Afterbirth



Music: Silent Hill 3 OST "Another Point of View"



You're cold. Freezing. Something's trembling - you don't know what at first. Your body feels like it was just used as a superconductor, leaving you shaking and shivering. All that you can see is a haze of red when you open your eyes.



Flashes of visceral memory, like tearing, bloody meat, veins splitting open and spitting hot steaming blood over the sterile white walls of Saint Mary’s Psychiatric Hospital.



Screams, distorted and animal. Long, throaty howls of pent-up horror and murderlust. Nightmare. Figures, images wriggling with flailing arms, incoherent, muted in a haze of red. The laughter of a thousand chittering voices urging you on. A thousand more crying in terror.



Flying through twisting tunnels, painting them crimson with bloody claws. Trying to grasp at that memory, of what happened, of the why, the how - it just unravels it more, and that red haze glows painfully in your mind.



What do you remember? The hospital. Penning your journal in your room. The walks outside in the early December grounds, trees lightly dusted with snow, icy branches twinkling like the sugar cookies they served at your ward once a year. The before comes back to you, and you remember - all except for that bloody gap.



Patters of chill kiss your back, your cheek, your nose. You realize that you are naked, body covered in nothing but others. And you can taste them, each one. It touches your nostrils like nothing else, tantalizing, telling. Instinct tells you what your mind begins to realize - you are caked in frozen blood. The red haze at last passes to the shadow and glint of the distant sputtering orange of sodium lamps.



Snow comes down from above, funneled down into the alley in which you are curled, framing your body. The twisted space is cluttered with trash, championed by badly graffiti'd green dumpsters. Fencing locks off the north end of this place, about ten feet high with barbed wire on the top - you can see it's about sixty yards to either end from where you lay. Broken bits of glass glitter strangely amongst the snow, as the frigid breeze sifts lazily through crumpled wrappers, tumbling them like crinkling pinwheels.



The blood is almost too much. The scents of so many. You know them, from some kind of familiarity - you're not sure how. You realize it’s on your chin, your back, clinging in black and purple shards to your chest and arms. How your senses have become so sharpened you don't know – only that somehow things have changed. Somehow you've left the hospital behind.



Terror and confusion grip Jericho's heart in an icy numbness far more intense than the frigid air outside. The senses are overwhelming, the smells horrifying. She frantically looks to either end of the alley again and again searches for some clue as to where to go or what she should do, her breath emerging with a frosty cloud, her heart thumping quicker than she's ever felt it go. She had to go back to the hospital. Something was horribly wrong with her. She needed to go back. Needed someone who could help her, who could fix her. She stood slowly, her waist-length hair a caked and ugly mess, falling around her like a curtain and releasing a new wave of sickening odor. Eyes wide and darting she tentatively she makes her way to the non-fenced end of the alley, wary of the glass shards on the alley floor.



Snow crunches quietly under your bare feet as you carefully make your way towards the mouth of the alley. You notice that the way you move is differently than before. It's more graceful - stronger, even. Maybe you should be dead now, frozen to death in the cold. But you aren't. The chill stings and bites at your flesh, wind tugging mercilessly at your hair, but it just doesn't bother you as much as it should.



Your mind is a garbled mess of dripping, red-hot images, phantom sounds and screams. Heat and fire, threatening to overtake everything, despite the icy grip of December.



The street edges closer with each step you take, the rusty spires and darkly glittering windows of Detroit's skyscrapers watching you like the honeycombed eyes of a dead hive. Dwarfing everything, existing in this orangeness of steel and concrete of this decaying forge city. Street lights change color, and the sounds strike your ears as intense. The burble of voices, cellphone chatter, shuffling through snow, laughter and even breath. Seeing nothing but a bare street beyond but reaching out with senses you've never had.



Blue and red light streaks by as a siren SCREAMS and wails past in a blur.



You can see a billboard in the distance painted with the likeness of Coca-Cola's Santa Claus, graffiti'd in black and blue from something pure to grossly obscene.



