Had a sudden urge to try out writing a Silent Hill fic. I mentioned ages ago on my profile that I thought about doing a fic based on Silent Hill 2, but I never thought I'd even get so far as typing a single word. Not sure if I'll stick with it. I might do, but as I said the urge to do this was pretty sudden so I'm not sure what I'll do. In any case I hope you like it. I don't own Silent Hill 2, it and all its content is the property of Konami.

Waiting For You

Chapter 1

I stared ahead, transfixed, gazing at my face within the filth caked mirror. It gave me nothing in return, nothing that I hadn't seen in any other reflective surface, nothing but a bleakness that mirrored my own internal condition, my own wakeful hours. I looked up for a moment, if only to pull my eyes from the face that looked back with weathered reluctance, and I sighed deeply.

The raw and shameful shell that my surroundings wore gave out what most of the human species would call the most repellent collection of odours ever assembled, although not one of them ever truly penetrated the surface of my awareness. They simply sat on that first layer, unable to sink their way into me.

I wondered, as I stood within the fragrant but tolerable neglect of the restroom, if I really was going crazy? A couple of weeks ago the thought might never have entered my mind, not really in any obvious way; not once I had asked myself at any point: "Hey, are you going completely nuts, buddy? Off to the deep end, are you?" On the other hand it wasn't exactly that I was content with anything – with the patterns of my everyday life. But then I wouldn't say I was insane either. Not by a long shot. At least to my knowledge this was the case. Even with the plethora of dissatisfaction that ground its way into my bones day in and day out, crazy was still a word – a concept – that didn't really ring true when I analysed this most recent chapter of unreality that came speeding right into me, its foot firmly on the gas.

Some people were the lucky ones; some within the great hive body that was the human species, having only been dealt the good hand. Some got the good one, and some the bad. But every so often, as rotten luck would have it and either by pure and random coincidence or by the working of some unseen malevolent force, a bad hand would strike when someone was sitting within the middle of their thirties. A kick in the nuts with a wink and a smile. Or perhaps it was nothing more than my bitter outlook on things? Maybe it was exactly that, staggering through the murky path of life without much hope for anything better than what I already had? Except the strange kind of hope, the blooming rose in a pile of dog shit that now presented itself to me.

Something had arrived in the mail only two days ago. It was a lifeline, of a sort, reaching out from some forgotten netherworld that I had ceased to believe in long ago. Miracles, is what I'm talking about, a silly sentimentality that I had filed away in the swollen cabinet of childish longing and false dreams.

I had almost literally dragged myself through the mud, navigating the measly clusters of breadcrumbs that remained of me, to recover from past wounds. It hadn't been easy; no one could ever say it was. How could they? A degree of normality had been reached a short time ago. Perhaps it wasn't entirely agreeable, not the kind of satisfactory results that I had hoped for – if indeed I had hoped for anything, and if I did it wasn't for myself – but still, things had gotten better, if only in an indifferent sort of way.

And then the letter showed up, almost Frisbee-d through my door. A bad joke perhaps? There was a curdling, a sick feeling, drenching emotions, one on top of the other. Everything had been twisted, turned upside down, pulled inside out as a result of reading the letter's contents. But I never once thought that this was the work of some prankster looking to get a rise out of me. A neighbour's kid just fooling around? Someone at work whose idea of humour had a flavour of royally-messed-up to it? No. This was real. I don't know how it could be possible, but it was.

'Mary,' I said. 'Could you really be in this town?'

I couldn't look at my own face anymore; I wasn't aware of why I felt this way, but just the sight of that pasty mask struck a dangerous nerve that made even less sense than the piece of paper sitting in my pocket. I couldn't look at myself for even a second more or my fist would crack that doppelganger to pieces. So I turned away, stepping from the mirror and heading for the door. I'd spent long enough standing still. Nature had called and I had paid up, and now it was time move on. Would I get answers when I reached my destination? It was maddening to even think that I believed in the letter, that on some small desperate level I thought I would find something. One way or another, I had to know the truth.

