Chapter 25: here we come to the end of this novella. This has been a real eye-opener: it's hard work writing a novella like this, and I'm proud. In truth, the hits are what made me keep going: as I write this, they're at seven-hundred fifty something. Well, once I'm done writing this, I'm going to devote my full time to Wall of the Dragon, and I'll probably resume The Siege of Grandville during. This Chapter contains how Anna and Marcus met, dated, and were married. That had to be my favourite part of this. Well, let's get this show on the road: I present you, the Final Chapter:

Final Chapter

Amor est vitae essentia

Love is the essence of life

I regained consciousness.

I lay prostrate for many moments, until I noticed I was not dead. The bullet wounds did not exist; the axe lay next to me, and no Red Angel was to be found. Confused, I stood: I was no longer atop the Tower. I was in my house, my own house, and before me was a stairway. Thick fog had entered somehow.

I climbed the stairs, quietly and slowly. I had forgotten how great my home was until now. Before me was mine and Anna's bedroom. Swallowing, I put the axe away and looked down the hall: no monsters. I went back downstairs on instinct, and opened the front door. There was nothing before me but mist.

Now thoroughly scared, I bolted up the stairs and approached the bedroom. I halted just before, and slowly turned the door handle. I threw it open in a violent spasm – and there, before me, gazing out the window was my Anna.

I fell to my knees and then to my face. Picking myself up, I stared at her before I mustered the courage to speak.

'Anna?'

She turned, and it was my Anna. Clad in the same outfit she had been when Pyramid Head and co. had killed her. She smiled that gentle smile, and my heart melted into molten fragments. I fell to my knees again, and gasped in astonishment. She approached and held out a hand. I took it, and pulled myself up. She smiled even wider, and said 'You made it.'

I was dumbstruck. I was being an ass, but I could simply not find the words to say. My hands quivered as I stood there, and I slowly smiled. I was filthy, and felt somewhat shy of it. She didn't mind though. She seemed purely ecstatic to see me.

She disarmed my confusion, and I found strength and words to speak. 'Of course I did,' I said slowly, grinning slightly. 'I had to say – I'm. . .'

'You don't have to,' she said, putting her finger under my lip and stroking it. 'Your coming here has been apology enough.'

Had it not been around Anna, the feeling of relaxation would have caused me to urinate. I was getting aroused, even though it was clearly a spectre. So I thought.

But her touch was warm, and yet she was too perfect. Beautiful beyond any I'd seen her. I couldn't grasp what was happening, but all I know is that it was good.

'Don't feel so bad,' she said. 'I'm back here,' she said, and lo! from the window you could see Toluca Lake, in liquid form. I swallowed and sat down, and she sat beside me. God, she seemed back in her twenties! Here I was, thirty, and I looked upon this perfect image of my beautiful wife, in her early twenties. She was taller than most women I'd seen, and we were the same height: 6.7". I put my arm atop her shoulder and we stared at each other so long.

'God I missed you,' I said as we suddenly embraced, and I didn't bother to stop the torrent of tears that rused from my eyes. She smiled, but I felt her tears, ghostly, fall upon my shirt. She held my hand, and we were mortal again, on the night of our first kiss. The night I asked her to marry me, in our teens. The night flashed before me, and I then realised it.

She was in the exact form as then, same outfit, same bunned-up hair. The blouse, the skirt; all of it was from that night. I let go, and looked her up and down, and laughed at the message. Even after murdering her in rage, she still loved me above all else.

And I felt the same.

No more could I bear it: I leaned in and kissed her. She laughed as we did, and we fell against the bed. There we lay, kissing, for many minutes. When at last we stopped, I laughed and said 'Just like that night.'

'You're the most beautiful woman that has ever walked this Earth. I simply can't go on, if my life is without you. Anna Reimont, will you marry me?'

'Yes, Marcus, I will.'

The memory sank away before my eyes, but I didn't bother recalling it. I looked upon her. She looked at me, and sat up. I sat up too.