So this is the real world.



Taking this all in, your senses snap, ears twitching involuntarily as you hear the fence behind you jangle and sway against the weight of something.



Climbing.



Swiftly.



Two figures go up and over like the barrier was nothing. In the shadows of the alley you can't make them out well, but they're coming closer, approaching you warily.



Jericho let out a frightened gasp, twisting around with a grace she'd never felt before to face the two. Shakily she began to back up, one foot at a time away from the approaching pair, her breath quickening. Swallowing the vile taste in her mouth in a gulp she was sure was loud enough for the people in the street to hear, she spoke, her voice pitiful and scared.



"W-what do you want?"



Something tells you strength would be better. It's hard to look that way in the face of these predators- that's what instinct tells you, what you smell, what you -feel-. But what can you do now? Fight or flight.



As they emerge from the gloom, you can see the first is wearing a heavy fur-lined dark green bomber jacket studded with patches, thick black cargo jeans and old running shoes. His belt is a jangle of utility pouches, and there's a pair of big combat knives sheathed at his thighs. His hair is black and ruffled, pushed underneath a rugged brown woolen skullcap. The male’s hands are bound up in thick gauze that serve as homemade fingerless gloves.



His face is youthful- maybe he's a few years older than you, but still tanned and creased with thin scars, a nasty one running a crescent just under his cheek, skirting his eye. His scent...if that's what it is...he’s like you somehow. Not like the blood you tasted…not human…you just know. The guy's nose is hooked and looks like it's been broken several times before, face and chin faintly stubbled, like he hadn't shaved for about three days. His sideburns are long and wild, running down along his jawline and around behind his ears.



"Easy there, girl." he says, voice raspy and scarred by cigarettes. His tone though, seems gentle. Calming, even. He's holding out his hands at his sides, palms upturned.



The second lurks behind, another male, this one lanky and gaunt. The faint light plays against his dark almond eyes and Asian features - spiky black hair styled and cropped short to his head, the sides of his skull buzzed down. You can't see most of his face, obscured as it is by a dark gray scarf, the fabric hanging to his left, thrown behind his shoulder with a quick, calculated motion. Steamy breath pushes from the fabric. He's lean, even in his black, nondescript blazer, slacks padded but worn loose enough so that he can move fast if he has to, Timberland boots making no sound as he moves over the snow.



Her heartbeat began to settle, the blood pounding in her ears a little less loud. Jericho wasn't even aware she was doing it, but as they came closer her upper lip began to curl back almost as if she were baring her teeth at the two. If she hadn't admitted to herself she was insane before, that thought was becoming more and more valid every second. Her muscles relaxed ever so slightly, but she was still far from calm. Her large blue eyes left their focus ever so quickly to look at the caked gore on her body. They seemed wary, but not shocked at what they saw. Maybe they were here to take her back. She quickly dismissed that thought. There was no way they were from the hospital. But somehow they seemed to know about her. She swallowed again, this time her girlish voice a bit more clear and focused, though still insignificant to the background noise of the city.



"What…are you?"



The two of them exchange momentary glances - some kind of silent communication. When the Asian looks back, you notice that there's something wrong with his eyes. They were dark and incredibly cunning when you first looked upon them, but now they seem glazed and cloudy; it's impossible that he's spontaneously developed glaucoma, like some of the old patients at St. Mary’s - he's only a handful of years older than you anyway.



That way the man's gaze hits you - it's like he's looking at you but not looking at you. Almost like he's peering across to see.



"She's swarming with murder. It's all over her." the Asian says, voice only slightly muffled by the scarf he wears, speech punctuated by a slow, steamy breath.



The skullcap-wearing one gives a slight nod. "We can't just leave her here. She'll die."



"Like hell we can't." the Asian says, voice edged with sudden tenseness. "We've got bigger things to worry about."



Swarming with murder...



