Metal Thunder (Karl Heisenberg - Resident Evil)

Chapter 3 - Four Lords

"This young woman was in the church you say? Well, she's no use to any of you, and my daughters would love to have someone to play with. Furthermore, I strongly advise you entrust this strange foreigner to House Dimitrescu."

The lady's voice sounded so graceful and noble and it was the first thing her ears picked up as she regained consciousness. As she opened her eyes, her vision was blurred but slowly clearing, and directly in front of her was a porcelain doll the same height as a toddler, donned in a wedding dress, moving all by itself and humming a song. It came closer as her vision cleared and poked at her nose with a tiny finger. How could a doll just move by itself? Was it possessed?

Emily was too stunned to react, and then to her right, another creature came, moaning and mumbling with a hugely swollen face and lips and a crown of bones on its head. Its whole body was round and deformed, covered by a cloak, like an androgynous hunchback like Quasimodo and the citizens from The Shadow over Innsmouth, one of her favourite Lovecraft stories. Behind the duo, Emily heard the same woman's voice from earlier making her statement and someone else whose voice she recognized was trying to contradict, but simultaneously, Emily could barely hear it with the doll and hunchback looking over her being noisy and intrusive.

"Move over ugly! I wanna see!" the doll squeaked in a voice so high like a pack of rats trying to push the deformed creature away, but the latter persisted whimpering in a deep male voice that was barely legible,

"No...no.... you get out of my way!"

By now Emily saw clearly everything around her, the doll and hunchback fighting, and behind them she glimpsed the hammer man on her right from earlier who found her in the church, sitting cross-legged on a bench with his hammer in one hand and a cigar in the other. He was speaking towards an unusually tall woman to the left. She seemed like a very noble lady, sitting in a large chair and wearing a long ivory dress with a wide-brimmed ebony hat, black rose brooch, pale skin and enormous bosom. She was smoking a cigarette on a long stick.

Then Emily looked down and realized her hands were bound and her purse was missing, she gazed fearfully at her surroundings and the situation, eyes widening in shock at her as she tried to look past the doll and hunchback   "Where.... am I... another church? What is this.... where is my bag...?" she asked over the chatter glancing everywhere,

Her voice caught the attention of the doll who got giddy with excitement turning to face the others while jumping and laughing enthusiastically,

"SHE'S AWAKE! SHE'S AWAAAKKEEE!!"

The hunchback creature moaned in protest,

"BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" the hammer man bellowed, Emily fell silent almost involuntarily even if the command was not directed at her, breathe, don't let them know, she thought even though she could feel her inner anxiety starting to manifest.

The doll retreated to the far side of the chapel-like room and came to another woman seated in a black dress with her face obscured by an opaque veil.

She took the doll in her arms like a baby and placed it on her lap while the hunchback wobbled to the altar towards another figure on an elevated platform. This figure was covered in black crow feathers with a golden beak mask making her look almost as inhuman as the hunchback. Were all these beings the same as the portraits from the altar before the attack? Emily turned her focus back to the hammer man and the tall lady who were on the brink of quarrels.

"Wait, Dimitrescu, you mean you want to screw around with her in private?! Where's the fun in that? Give her to me, and I'll put on a show that everyone can enjoy," the hammer man demanded,

The tall lady Dimitrescu scoffed, "Oh... tsk tsk, so gauche, come now, what do we care for bread and circuses? The woman's suffering is assured regardless,"