Silent Hill Chapter 2 Part2
A persistent haze clouded Harry’s thoughts. Despite
the justifications he’d made himself believe, killing the nurse had left a bad
taste in his mouth. It was just another monster, another obstacle in his way;
he had every reason to eliminate it. Still, the image of the nearly-human woman
bleeding out on the floor plagued him with unwarranted guilt. Was it really the
monster he made it out to be? Had he actually murdered someone he could have
saved? Had he made the right decision? Those questions replayed in his mind
over and over until even his devotion to finding Cheryl couldn’t justify his
actions. He wandered like a sleepwalker through the hospital’s winding
corridors.
Before he knew it, Harry ended up down in the
bas.e.m.e.nt. He pushed open the first door he saw, stepping into a cluttered
storeroom. The boxes stacked on the ground and the medical supplies lining the
rusty shelves were caked in what seemed to be several years’ worth of dust. Perhaps
because of his lightheaded daze, Harry’s eyes were drawn right to a point of
suspicion, a shelf in the very back of the storeroom. The room was packed with
so many boxes that there was hardly any room to walk, but the area around that
particular shelf was bare.
Making his way closer to investigate, he saw marks trailing
along the ground, as if something had been dragged across. Despite the aged
state of the room, it looked as if this shelf had been moved frequently, and
recently too. Harry pushed it to the side…and revealed a hidden door. It opened
into a gaping pa.s.sage deeper into the bas.e.m.e.nt. Harry should have
been elated; what better place for Cheryl to be hidden than a secret pa.s.sage?
But all he could do was stand and stare into the darkness. The encounter with
the nurse had shaken him; he felt gripped by the same fear as when he’d faced
the giant creature in the school bas.e.m.e.nt.
Harry slumped to the floor, leaning against the wall
and closing his eyes. It must be around noon by now. He hadn’t
really slept or even stopped to rest in well over twenty-four hours. The
wariness in his mind and the fatigue in his body weighed on him until he
finally escaped into the respite of sleep.
“Daddy?” Cheryl sat on Harry’s lap as he rested in an
armchair. She nestled closer. “Are you sleeping?” He had been sitting here with
his head in his hands for a long time, then suddenly closed his eyes. The three
year old looked up at her father, he face full of worry. Harry had lost himself
in grief after Jodie’s pa.s.sing. Memories of her occupied his every thought.
Even the wonderful memories of her gentle smile, something that should have
given him comfort, only tormented him further.
“Hey…dad?” Cheryl shook her father’s knee in alarm. “Daddy, please be okay!
I don’t want you to go away too! Please don’t leave me alone…”
Her pleas reached straight to the bottom of his broken heart. Harry slowly
opened his eyes. Cheryl…At only three years old she’d
been forced to know the sorrows of death, now she feared that it would take her
father, the only person she had left in the world. The shock hit him as if
Jodie had slapped him in the face. You’re
her father! You have to be here for her now! He lifted his daughter up and
held her tight in his arms.
“I’m so sorry Cheryl. Daddy’s been really careless
lately. I…I was so caught up in the past that I forgot that the most important
thing in the world was right in front of me.”
Cheryl was his treasure, the greatest gift he’d ever
been given in life. She deserved every ounce of devotion in his heart. With
that loving embrace, he swore that the two of them would live happy lives
together, no matter what.
Harry awoke to the sight of teardrops on the
dust-covered floor before him. For that one moment, he was able to hold Cheryl
in his arms again. Though sorrow still sat heavy in his chest, seeing her smiling
face in his dream was enough to fill him with renewed determination. Harry felt
as if he’d gotten a full-night’s sleep, despite his watch saying that only
thirty minutes had pa.s.sed. He was d.a.m.n lucky none of the monsters wandered down
here.
Harry pulled himself to his feet to confront the dark
pa.s.sage. Jodie must have been watching over him; in that moment he felt all the
doubt and fear melt away. He would keep that promise he made to Cheryl all
those years ago. No matter the cost, he’d bring her home safe.