Then it was true. She glanced down at the blood. She did this. The truth of it hit her like a ton of bricks and her legs almost gave out beneath her. Jericho had no clue as to how the other one knew, but she felt that it was the truth and her instincts had been right so far. She didn't even hear the rest of their conversation past those three words. Her vision was growing hazy and she felt as though she would faint. There was nothing for her. No place to go, nobody to help her. There were only these two...



That thought brought her back into reality, and only then did the words they exchanged burn themselves into her numb mind. They couldn't leave! They knew what was going on. They had answers.



"No!"



The word was barked out with desperation a second before she realized she said it, and she almost wished she could take it back.



The two of them turn to look at you with feral intent. It appears as though they were about to push into a heated argument - their body language is tense, and you can feel violent, charged energy between them. The Asian even curled his hands into fists. Your plea though, it reaches them, and they watch you silently.



The way they move is strange. The Asian even cocks his head ever so slightly, a predatory gleam in his eyes, now as dark as they were when you first saw them. But then you notice that they're not looking at you anymore. They're looking past you. Following their gaze brings the soft crunch-crunch of footfalls against the alley's snow, the gentle grind and crush of sole and brittle glass.



You're surprised to see that it's a woman, not too much older than you, maybe twenty or so. Her features are stark but pretty- she looks Slavic. Maybe this new figure is Russian, or from one of those former Soviet nations. The young woman has a good, lithe athletic build that many would find attractive, but she seems a bit on the lean side. Her hair is jet black and streaked with a shock of red, cut short to curve down just past her chin, framing her face. You can see a tangle of barbwire tattoos crawl up her neck, braided here and there with skulls blooming from rose blossoms. The tattoo ends just at her jawline, where her left ear is studded with about seven steel rings. A stud rests in her right eyebrow as well. You notice a scar runs delicately from her left eyelid down her cheek, a jagged wisp of a line that splits like a tendril of lightning to her upper lip.



Draped over her shoulders is a long black leather trench coat, the collar lined with white fur. The woman wears a slightly torn long-sleeved black and red jersey top underneath, the team logo long since faded. The shirt comes down to her midriff, exposing her toned stomach, yet she seems not at all cold. She wears a pair of gray and black urban camo cargo pants and her feet are clad in steel-toed combat boots.



The young woman’s blue-green eyes are like blades of glacier ice, glowing orange as she takes a drag from a cigarette perched upon full lips.



"Kitt...shit." the skullcap-wearing one mutters. "Look, we got sidetracked. This cub, she's probably the one they were talking about."



Kitt's eyes rest on you as a wry curve twists her lips into a smirk. "She looks like prey to me," the woman says dryly, with the hint of an accent.



Music: Finch "Worms of the Earth"



A sharp intake of breath rushes into her nose as Jericho once more tenses. What did these people want? Why wouldn't they help her? She wanted to scream, fight. Violent thoughts like she'd never had before raced through her mind, and that scared her. The heat of her anger fought against the chill of her fear at what these three might do to her. In the end they were at a stalemate. Like always, nothing in her life came with a simple answer.



She said nothing to the new girl on her left or the two guys on her right. She just stared at the woman. There was no way of her knowing it, but the feral gleam she'd seen in each of their eyes was now in her brilliant blue eyes, a perfect reflection for her inner turmoil.



Your pointed stare sends a bit of a chuckle trembling across Kitt’s chest, and the woman reaches into a pocket to flick out a lighter, playing it between her fingers, over her knuckles. The Slav takes a few puffs as she looks you over, the orange glow flaring in her eyes. There's a slow click-click as she plays with the lighter, opening and closing it with rhythmic intent.



Kitt tears you down with her gaze. Sizing you up like meat. It's an uncomfortable feeling.



The female rolls her cigarette between sharp white teeth. The way she looks at you is chilling. You get no feeling from her, no scent, not like the other two, but you know Kitt is like you. It's her poise, that of a predator, and her eyes, glinting and savage. You feel instinctively too that she is higher in some hierarchy than you- older, more powerful. Your rational mind might equate this to being outnumbered three to one, but your heart knows better.



