In the Eyes of a Child - Part 5/9
A couple of days passed. I was sitting on the grey couch downstairs, resting my head on my arms as I looked out at the armless creature taking an unsteady stroll in my garden. Another book, this time War and Peace, lay forgotten beside me. Sharon hadn’t been around much today - she’d gone out after breakfast, and I believed that she was now upstairs playing. I welcomed the small bit of privacy, and not even my staggering visitor provoked more than a wrinkled nose as it trampled some bleak Autumn flowers outside the floor to ceiling windows of my home.
I blinked as the creature suddenly stopped moving, its deformed head raised. Straightening where I sat, it took several seconds for me to hear the noise as well - the unmistakable sound of an approaching engine. The sound was drowned out for a moment as my heart started thudding in my ears, and I shot up from the couch at the exact same moment as outside, my gruesome companion started to move towards the sound. I stood motionless as the sound grew louder, the numbness that had settled in my mind the previous weeks rapidly being washed out by pure panic.
The noise abruptly cut off when whoever it was turned off the engine, and I felt my eyes widening as I heard footsteps on the gravel outside the door. Then they silenced as well, and I was left trembling where I stood, the hairs on my bare arms standing straight up.
--
“Police! Nobody move!” If the alarm system had been working it would undoubtedly have been going off, since Cybil kicked the front door open rather than using the doorknob and in the process managed to tear a hole in the sturdy wooden frame. I felt my jaw drop as the cop pointed her gun at me, looking for all the world as stupid as when I’d first met her.
“Don’t move!”
Our eyes met, and I let out a sigh, feeling the tension within me dissipate. She was just as loud and useless as ever. And she was here, alive. Regaining my composure, I stepped around the coffee table and down the few steps towards the front door. I rolled my eyes as I saw the hands holding the gun starting to shake.
Cybil swallowed visibly, and I watched her resolution waver. She looked a lot like the last time I’d seen her alive, with filthy blonde hair standing in spikes and her short-sleeved uniform top grimy with ashes.
“Rose?”
“Yes. Can you stop pointing that thing at my head now?” I smiled internally as she lowered the gun and ran her fingers through her hair with a bewildered look on her face. Sharon must have done this. There was simply no other way that this woman could be standing in front of me. And if she could do this, what else could she do? Was she really what I feared?
Is she real?
I studied Cybil closely, but she looked just like the woman I remembered, her blue eyes wide and frightened as she stared back at me. She opened her mouth to speak, but I shook my head and turned around, heading back up into the living room.
“Come on, you need a shower.”
I hoped she wasn’t going to turn all cop mode on me again, but when I looked over my shoulder she was putting her gun back in its holster. She was a few steps behind me when I ascended the stairs to the second floor, feeling the very strong need to giggle hysterically.
Yes, that would go over well.
My eyes met Sharon’s where she stood at the top of the stairs, and I gave her a smile. She returned it and was gone into one of the other rooms when I reached the last step. Cybil stared after her, and I had to fight down my relief at seeing her alive. Best not get my hopes up quite yet.
“It’s that door over there.” I nodded towards the bathroom, and Cybil docilely started towards it. She really looked quite shell shocked.
“I’ll bring you some new clothes to put on.” The cop just nodded, and I was left staring at the closed door.
--
I was sitting on the couch downstairs, pretending to read my admittedly devastatingly boring book as I waited for Cybil to return. Sharon had been waiting for me in my bedroom when I went in to fetch some clothes, looking very pleased with herself. As well she might.
Sitting down on the bed beside her, I pulled her into a tight hug, and several minutes passed before I dared ask,
“Is she real, sweetie?”
Sharon just nodded against my collarbone, and I let out a soft breath. “How?”
“She died in Silent Hill. This is my realm.”
“But you needed help with the cult people, honey.”
“You helped me spread the poison within their sacred refuge. I am the only mistress here now.”
She smiled up at me, and I quickly looked away, nodding. Although I could feel the answers tearing at the edges of my mind, I couldn’t quite make myself stop asking the questions. “Could you bring them back?”
“Would you really want me to, mommy?”
I could still sense Sharon smiling from the corner of my eye. She knew the answer already. I shuddered. “No, honey.”
Stroking my hand over her hair, I went up to find clothes for Cybil.
I closed the book, keeping a finger on the right page, and turned towards the window just in time to see my armless visitor returning to its vigil in the garden outside. He looked as bewildered as I felt. Well, not quite, since he had no face.
Choosing clothes for Cybil to wear was surprisingly fun. Sharon dismissed my first choice as ‘too girly’, whatever that meant when coming from a 9 year old. The least girly things I found were a white tank top, a button-down shirt of Christopher’s and a pair of my old jeans. We were the same height, so they might even fit. I’d always preferred skirts, myself.
Good thing she takes long showers.
Sharon plopped down on the seat beside me. “She’ll be down soon, mommy.”
