Grace & Silver

Chapter 5

Devouring Puppet

Disclaimer: Takahashi owns Ranma and Co. Konami owns Silent Hill. This is just for fun, please don’t sue.

Warning: Things are going to be disturbing now…actually make that MORE disturbing. But don’t worry, nothing too graphic.

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“I now pronounce you man and wife.” Tofu announced to the dojo, Nerima, and the world.

Then Akane kissed Ranma pouring as much emotion into the act as she could. The bride turned to Dr. Tofu, reaching out to him with both her arms. His cheerful, joyous smile never fell, as Akane swiftly snapped his neck.

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Mousse felt honored to be Ranma’s best man…well the second best man but that was just a minor detail. For the most part, he was happy; not because these two were getting married, but because this was the best, and upon past recollection, the only way to make Ranma unavailable to Shampoo.

True, a few disturbing images appeared in his mind to what Shampoo or that Old Hag’s reaction may be, but that was ridiculous; they weren’t THAT obsessed. Best of all though, this finally meant that he was one, huge, crucial, step closer to being with his darling Shampoo.

Shampoo almost screamed in bloody murder and launched herself at the violent girl’s throat. However, the Mercenary Girl was NOT one to trifle with. And, she absolutely hated to admit it, but seeing Ranma and the Vio-Akane there together felt…proper. She also would never admit this as well, but Mousse wasn’t too shabby looking standing there in his formal robes. Maybe, just maybe, she would think about perhaps considering to possibly giving him a little match, if she felt like it, just to see how much stronger he had become.

Cologne was never one to accept defeat easily. There was always a back up plan, a contingency, or at the very least a stall tactic to buy her time to think up of something. This time, however, she knew that she was beaten. Nabiki Tendou was always someone Cologne did not want to trifle with, and this was why.

By the time she would be able to protect her village and family from the retribution of the middle Tendou, Ranma and Akane’s marriage would, by Amazon law, be untouchable. However, there were always alternate routes to every situation. A mistress, multiple wives, a temporary mind-switching potion, the list went on and on. Alas, seeing those two together cemented the fact that they were in love, and that was the one force that she couldn’t stop. Thinking about it, Mousse HAD time and again protected Shampoo from harm, and he HAD been getting stronger; at the very least he would wear his glasses more often. Maybe there was hope for the future yet. Cologne was suddenly jolted from her musings, and paled, as the resounding ‘crack’ of overtaxed vertebrae sounded deafeningly loud in her ears. .

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Nabiki shielded her eyes, as the frame of limbs burst into flames, and the curtain parted.. She just stood there staring in abject horror, dropping her forgotten arm from covering her face. Her mouth hung slack, as the smell of burning flesh got stronger, torturing her sense of smell with a sample of Hell. Her shock was interrupted by the involuntary spasms of her stomach, and wretched the remains of the ‘food’ she was served on the airplane; splattering onto the blood rusted grating, and dripped down into a dark nothingness beyond it.

Calling it a freak was a great understatement, a monstrosity would be insufficient. Proclaiming it an abomination was as close as Mars to the Earth. There was no real word or phrase of any language that could come close to describing the thing that Nabiki was looking at. Wrongness. It just couldn’t exist, it was the very aberration to nature and reality.

Ten feet tall, yet seemed infinitely larger with the inverted size illusion from the warped room. The top half was a faceless mannequin; dancing and bobbing with its hands outstretched. Its fingerless hands held strings, no…long straps of flesh. As it wobbled closer to the burning frame, the flames illuminated top half enough to reveal the downy, gritty, gossamer sheen of soiled white feathers.

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There are certain times in people’s lives that are just so ‘off’ that the mind needs to take a rather long pause to understand what just happened. As Dr. Tofu fell to the floor the entire audience experienced such a pause. The soft thump of Nabiki following suit went unnoticed.

Ranma turned to Mousse, and smiled at him. A long silent pause hung in the air.

“Ranma…what’s going on?” Mousse asked dumbfounded.

Ranma replied by stepping on Mousse’s left foot, gently holding it to the ground. With his free leg, the recently married man delivered a kick to Mousse’s left knee. The crack was audible even outside the dojo, as the Chinese Male’s leg bent the wrong way. Far from finished, Ranma reached down, and grabbed above and below Mousse’s right knee. Ranma then twisted his hands and pushed them together. Mousse collapsed to the ground. Overloaded, his pain receptors sent him into a merciful catatonia. He just sat there on the floor, gingerly touching the white protrusion from his right knee that had stringy red clumps clinging to it. A soft whimper escaped his lips.

