scribble_puppet | Central Silent Hill/Alchemilla Hospital (Foggy World)

No, she simply wasn't satisfied with that. Rachel needed to know what was intended for her friend. She needed to know what this woman, and her companion, did. ::You wouldn't understand paradise, even if you could reach it.:: she remarked, almost conversationally as she reached out to freeze the woman's muscles in teke.

::Let's take a look at what you believe in shall we?::

For the first time in the entire conversation, the woman's face shows emotion- shock, as she can no longer move.

Her mind is rock and steel, a thick shell around secret thoughts. It grows harder as Rachel first enters, defiant and unmoved.

You mock the form of God herself, but I will not bow to you!

::I have been a God, as you understand it:: she laughed, a warm, almost gentle sound through the softer sections of the mind. The Shi'ar had worshiped her for time out of mind. She had never asked that they bow though.

The wonderful thing about rock and steel was that they melted. They seemed so solid, so unbreakable, that everyone forgot that the solidity was a transient state. Her touch on those inner walls was sun's heart hot, burning fingers to play through the steel and rock like a child with paints.

WALLS

BRICK STONE BARS

WATER

FIRE

FIRE

fire over bars

smoke (purification holiness a message to Her)

screams (the martyr's suffering will make Her stronger)

PARADISE

she wasn't strong enough
she wasn't chosen
God will come
God will come
God will come

Rachel viewed the pieces of the splintered mind curiously. Was this what the world was meant to do? To weaken and spread through metal cracks until there was less mind and more insanity? It wasn't acceptable. No, this wasn't allowed to happen to Amber.

She reached out, carefully, gently, finding every last shattered piece of personality the woman had once held. Those mind fragments buried under fanaticism. Rachel needed to know if she could repair the damage this reality did, and the woman was a perfect subject.

Idly, as an after thought, she reached along the power link to male and froze him as well.

As she reaches deeper, it becomes clear that the insanity is not of this world, but of one very like the one she's from.

A strange group

A church to a burning goddess

Faith enforced by imprisonment and punishment

Beneath it all, a terrified, grieving desparation

Paradise

an end to suffering

As she touches the other mind, there's a fierce resistance- stronger, possibly, than she might normally expect.

MAMA! What did you do to her?! LET HER GO!

The projection that forms is large and powerful, veiled in a red hood, carrying a long, bloody spear.

That was...sick. She'd wanted the insanity to have been a product of the place, not a part of the person prior. She truly and deeply disliked such twisted people. She'd seen far too many of them in her life.

::Shhhh:: she sent gently along the link, as she would to any child. She needed to think. Through the haze of rage and the strange pulls of this reality, she needed to think.

The woman was dangerous. She wasn't sure that killing her in a place like this was the best option though. The place felt like it fed on death. It was the Phoenix part of her soul, still engaged in stabilizing and gentling the reality around Amber, that suggested an answer. To take away the ability to do harm.

To burn out those pieces of the woman that could recognize and manipulate the wild energies being tapped, shut the woman off from 'God'. Beyond that they would see what else the woman needed to lose.

As for the son...they'd see.

LET HER GO!

The deepest force stirs, through the distant son. It is a tiny conduit, but so it the end of a firehose.

Red wings of fluttering silk

A coccoon

Her phoenix fire burns it, but layers wrap and wrap and wrap around the woman's mind, and draw it back, away from her.

Go away, demon! Be gone! God will protect us from the forces of darkness!

::She will not let my friend be:: was the calm, thunderous reply.

That wild power, for right now, was an issue. She held the woman's body, so she could trace the mind when she chose...but first, that power. She drew the old woman's body back, gently through the walls of flame to keep it safe, then settled for finding the boundaries of the reality.

When she found them, for this upper reality was so very small, she was going to seal out every power but her own, unless that outside powers only intent was returning Amber.

The world is twisting again.

Amber needs to do this! he replies passionately. She's gotta be purified!

::No, she doesn't::

This time she paused to fully observe the twisting. Ah, a pull, a pinch, a force of will...it was like stilling the ocean. Simple, really, once the outside forces were handled. After all, how could the world twist if there was nothing to grasp and pull through?

As for those outside forces, there were the boundaries, great edges in reality. Silent hill really was just a little dark soap bubble. The size had to be frustrating to the inhabitants at times. Now the fun part of cutting off that outside layer from the inner layers!

::Keep your sickness among yourselves::

She's gonna be the Mother of God! I won't let you keep Paradise locked up!

Reality ruptures

And the two strange minds are somewhere else, slid down

And Amber is here, upstairs.

And three large, muscular men, wearing only butchers' aprons and red hoods, surround her. Their gray arms hold long spears, pointed toward her.

::Or everyone will die screaming. Gods are weird like that.:: The ability for people to delude themselves never ceased to amaze her. Regardless, she had no intention of allowing Amber to be a vessel for a God unless the girl wanted to.

She turned to face the newest trio, the body of the old woman bobbing in her wake, and looked past them to Amber. Spears could melt and drip back down on themselves,, the better to keep them clear of her friend. ::Amber? What happened?:: her mental voice wasn't quite as tame as normal, but she was trying to keep the rage tamped down?

The men lunge forward, spears thrusting directly into the fire. Undeterred, they reach mindlessly in toward her, not even seeming to register their limbs becoming ash.

Amber doesn't answer. She's asleep- dreaming peacefully- in a bed in one of the patient rooms.

Rachel didn't care at all about the men falling to ash and smoke. They weren't a concern except in the fact that they be kept from Amber. That stillness though...

...::Amber::

There were threads everywhere, traces, if one knew how to look for them. Like scent to a hound, everything was connected in one way or another. Rachel just had to trace the lines to Amber's mind.

::Amber::

With the dogged, burning determination that was Life in all it's bloody glory.

::It's time to wake up Amber::

She murmurs, stirs.

"whthf...?"

::I think it's time to go. Things have been strange, and they may have messed with your head.:: Or her body. Maybe both.

::I'm going to come get you:: in that 'tearing holes through the floor' kinda way so Rachel could still keep an eye on the strange apparitions in the lobby.

And she's caught up enough to bolt upright.

And shout in surprise when the hole appears in the floor.

"FUCK!"

::It's okay, I have you, just step down it's alright. I want you to get a look at what' going on down here.:: because, really, why not have more minds checking this out?

And who knew, maybe that empty Amber in the center of the room was a piece of her Amber. And maybe she was a trap. Easiest way to find out was to see how both Ambers reacted.

"...uh..."

She cautiously approaches the hole in the floor and peers down.

"What the fuck..."

::Jump:: Rachel sighed. ::It's the quick way down instead of wandering hallways looking for stairs. Besides, I don't know where the crazy woman and her son went.::

"What the fuck ever," she grumbles, shifting to the edge and then hopping ungracefully down.

She eyes the now-still charred remains of the three men.

"What happened while you were gone Amber?" Rachel asked, finally moving forward enough to stir the ashes with a foot. She was letting her flames die away to a trickle after catching Amber.

"...buncha shit," she says evasively. "Don't really wanna talk about it now.

"I was havin' a really good dream, too... Guess I shouldn't sleep in a place like this, though.

"Think we can get out?"

"No" she answered simply. "Not yet." the way the crazy old lady had been talking had sounded like programing. Probably not as extensive as the Hound program, but, programming.

And...Amber really wasn't acting like herself.

"What kinda dream?"

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