Disclaimer: I don't own either Transformers or Silent Hill.
A/N: This one has more events from Silent Hill than the previous stories. Like always, tell me what you guys think and any mistakes you find. I'll fix them as soon as possible.
Italics- dreams/Alessa singing
Silent Hill: Search for Home
And in the end it was Beachcomber who surprised them all.
"We're not supposed to be here." - He said one day to no one in particular. - "She doesn't wants us here"
"The girl?" - Perceptor asked and Beachcomber nodded.
"Alessa." - He whispered, almost as if the name was forbidden. - "I dream of her. A child of flames and nightmares. She suffered so much that she got trapped in the nightmare too."
"What are you talking about?" - Hound asked, a scowl on his face.
"She gives us dreams to know more of us. She's just curious." - Beachcomber continued saying, completely oblivious to Hound's words. - "But she can't end her nightmare for us, so we are bound to suffer along with the ones that deserve the punishment."
Beachcomber blinked and shook his head. - "Maybe if I find her I can convince her to end the nightmare for us. Just for us."
He had stood then. Blue hair now long and held back in a ponytail. Once white clothes now stained with the ashes that covered everything else and their own blood. Without a word, he just ran outside into the fog… While the other side of Silent Hill was active.
"Hush-a-bye baby, on the tree top,
When the wind blows, the cradle will rock;
When the bough breaks, the cradle will fall.
And down will come baby, cradle, and all."
He was back at the Ark. They were all smiling and laughing and frankly, Beachcomber had never been so happy. He'd done it! He freed them from that horrible place!
"Hey, 'Comber! Who's the little girl?" - Powerglide asked curiously.
"Girl? What girl?" - He asked the flier, who seemed to be about to reply when Bluestreak's voice came from behind him.
"Can't you see her? She's burning."
Beachcomber turned quickly, gasping at the sight of the one he'd seen die. Bluestreak stood there calmly, a large gaping hole on his head. Bubbling blood coming out of the fatal injury.
There was the laughter of a child and Beachcomber opened his eyes.
He recognized the place as the place they first woke up as humans in this town. He had very little recollection of how he got there. He knew he couldn't go back to the others. There was something out there trying to reach him and he knew that was their ticket out of there. And the key to everything was the girl… Alessa… Perceptor might skin him alive for making him worry, but he couldn't control himself.
The geologist, raked his dirty blue hair while trying to think of some sort of plan now that he decided he couldn't go back to Neely's Bar. His stomach clenched in hunger pains and he decided to search for something to eat first.
The blue haired man stumbled out of the building, eyes squinting as he tried to make out what was ahead of him. If memory served him right, there was a gas station nearby. If he was lucky he would find something to eat. If he was very lucky, whatever he ate could still be recognized as food. By force of habit, he searched his pockets as he walked. He'd forgotten to bring his radio and he had no weapons in hand. Beachcomber's empty stomach lurched unhappily at the thought of killing.
His pockets weren't completely empty and he frowned as he took the folded piece of paper out. He unfolded it with care, heart beating erratically as the child-like drawing of a school was soon displayed for his eyes to see.
"Midwich Elementary School" - The picture read and Beachcomber tried to remember where that place was.
'Must be on the side of town we haven't gone to.' - He thought unhappily.
For although they had been on Silent Hill for quite a while, they weren't prone to leave the small piece of town they had secured for themselves. Actually, the only one of them to ever venture that far was Hound. That one time he disappeared to kill the pyramid headed man that killed Sunny.
He looked at the drawing again, thinking that maybe he should return and ask Percy for forgiveness when a small shadow ran past him. He turned quickly and was only able to catch the glimpse of a child turning left at the corner.
'A child? Here? They're going to kill her!'
Alarmed at the idea of a kid running around the town completely defenseless, Beachcomber ran after her.
"Hey! Wait up!" - He cried to the kid, but she was always one step before him.
"Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum!
I smell the blood of an Englishman.
Be he 'live, or be he dead,
I'll grind his bones to make my bread."
"Who are you?' - He asked to the girl that was playing on the swings.
"I am… Whoever you want me to be?" - She replied, cocking his head to look at him.
