Night 63: Main Hallway 1-West

[stop_the_rain]

[from here]

...Another empty hallway.

Chair held by both back legs - one in each hand - Murphy sighed and slumped against the wall. These stupid clothes didn't have pockets, and shoving things awkwardly in the waistband of his pants was beginning to become a pain. If this were a normal chair, like he usually found, he'd just break it apart and use one of the legs. Unfortunately, that didn't look like an option.

There was less junk lying around here, too. Practically none, now that he thought about it. Maybe...maybe he didn't need a weapon? The radio had remained silent, and there were no corpses lying around. Not even a blood trail.

He set the chair down and took the radio out, wondering if maybe it was broken. He stuck the end of the flashlight into his mouth to free his hands and allow him to investigate the piece of equipment.

Maybe this was some sort of clue....

[For Nina!]

Comments

[mirrorimage]

[From here.]

Nina's thoughts mirrored Murphy's at first. Another empty hallway. Where was everyone?

Very quickly, however, Nina became aware of the presence of another person, and her heart skipped two beats in a row. She wasn't alone after all! The light from the flashlight in his mouth wss the most obvious giveaway, but even the sound of his breathing seemed loud and almost unmissable to someone who only seconds ago had been priming herself to notice any sign of another person nearby.

Nina let the beam from her flashlight fall directly on him so she could get a good look, peering through the tunnel of bright light and stray, flickering particles of dust directly at his face. He definitely wasn't anyone she recognized, and it gave her pause to notice that he seemed to be wearing a men's version of the same thing that she was.

There was surprise in her blue eyes, and caution -- but no accusation -- in her voice when she spoke. "Who are you?"

[stop_the_rain]

The suddenness of a human voice in the hallway caused Murphy to jump. He fumbled with the radio and the flashlight fell from his mouth, caught awkwardly between his chest and forearm as he struggled not to drop everything.

He thought at first it was Cunningham. He only registered it was a woman's voice, not the words they said or the tone. But he dismissed that idea immediately, the obvious catching up with him. This...was an entirely new person. A pretty woman wearing basically the same thing he was, and carrying a flashlight like him.

"Murphy..." he answered, finally sorting out his equipment. This, too, was odd. He'd met other people in Silent Hill, but...no one asked who he was. Everyone just seemed to know. And other than Anne, seemed to belong. This woman...she didn't have that feeling to her. He didn't know how else to describe it.

"I'm not looking for any trouble, ma'am...but do you know what hospital this is? I...don't really know how I got here, exactly."

[mirrorimage]

When he introduced himself, some of Nina's caution wore away. She hadn't thought he was harmful, but it was hard not to be a little bit paranoid in such a strange situation. But he was just as confused as she was. She could see that now. It might have been hard for Murphy to make out in the dark, but some of the tenseness left her. Her shoulders slumped slightly. It was still important to be alert, but he wasn't a threat. Nina could tell that much. They were in this together, and there was no reason not to act like it.

She felt a strange mixture of relief and sadness at that realization. It was always better to face frightening things with someone else, but he didn't like the idea of another innocent person being sucked into this, well, whatever this was. Nina had been thinking that maybe in the aftermath of Johan's shooting, she had either been taken into some kind of custody by some kind of law enforcement or kidnapped by someone associated with her brother. But this man wasn't involved in anything that had happened regarding Johan, so there was no reason for him to be here if that was the case.

"Hi, Murphy," she said, a little more sweetly this time. "I'm Nina," she volunteered without waiting for him to ask, as a show of good faith. To his question, she shook her head vigorously enough to make her hair swish just a little. "Nn-hnn! I was going to ask you the same thing." She glanced at his radio, shining her flashlight on it. "You have one too? The one I found didn't work either."

[stop_the_rain]

"Yeah...I was gonna try and see if I could get it to." Murphy let out a heavy sigh and shook his head. He couldn't understand why someone new had been dragged into this, but he knew what he had to do.

"This place...it probably isn't safe. You should stick with me, Nina. It's not safe to be alone." There weren't monsters right here, but there would be. And she was alone and confused and scared. He couldn't begin to think of letting her wander off. And god help him, he was going to do some good for somebody.

