Dark Descent

Disclaimer: Konami owns Silent Hill.

 

Chapter 13: An Old Friend

Exploring Silent Hill

 

The fog hung heavily in the air, creating a thick blanket of white that covered the area almost completely. It was almost like a thick mixture, palpable in its texture. She could barely see where she was going, as it took her eyes some time to adjust to the fog, but the major structures still managed to rise above the fog, imbuing her with some sense of what the town was like and a perspective of where in its boundaries she was. It was dirty and decayed, but intact. The parking lot of the motel was not particularly interesting, but beyond it there were definitely more telling sites to behold.

Alessa looked around the town, noting the conditions of the buildings and their familiarity to her. This place hadn’t changed at all. The buildings were dirty and decayed, the paint was peeling off, and some of them had developed rust in the edges of their metal siding, but that was about it. It was astounding how little the town had changed over the years since she’d been gone. She was expecting to come here finding it devastated and crumbled, but instead it was only a little dirty. The Order had taken good care of it, although they had abandoned Vale to rot. Apparently, in this case, taking care of it meant leaving it alone rather than razing it into the ground, as some of them had wanted to do.

She passed by a brush filled area laden with stone that stood out dramatically in the area compared to the drab buildings. Alessa recognized it instantly: Rosewater Park. Her mother had had some fun with her dad here, and she told Alessa some of the details. She didn’t tell her every last detail in painful specifics, but they had some mischievous, unapproved fun in here once and when they were after hours, when nobody was around. Alessa was surprised at how bold her mother was, although she hadn’t really changed that much in the years since. She smiled; she was curious to see where her parents had apparently had some special times together. The area was beautiful too, so it wasn’t a total loss of time. She decided to go past the gates.

She walked through the park, taking some time to calm herself and her soul from the terrible experiences she had endured. It might have seemed odd to some, given that she needed to go to the hospital after Leonard. But she was building up a sense of calm, before diving in. She knew that once she stepped back out there, there was no turning back. Alessa looked around, taking in all the beautiful details of the shrubs and the flowers planted in the miniature gardens. It was amazing that such a beautiful place existed in a place this wretched. She took a few moments to bask in the peacefulness, taking in the atmosphere. There was another reason she was hesitating. This was her home, once. And though it was maligned and corrupted by the Order, it was still within her nature to take in the atmosphere and how much things had changed, or not, in either case.

She could feel them watching her, watching her every move. The spirits of the town were numerous beyond measurement, and they did not let anything go unobserved in this place. Alessa was a little unnerved, but not enough to pack up and go home. She had a mission to do, and she had to carry it out.

This place was once a peaceful, pleasant environment; it was considered a sacred place, once. In a way, the park was the last remnant of that once prosperous town. It saddened Alessa, to know the peacefulness of the town had been corrupted over the years, both by the gods and the humans’ own dark actions. She could still sense the peacefulness in the town’s aura, but there was definitely a dark undercurrent running underneath. It was permanent, immovable and there was nothing that could be done to remove it. It was simmering under the surface, waiting to explode at the first sign of something being ready.

Still, as long as she didn’t probe too deep, it was okay. The surface itself was beautiful, and projected a very peaceful sense despite what Alessa was sensing. She wished she could stay here all day, soaking up the calming atmosphere, but she had to get going.

She passed the gas station. Texxon was a much smaller rival of the major company; she had always found it weird that they chose such a similar name, but at least there were no “ingenious” names like Exaco or something, for the other stations around here. She spotted something sticking out of a newspaper receptacle. Picking it up, she realized that it was a book.

She looked excitedly over the careworn artifact. Hmm, she already saw that it was no ordinary book of the sorts available in a gas station around here. The book was old, worn from use, and was covered with an aged leather jacket that had been dyed green at some point. The title read “Lost Memories”, and was printed in delicate gold letters on the cover. Alessa thumbed through the pages, turning to one particular section that seemed to be divided into two sections, as if someone had been reading through them recently.

The name comes from the legend

of the people whose land was

stolen from them.

They called this place "The Place

of the Silent Spirits." By "Spirits,"

they meant not only their dead

relatives, but also the spirits that

they believed inhabited the trees,

rocks and water around them.

According to legend, this was

where the holiest ceremonies

took place.

But it was not the ancestors of

those who now live in this town

that first stole the land from these

people. There were others who

came before.

In those days, this town went by

another name. But that name is

now hopelessly lost in the veils

of times.

All we know is that there was

another name, and that for some

reason the town was once

abandoned by its residents.