'Anna,' I said. 'I don't know why I did it. . .' My eyes were fast flooding with tears. She frowned, and brushed my cheek.

'Don't cry, honey,' she said. 'Even though it didn't deserve murder, I was out of place. I was hard on you, Marcus, and I never realised it until the Red Angel showed me. He showed me how hard it was on you to bear my growing moodiness, how you'd sit at your desk with your head in your hands, brooding in your own misery.

'He showed me your notes: you wrote how I was keeping you from writing, tending your unstable wife. My parents and sister all dying at once – it was devastating–.' Her voice broke, and she began to cry. '–to me, and I took out my grief on you, the person who'd been the kindest to me all my life, ever since we first met. I vented my despair and anger on you, the only man who'd ever kissed me, made love to me, and loved me for who I am, and not for my appearance. I won't be so dumb as to say I'm gorgeous–.' You are. '–but all the other men just whistled, or whooped. You just smiled, and said "Hello" as you moved your books a little further, nervously.'

I smiled, and wiped a tear off her cheek – but I did not speak. I could tell she had more to say.

'You've never been like those horny bastards who only want me for my body. And I know it looked like I took you for granted; but I always loved you more than anything. And I still do.'

I suddenly flashed back, remembering how we met, how we dated, and how we were wed, and ultimately how she died:

I was a freshmen, sitting in the Library of our High School, a big but rustic room, when a girl with blonde hair approached my table and held her hand behind her back nervously. She had braces, and when she smiled she looked not beautiful, but cute.

'Um,' she said, sheepishly, 'can I sit here?'

I was dumbstruck. Here was this attractive girl, asking to sit with the guy who immersed himself in literature, the loner? Even then I was writing, writing a story called 'Resurrection'. I forget the plot entirely.

I looked up and inhaled deeply, before exhaling slowly and saying 'Yeah. Sure.'

She smiled and laughed, and sat down in front of me. She held out her hand. 'My name's Anna,' she said.

'My name's Marcus,' I said, and she nodded while smiling broadly. Since then we'd been friends, talking and laughing. Never did we go beyond that though. Never did we overreach our boundaries. Until, that is, eleventh grade, when we were at her house. She was proofreading one of my novels (The Symbol of Gehirras) when I suddenly had a burst of courage.

'Anna,' I said.

'Yeah?' she said, looking up from my manuscript.

'Um, now isn't quite the time, I know, but. . .I've been thinking. We've been friends for a long time, and I was wondering if you'd like to. . .go out to dinner tomorrow night?'

She smiled, much like a person does when they get the present they wanted on their birthday. 'Yes,' she said. Her braces sort of transformed it into a 'Yeth'.

I smiled, and we continued. The next evening we officially began dating; for a year we dated, and I was as romantic as I could be. I opened doors for her, I kissed her hand when we went on dates, and I walked her home. She was always so flattered, no matter how often I did something. We were perfect for each other – I never noticed then.

Anna had two friends, and I had three; we all took a trip to Silent Hill, and it was there we went to to the Lucky-Star Café. I took her hand gently, and cupped it in mine. She smiled sheepishly as always, and I got on my knee. She let out a cry, and fanned herself with her hand. I smiled and said:

'Anna Reimont, when we first met, I felt we were a perfect match. We've dated a year, and I have come to realise that we were made to be together, and I need you. I love you above all others, even myself. I love everything about you. You're the most beautiful woman that has ever walked this Earth. But that isn't it. I love you; I've loved you all along. I simply can't go on, if my life is without you. Anna Reimont, will you marry me?'

She cried out, and put her hands over her mouth, controlling her breathing. She then smiled as tears welled up in her eyes.

'Yes, Marcus,' she said, 'I will.'

I smiled as wide as my mouth would stretch and let out a relieved sigh as we kissed each other for the first time.

'I love you,' she said. I hugged her close, and we set a date for the wedding: the day we graduated. She constantly would say 'I can't believe I'm getting married', to which I would kiss her in comfort and reassurance.

