Silent Loud von Oogie-Boogie (Viel Loud in Silent Hill...) ================================================================================ Kapitel 4: Other Cemetery ------------------------- This Chapter was Proof-Read by ultrablud2, I thank him for his good work. Another time, another chapter. I really take A LOT of time to write these at the Moments, mainly because writing “Platonic” takes a lot of my time. Also I work better and faster in a Team with my Partner MamaAniki. I like to write Leni in this situation. She makes for a great main character in my opinion. Now, prepare to face the horror of the Otheworld, a place more twisted than the Fog World could ever be.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Chapter 4: Other Cemetery   Leni wasn’t sure how hell would really look like but this place gave her an idea how a demon from hell would design a cemetery. “Lucy, we will leave,” decided Leni for them both. “This was not a safe place before and I don’t want to know what we could encounter now.” “Maybe this place could tell us what is happening here,” Lucy objected. “We have to figure out what is going on.” “Our safety comes first,” Leni explained slowly.  “Your safety comes first, Lucy.” Lucy sighed in defeat. She was interested in this strange and scary world but she was also wary of the danger. “Lead the way, Leni.” The two walked at a fast pace back to the entrance. Leni tried not to look at anything; she tried to stay focused on returning home. But as they reached the entrance, they made not the most pleasant recovery: The entrance was gone and instead there was now a giant gravestone blocking the way. “No escape,” Lucy read the words written in large black letters on the big marker of death. The older sister was in panic but she hid it under a cheerful demeanor. “This isn’t the only exit,” she remembered. “We will just use another one.” “I have the feeling it will be of no use,” Lucy presumed with gloomy words. “Whatever is doing this wants to keep us here.” “Like, we could make a ladder out of gravestones and earth,” Leni suggested. “You are good at grave robbing, right?” “I want to become an undertaker,” Lucy began calmly. “I want to dig up graves and NOT rob the dead. But I understand what you mean.” Lucy shrugged with her shoulders. “But I would prefer to get away from here without desecrating graves, especially at a place where unspeakable things could be in them.” “Like, those are corpses, they are not unspeakable,” Leni explained friendly. “I know very well what corpses are,” Lucy explained slowly and dry. “I mean beings no human should ever see. Except me and some of my friends, we are prepared.” “Like, whatever, come now.” Leni took Lucy’s hand and they got on their way.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   The tension was thick for Leni while Lucy didn’t seem to care. Leni again looked every few seconds in every direction to spot monsters. They were walking along the wall around the cemetery in the hopes to find another way out. “Leni, what is your Problem?” “The ‘Lampshades’ could attack,” Leni explained. “They tend to appear out of nowhere behind me.” “Lampshades?” “They are little with pale skin and black heads, like, they look like lampshades,” explained Leni. “They also have like very sharp nails.” “Doesn’t sound that dangerous,” Lucy commented. “But your description sounded non-threatening.” “You saw one of them in the cages, right?” “I think so, yes,” confirmed Lucy. “They look creepy but not so dangerous.” “Like, they attacked me in a group once,” told Leni. “They are fast, they move unpredictably and they made me bleed. If they come, stay behind me; just stay behind me, okay?” Lucy nodded, surprised by the serious tone in her sister’s voice. “Yes, sister.” They reached a door; probably an entrance/exit for the cemetery, a normal wooden door but it was closed. Lisa tried to pick the lock but it wasn’t working either. //What now?//, she thought to herself. Lucy noticed some movements behind nearby trees. While Leni was thinking she slipped over and looked behind them. There she saw one of the Lampshades a few feet away from the tree doing something over a grave. A shovel probably for digging up a grave was placed besides the fleshy-tombstone. She crept up slowly to see what the Lampshade was doing. Careful, she walked step by step closer to the creature until she was directly behind it. What she saw it doing let her almost scream out in shock. The Lampshade was scratching a male corpse it probably just had dug out of the earth. The corpse was cut open and the little creature took little pieces of flesh and stuck them beneath her black head from where Lucy could hear gnawing like sounds. Lucy tried to walk backwards again, slowly so she wouldn’t alert the creature to her presence. But then a croaking sound behind