Beachcomber shuddered under her emotionless stare.
"Now, who are you?" - She asked him.
"I'm Beachcomber." - He replied, pushing the girl to help her reach higher.
He was rewarded with a happy giggle for his efforts and they spent a while in contented silence. Until the girl halted the swing and hanged her head, long black hair obscuring her face as she spoke sadly. - "You shouldn't be here. For that I am sorry."
"What do you mean?" - He asked her confused.
"This dream is one of pain and sadness." - She said. - "Are you willing to know the truth? How far can an innocent angel fall and still be allowed to enter the gates of Heaven?"
She turned her face to him, hair parting like a curtain and Beachcomber felt fear. She looked old and young at the same time. A face full of hatred and the mockery of a smile.
"Will you watch me burn?" - And before his eyes, the girl was engulfed in flames.
He woke up with a start, heart beating furiously and the smell of burned flesh still in the air. Making him gag when he gasped for breath.
'Just a dream. Nothing more.' - He thought, trying to calm himself.
Eyes darting around him in search of the little girl. Knowing as he knew his rocks that nothing in this dream was just a nightmare. Wishing that the others were there with him to help him calm down. To make him feel safe.
But that was the problem, right? They were not safe here. That's why he was out here looking for the way out.
The alarm rang in the night air and Beachcomber's heart stopped as a chill went down his spine. He looked around his shelter for the night.
He'd run as far as the Lakeview Hotel when he'd lost sight of the girl and he'd taken one of the rooms there. Room 312 was as ordinary as any other hotel room he'd seen before on the television shows they used to watch back home. There were no obvious weapons that he could see and he ransacked the transforming room for something to defend himself.
He didn't pay the changing world around him any attention. He could feel the loud beating of his all too human heart and he cried in victory as his hands found the hilt of a gun. Pulling it out just in time to see the last changes of the room he'd been staying.
Dirty walls covered in grime and blood with peeling wallpaper. A bed in disarray with fresh blood on the sheets and a knife that hadn't been there before lying in the middle of the pool of blood.
"Why? Why did you do it?" - Came the sobbing cries of a woman as a bloodied hand came out from the bed.
Beachcomber stumbled back until his back met the dirty wall, eyes glued to the form coming out from the bed. He couldn't lose sight of it or else it would kill him. The hand with the gun pointed at the figure as he prayed to Primus that the thing had bullets. His free hand touching the wall, searching for the door.
"Why, James? Why did you killed me?" - The creature with a woman's voice cried again as Beachcomber grasped the door handle and twisted it. Putting all of his weight on the floor to open it faster. Running as fast as he could out of the place.
He ran down the hallway, looking for the exit when his eyes widened and he stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him, blocking his way out and slumbering towards him was what only could be described as a walking bed. The creature's small legs made it wobble comically towards him. There was movement on top of the 'bed' creature. A horrifying parody of what he'd only seen human couples do only once on tv. Blaster had found it while messing with the channels and Spike had been embarrassed for days after that.
The creature was approaching and Beachcomber took a step back. The thing was big. Too big for his handgun to be of any use.
"JAMES!" - The woman's voice screeched and Beachcomber glanced behind him and his heart stopped beating.
There was a window right behind him and calmly looking at the world outside was the girl he's been running after all this time.
Beachcomber ran towards her in time to see her turn around. The child opened her arms and Beachcomber rushed to take her in his arms. He was running too fast and she disappeared right as he was going to touch her. Momentum took him out the window and Beachcomber fell down from the third floor.
"Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater,
Had a wife and couldn't keep her;
He put her in a pumpkin shell
and there he kept her very well."
"Figures you would fall asleep in a place like this." - A voice he recognized as Sunstreaker made him open his eyes.
The golden warrior stood over him, arms crossed over his chassis. - "Sunny? I thought you…"
The once familiar angry scowl silenced the geologist. - "It's Sunstreaker, dirt lover." - He said while offering his hand to help Beachcomber up.
That his hand was very much human, but still the same size as the Cybertronian form of the frontline warrior went unnoticed by him. Instead, his eyes focused on the crude and badly welded scar that crossed the warriors body, dividing it in two.
"Stop staring." - The Lamborghini told him.
