Chapter One

1

 

     Electrical fingers tore serrated trails across a maroon firmament as billowing clouds swelled and absorbed neglected pockets.   Destra grimaced, lowered her head and tasted the air with a split tongue that coiled and slid over dry, scaly lips.  Her webbed digits sank into the earth and from the wounds simmering meat crawled . She moaned as the sensation peeled her jaw back. As the moist meat glistened she flicked her tongue out again.

 

    Upward she shot like a bullet. Her back rippled and from its crisp skin tore free a set of wings that dripped thick fluid that scolded the ground. Racing above mangled muscle trees she occasionally vomited acid. It rapidly generated blisters upon anything it touched, but this merely bore a cackle within her throat. It echoed as she continued along her way.

 

    An abrupt turn brought her into an avenue rich in bleak shadows that wrapped every angle. Her eyes took in the wandering creatures. Their jerky movements and shiny latex like skin birthed festering boils that gurgled as though choking on something vast. Still it wouldn't be such a wonderful sight if it had not been for the occasional smear of blood on cracked pavement or mutilated body.

 

     Dismembered hands scrambled away, running on fingers that sprouted from a bloody stump while its original digits curled into its bruised palm and molded into its flesh. She paused, hovering with her wings still flapping and then darted off. Then another sight caught her in another moment. It was such a beautiful hell.

 

2

 

     Forever I am trapped in this mortal dilemma. I hang my head. It never ceases; anguishing questions. Why does there have to be purpose? At the same time I ask "But how can there not be purpose?"  How can this be since I cannot fix even my own morbid inner monologues? Saving a life means nothing because it is my life.

 

     "What are you doing," Krosnos roared.

 

     Dyne froze. With eyes round like saucers it threw aside a pen and paper as a high pitch squeak escaped his rotted lips. One object went over one lumpy shoulder while the other sailed over a skinless one. It then jumped to its cloven feet and laced maimed fingers over its robed chest.

 

     "Have you been writing again," asked the horned beast as he ambled inward on a set of goat legs. "Why must you entertain mortal actions?"

 

     Dyne coughed and looked away. Suddenly the tight enclosure seemed less and less like a haven. It knew no answer would be good enough.

 

     "You are supposed to be a daemon," Krosnos continued to blast. "Start acting like one!" In a sharp turn he made his exit and only after he was gone Dyne stuck out a forked tongue and spit.

 

     "You don't have to listen," Dagger said as she emerged from shadows gripping every inch of decayed stone. "You know you can be whatever or whoever you want to be."

 

     Dyne rolled its bright crimson eyes and sighed. "I know, but I perhaps I don't want to choose sides. Perhaps I want to be neutral."

 

     "Destra is not going to settle for that and neither will Krosnos."

 

     Dyne leaned against a slime covered cement slab and folded wiry meat arms. "Why should I care?"

 

     Dagger hopped down an eyeball boulder. It had been blinking all the while she stood on it. Now it watched the two of them as she ran a gloved hand through one of her lilac ponytails.

 

     "Dyne," she said softly, "I think you do care. If you didn't care you wouldn't be so intrigued by mortal appliances and such. By the way I am going to refer to you as 'he'. I know in that form you are sporting you actually are neither sex, but for my own benefit I have to make it easy in knowing..."

 

     He held a hand up to stop her. "Okay," he said quickly. "You have made your point, but don't tell Krosnos. He is such a..."

 

     "Piece of shat? I already know that," Dagger replied, tending to a yellow ribbon around her neck. It was tied with such a huge bow it ruffled under her chin whenever she tilted her head down or to one side. "But it doesn't matter. Both Destra and Krosnos want to cease humanity. We can't allow that."

 

     "I guess not. So then what should we do? Silent Hill is just... It isn't my type of place to go roaming around in. I prefer catacombs or graveyards."

 

     "Well," Dagger began slowly, "there is a few ways to seal off Silent Hill to the majority of the public."

 

     "I doubt it can ever be secluded, Dagger. We might be able to narrow the doorway though in which one enters through," Dyne explained.

 

     Dagger flipped the bangs out of her smoky eyes as she remarked coolly, "I am willing to do anything it takes. Humans have their own hell to deal with. They don't need any more."