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Yet another mannequin held up the top, this one was covered in light purple fur. Its feet gingerly touched the grated floor, always on its toes like a ballerina or a fleet footed warrior. The long straps of flesh that hung from the feathered figure were attached to the arms of the furred dummy. The straps of carrion were far too slack, and the excess material dragged limply on the ground.

Its head was thrown back, with its mouth opened in a silent, skyward roar. It’s mouth was the only visible, discernable feature; perfectly circular, and ingesting the feathered mannequin’s legs. The mouth wasn’t just a carved indentation into a wooden clothes model. It was like a pit of whirling blades; jammed from their grinding purpose like a thick bone in a garbage disposal.

Nabiki winced at the noise as the legs of the upper creature were mangled by the gnawing and gashing mouth; the noise like a mangling car wreck in slow motion, as the body within was wetly torn apart by the intruding metal shards.

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Shampoo stood up, her head tilted to the side and a soft and confused ‘ah’ sound escaped her lips. Still the majority of the guests were sitting there dumbfounded desperately trying to figure out what on Earth was happening.

She took a few steps closer to the altar to the two standing there. They were still smiling at each other as if they were utterly unaware of what they had done.

“Ranma…why break Mousse’s legs?” She asked the two.

Akane quietly approached her, a wide contented smile on her face. She put her hands under Shampoo’s armpits, as if seeking a to pull her into a sisterly embrace, and gripped hard. Shampoo tried to break free but she couldn’t get herself to move in time. Akane pulled out, up, and down sharply and quickly. The people in the back of the dojo clearly heard the meaty, tearing sound of ripping tendons and muscle. The sight of Shampoo’s arms lying limply to her sides was distracted from by her undismissable scream of pain.

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The arms on the lower mannequin were not covered in purple fur, but more seemed as if made of poorly crafted, pale leather, possibly even wood, if the skin on the limbs weren’t writhing. At the end of each arm was a large round lump with multiple clumps of thin, white threads.

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Cologne had enough life’s experience to overrule her shock, and quickly assess the situation. Akane and Ranma had obviously gone insane, killed one person, and mutilated two. At the moment, their attention was turned on her in a heated battle. Cologne found herself at a disadvantage; as the couple fought her at a speed she was unable to keep up with. Very odd, as they weren’t moving any faster than she knew of them, but she just couldn’t block in time to prevent their assaults on her pressure points.

The rest of the audience still seemed to be in a shocked state, even beyond Mousse’s whimpering or Shampoo’s scream; something like this would have caused some kind of a reaction by now.

Realization hit her at about the same time Akane hit the final pressure point. The conclusion she had reached was almost correct on what was happening. Another second and a full picture of what was going on would have opened up to her and she would be able to stop this from going any further. Sadly before that could happen her right lung, as a result of the pressure point attack, collapsed within itself, and two of her ribs on her left side cracked; one fully breaking. Instead of preventing Akane and Ranma’s escape among the panicking guests she was left on the floor gasping for air.

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The top half of the creature gestured with its arms. A few seconds ticked by with no event, then suddenly…

SWISS-SACK

The three fleshy threads that connected to the left appendage sprang to life, and attached their midsection to the wall directly above and behind Nabiki. She froze, confused for a moment, until she realized what was about to happen. She leaped to the side quickly, just avoiding by inches as the attached threads were used pull the body into the wall at sledgehammer force.

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“Hello? Is anyone here? The sign was up.”

Daisuke entered the Nekohanten. Things had calmed down after the events at the wedding yesterday. The police had come, and everyone was at least making a vain attempt to get back to normal. Even if it were a bit peculiar, he supposed it was good that the Chinese Trio was back to doing business. As he stepped inside, not a soul was present in the fore. Puzzled, he gained a small amount of valiance, and ventured into the kitchen.

“Shampoo? Mousse? Elder Cologne?” He walked around the restaurant interior cautious and a little uneasy. It had been set up for customers, yet it lacked a single person other than himself.

