throwing it down the alley? Someone, perhaps the illustrious POO, had expressed extreme anger in his failure to achieve that sacred 300 all bowlers aspire too.

Nevertheless, Nabiki decided to not pick up the firearm, despite the growing temptation. She knew nothing about guns, and was more likely to shoot off her own foot than harm any hostile. She did know some of her family’s art; not enough to take on anyone back home certainly, but for these Joe Six-pack Tourists here, she would be fine.

BANG! CLATTER PLOP PLOP PLOP!!

Nabiki spun her head down the alley where the sound had come from. A person... someone had fallen on top of all of the pins in alley seventeen. He was a male, Nabiki guessed by his build and had black hair...in a ponytail! Nabiki ran down the alley to get a better look, as she approached she realized that he didn’t have any clothes on. She started to take off her windbreaker, it didn’t matter if it wasn’t Him, anyone in that position should be helped, discuss rescue fees later. She was over halfway down the lane when she stopped midway as a rush of emotions hit her.

‘IlikehimHesNOTbetterthanmeImscaredofhim’.

‘What the Hell was THAT?!’ That question was quickly silenced as the person stood up and looked at Nabiki.

Nabiki screamed in terror. That creature standing about ten feet away was decidedly NOT human.

It was humanoid, it had two arms and two legs, a torso, and a head. That was where the similarities to Homo sapiens ended. It had no face, nor genitals, it was like a flesh colored mannequin with a growth of red and black hair tied into a ponytail decorated its head. That wasn’t the worst of it though.

Its flesh moved.

It didn’t move like flesh does when people walk. It...writhed within the skin, churning and shifting with wet, horrible sounds. Large drops of sweat streamed down its body. It was like a giant flesh colored water balloon with its shape constantly changing; the fluids, organs, and bone structure inside was causing the skin to stretch and warp.

Right before her eyes, the thing shrank in size and started to develop hips and breasts, then midway through that shift it went in reverse and started to gain height and muscle. Then it shifted again to female features but only on one side, then again. It was in a constant state of shift, a living variable.

The emotions were rushing through Nabiki’s mind making it almost impossible to think. The thing started to walk forwards, that sound of shifting water becoming even more disgusting as it moved.

Nabiki regained her senses as she fought past the rush of emotions. She had no idea what the Hell this thing was, where it had come from, or what was going on. But she figured that if she punched it hard enough in the head it would go down and not come up. She took a stance and attempted to put her fist into the varying monstrosity’s skull.

It did not go well.

Her fist sunk into the featureless face offering no resistance. The skin sunk into the flesh, Nabiki realized that the water balloon comparison was very accurate. Also whatever was inside it was hot; burning, scalding hot, scorching her hand in blistering heat. Nabiki emitted another scream, this one of pain, as she slowly managed to be able to pull her hand free.

Next plan: Kick it. Kick it very hard. This plan had as much success as the first one did. Her foot sunk into the chest of the variable creature, as soon as she realized it was happening she pulled back so she just barely felt the sting. This time it was numbing cold, not searing hot.

Plan three: the gun! Nabiki took off like a shot back to the ball caddy where, thanks to the fury of POO, the item that would save her ass was laying.

‘...doilikehimiamjustasgoodashim...’

That feeling in her gut died away the further she got from the creature, dying down to little more than a loud whisper. Thankfully it moved slowly as the shifting of its center of balance made walking difficult.

Nabiki snatched up the gun, aimed at the thing and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. ‘Crapcrapcrap! What’s wrong? It has bullets! So what could be wro-... safety! The safety must be on! Okay I need to take it off...now how do I do that and not shoot myself?’

There it was again! Nabiki turned around and found that the monster was right behind her so suddenly!

“GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME!!!” Nabiki jumped back in time to dodge the Variable’s attempt to smother her. A large droplet flew off from the creature and hit Nabiki square in the chest, the scalding water burning through her clothes.

Nabiki ran back down the bowling alley as she discovered what part of the gun was the safety and turned it off. She spun around as that rush of raw emotion hit her in the gut again. The variable was right next to her again, how did it move so damn fast? She only lost sight of it for a moment!

“DIE! DIE!! DIE!!!” She pulled the trigger once, twice, three times, the entire clip. At this rage there was no way she could miss.

Red fluid leaked out from the puncture wounds, as the blood pooled on the floor the creature with the variable gender’s skin deflated like a balloon that was letting its air out slowly. At the end of the gruesome display the skin laid limp on the floor, twitching slightly. Nabiki savagely kicked the flesh colored sack, the twitching stopped. Nabiki kept on kicking the thing, sobbing occasionally screaming a word that was a hybrid between ‘die’ and ‘sorry’.

After five minutes of this she walked away from the corpse and sat down in the middle of lane fifteen. Nabiki’s hand throbbed, she took a look at it. It was all red, she could see where the blisters would form and where the skin was starting to peel. Her chest was in better shape, just a little red.

‘What was that thing?’ Nabiki tried to make sense of what had just happened. No matter what kind of explanation she tried to attach to this incident she still just couldn’t make it sound realistic, even by Nerima standards. Thankfully her thoughts were cut off abruptly by the sensation of a bowling ball impacting into her side at the kidney, and nearly cracking a floating rib.

