Disclaimer: I'm definitely not an expert on Silent Hill lore. I've only played through the first four games, and I have a pretty loose grasp on the details. Please forgive me if a lot of this doesn't line up with canon; I just fill in the gaps with my own interpretations.

* * 1 - Troubled

As far as her neighbors knew, she was just a troubled girl. Definitely unstable, but not dangerous. Just your typical schizophrenic yelling at nothing in the middle of the night.

Cheryl Mason—formerly known as Heather Mason-had literally gone through Hell, but worse than that, no one would ever believe her. Sometimes she didn't even believe it. Her time in Silent Hill felt like a distant memory from another life, though it was only four years ago. Those four years were fogged by psychiatric drugs, alcohol and one hundred days in a mental institution. The loneliness was worst of all. She missed her father. Her friends from school had kept their distance, ignored her calls—all since she got out of the hospital. She'd been emancipated since Harry Mason's death, legally allowed to live on her own at 17, but there was no way she could work. Now age 21, Cheryl made an honest effort, but the "hallucinations" and her reactions to them had gotten her fired from even the simplest jobs.

Douglas had been her only friend through all this. If not for him, she would be living on the streets. He helped her move across the country, as far from Silent Hill as she could go. He helped her get financial assistance from the government—on the grounds that she was disabled, too mentally unwell to earn her own living. Her studio apartment was shitty and she relied on shitty public transportation. It wasn't a glamorous life, but it was still Heaven compared to the mental hospital. Cheryl still attended therapy. She was recently prescribed a cocktail of drugs that seemed to work for her, at least to reduce her anxiety attacks and paranoia. It seemed nothing would take away the "hallucinations", however, and her doctors had to admit they were baffled. No amount of therapy or medication could convince Cheryl that the otherworldly things she saw were not real. She knew better.

Cheryl was lonely, but never truly alone.

Her stalker was always there, even when she couldn't see it. It was inhuman, faceless and frightening. The Metatron—Attendant to God—had seemingly become bound to Cheryl even after her time in Silent Hill, and she'd tried damn near everything to shake it. Medication, church, holy water, pagan rituals, alcohol, violence…The monster always returned. Though it never hurt her directly, it caused Cheryl distress. She was never at ease when it was around. It reminded her of the abomination that used to grow in her womb. Its presence made her skin crawl and her stomach drop. What did it want with her? All it seemed to do is go out of its way to agitate her.

Floor space was a commodity in her studio apartment, so Cheryl opted for a futon rather than a bed. She never bothered to fold it down, falling asleep on its couch-position in a tangle of blankets. She left the TV on 24/7, its blue glow flickering, late-night infomercials droning quietly as she slept. The TV was mind-numbing safety. The constant chatter of other human beings lulled her into a sense of security. It was when the voices stopped that she woke.

The chattering faded. Cheryl stirred, rolling over to face the screen. She squinted in the bright light, blinking a few times until the world came into focus. The infomercial had deteriorated into static. The young woman froze, eyes darting to a shadowy figure above the television. Clinging to the wall like an insect, nearly human in shape—The Metatron was here to disrupt her life once more. Its head twitched slightly, craning toward her. Bits of the infomercial faded back in, but the audio was scrambled beyond recognition.

"Ugh! Would you fuck off?" Cheryl snarled, then fiercely pitched her pillow at the creature. She didn't fear retaliation; not since she put a bullet in its head four years ago and it still remained passive. She tried to push it to its limit many times. Tried to convince it to kill her and put her out of her misery, but it would do nothing of the sort. It must have enjoyed her suffering, she figured. The pillow missed anyway, slumping down harmlessly to the floor. The Metatron extended one twitching hand forward, planting its palm on the boxy old television. At its touch, the static was interrupted by multicolored bars and obscured images rapidly cycling over the screen. The volume increased, the audio's deep scrambling sounding more like the banter of demons than salespeople.

Cheryl kicked the blankets away and stumbled off the couch.

"Stop it!" She growled and stormed towards the TV, seizing the Metatron's arm and jerking his hand away. The static lifted dramatically, almost looking like a normal picture again. The creature defiantly slapped its palm back onto the device and the program was a mess once more. Its head twitched in what Cheryl could only assume was an expression of twisted delight at her expense.