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Nabiki gasped for breath, while glaring at the fleshy limb lying there as if it was momentarily stunned by the impact. Suddenly, the white threads clinging to it writhed violently as if jolted by lightning. Nabiki quickly attempted to dart back, but was not quick enough. Like a whip, the threads lashed out, and bit into her in the shoulder. Nabiki managed to get clear from the threads doing any more damage but she did feel warmth and wetness seeping into her shirt from the shoulder that was hit.

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A dull buzz rang out through the dining establishment. When it seemed apparent no one was responding to it, Daisuke went into the kitchen to investigate, finding the low yet demanding sound emanating from a stove timer. Ever so helpful, the young man checked the stove, finding a large boiling pot inside. It smelled alright, a little on the burnt side maybe. Although how something could be burned from boiling was beyond him. Daisuke shrugged, he wasn’t a cook so it probably could happen, he supposed.

“Hello? Is anyone here? I think this is done.” More silence. Daisuke turned off the burner, as a little curiosity jumped up in his mind. He grabbed a potholder and lifted the lid, finding the sight of a mass of white, stringy, rice noodles greeting him.

He jumped at the sound of someone clearing their throat, “Oh I’m sorry,” he turned around, after replacing the lid, “I was just cur-“

He stopped dead at the sight before him.

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The fleshy strings went limp, as the appendage was slowly dragged back to the main body. Seeing the opportunity, Nabiki raised her gun and fired two shots at the mannequin in the purple fur. The bullets found their mark in the chest area. She frowned, stepping back, realizing the shots had no effect whatsoever.

Changing targets to the feathered half, she fired three times with a shaky aim. Two went wild, and hit the wall with a sharp ping that contrasted with the creature’s maddening sounds. The third was hit the thing dead center in its forehead, forcing the feather dummy’s head to snap back from the impact; a flurry of feathers bursting from the wound. A light, relieving sensation of victory coursed through Nabiki, and just as instantly vanished, when the thing raised its head again; showing no sign of stopping or even slowing down.

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‘Please God, let me live through this. Please God, let me live through this.’ That was the mantra that ran through Daisuke’s head, as he lifted another piece of meat with his chopsticks. He could see the feathers that were sticking to it. He felt his stomach churn again but fought to keep it from showing, as he dropped the lump of meat into her mouth.

“More.”

He was too terrified to do anything else, but comply as he lifted up the next piece.

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SWISS-SACK!

The puppet’s right hand strings lashed out once again to attach themselves against the wall. Nabiki quickly devised a new tactic, telling herself it seemed to work in video games. She aimed for one of the fleshy strings that were stretched tight to the wall, deciding that if this didn’t work, with only four more bullets after this one in her clip, she was in serious trouble. True, she did have another box full of her nine-millimeter saviors, but to reload from a box would take far more time then she had.

She pulled the trigger, and managed to hit one of the three thick strings. She felt elation, until she realized that she managed only a minor injury, a small hole in it. Cursing her waning luck, she prepared to dodge the oncoming appendage. That’s when she noticed the ripping sound. Looking back at the damaged tendril, she felt heart quicken. As the tendril went taut from trying to pull the winkled brown bonbori arm from the wall, the little bullet hole to grow as sinews tore one after another. A resounding snap went off, as the string had been severed. The listless appendage flew at Nabiki, but this time its aim was off, allowing her to jump out of the way; easily avoiding the writhing threads as well.

SWISS-SACK!

The left hand strings went taught against the wall. Nabiki, knowing what to do, took aim.

BANG BANG BANG!

The three bullets found their way into the fleshy strings, her aim had been getting much better with her growing confidence, yet still far from good enough for her opinion. Just as before, the motions of the puppet caused the strings to rip apart. The sound shrieked louder for a moment in what Nabiki savagely hoped was pain, as the furry puppet’s appendage fell to the floor, limp and useless.

Nabiki realized a new problem; there were two more flesh strings left, and her gun only had one bullet left in it. Deciding upon the most prominent issue, Nabiki placed the last bullet into one of the final two strings. Unfortunately, the creature decided to change tactics; using the attached thread not as a guide wire but as a fulcrum for a wide sweep. Nabiki dove over the log shaped arm, landing on her side, digging into her duffel for the last box of precious lead. Her fingers ripped open the box at the same time the thing made another sweep. She quickly got back to her feet, and jumped it again, narrowly missing the strike. Nabiki couldn’t help but remember all that time playing jump rope with her friends a long time ago.

