Something had changed in Silent Hill after Maria had been sick. She couldn't explain it exactly, but her days were filled with a growing sense of disquiet unrelated to the town's typical threats. Perhaps it was simply that her grip on reality, which was always tenuous, had grown even more so. She awoke with no memory of falling asleep, and her sleep was restless and filled with dreams that seemed so real that sometimes she misremembered them as things that had actually happened.

Occasionally Maria wondered where James was, but it was a thought that she couldn't seem to hold onto; her mind veered sharply away from it without her even consciously considering it. Gray mist hung quiet over the town, undisturbed by mannequins, nurses, and their ilk. Left to her own devices, she wandered the fog disconsolately, and was finally confronted with the unreality of her own existence.

Her life had never been something that Maria was fond of thinking about. Sometimes though, an insidious voice at the back of her mind would ask her questions. Questions like what he mother's name was. Where she was born. What her first pet's name was. She cut these thoughts out of her mind as brutally as a surgeon cut away a cancer-- because the truth was, she didn't know.

Her only clear memories started here, in Silent Hill. She had a vague idea of a life before, but when that voice asked questions and wanted hard facts, she had none to give. Denial was a necessary mechanism of survival, and Maria was like anyone else; perfectly capable of ignoring the dark suspicions of her heart, which told her that she was both more than the monsters that roamed and tore and ate at one another, but less than James, or Angela, or even that fool Eddie.

Then, out of the blue, she'd remember the face of her second grade teacher. Or scavenging in a deserted store, she'd suddenly recall her mother's recipe for double chocolate cake. Sometimes these memories would be accompanied by a headache so sharp and vile that Maria thought she would vomit.

At least when James had been around, she'd had a distraction from all these stupid existential questions. Now, she flitted through the town like a ghost, waiting with it for something to happen.

Maria dreamed. She'd never woken up into a dream, but she opened her eyes in a bed in a brightly lit hospital room. The oppressive silence told Maria that not only was she alone in the room, but there wasn't anyone around at all, which didn't make sense. Flowers and greeting cards on the bedside table indicated well wishes from others. Picking up the nearest card, she opened it and read the message, written in smeary red ink:

Dear Maria,
I told you that smoking would kill you. Hope you feel better soon!
Love,
James

Gooseflesh speckled her arms and she dropped the card from nerveless fingers. "What the fuck," she muttered under her breath. She suddenly felt at a disadvantage, tucked into bed, and she struggled to her feet. To her surprise, she was wearing her own clothes, boots and all, instead of a hospital gown.

She gingerly reached for the next card on the bedside table as if it were a snake that threatened to bite. Inside, in neat, feminine handwriting was a single sentence with no greeting or closing: You're not alone.

This time, Maria tossed the card onto the floor purposefully. Maybe the sentiment was meant to be comforting, but it seemed creepy. It wasn't enough that she had to live in Silent Hill, but even her dreams were like a cheap horror movie. She stood still, listening for any sound, but there was none. Still, this sunny hospital felt as haunted to her as any street of Silent Hill.

A thought came curling into her mind, courtesy of the insidious voice: How do you know this isn't Silent Hill? And I don't think this is a dream. She clenched her teeth and ignored it.

Prowling the halls, she realized that was the trouble with unwanted thoughts in your head. You pretended to ignore them, but in reality, her mind was now whirring through a comparison of each architectural feature she encountered and those of Brookhaven Hospital.

It seemed it would be fairly easy to say definitively if it was the same place or not, but Maria was surprised at the difference simply being clean made. It was hard to imagine this quiet corridor, smelling vaguely of antiseptic, as being the same as the grimy hospital where so many shitty moments of her life had played out.

Where you died, whispered the voice, and Maria again tightened her jaw. She'd never died. That was just a dream she'd had, once. She was ready to concede however, that this wasn't a dream. She'd felt extremely embarrassed about doing it, despite the fact she was alone, but pinching herself had indeed produced a painful sensation, so score one point for her creepy subconscious.