The Slavic girl frowns, flicking the cigarette to sputter and spit cinders up against the wall before it hisses out in the snow.



"Fuck her. She's not in our territory." she flicks her eyes to the Asian. "Frost, they already have our scent. The longer we wait the closer they get. Let's move."



Frost nods, and turns to leave.



The skullcap-wearing one lets out an angry sound, a deep-throated growl that sounds more wolf than man.



"I can't believe this bullshit! Galen would never abandon someone like this. Look at her!"



"Galen's dead, and I'm alpha now." Kitt replies icily. "You want to take her back home? Deal with her shit?"



"So you're their leader?" Jericho asks the girl, Kitt, her high voice cutting through the hostile exchange. It was the calmness that was so odd about it. No anger or fear, just a simple question.



She regards you like you were utterly beneath her. Trash or something. That look in her eyes though, the dominance of her bearings, despite her surroundings - you know that she is alpha. You also feel that she's not being spiteful to you, just very calculating, very businesslike. Ruthless. It's nothing personal.



In the distance, you can hear faint howls. They sound above the city noise somehow, threaded into it, unnoticeable to most, perceived in a deeper, instinctive level by you - and the others. The men tense. Frost even growls softly behind his scarf.



"Let's go." Kitt says, turning away from you, showing her back with a swirl of trench coattails. Frost moves around your shivering, naked form, staring you down but keeping his distance as he follows the woman.



"You're fucking heartless, Kitt. This is low, even for you." You hear from behind you. With a quick unzip, the skull-cap wearing youth pulls off his jacket and gently drapes it over your shoulders. It's warm and smells like him - a mix of cigarettes, old leather and a hint of iron and Old Spice. He doesn't show any sign of discomfort in bearing his torso, a lean but tightly muscled thing, covered in a gray muscle shirt.



"I won't leave her here."



Jericho clutched the ends of the jacket tightly around herself, relishing in the warmth it brought. Peering up through the thick, matted curtain of her bangs she looked upon the only one of the three whose name she still did not know as her savior. The crushing weight of her solitude was lifted. She had someone who cared about her. She could feel her cheeks grow warm and her eyes grow moist at this courageous act.



"Thank you." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.



The alpha turns her head back just enough to stare murderously at the both of you, lip curling back into a sneer, revealing teeth that are a little too long and pointed to belong to a human. You can see Kitt's eyes narrow to cold blue-green points. For a moment, the two of them face off. The man even takes a step in front of you, interposing himself protectively. You can see the hair under his skullcap bristling.



The howls again.



"Fucking Christ, Jack. Fine. She's your burden then. Take her back to the place. Don't let them follow you."



"We need his strength, Kitt!" Frost protests, eyes smoldering amber, anger setting his form rigid.



"This is the price of weakness. He'll just slow us down. We'll go on to find Azrael ourselves."



Jack's hand grasps yours firmly, and he begins to pull you back towards the fence. There's urgency in his eyes.



Music: Dawn of the Dead OST, "That Dog's Just Fucked Up"



The others begin to break into a flat-out run, kicking up snow as they round the corner onto the street.



Jericho allows herself to be led, sparing a quick glance back at the two leaving figures as she did. Despite how they treated her, she was still worried about them. Especially since they would now be one man short because of her.



"C'mon girl." Jack says through gritted teeth, his walk purposeful as he leads you to the fence at the other side of the alley. He stops and looks up, cursing under his breath as the howls pierce the air, this time much, much closer.



He looks back at you, nostrils flaring as he sniffs the air with wolfish tenseness. Jack's hazel pupils are dilated, searching.



"They're close now..." he says. "No, no questions." Jack barks, cutting you off. "You just gotta trust me, okay? I bet we could lose 'em in the Shadow. Really our only chance now." He looks back towards the mouth of the alley. "Fuck, fuck, fuck...okay, I know there's one down on Baker Street."