"I had another one," he went on, extending the radio towards her. "But I guess they took it away from me. My flashlight and journal, too, but there were new ones in the room I woke up in. How..how did you get to town? Before you woke up here?"

Because pretty Miss Nina sure as hell had not been on the prisoner transport.

[mirrorimage]

Nina hadn't given a thought to the idea of monsters -- not real ones, anyway -- but she could definitely agree that this place probably wasn't safe. "Okay," she said as she approached Murphy, closing what remained of the distance between them.

When he offered the radio, she reached out and took it. "Thank you," she said, and then admitted, "I left mine behind. But you didn't have to give me yours." When he said that he had had a flashlight and journal before, only to get new ones, though, Nina could feel herself perk up a little. It sounded like his previous circumstances were eerily alike the ones they found themselves in now. Did that mean he knew something? Her mind turned the possibility over a few times, but he had a question for her before she could reach a sure conclusion about what he was saying might mean.

The question received only a blank, uncomprehending stare. "Town?" she said. Something told her he didn't mean Ruhenheim. It sounded like a place he was familiar with, something that added to Nina's growing suspicions that this whole situation might be at least a little more familiar to him than it was to her. With that in mind, Nina let herself feel a little bit of hope that she might finally get some answers. "This might sound crazy, but what was this town called? I'm not sure I know what you're talking about."

[stop_the_rain]

"Oh..." Murphy shook his head and smiled sheepishly. "No pockets," he explained, and gestured to the chair beside him with his empty hand. That was really going to be a problem. How was he going to carry anything? maybe he could find a pack...or something....

"The town? Silent Hill... I was in an accident. I walked into town and that's when things started to get...weird." He knew he was about to sound like a madman, but...maybe Nina had seen things too? He didn't know how long she'd been wandering around....

Assuming she was even actually a real person. But Murphy was pretty sure she was.

"Look, it's...there were monsters and weird hallucinations and...I can't even explain. I know it sounds insane, and I know if someone told me the same thing I'd think they had a few screws loose, but...." But what? Crazy as it was, it was true? That wasn't exactly hard evidence.

"I swear I'm not crazy."

[mirrorimage]

If she had heard anything like that before arriving in this weird place, Nina would've certainly thought that he was either crazy or talking in some strange, extended metaphor. As it was now, though, she didn't know what to think, and the stark confusion showed all over face as she stared at him.

"Weirder than this?" she said weakly, voice lifting a little as she tried to infuse some humor into her words. It wasn't genuine, though, and her smile had a strained, forced quality to it. A little more seriously, she added, "I'm sorry. I've never heard of Silent Hill. What kind of accident were you in? What happened?" He didn't seem hurt, at least, but it was kind of hard to tell in the dark.

The other things he said were even more unsettling and disturbing. Hallucinations? Monsters? Those words chilled her to the core, unwanted visions of Nina's past viciously trying to resurface in her consciousness at just the hint of such things, but she focused on just talking to Murphy rather than letting the memories overcome her.

"Don't worry. I don't think you're crazy," she said gently, and she meant it. He didn't strike her as unhinged, and she had seen enough unhinged people to have a good idea what insanity looked like by now. But she didn't say that just because she didn't think he was crazy didn't necessarily mean she believed him. Even for otherwise sane people, such trying circumstances could play with their minds in ways no one would have thought possible.

"Come on. Let's just keep walking. Maybe we'll find someone who can explain everything, or a way out." That was doubtful, but it was at least a possibility, however tiny. Standing around like this wouldn't do any good, anyway, and they could talk while they walked. There was still the problem of how to carry things without pockets, but Nina hoped that between the two of them, she and Murphy would be able figure something out.

[stop_the_rain]

"Uh...yeah, actually. Weirder than this."

Objectively speaking, since this was what seemed weird. And it was practically normal when held against the hell that had come before. But mind bending Escher-designed architecture and geography that warped and twisted itself at will was absent here, and Murphy knew he should be thankful for that.

"And I was in a car accident. Went off the road. I thought I'd hit my head...you know, when I started to see things. But I don't have a concussion or anything like that." He figured it was probably best not to mention he'd been on a prison transport from a medium security facility to a max. He wasn't a criminal, not really. The whole thing was a big mistake.

But it was mostly his.

