Requiem

Dsclaimer: Konami owns Silent Hill. Alessa, Harry, Claudia and anyone else from the games belongs to them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Part 2

It was around the time of my 15th birthday that I noticed something was wrong. Harry was usually rather distant, but for the past couple months before my birthday, he started to get a lot more affectionate. First it started with an extra hug or a slightly warmer kiss whenever I did something right. But over time, it turned into much more than that. He started kissing me in different ways, and whenever he hugged me, sometimes his hands would touch places on my body I wasn’t quite sure about. It felt funny being touched that way, but it was a lot better than being beaten everyday like Dahlia did, so I sure wasn’t going to complain.

You have to understand, I knew literally nothing about relationships. I didn’t know that only lovers kissed each other on the mouth, or that relatives weren’t supposed to touch you in certain places. I didn’t know anything; maybe it was all right for daddies to kiss their daughters like this. All I had was a feeling. Something just didn’t seem quite right.

One day he came into my room late at night while I was reading. I’ll never forget what happened that day. Right from the start I sensed something wasn’t right. Harry seemed quieter than usual, and the look he gave me made me a little nervous. I thought maybe I did something wrong and he was going to punish me for it. But no, he told me that he had something very important to talk to me about. He told me that he knew he had ignored me a lot since I came to live with him. He said it was just because he missed Cheryl, but that was no excuse. I deserved his attention, and starting tonight, he was going to change that.

He told me that he had been lonely ever since his wife’s death, raising Cheryl by himself, and now that Cheryl was gone, he was even lonelier. He said he needed someone to turn to and that he had been a fool not to turn to me, when I needed someone too. That was when he started to kiss me.

I wasn’t sure what was going on at first. I thought it was just more of the same. But then he started to undress me. I asked him what he was doing, and he told me not to be afraid. He said he knew I wanted to get his approval. He had known for months all along and now he saw that I wasn’t a danger to him. I had more than earned his acceptance – he cared for me like his very own daughter, and now he was going to show me just how much he cared. This was something special, he said. It was a way for people to show each other how much they loved one another.

I should have known something was up by then. He was using all the right words; saying just the right things to convince me that this wasn’t something to worry about. And despite the feeling in my stomach that something wasn’t right, I listened to him. I think that last statement he made was what convinced me. Love…it was what I wanted from him more than anything. And if what he was doing was a way to show someone how much you loved then, then it probably wasn’t a bad thing.

I let him take off my clothes. I was so embarrassed when he finally saw me undressed; I had never been naked in front of anyone like this before. And the way he was staring at made me a little uneasy. I didn’t know why, but something about being exposed like this made me feel very self-conscious. I actually tried to cover myself, but Harry told me not to be afraid; he wasn’t going to hurt me. I could trust him.

He started touching my chest…doing things to it that made me feel like I never had before. Whether that was good or bad, I had no idea. All I knew is that it felt different somehow and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. To be honest, it actually felt kind of nice. But then he started to…touch me, between my legs. I was too afraid to ask what he was doing, but I couldn’t deny that if felt kind of odd to me. Not really good or bad, just odd. Like something was out of place and I was in the dark by not knowing what it was.

I wish I had listened to that instinct and told him to stop. Maybe if I had things would be different now. But I didn’t, and I’ll always regret it.

That was when he got undressed too.

I think you know where this is going.

I didn’t know anything about sex. I’d never even seen a boy naked before. I didn’t know anything about what was involved; the differences in body parts between a man and a woman, or intercourse, or what it really meant to make love to someone. Harry never told me about any of that stuff. Now I know why.

It hurt. I had no idea what was happening to me. All I knew was that it hurt. It hurt so badly, Claudia. From the moment he…when he ‘entered’ me, it was like something broke inside me. I literally cried out when I felt this awful explosion of pain. But he didn’t stop. He just kept touching me like nothing was the matter. And then he started pushing into me, and all I felt was this horrible burning pain between my legs. It felt like he was tearing my lower body in half, and I kept crying and pleading with him to stop. But he wouldn’t.

