She woke with a terrible pain in her head, its source unknown. All she knew was that it was torturous, and suicide was a better alternative.
Something made her rise within the bedroom to move toward the large mirror attached to the dresser. The light in the childlike bedroom was poor, almost entirely provided by the fog outside, or the streetlight, whichever; she didn't have the motivation to look. The image of herself in the mirror was shocking, but not to the extent of sheer madness. Hadn't her hair been black or at least very dark, not blond like this? And her eyes… she couldn't remember… Knife-like stabbing pains assaulted her mind, driving her to collapse upon the wood floor. What was happening to her?
She somehow managed to return to her feet, leaning upon the dresser while her thin undershirt nearly slipped off her shoulders. Her body was near-numb and barely controllable, but she managed to stumble out of the bedroom, towards some room in the distance where light poured out through the cracks in the near-sealed door. Someone else had to be here.
Her hands fell to the doorknob, but instead of just falling inside and confronting the person hopefully within the room, she took the pain to be slow and silent, cautious to the danger awaiting her.
Blurs… Images separating and restoring… Somehow, she managed her little secret infiltration and found the room to be the kitchen of the home, the overhead light on and a woman sitting at the table with her back to her. The woman was dressed in a strange sort of religious outfit, or something, something gray at least. A moment of silence passed, and she knew the woman to be her mother, and that there was only one thing she could do.
Her hand quietly slipped into the nearby knife drawer and found the most lethal and useful weapon she could. Her breathing and heart rate increasing rapidly, she quickened her movements in order to keep her body from not giving her away, plunging the blade of the weapon through her mother's heart from behind. Blood instantly splattered out upon the table, and terrible screams echoed from the woman's lips.
She backed away as her mother fell upon the floor, staring up at her while raising her hands almost in an effort to strangle her daughter for murdering her. This wasn't the first time she had killed her mother, Dahlia, before, and maybe that was what drove this shadow image of her mother to be so infuriated. It didn't matter, though; even as the image of Dahlia struggled to live while crawling and bleeding endlessly upon the tile floor of the kitchen, she knew this image would only fade away eventually, returning Dahlia's consciousness to her real body elsewhere deep in Silent Hill.
The woman finally died completely. The blood pooled outward and started to touch the girl's feet. Her body convulsed again, and she fell to the floor. Pain ripped through her body, and she called out for help: "Lisa… Lisa, please help me! Lisa…"
The nurse casually walked into the room and helped the girl to her feet, bringing her innocently out of the kitchen into the living room, where she lied the girl down on the couch, checking her vital signs and general health.
Lisa, smiling without knowledge, said to her, "There, there, now, Alessa. You're okay now."
Alessa…
"You're the one from my dreams lately, aren't you?"
Logan nodded to Harry as the former sojourner of Silent Hill sat upon the edge of the bed where Cybil still slept, half-dressed. The hotel was merely a resting point for now until they could run farther away from the darkness. The baby, Cheryl, slept quietly in the next room, but it really didn't matter in this illusion.
The dream traveler explained to Harry, "This is still a dream. Neither of us is really here."
The writer nodded, looked away. "Why is the darkness still coming? Didn't I destroy Samael?"
"No, Harry. That was only a quasi-manifestation in the physical world, or should I say the half-darkness, the white Silent Hill. Samael fed upon Alessa's restored power and partially manifested, but you were able to at least buy us all some time by driving him back to his original plane of existence. Unfortunately, it doesn't end that simply: Dahlia and Alessa are still alive."
Harry couldn't believe it. "That's not possible!"
Logan sighed sadly. "I'm afraid it is. Dahlia is slowly regaining her power over the darkness. She still exists in the lowest depths of Silent Hill, in the recesses that don't have any physical form in the real world. Along with this, Alessa's spirit still resides within the town. At the moment, Dahlia has given her new form in the body of another girl. She's wrestling with her own existence and may end up destroying herself. Her delusions become reality, and whatever she doesn't hold onto strong enough fades away into chaos. It's quite possible that her self-destruction could mean the end of the world. I've come to realize that the only way to destroy the darkness and Samael is to merge with Alessa in the spirit realm and face the dark lord. It's the only way, and very dangerous, but that is my task. I vow to you, Harry, that I will do everything in my power to protect the girl that is still in some part your daughter."
The writer nodded sadly, and thus faded into the darkness. Logan, the dream traveler, remained there only long enough to feel a cool, soothing breeze brush against his skin, like the lips of a girl he once knew in the bygone ages…