Alessa was familiar with all that. She had learned intimately the details of the first settlements in the town from her real mother, who had made sure to drill the religious order’s facts into her, as well as the history lessons she had gotten, from the local library. The first settlers had found, came and stolen the land from the local Indians, or Native Americans, who lived in the area originally. They had figured they had gotten some free land, but they were in for a nasty shock. As a result, the gods imposed a plague on them and the town was abandoned. The plague devastated the area and the town began to manifest the dark thoughts of the people there. Later on it happened again, with another band of settlers not respecting the town’s traditions, and another plague being unleashed. The town’s history society recorded the plague, but did not state that it was a result of the gods’ anger. They didn’t know. And so it remained, with the reason for the previous settlement’s abandonment being proclaimed a mystery. Alessa knew there was no mystery. The town had turned against those who had usurped it and destroyed them, turning its anger on them. The town was already chaotic on its own. When guided by the sentient minds of those who could control it, it became a death trap for anyone who was there. People disappeared, ominous ailments spread, and fear took hold over the townspeople. A part of Alessa wished those settlers had never set foot in this place, since that would have avoided all of this, but one couldn’t go back and change the past. You could only deal with the future, and that meant dealing with the problems in the here and now.

Thankfully, the town had enacted peace for much of the time after that. But then the Order changed and had become corrupt. It had morphed from a peaceful religious order into a group bordering on the demonic, using the town’s powers against people they didn’t like in ways they didn’t fully understand. And that led them to their present situation.

There was nothing Alessa could do to change the town’s past, or remove the corruption presently plaguing it. But she could ensure that Claudia and the others like her didn’t hurt anyone else ever again.

The gas station was relatively uninteresting, and empty, so she moved on. The only thing of note was an old rusted car, abandoned in the middle of pumping gas, and it was obvious by the rust on its surface that she couldn’t use it, to get around or face down some of the monsters.

She came to a building with a sign in the shape of a bowling pin looming over her, with the name displayed prominently on the sign: it was titled Pete’s Bowl-a-Rama. Alessa loved bowling, and she was actually a very capable player, but she didn’t have time to play. She would have liked to go in and play a few frames, but she wasn’t here for that, and in her current emotional state that wasn’t a priority. She frowned a bit, in disappointment. She really wanted to see what was in there. This place had a habit of leaving ammo and things in the oddest places. But it was locked and there was no getting in there. Alessa smiled. She might have looked incapable with her slim build and short height, but she could probably outbowl a big, burly guy like Douglas easily in two minutes, no problem.

There was a mural of a bowler painted on the wall surrounding the bowling alley. It looked like it had been done by a kid, although it was very skillfully done. Alessa smiled: even in this very wretched town, there were still kids with spirit, and that was very encouraging.

Suddenly, a noise in the distance caught her attention. The sounds of growling and feet pattering rumbled in the mist shrouding the streets, alerting her to the presence of creatures in the fog. “Here they come,” Alessa said tiredly. It had taken a while for the town to react to her presence, but now they were starting to come after her. She had expected it, though she rather hoped the town would at least cut her a break for a little while.

She waited patiently until the steps drew closer to her. When they were at their closest, she spotted a bandaged dog emerging out of the fog and Alessa instantly sidestepped it. She shot at the dog as it leaped past her, downing it in one shot. She shuddered as the force of the gun nearly sent her back, though she managed to hold onto it. The dog yelped as it lied prostrate on the ground, and died soon afterwards. Alessa looked at the gun in her hand. Not bad, she thought.

Another dog emerged out of the fog, and Alessa once again tried the same strategy. The dog leaped past her as she sidestepped it, and once again Alessa downed it in one shot. She almost felt sorry for them, she thought, as she took them down easily with her gun, thanks to their repetitive actions and limited intelligence. They stood no chance against her, with her handgun and her growing awareness of them. It wasn’t fair. But then she was reminded of the fact that these things would kill her without hesitation if she gave them the chance. She felt no remorse about it whatsoever. It simply had to be done. There were no bones about it.

She thought about going to the Historical Society, on a whim, but she had a funny feeling about that place, and that place was probably cursed, from what she had heard of the town recently. She was never going to set foot there under any circumstances.

She decided to follow the road down until she got to Brookhaven. Best to get her visit to the hospital over with. Suddenly, she heard a rush of commotion behind her. She turned around to see a dog emerging out of the fog, intent on mauling her and tearing her to bits with its ravenous jaws. She quickly shot it down, before it could reach her. She heard more ferocious sounds and ran for her life, hearing the sounds of foot falls and scampering behind her. She turned around to see another dog emerging from the vapors, and had only a few seconds to shoot it down before it caught up to her. Alessa let out a deep breath. Her heart was beating thunderously in her chest. She took a few moments to calm herself. There. Things were okay again. No other sounds of dangers manifested.

She suddenly realized where she had stopped at. She looked to see a long stair heading up a back alley, leading to a door that was slightly decorated with a neon sign above it. Alessa looked at the map and realized the name sounded familiar.

Heaven’s Night.

