Chapter 19

A chapel.

This is it, the final destination of this long and dangerous journey. Linda finally got to the place she was led with various hints in her dreams. She wondered what exactly she was going to find here, but in any case, she knew her journey was not over yet. In this moment her thoughts went to Alice and James. Linda wondered where they were now. It seemed very unlikely that they would be able to find her whereabouts, only if they just get lucky with this merry-go-round. Linda herself knew the secret entrance was somewhere by the roundabout, but they do not know that. She only hoped that when all this nightmare is over, she would be able to reunite with them.

Linda continued her way inside the chapel, studying her surroundings. The chapel looked pretty traditional, like in any other church in the world. There was nothing special about it, so Linda began checking every door available. Only one of them was open, the one located on the right from the altar. And as Linda stepped through that door, passing the hallway with two confessing rooms, she thought that now she literally has got into true hell. At least that's how it looked to her. The walls around her and the floor underneath were literally burning with fire and looked like in some places lava was floating through. All of this was very well visible, as the floor and the walls appeared to be metallic bars and lattice, similar to those she had seen in the amusement park, but this time everything acquired the looks of hell. Everything in the Otherworld resembled it, but this place would be number one that looked like real hell. Linda was curious about this, why exactly here everything was burning behind the walls and the floor, as she hasn't seen such phenomenon anywhere before, and she hoped to find out the reason behind it.

At the end of the corridor there was another door that led to the room that appeared to be a belfry. What caught Linda's attention were portraits of the saints, and one of them looked very much like Alessa. Studying this portrait closer, she found a writing that said it was St. Alessa. Linda's eyes widened in surprise. So Alessa was considered a saint in the religion of Silent Hill? – Linda thought to herself. - Then why did her mother try to burn her alive? If Alessa was thought to be the mother of God, then how..? Linda grabbed her head in confusion. This was too complicated for her to understand. Deciding to stop thinking about it now, she searched the walls in hope to find some secret door. It couldn't be that this was a dead end. But unfortunately, all her searching was in vain.

Not finding anything of use in the belfry, Linda stepped out and slowly walked back thinking of something that she might have missed on her way. But when she turned around the corner, she found a strange painting standing at the wall. When she walked along this corridor, she was sure this painting wasn't here before. It was like with that secret passage in the wall at the merry-go-round. Linda approached the painting to study it when suddenly she heard a sound of crying, not sure whether it was a girl or a young woman, but the crying was definitely of a female. Linda looked around frantically, but there was nobody else but her in the corridor. In addition to that, the sound of light footsteps reached her ears, and when Linda looked down, she saw bloody footprints appearing on the floor that lead to the painting and disappeared behind it. Without hesitation, Linda pushed the painting aside, revealing a hidden door. She then sighed in relief, realizing that she hasn't missed anything, so she opened the door and went through. It appeared to be another hellish corridor behind it with several doors on both sides. But then something else caught her attention. On the right of her there was a wide gap in the wall right at the floor which appeared to be a ventilation shaft. And there was something moving back and forth. Crouching to the gap, Linda saw a faceless humanoid creature, seemingly male, in a dirty ceremonial robe, gloves on its hands and black boots on its feet. Somehow this being seemed very familiar to her, and Linda tried her best to remember where she had seen him. In a moment she finally remembered – she saw this creature in one of her dreams, the one she met Alessa in. Alessa explained that this being is her guardian, and Linda's as well. And here he was, crawling through a vent. It just seemed strange to Linda that he moved back and forth and shaking his head now and then. The monster didn't seem to notice her at first, but when Linda was already going to stand up, he suddenly stopped moving and turned his head to her. Now Linda was sure he was looking at her. Staying so for a minute or two, the monster lifted his left arm, supporting himself with the right one, and pointed somewhere behind Linda's back. She looked back and saw a door behind her back. She was going to check all the doors anyway, but the monster pointed exactly to this particular door. And when Linda turned her head back to the faceless being, he was already back to crawling in the vent like before. Seeing no other options, Linda got up and went to check door the monster pointed at.