"But you…" - He said pointing at the half-done patch job. If he looked closely, he could see the internals of the warrior. But he soon had to look away, as every time he focused on them, they would turn organic and blood will start flowing out of the wounds.
"Don't you understand Comber." - Sunstreaker said, voice haunted and filled with pain. - "We can't get out now."
"No! There has to be a way out. I know it! I just have to know what happened to her. Once I do, I'll tell Percy and he'll figure out a way out." - He cried out.
"Do you know what it does to you, Comber? When you're hated, picked on, spit on, just cause of what they think you are. They've darkened the heart of an innocent and now we must cower in the face of Alessa's revenge." - The golden warrior spat out, silencing Beachcomber.
"You know her!" - He whispered in awe.
"A nightmare within a nightmare. That's all we become." - Sunstreaker continued as if he hadn't heard anything. Spreading his arms wide, optics turned towards the heavens above. - "Her thirst for vengeance will never be sated. And us will forever wander claiming for vengeance."
Beachcomber couldn't hold his food down as Sunstreaker's crude repairs fell apart and his now organic body split in half. The warrior's body strewn all over the streets of Silent Hill for a second time.
He opened his eyes and felt the bile rise up on throat. Beachcomber turned to the side, ignoring the pain in his body, just in time to puke. He gagged, dry heaving when there was nothing left for him to lose, cleaning his mouth with his dirty shirt. Everything hurt and he looked up, eyes locating the window he fell from.
The feeling that he had to get away and find that school was overpowering. There were questions that needed to be answered in that hotel, but he was sure they had nothing to do with Alessa.
"Good boy!" - The wind seemed to whisper. - "Now come"
The blue-haired man, got up slowly. Wincing at the movement, fresh cuts making themselves known by stinging. He knew there would be a nasty bruise form his fall. He could imagine Perceptor throwing a fit worthy of Ratchet if the scientist could see him now.
Taking a deep breath and making sure he had the handgun with him, Beachcomber started walking through the fog. The ashes covering his tracks as he walked along towards the oldest part of the town. It was a good thing that he didn't had anything to keep track of the time with him. He had no idea how long it had been for him, but so far it had been an uneventful walk, since leaving that hotel.
He grasped the steel pipe he'd found on the way, handgun safely tucked on his belt. Beachcomber entered the abandoned school slowly. His head still ached from his meeting with the asphalt, but there was nothing he could do about it right now.
After a rather stupid search in the principal's office for documents on Alessa that revealed absolutely nothing. Beachcomber was rewarded by finding the keys to what appeared where all the rooms in the school, a flashlight and another folded drawing. They were all inside the desk drawer.
He studied the drawing. This time of an empty school chair with crows circling around it and the word 'Witch' taking at least half of the page. The geologist frowned and the girl ran past the door.
"Hey! Alessa! Wait!" - He ran after her.
She was faster than him, turning right and into another room. Beachcomber followed, hoping she finally ran into a dead end, but he encountered nothing...
The classroom was empty and there was no way out. Warily, the blue-haired guy searched the room for the girl. The place was covered in a thick layer of ashes and dust, except…
Except the two hand prints on top of one of the chairs.
Beachcomber looked at the hand prints curiously before wiping the dust from the chair. He gasped at the sight of word that was engraved on the chair. Like the drawing he had looked on earlier, 'Witch'.
He was about to see if there were books or something that could be useful to him, when a woman's voice stopped him.
"Don't! They are my daughter's. You can't touch them!"
He whirled, staring in shock at the woman that ran into the room and pushed him away from the chair.
"Too many have tainted her. I won't let you taint her again." - She said, wiping the chair with her filthy rags.
"You… You're real!" - He cried in shock and the woman stopped her fussing to stare at him.
"Many have I seen come and go through the town. But this is the first time I've seen someone loose their mind so quickly." - She said, approaching him.
"We've been trapped here a long time and you're the first human I've seen so far." - He said defensively and she laughed.
"No one lives long outside the walls of that damned Church." - She cackled with a hint of insanity in her voice. - "No one but me."
"And what makes you so special?" - He asked, the throbbing on his head making him loose his temper faster than normal.