She decided to go in out of curiosity. Hmm. She had heard of this place before, though it wasn’t somewhere she was intimately acquainted with. She made her way up the long and daunting stairs, and stepped inside.

She was greeted by the sight of booths, overturned beer bottles on the tables, and a darkly lit atmosphere covering the whole place. This place smelled of cigarettes and drinks, and it had obviously not been cleaned in a long time. This was a bar obviously, and the stage at the center of the room told of something else. So this was a strip club, Alessa thought, with half-amusement and half-disgust. There was a long bar at the back, filled with dozens of drinks that were appropriate for the setting. She approached a neon sign that was on the wall, covering the room in a whole haze of pink amid the shadows.

The sign was wired in the form of an obviously naked woman, and there was a single word written under the lighting: Paradise.

So this was ‘Paradise’, huh? Well, at least it was better than the Paradise Claudia was talking about. She would gladly take naked women over a rusted hellish realm and monster demons any day.

She wasn’t actually bothered by the place’s intention, though. This wasn’t her sort of place, but she held no grudge against them. Perhaps it spoke something about her level of detachment, but she much preferred to let people do what they want, rather than judging them. Thanks to her background, she didn’t share most people’s religious and moral concerns. Considering what she’d done in her life, most people would have been shocked to hear her views about love and sex. As long as no one was getting hurt, she had no objections to what was going on in places like this. Exploitation was an entirely different subject, and one to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

She noticed a tourism publication on one of the tables that caught her notice. That was right: Silent Hill was originally a tourist town, as she very well knew. Her parents had taken the last leg of their honeymoon at the Lake View Hotel, enjoying the tranquil atmosphere of the lake and other things that had made Alessa blush when her mother talked aloud about them. She picked up the pamphlet, leafing through the few pages with a sense of curiosity.

Welcome to Silent Hill!

Silent Hill, a quite little

lakeside resort town.

We're happy to have you.

Take some time out of your busy

schedules and enjoy a nice restful

vacation here.

Row after row of quaint old houses,

a gorgeous mountain landscape, and

a lake which shows different sides

of its beauty with the passing of the

day, from sunrise to late afternoons

to sunset.

Silent Hill will move you and fill

you with a feeling of deep peace.

I hope your time here will be

pleasant and your memories will

last forever.

Editor: Roger Widmark

Alessa set the pamphlet down gently. She didn’t know why, but there was something unsettling about the name ‘Roger Widmark’. She didn’t know why. It sounded like a perfect description of those quaint old houses and relaxing settings, and yet there was something about the name of the tourism writer that left her cold all over. And the more she thought about it, the more she realized it had something to do with her parents, and not the one she’d expect. She didn’t know why that was concerning; her father didn’t know Roger Widmark, as far as she knew. Suddenly, Alessa realized that she didn’t want to know. Whatever was lurking there, it was clearly the town feeding her background subconsciously, and she didn’t want to pursue further the thread it would lead to. She liked to think of her parents as invincible, and despite recent events proving them otherwise, if this was leading where she thought it was, then this would definitely shatter that perception of them.

That wasn’t the only negative thought she had. Those quaint old houses sounded pretty and charming, but they weren’t looking so good when Dahlia was burning them to the ground, she thought nastily. Neither was the calming, tranquil lake all that charming when the Order was using it for their sacrifices.

She was about to leave when she noticed a poster laid out on the floor of the stage. The poster turned out to be a flyer for one of the dancers in the club, and featured a woman with blonde hair, pink highlights, and a skimpily clad, sexy body, advertising the return of a dancer called “Lady Maria”. Alessa was shocked when she recognized the woman in the image. And suddenly, she thought back to several moments in her journey when she came across something unusual…

The belligerent woman in the bathroom stall, who refused to help her…

The butterfly pendant she found in the bloody toilet, when she dared to pick it up, which seemed kind of familiar…

And now the butterfly tattoo on the hip of the woman she was staring at…

No way! Her?! Alessa thought in bemusement. She had thought that voice sounded familiar, but she couldn’t place where she had heard it before. Alessa’s surprise turned to frustration. Why did she keep crossing paths with this woman?! It was like the woman was following her around from place to place, determined to torment her at every turn.

Her name was Maria. She was a resident of Silent Hill, the same town Alessa had left behind. Over the years, their path had crossed several times, the first time being when Maria gave out some unfortunate information about Alessa to their enemies. Maria possessed mental powers of extraordinary length over regular people, powers that Alessa couldn’t hope to match without her own abilities. It all made sense, seeing as how Maria was not a woman at all, but a specter of the town who had been allowed to leave and develop a regular life outside of it. She had taken human form, and now traveled from place to place enjoying what society had to offer her. Suffice to say, she had forced Alessa to do some very unexpected things that she still regretted. It was the only time she had ever de-evolved into a common teenager on her spring vacation, acting without any thought to the consequences. It was only because of her intense dedication to them that Alessa was even able to look her friends in the eye.

