Disclaimer: All characters based on the Silent Hill franchise are fictional and owned by Konami.

Broken Promise

Chapter 1

I never knew what he was talking about. I never understood his terror when night fell and the lights went out, leaving him in darkness, in a nightmare. I never knew why he didn't like to talk about Mary, or Silent Hill. One thing I did know was that he was fascinated, no, not fascinated, but obsessed with that knife. He claimed a woman named Angela had given him that ordinary kitchen knife.

I always wondered whose blood was dried on that knife. I once walked in on him whispering to himself, his eyes staring blindly into that cold steel. Startled by my presence, he quickly put the knife down, stammering something like he was cleaning it. The blood winked at me, telling me the truth. The truth I didn't want to know.

Now James is gone. A detective came to the apartment last night, the apartment where James and I had started our new, fragile life together. It was small, but I had a nice room, once filled with toys and dolls, now plastered with posters of rock bands and heaps of clothing all over the floor. The detective told me his name, Johnson or something mundane like that, and then he immediately told me to sit down, to prepare myself. I knew. I knew before he could say anything.

The knife had been missing for about a week now but I didn't think anything of it. James had told me he had finally put it away, burying it deep in his closet, out of sight and out of mind. He always was a terrible liar. James had said he was going to the park to clear his head, to be alone for a while. He didn't come home. And now this detective was telling me that a male in his early thirties wearing a green coat was found not in the park just a few blocks away, but in Silent Hill, dead from a neck wound. The corpse was clutching a kitchen knife. He showed me pictures of other detectives covering the bloodstained, stone-cold body. He showed me close-ups of the jagged flesh and dried, black blood caked around his neck. I knew it was James. The only person in this world I had and now... He broke his promise. He's left me alone.

That was last night. I don't really remember the detective leaving, not before handing me James's wallet and keys. I barely remember the phone ringing, a doctor from Brookhaven Hospital telling me he was unable to reach James's father in Ashfield and wanting to know if I had some way to contact him. I don't remember going to bed, fully clothed, clutching my teddy bear as if I was 8 years old again. Everything came to me in flashes, like a pile of photographs scattered and jumbled in a heap in which I'm supposed to make sense of them. I didn't cry last night and I'm not crying now. I don't know what to think, what I'm supposed to be feeling. All I know is that James's body is in Silent Hill. So Silent Hill is where I'm going.

I woke up this morning curled up in a ball, still gripping my teddy bear. I dressed, ate a bowl of cereal, and dug out some plastic bins from my closet. I don't know why I had kept them from the first move. Maybe deep down I knew I wasn't going to be here for long. I started packing my room first, then the bathroom, then the kitchen. I didn't know what to do with the living room furniture, so I left everything alone in that room. Now there was just one room left.

I stood in the hallway, goose bumps erupting all over my skin. I just stood there, staring at his door, waiting. Waiting for what? Waiting for him to open it and tell me, "Good morning kid, you just had a bad dream last night. I didn't really slash open my own neck and kill myself and leave you with no one."

I made myself move, to take that step forward. I wasn't aware I was holding my breath when I turned the doorknob and entered his room. My breath let out as I flicked on the light switch. Gray. Everything was gray. The wallpaper, the bedding, the furniture...all of it was one dull shade of heartless gray. I entered further into his room. Without warning, without knowing what I was even about to do, I started screaming to the empty shell of a living space.

"Why?! Why did you leave?! Why did you have to go do that?! What did I do?! "

What had I done to James to drive him away?! I threw the bin onto the floor and while shaking violently in a rage I didn't want, I began throwing what few possessions he had into the bin, breaking several small knick-knacks from his desk. I ripped the bed sheets from the bed and threw them into a pile in the hallway. I literally swept everything from his bookcase and nightstand into the bin, watching it all fall into a cluttered, broken mass of books, paperweights, and stupid useless things.

Despite my sudden rage, despite my anger at James for leaving me, despite that bastard...tears started to roll down my cheeks. I had knocked down a framed picture of me and James that was taken right after we moved here. The glass had broken and I gingerly picked up the frame, holding it as if it was a delicate feather that would be crushed if I held it too tightly. James was sort of grimacing, his version of a smile. His face was lined, he had dark bags under his eyes. Oblivious to his pain, I was laughing, smiling. Even as a child, I knew what James had gone through at Silent Hill...didn't I?

I stopped crying, the flow of tears stemmed for the moment. No...no James never actually told me what he saw and experienced in Silent Hill. All I saw was a small, foggy town, empty but unremarkable just the same. I think I met some people there, but I can't even remember what they looked like or what their names were. Obviously I didn't care enough about them to remember them at all. The one person that James and I were both looking for was the one person neither of us had found. At least I hadn't...

James rarely laughed, but when he did, I knew deep down it wasn't because of me, because he was happy. He was just trying to hide what he had done. Maybe if I listened to him, maybe if I asked him to talk about Mary, about why he did what he did. But no, I wanted to forget about the past. My friend was gone and in her place, James became my unwilling and subdued provider. I suppose he grew to love me in his own way, I knew I could never take the place of Mary. I was okay with that. He treated me well and I had a home that was peaceful and comfortable. But now... I'm alone. Again.