I have no idea how we stayed like that, me screaming and begging him to stop while he did that to me. I must have told him it hurt about a dozen times, but he didn’t listen to me. By the time he finally finished, I couldn’t even talk anymore. I was just sobbing uncontrollably. And you know what the worst part was? He didn’t so much as give me a hug or a kiss. He asked me how I felt and I told him that it hurt. He just patted my hip and told me it would get better next time. And that was it. It was like he didn’t care. He just got up and went to his room, and I just stayed there curled up on my side, feeling like I wanted to die.

I didn’t know what to expect the next morning. I practically spent half the night crying into my pillow. When I woke up that morning, it was like I had been running for days. I was so sore I could barely walk. I felt completely exhausted. Frankly, Harry was the last person I wanted to see. How could he do that to me? Didn’t he hear me screaming that he was hurting me? But, I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever. Besides…I still had no idea what he’d done to me. All I knew was that it hurt and there was blood on the sheets when I finally got the nerve to examine myself. But as to the details, I was lost on what exactly we had done.

Harry noticed that I walking funny when I went into the kitchen. He asked me if something was wrong and I told him that it was still hurting from the night before. I figured maybe he would apologize, or at least tell me more about what we were doing. And he did, in a way. He told me he was sorry if he hurt me, but that he didn’t regret doing what we did. He said what we did was something very special, and that you only did it with someone you were very close to. He said that it was expected in relationships and that it was all right for us to do it too, since we weren’t really related. He also told me had something he wanted to talk to me about.

I have to admit it was what he said next that got to me. He told me that it had been a long time since he was with anybody that way. He was lonely after his wife died and raising Cheryl never left any time to find companionship. He missed sharing that intimacy with someone. But now that I was in his life, he wanted that someone to be me. He wanted to do what we did again. That threw me for a curve – it already hurt bad enough once and he wanted me to do it again? He must have seen the fear in my eyes, because he told not to worry. It’s supposed to hurt for girls the first time and he promised it would get better over time. I would even come to enjoy it.

Something about that term stuck with me: “first time”. I guess I was stupid for not asking him more questions. But how could I? I wanted to make him happy. I really wanted to him to like me, more than anything. How could I say no?

We fell into a routine. During the day, we would act much like we did before. Harry would kiss me and touch me a lot often now, but he was still a little distant and he still mentioned Cheryl every so often. In the evenings, we would be together. It was awkward the second time we tried it; I was still sore from the other time and it still hurt a little, despite Harry’s attempts to convince me it wasn’t that bad. But he was right about one thing – after it happened a couple more times, I started to get used to it. I didn’t complain and I never cried anymore.

It was never enjoyable for me, though. Mostly I would just lie there and pretend I was off someplace else. I never got out of it what he obviously did. The closest I came to that was a few times when he tried using his mouth on me. But he always stopped before I felt anything more than a stirring of something I didn’t recognize. And then it was back to the ‘other’ thing. That wasn’t all he did. Over time as we spent more time with each other, he started asking me to do more different things for him. Sometimes he told me to use my mouth on his…private area. Other times he told me to lay in a certain way that left me feeling very uncomfortable. Some of the things felt gross and nasty to me, but I didn’t dare mention that to him. What if I told him and he said he didn’t want me anymore? What would I do if he decided he was better off getting rid of me? I was a child – I had nowhere else to go. So I kept quiet and did whatever my daddy told me. I didn’t matter if I felt weird or nauseous doing some of the things he asked. All that mattered was that I keep him happy.

You have to understand, I never went out of the house much and I rarely watched TV. I vastly preferred to read. We didn’t talk to the neighbors much either. And since I didn’t go to a regular school, I had no one to turn to besides Harry. There was simply no one or nothing around that could tell me more about what we were doing.