"I said 'stop'!" the girl wailed and shoved the monster back against the wall. It bounced back quickly, gripping the TV tightly with both hands, gloved fingers curling over the top of the screen. Terrible sounds exploded from the speakers, like messy feedback from a radio. The images behind the glass were terribly distorted, but Cheryl could still recognize them as faces. The eyes of a woman, cutting to her mouth, then ear, the corner of her head. The face of Alessa…The face of Heather…The face of Cheryl, bloody and mutilated.

Panic rose in Cheryl's stomach. She clutched the television and heaved it off the cabinet, sending it crashing to the floor with a bang and the tinkling of shattered glass. The cord was ripped from the wall. The static, the demons, the images were gone. The room was dead silent, only the faint sound of dogs barking down the street and Cheryl's uneven breaths. She sunk to the floor and buried her head between her knees, tears welling in her eyes as she quietly pleaded,

"Just leave me alone…Please…"

The Metatron seemed upset, its head jerking about violently. It uttered some guttural, inhuman sounds from the mouth on the side of its skull as it crawled down the wall and approached the broken television. It pulled the device upright again, running its hands all over, feeling it out as a blind person would. One of its hands ventured through the broken screen, grasping around at the inner workings. The remaining glass was cutting its arm, but it seemed unfazed.

Cheryl watched for a moment, vision blurred by tears.

"Look what you did. You broke it. You!" she emphasized, pointing an accusing finger, "Don't you see how unhappy you make me? Don't you care at all?"

The Metatron pulled out a fistful of wires and examined them by feel. Though it had no visible ears, Cheryl knew the thing could hear and even understand the gist of what she said sometimes. It seemed to be ignoring her, but she continued scolding it anyway,

"Some fucking angel you are, Valtiel," she practically spat the name, "You're a pain in the ass. Why don't you piss off so I can have a normal life?"

There was a silence between the two as the creature continued to pull the television apart. The floor surrounding them was scattered with electronic scraps, Cheryl silently glaring until the Metatron eventually lost interest and crawled up the ceiling. It defied gravity completely, hanging suspended as if it weighed nothing at all. It was an Otherworld creature, bound only by Otherworld laws. It came and went between realms as it pleased.

Cheryl picked up her pillow and made her way back to the futon. It was too late to deal with all this now. With any luck, Valtiel would disappear back into the Overworld and give her some peace for a day or two. Valtiel was a constant part of her life, but there was still a major communication barrier between them. She could only assume things. She assumed that the Attendant to God had failed its purpose, and with no God to attend to, it became null in its own world. No purpose, no direction, nowhere to go…So it followed Cheryl back to her world, serving her as if she had usurped its master's throne. The Metatron was not native to this realm or its properties, however, and its idea of "serving" could be anything from annoying Cheryl to damn near killing her.

Then again, that assumption could be wrong. Maybe it was just a residual demon from Silent Hill meant to torture her for the rest of her days, punishing her for what she'd done to God.

Strips of daylight stretched over the wall, shining through the blinds of Cheryl's one window. She cautiously opened her eyes, fearing her "angel" might be hanging above her. It was nowhere to be seen. She stood up and headed for the kitchen area in a half-waking stupor.

"Ow—Shit!" She stumbled back when a shard of glass pierced her foot. She winced as she pulled it out of her heel, examining the blood left behind. The TV was still disassembled on the floor. What a mess. She spent the next half-hour sweeping up bits of metal, wire, and glass, then carried the hollowed-out box outside.

She crossed the parking lot, glancing at the neighbors standing around having their morning smoke. They looked back at her, then one younger woman made a face and giggled, whispering something to her friend. Cheryl sighed. Surely they thought she had another "mental episode" last night, fighting with hallucinations.

Sometimes, Cheryl wondered if they were right.

She tossed the broken TV in the dumpster and rushed back inside. The smell of tobacco made her want to start smoking again. The only thing stopping her was her depressing financial situation. Once inside, she woke up with some coffee but couldn't stomach any food. She put on a comfortable short jersey dress and a hooded sweatshirt, leaving yesterday's makeup smeared around her eyes as she rushed to her therapy appointment. She caught the bus just in time.