 

3

 

     Death cometh only on the wings of a gargoyle drenched in midnight's decay, Destra thought as she landed. The earth shook under her webbed feet as she marched forward, dirt swelling up behind every engraved footprint. Madness was a treasure to be found and cradled against the bosom of society. Such thoughts squandered possibilities but all was for not.

 

     "Yo, yo, yo," Dyne said with a foreign accent that made her cringe as he materialized before her. "Wat up wit chu?"

 

     A series of gold chains hung around his bloated throat. Atop his meat exposed head was a cap with the bill turned to one side.

 

    "What do you think you are doing," Destra bellowed and instantly the chains and hat dissolved.

 

     He glided forward with bleeding eyes round and unblinking. "I just wanted to pay you a visit. I thought it would be a nice gesture."

 

    Destra's eyes narrowed. "Are you... You are not here to help."

 

     Dyne stammered and placed a hand over his chest. Its bones poked neatly out of gaping wounds. "I take offense from that." Moving his head from side to side and hands now on his hips, he said, "I ain't gots to be listening to dis."

 

     "Then leave," Destra demanded. "You give 'daemon' a bad name!"

 

     Placing a finger to his cracked lips he replied softly before taking his leave, "You know Krosnos said the same thing."

 

4

 

     Dyne stepped forth, spiky metal hair tied in ponytails with two pom poms clutched against his crisp cheerleader uniform, and as he began to call out letters he shook his fanny.  He jumped from side to side, cartwheeled and finally did the splits before a billowing wall of smoke shot up from mangled cement cracks. Only then did the charade evaporate and he again wore long tattered robes with a meat exposed scalp.

 

    "What are you," Henry said. He started to back away slowly, but a string of fence ceased him.

 

     "Just a minute," Dyne said as he looked behind him and then left to right. "Dude, you have to go see Dagger. Only she can help you."

 

     "I don't understand what I am doing here again. Maybe I am dreaming. I can't be here again."

 

     Dyne narrowed his gaze. "You talk a mile a minute. That butthole Krosnos is recalling all the heroes. He believes you all need another trial in order to prove your worth."

 

     "And who are you," Henry asked gently.

 

     "Dyne," Dyne replied as he again looked behind him and then left to right.

 

     "How can I trust you?"

 

     "We don't have time for this!"

 

     A whirlwind of lightning and wind consumed them at once. Within its churning depths sparks flew and flames ignited an array of colors that streamed like streamers every which way. When it subsided they were no longer amongst ruin and fog infested avenues.

 

     "What," Henry stumbled. He steadied himself against a wall. Its fissures went in a diagonal pattern, split through peeling paint and holes. "Where are we?"

 

     "There you are," Dagger said. Her hands were shoved deep in her pockets as she approached. Her curled toe shoes clicked on the tiles. "I have been waiting for you, Henry."

 

5

 

     He left me here among the ruins of an already damned society. His love chipped away like a rotten egg shell. I don't understand why in the beginning he pretended I was special.

 

    "There, there, child," rasped the hovering mass. "He wasn't capable of love." Its twirling vortex bore weaving lightning threads that brightened ebony patches along its lower left corner, but expired as soon as thunder pursued. It was the perfect combination to indicate something sinister on the horizon had it not been confined to its bulk.

 

     She tilted her face to view the thing closely.

 

     "There is someone else inside me," she said. "I can feel it. Whatever it is...I don't know, but it is intense."

 

     Muddy red orbs opened within it. "Yes," it replied darkly. "And it will consume you from inside out."

 

     She thrashed in protest as she cried, "No, I can't go back to that again! I gave myself a second chance before to be happy! I won't throw that all away!"

 

     "You don't have a choice, Heather."

 

     Dead space, Heather thought as she stumbled forward.

 

     Each step in the direction of the tower proved difficult as her feet refused to obey. Her examination of them did not help matters. They blurred beneath her, swam together in a sea of over exposed color and then faltered as a defective light bulb might.

 

     Her cheek ticked. Pressing a finger to it bile rose into her throat as she pulled away from the curb and discerned her control was slipping. Before her the street swayed, sagged until flames sprung up from spider webbing fissures.

 

     Death wears the crown here.

 

     "It does," she replied as she stumbled back onto the curb.