Tartaglia’s Heel-Haunted Hall
Tartaglia clutched the glowing flashlight, its beam trembling in his grip as the bathroom door locked him in, his heart pounding in the dark with the dread of a cornered prey.
Trapped in Silent Hill's ghostly snare, the confirmed presence of spirits in this cramped, filthy room sent a shiver through even a Fatui Harbinger's battle-hardened nerves.
If he'd had a blade or his Hydro Vision, he'd have faced this terror head-on, but stripped of power, his usual bravado shrank to a flicker, leaving him grasping for courage.
He swept the flashlight across the space, its light revealing a grimy sink, a stained toilet, and a bathtub propped against a wall pocked with a hole where cockroaches scurried in and out.
The mirror above the sink hung half-obscured by filth, reflecting only the lower edges of his jacket, while in the basin writhed a grotesque, shark-headed embryo that chilled his blood.
Its cries mimicked a human infant's, a haunting wail that jolted his memory—the radio's tale of a murdered wife, pregnant when her husband's bullet found her, now tied to this cursed thing.
"I can't believe it—this has to be her unborn kid!" he gasped, his voice echoing the crowd's stunned cries of "Ghost baby!" and "Poor thing, dead before it lived!" their horror amplifying his own.
The embryo's wails grew sharper under the flashlight's glare, and as if summoned, the bathroom door creaked, its knob rattling like an unseen hand was twisting it from beyond.
Tartaglia's pulse spiked, his mind racing—had the baby's cries called its mother, the vengeful Lisa, back to finish what her last scream had started?
He flattened against the wall, flashlight trained on the door, the air warping with a static hiss that pressed down on him, his heart thumping louder with every shuddering breath.
This wasn't fair—he'd only shone the light on it, not kicked it, so why was this ghost family ganging up on him like he'd wronged them personally?
Yet the door didn't burst open with a snarling specter; the embryo's cries faded, the rattling ceased, and the door eased ajar, silence settling like dust after a storm.
Tartaglia blinked, bewildered, muttering, "That's it? Just like that?" his relief tinged with suspicion that the quiet was a lure for something worse.
He pictured Lisa crouched outside, ready to pounce the moment he stepped through, her hollow eye glinting—but the game demanded he move, and this room offered no other exit.
With cautious steps, he nudged the door wider, peering right into the corridor, finding only the chandelier's faint sway and an open path to the next cycle, no ghost in sight.
He glanced back from the corner, the hall still empty, and scratched his head, grumbling, "What's this ghost playing at? One minute she's screaming, now she's gone?"
The lack of answers gnawed at him, but he shrugged it off—standing around wouldn't solve it—and strode into the seventh cycle, flashlight in hand, ready for whatever came next.
This corridor greeted him with a single lit bulb, the rest shrouded in dark, though his newfound light pierced the gloom, a small comfort against the unknown ahead.
He passed the clock—still stuck at 23:59, either broken or trapped in this house's timeless nightmare—and rounded the corner to hear the radio crackle back to life.
The bathroom door yawned open again, the far exit beckoned with light, but Tartaglia's nerves, frayed from past loops, refused to let him charge through blindly this time.
Each cycle grew deadlier, he knew, and his warrior's instincts—sharp in battle but dull for riddles—struggled to untangle the game's twisted hints under this relentless strain.
The radio might spill new secrets, or the bathroom could hide another trap, but his rattled mind, teetering on the edge of reason, couldn't pick a path with confidence.
Stumped, he opted to scout the corridor's end first, his boots echoing in the quiet—until a second rhythm joined them, a crisp, deliberate click-clack of high heels trailing behind.
His blood ran cold, every hair on his neck prickling as experience screamed the truth—those weren't his steps, but a woman's, a ghost's, stalking him in this dim, forsaken hall.
He froze mid-stride, dread locking his legs, the realization crashing over him like icy water: Lisa, or something worse, was right behind him, her heels a countdown to his doom.
No turning, no running—just the sound, closing in, and Tartaglia, the fearless Harbinger, felt a whimper rise in his throat, his bravado drowned by the terror of the unseen.
Liam leaned on the counter, his system purring as it drank deep from Tartaglia's spiraling panic, each heartbeat a pulse of raw emotion feeding his growing reserves.
The crowd hushed, their eyes wide, some clutching each other as the heel-clicks echoed through the headset, their own pulses racing with the Harbinger's plight.
This wasn't a fight Tartaglia could win with fists or flair—it was a slow, suffocating chase, and those heels promised a reckoning he couldn't outrun.
The bathroom's trap had been bait; now the corridor was the snare, and Tartaglia stood caught, a warrior undone by a sound that turned his swagger to shivers.
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