The Lakeview Hotel, room 312
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The Lakeview Hotel isn't very popular place in Silent Hill,not many people know about it, but everyone who has stayed there, never grumbled neither about his placing nor on service. They met in opinion it was a great place for a pastime in such remarkable resort town as Silent Hill. It was a little piece of heaven for the elder people, falling in love and those who simply arrive, deciding to rest from endless fuss of everyday life. A few months ago the two joined the habitants of the hotel, happy and anticipant all gladnesses of rest, which a city and their love unchangingly promised them. They were stopped at a room 312. It seemed to happen so a long ago...
Now the light in the room was turned off,a moonlight penetrated through wide windows, filling a room by space. Quite close to one of the windows an arm-chair was set, and a woman sat there. Yet young, possibly, not stunningly beautiful, but indisputably pretty, she may seem calm, but there was something in her look, that compelled to become alert. Her eyes were gllittered in some strange way(it looked like she cried recently), hair had been inaccurately collected on the back of head, she was sitting arched, perching in an arm-chair with her feet, as though she had strongly froze and tried to get warm. She was surrounded by a complete silence, time after time interrupted by the cough of the woman. And the weirdest thing was that something in this cough compelled to trust that he was caused not by a cold.
The woman was looking through the windows, as though trying to look over something after them, not visible for ordinary look. She nervously squeezed and unclenched the fingers of hands. She was tense, and reason of this tension was anxious, draining expectation of someone. She didn t want the arrival of that man. And at the same time she wished it so strong.
The easy creak of door was heard - someone entered the room. A woman sighed, trying to collect her thoughts.
'To say it honest, I didn t think you would return today.'
'Where could I go, in your opinion?' answering masculine voice trembled, and also from tension.
Really, where he could go in such time. She was such a fool.
'Sorry. I feel I'm going mad. I begin to say such a stupid things.' Her voice misfired.
'Actually, I could look for the another hotel and stay there,if you want me to do this. But you can become badly, so I've decided it would be better if I stay with you.'
To stay with her?He does it too often...all the time.
'Mary?'
Her heart started to beat faster, when she heard her name. Above everything she wanted to get up, snuggle up to him, tell about the fears, that he could protect her from all nightmares, tormenting her.
Probably,even God didn't know, what labours it needed from her to answer in following moment:
'No, James. You'd better go.'
Observation deck. Entrance to Silent Hill.
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He closed his eyes.
'Wake up. Wake up.'
He still stood here. Yes, he went back into this place. He was still called James Sunderland. He was still 29 years old. He still worked as a clerk. He still...lost his wife three years ago.
He opened his eyes. For some reason he imagined he wouldn't recognize that place by arrival, but it so mercilessly remained former. Under the trees the lake darkled. How was it called... Toluca?
James passed a few steps and stopped at indecision. No, he scarcely would pass far without a map. Although not so much time had passed. A hand by itself stretched to the pocket, eyes began to bustle on the rumpled sheet of paper, searching for the last lines of the letter got by him:
'In...our...special...place...Waiting...for...you...'
Special place. Something squeezed in his breast.
He closed his eyes again.
Rosewater Park.
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'Doesn't it seem to you it is time for us to return? People all have divided already, we are only who stuck here!' Mary tried to represent a seriousness, although it succeeded not very well.
'Well,let's stuck here a little bit.' James smiled and attracted her to him. 'Don't deny you enjoy being here more than me and persistently try to lead me away from here only because of your innate love to the observance of all existing world proprieties!'
'Well,you're right,of course...' She laughed. 'Okay,I hope we won't be driven out from a park only because we walk here till late night and disturb the calmness of the citizens!'
She wanted to add something, but looked at the water. Waters of Toluca lake beckoned and pushed away simultaneously; Mary remembered stories of the local about the people who died there, and monuments, perished to its victims, and felt herself uncomfortable.
'Are you cold?' James stared at her attentively.
Oh, why does he so care of her so much...
'No, I'm alright. But to leave this place isn t really desirable for me.' She felt silent and began to look at water again . Some time they stood hugging and breathing not a word. In fact, words didn't matter at that moment.
Suddenly James stepped back on the pair of steps and looked up and down at the wife.
'Something's wrong?' She pronounced that question with as possible the greater stake of irony as she could; at the same time Mary wasn't able to confess even to herself that his look was pleasant to her but it also embarrassed her a bit.
'Perfect! Stay here!' he grinned.
'What?Oh no!Don't make one more picture of me! We had already done photos on ten lives forward...'
'Hey,you can trust that this photo is excellent!Although you're better than any of them,certainly.' James hugged Mary and started to kiss her.
That photograph....
Observation deck. Entrance to Silent Hill.
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...was kept in his pocket along with a letter from Mary which he wished to discover once appearing to him only in a bad dream. But a paper sheet, covered with letters by such knowable handwriting, was no less real, what all situation that surrounded him. However, he was almost ready to believe in an unreality of all what was going on, if it wasn't a weak smoldering hope, compelling to walk ahead, to get down on steps, pass to the cemetery where a key road began - a road to the city.