her made the other creature stop in its proceedings and forced Lucy to turn around to behold another one of the lampshades. “HELP!” Lucy screamed in fear. “LENI!” Leni, who still had tried to pick the lock, came running and saw her sister threatened by two Lampshades. “Lucy, run, to the sides!” Leni shouted. “Run before…” The corpse-eating creature suddenly made a few steps forward and scratched Lucy’s back which made her yelp in pain. “Get away from her!” Leni wasn’t willing to risk Lucy’s life with the gun. She took out her knifes and charged the other one while Lucy stumbled away from the one who attacked her. Its erratic movements made Lucy only panic more which let her fall to the ground; get up and to the ground again. She bumped against the tombstone and through the collision the shovel fell into her lap. She grabbed the shovel and thrusted it at the Lampshade which was attacking her. She hit it in the chest and pushed it away from her. Lucy got up again and, with adrenaline and fear filling her body, she swung the shovel with all her might onto the head of the monster. The monster screamed and scratched around in all directions like a wild animal. Lucy continued to hit the thing on its head until it fell down but Lucy didn’t stop. She pummeled onto the monster until Leni intervened. “Stop! It is dead!” she shouted and held her sister’s arms. “It is dead, you are safe.” Lucy let the shovel fall to the ground and leaned against Leni who embraced her. She stroked over her hair and whispered calming words into Lucy’s ear who was shaking and holding back her tears. She clung to Leni’s dress and Leni let her. Both stayed like this for a while until Lucy had calmed down. She said: “I want to go home.” “Like, stay behind me and take the shovel with you,” the older one advised. “I will bring you home.”   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Regardless of wherever they walked, they only walked into dead ends or closed exits. They only encountered more Lampshades, either attacking them, doing something they didn’t want to know more about or walking somewhere. No way to escape this cursed cemetery anywhere. “We are trapped,” Lucy concluded. “This place doesn’t want us to leave.” “The place?” Leni asked in a confused tone. “But a place doesn’t live.” “Au contraire, my dear Leni,” Lucy countered. “A place, a location, even a house can be alive. Time, events, people and changes can fill a place with a substance, an essence if you will. Something that gives a place an atmosphere, an aura. Do you understand?” “Is it magic?” Lucy shook her head. “No, it is not magic, but it can become magic or at least help magic to work.” “Like, for the demon summoning rituals you like to do sometimes?” “Yes.” “Please don’t do that here,” Leni requested. “It could work.” “I think so too.” The two walked through a part of the cemetery with more trees and spotted a little house. It was behind a behind a few of the trees, away from the other ways and graves and a little way lead to it. “Looks like a shed,” Leni concluded. “Maybe we can find a key which will lead us out of here.” “And something to eat,” Lucy hoped. “I am hungry.” “When we get home I can make you something,” Leni promised. “The refrigerator is still working and I found some food in it and it still looked edible.” The two walked to the shed. It looked dismal, old and abandoned. The door was unlocked so they could enter it easily. The insides were dusty and, after Leni found the light-switch, not very impressive looking. Leni closed the door behind them and they started their search. “Here is a strange looking energy drink,” Lucy informed Leni and took the drink from the shelf. “Drink a little from it,” advised Leni and remembered that Lucy was hurt during the battle. “It will heal your wounds.” “Really?” asked Lucy doubtful. “I tried one after some of the nasty little Lampshades ganged up on me,” Leni told her younger sister. “It worked very well, I felt and looked like new.” “You drank something which could have turned out poisonous?” “Like, I was careful,” Leni responded. “Trust me.” Lucy sighed, opened the drink and nipped at it. She made a grimace because of the bitter taste but looked more relieved as well. She drank a little bit more and closed the lid again. “I feel better,” she informed Leni. “Physically better. My soul is still filled with the darkness of eternity.” “Like, is it darkness from this place?” “No.” “Very well.” While the two were searching for more useful stuff, Lucy asked: “Why are there energy drinks lying around that can heal wounds?” “Somebody placed them there,” Leni answered nonchalantly. “But why?” “Because somebody does that for people who get lost here?” Leni’s answer was not very satisfying for Lucy who wanted to respond as she found another note. She read it out loudly. June 27 There