Book Of The Path

Disclaimer: I do not own the game that this fanfiction is written for, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Once again James's eyes fluttered open and he gasped his jaw aching from a thick cable that had been wedged into his mouth and buckled tightly at the back of his head. He had been gagged this time; a high cry of shock flew past the crude device as his eyes rolled about like a panicked horse’s. The room was new to him but the stench of burning grease and flesh was over powering and anything but. He could feel his stomach roil. James bit down into the cording letting his tongue slide over the material testing the contraption. He let out moan of dismay, it was old hardened leather. Lines of fire laced pain burned though his when he tried to sit up. Some one had taken the time to bind him to whatever the flat surface under him was.

“You struggle far too much, brother.” Walter’s voice was a low purr as he came into view. The long, blood-spattered jacket had been cast off showing the simple, slightly ill-fitting clothing he favored; a light dress shirt undone showing a white undershirt neither of which were tucked into his kaki pants. “And you speak far more then you struggle.” He tipped his head the green eyes misting with tears. “Can you not see how important you are to Mother?”

James arched and thrashed about hissing at the pain stopping only when he felt wet heat ooze over his wrists and ankles as muscle and skin parted. He had been nailed down. A low dismayed sound left him and he closed his eyes for a moment growing as still as he possibly could. The muffled slur that left his mouth then roughly resembled the word 'why'.

He shuddered when the man bent over him. “Why brother, is that what you wish to know?” Walter’s hair hung in such away that it hid his face the only clue to his emotional state was his voice. The tone itself was low and somber, one used for the more serious conversations a parent could give a child. “Brother, you see you are needed even if you have turned your back on her ways. For because of your spite, your faithless actions, you have shed the mantle of purity and instead sheath your soul in sin. You have become the Sinner.” Once again Walter’s hand found its way to James's cheek. “You are to be my Key, my Gate, my Portal, just as you were the vessel that birthed the beasts of Judgment.” He whispered those last words looking fearfully over his shoulder. “Your children are fearsome abominations brother.”

James swallowed. Silent Hill’s tainted Jesus was going to kill him just as he had every one else. Of all the things he had suffered it seemed oddly fitting that it would be Walter that killed him. He closed his eyes just waiting for the killing blow, dully he tried to recall what the name of the twelfth sacrament was. Slowly it clicked within his mind; Void. If he had not been nailed down like some prized butterfly he would have folded in half laughing. The irony was not lost on him and in a way it was poetic. His was empty and without meaning for so long he might as well have been a zombie just performing the actions of a normal human. Maybe if he died in this place he would be able to finally see his Mary and tell her finally that he was sorry, for all that he had done, or maybe he wouldn’t even have to do that. He imagined that she would understand and give him that knowing smile as she shook a finger at him telling him that he’d been a fool but that she loved him any way. Maybe they’d find their real special place again and he would forget all about the mockery of the gray and nightmare worlds.

“Yes brother let your fears go, close your eyes and ease your mind.” The other leaned closer blond tresses dusting over James face. They were soft even if it had been some time since the man had showered. Walter looked down upon the man his breath catching a little this was the one that was his brother, his opposite. The years, though hard on James scaring him deeply with sorrow, were oddly not aging him so harshly and he hoped the pain that he had to inflict did not alter that. “Brother I wish for the salvation of man, for the gates of paradise to open for those that have stayed true and have not embraced sin. In time I hope that you have learned to embrace her ways again so that you might know heaven once more.” Lovingly he caressed the baby smooth cheek of James. “In time you will have peace again.”

James wished the religious nut ball would shut up and just kill him already. After all didn’t Walter have other people to track down mutilate and eventually murder? He felt a hand slide behind his head easily undoing the binding, pulling the leather free. He couldn’t help the thankful sound that bubbled free of his throat before he closed his mouth cracking his jaw in the process. He licked at his dry lips and opened his eyes. His vision was filled with the intense gaze of Walter’s green stare.