Diving back into her bag she desperately grabbed for the bullets that had been scattered and tossed around. Her hand closed around three, and gave her just enough time to pull her hand out and make another jump.

She almost cleared this one, one of the threads lashed out at her ankle causing her to falter and skid across the grated floor. It was bad having her elbows be scraped raw, but Nabiki found it far worse to hear two sounds of her two current very dear and necessary friends falling through the holes in the floor, and down into the black abyss below.

Getting up quick, she loaded in the one bullet she had managed to keep her grip on.

SWISS-SACK!

The last flesh string attached itself to the wall, greatly intent on great harm to its prey. Nabiki refused to be its victim, took aim, did a short prayer to anyone that was listening, and fired.

The bullet flawlessly found it’s mark, and the ripping sound became audible for a few moments, until the demon’s horrible grinding sound became an obvious shriek of pain once more. The unmistakable hellish cry of the creature’s agony was the sweetest sound in the universe to Nabiki’s ears.

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The police found Daisuke hoarsely babbling and sobbing in a corner clutching a bloody knife; throat raw from the screams that attracted their attention, and covered in bite marks. The police searched the restaurant for anyone else, hoping to find the foreign residents that owned the establishment, and only found a small cat missing its front paws, brutally stabbed to death.

The officers were struck at the sight, not because of the inhumane act done to the small feline, but disturbing, surreal situation they found themselves in. Slowly recovering from their shock, they finally began to comprehend what the babbling, hysterical young man was whimpering…

“She wanted more.”

It was decided that it was in self-defense, the animal had to have attacked him. After all, more and more reports of unusual animal attacks all over the ward were coming in, maybe it was a seasonal thing.

Daisuke had to be committed, showing no signs of recovery from his trauma, not speaking intelligently, and refusing to eat or drink anything. He has to be fed intravenously now and constantly sedated, every time he’s awake he tries to bite his own tongue off to rid himself of the everlasting, salty-copper taste of blood that lingered in every morsel that entered his mouth….

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The monstrosity collapsed to the floor with no support; its ‘strings’ torn, limp, and useless, yet that horrid, deafening, grating sound still going strong. Nabiki desperately began to reload her pistol with the rest of her bullets, praying that that…that thing wasn’t going to get up. The puppet with the white feathers then shifted its legs, emitting a loud sound as if a ligament had been torn, a joint popped from the socket. Like a clog in a drainage disposal being flushed down, the feather puppet slowly began to be devoured by the puppet covered in purple fur. The warped legs, the torso, the arms, even the shreds of the flesh-like strings attached to them were consumed. The head finally disappeared down the gullet of the devouring puppet, it’s head thrown back as if in pain; but Nabiki knew better, on a barely conscious level, she understood. The feather puppet had its head thrown back in sheer ecstasy.

Suddenly, purple fur puppet lifted those long wrinkled brown arms it had, while the white threads writhing from the bulges at the ends of the arms had gone limp in defeat. Both of them were fed into the whirling blades of the purple fur puppet’s mouth, and entire arms of the creature were consumed; torn from their joints like chicken drumsticks. Nabiki involuntarily took a step back at the horrid, cracking sound the puppet itself made; bending itself in half, and ate its own legs off. In a disturbing feat of flexibility and surrealness, the torso and the rest of the thing’s body was consumed.

At the end, there was just the fur-covered head lying on the grated floor, the bladed hole whirring away, the awful noise replaced by a soft whir.

Kill Her.

Nabiki walked out to the head and carefully picked it up, keeping her hands away from the blades. She threw it up in the air, then, with a swing Ichiro would have been proud of, smashed the head up and into the flaming frame of limbs with the bat she had gathered from the toy store. The scream that resulted, a high-pitched, grating, mechanical whine, was deliciously satisfying to Nabiki. She was allowed a full four seconds of enjoyment before the world became very blurry, and she decided that laying her head on the ground would be a very good idea. Her head followed her exhausted body as the last bit of stamina left her.

