The fetid air of Brookhaven Hospital felt thick and useless in Maria's lungs as she followed James through abandoned corridors, moldering rooms, and decrepit stairways--searching, searching. Maria felt a slight pain pierce her, faint and faded like a ghost of a wound. Her steps slowed, and she trailed James like a sad satellite, falling further and further behind him.
The brief respite from despair that Maria had felt on meeting him had was ebbing and she felt useless herself If she wasn't, James wouldn't be searching; she would be enough. But she wasn't enough. And James was looking, looking for the her that wasn't her. But who am I? she thought, a cold desperation curling its tentacles through her thoughts, and her lungs felt even more worthless and her limbs even heavier.
Another room, another dead-end, and Maria had finally had enough. She sat on the dusty hospital bed, noticing with a combination of disgust and pleasure how James' eyes skimmed her breasts and brief skirt despite himself as she did so. Go ahead and look, she thought. You'll look, but you won't touch, even though you want to.
She lay down, feeling her bones like lead weighing her down, and let James cluck over her a minute. Maria tried to tell him she'd be fine. And if she wasn't fine, then that was fine too. It didn't take long to convince him to keep searching without her. He didn't want to keep the one he really wanted waiting, after all.
Maria palmed her pills and swallowed them dry. She curled on her side, feeling like a tiny spark at the wrong end of a tunnel, like her whole soul was a speck floating in the empty shell of her body. The spark winked, and she was asleep.
For a long time, the room was quiet except for her shallow, almost inaudible breathing. Then something moved stealthily down the hall in an odd but regular pattern: thump, thump, drag. It paused at the door for a long moment before continuing on as Maria slumbered undisturbed. Later still, the soft sound of crying threaded its way under the door. Maria sighed in her sleep then, lips parting on an exhale, and the crying abruptly stopped.
Maria slept on.
The pain followed Maria into her dream, a twinge in her midsection that suddenly sharpened into a wave of agony so intense that Maria dropped to her knees, retching, on the floor of the dirty building she had found herself in. After the nausea subsided, Maria shakily got to her feet using a nearby wall for support. Leaning against it, she rubbed her hands over her face, pushing her hair back and then hugging her own body as she stood there, slicked in her own cold sweat.
She found if she breathed shallowly, the pain faded, and as it did Maria shook her head and mentally chastised herself for being so distracted. This was a dream, but the substantive difference between dream and reality in Silent Hill could be argued. If something caught her here, she wasn't sure that it wouldn't catch her there. Not that she was sure where she was.
Well, she knew she was in a hallway, so she walked to the nearest door to see if would provide some clue. The smooth wood of an interior door didn't tell her much, so she walked further down. The next door bore a small plaque reading "302." An apartment building then, most likely, and possibly the third floor.
She stood in front of the door, unconsciously rubbing her stomach as she thought. Going up was always bad, because then you'd end up with something between you and the exit; she needed to go down. Glancing to her left and right, she decided that this wasn't a nice enough building to have an elevator, so she should look for stairs.
Turning right on a whim, Maria began walking down the quiet hallway, taking care to step softly to both muffle the sound of her footfalls and to make sure that she didn't end up on her knees gagging again. The corridor turned to the right, and Maria rounded the corner cautiously. As she stood there, nerves vibrating, a red EXIT light suddenly flicked on at end of the hallway, causing her to roll her eyes.
Maria took the stairs down to the ground floor, but was disappointed when she opened the door to find herself in another nondescript hallway instead of a foyer with an obvious exit. The corridor was short, and Maria went silently to the door at the opposite end, easing it open. It squealed horribly despite her efforts, and she felt her heart jump into her throat. She froze, straining to hear any sound over the thunderous rush of her own blood in her ears, pumping in time with her racing heart.
She heard nothing, but the hair on her arms stood up, causing her flesh to dimple almost painfully, and her nipples stood out in stiff peaks. She tried to tell herself it was pure imagination, but she felt a sense of certainty that the sound had alerted something somewhere to her presence. Telling herself to get over it, Maria looked cautiously through the wretched door.
Nothing waited for her on the other side except a long hallway of what looked to be more apartments. She entered, letting the door shut behind her as she did. It closed with a quiet, anti-climactic click and Maria began walking away from it. About halfway down, this hallway intersected with another, leaving Maria in the center of four corridors. She surveyed her choices of direction, watching what fluorescent lights were left functioning flicker on and off.
Maria turned to the left at random, more worried about keeping on the move than where she was going. However, once she turned, she felt a tickle between her shoulder blades and couldn't help glancing behind her. There was nothing there, of course, but then she thought that maybe she heard the small click of a door. She probably didn't hear anything, but she paused and listened carefully, turning back to look at the intersection.