Nabiki cried out in pain, jerking forward from the blow. The unmistakable sound of another bowling ball hurtling down at her became audible. Calling upon her neglected skills in her family’s art, she went into a roll and got into lane fourteen, just seconds before the sphere impacted into the objects designed for abuse. Nabiki stood up carefully, minding her pained side, and looked at who or what was throwing the balls at her.

‘...trust...’

It was a young woman in a blood spattered bridal veil. An orange bowling ball in one hand and a meat tenderizer mallet in the other, it too stained with blood. She waved happily to Nabiki, then tossed the orange bowling ball at her. It sailed through the air and bounced with a PUNGGGGG sound. It rolled to Nabiki’s feet, it was a plastic bowling ball for young children, most likely it should come with six brightly colored pins. Still brandishing shreds of the plastic wrapping, and the MAXINE’S TOYS logo displayed proudly right above the bar code.

Nabiki braced herself best as she could, and tried to run to the girl in the bloody bridal veil. “Wait!” The girl just laughed and took off through the entrance to the bowling alley.

Nabiki reached the front of the alley and collapsed against the counter where people rented the ridiculous shoes needed to play. “This is Hell. There’s no other answer, this must be Hell.”

She realized that she was talking to herself, ‘Not a good sign Nabiki. You've got to keep things together. Who was that just now? I couldn’t see her face, have I met her...that mallet... Aka-...’ She shook her head hard. ‘No, no, impossible. Owowowow...’ The pain in her chest flared up. ‘Let’s see what we can do about this first.’ She lifted up her shirt to see the damage, and found the large purplish bruise on her abdomen she had been half-expecting.

A quick search behind the shoe vendor counter revealed a first aid kit, and as if the cosmic forces of karma were rewarding her for living through the last five minutes, there were two boxes of bullets as well. Nabiki took back every last joke she ever made or laughed at about America and its gun craze. May Kami-sama bless Charlton Hesston.

After five aspirin, a few bandages around her chest, her left hand tightly wrapped with a salve applied, a fully loaded gun, and two of the flat red cylinders from her own pharmacy, Nabiki left the bowling alley to pursue the girl in the bloody bridal veil. As soon as she left the bowling alley, she knew something was terribly wrong.

It was snowing, in the middle of June, the white flakes fell to the ground, reducing the already horrid visibility to claustrophobic proportions. Nathan Avenue, the road she had just walked down, was now impassable. A huge, gaping fissure ran across it; a maw open in the earth with a throat as deep as the abyss. Finally, there were the whispers in her mind, like when she was a distance away from the creature, only this time, they were all around her it was almost deafening.

Doilikehim

Sosadshesamazing

YESOHYESMORE

Hatethemallgoback

Stupidbitchcantleavehimalone

Amilikethat

Stupidoldfool

MAMMAMAMMAMAMMA

Hatethembothidotsshutup

Weakbuthessweetpathetic

Whowhatareyou

RUNRUNRUNRUNRUN

Trust

...

Nabiki put her hands over her ears in a desperate attempt to block out the noise. Then as if in accordance to her wishes the whispers faded away, she removed her hands. She could still hear something, a slight buzzing in the back of her head, but it was easily ignored. It sounded almost like radio static.

‘Now where do I go?’ Nabiki’s mind drifted back to the bowling alley and the toy ball the girl in the bloody bridal veil threw at her. “Maxine’s Toys.” Damnit she was talking to herself again.

Looking over her map, she found to her dismay that while Maxine’s Toys was listed in the shops section, its exact location was not. Seeing as Nathan Avenue was no longer an option, she decided to walk down Carroll Street.

‘Carroll...heh, well this is a wonderland of sorts I suppose.’ She laughed to herself silently. This place was getting to her. Now she knew why so many cases of insanity had come from this little Hellhole. One hour here and she was already half dead and half crazed. The sound of a scream and something hitting flesh stopped Nabiki’s musings short. Someone was fighting something, she could make out the figures in the mist ahead.

“WHAT ARE YOU? GET AWAY!! GET AWAY!!!” THWACK!!

Nabiki knew she would be better off running away from the fight. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t left people in dangerous situations before, like falling from a helicopter without a parachute. This, however, was different. As much as Nabiki would have loved to run, get out of this town, and leave all of these horrid memories behind in some therapists’ couch, she couldn’t just let a person get killed by these things here. She wouldn’t want that to happen to anyone, not even Happosai. Ignoring all good sense, she ran towards the figures in the snowy mist. She didn’t dare try and shoot from here; she would more likely hit the person she was trying to save than the creature.

As she approached the figures she saw an American woman with long blond hair beating that gender variable, water balloon thing with a long piece of pipe. Nabiki ran up to provide assistance to her. At the exact moment Nabiki was behind the woman she swung her pipe back to deliver a blow to the creature’s skull.
Sadly, the thing’s skull wasn’t the only one that suffered a blow.

Nabiki’s thought as she blacked out was a mixed emotional scream of pain, anger at the woman, anger at herself, and fear.

Then there was nothing.

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Author’s Notes: For those of you concerned about Nabiki’s wounds let me ease your fears, this is NOTHING compared to what follows. Again a thousand thank yous to my beta reader WFROSE. (He’s a genius. I swear.) As always reviews, praise, flames, etc. is always appreciated.