What had he seen that would drive him to...my God, to kill himself. I sank to the floor, realizing what this meant. It meant that I would never see James again. Sure, I loved him, but it wasn't a touchy-feely, crawl into his lap screaming "Daddy!" kind of love, but still... I'm never going to talk to him again, to have dinner with him, to rent movies and annoy him by making snide comments throughout the entire film, as he would throw popcorn at me, telling me to be quiet. I didn't even tell him I loved him. I just said I'd see him later, when he'd get home. James...why?

A harsh knock at the door broke me out of my depression. I sighed and got up to answer it. All of the anger and rage had left me as quickly as it had come. Now I just felt tired and I couldn't breathe well, as if I'd been swimming for hours only to realize I'd been holding my breath the whole time. I opened the door and there was the detective from last night. I looked at him, realizing he was younger than I had first thought, with a handsome face and dark eyes. He offered me a ride to the hospital to...well I guess to see James one last time before his funeral. I swallowed down laughter as I thought of how ridiculous this sounded to me. It's like telling a normal person, "Come on honey, I'll give you a ride to the mall to pick up that "special something", we'll be back in time for dinner." I accepted his offer and two and a half hours later, we were pulling into the parking lot just behind Brookhaven Hospital, where the morgue was.

Nothing eventful happened along the way. Actually, to tell you the truth, it was kind of awkward. This detective was only a few years older than me and I think I intimidated him. James did always tell me I was a brat, and that I didn't care what people thought of me. Unfortunately, I was also the sort of person who needed to talk when there was silence, I hate silence. Most of the talking came from my side and I think the poor guy was regretting his offer to help out this poor, lonely girl. Oh well, it serves him right for assuming such a thing. He probably took one look at my blond and pink hair, my pierced eyebrow, black eyeliner, and thought, "Yep, here's a typical teenager, screaming for attention and trying to piss off daddy." The thing was, James barely reacted when I came out of the bathroom, having just pierced my own skin. He just told me to clean up my mess and make sure I didn't bleed on anything. I was twelve when I did that. I probably should've realized then that James didn't care what I did. Or even care for me, for that matter.

I got the hint after the first hour or so that this detective didn't want to listen anymore when he turned up the radio. He said it helped him concentrate on the road. What he really meant was he was sick of listening to me complain about school, stupid teachers, and why I suspected James was going to buy me a car for my upcoming sixteenth birthday. The rest of the road trip was drowned out in old rock music, terrible in my opinion.

The sun had started to set when we finally pulled in. Detective Johnson sighed in relief and I felt a little stupid for irritating him on the way over. It wasn't his fault James committed suicide and left me to pick up the pieces of this shattered life I led. We got out of the car and headed up a small ramp to the doors, the kind that open sideways, big enough to let gurneys and rushing paramedics in. The lights were those terrible fluorescent kind, with just enough of a flicker to hurt your eyes if you stared at the wall long enough. There were the typical hospital sounds, monitors beeping heartbeats, wheels from wheelchairs squeaking, the nurses scolding their patients that they couldn't go home unless they got better, and to get better they had to eat the slop they called hospital food.

It was in a hospital like this where I met Mary, the very woman whose husband would come to be the only family I would ever know. My parents died years before, I don't really remember how. I think it was a plane or car accident. Whatever it was, it killed them and left me sick and alone. Mary would stay up most nights, her coughing spells leaving her exhausted and unable to sleep. We'd stay awake until dawn, talking about everything, which is funny that I can't recall a single conversation I had with her. She did mention Silent Hill a lot though. I just remember feeling safe and happy with her, while my tiny little body would eventually heal itself. I was released back to the orphanage, outside of Ashfield. I tried to go back to the hospital and visit Mary but she had already been released. I never saw her again. It was James's fault why I would never see her again.

I've always hated hospitals.

Johnson and I made our way down the hallway, past doors and nurses' stations. He obviously knew where the morgue was so I just followed along, trying to ignore that antiseptic smell that seems to permeate from every surface within all hospitals. After probably about five minutes, we came to a dead end with a pair of large steel doors. It took me a minute to realize that Johnson had stopped and was waiting for me to enter.

"He's through here. He's been cleaned up but he's still...The wound is still there. Are you sure you want to see him?"

I stuck my hands in my pockets and shrugged. "Well, I've made it this far, haven't I? What else is left for me?"

He frowned and nodded for me to go in alone. I swallowed as I suddenly became nervous. Everything has led me here, not just James's death. My parents' deaths when I was little. My illness, leading me to Mary. My short visit alone in that foggy town that would lead me to James. James and I moving away, trying to forget those we had loved. Me getting a detective at my door, telling me James had been found dead. Around and around it goes, the carousel spinning wildly out of control.

I couldn't think of any reason not to go in that room. Hell, I could think of a million but none of them seemed very important. I could only imagine what he looked like and my imagination had to be so much worse than the truth. For Mary's sake, for my own sake, I needed to look at that dead husk of a man and see if I could walk away from it. From everything he's done, the good and the bad. I had to do this, there wasn't any way I was getting out of this damned mess without doing this. So I straightened up, head held high and I strode past Johnson, taking a hand out of my pocket long enough to push open those doors.

Looking back now, I wish to God I hadn't gone into that room.