The room appeared to be a classroom. Linda was surprised to find it here, but it especially surprised her to see that it wasn't even demonic like all other location she had been to. It was just a regular classroom, the one you can find in any school. The only thing that wasn't right were the desks arranged in a circle around one that stood isolated from the rest. Linda came closer to it and noticed some writings carved on it. They looked rather crooked, but she could make out the words "witch", "drop dead", "go home", and "thief". Linda didn't even have to guess twice about the owner of this desk. It belonged to Alessa, and this classroom originally could be found in Midwich Elementary School that Alessa went to. Running her palm along the surface of the desk, Linda closed her eyes and shook her head in sorrow. She already knew that Alessa had been bullied by her classmates because of her special abilities. The only thing that puzzled Linda was the fact that she found this classroom here, where the underground church was. But one thing she was sure about – this was like an episode from Alessa's tormented life, and it meant that she might find more in this underground complex.

Linda went out of the classroom through the other door that was on the right from the teacher's desk and the board. She then checked the other doors in the corridor and finding all of them locked, went to the last door in the end of the corridor. The first thing Linda saw when she went through the door, was blackness, but when she looked around she noticed more doors on her right. At the moment she was standing at the first door, three more by her side, and four more further. Plus, there was another floor underneath and an industrial-looking lift that could possibly take her down to the lower floor. Studying the surroundings with her eyes, Linda pondered that if she had been in normal world now, it would look like she was walking on one of the wide ledges of a multi-floored building. At least that's what the surroundings generally resembled.

As neither of the doors budged on this floor, Linda entered the lift that automatically lowered itself to the floor underneath. As it was located right at the corner, she decided to start from the first door right under the one she went out of a floor higher, but that door appeared to be locked, no luck was with the other four as well, but the sixth door finally could be opened. Another fiery corridor stretch far ahead, but no doors were visible on both sides. Linda walked forward, not knowing what awaits her ahead, but finally the end of the corridor was becoming visible. It was a doorway, but this time it was blocked by something, and coming closer to inspect what it was, Linda recognized the same monster she had seen crawling in a vent. This time he was somehow hanging in the doorway and rotating a valve with his left hand. Linda decided not to take a risk and turned back, but in the middle of the corridor she heard the cry again, and bloody footsteps appeared on the floor again, leading to the wall and vanishing just before it. So there must be some secret passage behind this wall, and Linda began inspecting it in hope to find something that could help her open the secret door. But everything turned out to be easier than she thought, as pushing the wall a bit stronger, it began moving forward, which appeared to be a door she was looking for. A narrow, grey passage lay ahead, and Linda had a feeling that this looks familiar to her. As she proceeded into the passage and entered the door in the end of it, she recognized the room as the hospital room where Alessa had been held after being burnt. This was the same room she had seen hidden in the basement of Alchemilla hospital. Everything looked the same, even the portrait of Alessa was still there, on the nightstand. Linda checked around the room for something useful, but couldn't find anything. As she has already been to this room in its original location, she left it and went back to the door that led out of the corridor.

As there still were a few doors to explore, Linda decided not to waste time and exit this long corridor, but before she did this, she took a look back at the faceless monster in the doorway. He still continued spinning the valve, not paying any attention to her. As Linda felt being curious about what was in the room he was guarding or whatever he was doing, she decided it was better for her not to disturb him, so she went back to the exit and found herself being back to the wide ledge with many doors. As this was door number six, she tried the seventh, and that had its lock broken, so no other choice than to go into the last, the eighth door. Linda pressed the handle carefully, and the door opened. It appeared to be another corridor with fire visible through several gaps, and behind the corner Linda noticed the faceless monster again, crawling through the vent, just like a few moment earlier. Same movements back and forth, same head shaking. Then it suddenly dawned on her that this monster appeared near the locations where she found something important. Each room she stumbled upon that had connection with Alessa's life, this being was always near. From this fact Linda concluded that he was giving her some kind of hint. His presence meant that there was something in this area that might interest her. Thus she tried the doors on the left, opposite the monster, but all of them didn't budge. The corridor ended up with a wall, and Linda was ready to get desperate because of running into a dead end, but then she spotted one door on the right, just before the last wall, and Linda was glad to find it open.