Sitting near the front, Cheryl stared out at the mundane world passing by. This side of the country would never feel like home. Not a day passed where she didn't miss her father, and what an insult that he was taken by an Otherworldly murderer only she could see. No one would believe the truth. Her therapists nodded along and fed her lies to pacify her. She only attended these sessions to stay out of the hospital.

Checking in at the front office, Cheryl sat in the lobby and waited for her therapist, Dr. Paulson. This was only her third appointment with him. She'd been passed around to various mental health professionals over the years for various reasons; either they felt her problems were beyond their skill, she was uncooperative, or they felt she wasn't making progress. Other patients waited around her, people with varying degrees of illness. Some were silent and appeared "normal" while others wore five jackets and chattered to themselves. She wondered how many of them had experienced what she did. How many had seen the Otherworld? How many had monsters of their own?

Cheryl was 15 minutes early, despite how she dragged her ass this morning. She played a little game on her phone to pass the time. Multicolored gems rotated around the screen, and for a moment, her anxieties felt far away. Then the game froze. Cheryl waited for a moment, then tapped the phone against her palm. The screen flickered rapidly, picture severed by climbing black bars. She felt dread creep up her spine, and glanced up. The people around her had suddenly become mutilated abominations. Cheryl's whole body tensed. This scenario was not new, but it was a nightmare all the same. They didn't realize what they looked like.

The receptionist took calls as usual, though her face was but a spiraling black void. Her voice gurgled on inhumanly. The man sitting beside Cheryl obviously didn't notice the black sludge seeping from his eyes and nose as he leafed through a magazine. Cheryl watched in horror as it dribbled into the pages. No one else in the room was looking much better. Cheryl sat frozen in place, teeth clenched, trying to appear as casual as possible even as her heart hammered and her legs shook. She was on the verge of a freak-out. She felt a heavy, almost oppressive presence behind her and craned her head up, finally spotting the source of all this madness.

Valtiel "stared" back at her with his eyeless face, perched upside-down on the wall just above her. She looked like a caged animal, eyes wide and desperate as she silently mouthed "go away" to the monster, which apparently no one else could see. Valtiel must have created an Otherworld portal somewhere nearby. He used them to travel over realms quickly, and though Heather didn't have a vehicle, she would never be desperate enough to use them herself. The Metatron reached out to her and stroked her unwashed black hair. Cheryl slapped his hand away, then realized she was doing it again…Looking out of control. To the people around her, she was slapping at thin air.

The young woman pretended to clear her throat before shuffling to the bathroom. She just needed a moment to steady her breathing. The door clicked shut behind her and she flicked on the light, startled at the sight before her. There was her portal.

The Halo of the Sun was painted on the wall tiles in red. It had a coppery stench to it. In the center of the seal was a long, dark, tunnel that defied all special reasoning of this building.

"God damn it…!" Cheryl hissed as she gathered fistfuls of paper towels and wetted them in the sink. No one but her would see the tunnel, but they would see the bloody Satanic-looking graffiti around it. It scrubbed away from the tile rather easily, unlike the portal Valtiel opened in her studio wall, which she blocked with a large flowery tapestry. Once the Halo was gone, the tunnel mended itself. The wall returned to its normal tiled state.

By the time she left the bathroom, Valtiel was gone, and everyone in the lobby looked human again. Her therapist had been waiting, and led her into his office.

"You look shaken, Cheryl," the doctor mentioned as he closed the door, "Do you need some water? Tea?"

Cheryl slid into an overstuffed chair and shook her head. Dr. Paulson took his place across from her and rested his ankle on his opposite knee. He touched his fingertips together and asked,

"You're having a hard time today, aren't you? What's going on?"

"It followed me," she choked out quickly, "The Metatron. I think it's in the building."

She knew he thought she was full of shit. But she needed to get it out either way, before she panicked. Paulson remained calm as he replied,

"Do you feel threatened by it?"

Cheryl hesitated.

"No," she decided, "I know it won't hurt me. It never has. But it's…It does things to people. It turns them into monsters, and I'm afraid that I…" she trailed off there. It was best if she didn't mention any homicidal thoughts, or she could find herself in that terrible hospital again.