"Uh...yeah. I...ugh, nevermind. I don't even know where we are anymore." He shook his head and tried to get a hold of himself. Nina hadn't done anything wrong, and he wasn't upset at her. He was upset at the lack of control he had over anything that happened to him. He picked the chair up once more, gripping it by one hind leg and letting it rest against his hip and thigh.

"I came from the dorms over there. Or...whatever the block with all the bedrooms is. Which way do you want to go? Lady's choice."

[mirrorimage]

Nina listened to him, thoughtful. He was in a car accident? That would explain what he was doing in a hospital, at least. If this even was a hospital. It didn't seem like any hospital Nina had ever seen. It was so abandoned, and she knew from unfortunate experience that you couldn't just go wandering around a hospital at night without someone looking for you.

Not only that, Nina still had no idea what she was doing here, or how she'd even gotten here in the first place.

There was obvious relief on her face, even in the shadows of the darkness, when he said he didn't have a concussion. Nina wasn't a doctor and didn't know what do for a concussion -- not that that would have stopped her from trying. Still, she was glad she wouldn't have to try.

Given their situation, it was nearly impossible to take his upset personally. If anything, Nina was impressed that Murphy wasn't more hostile. So far, at least, he seemed like just the kind of company she would want if she had to be trapped in a strange, unfamiliar, eerie place. "That's where I came from too," she said, glancing in the direction she had come from out of habit. "I don't think there was anyone else back there. All the rooms I passed were empty, and no one answered me when I called." When he said it was her turn to pick, she hummed quietly to herself and glanced around, shining her flashlight first one way and then another, trying to get an idea of what their options were.

"Let's go upstairs," she said eventually, guiding the beam of light toward the nearest flight of stairs, and shining it around so he could really see them. "We can always come back down later if we don't find anything."

[stop_the_rain]

"Nobody answered me, either," Murphy admitted. "But...the places I've been before now, since the accident...they've all been like this. No people, really. I mean I met three, but...." How to explain? At least Nina seemed to not think he was a madman. He wished he could be certain whether or not she was really real, like Cunningham, or just...real enough, like Howard.

He started off in the direction of the stairs, thankful for the faded hospital indicators that gave some idea of the building's structure. He found it odd there wasn't a map lying around. There should have been one in that first room, but....

He ran a hand over the back of his neck, rubbing at it nervously. he glanced back at Nina, his expression one of hesitation. He looked like a man facing a harsh sentence rather than an explanation of events to a nice and pretty young woman.

"I guess I'm trying to say we're not in the real world anymore. I mean maybe a part of us is, but the rest of us is here. It's like...I dunno, you ever read that Lovecraft guy? He wrote all those stories about monsters from beyond reality and the world having all these dimensions, but like...on top of each other. Like layers of an onion, but layers of reality. I think that's what this is. Some sort of monster filled Lovecraft onion dimension. I don't know how or why we're here, but...we are. And I've been trying to get out for a long time."

Great, now he sounded like Ricks. At least he liked to think he was giving more useful information than the doomed DJ. As long as he didn't start babbling on about wiretaps and rules, they'd be okay.

[monkeyboy]

[From here]

It took a bit of work to keep himself standing straight when all he felt like doing was leaning to the right and just falling over. The amount of venom they had pumped into him all day could have probably killed a dinosaur! Ugh, Goku was not happy about it. He wasn't happy about any of it anymore, actually. At the beginning, the nights had been fun. He got to beat up monsters and bad guys with friends, but now that all paled in the face of death. The death of one of his friends.

It had occurred to him in his room that if he had all the dragon balls, he could bring forth Shenlong and he had to grant any wish Goku had. He could bring Rita back to life! But... He only had a few of them and those had been taken by the white witches. Without his kinto'un and Bulma's radar, he had no chance of turning his good idea into a reality. It was really annoying to have the answer, but no way to put it to good use! Man, he wondered if smart people felt like that all the time.

Well, for now Goku would find Taura, then find Birdy's body, bury her, and then exact revenge. Of course, this plan was already fallin apart too. The big hallway was usually teaming with people.

There were two people here and neither one of them were anyone he knew. Goku had to believe that Taura simply hadn't gotten here yet and that he had just been too fast. Well, maybe he had to go on without her. Who knew what they were doing with her body! Goku had to stop them! There was no time! Gearing up, Goku waddled as fast as his drugged legs could take him to the stairs.

