CHAPTER 26: ENDINGS

In the aftermath, after the freezing blue had overtaken him and the watery world surrounding him had faded out into blackness. James lifted his eyes.

"James" A low male voice called to him. "What are you doing? Why did you do that?"

"Ernest?" James answered.

"This isn't a solution… you can't do this."

"I have nothing to live for anymore, that's at least one thing I've taken from this nightmare."

"Why are you so sure of that? Don't you even want to know what was in the other portion of that letter Mary sent you?"

"So you knew there was more to that letter?"

"Yes… but not at first."

"Does it even matter? Who knows what happened to it anyway?"

"Usually the condemned do get a last wish…"

"What are you saying? You have the other part to Mary's letter?"

"I know where it is. If you want to read it, you'll have to go back."

"Back where?"

"You know where. Out of this place, and back into the real world. Back to the place where you crashed into the lake, drowning yourself."

James stared down at his feet there was no ground. "The truth, about Mary. You've been trying to tell me… this whole time."

"James, there is more to life than just suffering and guilt. I, I know this first hand."

Ernest's voice paused within the darkened void.

"Don't you understand if you give in to your guilt and pain, then the dark forces have won. They will own your soul; you will be forever lost in this forsaken realm, like the others. More than that, you'll forever be trapped in your own fears, anger, and remorse. You'll never wake up from your Dark dreams. You cannot end it this way, there is redemption, and there is another path, another world outside of Silent Hill. Go find it."

James seemed to detect an obvious tone of experience wafting from Ernest's words. "How do you know so much Ernest, how do you fit into all this?"

"I am not so different than you James; I've been here before, in this exact same position, in this exact same place. I know what torment is like. Not just hurt and sadness but real numbing pain, that devastates, where you barely can feel anything or make sense of reality. …I gave up, stopped fighting, I surrendered to it, I let it take me. I want to make sure that you don't make that same mistake."

"What happens now?"

"Now, you can go back. Where you're needed. Where you can redeem what's left of your time."

"But I'm dead."

"You'll be awake soon. You're body has floated free from your car and surfaced on the shore.

"How is that possible? I drowned."

"The spirits within the Lake can be pacified with offerings. You should already know this from your journeys."

"So I'm alive?"

"I suppose this is goodbye then James?"

"But wait. What about you? Are you lost in this nightmare too? What will happen to you?"

"…this is where it ends for me. This is the trade off; I can't go back after this… The Spirits can demand a strict price for such things."

"For helping me? I… didn't know. I'm so sorry Ernest."

"No, don't be James… The love between you and Mary, it allowed me to see that there was still something pure and good out there. It woke

me up, James. It allowed me to catch a vision of something I lost along time ago. Now I can finally leave this place, I can see Amy again."

"Amy?"

"Farewell James. The love between you and Mary is what keeps your souls united. Hold her in your heart… and you will always be connected."

Suddenly James opened his eyes from the edge of the freezing Lake; he shivered in soaking wet clothes. He was exhausted, tired, hungry, and dehydrated, now freezing to death. In his mind, he pondered over the things Ernest had told him this time.

"Another part to the letter? Where is it?" He fell onto his back, ready to pass out, his appendages numb from the cold.

"James! James!" Cried, a small voice.

Glancing over the embankment with weak tired eyes, he took notice of the form of a small girl in a skirt and sneakers.

"Laura?" James, weakly responded.

"James I've been looking for you! Are you okay?"

Rushing over to his side, Laura propped him up to a sitting position. "James tell me what to do! You're not gonna die too are you?"

Matching her gaze, shivering uncontrollably James replied. "..N,no, Laura I won't die, I promise. Why are you helping me? I thought you hated me, don't you remember I hurt Mary. I killed her, why do you want to help me?"

"Because Ernest told me everything!"

"Ernest? How do know Ernest?"

"He's my friend! He told me you were sad, that you didn't mean to hurt her, and said I should give you the other pages of Mary's letter!" Thrusting a stack of neatly folded papers to James, Laura helps him back to his feet.

"You're helping me, after all the mean things I said and did?"

"I know you're not a bad person, James. Even though I hated the way, you treated Mary in the hospital. Ernest told me too, he showed me that you really loved her, and that you were sick too."

With shivering hands, James opens the neatly folded papers, and adding his first page with the others, begins to read the completed letter, this time start to finish. But the first page he had received in the mail; it was different now. There were many extra words and sentences on it. Lines that were never there before.

How much had he been lying to himself? How much had the darkness confused him; clouded his mind? Or was it the darkness at all? Had he been purposefully repressing the truth, only choosing to see what he wanted to on that single page?

Killing her was not the end, in itself, it was simply a means to escape from the nightmare of his life; to free Mary from her suffering and to free himself from it as well. But he had made his choice in a vacuum of selfishness and indifference. He had convinced himself of the rightness of his cruelty, so numb was his heart and mind from the endless barrage of misery. But in the end his life became empty and meaningless without her.

Mary, he had wanted to find her again, he wanted to meet her once more; where they could ultimately be reunited. Reunited in a moment of time where they were free and happy, where it was perpetual summer. Could that overwhelming desire have caused a split from reality? Could part of his nightmare been born from the very psychosis that had led him to his final immoral decision to end both he and Mary's suffering?

He glanced over the pages with wet trembling hands. It made so much sense now. How could he have completely fooled himself? The words all melded together so perfectly , as if they were always intended to sound this way. Now combined with Laura's contribution, the message which had previously been so ominous -almost threatening, now seemed loving and longingly sweet.