And the worst part was that it wasn’t even Alessa who was the target. Her father had been the one who had an argument with Maria, after confronting her about her unscrupulous actions, and so she took it out on Alessa. In payback for the threat, she decided to twist Alessa’s mind and those of her friends, to do whatever she wanted. Considering Maria was a lust demon, for all intents and purposes, there was only one way the whole unfortunate incident could have gone.

Alessa grumbled to herself as she surveyed the flashy picture. “I knew I should have shot her,” she muttered to herself, looking down at the handgun in her hands.

On the positive side, at least that took one worry off her mind. This probably meant that bloody toilet she found in the stall of that place was a joke, intended to startle her with its goriness. She knew that now. The town wouldn’t kill one of their own people. She had been worried about the outcome of whoever the person was who was in there, but now she knew they had probably just disappeared back into the real world, and the bloody toilet stall was just a joke sight for Alessa to get concerned about.

She turned around, as she suddenly got an idea.

A few minutes later she had finally left, though not before scribbling a few nasty images on two of Maria’s greatest assets, and a third one that was probably bringing her a lot of money on the side.

~

She had descended back down the stairs to the street behind the club. Alessa stepped out cautiously onto the street. The atmosphere was still quiet, but she knew they were still out there, waiting for her. It didn’t take long for the town to take effect. She heard the sounds of growling in the fog, realizing that the troubling creatures were already shuffling about in the fog. She began to run through the lingering layer of white mist in a frenzied rush, knowing that she had to stay ahead of these creatures. The sounds of footsteps pursuing behind her told her that she couldn’t afford to slow down, and she dare not stop and look back to confront whatever was following her. She thought she was in the clear when she heard the footsteps following her retreating, fading further back into the background.

It was then she heard the most horrible sound she had ever heard in her life – a sound of drilling and needles, and sharp tools too horrible to contemplate. She knew the sound and her heart sank as she realized that it was one of them. They were here – they had been pursuing her since the shopping mall, and now they were in the town. She didn’t even want to confront them, and she hated the thought of even touching it. She ran before she could even catch a glimpse of whatever was making the sound. She ran blindly, not really looking to any side and making the bare minimum effort to avoid obstacles. She brushed past something and realized that she had gone right past one of those needle creatures – her heart almost had a heart attack at being so close to one of them, and not even knowing it.

Fortunately, salvation found her at the right moment. Alessa ducked into the building on the right, just as the dogs were clamoring to grab a bite of her. The sound of something heavy hitting the door alerted Alessa that she had probably escaped being mauled savagely by mere seconds. Alessa listened for several moments to the sounds of the dogs trying to chew their way through the metal doors, until they slowly faded back into the town.

She was in the hospital now. Somehow she had found her way to the right place amidst the fog despite the lack of vision. The place was dark, and dingy. Looking around, Alessa frowned in distaste. It wasn’t as run down as Alchemilla had been, but it was pretty obvious the building was not properly taken care of by the staff.

The sound of heavy breathing filtered its way through the air. Alessa looked from side to side trying to figure out where it was coming from. She grabbed her sword in preparation for a fight. And then a nurse came from around the corner, carrying a rusted metal pipe in her revolting arm. The way she breathed raggedly and the way she moved relentlessly made it clear this was one of the town’s constructs. Alessa realized she wasn’t going to have time to draw her gun and shoot, with any measure of accuracy. She grabbed her sword and struck at the nurse, slicing into the flesh of the brutish monster. The nurse tried to raise its pipe, and it roared in agony as Alessa sunk her blade into it. The nurse never once raised its head to meet Alessa’s eyes during the entire confrontation, as if in some sort of zombified parasitized state. Alessa struck her again, and once more, striking it repeatedly until the nurse fell to the ground. Alessa raised her blade overhead and brought it down on the nurse’s body, wincing at the crunch of the body’s flesh as she ended its life.

Alessa sighed as she wiped her brow. Shit, this was a tough fight, and it was definitely on now in terms of survival. Alessa looked down and realized this monster looked far more human than any of the others. Her features were feminine, the body was lithe and feminine with a heavily stacked chest, and there was a bit too much lipstick smeared over her mouth, like a parody of a young woman almost. She reminded Alessa far too much of a real nurse, especially one she’d known. It was disturbing, and she almost felt like she had ended an actual life. Were it not for the pale deformed arms and the bloody uniform, one would have no idea that it wasn’t an actual human being.

The hospital was unnaturally dark around her, and there were plenty more of them around. Shit. She needed to be careful, or else they would ambush her when they had the chance. There had to be more than one of them around, that was a certainty. The question was how they would present themselves, whether all at once or one at a time.

Alessa had no clue where she would find Leonard. Where would they keep a guy like that? She had only one choice.