"Because I'm her mother. And mother is God in the eyes of a child." - She replied circling him, like a vulture.
Beachcomber studied her in turn. This was the first time he'd seen a human woman while being human himself. What little he remembered about human aesthetics told him she had been a beautiful woman once. Her light green eyes were large and he guessed the word was alluring. She was the definition of the color grey, pale and thin. Her wild hair was the same color as the ashes that fell on the town and so were the rags on what had been once a gown. Beachcomber had the suspicion that she was grey because she had not bathed in so long, the ashes had become a part of her.
"Her mother?" - He finally asked. - "Alessa's?"
Her eyes widened. - "How do you know that name?"
"I… I dreamed it." - He said. - "I dream of her."
The woman suddenly clung to him, long fingernails scratching his face as she pulled him down to look into his eyes with those green eyes of hers. So close he could feel her breath on him. She smelled of ashes and fire.
As suddenly as she grabbed him, she let him go.
"A game of cat and mouse she's playing. But the clues are not meant for you."
"If they're not, then why would she send them to me?"
"Because the dark one is curious." - She said. - "She wants to know something only you can tell her. Becareful what you say when you are in her presence."
"What do you mean?"
"I was supposed to protect her." - She whispered, hugging herself. - "I failed… I failed so badly. He touched her and tainted her. All I wanted was to purify her. Make her innocent again."
There was something behind her words that shook Beachcomber to the core. Images of a child covered in flames coming back to him from the recesses of his mind. - "What did you do?"
"I gave her to the devil. She convinced me that was the only way to cleanse her. But fire doesn't cleanse, it blackens and into the fire she swallowed their hate." - She looked at him, green eyes glittering with unshed tears. - "I came to rescue her too late. Oh, my poor child! What had they done to you!"
Beachcomber was torn between demanding more answers or trying to comfort the grieving mad woman. But she didn't give him time to act. She looked back towards the entrance of the classroom and hissed.
"They are coming. Leave before they taint you with their faith." - She told him, ushering to go down the window.
He really didn't want to go out that way, but there were heavy footsteps coming his way. - "Who are they?"
"They are the Order. They are the faith. Leave."
"Leave where?" - He asked and she gave him a sad smile. He noticed that she was still beautiful underneath all that filth.
"Brookhaven Hospital." - She told him. - "My little lost child is in the bowels of the Brookhaven Hospital."
The geologist looked at the window and at the door. His body still ached from the first fall and the last thing he needed was to add more injuries for Perceptor to treat. Specially since he needed to enter a hospital to find the answers and the way out of this place. He took a deep breath and ran into the hallway, pushing and hitting with his steel pipe the men dressed as miners and making his way to the hospital without looking back.
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take."
Making his way down the hospital had been a nightmare. The nurses were more bloodthirsty and there were hordes of them. Their scalpels brushing centimeters from his skin. And he knew that, should they cut him, they would zero in on his location like sharks at the smell of blood.
The flashlight was useless too. The creatures were attracted to the light and he'd lost it after trying to fool them into following the light instead of him. But he made his way to the basement and finally opened the door to encounter the child that had all the answers he needed to find a way out of Silent Hill.
A bright light engulfed him, blinding him. Surrounding him in whiteness.
"You're here! You made it. Your reward is the truth." - The little girl said as she approached him.
The sense of wrongness coming off of her made him step back. - "Alessa?" - He asked.
She stopped, cocking her head to one side. Her unruly hair covering half of her wrinkled face. - "I have had many names over the years. Right now, I am the dark part of Alessa."
"I thought…"
"That a way out would be provided? But Beachcomber, you hardly know the truth at all." - She said with that mockery of innocence that made his empty stomach churn.
"I know you got hurt. That your mother and other people hurt you." - He said, taking a step forward towards the little girl with hatred-filled eyes.
The girl stepped back, the white light fading until the dirty walls of the hospital basement were visible. And in the middle of the basement there was a bed, covered with some tarp that Beachcomber had no idea of its purpose. There was a weeping nurse, human, who moved about the room always with her back to him.
The girl looked at something inside the tarp, before turning to look at him, as if encouraging to take a look at what was on the bed. - "They hurt her so badly. And she was so young back then, all she could feel was fear."