is somebody. The priest doesn’t believe me but I know that somebody is sneaking around on the cemetery at night. It is not the groundskeeper or the gravedigger; it has to be somebody else. Somebody is doing something unnatural and heretical here. Something that defies god and his creation. A demon, a witch, a warlock, a heretic! I will find that heretic and drag that person before the priest. If I had my will I would kill such heathens but the laws of this country are corrupt, on the side of the godless. If I had my will they would all suffer, I would make them scream and when they not repent they should burn. Burn like the monsters they are. “He doesn’t sound very happy with his life,” Leni saying her thoughts out loud. “I wonder if he is here.” Lucy just stared at the words. Leni wasn’t sure why she just was staring at them and decided to continue her search. “I found ammo for my gun!” she declared. “Also another type of ammo. Bigger than the other type of ammo.” Lucy came over and looked at the new type of bullets. “I’m not an expert but I think those are used for rifles.” Leni shrugged with her shoulders. They would need every bit of firepower they could get to survive here. Even though she disliked the idea of getting another weapon but the situation forced her to obtain every good weapon she could find. Something rumbled behind a crate. Leni took her gun, let it fall, fumbled it back into her hands and targeted the crate. Lucy came behind Leni again and both slowly approached the crate. It didn’t make any more strange sounds but the bloodstreams of the two sisters were now filled with adrenaline. Leni lifted the lid and threw it to the side before stepping back. As nothing jumped out of the crate, Leni looked inside it. She only found a statue of Jesus in the crate, lying on its back. “Our lord and savior just wanted to get out of the crate,” Leni joked. “The Statue probably just fell to the ground.” “Don’t touch it,” Lucy requested seriously. “It may bite.” The two were finished anyway and wanted to go. They heard another rumble from the same crate. Before Leni could stop her Lucy looked inside. “Jesus is now on the cross.” Leni looked at the statue to confirm her words. “Let’s just go, okay?” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   After they had left the shack they decided to go deeper into the wood-part of the Graveyard. Maybe they could find there something which could help them to escape. The sights didn’t improve while they walked through the woods. The faces on the trees looked here even more terrifying and Leni saw a Lampshade wandering away from them into the darkness. “There is another crypt,” noticed Lucy and pointed at one. The surface of this one looked like stapled together rusty steel plates. It was an odd design for a crypt in the eyes of the two who walked around it to have a better look at this strange crypt. The Entrance was sealed off with bars of steel with no visible way to get in. “Why would….” Leni stopped. She saw something behind the bars she hadn’t really noticed at first. She turned her flashlight on and she saw a… Thing. She never had seen such a being before. It was covered in something white, like fur but it all came from the head, making it also look like hair. The hair reached to the ground, the end of it lying all around this being. The creature had the same height as Leni but was with the stuff around her it looked like it had more mass than her. The only other noticeable thing was the black orb which was visible through the hair. It was within the area a human would have its head but this was no human. It looked like it wasn’t moving but Leni noticed a few little Movements. Not to mention that her radio was emitting static again, louder and more intense than every time she faced a monster before. The monster so far have scared Leni but this one scared her more than the others, it scared her more than she ever thought could be possible. It just stood there and stared at her, made nothing else. But it emitted something dark and threatening. Something Leni never wanted to encounter. Lucy pulled Leni’s hand, signaling to Leni that she just wanted to go away from that thing. Leni, who needed a few seconds to get the message, just took Lucy’s hand to run away with her. They reflected in the monster’s orb as they vanished out of its field of view.   ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   Leni ran fast, almost dragging Lucy behind her who wanted to get away from the monster too but not as eagerly as Leni. She didn’t stop until Lucy forced her to halt because she was out of breath. “I am sorry, Lucy,” Leni said and kneeled one knee to her sister. “Like, I was just too scared.” “Same for me. Don’t sweat it. This creature scared me more than the Lampshades.” They looked around to see where they are after their escape. It was another array of eldritch tombstones and graves bordering on pathways. The two sisters looked at the inscriptions of the horrific tombstones. None shall escape. Are you afraid to die? This place is demise.   