In a half hour he went out on the outskirts of Silent Hill - Saunders Street. He slowly walked down the road through the fog ( 'Why there is so much fog here?..' ), but his mind was disturbed by the happening meeting. Angela said she was looking for her mother... Why here?..
Suddenly his thoughts intermitted; feet grew on to the asphalt, and sight focused on the large bright spots right in front of him.
'Blood?!.. It can't be...How...'
A shout burst from James's lips - a silhouette retired swiftly from him, hiding in fog. Not meditating about anything, he broke away after a silhouette. On the way his mind caught more spots on an asphalt, but he hadn't already thought about them.
Silence, soaring in mid air,was broken by a a sound, looked like hissing of radio. Yes, by the little, dirty pocket radio,which suddenly broke out a wheeze, hissing and sing. James moved his look into the darkness where Something was selected from it. All thoughts were worn away. Fingers groped a board, sticking out from a partition he had climbed over a minute ago.
The Lakeview Hotel, room 312
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'I dislike your cough very much. Mary, think about visiting a doctor...'
'There is no use in a doctor,because I have an ordinary cough. You know perfectly, that it all will pass in itself, thus very quickly.' She wasn't able to finish talking: the next fit of coughing forged speech.
'What do you mean "quickly"' ? James hadn't already tried to overcome the nervousness overfilling him.
'I don't know what I should answer you.' Mary answered unexpectedly quietly and leaned back in her arm-chair. She felt herself very tired.
'But I see you feel badly.'
'Yes...yes,I do. Please, let me have a rest.'
A pause hung. Mary looked through a window once again ;she felt once again, as strongly she didn't want to leave Silent Hill.
'Probably, you're right. As soon as we come back home, I will go to see a doctor.'
Rosewater Park.
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'You were gonna just leave me? With all of these monsters around?' An alarm slipped in Maria s voice.
'No,I just...' James's thoughts were confused. He wanted to continue his searches, and at the same time the unexpected liking to the new meeting didn't allow him to go on.
'I'm all alone here. Everyone's gone.' A woman's voice sounded capriciously a little.
Well, if she wants to go with him, he can't forbid it to her. Probably, he will even manage to protect her from the monsters. Probably.
'I look like Mary? You loved her,right? Or maybe...you hated her.'
Is she going to tease him? No, let her do it to someone else.
'Don't be ridiculous.' Answer sounded enough sharply even for James himself.
'So it's okay?'
Khm, did he manage to touch her?..
'Yeah, fine.'
An obvious facilitation was read on Maria's face.
At least, he will go further not alone. And it gave some hope.
St. Jerom s Hospital.
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'So Mary's going to die?..'
'I'm afraid I have to say this.'
Through the despair clouding his mind with the lighting speed he managed to cry out:
'But you're a doctor!It's your job to heal people!'
The doctor rose from an arm-chair.
'As her doctor,I promise I'll do what I can. But there's no effective treatment for her condition.'
James heard his voice hardly, as if it sounded through the fog:
'How long does she have?'
'Three years,perhaps six months. It's impossible to say with certainty.'
The doctor sighed.
'She must know the truth, to hide it from my patient is too...meanly. Will you tell her?'
'Hi!' Mary hardly succeeded to hide the enormous gladness from his visit.
'Hi. 'James felt how strong was his heart's beating. He sat near her bed and took her hand.
'How are you?' -and just realised all the foolishness of that question.
'Similarly.' Her face became severe. 'Pain increases. 'She had a fit of coughing. 'Here it is,again. I asked the doctor, whether there are some positive changes. He parried a question. I don't like it.'
He wanted to scream.
'Mary,I...'
She looked at him with an anxiety.
'Yes?'
'I...I've just wanted to say I love you.'
He bent over and kissed his wife's cheek with all tenderness he was capable in that moment.
She stepped aside quickly - too quickly, as it seemed to him.
'I love you too. But I don't like your mood.'She smiled to him. 'James, everything gonna be okay.'
'Certainly.'
He went out from a room and snuggled up to the door powerlessly. It was so desirable to begin to cry and wake up, and to understand that everything gonna be okay - just in a way which Mary said him. But he knew that nothing would be in a same way.
'James!Did you say...' Doctor appeared as if from nowhere and misfired, not finishing his speech.
James looked straight into the emptiness.
'Well, I understood. Then I will say her. Later.'
The Lakeview Hotel, the third floor.
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The words of Maria emerged in his memory again and again.
'Do you remember the videotape we made? I wonder if it's still there...'
The videotape was there, he found it quickly enough. But Maria will never find out about it, cause he had found her dead, and - he shuddered at this thought - she died on his eyes not at the first time.
James squeezed the key from a room 312 in a palm and wasn't able to bring it to the lock. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes. Before an internal look the faces emerged unexpressly.
Maria. Angela. Eddie. Laura. Mary.
Mary...
The key turned in a keyhole easily.
St. Jerom s Hospital.