Vincent's words still haunted her years later. "They look like monsters to you?"

She shuddered.

"Go on. It's alright." The doctor urged her.

Taking a deep breath, Cheryl continued,

"It was messing with my TV last night. Things came up on the screen—Things from the Otherworld, I think. I freaked out, and I…I had flashbacks to Silent Hill. I ended up smashing my own TV."

Paulson's brows jumped ever so subtly. He marked something down on his clipboard. Suddenly Cheryl felt like she'd said too much.

"So it's been a very active couple of days for you," he said, "Tell me: What do you think this creature's intentions are? Do you feel it's malicious?"

Cheryl didn't know how to answer. She chose her words slowly, carefully,

"It won't kill me. It'll never kill me, no matter what I do to it. I think it…" she paused, then winced at how ridiculous she was going to sound, "I think it might worship me. It brings me offerings. Weird stuff, like," she thought for a moment, recalling all the trinkets Valtiel had left at her feet, "Flowers. Trash. Jewelry." She quivered, "Sometimes it brings dead animals to me. I hate that shit."

"But you say it also torments you."

"It does. But…I don't know if that's the intention. I aborted its God and killed it. I think it sees me as its God now." She paused, "That, or…Or it's punishing me for it."

It all sounded so stupid out loud, years later, in the painfully normal real world. Cheryl didn't blame doctors for diagnosing her as schizophrenic. If she didn't know better, she'd say she was rolling on some pretty crazy God-delusions too.

Hell, maybe she was. Insane people never knew they were insane, right? The notion terrified her. She'd rather all this horrific nonsense be real.

"I see," Dr. Paulson mumbled, scribbling something else on his clipboard, "So, you feel this monster is just misunderstood. Do you ever feel misunderstood, Cheryl?"

She almost rolled her eyes,

"I know what you're thinking," she explained, "The Metatron is a representation of myself that I'm projecting through delusions, blah blah. But it isn't. I know I sound insane, and I know you'll never believe me. You'll never know how frustrated I am, Doctor. Everything I'm telling you really happened. It is real." There was desperation in her voice,

"This monster is tangible. It's cold to the touch. It has weight. It stinks like blood. It moves shit around in my apartment when I'm gone." She sighed, "It's not real to anyone else, I guess, but it's real to me. This is my reality…Unfortunately."

Dr. Paulson slowly nodded, silent for a moment. Then he replied,

"Truly, the only reality that matters in your life is going to be your own. I believe you, that you experience these things, though they may not be tangible to me. I can tell you have a lot of hang-ups about this. Remember, if you're not completely honest with me, I can't help you."

Cheryl groaned and slumped down in her chair. He couldn't help her either way. All of this just felt like a waste of time, pouring her heart out as her so-called Attendant watched from the corner of the office. Clinging to the wall behind Paulson's desk, cloaked in the shadow of a fake tree. This is how it was most of the time. Cheryl could ignore him well enough when he wasn't disrupting the mundane world. Valtiel could be a fly on the wall when he felt like it.

Dr. Paulson fed Cheryl the same advice he gave to all of his delusional patients for the next hour, suggesting a higher dose of medication and various breathing exercises. Cheryl spaced out through most of it, especially when he tried prying into her childhood. Her life before Silent Hill was mostly blocked out of her memory anyway, so she made up some bullshit to appear compliant. She didn't want to think about her father. She'd get upset, then Valtiel would get upset and start warping her reality. As long as she stayed calm, she would be okay.

The hour was up. Paulson led Cheryl to the door and handed her a little slip of paper,

"Give this to your MD. We'll try a higher dose of the meds and see if that calms the monster. If not, there are plenty of other solutions." He forced a little smile. Cheryl tucked the note in her purse and replied,

"Thanks. I will. And sorry about your wall."

The doctor quirked his head, then turned back to his office. A Halo of the Sun was crudely smeared on the wall behind his desk in red. It was only 3 feet in diameter, just large enough for someone to crawl through.

Dr. Paulson's jaw dropped. He stepped towards the Halo, examining it closely. He stammered,

"W-what…How…?"

Cheryl shrugged and replied flatly,

"Told you it was real."