It wasn’t until I heard someone else talking about it that I started to get some insight. It was one of my rare trips outside the house. Harry had gone to the store to buy some groceries and he forgot something while he was there, so I volunteered to go and get it. Since I didn’t go out much, I guess he took pity on me. He gave me some extra money and told me to get myself something at the ice cream parlor nearby. It was on my way back when it happened. I’d stopped at the ice cream shop and I was having a sundae when I heard two girls a couple seats back say something that immediately got my attention. I don’t know much older than me they were, but I heard one of them mention something about her “first time”. That caught my interest. Were they talking about the same “first time” Harry mentioned? I didn’t want to make it obvious I was listening in on their conversation, so I just tried to pay close attention while I ate my sundae. Unfortunately they weren’t talking that loud, so I didn’t catch much. But there was one other word that really caught my attention: “sex.”

I’d never heard that word mentioned by anyone before. I almost wanted to ask those girls what it meant, but I was scared of how they would react to a total stranger asking them something. So I went home. I didn’t tell Harry what I’d heard. Somehow I knew he wouldn’t be entirely truthful with me if I asked him about it. Instead I went to the library the next day. Harry was surprised, but he knew I loved to read and there was no good reason to stop me from going out, so he just told me to be back by five.

I didn’t know how to go about answering my question once I got there, so I just went up to the librarian, told her I needed to do some research, and asked her how I could find out more about sex? Judging by the look on her face, that wasn’t a question she was asked very often, if at all. She must have thought I was joking, but I’d already prepared my explanation: that I was doing a project for school and I really needed to know. I gave her my best ‘innocent little girl’ eyes and I guess she was convinced, because she took me to a section with some encyclopedias and told me to start there. She took out some specific volumes and told me to ask if I needed more help.

It was like a shroud had been lifted from my eyes. I had no idea there was so much to our bodies! So much was answered by what I read in those books, questions I didn’t even know I had. And yet, I remembered what Harry said to me just before our second time together: “Now remember, this our little secret. You can’t tell anyone about it. Got it?” I still didn’t know why that was necessary. It wasn’t like we were doing anything bad, right? It wasn’t until I read a side note in one of the volumes that I finally realized the reason for that.

Because apparently, there was a little something called consent involved when it came to sexual matters. You needed permission from someone to have sex with them, and they needed to be fully aware of what was involved for them to give that permission. And sex without consent was called rape.

Claudia…I can’t even describe to you what it was like. When I read that definition of what that word truly meant, that it was a crime and one of the worst ones you could commit…my mind went blank.

It’s an odd sequence, the emotions you go through when you find yourself in that situation. First comes the instinctive denial: no, Daddy couldn’t have done that to me. Then there’s the anger: how could he do that to me? Finally, at last comes the truth – the inevitable realization that sinks utterly into your being: that I was raped and I hadn’t even realized it happened.

I almost threw up when I realized that. I had to rush into the bathroom to stop myself from vomiting right on the table. I don’t know how long I stayed there, retching into the toilet in one of the stalls. Eventually that same librarian I mentioned came to ask if everything was okay. I told her I was all right, I was just feeling a little nauseous all of a sudden.

She called my father. It tried to get her to let me go on my own; I couldn’t stay there anymore. But she insisted she wasn’t going to let me wander alone on the streets in that condition. Eventually, Harry came and picked me up. The ride home was a quiet one. Harry asked me what was wrong a couple times, but I just told him it was something I ate. He didn’t say much after that. As for me, I felt sick to my stomach.

I went straight to my room when we got home. The rest of the day was like a daze. For some reason, I felt numb all over. I’m not sure how to describe it, except that there was this strange empty feeling inside of me. I didn’t want to eat or read, or do any of the things I usually did. I certainly didn’t want to talk to Harry. I just sat there on my bed staring at nothing in particular. Thankfully Harry left me alone most of the time. He practically forced me to eat something a couple times, but for the most part, he gave the space he saw I needed. When evening came, he gave me a brief kiss goodnight and went to his own room as usual.