He puts his bandaged palm up against the criss-cross of chain link fence, closing his eyes in concentration. The wires around his hand shimmer and squirm to life, creaking and squealing away like unraveled thread until there's just enough of a hole for you to duck through.



"Move. MOVE!" he urges, as the two of you break into a run.



Jericho was completely silent as she ran and Jack ran. She had a ton of questions. Why where they were running? Who they were running from? How he did that? What was the Shadow? But it was a huge struggle for her to even keep up with Jack, her body so unused to any kind of physical activity. He was practically dragging her, her arms flailing in an awkward run. If she even could get in any words between her gasping breaths then she doubted he would be able to understand them. She just concentrated on running, not looking back to whoever, or whatever it was that was trying to catch them.



You never were exactly the star of the track team. The ward never had a track team, or much of a track for that matter. Maybe they didn't want young patients getting any ideas about escaping. But here you are, running at near a sprint, and not even getting very winded. Something's happened to your body. It's much stronger, much tougher than you ever thought possible while you spent those six years in the hospital.



Jack, however, doesn't show any signs of tiring. His breath, his heartbeat - and you can hear both as you run with him - are as regular as his footfalls.



The alleyways twist and turn into a labyrinthine mess of brick and backstreets, trash and graffiti. You can feel something close on your heels, even though you don't see anything when you look back. Jack's grip is harsh and firm, and he doesn't ever let up.



Despite your lack of athletic experience, the chase sings to your soul. It makes you want to howl.



The experience was frightening and exhilarating at the same time. The coursing adrenaline, the rhythmic pounding of her heart, the burning in her muscles. Nothing felt more natural to her in her entire life. If her life wasn't on the line then she might have actually taken the time to enjoy it. But at the moment she would do anything for them to stop and be someplace safe.



At last, you do come to a stop. You and Jack emerge from the city's backstreets when he pulls you out in front of a lonely corner. A closed comic book store with flickering "AJ'S CARDS AND COMICS" purple neon lights sits here, stacks of books and fanboy wares on display in the frosted window. The street is vacant, part of a dead end of shops that have been closed for the night, shuttered windows on the second floor grated and dark.



Jack keeps you close behind him, sniffing the air with sharp breaths, looking left and then right. He stops as his eyes rest on an old blue mailbox dusted with snow. Flakes of white come down from the open sky, dark clouds weeping frozen shards of rain.



You can see the crescent moon peeking out for a moment between a break in the shadowy sky. It calls to you with a faraway song you hear in your heart. Comforting and mysterious, that sliver of argent light shines briefly against the heavenly void, before your savior gives you another tug.



He puts his hand on the mailbox, brushing away the snow so that his fingertips can rest on the metallic surface.



"You feel that, girl?" he asks, eyes intense.



And you do. A faint buzzing, a tingling that makes your frozen hairs stand on end. It's coming from the mailbox. You can feel it, coursing with power.



Jericho was doubled over, clutching her stomach as she gulped down as much air as she could into her burning lungs. Her head jerked up and down as she nodded emphatically, not wanting to waste the breath she'd just gotten back by speaking.



"We don't have much time, okay? You're gonna have to run before you can walk tonight, or we're both dead." He cups the back of your head with a warrior's affection. "Pay attention. We're crossing over." He grapples for words. "I'm no good at this, fuck..." he mutters. "We need Az for this." Jack sighs and frowns, chewing thoughtfully on his bottom lip.



"Alright - you've got some power in you, and you've got to call to it, right now. Listen for me, and listen for that power, and then PUSH. That's the best I can give you. If this works, you're about to see some serious shit. If not, you'll be here yourself, and they're gonna catch up with you, and I can't help you anymore."



"Ready?"



Jericho takes in the seriousness in his face and nods, determined to help him in whatever way she could.