Behind the hidden door was a smaller, narrow storage
room lined with bare shelves. The only feature in the room was a storage hatch
on the floor that lifted with a rusty creak to reveal a stairway leading deeper
underground.
The room at the bottom of those stairs was identical
to the one upstairs, enough to give Harry and odd sense of déjà vu. But it was
far from a feeling of familiar comfort. The darkness has solidified into a
thick wall that bore down on him from all sides, banished only by the paltry
light of his flashlight. An appalling chill snaked its was up Harry’s spine. It
was the same heavy, otherworldly darkness that he’d felt in the “other” school,
the twisted version of reality that lay beyond the clock tower.
A dull hiss sounded from the radio in his pocket,
steadily growing louder. Pounding footsteps rapidly approached from the
darkness until a sprinting nurse came into view. She was different from the one
Harry had faced before; she wore visible signs of age on her face and her dark
hair was flecked with grey. But she had the same hunched posture, the same
throbbing hump on her back, and the same murderous grin stretched across her
wrinkled face. The only other difference was a thick syringe she clutched in
her hand and raised above her head, ready to strike.
There was no way of knowing what kind of vile liquid
was sloshing around inside that syringe, but Harry wasn’t about to find out. He
couldn’t afford to hesitate. Do it for
Cheryl. He steeled himself and unloaded two bullets into the woman’s
stomach. She recoiled with a shriek, clutching her gushing wound as she
collapsed into a b.l.o.o.d.y pile on the floor.
But it was far from over.
A newcomer was alerted by the commotion and let out a
savage roar as it stumbled over the nurse’s body and lunged at Harry. He dodged
just in time as a pair of scissors sliced past his head, firing another round
at the new monster in the process. The bullet just barely grazed the shoulder
of what was once a well-dressed young doctor, now a rabid monster just like the
nurses. He wasted no time grabbing Harry’s arm, forcing them into a
close-combat struggle. Before Harry could turn the muzzle to the doctor again,
he felt the cold steel scissors pierce his wrist, loosening his grip and
sending the gun to the floor. Harry fought for his life through the biting
pain, beating the doctor back with his bare hands as he tried to antic.i.p.ate
where those scissors would strike next. In a moment of pure desperation, he
grabbed the doctor by the chest and headb.u.t.t the monster in the head with all
his might.
The doctor stumbled backwards with a heavy groan.
Harry took advantage of his stunned opponent and brought smacked the scissors
from his hand with his flashlight. Now, if only for a moment, the two were
finally on equal footing. Adrenaline
coursing through him, Harry let out a yell and hurled his body at the doctor,
tackling him to the ground. As the two fell into a heap of flailing limbs,
Harry’s flashlight slipped from his hand and rolled against the far wall.
Suddenly bathed in disorienting darkness, Harry felt a pair of hands grab him
by the neck. The doctor dug his fingers into his throat, squeezing with almost
supernatural strength. Gasping and choking, Harry struggled to push his
attacker away with his right hand while groping through the darkness for his
gun with the left. Come on…come on…He
should have dropped it around here; it had to be there. Or else…
His heart leapt as his hand closed around something
cold and metallic. It was too thin to be a gun, but a pair of scissors would
save his live all the same. Clenching it tight, he stabbed the Doctor. A wet,
gurgling scream pierced the darkness and the doctor’s grip went limp. Finally
taking in a lungful of precious air, Harry shoved the monster away and scrambled
for his flashlight to view the aftermath. The doctor was writhing in agony on
the floor, the pair of scissors buried deep in his neck.
Harry’s gun lay on the ground not too far away. He
picked it up, looking down upon the pathetic creature. One shot was all it took
to put it out of its misery. A monster is a monster after all. It would have
just as easily killed him. The sooner Harry could shake his unnecessary
sentimentality, the longer he’d survive in a place like this.
Harry continued on with a heavy gait. He had four
rounds left but…the harrowing encounter with the doctor left him shaken and
exhausted. If another nurse appeared, he didn’t feel too confident in his
chances.