It was only then that I finally allowed myself to break down. Before, I’d been afraid that he might hear me if I started crying, but now there was no more reason to hold back. I was angry. How could he do this to me? I was his daughter! He was supposed to take care of me! But most of all, I just felt sad. I had been raped, by my own father, no less. Your first time wasn’t supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be a beautiful, wonderful experience. Instead I was held down and forced into something I didn’t want by the person I trusted the most. I was left torn and bleeding by someone who was supposed to take care of me and protect me. What did I do to deserve this? I only wanted to make him happy!

I cried myself to sleep that night.

To my utter surprise, Harry largely left me alone for the next couple of days. I guess he figured I was still sick or something since I didn’t come out of my room much. I was relieved. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that man. During those two days, in between all the sobbing and stewing in anger, I made a promise to myself. No matter what the consequences were, I vowed I would never let him touch me like that again. I knew I had to confront him about it eventually, but I was still trying to deal with just being in this horrid situation in the first place.

It was on the third day of that break from our ‘sessions’ that he came into my room. It was late in the afternoon and I knew as soon as saw him that whatever peace I’d had physically in the past few days was coming to an end. I knew what he wanted and he didn’t waste time confirming it. He told me that he’d given me a little break and I’d had more than enough to recover from my little illness. Something about the way he said that made me wonder whether he knew I was deliberately avoiding him. It didn’t matter. Only seconds after that he already had his arms around me, touching and kissing me like he always did.

But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t let him do that to me again. I said no, and when he didn’t listen, I pushed him away as much as I could and told him again. He wasn’t expecting that and I could tell he was a tad annoyed by it. When he asked me what was wrong, I told him exactly what I had so recently learned.

I had never seen Harry look as shocked as he did in that moment, not even in Silent Hill. No doubt that was the first time he had ever been accused of rape by someone. I have Cheryl’s memories, remember? I remembered with crystal clarity that he never, ever treated her badly, which was why it angered me so much that he did this to me. I lost it. I yelled at him about what he’d done over and over, demanding an answer as to how he could ever violate me like that. What had I ever done to deserve such a horrible punishment?

For the longest time he didn’t say anything. He just stood there in silence, staring hard at me while I stared back with tears in my eyes, daring him to deny what we both knew was the truth. And then, he got this expression, and something about the look on his face sent shivers down my spine. I never expected what happened next.

He slapped me. Hard. I had been slapped plenty of times before when I was a little girl by Dahlia, but never by a man. It hurt so much, and the next thing I knew, he was dragging me out of my room by my shirt, all the while cursing at me and raging about what an ungrateful little brat I was and how he never forced me to do I didn’t want. How dare I accuse him of something like that? I had crossed the line and it was clear he was going to punish me for it.

He all but threw me into his room. I should have known what was coming when he put on some music. He knew this was going to hurt and he didn’t want anybody hearing me cry out for help. But I was too distraught, too scared of what was happening, to even try to get away. He practically ripped off my jeans and my undergarments. Then he took off his belt. And the next thing I know, there’s this horrible leather strap striking the back of my thighs. I’m not ashamed to admit it: I screamed as loud as I could for help. I had been punished this way before, but only by Dahlia, and Harry seemed so much stronger than her. Every time he hit me with that belt, it felt like my skin was tearing off. I screamed and I cried and I tried to avoid it, but no matter how much I fought, he didn’t stop. He just kept hitting me and he wouldn’t stop, almost like he wanted to kill me instead of just punishing me.

I don’t know how much time passed after he started whipping me with the belt, except that by the time he stopped, I couldn’t even speak anymore. I was choked up from sobbing and my throat was raw from so much screaming. But that was nothing compared to how awful my back felt. Nothing could ever compare the pain I felt when I was set on fire by my own mother, but this was a terribly close second. I felt like everything below my waist had been torn to shreds on the back, and I knew he had drawn blood in at least a few places – I could feel it running down my legs. But that wasn’t all he did.