Creepy-- it was such a good word. This place, for example, was fucking creepy. It was probably that stupid greeting card, but she was convinced that there was something else here, in the silence. Something moving quietly just around the corner, something waiting and watching.

She'd reached the end of the hall where it intersected with another, making a t-shape. There was some kind of nurse's station and a bank of elevators as well. She stood staring at the closest elevator, biting her lip a little and wondering if she should chance it; she didn't like elevators. She also didn't like admitting personal weakness, so it was hard choice.

Her consideration was interrupted by a sound from the hallway she'd just left. Soft and slight, she couldn't even identify what it was exactly, but the hair on the back of her neck lifted and she turned slowly to gaze down the corridor. Nothing was there, of course, but the noise still teased the very edge of her hearing range. Breathing shallowly, she cocked her head to the side, trying to determine what it was, ready to run at a moment's notice.

Static, the creepy voice supplied helpfully. As if the source knew the jig was up and the time for subtlety had passed, the sound then increased in volume, becoming perfectly identifiable. The static crackled and hissed, fading in and out and changing. Maria realized it was the sound of someone adjusting a radio dial. In her mind's eye, clear as a picture, she saw herself, cigarette in one hand, fiddling with the dial of a radio with the other.

Before she had time to process the image, it was replaced with a searing pain in her head. She gasped involuntarily, clutching one hand to her temple and bending at the waist. The static stopped changing, as if the sound of her gasp had caused whoever it was to pause in their task. Straightening herself, the pain receded slightly and Maria knew she had to get out of here.

The static resolved into music just as the elevator started dinging behind her. Through watery eyes, she watched the numbers light up sequentially, bringing someone (or something) closer and closer to her floor. Her headache was momentarily replaced by the memory of stepping out of that elevator herself to the sound of music, but as before, the pain in her head quickly raged to its former level.

It's not a memory, because I've never fucking been here, she thought desperately, and broke for the stairwell. Maria was unsure why the idea upset her so much, but she wasn't waiting around for anybody, including herself, to get off the fucking elevator. Rushing down the steps, she knew she was moving too fast, but she couldn't seem to slow down.

It happens the way it's supposed to, that strange voice said-- almost as clear as if someone else had spoken-- the same instant her foot slipped. Her last thought as she tumbled down the stairs, before everything went black, was that she hated cheap philosophy.

"Home sweet home," Maria said aloud as she struggled to her feet in a dirty stairwell of Brookhaven Hospital. She stretched gingerly and was amazed to find that she didn't appear to be horrifically injured by her fall, although her head still pounded slightly. Pushing her hair back behind her ears, she reviewed her memories of how she got here, skeptical of the events that now seemed strange and dream-like. "From one fucked up hospital to another," she muttered, and started down the steps. Reaching the landing below her, she quietly opened the door and slipped onto the hospital floor.

Holding her breath, Maria listened for noises, not quite admitting that the sound she wanted to hear least was static. There was nothing unusual, however, and she exhaled slowly. She needed a med kit for her head, and what better place to get one than this fine medical establishment? She started down the decrepit hallway in search of one, telling herself that her lingering feeling of foreboding had nothing to do with now, but with her crazy dream.

Maria found her med kit in a small storage closet. She used it before she pulled a slightly crushed pack of cigarettes out of her pocket and lit one up. Taking a drag, she thought of the card from her dream. Fuck James, anyway. Once she was done, she stomped out the butt of her cigarette under her boot and turned to leave the office. The message from the second card popped into her head. You're not alone.

"Everyone's alone in Silent Hill, baby," she mocked aloud, but a trickle of fear ran down her spine.

It was almost unsurprising when she heard him; after all, hadn't she been waiting for something to happen? Her heart still beat faster though, when she heard the tell-tale scrape of the knife, the hiss of his breath. See, you're not alone, the insidious voice pointed out. She didn't have the luxury of bitching and clenching her teeth right now though; she was on the wrong side of the hospital floor, the side with no stairs and elevators, with Pyramid Head between her and them.

Maria stopped thinking then, just like a hundred other situations when it was her versus the monsters. She began moving, listening, running, circling, trying to get where she needed to go. He was just a monster after all, and she'd gotten away from him before. Except for the times you didn't.