This was the room she recognized at once from her dreams, Alessa's room. She recognized the bed, the desk, the blue dress with white collar hanging between the desk and the closet. This is how her room looked originally in Gillespie house, but about the strange door opposite the entrance Linda wasn't sure about. She doubted that there was something like that in the real room. The door was obviously metal and looked rather heavy, and it had nine space of rectangular shape in it. Linda tried to open it, but it was firmly locked. The she touched the spaces in the door, and those felt being a bit deeper than the door surface. It pretty meant that something had to be inserted into them. This was some kind of a puzzle that she had to solve to proceed further.

Linda began searching for any clues around the room. She was sure they must be here, as she had never found any items of such shape and size that could fit into these spaces in the door. She checked the only drawer in the desk, but found nothing useful, and no success in the closet either. The only place she hasn't yet searched was the book shelf. As Linda roamed through the various books, something suddenly fell on the floor when she pulled out one of the books. She picked it up and saw that it was a pack of Tarot cards. And they seemed to be of a perfect size for the spaces on the metal door.

"Perfect, that's exactly what I need," Linda smiled. "But I need only nine of them. Which ones should I pick?"

First she thought there might be some clue in one of the books, but after studying the book covers, she found nothing that could have any connection to Tarot cards. Then her glance fell on the bed that had something like an exercise book on it. Linda sat on the bed and picked it up. There she found some children's drawings, so she understood that it was a sketchbook for drawing. Turning the pages, Linda stumbled on some strange drawings on one of the pages. It reminded her of some kind of diagram that consisted of several symbols, like an eye in the middle, a moon northeast of it, a hanged man upside down southwest, a resemblance of a queen southeast, and some figure that looked like a… wanderer with a dog beside him? Linda was confused, as she really was unfamiliar with Tarot cards. But when she glanced at the door, it became clear to her that these drawings represent the cards she had to insert in the spaces. She needed just five of them, and they must be arranged in the same pattern like it was shown in the sketchbook. Now all she had to do was to find the right cards.

There were no problems with finding three of the necessary cards: the Eye of the Night, the Moon, and the Fool. Linda couldn't find anything that could be called a Wanderer, but the Fool card looked very much like the drawing northwest of the eye, so this must be the one. As for the queen, there were two cards that might be the right ones, the first being the Empress, the other was the High Priestess. Linda decided to try both of them, and if one doesn't work, then the second would be the right card.

Taking one more look at the pattern in the sketchbook, Linda inserted the cards like it was shown. First she inserted the Empress as the last one, but it did nothing. The door still was locked. Then it had to be the High Priestess. After Linda replaced the Empress with the High Priestess, she heard a click. She turned the doorknob then, and the heavy metal door finally opened. Another dark and rusty corridor was behind the door, and Linda had no other option but to see where it led. There were no doors in the walls this time, the only one being in the end of the corridor.

As Linda entered it, she found herself getting into something that looked like another chapel, just smaller and, unlike the previous chapel, it looked demonic, like the rest of the Otherworld. As Linda proceeded into the inner chapel, she discovered something that looked like a long gap leading somewhere down, into the darkness. She was confused, not knowing what to do now and whether it was the end of the journey, when she thought she heard a voice saying her name:

"Linda…"

Linda shook her head, trying to make sure she wasn't hallucinating again, when the voice echoed again, this time louder, and now there were no doubts that it belonged to a female.

"Linda… Come here… to us…"

After she heard the voice, Linda was sure it was coming from the dark hole in the floor. So there was someone alive? She crouched down to the hole, listening carefully.

"Linda, do you hear me? It's me, Alessa. I know you're up there. Jump into the hole you see before you, and don't be afraid, you won't get yourself killed. Come on, we are waiting for you!"

Alessa? She was down there? And why did she say "we"? So there was someone else there with her? Linda knew that if she wanted to find it out, she had to jump, but she was still doubtful about it. But, for the lack of choice, she had to do it. After all, there was nothing to lose. Thus she took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and jumped into a gaping hole, and darkness consumed her.