Harry wasn’t done with my “punishment” yet, not by a long shot. And now that he had me lying there broken in such a vulnerable state, it was time to get what he wanted all along.

He raped me, again. I was too weak to resist him. I felt so ashamed. All I could do was lay there crying to myself while he did whatever he wanted to my body. I couldn’t even give so much as a plea to stop when his movements became rougher than they had ever been before. And by the time I was finished, all I could think of was how I never should have gone with this man in Silent Hill. I should have stayed in that crumbling structure; at least then it would have been quick and painless. I wanted to die.

Suffice to say, things only got worse from there. The next morning, Harry attempted to apologize for being “a little rough with me” and promising never to do it again. What he hoped to accomplish by doing that is beyond me, but I wasn’t falling for it. My trust in him was gone. I’d lost any faith I had in him whatsoever and there was no getting it back. Not surprisingly, my suspicions proved correct a day later when, after refusing another of his advances, he turned violent on me again, and this time there would be no apology the morning afterwards.

After that day, everything changed. From them on, Harry made no effort to conceal his true feelings about me. I knew I disgusted him, but even I didn’t imagine just how much he truly loathed me. And he took that hatred out on me any way he could. Looking back, it was only inevitable that our ‘sessions’ become more and more devoted to “punishing” me for whatever it was I did wrong.

I’ll spare you the details of what those ‘sessions’ entailed, except that some of the things he did surprised me in the worst way possible. I never thought he could be that cruel. It makes me sick to my stomach to even think about some of the things he did to me.

If you’re wondering why I never tried to tell anyone else what was happening to me, the answer is quite simple: I never had anyone else to turn to. I had no friends, no family besides Harry. I knew virtually no one outside the apartment building except that librarian that helped me out one time, and I didn’t even know her number. A moot point anyway, since Harry wouldn’t let me leave the apartment anymore unless I was with him. Once I tried to talk the landlord and one of the neighbors, but Harry always made sure to be close by when anyone else was around, in case he needed to step in and say the right thing to convince them everything was alright. And later on, I would be punished for trying to ruin his life by talking about things “we” had agreed to keep secret.

I doubt they would have even listened to me in the first place. From what I can tell, I’m sure he had them convinced that I was some troubled kid he had taken in from one of his relatives, and that I had to be constantly supervised in order to keep me from hurting myself or spreading vicious lies and accusations about innocent people. I heard as much from his conversation with one of the other tenants one day. He always knew what to say to keep anyone from getting suspicious, and he even kept any phone books hidden away from me so that I wouldn’t ‘accidentally’ stumble onto any numbers I didn’t need to know. I was in a building with at least 20 other people, and yet I was a prisoner in my own home. Not that I really thought of that place as “home” anymore.

An odd thing happens when you find yourself trapped in such circumstances. It’s like one long ongoing nightmare that you wake up from. And after a while…I don’t know, you just…you just begin to stop caring. I don’t know if it was the beatings or the repeated times I was forced to do those things, but after a while, I found myself caring less about what happened to me. I don’t know quite how to explain it, except that that terrible empty feeling from after I first realized what he did to me returned in full force. It was like I couldn’t care, like I couldn’t feel anymore.

It was like I was dying.

Throughout it all, I wondered what it was I had done to deserve all this. Why couldn’t I ever be happy? When I left Silent Hill, I thought I might finally have gotten another chance at happiness. Dahlia had robbed me of my childhood, but she was dead now. She couldn’t hurt me anymore, and for once, I was with someone who actually had some decency to them. Unlike those bastards in the cult, Harry actually had a heart. At least, I thought he did. I asked myself over and over what had happened to that man. He had literally gone through in Silent Hill to get his daughter back. He was a kind and caring man who always took care of her. So what changed? Why did he subject me to this horrible existence of abuse and violation, knowing everything I went through in Silent Hill? How could be so heartless?

It wasn’t until I read his diary one day that I finally discovered the answer. He’d left it laying there on the dresser in his room by accident. I knew it was a risk taking it back to my room, but by that time, I’d long since stopped being afraid of what he might to do me.