Nonetheless, he
set about the task of checking each room in the long corridor. With every empty
room he felt both a wave of relief and disappointment. He wouldn’t have to
fight for his life again, but he wasn’t any closer to finding his daughter
either.
“What’s this…?”
The final room
Harry entered was identical to the others, but somehow the atmosphere felt
different. It was a simple hospital room with nothing but a neatly made bed and
a nightstand, but somehow it had avoided the corrupting force that had left the
rest of the ward in ruin. It was as pristine as a new hotel room and looked to
have been cleaned quite recently. Was someone being treated here? And where
were they now…?
Harry’s chest
tightened. Cheryl could have been here. His daughter could have stood in this
very room before being whisked off again to G.o.d knows where. Harry’s eyes were
drawn to a picture frame sitting atop the nightstand. He saw, to his surprise,
the face of a young girl. Her eyes seemed distant and her expression was tinged
with melancholy. Harry recognized her instantly as the mysterious girl he’d
spotted in the boiler room back at the elementary school. As he stared into
those sorrowful eyes, Harry became certain of one thing. This girl was the one
held prisoner in this room, not Cheryl. But just who was she?
--
Even after all he’d been though,
Harry had been unable to find a single trace of Cheryl in this hospital. The
only remaining lead he had was the suspicious doctor Kaufmann, but he was long
gone. He could be halfway out of the state by now. Harry still had his one
meager connection the Brahms police force; he wondered if he could get them to
open an investigation to track the man down.
Weighed down with
disappointment, Harry trekked back to the first floor. He found the previously
locked fire escape and unlocked it from the inside, pushing it open to reveal a
grim sight. The once bright and spotless hospital he saw when he first arrived
had decayed to the same state as the bas.e.m.e.nt. The walls, the floor, even the
air itself had been corroded by darkness. It was as if the building had aged
centuries in the short time he’d been away. Looking around in morbid
bewilderment, Harry made his way back to the waiting room.
A theater stage set in a
perfect façade of normalcy on one side, but simply walk behind it and one can
see it from a different perspective. Did Silent Hill have two faces as well? If
his theory was correct, then whatever was happening at the school and the
hospital must be connected.
Harry was walking past an
examination room door when a sudden noise gave him pause. Someone was in there.
Another nurse? The wise option would be to just keep walking, but he couldn’t
ignore the slim possibility that it might be Cheryl. Who knows, maybe Kaufmann
forgot something important and risked a return trip for it.
Harry took a deep breath and
clenched his gun, feeling a dull throb of pain in the hand the monstrous doctor
had stabbed. His joints ached, his body was plagued by fatigue, and he could
feel his resolve crumbling by the second. But when it came down to it, he had
no choice. If things went bad again, he’d just turn around and run for it.
“Please let me make it out alive…” Harry murmured a quiet prayer as he swung
the door open.
Hands shaking, he pointed the
flashlight and muzzle at every corner of the room. Just as he suspected, a
nurse was crouched under a desk, lying in wait. She looked up at him, squinting
in the flashlight’s glare. Harry was poised to pull the trigger, but the look
on her face stopped him. He wasn’t met with a distorted smile, nor did she have
a stumbling gait or a grotesque hump.
“Thank G.o.d, another normal
person!” The nurse exclaimed as she scrambled out from under the desk. Harry
finally lowered the gun. Her face was filled with relief; she hardly even
noticed she’d nearly been shot.
“I’m Lisa Garland. But you
can call me Lisa.”
“Name’s Harry Mason. Harry is
fine.” Her bright smile and warm demeanor seemed to ease his tired mind and
heal his weary body in an instant. She must have an incredible bedside manner;
Harry might have actually enjoyed being a patient here if she were the one
taking care of him.
“It feels like I’ve been in
here forever. I was hoping someone would come to save me soon.”
“I’m looking for someone too.
I came here looking for answers but those nurses…everyone’s lost their minds.