“Say nothing brother.” Walter commanded placing a finger to James lips. “You have no more words for me now. Our paths will part until the preordained time.” He bowed his head. “If you still cling to sin then the door to paradise will never open for you.” The murderous tainted soul sighed giving him a mostly chaste kiss. “I will pray for your salvation brother.” Walter spread his hands wide a knife seemed to materialize within his right hand. “Forgive me mother for harming your son.” Walter let the blade trail over James’s cheek obscenely careful not to slice open the smooth skin. “Forgive me brother for taking the mother’s gift from you.” Once again his lips met James’s though this time it was to devour and silence the exquisite cry of anguish that erupted from the sinfully supple flesh. Walter moaned seeing his brothers face twist into a mask of agony. Oh to feel the touch of divine torment, the one tool of true redemption. His eyes wide enthralled by the sight the smell of his brother’s blood as it blossomed in lines of scarlet under his knife. Fingers joined the blade pocking prodding opening the skin coating the long digits in blood. He would need to take care not to lose himself too far in his passion. Under his loving strokes James writhed drawing scarlet rivers from his wrists and ankles. He had been so careful pinning the other down, the aesthetics would never be matched again. His brother on the alter of their mother giving his blood freely, no longer fighting only crying out in repenting pain. Soon he would have enough blood, soon the lines would be drawn so that he could finish what it was he had started what seemed like ages ago. “If I had ages to take for this one act I would Brother.” His green eyes took in the vision of tortured perfection under his knife. Bloody fingertips traced along the path of his tears leaving his skin stained bright red. "Close your eyes Beloved Brother and rest,” he whispered, his voice low, breathy, on the edge of his own twisted climax as defilement was his preferred form of intimacy. He pulled away from the sinner kneeling within the shallow puddle of blood that had pooled around the Altar.

James let out something like a sob. He was no stranger to pain but something about the slow almost loving way he had been mutilated burned like nothing else. He shuddered, feeling oddly hollow he’d lost far too much blood and his thoughts were starting to grow muddy. A slight smile twisted the corners of his lips, at least his life in the end was going to be useful to someone. He closed his eyes letting himself fall into the waiting oblivion.


* * *


James’s vision became filled with harsh white the moment he opened his eyes. He could feel a cool hand resting on his forehead. The touch was so tender and loving he knew that it could only belong to one person. He closed his eyes again with a soft peaceful sigh. He had to be finally in heaven or as close to it as he ever could be. “Mary,” he murmured to let her know that he could feel her and that he would move as soon as he woke fully.

“Mary is still dead my little Jamie.” The voice did not belong to his beloved wife. “How could you mutilate yourself so—so badly?” Arms far stronger then they looked wrapped around him and a silken cheek rested on his belly as his mother sobbed. “I should never have left you. I should never have let you go,” she growled tightening her grip. “That fool Versteckt is a lying bastard. He can’t keep you safe. Only I, your mother, can do that.”

The wounded man let out a weak and helpless sound as he lay still trying to understand what had happened. Just out of the corner of an eye he could see tubing for an I.V. and blood transfusion, and he shuddered. The run in with Walter had to have been real. Even if it should have been impossible, maybe the town they were in was still close enough to Silent Hill to some times suffer from its warped rules. He tried to curl in on himself, James could feel a fit of hysterical laughter trying to work its way up this throat and it took a lot of his will to hold it back.

“Don’t move so much Jamie, you’re hurt.” Mrs. Sunderland shifted brushing feathery blond locks away from her son’s face. Her icy blue eyes filled with worry and compassion. “Brother Versteckt isn’t telling me everything. And I’m not dumb enough to believe you did all the damage to yourself. It’s impossible for a person to crucify themselves.” Her eyes narrowed, frosting over as the tender petting changed the strokes grew heavy her manicured nails bit into his scalp. “Who would dare assume the right to gift you with divine pain?” All compassion evaporated from her tone. “Tell me my child was it another Sect? Or was it one of our most Holy Order?”