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He stopped at the room's door in a stupor. He was too guilty before her. He hadn't visited her too long. Not surprising, if she hated him. But no force would compel him to go away. He opened the door.
'What do you want, James?' she pronounced with pain in her voice.
'I, uh, I brought you some flowers...'
He felt himself a nonentity.
'Flowers? I don t want any damn flowers!' Mary sat up on a bed, but even this motion was hard for her. 'Just go home already.'
He powerlessly sat down in a chair.
'What are you saying?..'
'Look at me! I'm disgusting! I don't deserve flowers. Between the disease and the drugs I look like a monster!' Pain forged her, and Mary leaned back on a pillow, trying to restrain sobbing.
'I'll be dead soon anyway. It would be better it they just killed me. But I guess they have a nice profit at me and wanna keep me alive...'
It seemed to James that he was strangling.
'Are you still here? I told you to go! Are you deaf?!' Mary was ready to swear, that she hated that man which was sitting in front of her at that moment and which every arrival was the veritable happiness.
He rose and went off to the door. Mary felt a horrific cold in a breast.
'James...Wait...Please, don't go...Stay with me...'
He stopped.
'Don't leave me alone...I didn't mean what I said...Please, James...Tell me I'll be okay...Tell I'm not going to die...'
He heaved up a look at her; his eyes only glittered coldly, she couldn't read nothing in them, no single response to her entreaty. She couldn't restrain despair any longer.
'Help me...'
A door was slammed from the other side. For a minute she didn't move; it seemed, she didn't even breathe. Then, sobbing in despair, she felt down on a pillow. When there were not forces for the tears, she simply listened a silence, feeling the deaf pain which swashed in the depth of the heart and wasn't related to illness in any way.
Sunderland's apartment, South Ashfield.
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He measured a room by the steps. Made an effort to have coffee, but he felt nausea. He couldn't confess to himself he was nervous recklessly. Finally, as though he decided something, looked at a clock and passed to the nearby room.
Mary lay there. She had been brought home a few days ago, and it was the first time when she was thankful to the doctors. She missed the house but examined it now with a cold indifference.
James sat down on the edge of bed and looked at her. She became very thin, was very pale, a tumour, looked like a track from a burn, appeared on her face. However, she still looked so beautiful. She stroked his hand and made an effort to smile, but even after a smile a horrific fatigue was hidden. He looked in her eyes for a few instans, then bent sharply, kissed her to a forehead gently and whispered something. And right after that he covered her head by a pillow.
Alternative Lakeview Hotel, the first floor.
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The spear of the executioner has pierced a flesh of the victim.
James fell to his knees. Maria had already perished for the third time, and he hadn't made again anything to rescue her. He was weak, and Pyramid Head monsters knew it. That time there were two of them, and they both had the same purpose. In his mind the faces had started gleaming again .
Laura. She had left, and he wouldn't never find this girl who simply wished to find Mary and to become happy.
Maria. She was ready to follow him anywhere, but he had made nothing to protect her.
Angela. She was burnt down in a flame which burnt only for her. She had chosen the way which was impossible to descend.
Eddie. For him there was only one way. The way of madness and death from James's hand.
Now he was kneeling, and his executioners were standing up for his back and waiting for the moment to pronounce the verdict. But their verdict wasn't necessary to him; he would take it out by himself.
Now it was time to end everything.
One of Pyramid Heads had come forward and threatened, aiming a spear at James. But that hadn't moved,lifted a gun and let out all holder in the monster.
After the final fight.
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Maria had revived again...in awful shape. He had had nothing left to do but to shoot...to shoot...to shoot...After all, he knew the truth now.
He didn't want to remember it. He was surrounded by emptiness. Suddenly emptiness dissipated. He looked back. The room was too familiar: its conditions consisted of a bed, a little table and a chair near it, and on a wall there was a well recognised photo made by him. There were two of them on it, and Silent Hill still was a symbol of their happiness. Their special place. Now no doubts remained that he had found that he had looked for.
He inclined over a bed and said silently:
'Mary?'
She turned to him and smiled with her habitual gentle smile.
The Lakeview Hotel, room 312
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'..No, James. You'd better go.' She had a fit of coughing again.
He continued looking silently at her.
'I want to be alone. Please.'Some nervousness notes appeared in Mary's voice.
'And I don't want you to be alone, I had already told about it.' James's voice sounded coldly, but the weariness was distinctly heard in it.
She rose from her seat and approached to him.
'I didn't wish to tell you about it, but I feel uncannily for some reason. And I don't wish to leave from here. I understand that it is necessary, but...'
She stopped and lifted her eyes on him.
'Embrace me.'
He embraced her gently, but at the same strongly;she understood that he had wanted to do it like that for a long time.
'You know...You've asked to take you here again...'
'Yes. It is even on the videotape. We have the material evidence!'
He smiled:
'Well, if we have the evidence,I promise that as soon as you recover, we will come back here.'
'Certainly. After all, it is a special place. For both of us.'