SHFanfic Her Monster pt09

Part 9: Psycho

Alessa had never expected this war.  It was hard-fought but not with the Order, within herself.

In the last seven years the good half of Alessa Gillespe's soul had been living on her own, Cheryl'd grown a very unique and individual ego of her own.  Alessa was older and stronger as far as metaphysical power was concerned, but that didn't make Cheryl any less of an ego.  The girl entity that was left after the two of them fused was a baffled and frightened seven year-old creature running randomly through Silent Hill.

Alessa still had the Order on her mind.  Despite the disorder, the soul within the metaphysical body was complete and therefore prime for the birth of the cult's unholy god.  She had to keep away from her mother and stall for time, but every time she attempted progress to that effect she was stalled by the compulsion to go to school or draw pictures or find her daddy.  

Slowly and deliberately Alessa gained ground.  She focused on what was most important, staying out of reach.  When she felt most like herself she pulled monsters from the depths to swarm the places she'd been, drawing the seal of Metatron on anything she could find and ripping the town apart.  Cheryl's dominance came with consuming concern and emotion for her father who was stumbling around on her tail like a mongoose chasing her down her hole.

Harry Mason was a good man.  Alessa's mind was filled with years of memories chronicling her extra childhood spent in the care of he and his wife.  He raised her to be happy and healthy with love and understanding – the kind of life she wished her birth mother had given her instead of immolating her and impregnating her with pure evil.  The good father was so intent on recovering her that even the scariest and most deadly roadblocks couldn't chase him off.  He was heart-driven and unfortunately easily manipulated.

Dahlia had gotten to him somehow.  Every light-side turn the Cheryl in her was compelled to track down and observe her father's dealings, leaving him bullets and medicine where she hoped he would find them while the dark side Alessa used all the weapons in her arsenal to drive him off, even the ghosts of the the dead.  Dahlia was using him as an errand boy and throwing him blindly into the Otherworld hoping her childhood devotion to him would either calm her rage or allow him to get close.  It was a brilliant tactic and worked like a charm.  Alessa could hurl monster after monster and him but Cheryl kept calling him closer, wanting him near her, and sabotaging herself.  

Alessa couldn't deny the attraction the Cheryl moments brought.  The girl was like a creature made of pure light, every thought and motive altruistic and positive with warmth and tenderness and love behind them.  Slowly the affect of having her there unearthed repressed memories Alessa had lost; trips to the woods to add to her bug collection, skipping home from school singing nursery rhymes, playing cards on the floor of her bedroom with Claudia.  

Finally the shadowy mass of memory Claudia Wolf tried to illuminate was clear.  She could remember every moment she'd spent with the girl and how they'd talked together about their abusive parents and bonded in pinky swears and pacts to someday escape.  How tragic that both would be trapped by a nightmare, hers in body and Claudia's in soul.  

She could see Cheryl's memories change too.  She watched the pure negativity taint and twist her experiences into what they really were.  She saw an outing in the park become a skinned knee, a friendly playdate dissolve into teasing and nagging, normal things the innocent mind of her counterpart had conveniently forgotten returning and driving her to dispair.

Harry finally caught up to her just outside Lakeside Amusement Park.  He was tired and bloody with at least two gunshots visible on his body.  He leveled a gun at her from across the Otherworld grating, his kind and fatherly voice full of malice.

"Where's Cheryl?"  He demanded, "what have you done with her!?"

Alessa felt her heart twist.  She couldn't speak to him, and tried to force him away from her with an invisible barrier.  The wall sent him tumbling to the rusted ground.  Something bounced out of his pocket.

Pyramid shaped.  Glowing... the Flauros!

Alessa froze in place.  Dahlia must have snuck it to him somehow!  So that was why Dahlia kept him dogging her, his unique ability to sneak past her defenses allowed him to transport the mousetrap straight to the mouse.  How had she not sensed it!?

The trinket rose from his hand of its own accord, shining white as it drank the power from her barrier.  She turned to run but it ensnared her in its hungry grip.  She could hear Dahlia cackling from somewhere deep in Silent Hill.  Her vision blurred, her powers went mad.

The Alessa/Cheryl combination panicked and tried its best to teleport both she and Harry away from the danger.  She had one safe place: the hospital where she'd hid securely for years where the ghost of the recently murdered nurse could watch over him.  She'd hide in her bedroom at home, no in the school, in the basement of her mother's pawn shop, in the snow, in the fire...

Somewhere.  Anywhere.  Nowhere.

Alessa opened her eyes again.  She was laying face down on the steel plates staring at the glowing Flauros feet from her face.  Its parts turned like clockwork, powered from deep inside.  The image phased in and out like a film suffering from double exposure showing her images of one of Alchemilla's hallways and the sound of a creaking wheelchair as it crossed the decaying tile floor.  She began to lose consciousness and could see the firey nightmare licking the corners of her eyes.  The calls of hellbeasts echoed in her ears over the roaring crank of the siren that sounded more like a wail of despair.  A thought filtered strongly up in the back of her mind;

You've failed me.

Alessa opened her eyes again in the presence of the Flauros on the metal grating.  She was awake only long enough to see Valtiel step from the shadows, take the glowing artifact in his gloved hand and leave before she surrendered entirely to the nightmares in her mind.