She decided to explore the hospital at her leisure, checking the rooms and offices one at a time to see whether she would find anything useful. It was a slow, tedious process, but she had no choice. She had no idea of the layout of a mental hospital, and this was one place of the town she was thankful to say she had never been in. For a moment, she wished she had a cell phone to keep in touch with Douglas, or a walkie talkie, but she scratched that idea. She hadn’t brought any from home, hadn’t even thought to bring one, and the last thing she wanted was to distract Douglas during a critical moment and serve him an injury, or worse. She was better off alone.

Alessa stowed away into an office. The check-in area was littered with items and in a state of disarray. There was a computer, but it appeared to be old and dirtied. Yes! Alessa barely contained her excitement, as she found a map. She rushed to take it. There were three floors in the hospital, and four if you counted the roof. She folded it back into her backpack, after memorizing the layout. Strangely, the reception area didn’t seem to be in nearly as much disarray as it could have been, now that she took a closer look; the computer was at least somewhat recent. She wondered if the hospital had been abandoned for a long time, or if this was just the dirtiness of the Otherworld.

There was another office that was open. She entered into the doctor’s lounge. There was a lot of stuff in the room, and it was stocked with bonuses including a refrigerator and a sink. Alessa wondered if there was any food in it. She excitedly hurried to check, but the inside was empty. Curiously, there was a note on the door. Food only! Do not store drugs! Huh. Alessa wondered if that included health drinks.

It was then that Alessa’s attention turned towards something else. There were a few files strewn about on the table, having carelessly been left lying there by some doctor, apparently. Alessa rifled through them out of curiosity, wondering what they were doing just lying around in a lounge? What kind of doctor left records carelessly lying around? Alessa looked through them with mild curiosity, wondering what kind of people were stored here. There were three patients in all in the records, each one with their own folder.

The first was of a young woman named Arielle Margolla, aged 26 years old:

Suffers from extreme stress

with lapses in rational thinking. Unable

to function if deprived of companionship. Strong introverted

tendencies.

Unusually close with parents. Appears to

have no sexual boundaries, in relationships with

adults. Seems detached from the world at times,

with little awareness of societal

mores. Quick to temper and exhibits

disproportunate retribution.

Possible pyrokinetic abilities (?) – please verify

Hmm. That sounds like me, Alessa thought, although she didn’t need to be in a mental institution. She was surprised at these scientists acknowledging the subject’s supernatural powers, since scientists usually liked to dismiss that stuff no matter what. But sometimes those manifested and blew up in the scientists’ faces, no matter what they believed. Poor scientists, trying to dismiss what they didn’t understand.

The second one was a man named Stanley Coleman.

Stanley Coleman

Room S07.

Usually passive and cowardly;

also egotistical.

Sometimes shows and acts on

obsessive attachment to a

particular woman.

This has caused violent incidents;

use caution.

There was a third one, for a man named Leonard. Alessa perked up in excitement, as she realized this could be the Leonard Vincent was talking about! But there was an unpleasant surprise, as she pulled out the paper from the folders.

Leonard –

The paper was torn from the middle down, and Leonard’s last name had been crossed out. No useful information remained. Damn! Alessa cursed to herself in frustration. That could have had useful information that she could have used. It seemed someone had been determined not to let Alessa see the information that was contained in the document.

And suddenly, a thought occurred to her. What if Claudia and her cronies had gotten to the papers first? What if they were combing through the building searching for Leonard so they could eliminate him before Alessa reached him? If the Order was trying to take Leonard out before Alessa could get to him, then she would have lost one of her only valuable sources of information, if she did nothing by sitting here. She had to hurry.

She saw that there was a white board near the entrance, apparently used by the staff there to write memos. There was a code written on it, written by a doctor of the facility. That had to be significant, somehow. She copied the code into her memory, and turned to go out the door. She knew she had a good memory, and she wouldn’t forget the code, no matter what anyone else said. Gathering everything that was useful in the room, she left to explore the rest of the hospital, on the lookout for nurses and anything else she may come across that she would have to bash with her sword.

She found herself inside a small office she had found unlocked. Even though she had to find Leonard, she had to check whatever areas of the hospital were open, to see if there was anything available that might lead her to where Leonard was being held. There was a table in the room, and a plant put there for decoration. Nice, but not particularly interesting. However, it was what was on the table that was the interesting part. There was a diary on the table. Next to it was a doll lying there, delicately crafted with personal details. And it appeared to be handmade. Alessa frowned. Were there kids up here? She felt sorry for any kids that had to stay at a mental institution. Then again, remembering the John Carpenter story of the trip he took as a college student, maybe some people needed to be there. Still, this didn’t look like the work of some disturbed individual. Aw, she could just imagine some kid working on this here to get away from their doctors, seeking solace from the boredom and treatments in this. It kind of looked like her, to be honest. The doll was of a long black haired woman. She wondered what the inspiration for the kid was.