I published my first book a month ere we were married. We were married when we graduated; we lived with her mother, as my parents disapproved of me being 'so rash'. I didn't care. To Hell with them, I loved Anna more than they. They birthed me, but they couldn't make me feel the way this woman did. Noone in the world made me feel like I did around Anna.

We bought our own place after my first book was published, a Sci-Fi novel called Birthing Chaos. It did moderately well, and we could afford a two-story house.

We recieved a check for six grand on our wedding night, two weeks after Birthing Chaos was published. And that night. . . that night we had sex. It was my first experience, and I'd never even masturbated before that night. I'd fantasised about making love to her, but they were only brief fancies or snatches of waking dreams. Plus it was her first time; thus it wasn't awkward. We were both just trying to get it right, and it led to one of the greatest nights of our relationship. We had sex four times that night. We were happy the next decade, and some years after that.

But then the Tragedy occurred.

Anna's mother and father were killed. Anna broke down, and I held her in my arms all that night as she cried. It pained me to see my love hurt so. But I could do naught. And then something happened. The darling Anna I once loved was covered beneath a grim, brooding woman who was cold to all around her. She had loved her parents – at least, a lot more than I loved mine. Mine were bastards.

I tried to comfort her more, but she pushed me away. And then she found K—s telephone number, and she confronted me about it. We know what happened then.

I snapped back to the present. She was speaking.

'I want you to know that I forgive you for what you did.'

I nodded, and asked her 'What will I do now? I have nothing left. I've killed you, I've killed your brother. . .'

'No,' she said, chuckling lightly. 'That was a trick. I'm sorry, but I had to spur you into coming here. He was a spectre, completely fake.

'And you have a clean slate,' she continued. 'You'll wake up in your car, injured, and you'll be rushed to the hospital. Thank the Red Angel. He told me to tell you "thank you for ending my misery."'

'Anna,' I said, 'please. I can't go back. It's too much. Come with me, or let me stay, just–.'

'No,' she said, a tear rolling down her cheek. 'You have to move on Marcus.'

'I can't go on without you.'

'I'll always be waiting for you. When you pass, you and I will rest – together. But until then, I want you to move on. Continue your life: write the hundreds of unfinished books that are laying in our library. Please, Marcus. Move on – for me.'

'Okay,' I said. 'I'll do it.'

She smiled, and held my hand. 'I love you.'

'I love you too.'

We kissed. When we parted lips, a white light appeared over everything; Anna disappeared, and I drifted from consciousness.

I woke inside of my wrecked vehicle. None of my weapons were with me, and I felt a stabbing pain in my right shoulder. I, labouriously, turned to see a pipe sticking out of it, and upon seeing it the pain magnified. I was lightheaded; but of all one feeling enveloped me: freedom.

I was free! I was out of the nightmare! Had it been a dream? I didn't care – I reached for my car door's handle; it was jammed. Screaming, I beat on it relentlessly. It swung open just as I heard ambulances in the distance. I slumped out of my car and lay down, submitting my thought in favour of sleep.

I woke up in a hospital bed. My eyes snapped open, and the news was the first thing that caught my attention. I turned slowly to the small television beside my bed.

'And now the news story that has many people frightened worldwide: the peaceful, resort town of Silent Hill was absolutely leveled by a fissure in the Earth, forcing the whole town to collapse into itself. On the outskirts of town, about sixty people were found injured, including best-selling author Marcus Thurdon.'

And the icing on the cake.

'I'll be damned: Marcus.'

I turned to see Raymond Desmond in a bed like mine, with a bloody sheet over his leg. He laughed and laid back.

'What a ripoff; you got stabbed – I got thoroughly skewered.'

'Ray? It wasn't a dream?'

'No, it was all real.'

I moaned.

'Don't worry,' he said. 'We're safe now. I'm at peace, and so are the Resistance members.'

'How did you fare?' I asked, 'because I know naught of the battle after I entered the Tower.'