[Woody]

[pullstring]

((From here.))

While nothing could top finding a mutilated body outside of his room, Woody was starting to seriously get the creeps from the deafening silence that reigned the building. For awhile, the only sounds he heard were his own slippers as they padded against the floor. Soon, though, he thought he could hear soft voices from up ahead, and the quiet sounds of footsteps.

Please don't let it be a monster, please don't let it be a monster, practically became his mantra as he slunk into the main hallway.

Instead, his flashlight beam illuminated the sight of an adorable little guy running for the stairs. "Psst! Hey!" Woody hissed, hoping he wouldn't dash off and leave him alone.

[she_is_ruin]

_{[from here]}

Even the short walk from cell block to main corridor left Yomi short of breath, and she stopped against the wall to rest. The plaster felt cool against her feverish skin, a small solace.

She remembered laying on the morgue floor and thinking much the same thing--it was the last memory she had, aside from the sight of Klavier's worried face. How long ago had that been? She couldn’t tell. Everything felt surreal and slightly blurry at the edges, as if reality had been tilted on its axis. Rationally, she knew her "sacrifice" wouldn’t have affected much, might not even have caused a ripple, but she still seemed to be caught in the haze it’d left her in. Shock, she supposed. She was in shock. It felt an awful lot like heartbreak.

But there were no tears this time--there no longer seemed to be a need for them.

Slowly, Yomi lowered her katana to a resting position by her leg, letting the hilt bump against the wall. Maybe she could stay where she was for a little while… gain her bearings… And if there is any mercy, no one will find me.

But even as she thought as much, Yomi realized something important. The obviousness of it was staggering, and yet it was only when she thought of the people she wanted to avoid--like Albedo, like Klavier, like the others from the Coliseum--that it occurred to her.

No one will…

Every night she had been imprisoned in the Institute, there had been other prisoners around, bumping into each other, talking to each other, filling the dark hallways up with sound and activity. Now, though, she realized how easy her walk to the main hallway had been. There had been no roommate. No female prisoners in the cell block. No one in the hallway after, and only a handful of people in the one she was in.

For one clear, crisp moment Yomi became aware of the solitude pressing in on her from all sides. Where had everyone gone?

[skeletonenigma]

[From here.]

The air currents began buffeting Skulduggery's hand in a way that suggested people ahead. He stopped and pressed himself against the wall, listening. His ability to read the air wasn't always precise, but it could usually give him an idea of how many to expect. This time, all he could tell was that there was something up head, and it might or might not be friendly. With the way his fire and air manipulation had diminished, Skulduggery couldn't really say he was surprised.

After a few moments, he risked a quick glance around the corner. There were three people he could see, two sitting and talking a little further up, one quiet and leaning against the wall a little closer to him. Even in the relative darkness of the corridor, none of them looked like the inhabited damaged vessels of the Faceless Ones. In fact, the woman closer to him had looked like she could barely stand.

Skulduggery considered this, opening and closing his hand in front of him to try and force the air into cooperation. The Faceless Ones, he thought, couldn't bring people back from the dead, like someone had clearly done to him. Or at least, he hoped they couldn't. If they could, they were keeping one hell of a trick up their sleeves.

So had Skulduggery even ended up in their reality? He wasn't home, that much was obvious. Not even the Necromancers had been able to give him back a flesh and blood body. And nobody knew exactly how alternate realities worked; it wasn't like anyone mounted expeditions to explore them.

Besides, what kind of dark god with any sense of professionalism wouldn't have begun properly torturing him by now? Remaining just as cautious as before, Skulduggery stepped into the next hall. These people might be able to help him, or at least give him a better idea of what had happened, and that was worth the risk of potential danger.

The reason for the woman's inability to walk properly became painfully obvious as Skulduggery neared, and any hopes he'd harbored of somehow ending up in a nice reality quickly faded. When he spoke, his tone was friendly, even as he kept his distance. "Hello." He gestured to her wounds. "You look like you might need some help."

[monkeyboy]

He wasn't sure what exactly he had heard. It sounded more like a hiss from an animal than a human, and if that were the case...

