Chapter 3: Ordinary Vanity

Louise ran towards the forest, stepping over the splintered and burned pieces of wood of the broken gates, as the academy came to life behind her. Lights appeared behind the windows, and there were panicked voices raising. Hopefully, with all this commotion it would take some time before they found out she was gone. She didn´t look back again, and disappeared between the trees. It was dangerous to run in a darkness illuminated only by the light of the two moons, but she didn´t allow herself to stop her pace. Getting caught here would end everything.

There was a lot of under-brush, so she had to barrel through it, no minding the thorns digging violently into her skin and sometimes drawing blood. Faster, faster. She had to go faster. She went for a good while, god knows how long, tripped on something hard, staggered, waver her arms in a doomed attempt to kept her balance, and fell. Thorns and rocks dug into her side, making her cry out in pain. Her vision blurred with tears, for the pain but mostly for the surprise. She blinked them back, staring at the night sky beyond the tallest of the tress, breathing fast, her entire body throbbing.

Shit, shit, fucking shit.

She stood up and started walking forward again, for lack of a direction, but a little bit slower this time. What would she do? She had not real experience. Mother had be hard on her with physical and magical training, sure, but that was not going to help her live when she may as well be a commoner now. She was just planning to find an empty place for the night, and find a job with a decent pay if she wouldn´t be capable of finding a place that she would use indefinitely. Sure, sure, it was all below her, a noble of the Valliére family, but so what? She didn´t have anything, so nothing mattered anymore. She would be content just to die as herself.

Cattleya, she thought. Before her sudden, violet death, her big sister had taught her all sorts of things about her beloved animals-what they liked, how to take care of them- so, maybe, she would work an animal shop. It would remind her of her death constantly, but then again, is not like she wouldn´t ever forget about it even without that job. Every little thing reminded her of Cattleya, her corpse laying in that cold bed, damp with her blood.

A wave of nausea hit her. She bended over, a hand on her stomach, and tried to hold her bile down. It was futile. She violently retched all over the ground, until she had not more to throw out, and just gasped. She closed her eyes, sweat running down her face like tears, and tried to get herself back under control. She still felt a little sick to her stomach, but not much, so she opened her eyes again. On the disgusting pile of vomit, there was blood. Her blood. The world swayed twice right before her eyes.

"I am okay." She said to the forest, because the sound of her whisperings would have been a little... unsettling. "Everything is just fine."

She steadied herself, and took a step forward, and another and another. She was steel. Steel may bend, but never break. Never ever.

So this was going to be alright.

Louise walked onwards, the light of the moons illuminating her path waning with the passing time. Cold. She really should have grabbed a jacket before going. And boots, and gloves. Being in a forest in the middle of a particularly windy night with a thin shirt and such a short skirt was an outright torture. She had to find a place to sleep, quickly. A warm place.

Of course, she should also have reached La Rochelle by now, so she had not though doing any of that. It was farther that she thought. The other answer, obvious and uncomfortable, was swiftly pushed aside. She had grow used to it during most of her walk. Yeah, it was just farther that she though. She hadn´t lost her bearings. No, not at all.

She heard only the song of the wind on the pines, the far off squeak of a jay and a woodpecker digging into a hollow tree, but nothing human. She huddled, growing increasingly nervous despite herself and opened the door to her favorite fantasy: I am home, back home. And there is this woman sitting on the porch. She has long, flowing, soft looking pink air and when she turns around... oh I can´t believe it but is true, the woman is Cattleya, its a mystery how she is not dead, but is her. She smiles-that big, friendly smile I like so much- and asks me how its going, little Louise.

She thought about how they would talk, letting the dark trek through the forest with not end in sight go far away from her, letting the disquieting sounds all around her fade, lost in her own world with a big stupid smile on her face.

By the time dawn was already approaching, she was forced to admit she had lost her bearings. She didn´t know how that could happen, because the way to La Rochelle was straight and she had be going straight all the way, but things like that didn´t matter now. Retracing her steps would only end up in her getting more loss, and, besides, any destination was fine.

