This town, Silent Hill . . . The Old Gods haven't left this place.
The thought came unbidden into her mind, and she had a vague sense that it wasn't even her own, that it was more like one of those papers scattered throughout the town that were imprinted with the thoughts and feelings of people who once lived there, suffered there.
Still, she thought it was fitting. Silent Hill, from what she had seen, was a place of corruption, of fears personified, though it carried an undertone of overwhelming power and presence, almost as if the town was an entity all itself, manipulating and terrorizing those who were hapless enough to wander through its borders. It was like a puppet master, she thought, and she was the puppet. Silent Hill pulled the strings, directed her where to go by destroying roads and locking doors.
It angered her, in a way, that her own life had been taken away from her, put under the control of some nameless, faceless malevolence that lurked within every niche and nook that made up Silent Hill.
And they still grant power to those who venerate them . . .
She didn't know whose thoughts her mind was suddenly channeling, though she could feel his pain, empathize with it. He had lost someone, a wife, perhaps, or a child or a sister or a lover. She didn't know and it didn't matter. The same sick, pounding feeling of grief and loss was still there, so ingrained in him that even his thoughts echoed with it.
She wondered if hers would, too, if anyone would ever hear their echo in their mind.
Power to defy even death.
She had always been taught the opposite, that death was permanent, one thing that was completely irreversible. But her beliefs had been tested these last hellish days spent in Silent Hill, and now she wasn't so sure. Could two books, oil, and a goblet resurrect the dead? Breathe life back into him?
In the real world, she wouldn't think so. But this was Silent Hill, the otherworld, Alessa's world. The rules were bent, boundaries were broken.
"You look so peaceful," she murmured, running a hand over his brow. His skin was cold and his chest still, and her mind still fleetingly doubted that the ritual would work, that life could be restored to a dead body.
But, that was the rational part of her mind, the skeptical part that would still like to believe that her whole ordeal was just an hallucination or a dream, even though she knew it was real, just like she knew the ritual would work.
"Forgive me for waking you, Vincent, but without you, I just can't go on."
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Author's Note: I've been wanting to write a Vincent/Heather for awhile, and this idea just intrigued me. Some parts of it were inspired by the Zero Punctuation review of Silent Hill: Origins (which is hilarious, by the way) and by an in depth plot analysis of Silent Hill 4 that I read somewhere.
So, I know that Heather hates Vincent, and that if given a chance to resurrect someone she would choose Harry, but come on, Vincent/Heather is my OTP!
Anna