You and I are the only normal people left.”
“It’s so awful…I blacked out
and when I came to, the staff, the patients, everyone was just gone. Harry,
what on earth is happening here?”
“I wish I knew. I’m just a
tourist. By the time I arrived, everyone was already gone.”
“It’s like a living
nightmare. I just wish I could wake up…” Lisa’s cheerful smile faded. Harry
couldn’t help but sympathize with her, holed up here all alone as the world
seemed to crumble around her.
“Anyway, we should hurry up
and get out of here. I’ll stay with you.”
“Of course. But…There’s
something I have to do before I can leave. I’m looking for my daughter.”
“Your daughter’s missing?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Cheryl.
Short, black hair. Just turned seven. Do you know anything?”
“I was unconscious for awhile
so I haven’t seen anyone…Sorry.”
“That’s alright. No need to
apologize.” He was feeling let down by her answer, but one nagging question
still remained. It surely had nothing to do with Cheryl, but it had been
weighing on his mind for a while now.
“I found this weird room
hidden in the bas.e.m.e.nt and there was a picture of a young girl in there. Do you
know anything about her?”
“A hidden room? What are you
talking about?”
“Yeah. I found this staircase
inside one of the storage rooms and-”
His words were cut short by a
jarring screech of a siren.
“d.a.m.n…my head…” Harry
clutched his head as the shrill call seemed to echo inside his skull.
“Harry? What’s wrong?” Lisa
looked to him, concerned. The sound was so loud it seemed to be drowning out
his own thoughts, how could she not hear it? Was it all in his head?
“Harry!? Stay with me!
Harry!”
…Harry…
…Harry…
Lisa’s voice drifted further
and further away before it disappeared into the reverberating sirens. The pain
throbbing in his head turned his vision dark. In an instant, the sound stopped.
When Harry forced his eyes back open, there was no sign of Lisa. The
examination room was just as bight and clean as when he first visited.
“It appears you were able to
escape the grasp of the darkness.” A voice that didn’t belong to Lisa pulled
Harry from his confusion. He looked up to see the aged face of the woman from
the church.
“You-”
“I believe introductions are
overdue. You may call me Dahlia Gillespie.”
“I don’t care about your
name! I want to know where my daughter is! I only came to this G.o.d-forsaken
hospital because of you and there’s nothing here!”
“I’m afraid you were too
late.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The Darkness.” Dahlia’s
voice was calm but her eyes glistened with intense fervor.
“This town is being devoured
by darkness. Strength must overcome petty desire. Childish sleep talk. I knew
this day would come.”
Harry stared in disbelief as
utter nonsense poured from her mouth. Just as he suspected, this lady was
completely crazy after all. Just because of all the bizarre things happening in
town, he’d let this delusional old woman send him on a wild goose chase that
nearly got him killed. He was shaken from his thoughts when Dahlia addressed
him again.
“Have you not seen the crest
marked on the ground all over town?”
“A crest? Like the one in the
schoolyard?”
“It is the mark of Samael.
Etched across all corners of this town. You mustn’t let it be completed.”
Samael. A
being also called the red serpent; revered by some as an angel, reviled by
others as a demon.
“Only you can end this. It is
beyond my abilities. If you are able to halt the mark’s completion, the
darkness plaguing this town will be dispelled and you may even be reunited with
your little girl. There is another church in this town; that is your
destination. Don’t let it be completed.”
Dahlia placed something atop
the desk as she spoke. A key. Harry’s gaze wandered for but a moment,
distracted by the metal gleam. When he looked back, Dahlia had vanished. Harry
tilted his head. As he sat in the heavy stillness, only one thought occupied
his mind.
That woman is a witch.
----------------Notes----------------
Pics coming soon, I just really wanted to get this posed now
Original - Sadamu Yamas.h.i.ta
Characters/story - Konami
Translation - Emily Fitch
Artwork by Masahiro Ito
Screenshots from the Silent Hill wiki