Nothing interrupted the silence and the lights still winked out their secret code at intervals. She was turning to continue down the hall, a smile on her face at her own ridiculousness, when a horrible squeal caused her to literally jump. She shoved her own hand to her mouth to silence a scream. In the next second of quiet, one thought rang through her head insistently: Hide. She had no weapons, no idea how to get out of here, so she needed to get out of sight as fast as possible.
Now something was coming, but she had no time to process the sound of its approach as she tried to move quickly but quietly, checking doors. Her adrenaline pumped harder and faster at each locked knob, and she was beginning to panic when one finally opened.
She ran in blindly. Whatever was in here couldn't be as bad as what was coming for her; she felt it in her bones. She whirled around in the dirty living room of the apartment, lit by yet another flickering light from its tiny adjoining kitchen, gauging her choices of hiding places and her chances of being found. She finally dove for a closet door, pushing herself between some musty old coats, breathing through her nose and out her mouth, trying to be as quiet as possible.
The door was slatted and Maria could make out the living room through it. She tried to tell herself that her pursuer wouldn't find her, but she didn't believe a word of it. She wasn't a good liar. She was, however, a good predictor of future events, and she could hear a strange dragging noise come to a halt at the door of the apartment. Maria closed her eyes tightly, feeling tears leak from the corners.
The door opened, and Maria wasn't surprised at who entered. The tall, wickedly pointed helmet--was it for protection, she always wondered? If so, for whose? The dirty apron, hanging with its tattered edges. The slick gloves, stained dark red and brown. And of course, the knife. Maria looked at its edge and felt that piercing twinge again, and she shoved her fist into her mouth and bit the fatty edge of her hand under her thumb viciously to clear her head. This was no time to start collapsing from a phantom injury.
Pyramid Head stood in the flashing light for what seemed like forever to Maria as she sat like a quivering rabbit, trying not to breathe, not to move, not to be. It couldn't have been but a few seconds however, and he turned his helmet towards her hiding place, cocking it to one side in a gesture that seemed inquisitive. A feeling of inexorable dread washed over her and she was getting ready to pray--to what or who for what or why, she had no fucking clue--when a noise from the back of the apartment had her heart in her throat and her fist in her mouth again.
Pyramid Head turned towards the sound with deceptive quickness, considering his size. Maria watched in horrified fascination as a shambling mannequin stumbled in from the bedroom. It was only a few steps into the living room when Pyramid Head dropped the knife and with a smooth gesture snatched it up.
She didn't want to watch then, as the mannequin struggled feebly in his arms. There's no escape, you stupid thing, she thought, but it flailed anyway. She closed her eyes, but not being able to see where he was was worse than seeing what he was doing. As the mannequin squealed again, Maria opened her eyes to see he was already on the mannequin holding it at an impossible angle. As his hips started to move, the mannequin began whining and mewling.
It sounds like it likes it, she thought, and felt a combination of disgust and pleasure shudder through her. She felt herself getting smaller again, everything becoming unreal as if this was a scene from a movie; her fear was fading as well. Pyramid Head's breaths were harsh and in time with his thrusts and the mannequin was now keening away in an eerie counterpoint.
Pyramid Head turned his helmet to the closet again, and Maria felt certain he was looking right at her, taunting her, maybe even laughing at her, if he could do that. He was putting on a show for her, and he knew she was watching--and enjoying it. Despite herself, heat rushed between her legs and she put a hand up her skirt almost involuntarily, fisting it and then rubbing herself against it in time with the grunts from the living room.
The mannequin was just a respite, she knew. Maybe she wasn't the she that James was looking for, but someone else wanted her. Pyramid Head would search and search, just like James. He would find her in the end, and he would do what he was supposed to do. She wasn't troubled by the idea, and she bit her lip to stifle a moan, her hips moving more insistently against her hand as she watched him. Don't fight fate, she thought, as she faded even more, slipping from whatever dream she inhabited deeper into the blackness of blank sleep.
In her hospital bed, Maria sighed in her sleep and moved against her own hand. With a soft exhale, she parted her lips and made a pleasurable little sound before rolling on to her stomach and burrowing her head into the suspiciously stained pillow. Her breathing evened out and she settled back into her restless dreams.
The room was quiet. The hallway was quiet. Somewhere in the hospital, James searched for his dead wife. Somewhere in Silent Hill, Pyramid Head exited a dirty apartment with a flickering light, dragging his now bloody knife behind him, and headed towards Brookhaven.