Mommy? I am scared. Help me!   Show responsibility for your mistakes!   They crawl and wait. They wait and crawl.   Bloody gnarls come from the ground.   Don’t think about it too much. It makes no difference.   Here lies what you loved the most in life.   Here lies Rita Loud, mother of 11.   The last one let the two step back in horror. Leni couldn’t comprehend the thought that their mother could lie here. She hoped it was a lie; it had to be a lie! “Is that really mom?” asked Lucy fearfully.  “No… No!” Leni proclaimed with as much certainty as she could muster. “Like, this is just a trick from this place! Don’t fall for it. Look around for something useful and don’t look at more epitaphs!” The two found two energy drinks and two clips of gun ammo behind the tombstones and another note from that diary.   July the 12th I saw her! It was a female, a child! She was leaving a grave in the deeper parts of the cemetery, probably after conducting some strange pagan ritual. Oh, how our society has fallen if a child is already corrupted, is a witch ready to sacrifice babies on her unholy altar?! When I get my hands on her I will purify her from evil! Then I will tell her parents. They either knew of this and did nothing or had no idea. In the former case I will purify them as well. This read for Leni as if the Author was losing more and more of his mind. She was not a fan of so intolerant folks and reading his diary made him not more endearing. “Do you think he is here?” asked Lucy. “Was he teleported to this place like we were?” “Like, why should he spread the pages out of his diary all over the cemetery?” “He could be overwhelmed be the fact that his god stranded him in this place,” Lucy theorized. “This would test the faith for anyone.” “If we find him we will help him,” decided Leni. “Nobody deserves to land in such a place.” “Leni?” “Yes?” “Do you hear something?” “No, I don’t, the radio is too loud.” Lucy sighed. “I don’t hear any monsters nor do I see any creature but the radio is emitting static.” Leni looked up in the sky, thinking that there could be a flying creature but she beheld nothing except total darkness. Around here however the ground started to rumble. Leni didn’t feel anything but she heard rumbling noises coming from the graves around them. Leni took her gun out and Lucy readied her shovel. Something was going on and they both had an inkling what it could be but they didn’t want to speak it out. They slowly walked backwards away from the graves and waited for what they thought would be happen. They waited; they stood still while the rumbling and the noise continued. The two continued to walk slowly backwards. The noise from underground stopped. The two sighed in relief. As they turned around they faced an army of little lampshaded creatures, not moving and not making any sounds. It looked like a mass of dark foreboding damnation, despair and death.   Leni fired a shot in panic until a monster was dead and hell broke loose. The blonde just grabbed Lucy’s hand and both ran like the devil himself was hunting the two. But they would have preferred the devil in that moment. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Leni heard the screams and the movements, the howls and the stomping feet. They produced a very disjointed sound of a mob chasing, making Leni think that they still move at random but she didn’t dare to look at them. She only looked from time to time to Lucy to make sure she wouldn’t get left behind. She saw the fear in her sister’s face, fear of death and the unknown. They ran over stones and roots, past tombstones, past scary trees, past more monsters and past bushes. “Where to go?!” shouted Lucy. “We have to hide!” “The church!” Leni shouted back. “We go to the church! We can barricade us in there!” “Trapped in a church in a horrific alternate Dimension. Sounds like a great plan,” commented Lucy but they hadn’t a lot of options. They both ran like hell was behind them and that was probably not so far from the truth. Erratic moving monsters tried to close in on them in their unusual way and they made alien noises so strange and unknown they couldn’t be really classified. Leni thought it sounded like a wet sponge rubbed against a steel wall but a steel wall made of an iron Leni never heard of before. “The church!” Lucy shouted. “There is the church but… Oh… Oh, god…!” Leni looked at the church and was horrified. The building looked in stark contrast to the rest of the surroundings, shiny in white and golden colors. But the more haggard thing was the many corpses on crosses on the roof and on the walls of the