In the Unknown Regions of the galaxy was a small, uncharted planet called by the first humans that dwelt there "Kwekwaxawe Kanesda", a name in their language that translated to "Nest of the Raven".
Kwekwaxawe Kanesda was never found on any of the star maps of the Galactic Republic, or its violent successor, the Empire. As such, the only individuals who encountered it were either wanderers or those drawn by what seemed to be an intimate connection to the Force found in the planet. Like Mortis, that ancient planet once dominated by the supremely Force-sensitive beings known as "the Ones", this planet was bound to the all-encompassing power that guided the galaxy, with both the Light and the Dark holding sway over it.
On this small, seemingly peaceful planet with rolling green hills and glistening bodies of water similar in design to Dantooine, there was only one city.
That city's name was Silent Hill.
In this city, the entirety of Kwekwaxawe Kanesda's meager population lived within meager brick and mortar homes, falling far behind the modern style that Coruscant had. The people, mostly humans with a sparse minority of other races, lived in two separate sections of Silent Hill. The northern part held much of the city's recreational sites, such as a meek shopping district filled only with the products of the planet, and whatever items could be bought from the few visitors received. And in the southern district, several vital buildings were erected for the sake of the people's survival, with one of the main hospitals created to heal individuals from mental trauma especially.
Unbeknownst to the majority of the populace, dwelling in secret in the city was a cult of Dark fanatics and practitioners similar to the Nightsisters of Dathromir, those women with an affinity for dark magic. This cult, known only as "the Order", worshipped an entity they referred to as "the Mother", yearning for an opportunity to bring her existence to fruition upon their planet. Though their doctrine and creed was that this entity's power would be beneficial for all, in truth, she was nothing more than a fiend solely connected to the Dark side, and all of the rage and hatred that came with it.
In order to fulfill their plan, the Order needed to summon their would-be deity by using a female sacrifice to birth her seed. They tried and failed many times, kidnapping many young girls from Silent Hill and destroying their lives in the horrific rituals performed upon their bodies. Eventually, their plan would finally come to fruition when the head priestess of the Order, a sadistic woman named Dahlia Gillespie, would sacrifice her one and only child, Alessa, to the deity, implanting the fiend's seed in her child's womb forcibly.
Alessa was chosen because of the bizarre connection to the force she had wielded since her birth. Indeed, among the Order, her birth was forever a mystery, because Dahlia never mated with any of her male cohorts. The woman eventually realized that the Force itself was somehow responsible for her daughter's creation, and reveled in the potential that Alessa's existence could yield. To that end, when Alessa was only 7 years old, just as the genocide known as the Great Jedi Purge began at Darth Sidious's behest in the year 19 BBY, Dahlia Gillespie set her daughter aflame within the basement of their own home. Dahlia deliberately chose to perform this ritual as the Dark side of the Force was strengthened by the loss of hundreds of Jedi.
Though Alessa was the one girl to survive this ritual, she was left permanently scarred, burnt all over her body and unable to physically move. The child, now fully aware that she had been lied to by the Order and her own mother, unconsciously unleashed her connection to the Force, drawing herself into the fury of the Dark, and taking revenge on much of the Order by unleashing untold horrors upon the entire planet.
Alessa, with her immense pain and hatred, turned Kwekwaxawe Kanesda into a hellish dimension birthed out of her nightmares, and fueled by the terrifying images that the demon in her womb constantly fed her with. The poor girl was unable to die do to the fiend's power over her, along with a magical incantation that Dahlia cast on her after the ritual was finished. Despite this, Alessa refused to let herself be used as a vessel for such an immense evil, and was aided by the Force in combatting her mother and the Order by spiritually resisting.
Travis Grady, an ex-Mandalorian warrior who was drawn by the Force to the planet and Silent Hill by a strange dream of his deceased mother calling to him, was left stranded near the outskirts of the city when Alessa used a projection of her soul to make his aircraft crash. In a course of a few days, Travis, guided by Alessa, the strange connection of the Force to the planet and a desire for release from the trauma of his past, aided the girl by helping her construct a powerful Force artifact known to the Order as the Flauros. This 'cage of peace' was cunningly used by Alessa to temporarily subdue the power of Dahlia over her daughter's body, and enabled her to split her soul in two.
The second half of Alessa Gillespie's soul was manifested as an infant girl, left safely just outside Silent Hill, and later found by a lone Jedi named Harry Mason. Harry Mason, once a member of the Jedi Knights on Coruscant, had been expelled by the Council for falling in love with a Dantooine woman named Jodie, whom he encountered after a minor skirmish on the planet in the middle of the Clone Wars. During his desperate escape into hiding from the ongoing massacre overtaking the whole galaxy, Harry felt called to Kwekwaxawe Kanesda by the Light, and discovered the infant soon afterwards. Upon taking the child home to Dantooine, Harry and his wife Jodie named her Cheryl, unaware of her true nature and origin.
After Travis left, at peace with himself and knowing that he had given the girl vital aid, Alessa was left alone in a miserable state of existence. With half of her soul gone, along with much of her power, the girl was forced to wait until the time was right to call Cheryl to return. All the while, Alessa was in excruciating pain, barely recovering from her wounds. She was placed under the supervision of the greedy Dr. Kaufmann, a vile man working in tandem with the order for monetary benefit, and Lisa Garland, a young, hapless nurse trapped in her positon due to her addiction to a drug that only Kaufmann could provide.
7 years later, in the year 12 BBY, Alessa Gillespie would finally be granted release from her pain by the same man who had once found and adopted her other half.