She had be walking through thick fog for a while, and as she walked it only seemed to get thicker. She ascended a small hill, and looked down, trying to place her surroundings. She only saw the vague shape of a town near her, near swallowed up by the fog. Oh, well. That was a good place as any, even though she had not idea where she was. She would just ask the habitats, anyway.

She walked down the hill, and through the road. Soon enough, she saw a sign with writing that she wouldn´t read. Strange. She was at least familiar with every other language know to Halkegenia; she should be able to read pretty much everything. It didn´t look like Elvish, either. At least, not as far as her people knew about it. The thought that there was an Elvish settlement close to the academy made her shiver, but it was just pretty much impossible in every way. It was most likely that the sign was pure gibberish, or some kind of code, rather than something like that. It was the kind of thing that would spill out for the people who had nothing better to do that weave conspiracy theories. So she continued down the path, and found herself in someplace with an overlooking view of a lake and, behind it, the town. There were some stairs leading further down, and another road to the left. The whole place didn´t look like anything she had ever saw.

Louise took the road and suddenly froze. There were... things, on the road, shaped like some sort of cube, but stretched and with circular things under it. She tensed, reached for her wand, then stopped. No, what was she thinking? Whatever they were, those things were definitively not animals. If they had been, they would have noticed her already. Now that she looked more thoroughly at them, she noticed that their shape was kind of like a carriage. Founder only knows how they were supposed to work without horses, but it was the most likely explanation. So, she put her hand down. The only question was, who would create such things? It... suddenly, a person ran through the fog.

That shadow just now...

It gave her quite a scare. She considered calling up to the person, but quickly dismissed the idea. Leaving aside if it was a good idea or not, that person was probably already too far away too heard her. And it was definitively a bad idea. Whatever this place was, it didn´t show up in any map; those carriage things, no matter how she looked at them, were far too strange; and the writing of that sign still made her doubt. It would be better to go away, warn the authorities anonymously and look for a better place to stay. She turned away... And that was when a hand grasped her knee.

Louise drew her breath in raggedly, her back straightening, her eyes going wide and round. She looked down, and saw a monster. It was ragged, twitching and bleeding. Where his eyes should be there was only empty sockets. It had wounds all over its body, some deep enough to show the bone beneath its skin. Its lips were parted, leaving in view that it had not teeth, just a snakelike tongue. She screamed mindlessly into the mist covered, empty sky. Her screams were shrill and pierced. Only when the monster moved, and grabbed her knee with his other had, did she move. She raised her free leg, and kicked it in the head. It didn´t budge an inch. She kicked it again, mindlessly. The monster tugged her, and she fell to the ground on her knees.

"Get away! Get away from me!" she reached for her wand, hands shaking, as the monster moved closer to her, making wet, smacking noises with his tongue, trying to kept it distance by kicking it away. She grasped the wand, and jammed it through one of his empty sockets.

The monster went limp, for a moment, then started trashing around, letting out a high pitched wails. Screaming, she pushed the wand until its tip protruded out of the other side of its skull, dripping with warm blood. It was still trashing, its skin ripping even more. Blood flew in the air. Its brain was hanging out. The monster went limp. She let of the wand, and crawled back without taking her eyes off from the body. She shakily stood up.

Is... Is it dead? God, what was that thing? Looking into its corpse, Louise thought back to her nightmare-just a day ago, but it seemed so far away. Most of the details were already hazy, but she remembered seeing that monster from the first time, face to face, like she had experienced it for real. That bloodstained robe, its crudely stitched skin. Those two monster looked... similar.

Her head spun twice, and she feel on her back. Black spots swam on her vision. She tried to kept her eyes open, but she wouldn´t even manage to think straight. She heard footsteps rapidly approaching.

Then darkness.

Louise slowly opened her eyes, feeling dizzy, with the lethargic slowness of dreams. She immediately noticed that she didn´t have her wand on her person, but it took her a moment more to notice that she was not longer on the streets. She looked around. There were desks scattered all along the rusted and stained floor, a few of them with some food and drinks on the top. The windows were all closed. The only illumination came from the skylight.