The diary was full of revelations right from the start. It went back all the way to a day after Silent Hill. I read all about what happened during those two days. After we escaped from that place, Harry felt the need to record everything that happened into a journal of some form, partly to convince himself it wasn’t just some bizarre dream, and partly for the sake of preserving his sanity. I, apparently, wasn’t enough proof. That stung, that he would deny everything I’d been through so casually.

I read through the pages of that diary, noting how the pages covered almost every aspect of our lives together after that horrible incident. I noticed how they became more and more bitter as the months passed by. It was obvious to me now Harry never recovered from what happened those two years ago, and he chose to take out those frustrations on me, the living, breathing reminder of that terrible day when he saw two friends die, one at his own hands, and watched as he failed to save his daughter from the horror that had consumed the town. Nothing was left out. Everything significant in his life was detailed in that journal. Including what he did to me. And by the time I finished reading through that collection of his most private inner thoughts, I finally realized the truth of why he had done such terrible things to me.

I wasn’t Cheryl.

It was as simple as that. Harry never believed me when I told him Cheryl was a part of me, and he didn’t believe Dahlia either. In his eyes, I was still the demon that had stolen away his daughter. If it weren’t for me, Cheryl would still be alive. I had taken Cheryl away from him. I murdered her, and he was determined to make me suffer for it.

I found it ironic how he didn’t once blame Dahlia. I found it painful as well. Maybe it was because she was dead, and so he couldn’t take out his anger on her. He needed someone viable to blame. And that person ended up being me. He blamed me for what happened, and this…this nightmare he had forced on me was his way of punishing me for my “crimes”. Not only that, but apparently, he felt I should be indebted to him for getting me out of Silent Hill. I owed him, and since I had taken away the one thing that mattered in his life, this was a fitting way of repaying him – by at least giving him some “companionship” to make the days easier in the wake of Cheryl’s absence.

If it helps, it seems he did feel some remorse about what he had planned for me – he would never have done this to Cheryl or anyone else. But then again, I wasn’t Cheryl and I deserved anything that happened to me after putting him through such hell. At first, he didn’t plan on beating me so harshly. But when I confronted him about raping me, that conflict inside him reached the boiling point. Something inside him just snapped. And any guilt he might have had about putting me through hell wasn’t enough to stop him. I deserved to suffer, just as he had. There were no second thoughts about it once the line was crossed.

I know I said I didn’t care, but my heart just broke into pieces when I read that. Harry didn’t care about me. He had never cared about me, and I was a fool to believe in him. All he wanted was Cheryl, and no matter what anyone else told him, I would always be nothing more than the monster who took her away from him. He would never love me, no matter what I did or how much I loved him in return.

But I didn’t see that back then, when I faced the choice of letting him take me away from my hometown, or telling him to let me stay there and die. Instead I gave myself the chance to trust him, and now I was paying the price for that foolishness. I cursed myself for it. How could I have been so wrong about him?

To think that anyone would actually want to help me…how deluded I must have been.

And the worst part is, I still can’t bring myself to blame him fully for what he did. I wish I could hate him. But the truth is, there’s still a part of me that’s Cheryl; a part that’s still that same little girl Harry used to love. And no matter how much I try to bury that past, I just can’t bring myself to discard it.

It’s an odd thing, feeling your soul dying inside you. But that’s what happened in that moment. After I read that diary…something inside me just snapped, the same way it had for Harry. Only my conscience didn’t break from anger and hatred, it broke from sheer heartbreak and loss.

It’s a few days past my 16th birthday now. There was no celebration, none of the joy you would find in another household, with a loving mother and father. Instead I sat in my room all day, lost in the confines of my own mind, until he came for me in the afternoon just as he always does.

You might be wondering why I’ve chosen to tell you all this. I guess I just wanted to share as much of myself with you as possible. I really wish I could have told you this in person. I would love more than anything to see you again. But that’s never going to happen. By the time you read this, I will already be gone.

