We were ready to be free. Everything had gone as it was supposed to. The blond man had confronted us, defeated us, and showed no fear. Now he was gone, and with his departure, we were to be released. That's all we ever wanted of course. That's why we killed ourselves.
Yes, the man was gone. His wife was gone. His world was gone. Yet still we remained, for weeks, months, maybe years. We had shrugged off the necessity of time long before. And we were patient, so eternally patient, although I think that I was slightly more willing to wait than The Other, one of the few subtle differences between us. Perhaps we would have waited forever, waited until our helmets rusted and our flesh disintegrated from around our bones. But something had changed inside of us; something had emerged from deep within our black and soulless cores that should never have been able to exist there. It was a feeling; a feeling born of anticipation.
It was hope.
The smallest spark of it had flared into existence the moment we impaled ourselves on our spears, and had grown with every passing second. It irritated us, jumping around like an angry wasp attempting to tear its way out. It stretched us to an incredible degree, threatening to tear us apart from the inside.
And yet we remained; for so long we waited. And as our silence stretched on, the hope that we harbored began to wane. Our former excitement slowly mutated into something much more painful. Thus we viewed the opposite end of the spectrum; hopelessness. More than mere agitation, or even impatience, an empty void had been left behind by the optimism we had just come to understand. Whatever our pain had been before, the hopelessness brought it back twofold. The confidence we once had in the town and its promise was relentlessly ground away by the realization that we had been abandoned. At some point we had to accept the truth. There was no redemption, and no release. Silent Hill no longer needed us, and so it had simply left us to waste away for all eternity.
I was not the first one to deviate from the cruel path that fate had set before us. It was The Other, (As he will henceforth be called; beings like us have never had need for names) who finally decided to cast away the hopelessness and put on new independence. The sound of his spear clattering to the ground jolted me from my painful reverie. Still, I remained unmoving until my own spear was suddenly kicked out from underneath me. There was a minor stab of pain as the point was torn free of my neck, and I staggered slightly, feeling myself become once again top-heavy under the weight of my helmet. Turning to face The Other, I found him bent over to pick up my spear, which he then offered to me. The long shaft felt oddly familiar in my gloved hand, and instinctively I gave it an experimental swing. The Other stood watching me for several more seconds before turning and striding out through the door. Finding myself alone, I considered the facts.
First; that Silent Hill had abandoned us. With no need for our gruesome talents, it had decided that the most efficient course of action would be to seal us away in the otherworld forever. Second; that in the stillness of our suffering, we had developed the slightest hint of independence. For whatever reason, our desire for freedom and our despair at being denied had allowed us to transcend our typical mindless thought processes. Third and finally; that staying inside the hotel would do nothing to better my position. And so, contrary to the very principles upon which I was created, I tightened my grip on the spear and trudged out into the morose gray mists of Silent Hill.