You do as Jack says, hand on the mailbox. Suddenly there's a sickening lurch, a feeling of displacement, and your vision swims. You don't feel the cold anymore; the sensation of something warm, no, hot...it's wrapping around you, rubbery and fleshlike, reminding you of the texture of scar tissue. Pushing you through the folds, you open your eyes to a very different version of Detroit City.



Like skeletal fingers, rusty skyscrapers rise bent, as if in a nuclear blast, windowless and hollow, openings like gaping mouths. Shadows flit around them like flies, darting in and out of gutted buildings. Jack pulls you back with a snarl as a car roars around the twisted, pitted street on its back wheels, like it was on hind legs, zooming past faster than you can follow. Motes of light dances unhealthily, lurking in alleyways, suckling greedily at vaguely humanoid figures that look like melted slabs of flesh.



It's loud- moans, rustling breaths, whines and creaking masonry, all transposed over the roar of city white noise.



As you look around, you see black, bloody clumps of razorblades, spinning and shrieking in metallic cries as they crowd on your back, whispering in your ears.



[Kill....kill.....killllll....]



"[Get the FUCK off her!]" Jack barks, swatting them away with his bandaged hand, baring teeth that begin to elongate into fangs, eyes yellowed and bright, face suddenly angular and lupine.



That language...it's like the echo of a childhood memory. Yet you understand all of it now.



Jericho just stood there taking everything in silent awe. These things...this place...it was like her visions. The spotty, flickering images and feelings she got when she was younger but...real.



"How...what is this place?" She asked Jack, finally finding her voice as her gaze traversed the warped terrain all around her. It was beautiful, it was terrifying, so familiar and yet so new.



"It's the Shadow." he says grimly, brushing the last murder spirit away from you. They squeal in protest, calling you mother, before they flee into the night.



The first real answer you've gotten tonight.



"Look..." he says. You can tell he's very tense, but those brown eyes are difficult to read. Fear? Anger? Something's there when he looks at you, and then there's a grudging smile.



"We've got to get to Union Street, that's our turf. You'll be safe there." He gives your hand a friendly squeeze, but doesn't let go. "This place is fucking dangerous, even for us, 'specially you."



You start off at an easy jog.



"What's your name?"



Music: Quake OST "Parallel Dimensions"



"It's Jericho." She replied a bit nervously. Now that everything had calmed down a little bit she was very aware that she was naked. She tried to tell herself that modesty wasn't really much of a concern at this point, but she couldn't help the vulnerable feeling she had. She'd considered giving him a fake name, but only briefly. After all he'd done so much for her tonight she at least owed him the truth.



"Oh yeah? Hey, cool, that's..." Jack stops for a moment, body shifting defensive, lips pulling back to reveal his teeth again. You feel it too. They're here now. They've followed you in.



"Fuck. Alright, Jericho, I know one place they ain't gonna follow us. C'mon!"

She takes a deep breath through her nose, her body rising with the motion, and then nods, ready to run again and escape whatever horrors that had brought them into this place to begin with.



She takes a deep breath through her nose, her body rising with the motion, and then nods, ready to run again and escape whatever horrors that had brought them into this place to begin with.



The two of you fly down the street, Jack cursing under his breath. Ruined sidewalk clacks under your passage, and the street becomes more and more overgrown with thick, pulsing vines of black metal, thorny protrusions slowly cutting through concrete as they coil tighter, choking the gutted buildings and crumbling streets of this place.



Strange, shimmering yellow lights circle and dance past you- they have children's voices and hum a wordless nursery rhyme. The moon above looms large, taking up far more of the sky than it normally would, light warm and silvery, its crescent cutting a great swath through the strange, roiling heavens. When the two of you dash through the moonlight, you can see runic symbols shimmer on Jack's neck, his shoulders, back, and arms. They glow quietly, some intricate and some simple, like tribal patterns splashed on a cave wall. Pulled forward as it is, your arm is bare, but you do see the a swirling trail of silvery, glowing marks extending up from your shoulder.



Where the hell is he taking you, and what the fuck is following you?