Book Of The Path

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

James lay back, his eyes closed, his breathing even as he faked sleeping; he could smell the soft vanilla sage scent of the Holy candles burning all around and he had to wonder if the doctor and his mother truly believed that the small flickering flames would be enough to keep the darkness of his hell from coming to claim once again if it desired. Darkness did not fear light it devoured it, tainting it, remaking it into the things of nightmare and insanity. He began to wonder why it was that he had been singled out by the supernatural force of evil. He hadn’t been that bad of a person. Maybe it was just some random whim of the fates that ruled over all.

He shifted in his bed trying to let the events of the past few years sink into him. He had been happily married to an amazing woman whom had brought joy into every day of his life. Sadly she had taken ill because of an aggressive cancer that had no cure. It ravaged her body killing her slowly. He could remember days spent in a hospital at her side whenever it was he could get the time off from work. It killed him each day he had to be at his desk away from her and secretly he wanted to believe that his employers knew and cared about his plight. He remembered during those months that it had been discovered he had a week of unused vacation time and then there had been the slight raise. Mary’s medical bills were draining him he’d never be able to understand why some of the medications or treatments cost so much but he did everything he could for her, even holding on to the hope that she would get better in time. She hadn’t. She never would get better, she was dead, all that remained of her were memories and his time spent in hell.

Within his green coat was that damned letter, he knew it by heart and every time he read it he grew confused. She had been dead for a long time before he had gotten the battered parchment note, yet it asked him to come to her in their special place, Silent Hill. He didn’t know why had left his job and packed his old beast of a car to go investigate the ruined town. He had known all too well that the place had been condemned, a coal fire raging under it making the once beautiful place unlivable. Yet he had been a fool sticking his nose right into the middle of everything to find out if his Mary had somehow come back from the dead for him, so that he could be the one to save her and bring her back home. Of course it had all been nothing but lies. She was dead and only monsters ruled over the man made hell. They stalked its shadows seeking to feast on anyone that was dumb enough to enter their haven.

James shuddered feeling tears burn and threaten to fall. He had been so stupid going around asking the lost souls if they had seen his wife. He should have run when he had seen Angela the lonely suicidal young woman seeking out her mother. He still had her knife in one of the pockets of the coat it might even be in with the letter. James truly felt sorry for her. Angela had been a victim. She had done nothing wrong she had finally snapped after her mother had allowed her daddy to rape her. Angela had killed her father maybe her mother as well and James could find no fault in doing so, making him wonder why the woman had been pulled into the Hill. It didn’t seem right somehow. Hadn’t Angela suffered enough as it was?

Then came Maria, she’d been something so close to his wife he had wanted to believe that they had been the same person. He had been so wrong. He knew that now but he had worked and managed to bring her way from the mists of the Hill. For a short time they knew happiness and then she started to change and show what kind of woman she really was. Commanding, overbearing, she tried to rule over his life with an iron fist. She was a wanton thing demanding everything of his body, her lust could never be sated for long and she would turn cruel if he did not try to meet her ever growing needs. He shuddered. He’d killed her in the small apartment he’d managed to rent in Brahms with his hand wrapped around her leather bound neck. He chewed the inside of a cheek, choking seemed to be something that reoccurred in his life all too often. She had died that way, gasping for air and begging for mercy. The very moment she'd died she had begun to rot. The woman had never been real she was just a figment created to fill his needs and wishes in its own warped way. He understood that now. The Hill would offer over a token of hope or desire as a way to trap someone within it. He’d broken the rules and escaped maybe in doing so he had left a rip in the barrier keeping the nightmare world and the real one separate.

“I know you’re awake James.” The voice belonged to his personal medical freak, the more James dealt with the man the more he was growing to despise him. Something about Versteckt felt as real as Maria. “You’re thinking too hard about something you should be trying to forget.” The Vulture like doctor chuckled low, “Or maybe you are content to remain on the path that you are on?”

James rolled over and glared at the man. “What do you mean content to remain on the path I am on?” His eyes narrowed as he tried to read the all too mild expression of the Doctor. James trusted the man as far as he could throw him in his current condition.

One long arm waved and snapped as the other pulled the bedside chair over to so that he could sit. “I would think that it would be clear to you.” He smirked. “The more one thinks and dwells on hell the less likely they will ever be able to see anything other then the flames. After a time the pain becomes a much needed drug as it replaces all else.”

“Yeah, if you’re some kind of masochistic freak,” James grumbled, he didn’t think he had the energy to play word games with Versteckt. “I’m sick of waking up in places I didn’t fall asleep in, I'm sick of almost dying.”

The doctor nodded sagely. “Yes I can understand how that could become bothersome to a hu—someone.” He cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. “The question is what is it you are going to do? Turn your back on the events that have happened, move on far away from all that you have witnessed? Or will you seek answers still, risking whatever it is you have left?”

James shifted sitting up, his wrists and ankles burned and the healing gashes on his chest pulled uncomfortably, the lesser cuts that had covered his torso were almost gone but intricate carving of the halo of the sun was no where near healed. He knew it was going to leave a scar that rested over his heart. “So doctor can you tell me just what it is that I have left?” he demanded.

“Mostly nothing, but you do have your life.” A sickly grin spread over Versteckt’s lips. “You do at least treasure that do you not?”

James leaned back his head tipping as his neck arched, he looked the ceiling for answers. “I used to think that, so long as I was alive I could make things better some how I could change it all around.” He bent forward looking down at his cloth covered lap. “But now I know that being alive does nothing but open the door for more pain. I…I’m tired, I don’t want to keep living if all I’m going to feel is nothing but pain and fear. I can’t stand the dark I am scared of open doors when I can’t see what’s in the room. Some sounds make me almost piss myself. What the hell kind of life is that?”

“It depends on what you make of it,” the doctor stated. “So you are afraid. Many people are afraid of what is going to happen each hour they exist. You could always try and find a way to end it.” James blinked whipping his head towards Versteckt. He had to have miss heard him. His doctor had not just suggested that he figure out away to commit suicide. “Taking too many pills, slipping and falling down the steps, or in the tub, or maybe an accident putting on a belt, though you have to be careful if that is what you want James.” The man slouched in the battered chair his back creaking and cracking. “You have to ask yourself is death really going to save you from pain. It seems that hell is part of your normal life. If you die will heaven be yours or will you just be forever trapped in your own pain?”

The blond shuddered at that thought. If his life was hell what would his death bring? “So what do you suggest?”

Versteckt cocked his head to the side taking a moment to think before he sighed with an almost playful smirk. “You do what everyone does in this age, you get yourself a shrink and you take the right kind of pills. Maybe that way you can move on. And if that doesn’t work, well you could always go back to the source of your problems.”

James shook his head. There was no way he was ever going to go back to that place willingly. “I think maybe you’ve got a good idea about seeing a shrink.”

The doctor rolled his eyes. “You know they all say that.” He shrugged unfolding, as he stood more of the man’s joints creaked in pain. “We will have to see about finding you a good one then.”

“I don’t want one of yours.” James looked to the man. “I don’t want them to have anything to do with the Order. I don’t trust it. I shouldn’t even be talking to you, but right now you’re being reasonable.”

“I could say the same for you James,” Versteckt chuckled almost purring. “I will see what I can do. But even if I get you one of ours as you put it give them a chance. After all even I care more about my Job then some of the regulations of the Order.”

James looked away not wanting to say anything else as he mulled over the information from their little talk.