He was behind her, and getting closer, and it came down finally to a choice, a chance, an intersection where she could turn right or left. She remembered enough of the hospital's layout to know that one way was a dead-end, but not enough to know which way it was. She turned left, and ran.

Maria reached the dead-end quickly at the speed she was running, and although she slowed her pace down, she let herself hit the wall in her frustration. Fuck. She turned to look behind her, thinking as quickly as possible of all her options. It didn't take much time, because there weren't any. She put her back to the wall and looked down the hall and tried not to think about what was most certainly going to happen.

"It happens the way it's supposed to," she said aloud, surprising herself, and she was suddenly distracted by the stabbing in her head, just as in her dream of the other hospital, as she saw herself running barefoot through the night down a rainy street. In a sick way, she was thankful for the distraction of the pain, because then he was there, and she always thought the worst part of the shitty things that had happened in her life was waiting. She wasn't a big fan of anticipation.

She straightened up, back still against the wall, and looked at him. He merely stood there, and suddenly she dropped to her knees, the agony in her skull was so bad. A horrible pastiche of images and feelings ran past the closed lids of her eyes: James looming over her in the dark, running through the rain, the feel of Pyramid Head's arm under her hands, the sound of his knife coming down.

The pain vanished again, and Maria staggered to her feet. With a speed that startled her, considering his size, Pyramid Head dropped the knife and moved towards her. Completely drained, she stared dazedly at his helmet, and suddenly she remembered the feel of his lips under her fingers, soft and smooth and unsmiling. The intimacy of this memory shocked her so much that he was pressed up against her before she even realized what he was doing.

Unable to help herself, she stretched her hand up and tentatively reached beneath the helmet to touch his mouth. It was indeed unsmiling, but it opened ever so slightly and a tongue slowly ran over her fingers. Maria felt heat sweep over her skin like a desert wind, and she sagged against the wall as another wave of memory washed over her, unaccompanied by pain this time.

He held her up, and she clung to him like he was a her salvation. An unlikely role for him, she knew, but it was something he'd played for her before, just as he'd played executioner. "A man of many talents," she laughed, and her voice was so shaky it didn't even sound like hers. He didn't answer her of course; in addition to being a man of many talents he was also a man of few words.

Of course, he wasn't really a man. He was as much a man as she was a woman though, which is why what they were getting ready to do here up against a dirty hospital wall was so fitting. What do the monsters do when there's nobody to scare? They play with each other.

He let her stick her fingers in his mouth and sucked them with his impossible tongue. She pushed his gloved hands down the waistband of her skirt, straight into her damp panties. He returned the favor with his free hand, moving her fingers under his apron and wrapping her fingers around his length. They grasped and groped at one another, Maria careful to keep her face away from his helmet, but it was clear that they were too impatient to make this a protracted encounter.

He tugged her underwear down and then simply ripped them off. He then lifted Maria easily, pressing her back against the wall. She couldn't help but moan and tightened her arms around him as he entered her, the sound barely noticeable under his harsh breathing. Then she didn't notice anything, except the delicious waves of pleasure washing over her as he fucked her. It was pure perfection, like he could read her mind: if she wanted it deeper, he thrust deeper; if she wanted it faster, he moved faster.

She slid her hand down to stroke between her legs. It didn't take long for her to reach orgasm; in fact it felt like it slammed into her body with the force of a freight train, and she screamed, unable to help herself. Pyramid Head was right behind her, pushing into her with a force that was painful but still somehow pleasurable.

She paid little attention as he slid out of her and moved her to the cradle of his arms like a rag doll, even gently adjusting her clothes. He slid down to sit on the floor, still holding her and suddenly she found herself crying. He tightened his hold on her and wiped at her tears with his hand. It didn't really help, since they were gloved, but the gesture was nice.

You're not alone, she thought suddenly, and this time it sounded like a message of comfort instead of a threat.

"My back to the wall, a victim of laughing chance,
This is to me the essence of true romance."

Steely Dan - Deacon Blues