The restroom was dead to me now. I left its decaying confinement behind, stepping back out into the thickening fog. It clung to the air, sailing from here to there, like clouds of smoke that would never rise but simply hover closely over the surface of the Earth. In front of me stood my car; it was a rickety old thing, near useless and lonely in the tiny parking lot; I only needed the map from the glove compartment and then I could leave. To my left the road ended, an abrupt and annoying sight that almost teased me with its finality; for some odd reason a huge corrugated iron wall had been erected, condemning the use of the road, forbidding me from driving any further. Maybe they were doing some work, but hell if I knew exactly what kind they were doing. Either way it wasn't going to stop me, not when I'd come this far.

Over to my right stood a low brick wall, stretching the length of the parking lot; I pressed my hands to its rough and beaten surface, leaning against it for a moment, looking ahead towards the lake. Toluca Lake, a huge swell of water that almost couldn't be seen behind the sheets of greying white that passed in front of me – in front of everything. A great shrouding of forest stood between me and the water; if I remembered right from my one and only stay (it was years ago when I was last here, so I could easily have been wrong about this) there was a lone dirt path that cut through the forest. It would take a while to reach the town that way, but it wasn't like I didn't have time on my hands. And besides which, there was nothing left for me back the way I'd come. Except my dad, maybe? But how much of a stretch would it be to say that was worth hanging on to? He was off in his own little world back in Ashfield, running his creepy old apartment building. Thinking about it seriously, I supposed that he probably wouldn't notice me gone anyway; we were never really close, but then what would anyone expect from a couple of weird loners? There was just dad. Everyone else was gone. So there it was; I had nothing waiting behind me, but I might have something in front of me. If I didn't find something, anything, during my search, then…

My fingers inched, and a sudden shudder jingled into the palms of my hands, shaking its way up my arms and into my head. And like an addict who couldn't get enough of his chosen poison – his elixir of certain doom – I reached into my pocket to quench the thirst. I pulled out the slightly wrinkled piece of paper, and read the words it held for the hundredth time.

In my restless dreams, I see that town.

Silent Hill.

You promised you'd take me there again some day.

But you never did.

Well, I'm alone there now…

In our "special place"…

Waiting for you…

I placed the letter back in my pocket, and I did it with a reluctance that was almost physical in its discomfort. Even now the whole thing seemed so fantastic, and so dreadfully and morbidly unbelievable. And yet I was pushing on anyway, in search of a hope that was positively hopeless. Boy, was I the truest model of hypocrisy, or again, was I really loosing my mind?

The name on the envelope had said, Mary. Mary. The name of my wife. My wife's name. It was ridiculous to think that it was true. It couldn't possible be real. At least that's what I kept telling myself, out loud and often, over and over and over again until my jaw was completely spent from the effort. There was one thing, one universal truth that no one, I repeat no one, could ever bet their money against, and that was that a dead person couldn't write a letter. Mary was gone. Buried. Dead from that damn disease three years ago. So, why am I looking? Why am I searching for her?

'Special place,' I murmured to myself.

What could she mean? Special place? This whole town had been our special place, at least within the short time we had spent here. The park. Rosewater Park? Could she have meant that, the park on the lake? Silent Hill was heavily into the vibe of the peaceful and quite kind. So many people had adored this place, coming from all over to kick back and forget about their troublesome issues for a short while, concentrating on nothing at all. With us it wasn't any different. We had both been working full time for a while and needed to get off of our feet.

It had happened months before her death, when I had been flicking through some magazine (I can't remember what it was) and saw a article for the town; some small resort town in west Virginia, surrounding by forest, neighbouring the tranquil sight of the lake that the park sat next to. The park had been our first stop. We spent the whole first day there, just the two of us, hand in hand, staring at the water. That had been a good day, one of my favourite days in the gallery of my thoughts. Mary's warmth clung faintly to me at the remembrance, her body pressed lovingly to mine on a bench. It had been just me and her and no one else in the world. We were all that existed. It had been perfect.

Could she really be here, I asked myself? Was she really alive, waiting for me?

I pushed away from the wall, stepping through the haze of fog toward the car. I opened the door and reached into the glove box, and fishing the folded map out before closing the door again. As I walked away, leaving my four-wheeled heap behind, I wasn't entirely sure if I had looked the doors. In complete honesty, I didn't really care.

Mary…