Rose's hand froze mid-wrap while she was changing the bandages. She looked up, exhausted. "What is it?"
"Actually… there's one place we haven't searched yet."
Christabella drew a shaky cross like she was terrified. "It's a forbidden zone—the single spot where the darkness is strongest."
"Where?!"
Rose's whole face lit up.
"Brookhaven Hospital."
The second she said the name, Christabella slapped on her fake-saint mask and tried to talk her out of it.
"But it's way too dangerous. That place is literally the mouth of hell. Nobody who goes in ever comes back out alive. You absolutely should not—"
Rose didn't hear a damn word after "hospital." Her brain auto-filtered every warning and zeroed in on the only thing that mattered: hospital = Sharon.
"Hospital?"
Her eyes sparkled with desperate hope. She was a mother—any sliver of a chance was worth chasing.
But she wasn't an idiot. She trusted the detective who'd been watching her back this whole time way more than this shady bishop.
She stood up and shouted across the hall:
"Mr. Soren! I know where Sharon is!!"
Christabella's fake smile locked up. Shit.
You stupid cow! You were supposed to sneak off alone and drag him with you! Why the hell are you screaming it for everyone to hear?!
"Oh?"
Soren had actually caught every whispered word between them, but he sure as hell hadn't expected Rose to skip the classic horror-movie brain-dead move and just tell him straight up.
He watched her excited face, then glanced at the bishop in the corner—who now looked like she'd swallowed a live hornet—and had to bite back a laugh.
"Where?"
Soren played along.
"Brookhaven Hospital!"
Rose jabbed an urgent finger toward the corner. "She said that's the only place left. She keeps saying it's dangerous, but Sharon could be there!"
Game over.
Christabella squeezed her eyes shut in total despair.
Her plan had been perfect: trick the woman into running off alone, let her and the demon go at each other, then swoop in and mop up whatever was left.
Instead this moron had sold her out in five seconds flat.
She'd been counting on Rose sneaking away so the man would have to follow. But no—this idiot had thrown her right under the bus!
"Hospital, huh…"
Soren strolled over to Christabella. "Looks like the bishop was holding out on us after all."
Facing his mocking grin, she waved her good hand frantically. "No… I only heard rumors… I don't know anything for sure…"
Soren didn't get mad. He closed the distance, grabbed the back of her robe, and hoisted her like a sack of laundry.
"Since the bishop knows everything, it's safest if you personally show us the way to such a dangerous place."
"Right?"
…
Brookhaven Hospital had been built back in the early 1900s.
It started as a Civil War field hospital, packed with soldiers missing arms and legs.
Later it became a psychiatric hospital, famous for its ancient equipment and brutal "treatments."
The place ran for nearly a century—until they admitted Alessa, burned and poisoned from head to toe.
Unable to treat her and pressured by the church, the staff dumped her in a pitch-black basement ward and left her to rot.
Pain bred hatred. The curse crawled up from underground.
Soren carried Christabella like a dead dog as he stepped into the hospital lobby.
For the bishop's own "safety," he had kindly snapped both her legs earlier.
He sometimes thought he was actually a pretty nice guy.
Christabella's face was completely blank now, eyes glassy and dead as she stared at the floor.
Rose followed close behind, looking uneasy, along with a handful of cultist escorts.
They clutched their weapons, eyes darting left and right.
One guy carried an iron birdcage with a quiet little canary inside.
The group stopped in front of a half-open, ancient elevator deep in the building.
The doors were old, covered in outdated floral patterns.
Christabella stared at the familiar elevator. A spark of hope flashed in her eyes. Her voice came out hoarse. "This is it… go down… and you'll meet the witch."
As long as I can get him down there…
"Perfect."
Soren nodded. With one hand he shoved the half-open doors wider, stepped inside still holding Christabella.
"No! Wait!"
The second she realized he wasn't putting her down, Christabella panicked hard.
Her one good hand clawed desperately at the door frame. "No! No! I'm not going down! I brought you here! Let me go!!"
"No can do. You're the main event from here on out."
Soren looked at her pathetic struggling and smirked. "Back when you dragged that little girl to the stake, you never asked if she wanted to go either."
Christabella's pupils shrank to pinpricks. "How do you know about that?! Who the hell are you?!"
Soren didn't answer. He gave a slight tug and dragged her fully into the elevator car.
Rose bit her lip but stepped in right after him without hesitation. If it meant saving her daughter, she'd follow anywhere.
Outside, the few remaining cultists looked at each other, hesitating.
On one side was the bishop they were stuck following. On the other was the legendary forbidden zone where the witch lived.
"Chirp—chirp—!"
Suddenly the canary in the cage went insane, slamming against the bars and screeching.
"Wooo—wooo—"
A deep, massive air-raid siren began howling across the town above them.
Soren raised an eyebrow, curiously touched the blood seeping from the elevator walls, rubbed it between his fingers, and sniffed.
Instead of fear, pure curiosity lit up his eyes. "So this is the Otherworld?"
The walls and floor started peeling like old wallpaper, floating upward. Bloody flesh and tissue spread everywhere, twisting together with rusted wires into a brand-new nightmare.
The cultist holding the birdcage went sheet-white. "Run! The darkness… the darkness is here!"
What they called "darkness" was the true Otherworld.
Silent Hill had three layers: the real world, the Fog World, and the Otherworld.
The real world was just an abandoned town.
The Fog World was what Soren and Rose had first walked into—roads cut off, a few monsters.
When Alessa's rage got too strong to hold back, the Fog World collapsed and turned into the Otherworld.
This was the real monster playground. Everything alive here was nothing but prey.
Only when her anger finally cooled would the world reset back to the Fog World.
"Run! Back to the church!!"
The cultists ditched any loyalty to the bishop in half a second. Their own lives mattered way more!
But they didn't get far.
A massive rusty blade suddenly swung out and blocked their path.
Schlick—
Before they could even scream, their upper bodies were sliced clean off. Blood sprayed everywhere, instantly sucked up by the walls and floor.
A hulking monster wearing a gigantic triangular metal helmet stepped out from around the corner—naked from the waist up—standing dead-center in the hallway.
Pyramid Head.
The most iconic, most terrifying executioner Silent Hill had ever produced—the living embodiment of Alessa's inner judgment.
Its upper body was already splattered with fresh cultist blood. It held its enormous sword and stared quietly at Soren through the slowly closing elevator doors.
"AAAHHH!"
Inside the elevator, Rose clapped both hands over her mouth in horror.
The doors sealed shut. Pyramid Head vanished from view.
The car began its long drop.
During the descent the enclosed box rapidly corroded and fell apart until only a rusty metal skeleton and floor remained, exposing the nightmare outside.
What they saw wasn't an elevator shaft—it was a blazing abyss of roaring flames.
Countless iron wires crisscrossed through the inferno. Charred bodies hung from some of them, silently screaming in the fire.
It felt less like riding an elevator and more like taking the direct shuttle straight to hell.
Christabella's face went corpse-gray. She knew exactly what waited below the hospital: the evil she herself had helped create decades ago—the very source of Silent Hill's curse.
Ding—
After what felt like forever, a crisp chime sounded.
The elevator doors slowly slid open.