Quick as a cat, he jumped around in the hallway. His long red staff was already in his hand and looking for a target, but it was shrouded in blinding magic. "Show yourself, pixie devil! Yer light can't save ya!" Rearing back, he waited for something to move so he could strike.

[pullstring]

Woody took a step back, waving his light as a gesture of peace. "Woah, woah, hang on there, little fella'!" he said with a nervous laugh. A pixie devil? His first reaction was to think what a great imagination this kid had. But then he remembered that there were probably real pixie devils here, and it wasn't nearly as cute anymore.

"I'm not gonna hurt you, okay?" he added, doing his best to give a disarming smile. "Do you know what happened to everyone here?"

[she_is_ruin]

Yomi supposed she should have cared about the lack of life, but there was a limit to how many concerns she could focus on without losing her mind. As it was, she felt like an overflowing glass, the tension inside her bubbling over the rim. She couldn’t be expected to deal with this mystery on top of all of the others, could she? God, she was already so…

She blinked then, senses tingling. The fact remained that she wasn’t entirely alone. There were still people in the halls, and she had enough of her wits intact to realize that one of them was watching her.

Her free arm went around her midsection as if to further conceal the evidence of Albedo’s violence that lay underneath her clothes before turning in the direction of the strange presence. What could anyone possibly want with her now? She just wanted to be left alone, didn’t anyone realize that? No, clearly not. All people around her seemed to care about was showing her misplaced kindness.

Such kindness would’ve been nice before she’d sold her soul for power. Now it was just too late.

“I don’t, really.” There, she was still capable of forming words with a little effort. “Unless you have some kind of healing ability to share.”

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery's head tilted to the right, the only outward indication of the surprise he registered at her response. "No healing abilities, I'm afraid," he answered slowly. "The most I can offer is something to balance on when you walk. This is a hospital, isn't it?" He glanced at the two people talking further up, but neither of them seemed hurt. "Are there people with healing abilities you can go to?"

He didn't ask the obvious questions, not yet. What happened? What did this? Does this sort of thing happen a lot around here? Quite apart from how annoying it was to ask abvious questions, her answer was either going to involve the Faceless Ones - in which case Skulduggery already knew that, and didn't particularly want to hear it out loud - or it would involve some other kind of hell entirely. And honestly, Skulduggery wasn't sure which one he'd prefer.

The garbled static of the intercom announcement startled him, but not nearly as much as the words that followed. He waited until it was over, head cocked at a different angle while he listened, and then he pointed a long finger up towards the ceiling. "Is that normal?"

[she_is_ruin]

Then he’s useless. The disdain in the thought was both familiar and appalling. A few shows of sacrifice couldn’t countermand something so inherently hateful as the sesshouseki--not for long, at least.

She knew she was slipping back under its guidance, which was why she didn’t move, or scream, or beg the strange man for help. She just looked back at him, expression placid if not a little solemn at the edges, and gave a slight shake of her head. His questions were already growing tiring; answering them the way they needed to be answered involved care and thoughtfulness, things that felt far out of her reach at the moment. He would learn eventually, anyway. Friend or foe, monster or human… they all learned.

Yomi started to turn away but the sound of the intercom startled her into stillness. That voice. Did she need any more proof that this was still Landel’s Institute? There was that voice. The sound of it cut straight through the shell of impassivity she‘d wrapped herself in, making her bite her lip. She had difficulty naming the emotion that welled in her chest as Landel spoke. Fear? Anger? Disappointment? Landel had been there in the Coliseum stands, had watched her stumble headlong into her own “death,” had probably laughed at her stupidity. Knowing all along that she would be brought back, a failed martyr.

Her fingers clenched tight around the katana’s hilt until her hand shook. Shit!

The only thing she’d thought to do before leaving her cell had been to grab her sword, and she was a little grateful now that she’d forgotten to tie her hair up. It acted like a curtain, shielding her face from view until she felt she had her expression under control again. A stupid worry, maybe. Depending on what kind of perception the man had, there was every chance he had already seen what was hiding beneath her veneer of skin and bones.

If that was the case, though, she didn’t think he would still be talking to her so calmly.

After a few moments, Yomi thought she was well enough to answer. "Yes. It is." Her tone was weary. "If you don’t want to suffer, don’t do what he says."