She took a look at the diary.

This day has finally come.

That's right -- the day when you and

I will meet.

I was always thinking of you,

here in this gloomy cell.

I never even knew your name

or face until today.

But now I know.

I know you're the one

I've been waiting for.

And haven't you been

waiting for me, too?

That's why you came to rescue me.

Oh, how I love you, Heather.

I want to give you my prized doll

I made to commemorate our

meeting, the start of this

everlasting love.

Ah, I can already see your

smiling face.

Stanley Coleman

Alessa tossed the diary onto the table. This was no kid. Ew! She cringed internally, wincing at the content. This was a sick mental patient obsessed with a woman, and that woman was her. The diary said “Heather”, but she knew it was her he was obsessed with. The long black hair and the pale skin on the doll gave it away. Alessa shuddered internally. There was some sicko obsessed with her out there and he could somehow see into her life. How did he even know her, anyway? She didn’t recall ever meeting anyone named Stanley Coleman in her life, at any point. She had clarification as she realized that must be the same Stanley the file had been talking about in the doctor’s office. She gripped her gun comfortingly, knowing there was a psychopath out there and she might have to use it. She didn’t care how obsessed this guy was with her, or how much he proclaimed to “love” her. One attempt by a potential rapist was enough, and she didn’t care to see another. And she knew from her dad’s experiences with law enforcement that these guys didn’t give up easily when they set their mind on something.

Alessa left the room with some hesitation. Suddenly she wasn’t nearly as comfortable, and the thought of someone waiting for her out there was enough to make her shudder. She tried to put it out of her mind, and concentrate on what was her self-appointed task, which was finding Leonard. She had to find Leonard, and she couldn’t afford to waste time standing around here, even if she was afraid of what was lurking around waiting for her out there.

Hopefully this wouldn’t take long.

~

She was on the second floor. She didn’t know why she had gone up there first. Something inside her just told her to go there first. When she got to the patient wing, Alessa already knew there was trouble. There was a white large poster on the wall beside the door, and that only meant another obstacle for her to overcome. Alessa growled in frustration, swiping at the air with her handgun. Why couldn’t this place just leave her alone? It was bad enough that she was here to look for a maniac, but now she had to deal with their stupid riddles too? Fuck this place, and the gods who ran it.

There was a table in the hallway up against the wall. And sure enough, there was a diary on the table, along with the thin doll. Alessa approached it warily, unsure of what she would read this time. She was beginning to fear seeing that doll, and what it signified.

You may not yet have realized

your own true feelings.

But you sense them unconsciously.

And so you're trying to get

closer to me.

That's a virtue, the path to Paradise.

If the door's locked, open it.

Use the password for

the prison gates.

Doctor... I've forgotten his name.

Anyway, that quack has it posted.

He should be here, too.

I mean, 4 numbers would've been

good enough, but he kept on going.

Isn't it a shame? I'm not there.

Aren't you irritated?

I long for you, but you're so cruel.

Still, I want you, Heather.

Stanley Coleman

Ew! Alessa shuddered as she read the diary. She was not aroused by this. She did not sense any feelings for this author, and how this creature who was writing this even thought so was a mystery. She was going to resist this with everything she had, if it wasn’t plainly obvious to him, and she would have thought her not taking the diary would have been an indication. How he supposed that she had feelings for him and was simply toying with the affections of this man was beyond her. What did she say? How did he even know her? And the more important question was the obvious one. Who was this guy? Alessa shivered as she thought of some creep stalking her around the hospital, skulking in the shadows while her vision adjusted to the darkness. But no, she was sure she would have seen him if he was around searching for her. Was he even alive? Or was he a ghost who had died, and was now trapped in the hospital replaying his memories from his old life? Alessa shuddered if it was some supernatural being stalking her through the hospital, and not just some psychopathic creep. A regular creep she could handle. A ghost was far more difficult, and deadly, to deal with.

She looked at the board on the wall.

The first is larger than the second;

the second twice the third;

the third smaller than the fourth;

the fourth is half the first.

Four of the numbers

are not repeated

Three are not in the top row

Two are not in the right row

One of the numbers is the final key

It didn’t take Alessa long to figure it out. She did the numbers in her head, wrote some things down, and before long she had figured things out. She entered the code and gained access to the second floor patient wing. Now for the first time, she started to wonder if the doctors were the ones who were wrong in this place. She had thought it was the town placing the riddles in her way, but what if it was the doctors who were messing around? What kind of sick doctors locked every door in the place with keys from riddles that could only be opened by searching around for clues? She was glad she wasn’t the one who had to stay here, with these crazy doctors and nurses. They were probably all twisted bastards anyway.

It was probably better not to think about it.