church. Corpses of more Lampshades, hanging there like Jesus Christ, nailed through the palms, looking down, not moving, dead. The crosses themselves were made out of wood, colored in white like to absolve itself of the sin committed on them. Lucy looked like she would prefer to run into the army of monsters instead of running to that church but Leni just led her to the church. Regardless of how dangerous it looked, the monsters were the bigger threat at the Moment. She ran up to the door which was colored in gold and shined upon the two. Leni opened the door, shoved Lucy in and slammed the door shut. A few seconds later several bodies tried to get the door open again. “I need the key!” screamed Leni. “Search for the key!” “Where?” asked Lucy in panic. “I don’t know where it could be!” Lucy ran without thinking from one place to another, looking everywhere for a key or something else to close the door. This was the first time in Lucy’s life she really was scared for her life and for the one of her sisters. She ran into the personal rooms of the priest besides the podium and searched the entire room in a haste but she found nothing in the drawers, in the bed, under the desk, behind the pictures, under the rug or elsewhere in the room. She ran into every single room in the church and searched every bench, the thought of the attacking monster hordes making her move faster, helping her to ignore the exhausting which started to encompass her body. Panic and fear gave her more strength than ever before in her life but her desperation level was also increasing. //Wait… Jesus!// she thought and the sudden hunch let her run up the Jesus-Cross over the Altar. She inspected the cross and found the key, there hanging at one of the nails who nailed the person who so many call savior to the cross. Lucy’s and Leni’s salvation was this key. Lucy quickly grabbed from the nail. She ran back to Leni. “Leni, I….” Leni was making her fingernails, the door closed behind her, while some soft banging was heard from the other side. “The door…” “I locked it with my hairpin,” explained Leni casually while inspecting her nails. “I thought it may work on this door and the attack from the Lampshades wasn’t that strong.” “You can lock doors with a hairpin too?” asked Lucy in disbelief and out of breath. “Yes,” Leni answered. “Like, not many people know that but you can, totes, pick a lock to close it as well as opening it.” “Sigh. I found this key for nothing,” Lucy enunciated and showed Leni the key. “I almost peed myself in fear.” “Don’t worry Lucy,” Leni assured Lucy in kind words and embraced her. “You don’t have to fear anything with your big sister protecting you.” She took the key and looked at it. On the grip were the words `Master Key´ engraved. “We can open every door here now!” Leni understood quickly. “Did you hear? Oh.” Lucy didn’t stop the embrace; once again she clung to her older sister. Leni led her to one of the benches and sat down there with her sister on her lap. She took the time to look around. The church looked clean and neat now, completely different than before. The benches were clean and looked like new, the ceiling was an arc in calming deep blue color with pictures of scrolls that had words written in Latin on them, the walls were painted in a calming more dim white tone while golden ornaments separated the white upper half of the walls with the black lower half and the stained glasses showed scenes of good Christians showing love of compassion to outcasts and people of other believes. The scenes did nothing to Leni. She was in complete panic. Leni didn’t know that she was able to act in such a convincing manner and was happy that she didn’t have to show her sister how terrified she really was. Having found the solution on her own had made her more confident that they may survive but she was scared after this horde of monsters had hunted them. She was worried about what could have happened to Lucy, to herself and how her family and friends would have felt over their death. She didn’t understand anything, she didn’t know why this place tried so hard to kill them but at the same time it looked like it helped them. Nothing made sense to her and she wasn’t sure if she would get any answers before her death. She shook these bad thoughts out of her mind and caressed her little sister’s head. Carefully, she put her other hand on Lucy’s back and began to rub it in an evenly motion, up and down, up and down. Lucy wasn’t crying to Leni’s surprise, she was just breathing heavy and trembling in her lap. She never had seen Lucy this helpless and scared before and she doubted it would be the last time. “I am here Lucy,” Leni whispered to her sister. “I am here and I will protect you.” At the same time she wondered how she would accomplish this and if she even was able to protect herself. Only time could tell. “I am hungry,” Lucy finally muttered. “Do you have something with you?” “Sorry,” Leni whispered calmly in a remorseful tone. “I didn’t find anything to eat so far.” “Can we look for something to eat?” “Of course, Lucy,” Leni promised. “We will search when you feel ready. Rest as long as you want.” Lucy snuggled closer to her bigger sister in response, searching for warmth and safety. //This wasn’t as I hoped it would be// Lucy thought to herself. