Rose, who was in the middle of cleaning her bandages, paused her hand and looked up wearily: "What is it?"
"Actually... there's one more place we haven't searched yet."
Christabella feigned fear as she crossed herself, "That place is forbidden ground, and it's also where the dark power is most concentrated."
"Where?!"
Rose's spirits instantly lifted.
"Brookhaven Hospital."
After naming the location, Christabella immediately put on a hypocritical expression, dissuading her, "But it's far too dangerous there. It's the entrance to Hell. No one ever comes back alive. You absolutely must not..."
Rose didn't listen to any of the subsequent nonsense at all. Her brain automatically filtered out words like "dangerous" and "Hell," extracting only the key information: Hospital = Sharon.
"Hospital?"
Rose's eyes lit up. She was a mother; she wouldn't give up as long as there was a sliver of hope.
But she wasn't a fool. Compared to this strange Bishop, she trusted the detective she'd been following more.
She stood up and shouted loudly: "Mr. Sephirot! I know where Sharon is!!"
The fake smile on Christabella's face stiffened, and her heart sank.
Damn foolish woman! You're supposed to sneak off there yourself and lure him over later! Why are you shouting so loudly?!
"Oh?"
Sephirot had actually overheard their whispered conversation clearly from the start, but he didn't expect Rose to not act like the typical intelligence-dropping character from a traditional horror film who goes off alone. Instead, she told him directly.
He looked at Rose's excited expression, then glanced at the Bishop in the corner who looked like she'd just swallowed a fly, nearly failing to suppress a laugh.
"Where?"
Sephirot asked, pretending not to know.
"Brookhaven Hospital!"
Rose pointed urgently at the Bishop in the corner. "She said that place hasn't been searched yet. Even though she says it's very dangerous, Sharon might be there!"
It's over.
Christabella closed her eyes in despair.
Her original plan was to trick people into going there to die, letting them fight the demons. No matter who won, it would deplete the other side's power.
She could then sit back and reap the rewards. But now, Rose had completely sold her out.
She had hoped Rose would sneak off to her death, which would surely draw this man after her. She never expected Rose to just expose her directly!
"The hospital, huh..."
Sephirot walked towards Christabella. "It seems the good Bishop was holding out on us."
Facing Sephirot's mocking gaze, she waved her hands frantically in fright: "No... I-I just heard about it, I don't really know."
Sephirot wasn't angry. He took a few steps until he stood right in front of Christabella.
He grabbed the back of her collar and lifted her up:
"Since the good Bishop knows everything, then for such a dangerous place, it would be much safer for you to lead the way personally."
"Right?"
—--
Brookhaven Hospital was built in the early twentieth century.
Originally a battlefield hospital during the American Civil War, it housed countless soldiers with severed limbs and lost arms.
Later, it gradually transformed into a specialized hospital for psychiatric patients, notorious for its outdated basic equipment and violent treatment methods.
This hospital operated in the town for nearly a hundred years, until it admitted Alessa, who had suffered total-body poisoning and burns.
Unable to treat such a severely ill patient and pressured by the church, they placed her in the perpetual darkness of the underground ward, leaving her fate to chance.
Pain breeds resentment, and the curse spread from below.
—--
Sephirot carried Christabella, walking into the hospital lobby as if dragging a dead dog.
To protect the safety of this Bishop, Sephirot very humanely broke both of her legs.
He sometimes felt he was quite the gentleman.
Christabella's expression was utterly hopeless, her eyes unfocused, staring emptily at the ground.
Behind him followed a visibly anxious Rose, along with several believers.
They trembled with fear, clutching their weapons, looking nervously around.
One of them held an iron cage containing a quiet canary.
The group stopped before a half-open elevator door deep within the hospital.
The elevator door was old, etched with some long-outdated patterns.
Seeing this familiar elevator door, a glimmer of light flashed in Christabella's eyes, her voice hoarse: "This is it. Go down... and you'll see the witch."
As long as she could trick him into going down...
"Very good."
Sephirot nodded, braced the half-open elevator door with one hand, pushed it open, and carried Christabella inside.
"No! Wait!"
Seeing he had no intention of putting her down, Christabella panicked instantly.
Her remaining hand struggled to grip the elevator doorway, her face full of terror: "No! No! I don't want to go down! I've brought you here! Let me go!!"
"That won't do. You're the main event from here on out."
Watching her disgraceful display, Sephirot found it quite amusing: "Back when you sent that little girl to the stake, you didn't ask if she was willing."
Christabella's pupils contracted: "How do you know that? Who are you?!"