'We fared badly after you left. The men lost their courage, but John rallied them together and called for a final strike at the Gate. We discharged all our ammo in that fight. The Lynx's were slaughtered, and we pressed on through the gate. We invaded the bottom of the Tower, and destroyed the countless abominations inside.'

'Dear God,' I said. 'It seems you fared somewhat well after I left. Better than I did.'

'What happened to you up there? We were fighing our way outside, and more monsters showed up. We turned to face them, and we were surrounded. As we prepared to fight to the last, the Tower shivered from its top to its base. The monsters lost all will to fight, and the Tower crumbled into ruin as we heard a loud Siren blare. All went black, and the world eroded away beneath us.'

'Well,' I said, inhaling. 'I died. Don't look so confused. I killed the Angel but died myself. He shot me–.' I fingered where the holes had been. '–five tmes. With the last breath in my body I hewed his skull with the axe. All went black, and then–.'

I didn't continue. I slumped back in misery, missing Anna again. Only when I died would I meet Anna again – death did not scare me, but the wait did. How long? Suicide would send me to Hell, thus it had to be by nature's or someone else's hand.

'Did you find Sarah?' I asked Ray.

'Yeah,' he said quietly. 'She forgave me, but I miss her.'

'As do I miss Anna.'

'You met Anna?'

'Yes.'

Ray was quiet then, and he sighed.

'Looks like it's over,' he said at last.

'No,' I said. 'There's one more thing I have to do before I can move on.'

The next day we were released: our wounds were minor. A bandage fixed mine. We drove to mine and Anna's house, and Ray helped me bust down the wall where Anna's still-intact body remained. I gently lifted her up, and held her corpse in my arms.

'Dear God,' Ray exclaimed. 'She's beautiful.'

'Yes,' I said. 'She is.'

As gently as I could be, I carried her to the back yard under cover of night. The neighbourhood was quiet; it was as if I was meant to it that night. I dug a hole with a shovel, and with a final kiss upon her lips, I lowered her into the grave and covered her up. When at last the deed was done, I put a large stone slab marking where she had been buried. Upon it said:

Anna Thurdon. Amor est vitae essentia. In memory of the greatest woman who ever lived.

It was at length decided that I would finish all my writings and projects, and publish them in intervals of a year between each book. The rest of my days were indeed great – lonely, but great. Ray and I were friends unto his death, which mine followed.

How then, do I write this if I am currently dead? Bloody simple, although improbable to the mortal way of thinking. I am in Silent Hill, in peaceful existence with my wife Anna. I've never been happier, not in the days of my life. The peace and silence is never broken here, and it is as if Heaven took a form for its own residents.

My tale was a strange one, yes. If any of you ever read this on the mortal world, if somehow it lands on Earth ere its doom, know that the town lives only in memory. What has happened to the Old Gods? I do not know; that knowledge holds no appeal to me, for the Old Gods aren't of my concern. I live in peace with my wife. Here endeth the Tale of The Red Angel, and the Redemption of Marcus Thurdon.

The End –Marcus Thurdon

/\/\/\/\

Well, this is the End of the Red Angel. There will be no sequel forthcoming, and the line of Marcus Thurdon has ended with him. Here, as mentioned on Chapter 24, are the credits:

I'd like to thank the Silent Hill series for providing the template.

I'd like to thank my friends Brian, Nate, Paul, and Josh, although why I do not know, because they had absolutely nothing to do with the writing of this. Well, I suppose every author needs time to wind down and laugh – thanks for providing that time.

I'd like to thank every rock band that I know of and like.

I'd like to thank my family for conceiving me (I hope) and giving me time to write, with their miscellaneous activities.

I'd like to thank (strange but necessary) school for teaching me how to write professionally.

But most of all I thank you, the reader, for lending your valuable time into reading an amateur author's work. Well, see you around. I'll be getting more work done now, so check out my FictionPress account if you want more, or even my FanFiction account. It's going to get bigger, trust me.

Good day! – Eternal Flare.