James snarled slapping her hand away feeling the I.V. slip a little. An oddly soothing cold rage uncoiled within him clearing his mind and vision. Hazel eyes shifted color turning a storm kissed slate as they dissected her body. He could see each surgically modified line and with that came the knowledge of how to ruin the expensive hours of crafting with a simple knife stroke. “The other Sects are gutless and would never do anything to get their lily white hands smeared in blood ever since the incident with the Saint and it wasn’t Versteckt either.”

She frowned, pulling away from her son, and crossed her arms over her chest to conceal a shiver of tainted delight. The young man on the bed glaring at her was the prefect image of his uncle Jimmy it was enough to give her hope for the boy and make her heart skip a beat. “Then who was it James?”

James let his head loll to one side as he watched her. His expression becoming unreadable “My Brother.”

“James all of the men within the Order are your brother.” She sighed a little growing almost impatient. “Please tell me who it was.”

James shook his head growling at her in frustration. “But mother I’ve told you, it was my Brother. He remembers you I think. He remembered dad.” James closed his eyes wondering if his mother was one of the sacraments he could only hope that she was. “He left a mark didn’t he numbers or something?” He felt the corners of his lips sink the carving had been too slow to delicate for a grouping of digits. “He needed my blood he said and he asked me to forgive him for taking the Mother’s gifts from me, I thought he was going to kill me I…had hoped he would.” He muttered the last part.

His mother recoiled as if she had been burned her eyes wide her expression wild. “Brother? That lowly fool would call himself your brother?” She stomped a foot her hands clenching at her sides. “Walter was a mistake; a useful one but a mistake. He is nothing more then an imposter, James you were to be the one to complete the twenty one Sacraments not the trash can baby of some unknown whore.”

James could feel the odd cold wrath within him stir and gnaw at its restraints once again. Ever since Mary had died, ever since his first trip back into the hellish town, the deepest rage had started grow nesting within his heart. If he wasn’t careful the world would bleed away into white nothingness and he would wake with blood on his hands and people around him hurt or worse. He didn’t understand it and he was horribly frightened by it. “Never speak ill of my Brother. He is as he is.” The words that came from him didn’t sound at all right or sane. “He is as you have made him.” Toneless, ageless, dusted in inhuman thought.

She coiled growing ready to strike out at her wayward child stopping only when an inexplicably strong almost feminine hand held her back pulling hard enough to leave marks on her milky skin. She whirled around with a well aimed punch only to find it caught in the person's other hand.

“You will refrain from lashing out at your child while he is in my care. He has suffered greatly,” Versteckt snapped not at all amused with what he was seeing. “James is in a fragile state one that had him far closer to death then any of us are comfortable with.” The doctor let go of her hand quickly and wiped his own off on his lab coat. “If he falls back into the state of shock in which we found him it is unlikely he will recover and may indeed suffer death.” His dark brows knitted almost completely together. “And we do not want that correct?”

The woman stepped back smoothing out her dress. “Yes, you are right I should have thought before I acted. I did not think that his injuries were so—critical.”

James closed his eyes counting to ten while listening to the two of them chatter back and forth about his condition to each other but not once did they say anything to him. “You mind telling me what’s going on with me?”

“It’s nothing Mr—James.” Versteckt sighed waving a hand. “I do not want to make you worry and cause you any more undue stress. You have been injured, just as you were recovering from the first set of wounds.” He tipped his head to the side his neck cracking. “We had discovered you missing three days ago when we were doing bed checks. After that we ripped apart the entire building seeking you out.” He paused pushing his glasses up his nose with his middle finger as always. “We found you less then a day ago and your mother has been highly distressed by your absence. Though how it was that you ended up in the abandoned left wing no one knows. Well maybe no one but you. However at the time you were unable to answer any questions.” The odd obsidian and ash eyes regarded James with curiosity. “Perhaps you can tell us now what happened to you?”