Sephirot didn't answer, applying slight force with his hand to drag her into the elevator car.
Rose bit her lip hard and entered the elevator without hesitation. To save her daughter, she would go anywhere.
Outside the door, the believers looked at each other, hesitating.
On one side was the Bishop they felt compelled to follow; on the other, the forbidden land rumored to house the witch.
"Tweet! Tweet!"
At that moment, the little bird in the cage held by one of the believers suddenly grew frantic, beginning to violently crash against the cage while emitting rapid chirps.
"Woo... Woo..."
A vast, low air raid siren sound echoed over the town.
Sephirot raised an eyebrow, curiously touching the blood seeping inside the elevator, rubbing his fingers together, and giving it a sniff. Not only was there no fear in his eyes, but a flicker of curiosity passed through them: "So this is the Otherworld?"
The surfaces of the surrounding walls and floors began to peel away like paper, curling upward into the air. Fleshy tissue started spreading, intertwining with rusted wires to form a new, gloomy environment.
The believer holding the birdcage paled drastically, shouting in panic: "Run! The darkness... the darkness is coming!"
The darkness they spoke of was the Otherworld.
Silent Hill was divided into three worlds altogether: the Real World, the Fog World, and the Otherworld.
In the Real World, Silent Hill was merely an abandoned town.
The Silent Hill of the Fog World was like what Sephirot and Rose encountered when they first met; roads leading outside severed, with a few monsters present.
And when Alessa's rage became uncontrollable, the Fog World would collapse, transforming into the Otherworld.
This was the true monster's playground, where any living being inside was merely prey.
Only when her rage subsided would the world return to normal, reverting to the Fog World.
"Run! Get back to the Church!!"
Several believers hesitated no longer, casting their loyalty to the Bishop aside. No High Priestess mattered as much as their own survival!
However, they hadn't run far when a rusted giant blade suddenly blocked their path.
Thud.
The several believers couldn't react in time; their upper bodies were already severed from their lower halves, blood gushing out, only to be absorbed by the floor and walls.
A monster wearing a massive triangular helmet, naked from the waist up, emerged from around the corner, standing in the center of the corridor.
Pyramid Head.
The most classic and oppressive executioner of Silent Hill, the embodiment of the judgment within Alessa's heart.
Its upper body was stained with the believers' blood. Holding its great blade, it stared silently through the slowly closing elevator doors at Sephirot inside.
"Ah!!"
Inside the elevator, Rose covered her mouth, watching the scene in horror.
As the elevator doors closed, Pyramid Head disappeared from view outside.
The car began to descend.
The originally sealed elevator car rapidly corroded and disintegrated during the descent, eventually leaving only a rusted framework and floor plates, revealing the scene outside.
What met their eyes wasn't the imagined elevator shaft, but a deep abyss blazing with roaring flames.
Countless wires crisscrossed within it; some wires even held charred corpses, silently screaming amidst the flames.
It was as if they weren't riding an elevator, but a direct express train to Hell.
Christabella's face turned ashen; she knew all too well what lay beneath the hospital; it was the evil she had committed years ago, the very origin of all of Silent Hill.
Ding.
An unknown length of time later, accompanied by a crisp chime, the elevator finally stopped.
The elevator doors slowly opened.
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — CROSSOVER GUIDE Some references in this chapter come from source universes that may be unfamiliar to some readers. The notes below are here to help readers unfamiliar with these universes follow along more easily.
CHARACTERS
Pyramid Head — One of the most iconic monsters in the Silent Hill franchise, originating in Silent Hill 2. He is a towering, muscular humanoid figure whose head is permanently encased inside a massive rusted metal pyramid. He wields an enormous, nearly immovable great blade that he drags along the ground. In Silent Hill 2, Pyramid Head serves as a manifestation of James Sunderland's subconscious desire for punishment; he exists to torment James because James, on some level, believes he deserves to be judged for what he did to Mary. In the film adaptation, his role is reframed: he is instead an executioner serving Alessa's will, meting out punishment to the sinners trapped in the Fog World. His appearance here, guarding the elevator and slaughtering fleeing believers, is consistent with that film interpretation.
CONCEPTS
Canary as Otherworld warning — The canary in a cage is a direct reference to the Silent Hill film, in which survivors use caged birds as early warning systems. When the Otherworld begins manifesting, birds sense the shift before humans do and react violently, giving a few precious seconds of warning before the world transforms. It is an homage to the historical use of canaries in coal mines to detect toxic gas — fitting given Silent Hill's coal mine origin.