~

The monstrous forms ambled out of the darkness, wielding pipes and a furious intent. The shaking nurses moved in a parody of lifelike movement, ambling about in the darkness like a puppet being manipulated by a set of strings, and the puppeteer was a twisted criminal trying to set them against her. They paid no heed to whether their victim was armed or not, simply intent on tearing her to shreds. There was a considerable distance between them, which unfortunately was already playing against them. That gave her the time she needed to carry out her action, and act she did.

Alessa lined up her targets along the sight of her gun, closed her eyes, and fired. There was a thunderous noise as the heavy ammunition struck their targets, blowing a hole straight in the bodies of the nurses. The flash lit up the room in the darkness, and it was like a mini light suddenly lit up the air for one moment. The noise was deafening, and Alessa almost had to cover her ears in response to the noise. The one nurse dropped like a stone in response to Alessa’s first bullet, and her second bullet took out the other nurse easily just as cleanly. The nurses twitched for several seconds, but they soon stopped with a sickening crunching sound. She stepped forward once it was safe. Alessa surveyed the damage her single handgun caused, wide eyed with a subdued sense of awe. Wow, she had seen the effect outside when she shot the dogs, but the fog and atmosphere blocked most of the impact in her eyes. Seeing the unobstructed view plainly out in the open in the hospital made her realize just how powerful this gun really was. Shooting at targets and shooting at living, breathing creatures were two very different things, that was for sure. Now she knew she had made the right decision in bringing this gun; it was exactly what she needed against the creatures here, populating this town.

She hadn’t found anything of notice on the second floor. There was a man’s corpse in the examination room, but there was nothing noteworthy about it, and there was a suitcase lying on the bed in one of the patient rooms, but there didn’t seem to be anything of interest about it. There weren’t even any hints or clues laying around, as there usually were with such things. For all intents and purposes, it looked like an ordinary suitcase.

Coming back to the elevator, she found out there was a bottle of nail polish in the women’s locker room, but nothing else of note. She didn’t even know why she had gone to the second floor first. It was just a gut feeling, one of the many she had, that there was something significant there, but she guessed she was wrong. She supposed she would have to go back and unlock the first floor.

She didn’t even know why Leonard would be here. This place was abandoned, wasn’t it? Unless he had crossed over here, from the real world. But why would he be here? It wasn’t like he was central to the functioning of whatever Claudia was planning; it was pure coincidence that Vincent had sent her to him to gather information. While he was central to gathering information, Alessa didn’t know why the Otherworld would take an interest in him.

If anything, it would serve the Otherworld better to keep him out of here in the real world, so that Alessa couldn’t get to him.

Ah, it was all so confusing! Her brain was starting to hurt. Alessa felt a headache coming on, and she immediately moved to forestall it. She felt lost, like she had no idea where to go.

She decided to go downstairs. With no other options available to her, she didn’t have any choice. The third floor was locked, and unlike with the 2nd floor entrance, she didn’t have any clues as to how to open it; the code she had with her didn’t work. Taking the elevator down, she headed towards the patient wing. She entered the code she had gotten from the board, and sure enough, the door clicked open. Alessa grinned widely to herself, although she had to wonder about the purpose of the lock in the first place, as she examined the keypad. If the codes were just left lying around by the doctors on any old place, then what was the point of it all? Anybody could get in, after sneaking around into the doctor’s lounge! It made no sense.

Perhaps it was better not to think about it.

~

The specter was roaming the town, traversing the area of the accursed dwelling. It was how she spent all of her time nowadays. The state in which she was in now could only be described as undeath. Today she was in Brookhaven, when she noticed something unusual that caught her interest. She saw a dark haired woman enter the hospital, apparently on a self-appointed mission from what it looked like. She was immediately intrigued – no one had entered the building in three years. She immediately followed the woman, hiding behind her as she went up the floors. The hospital was darkened and hard to navigate, but that seemed to be no obstacle for the woman. She strode confidently through the area.

The woman examined every useful part of the hospital that she came across. Something about her seemed familiar, and the specter couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She didn’t know why, but it was the strangest feeling that she had seen this woman before. She couldn’t help but follow her, and she felt a blush tinge her non-existent, non-corporeal cheeks as she did so. This wasn’t something she normally did, and yet she couldn’t help the attraction that she felt to this strange new visitor. Maybe it was just the lack of something else to do.

As she did so, she recalled to her mind the events that had brought her life to this. Once again, she couldn’t believe that she had ended up this way, though she supposed at least it was better than not being aware of anything. When caught between a town that tormented her, and a world that could no longer support her existence – what other choice was there? She was what she was, and there was no changing that. Her lot had been played out, and there was no way to change that. She felt sorry for herself often, as she usually did, but other times she just wished she could fade away, into nothingness. Nothing happened. Her consciousness was still in time, ceaseless, at least for the moments she could remember, and not the few ones where she seemed to lose track of everything, in a mysterious mist that clouded her mind.