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   “Did you find anything?” Leni was searching through the bureau of the priest who was in chaos after Lucy stormed through on the search for a key. They found some ammo here but nothing to eat, not even a tiny apple. “Do you think this church has a fridge for the acolytes?” Lucy asked her sister while looking in one of the cupboards. “To keep the holy water cold and the communion wafers fresh.” “Do you think they have cream too?” mused Leni. “Like, I could totes go for some wafers with cream right now.” Lucy found another energy drink in a cabinet and gave it to Leni but there was nothing to eat in sight. “Let’s try the other rooms,” Leni suggested and so they did. Leni was slowly becoming skeptical about their new situation. This church looked safe, clean and the temperature was excellent. Even somebody less smart than most other people would clue in of the suspicious nature of this set-up. “Keep close to me, Lucy,” Leni ordered. “If you see or hear anything strange, inform me.” They entered a room on the opposite site from the priest’s office, a few steps down and found the breakroom. It was a large room with a pool table, a soccer table, a TV in one of the corners, two tables, pictures on the walls, a dartboard and some other niceties. “Like, it looks cozy,” thought Leni loudly and spotted a little refrigerator. “Oh, maybe there is something to eat.” “A monster could be hidden in there,” warned Lucy. “Waiting for us hungry girls to go there so it can eat us instead. An old demon of ice and snow hidden in marmalade and cheese.” “How would such a demon taste?” Leni jokingly asked. “Like, Mango? Kiwi? Cherry? Chocolate?” “I could go for some strawberry.” Leni, with a drawn pistol, opened the fridge and found nothing dangerous in it, just food and some normal beverages. Leni took out a sandwich and sniffed at it to determine if it could be poisonous even though she had no idea how something poisonous would smell. She tasted a little bit of and she didn’t taste anything bad or poisonous either despite not knowing how a poison would taste like. “I think the stuff is safe,” Leni finally said. “Bon appetite, Lucy.” Lucy nodded, grabbing another sandwich and some milk to share it with Leni. They sat together down on one of the tables where Lucy found another page of the diary. July the 16th Stupid ignorant acolytes, playing games instead of searching sinners and making them repent. The priest accepts it, even encourages them to take breaks. Fun should be nothing that we should strive for; only our work for the Lord is of importance. Not our happiness, health or other people, we should only live and die for the Lord! I tried to convince the priest of getting rid of the breakroom; I explained to him that those trivialities in there could lead to way worse sins in the long run. They could start to gamble, steal, sleep with prostitutes, murder innocent believers and scribble vile words on walls. When I overtake this poor community I swear to the lord I will get rid of all the heretics. None will be welcomed in my church who isn’t anything but a devout follower of the Lord.   “I bet he has many friends here,” suspected Lucy sarcastically as she finished reading. “He sounds like a very sad fellow,” Leni suspected. ”I guess he doesn’t even have many friends with that attitude. Even under people who think like him.” “I know some Goths with such extreme views on our culture, even you wouldn’t like them Leni,” Lucy told her older sister. “They remind me of the author of this diary.” “I will give anyone a chance,” Leni claimed. “Like, nothing is sadder than being totally alone. Nobody deserves that.” The two finished their meal and drinks soon after. They decided to examine the church more closely in hopes to figure out what was going on and because they hadn’t anything better to do while being trapped in there. They found nothing in the break room aside from a billiard que which Leni took as another melee-weapon, just in case. “The church in the foggy place had a cellar,” Lucy mentioned. “Maybe this one has also one?” “Good idea Lucy,” Leni replied. “But… Just in case let’s search the other rooms first, including the room of the priest.” “Are you scared going down?” “Are you?” “To be honest… Yes.” “Being scared is nothing to be ashamed off,” Leni exclaimed. “Just