[monkeyboy]

"Oh!" It was a person. Wait! Goku gave him a critical once over to make sure it wasn't that happy, talkative man from last night who had a hand in the death of his friend. He poked the tall man in the stomach with the butt of his stick. It was pretty hard to tell people apart, but he was fairly sure this wasn't the person he was looking for.

"Everyone? Oh, you mean the people...?" He took another look around as if it suddenly dawned on him that there was unusual silence. "They tried to take me somewhere today, but I wouldn't let 'em, so they left me here.

"But I can't talk! I gotta go! My friend's in trouble!"

[pullstring]

Woody's gaze grew more wary when the kid poked him in the stomach, almost as if he were some dead animal on the side of the road he needed to investigate. Thankfully, he felt confident that he could hold his own if the squirt wound up trying start a fight. He did hope things wouldn't come to that, though.

When he saw the furry tail attached to the kid's rear, though, he couldn't help but cringe. What was that? People weren't supposed to have animal parts! But then it dawned on him that maybe Landel had tortured this poor boy. Woody still remembered the way Sid had gleefully ripped his toys apart, changing their body parts to create patch-work monsters. The Head Doctor was a lot like that, except worse, because at least Sid never realized toys were alive. (Well, until Woody came along, but that was beside the point.)

His heart ached. This poor, poor child! And he had a friend who was in trouble, too. Woody couldn't just leave him like this!

"Wait, wait, what happened to your friend?" he suddenly asked, his eyebrows furrowing in concern. "You can't just run off by yourself! At least take me with you."

[skeletonenigma]

"Well, that's cheerful," Skulduggery said after a brief pause. "Good to see being mortally wounded hasn't gotten you down."

It seemed like someone was running this particular hell, and it wasn't a Faceless One. Or at least, whoever's voice that was over the intercom hadn't sounded like a Faceless One. But he did sound evil. Or slightly deranged, if not downright evil. Was he the same person who was responsible for Skulduggery's new state of being? The former skeleton's hand automatically went to his chest again, just to feel the same impossible heartbeat as before.

No, don't think about it. Just don't.

The 'Entry Room,' wherever that was, had sounded like a good place to try and find some answers. But a quick study of the woman in front of him convinced him to set the idea aside for later. It was the combination of her words, and the battle wounds she looked like she'd sustained. She was a woman to listen to when it came to suffering.

"Who is he?" Skulduggery asked. Trapping and hurting people inside a hospital struck him as an odd way of doing things.

[monkeyboy]

"She got killed! I... Well, I didn't mean to..." His chubby face was lined with sorrow. "That weasel Landel tricked me! And now they have her body and I gotta find it and bury it and kick his butt! You can help me!" Butt kicking was always more satisfying with friends any way.

"It's up this way!" He pointed in the dark to a flight of stairs just on the other side of the hall. Without much concern for Woody, he ran for the stairwell with his tail lopping back and forth behind him.

[monkeyboy]

[To here]

[she_is_ruin]

“Cheerful?” It was difficult to take his comment seriously. Even in her state, it was easy to see that he was still figuring out the boundaries of his new cage--he didn’t really know what he was talking about, one way or the other. Shifting the arm that sat across her midsection, she said, “When they were fresh, these injuries killed me. But I can’t die, so this is the aftermath. This is hardly anything in comparison.”

There. She could say it out loud and it only squeezed her heart a little.

Since Yomi couldn’t very well conceal the fact that she was nursing injuries, what was the point in trying to hide them? The truth was the truth. She had been dead and now she… wasn’t. Telling a stranger didn’t change anything. In fact, saying the words aloud almost made the entire process seem more normal.

She had played into Landel’s hand and he had resurrected her. End of story.

All the same, Yomi didn’t know how to answer him. On another day, at another time, the words would have come easily to her. Gleefully, even. But with the memory of Landel’s smiling face still pinpoint sharp in her mind, what could she say?

Her eyes wandered to a point somewhere over Skulduggery’s shoulder. At first she simply frowned, but after another pause of her own she started to speak. “He runs this place. It’s full of creatures he’s captured from all kinds of places and times, like me. And now you. Sorry if you were hoping for good news--there is none. You’re his prisoner now, and soon he’ll start tormenting you like he does everyone else. That’s how it is here. I guess consider this your official welcome.”