As a restless spirit roaming the town, she now had the chance to observe the people unlucky enough to step into this “Otherworld”. It was depressing; all of them were tormented people who usually met gruesome ends on their journeys. Combined with the memories of her own murder, the specter wished the devils behind this madhouse would just end her miserable un-life already.

But she knew they never would. They were little more than depraved monsters, feeding off torment and grief like parasites. You were little more than fodder once you got here, whether you realized it or not.

She had taken to spending most of her time in Silent Hill’s two hospitals. It was a compulsion born out of having her life destroyed by one of them. Today she happened to be in Brookhaven, the mental hospital of the town. Unlike Alchemilla, she had no tie to this place. But she could have, had she not been killed. It was disturbing seeing the remnants of mental illness in this place, and the specter knew she had been well down that road herself, before her death. Drugs and extreme stress didn’t bode well for one’s brain.

The specter was roaming the first floor when she saw her: a beautiful young woman with long black hair, dress in casual clothing. She carried with her a medium-sized knapsack, and was armed with a big gun that looked deadlier than the ones the police used. The term “bad ass” came to the ghost’s mind. Being invisible, the woman didn’t notice her as she investigated the accessible rooms, picking up any useful items or documents that she found. She seemed to be searching for someone in particular, though the specter couldn’t figure out whom.

However, there was something else about her that made the spirit take notice. Whoever she was, this girl seemed familiar somehow. Yet the spirit was sure she had never seen her before. Maybe it was just her imagination playing tricks on her from the loneliness, but somehow, she didn’t think so.

Looking at the door, the silent wraith saw where the woman had stopped. Great, it was the glue board room. Most of the rooms had unique names in her mind, but this one was one of the creepier ones in the hospital. Some of the patients had created a rather…interesting puzzle. She herself had seen the items, and her face flushed in embarrassment as she remembered how she had tried to pull one out, unsuccessfully. How that burned her with shame, at the time.

Concentrating, she shifted into her physical form. She felt the tingling spreading all over her body, as the air shifted around her and her molecules solidified into something tangible. It was something she didn’t do often, since it made her as susceptible to pain and death as if she were really alive. Right now, though, it was something the situation warranted. She felt the woman behind the door with her senses, and decided to go right in, not wary of what would happen if the woman tried to shoot her; she didn’t care, after all.

Alessa looked down at the odd sight before her. She was in room C4 of the first floor. She had explored a bit of the first floor and found a few useful items, but nothing too extraordinary. She’d walked into room C2 and walked right back out. There were three nurses in there, which meant Alessa definitely didn’t want to deal with them all at the same time at this time. She’d almost had a heart attack. Being trapped with all of them, getting maimed or worse, it made Alessa shudder at the possibilities. She shook her head. Now she was in a patient room layered with scattered debris and overturned mattresses. Alessa looked down at the wall of dough next to the bed. Someone had built a wall of some sticky gray material, and then proceeded to stick things onto it. There was a bug, a key, a Christmas card, a toothbrush, and even a cookie, all positioned on the board with an unbreakable force. Alessa couldn’t even figure out how to get the items off, in case she wanted to eat the cookie. Not that she would do such a thing, mind you.

She sighed. She was just going to have to figure out how to break the key off from there, somehow. The key was valuable, but it was definitely stuck. Alessa knew there was no way a key was just going to appear in the middle of nowhere without being valuable, and she wouldn’t put it past the town to put the key in this unbreakable obstacle before her, to taunt her mercilessly.

She was about to head off, to try to figure something out, when she heard the door knob start to turn. Alessa started to aim her gun, but the turning of the knob didn’t sound like one of the frantic motions of the nurses. It seemed, in fact, to be more of a human gesture. Alessa stepped forward in caution. Was this the Order members that were hunting Leonard down in the hospital?

The woman stepped into the room, wearing an expression that was somewhat a cross between a frown and a look of bemusement. She was obviously puzzled at the intruder’s presence here, though she only stared at the person across from her. The woman was wearing a red sweater with an old fashioned nurse’s outfit underneath, and high pumps that lifted her several inches from the ground. She looked like a relic of a bygone era, though she didn’t appear to notice it herself. The woman caught notice of her alarmed stance and eased into the conversation. “Excuse me, I need to talk to you. Don’t worry, I’m not here to harm you,” the woman held up her hands in a disarming gesture, and she assumed a kindly voice that gently sought to reassure her. “I’ve been following you for a while now. Who are you?” she asked, the sharp curiosity prominent in her voice.

Alessa stared at her in shock. “…Lisa?”

~

AN: Stanley's diaries, the books listed, and the memos are all borrowed from Silent Hill 3.