don’t let yourself be controlled by your fear.” One room after another was explored by the two Louds, finding a little ammunition and energy drinks. Leni decided to give Lucy a few of the energy drinks in case they got separated. Lucy told her that she would try everything not to end up alone in this terrible place but they both agreed to better safe than sorry. After searching every room and not finding any more hints, notes or possible exits, they moved to the place Leni found the way into the cellar the last time. The door was at the same place and looked similar, just cleaner. Leni drew her gun and approached the door, turning the knob and opening it. Leni turned the light on and the illuminated cellar didn’t reveal the presence of any monsters. They didn’t find any more as they descended the steps into the cellar itself and just found some barrels, a desk, shelves with different objects in them with a lot of dust and cobblestone walls. Some details were different but in general the cellar had the same outline as it had in the fog world. Also the door that was leading to the crypts before was closed and the doorknob was broken. “We could try and pry the door open with the shovel,” Lucy suggested. “But I have the feeling that we don’t find anything important there.” “Why is that?” “It is just a feeling, Leni,” Lucy explained. “But I am pretty sure of it. We shouldn’t do it as long as we have other options and forcing a way through such a door could cost us time and energy.” Leni nodded in response and looked around. This cellar looked so normal, she didn’t think she would find anything interesting. She found a little ammunition for her pistol but nothing more. She wanted to call for Lucy as she called her first. “I found something!” Leni turned to the direction Lucy was shouting from and saw her kneeling before a wall. As she came closer she noticed how Lucy tried to remove something out of the wall. “I found something, the cobblestones in this wall are loose”, explained Lucy as she managed to remove one. “Maybe here is something that can us help to escape.” “Do you need help?” “No thank you, it is not so hard.” A minute later Lucy had laid open a little secret chamber. It was very dark in there, she wasn’t able to see anything. “Can I have some light?” Leni turned her flashlight on and lit up the dark little secret hidden hole. Lucy spotted a plastic bag and another note from the diary on it. August the 12th I got her! I really got her! And then that unconsecrated priest let her go, didn’t even tell the police! Just a stern warning, nothing more! How could he let that heretic go?! She desecrated our beautiful cemetery! She said she wanted only to talk to her dead grandmother, any use of the dark arts regardless of how well intentioned they are is wrong! Whatever she would have conquered it would have devoured her and everybody else such a creature could get his hands on! We live in a world in which such a heretic could conjure beasts of incredible power! Alone the existence of those people who call themselves Goths is a crime. And if the priest is too ignorant to realize the danger then I have to do something.   Lucy was silent. Leni just put her hand on Lucy’s shoulder. “Lucy, is he writing about you?” “No, it is somebody else,” she answered after a few seconds. “Nobody captured me as I tried to summon the ghost of grand-grandmother Harriet.” “Were you able to talk with her?” “Just for a second,” Lucy told her older sister in a sad tone. “I don’t know if she was happy, angry, sad or thankful about me summoning her.” Leni wouldn’t have believed that Lucy was able to summon a ghost in the past but after what happened the last few hours she was more open to the supernatural now but she also wanted to be out of it as soon as possible. “I will get the bag,” Lucy informed her sister, reaching with her hands for it. “I wonder what…” Lucy screamed. “Lucy?” “Everything is all right,” said Lucy, still a little startled. “Just some little pieces of stone trickling on my hands.” She grabbed the bag and tried to pull it towards her. Something in the bag grabbed its hands around Lucy’s. “AH!” Lucy tried to pull away her hand but whatever was grabbing her pulled her into the hole and disappeared with her into the darkness. “LUCY!” But her sister was gone, nothing was there as she grabbed into the darkness. Leni, acting on instinct and love, jumped into the hole after her and fell down into the darkness. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   After a short fall she landed face first on the ground which hurt like hell but, to her own surprise, didn’t seriously injure or kill her. She rolled onto her back, rubbing her paining face and nose. Nothing felt broken or seriously damaged, nor did she find blood anywhere. How strange, she thought for a moment until she remembered that she had to search for Lucy. She looked around and realized she was now in a cylindrical room decorated with white frescos of witch killings. Pictures on which women were burned at stakes, impaled on other stakes, stoned to death, flayed alive, beheaded, quartered and slapped. “I don’t like where this is going,” Leni mumbled to herself. Next she noticed the bag lying beside her, the same bag that dragged Lucy into this hole. Slowly, the young girl drew her gun and knife, got into a squatting position and came slowly closer to the bag. She rammed her knife into the plastic case, pushing it deep into whatever was in it. No movement, no sudden grab for Leni’s hand. Whatever was in the bag was not alive. At the moment. Leni continued to cut the bag open afterwards and it revealed something horrific. It was another dead body but this one looked more unsettling than the others Leni saw so far. This one looked realistic, no over-stylized corpse like the others were. It was the body of a young girl, 8 years estimated Leni and had the same height of Lucy and wore similar clothes too. Leni shook in fear. Is this…? She couldn’t finish the thought, the idea was too much for her. She took a closer look at the face of the corpse and sighed in relief. “You are not Lucy but I am still sorry for your loss.” She noted that the dead girl had her arms crossed over the chest, holding another diary note. The teenager respectfully removed the note from the dead girl’s hands and started to read it.   August the 16th YES! IT IS DONE! It was so easy, so simple, so uncomplicated! The little demonic Goth was easy enough to grab and get her to the church. There I had enough time to punish her! She screamed, she begged, she cried for her parents but I didn’t show mercy. I chastised her until she was only a whimpering wreck, one who almost could me convince of true atonement. To make up for her sinful ways she has to burn. Tonight I will rescue her soul and make this world a little more holy again.   Leni got pale. The corpse of the girl before her looked like Lucy. Leni got up and looked around for an exit. She spotted a red door between a fresco of a young woman being sawed in half and another one of an older woman who was staked in a very uncomfortable way. She got onto her feet and had that door opened in seconds, storming in like a wild wind. She didn’t stop, didn’t think. She ran through undecorated narrow tunnel, hearing chants and singing, similar choir but deeper, more menacing with sinister intentions behind them. She accelerated her run. A few minute later she saw another door, a black in color and plain as the tunnel she was running through. She opened and ran through it while her head started to hurt again. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------   ”Aren’t you afraid of dark magic?” Lucy asked her older sister. “Some people really don’t like it.” “If you don’t use it to hurt people, it can’t be bad,” Leni responded with a smile. “Will you help me?”   ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As her vision became clear once again, the young woman found herself at a new place which looked like a square. It had the illusion of an open space but there was a ceiling, colored in the black of the night, sprinkled with white spots resembling stars. The walls around her resembled like a village from the middle ages, with windows illuminated by the painted lights inside them. Despite this both the walls and the ceiling still showed sighs of the rusty appearance of the rest of this otherworld. In the middle of the place large stake, made of vampire novellas and wood and on the top of it, bound was a figure in black, one Leni was familiar with, one Leni could always identify. “Lucy!” The Goth looked unharmed but barely conscious. She moaned and struggled weakly in her bonds. For Leni it sounded like they cry of a little kitten in need, probably because it was her little sister who was in peril. But even if she had sounded like an angry Tyrannosaurs (like Lori or Lola sometimes) she would have dropped everything to rescue her. She started a sprint as she heard something, like the ‘click’ of a doorknob being turned. She looked to her left to a painting that looked like the church on the otherworldly cemetery, with another door which slowly started to open. Leni drew her pistol into the right hand and the left one soon held the knife. She positioned herself between the stake and the slowly opening door. She was trembling but whatever horror would came through it she would protect Lucy from it until the end. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What will Leni await? What is lurking behind the door? Tune in next time if you want to know more. Thank you for reading, I hope you all had a good time. Hosted by Animexx e.V. (http://www.animexx.de)