She froze. There was something there, leaning against one of the windows. Was it one of these monsters? If so, why was she not dead yet? It moved below the light of the skylight, and she saw that it was a man, not a monster, and not only that. He was garbed in full plate armor, and had a wand-sword in one of his hands. A knight. She let herself relax.

"Oh, so you are awake already." he said. Its voice was a rich and deep baritone, suiting what she imagined real knights would be like. "Thank the Founder. I didn´t see any wound, but... Anyway, my name is Alfred Wilhelm De Bernays. Yours? And what are you doing here?"

"I..." she hesitated; she was no sure if he had grabbed her wand from that monster´s corpse, and that would change everything. Lying to him, in that case, would just serve to make him distrust her and saying that she was from a different noble family was not an option. Oh, well. "I am Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière. And... well, I just stumbled into this town. I... I don´t even know where we are. What´s a knight like you doing near here, anyway?"

"Well." he pursed his lips into a thin line. "I suppose I would tell you. Doesn´t really matter. I am here searching for a missing child. She went missing around here. I found this town, got inside planning to ask around, but I only found that the whole town had been run over by those monsters. And if she is really here, then..."

"It doesn´t look good."

"No, it doesn´t." he said. It seemed like getting those words out had taken some effort. "I just have to hope... But don´t worry, child. I help you get out of here. Just warn the Palace. Tell them I told you to do it, if you have to. Le..."

"I-I can´t go back."

"Listen." Alfred snapped. "I heard about your magical difficulties, and that´s a shame. More so that a child of your age has be kicked out of her own family, but get over yourself. This is our country we are talking about here. What do you think would happen if those monsters attacked without anybody expecting them? It would be bad. Hell, not only Tristania but Halkagenia as we know it is in danger. You have to go, and I have to find that little girl."

"Let me help you." she wouldn´t believe what she had said, but she said it. It was a solid idea, though. And, well, okay, earlier had be a scary experience but she had only got in danger because she allowed that monster to get close enough that she wouldn´t cast a spell without endangering herself... or worse. So this was going to be fine.

"What?"

"Just..." Just that it would be a great opportunity redeem herself, not only for her failure but also for having escaped the academy like that. But of course, she wouldn´t say that. "What do you think would happen if I went to tell the Palace? Nothing, they wouldn´t take me seriously. I am Valliere, yes, but I am just a child. You have to tell them, b-but going alone in this place would be dangerous. If you have an extra pairs of eyes and hands along for the ride, you have more chances of surviving and finding that girl, right?"

"But..."

"I can be useful. I may not have casted anything but an explosion in my life, but explosions would be useful in this situation, right? Even if its just to warn you of the approach of a monster, you should..."

"Alright, alright. I get it. You can come with me." Louise smiled. "Don´t. Just don´t. This is not the time to pat yourself on that back. But still, what you said is true. I don´t need you, don´t mistake me, but you would be helpful. So, here is the first lesson. Use magic only when you haven´t got any choice.

"Uh?"

"Explosions make too much noise, child. Use this." he raised one hand, and threw something at it. She hastily caught it in the air with both hands. A... some sort of bat made of steel, or something. "I cut this out of some contraction I found on this town. I planned to use it if I ever lost my wand, but, well, you can use it instead."

"I..." she had expected to fight those monsters at a safe distance, not this. If this went the way she wanted it to go, she would show her mother that she had some worth, get a post in the military and the marriage would be postponed again, but one thing was fighting for her country against other humans-something that her mother had prepared her for since birth- and another were... those things. Still, she nodded. She wouldn´t back down. "I understand."

"Good." he said. Louise stood up, and followed him to the doors of the inn. He grabbed the knob, turned it and pushed the door with his hand. It slowly creaked open. They stepped outside.

Author´s Notes

The monster that appears in this chapter in not a canon one, but of my own creation. None of the monsters will be taken from canon, since, well, it wouldn´t be a Silent Hill story otherwise.

Also, don´t expect me to update this twice a week again. Is just not feasible.