31_days | [2-Mar-2007] [Silent Hill] Torn at the Seams

Title: Torn at the Seams
Day/Theme: March 2: my cage has many rooms, damask and dark
Series: Silent Hill 4
Characters: Joseph
Rating: R

The prison is now this room. It began as the world, and then everything closed in, becoming a prison of many rooms. But those rooms were gone, and now this prison is pain.

Joseph never imagined he’d die staring at a pair of broken, bloody hands on the floor of his laundry room, much less his own.

He’d pictured something more poetic, peaceful, and with some feeling of completion. As if he’d finally finished some arduous journey. Even if he died soon, it was something he figured would happen when the cult was finally, permanently disbanded, and the killer truly dead. This murderer he’d dedicated so much work, so much research towards, diving into the impossible Truth.

Not like this. Staring at broken hands and knowing he’d never write again. Shattered bones and ripped fingernails, and waiting, waiting for Walter to come back and end him. Fearing it so deeply, but needing it, needing him to take the pain away. He wants to call out to him, ask where he’s gone, why he just won’t finish his damned ritual.

He doesn’t. He just lays there and thinks. He imagines he must be a disfigured mess now, and even with immediate medical care – as if there were such a thing in this deranged world – he knows it would bring no salvation.

Broken hands. Walter knew, always knew what to strike for. Was it intuition, or did he know his victims so intimately?

Joseph smiles, but it feels bitter on his face, and it hurts to move. Even now, he’s searching for answers, and it’s a futile endeavor. He hears footsteps, but the door doesn’t open, and he’s grateful for that at the moment because his hands are in the way. He tries to move away, but it hurts so bad he can’t move, and it doesn’t matter anyway. He’ll have to endure more.

I didn’t ask for this. He wants to say that, write it, tell someone. But he knows he did, he delved too deeply into a world he could not control. Monsters and choking fog, with only a flashlight to guide him through the smoke-colored world.

What number? Fifteen… There were still so many left, and he feels defeated. He hopes the messages can save them, those message he hid in his closet, but he knows Walter could so easily find those. Eileen sits in her room behind that hole and he knows she’s on the list, she’s going to die. That altruistic girl he should have known better. That girl who’d felt so concerned for him. That girl whose name he’d neglected to learn until his entrapment.

But… no, he’d cut himself off from the world, cocooned himself so tightly it’s no wonder he slipped into this world. Headaches and delusions seeping into his consciousness, his every waking thought following a psychotic killer, wondering what he would say and do if he ever met Walter, what kinds of questions he would have for that madman.

When Joseph saw him, he had no questions.

She’s not your mother, Walter. Your mother abandoned you.

So foolish. The gun wavered and Walter had stared at him with such a focused stare, something he’d never seen in that man’s hazy eyes. Hatred, not just necessity. Hatred, burning, scalding, and now Joseph is left to a slow death.

More footsteps, and Joseph is almost positive that Walter is standing outside the door.

Joseph closes his eyes. He hears it open, and Walter is there, and his hands are hurting more. He knows the door hit them, but sound is distant now.

There’s a hand on his hair, forcing him to look up into Walter’s face. The man might have been handsome, but his eyes are unfocused, his smile distant. What does he see?

Joseph feels something hot tossed into his eyes. It burns into him, and vision is taken away.

No more, he wants to ask. No more, no more, no more…

He wishes he could speak, and try to reason with this man. Or tell him all the things he’s learned, tell him the Truth. The Truth Walter had hidden for so long, tucked deep in the underbelly of this world, to that place Joseph couldn’t quite reach.

Walter stands, and steps on the center of his hand. Joseph manages a broken cry, dragging the throbbing appendage to his chest. There’s a metallic sound, and he knows that Walter picked up the axe, the axe he’d laid on the dryer. Joseph trembles, clenches his burning eyes shut, and braces himself for pain.

There’s a swing, and the blade embeds into his side. Joseph screams, even though he didn’t think he could, but it’s inside him and blood is everywhere, and it hurts so much, so much… He feels it in his ribs, in him, too deep, and he knows he’s dying. Feels it, from his broken hands to his gushing wounds.

No strength. Walter watches him, he knows he’s watching, watching him die.

Broken toy… broken…

Joseph curls into himself, drawing in deep breaths. He tastes blood, knows he must be bleeding inside, knows it’s over.

Whoever lives here next… I pity you.

But Joseph hopes, he hopes that the next man will be able to go deep enough, be able to walk down those stairs. Walk into the dark, run fast enough, run away from that man, run past the monsters and the fire and the trees.

The axe is in him again, but he doesn’t feel it this time. He knows something’s wrong, terribly wrong, tearing him apart at the seams like a doll.

The compression thickens. His prison is a room, a single room, a single space, and all that’s left is a frail breath. A prison of pain.