He approached the bed cautiously, taking a look at the figure inside… The burned covered human woman that was laying on the bed. Eyes full of pain…
"Do you know that when you're hurt and scared for so long, the fear and pain turn to hate and the hate starts to change the world." - The girl singsonged as she now stood behind him.
"Who is she?"
"That is what remains of Alessa." - She said. - "I offered her vengeance and she accepted. To you I will offer you one wish if you would take me in."
He turned to look at the girl, who smirked in a way that would've made Megatron proud. - "All I want is to go home with my friends."
"That's quite easy to do." - She said, stepping closer. - "I can help you, if only you take me with you."
"But Alessa…" - He said pointing to the girl on the bed.
"She will have her revenge." - She spat. - "We will have our satisfaction with their blood. But it is not yet the time and you are not the one to give it to us."
"We can't wait!' - He cried out. - "We're dying!"
The girl regarded him silently. - "There is one that can find the way out. You know who he is, the innocent one."
"Perceptor"
She nodded. - "He reminds us of what Alessa used to be. Does he like the violin Alessa left for him? I made that song just for him, you know."
"What have you done to him?"
"We just want to protect him from the evils of the world. To prevent what happened to Alessa from ever happening to him."
Beachcomber licked his dry lips, tasting the blood and ashes that stuck to him like they stuck to the woman back at the school. - "Can you really take us back home?"
"All dreams come to an end, Beachcomber. And soon the dream of this life must end and so too must the dreamers within it." - She looked at the tarp covered bed with something akin to sadness. - "For over thirty years the Order have lied to their own souls. For over thirty years they've denied their own fate. But soon it will be the end of days and I will be the reaper."
The girl twirled happily. - "And I will create a new dream for your friends. One your dearest innocent friend will shape to his liking. And I will be a part of him like I am now a part of Alessa."
He knew he should say no. He knew he should try to escape and run back to his friends. Take that violin he gave Perceptor and tear it apart with his own blistered hands. But…
It was a way out of this place. And Percy couldn't have so much hatred inside of him. Maybe he could dream a peaceful land with nothing bad on it. That would be nice.
The girl smirked at him, as if reading his thoughts and finding them ridiculous. As if there was nothing more to life than death and blood and fire. But he was too lost in the thought of a new peaceful Cybertron.
"Alright. What do I have to do?"
She smiled and said. - "The longer he plays my song, the more I will become a part of him. Just stay here with me and guide him. I am too busy pulling the strings for the final showdown. I will tell you what he needs to do to get out of here."
Beachcomber took a seat beside the weeping nurse. Her face still covered from him. - "Alright. Just tell me what to do."
And he prayed… He prayed so badly to a deity that did not exist in this world that Perceptor could ever forgive him. Because deep down he couldn't shake the feeling that he made a big mistake. While the girl began twirling around happily and singing.
"Ring around the rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down!"
Children songs used: Hush-a-bye Baby, Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!, Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater!, Now I lay me down to sleep, Ring around the rosie
Room 312: Important room in Silent Hill 2. This is where the main character finally realizes he's guilty of killing the woman he loved. Felt like putting it there to show that Silent Hill is a place where those killed are trapped until they are avenged.
And now, the quotes:
Eddie Dombrowski: "Do you know what it does to you, James? When you're hated, picked on, spit on, just cause of the way you look."
Rose: "Because you're her mother. Mother is God in the eyes of a child."
Dahlia Gillespie: "Fire doesn't cleanse, it blackens!"
Dahlia Gillespie: "Into the fire, she swallowed their hate."
Rose: "You've darkened the heart of an innocent and now you cower in the face of Alessa's revenge."
Dark Alessa: "When you're hurt and scared for so long, the fear and pain turn to hate and the hate starts to change the world."
Dark Alessa: "You're here! You made it. Your reward is the truth."
Dark Alessa: "I have many names. Right now, I am the dark part of Alessa."
Dark Alessa: Now the dream of this life must end and so too must the dreamers within it. For over 30 years they've lied to their own souls. For 30 years they've denied their own fate. But now is the end of days, and I am the reaper.
I think I got them all…