I know some people will say it’s the coward’s way out. They would tell you to think of your family and your friends, and all you could accomplish if you just hold on to life. But what happens when you have absolutely no one to live for? I can’t stay here with Harry. I can’t run away to some shelter either – I tried several times to do just that, and he always found me and took me back. And even if I did escape, who’s to say I wouldn’t end up with foster parents who are just as bad as Harry? Besides, nobody can even begin to comprehend what I’ve been through. I barely believe it myself sometimes and I’m the one who’s lived this terrible, painful life.

And…as much I would love to see you, I can’t go back to Silent Hill. No matter what I did, the Order would find me and they would never let me go. I’m not going to go through all that again. Never. I’d rather die than live as a vessel to some hideous demonic deity that brings nothing but pain and suffering to innocent people. I won’t be used like that again. I won’t be put through that agony ever again.

I have literally nowhere else to go. And it hurts, Claudia. It hurts so much and I can’t just continue to live with this pain everyday in the hope that one day, some happiness might come along. I’m only 16 and I’ve already suffered more than anyone else in this entire world. All I wanted was to be loved, yet instead I’ve been handed nothing but pain and misery ever since I could remember. Is it so bad to take the obvious way out? I just want the pain to end.

Some people would say it’s the coward’s way out. But those people aren’t me, and they will never understand what it’s like to live a life such as mine. Ever since my childhood I have suffered in silence. I just want the suffering to end.

There are many things I wish had been different. I wish I’d had the courage to tell someone what Dahlia did to me when I was little. I wish I’d never created that façade of me Harry treasures as Cheryl –maybe then I wouldn’t be where I am now, paying for her absence when she’s right here inside of me. I wish Lisa hadn’t been killed. Oh yeah, I didn’t you about her, did I? She was the nurse who took care of me during my coma at the hospital. You would have loved her, Claudia. She was everything we could possibly want in a mother, or at least an aunt or big sister. She was kind and smart and beautiful, and she cared for me when no one else would. I know, all nurses are supposed to do that, care for their patients, but Lisa was different. She didn’t see me as some vegetable lying in a fire-induced coma, she saw me as a girl in a horrible situation who desperately needed someone to support her. I get the feeling she was growing attached to me, before…well, before Kaufmann took her away from me. Had she still been alive…maybe she could have taken me out of there; given me a real home. I would have loved her. And something tells me she would have loved me too, if she had only gotten the chance.

Well, there’s no point in dwelling on what ifs. I don’t know how I’m going to get this letter to you yet, but I have the most peculiar feeling it’ll find its way to you, somehow. I hope so. It’s a lot longer than I expected. I guess it’s like a manuscript, almost. Maybe that’s what you should consider it. My story, to do with it as you please. No doubt the members of the cult will have a few choice words if they see it. But you? I just want you to learn from it, Claudia. None of this would have happened to me if not for the Order. That’s why I want you to always remember this letter, no matter what happens to the actual pages.

Learn from it, Claudia. See the Order for what it is: a cancer that destroys innocent lives. The “salvation” that the priests promise us is a lie. Nobody is ever saved by it, people are only dammed. And I don’t want that to happen to you. I don’t want you to end up in the place I am now, trapped in a world of immeasurable pain, incapable of feeling anything except sadness and regret. That’s not a life for anyone to lead, much less as special as you.

Well, this letter has gotten quite long enough already, so I’m going to close it. You were my very best friend, Claudia. My only friend really, and I’ll never forget that. You stood up for me when no one else would. We had fun in the most dreary of times, and you were always there for me. I loved you like a sister, Claudia, and I always will. I’ll always treasure those brief moments of happiness we had together, and I’ll never, ever forget you. Promise me that you’ll do the same. Always remember me, Claudia. Because no matter what happens, I’ll always be with you.

Take care of yourself, little sis. Never forget that I love you.

Your best friend forever,
Alessa