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A young man of Asian descent stumbled out of the woods; one hand holding a wooden plank that he had hammed nails into the top and strengthening it (he thought) by wrapping it in duct tape. In his other hand, he held a bulging duffle bag that carried an assortment of junk; talismans, holy symbols, replica ritual daggers, books with authentically aged pages and the like.

‘Please let’s go home! We can still turn around and leave!’ A low voice said in the man’s mind. ‘Face it! Akane’s dead, and if Nabiki is here she’s good as. Please I’m begging you DON’T go any further! Please Gosunkugi!’

‘Nonono!’ The soft voice answered back. ‘You HAVE to go in there! You KNOW she’s alive! After all, you know what to avoid, you have all of your special defenses and artifacts. Nothing can go wrong! You’re Nerima’s occult expert! This is your home turf; you’re in your element! Go for it! Find her, FIND her!’

“SHUT UP SHUT UP!” Hikaru Gosunkugi placed his hands over his ears and continued into the misty hamlet.

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When she awoke, the world had once again returned to normal, that is as normal as this hell apparently got. The puppet theater had resumed it’s pleasant, if dormant, appearance, and the bloody and rusty grate floor was replaced by carpeting.

Nabiki, always a calm and shrewd planner, executed the ‘get the hell out of this place’ plan very efficiently. She leapt up the stairs, out from the puppet pit, past Palmer’s claim to fame, and then she paused momentarily to pick up the white bag the girl in the bloody bridal veil left.

Cautiously she put her hand into the bag, and pulled her hand out instantly when she touched something wet. , Nabiki looked at her hand, and found her fingers smeared with blood, but thankfully not her own. Dumping out the contents of the bag revealed the source of blood; a spherical lump of freshly used wrappings, bandages, and band-aids. Through the bloodstains, she made out on one of the wrappings ‘PROPERTY OF SILENT HILL MEDICAL CENTER’.

Just like the bowling ball led her to the toy store the girl in the bloody bridal veil was leading her to the Medical Center. As she rummaged around in her duffel for her map, she took a glance at what Mr. Burlew had to say about the medical center…

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This is the advice I have for any medical facility anywhere in Silent Hill, ESPECIALLY for the two hospitals. I have heard the EXACT SAME STORY from EVERYONE who got out of those death traps; stories of demons, horrors, and other nightmarish images are only the beginning of the tales. So, taking that into account, my advice is as follows:

DO NOT GO INTO ANY MEDICAL BUILDING. EVER.

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“That was comforting.” Nabiki said nonplussed. The map at least offered some shred of good news; if the streets were the same when she had came into the toy store, it was then just a quick run up the road. With luck, that would hopefully limit the chances of running into anything else on the streets. To call the fact that she would only have to walk a little ways before she reached what was most likely another place of evil, madness, and death, ‘good news’ really spoke volumes about her situation.

She exited Maxine’s Toys, and found that the streets were still vaguely familiar and hadn’t developed more giant crevasses, giant plastic walls, or any other obstacles. However, there was one major difference between now and what felt like ages ago. How long HAD she been in this town? Her watch only said two hours but that couldn’t be right. The sun was gone; in fact all light from the sky had disappeared, with the only source of illumination was her Robbie the Rabbit clip on flashlight. It was as if something had just erased everything out of the sky.

Carefully, she started to almost listlessly walk up the road to her next destination; she felt so tired. Here she was, hundreds of miles away from her home, bruised and bloodied, with demons and a psychotic woman following her every move. The only human she found was an indifferent, impolite, and downright obnoxious American girl.

As the snow fell quietly to the ground, Nabiki couldn’t help but feel alone and scared. She caught her reflection in a window, bandages covering her body, her clothes stained with blood, and a death grip on her baseball bat and gun. Her eyes were terrifying; they had always been cold and calculating, but now they had paranoia and desperation added to it. They were the eyes of a woman on the verge of madness, far from the playful, joking, madness of Nerima or the disturbing, but ultimately harmless delusions of the Kunos. No this was the type that locked people away in rubber rooms. Nabiki was one of the sharpest minds in Nerima and she came to a very easy conclusion.

Silent Hill was trying to drive her mad, and so far it was doing a damn good job of it.

Author’s Notes: The medical center is an actual place in the games. Once more, reviews, comments, outraged cries for my head/what I’m smoking are all appreciated. As always a large amount of thanks is due to WFROSE for proofing these chapters.