I turned back to sit properly on the couch and nodded, shaking some hair out of my face and handing her my book. She took the heavy volume with some effort and then sighed, bending to drop it to the floor. “Not even Sharon would’ve liked this.”
I tensed slightly. “You are Sharon, sweetie.”
Leaning against me, she shrugged her thin shoulders. “In a sense. Are you gonna play with Cybil, mommy?”
I sighed and relaxed, wrapping my arm around her. “I’m not sure she wants to play, sweetie.”
She looked like she was going to answer, but then she turned towards the stairs where Cybil had just appeared. The cop had left the front of Chris’ shirt open, and her short hair looked as messy as usual, still damp from the shower. I frowned as I noticed the strain on her face, and I realized that she must have used the time to collect herself. Or the opposite.
“Rose?” When did we start calling each other by our first names? I couldn’t recall. Sometimes, memories from the nightmare in Silent Hill mixed and merged with the discordant recallings of my past sickness. There hadn’t been an annoying cop back then, though. The monsters were pretty much the same.
The way she said my name made me sit a bit straighter, and I used my hands to rearrange my brown skirt over my knees.
“Come. Sit.” I patted the seat on the opposite side of Sharon, and then watched as Cybil descended the white stairs to stand before me. She’d kept her belt with all its pockets, gun still resting against one hip and dysfunctional radio unit against the other. In combination with her stance, it made her seem like an officer even with bare feet.
My eyes met hers, and I realized she was staring at me, squinting slightly as if in disbelief. I sighed. “Hungry?”
She cleared her throat, her jaws working. She glanced briefly at Sharon, who was watching her attentively, but her blue eyes soon returned to mine. “Where are the others? What happened? Are you alright? What the fuck is this place?”
Sharon could’ve just given me a plushie.
I glanced at my daughter, and she was smiling. Reaching a decision, I stood and headed for the kitchen. “Please stay here, sweetie. Mommy and Cybil are going to discuss important things.”
I could feel Sharon’s eyes in the back of my head until I was out of sight. This was going to be awkward.
When Cybil entered the spacious kitchen I handed her a pop tart and leaned against the white table behind me, admiring for a few moments the way the shadows fell across her face.
Right.
I took a deep breath. “We’re safe here. There’s nothing to worry about.”
“There’s a mutant in your garden.” Cybil crossed her arms over her chest, making no sign of planning to eat the pop tart in her fist.
“He’s just tending to the flowers.” I rolled my eyes. Well, at least Chris’ shirt fit her well. The tank top was perhaps a bit snug, though. This woman had to live at the gym.
“This is insane! You’re insane!” Cybil looked as if she was going to have a nervous breakdown. I felt impatience rise in my throat.
“Yes! Of course it is! What is your point?”
“It can’t be real!” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm, and for a moment I was distracted by the way the checkered shirt billowed with the movement. “It must be a… a hallucination, or something.”
The stupid idiot stared at me, and I stared back. Now it was my turn to cross my arms.
She should have definitely given me a plushie.
I sighed, forcing myself to calm down slightly. “It isn’t. In a sense.” I smiled slightly, turning my gaze to the falling ashes outside the large windows. It was a bit real, just like Sharon was a bit Sharon. “This is Sharon’s and Alessa’s world, and just like they are both one and at the same time separate entities, this world is both different from the real world, and the very same. The monsters won’t hurt us, and now that Christabella and the rest are gone…”
I noticed her expression. “You don’t remember.” Well, of course she didn’t. She was dead at the time. My voice was softer when I continued, “I’ll tell you. Just… relax. We’re not in danger.”
To my relief she unwrapped her pop tart and started chewing on it. Sharon liked those, but I’d never figured out why. It did seem to have the intended effect, though, and I felt my own shoulders relaxing as Cybil leaned back against the refrigerator, closing her eyes.
I shifted slightly, turning my gaze to my toes. The kitchen suddenly seemed too brightly lit. “How much do you remember?”
For a few blessed moments, I thought she wasn’t going to reply, but then she murmured, “I lost the fight outside the elevator, and they dragged me off. I was sure…” I looked up and watched her shake her head, eyes still shut. She once more looked strained, hands pressed against the undoubtedly cold surface of the fridge. “I don’t think anything was real after that. They beat me up pretty good.”
‘After that’ would be Cybil being tied to a ladder and burned alive for the sake of my daughter. It would be her corpse, barely recognizable, steeling my will as I let them all die in a nightmare of blood and barbed wire. It would be me, killing a man with my own hands and getting showered in blood as Alessa tore another limb from limb right in front of me.
It was my turn to pause, and when I raised my gaze again Cybil was looking back at me. She continued softly, “When I woke up, the church was empty, and there was a big hole in the floor. Where did all the people go?”
I looked into her clear eyes, and I could not tell her the whole truth. “They died, Cybil. Alessa killed them all. I… I thought you were lost as well.”