James allowed one last tear to fall as he read it. Mary, her last words, the one's she had always intended to say to him but ran out of time; ran out because James had hastened her passing. Now previously denied, James had a second chance to make peace with his best friend, and soul mate.

James,

In my dark restless dreams, I can still see that town… Silent Hill.

You promised you'd take me there again someday. But you never did. Well, James, I'm alone there now...In our 'special place', waiting for you… waiting for you to come to see me. But you never do..

And so I wait alone, in my dreams and in my hospital room, wrapped in this cocoon of pain and loneliness. But still you never come. I know it's because I've said and done some terrible things to you. Things you'll never forgive me for. I know I've hurt you deeply and I wish I could change all that; take back everything I said. But I can't.

I just feel so pathetic and ugly laying here, waiting for you. Ugly both inside and outside now. Every day I stare up at the cracks in the ceiling and all I can think about is how unfair it all is. How I don't deserve all this…

The doctor came today. He told me I could go home for a short stay. It's not that I'm getting any better, it's just that this may be my last chance. Our last time, my final opportunity to make things right between us. I think you know what I mean.

Even so, I'm glad to be coming home. I've missed you terribly, I really have. But I'm afraid, James. I'm afraid that you don't really want me to come home. Whenever you visit, I can tell how hard it is on you... I don't know if it's because you hate me or pity me... Or maybe it's just disgust you feel... I'm sorry about that.

You see, when I first learned that I was going to die, I just didn't want to accept it. I was so angry all the time and I struck out at everyone I loved most. Especially you, James. That's why I understand if you do hate me. But I want you to know this, James.

I'll always love you.

The happiest moments of my life were spent with you next to me. And I consider myself so blessed to have a man like you as my partner and best friend. Even though our life together has to end like this, I still wouldn't trade it for the world. We had some wonderful years together.

Well, I'm running out of paper so I'll say goodbye. I told the nurse to give this to you after I'm gone. That means that as you read this, I'm already dead. I needed to know that if it happened before we could talk, my words would still reach you. I understand if you can't forgive me, but I can't bear for you to never know how sorry I am for what I said to you that day in the hospital.

James, these last few years since I became ill... I'm so sorry for what I did to you; did to us... You've lived every day, given every moment, for me. You've given me so much and I haven't been able to return a single thing.

That's why I want you to live for yourself now. Do what's best for you, James.

James... You made me happy.

My love forever,

Mary

In the freezing windblown air, James stared quietly into the darkness. His mind wracked with guilt and sadness. "I had blamed everyone and everything else, but all this time, I was doing it to myself. The darkness only tormented me because I allowed it, my guilt permitted it." He gazed at Laura through shivering eyes.

"But now I've have a second chance. Laura, why did you come back for me?"

"Because..." Laura began her eyes tearing up. "Mary said that we'd be a family some day, that I could live with her and you."

James feelings welled up as an overwhelming sense of compassion burned from his dark withered soul, permitting a weak exhausted smile to purse his lips.

"I'm so sorry, Laura. Please forgive me." James embraced Laura tightly, closing his eyes. "I took Mary from you. It was wrong, and horrible. I did it out of weakness and selfishness. But now she's given us both another chance, one that I don't deserve. Now I can see all that was good in her, lives on, in you."

"What do you mean James?"

"Mary always wanted a daughter, Laura. We… It was always our dream to have a family together."

"I miss her so much James!" Laura sobbed. "Is she ever coming back?"

"No…" James responded. "She's gone. And she's not ever coming back. But, she's still with us, like an angel, watching us. She's been protecting us this whole time."

His low voice carried off for a moment. "And through it all I was so scared that meeting her again would bring something horrible, I feared confronting the truth. However, now that I know the truth, I can move on. I don't have to punished anymore. With her forgiveness, I can promise Mary that you'll never be alone again. And she'll know I won't be alone either."

"Is she really an angel?" Laura asked "Like with real wings?"

"Yes" James replied with pause, remembering the significance of the phrase that would follow. "She is an angel". As he held Laura, his mind wandered back to that strange and macabre door he had found in his haunted journeys.

No one knows, only I can see the Lady of The Door. They cannot walk along her bridge of thread. They fall from the weight of their own crimes. Like bloated and ugly corpses their sins, she devours them. Sin and sinner alike she saves me. She is an angel!

"Mary is an Angel, she saved me…." James thought "She did what I couldn't do; what I could never do. She gave me the peace and forgiveness I never deserved. Once I had let go of everything that was weighing me down; once I had accepted the truth, and made peace with my judgment; she thoroughly defeated whatever the darkness could hold me by with her one act of love -her unconditional forgiveness. I have never felt more loved, felt Mary's love more, than I do now."

Walking hand in hand towards the abandoned roadway, leading out from the boarded up underpass, James and Laura began their ascent from the misty valley surrounding the ancient Lake Toluca. In his mind James found a type of peace beginning to settle over him, something that had not happened for quite some time in his life. His thoughts raced yet again, this time they were filled with hope and contemplation.

"Who knows what path this story would have taken, if I never received that letter, one cold dark evening? I would never have been subjected to the Darkness that lives in that valley. I would never have been made to suffer and had my life endangered or stability tested; my soul literally hanging in the balance."

"Then again, I might never have woken from my Dark Restless Dreams, my Dark Imaginings, my world of confusion, fear, and insanity; and I wouldn't have Laura. For all I know, I could still be at home, wondering why I can't remember the exact moment Mary died… the exact moment, when… I killed her."