Once the door to the office was shut (for good thanks to Jennifer's trusty ax), she fell against the door, sobbing. "Why God? Why!" she screamed uselessly. She turned and kicked the busted door, cursing loudly as her toes protested the abuse. 'Enough Jennifer!' she scolded herself. "Quit being a jackass and go find a way out of here." She said out loud, turning back and approaching the elevator with caution…just in case another killer wheelchair came bounding out of nowhere. The doors were opened and still, the floor lights off. Still, Jennifer was beyond cautious when she stuck her hand between the doors and waggled it around. Then she edged closer and looked down, not offering her head in case the elevator got back into a killing mood.

She nearly toppled down the empty shaft when her cell phone rang and scared the holy hell out of her. Only sheer will kept her from joining the shadows on the bottom; she fell backwards and nearly broke the ringing cell phone, though when she withdrew it from her back pocket, it was relatively fine. Jennifer put it to her ear without pressing the ON-button. It struck her as a stupid move to keep playing by normal rules. "Hello?" Jennifer said hesitantly.

"Did you really think it was going to be so easy child?"

Jennifer almost dropped the phone. It was that damn falsetto she had just planted an ax in. "What the—who the—what in hell's name is going on?" she demanded.

"Funny you should mention Hell, child. That's where I'm calling from, you know. After you planted that righteous ax in my back, I was a little upset with you." The falsetto got smoother, more melodious as it taunted her.

"Yeah…I would have figured that if I cared." Jennifer got to her feet, frowning. "If you're in Hell, why aren't you busy writhing in flames? I'm sure there are other things in Hell to do than bother me." Jennifer toured up and down the hallway, knocking against doors and peeking inside rooms.

"I'm not in the hospital anymore my child. There's someone here who wants to speak to you. I'm sure you'd be interested in talking to him." There was a rustling noise, and Jennifer could hear the dead man's voice barking orders.

"Jennifer?" the voice was timid…young…

"Billy!" she shouted. "Are you okay?" Jennifer stopped.

"Sister's so mad at you. She says you messed up her hair." Billy replied. His voice sounded so tinny, and static was starting to creep into the line.

"Billy, I can hardly hear you; are you okay?" Jennifer repeated.

"Did you get the secret book? Douglas wasn't supposed to give that to you. He was supposed to push you in the elevator. That's why Sister punished him." Half his words were lost to static, but Jennifer got the picture.

"Billy, listen to me. I want you to get away from Sister, and I want you to help me find you." Jennifer said slowly, shouting as the static got worse.

"Find the nurse. She'll get you out." Billy said before the line went totally dead.

"Billy! Billy!" Jennifer almost hurled the cell phone into the wall. "Great. Now I get to go search a dead body for a key to a door I don't even know where it is." She groaned. Then she sighed. "The nurse…I aught to go back to the basement and check." She mused, remembering the lurching figure that had first attacked her.

Though armed, Jennifer was wary of returning to the black corridor. The thought of flailing blindly in the dark against things she couldn't see until they were right in her face did not appeal to Jennifer. She wondered what Billy had meant by 'the secret book'. Was there something in the book that was important? Something she needed to know in order to get out of Silent Hill?

Jennifer debated about staying in the open hallway to read the book. It seemed like a quasi-good idea, until she heard a faint creaking sound in the distance. She thought about Billy's ancient tricycle…and then the wheelchair. She didn't care to stand and take a chance. She opened a door as softly as she could and slipped inside the room without incident, and shut the door tight behind her. "Jeez…I could really use a break about now. Or some help…Help would be good too." She looked around. It was a storage room; the shelves were bare though, except for a few bottles half-full of a strange white semi-fluid. "Creepy…it kind of looks like…" Jennifer stopped, and picked up a bottle. She turned it over in her hands. There was blood caked around the top of the bottle, like someone with a bloody nose had drunk out of it and then put the cap on. Chills made Jennifer shake so bad she dropped the bottle. It shattered and the stuff inside spread out into a small, nearly perfectly-shaped circle on the floor. Jennifer had jumped back when the stuff inside spilt out; now she approached cautiously. "Weird…" she whispered, looking around for a stick or something so she could poke it. The surface of the circle started to quiver, then bubble. Jennifer tried to run out the door, but found it locked. "Of course!" she kicked the door hard before running to the other pair of doors on the opposite side of the room. They were hopelessly locked too.

The white puddle was starting to rise up in the middle, as though it had become elastic and something on the other side was pressing against it. Jennifer pounded the doors, hoping for some kind of give. She thought about attacking the rising white sludge with her ax; that thought was quickly abandoned as she considered the possibility of having more than one goo monster on her hands. The only thing left to do was wait it out; maybe whatever was inside was a bit less mean than the mirror-monster. Frightened, confused, and more than a little tired, Jennifer sank against the door, eyes glued to the white puddle. She still didn't know what it was, though her mind was racing to find some kind of answer. Then it hit; Kauffman's memo back in the reception room! The good doctor had mentioned White Claudia being brilliant when it was distilled—what she had thought had been bizarre drug slang had actually been a less-recognized use of the same word. Feeling like an idiot, Jennifer tried to remember if Kauffman had mentioned anything else about his wonder-drug…like what the hell it was for and why the hell did it dance around?

Jennifer watched the spilt drug intently, still pondering its properties and waiting for any sign that it was headed in her direction. She still wasn't really sure what she was going to do about that, but she was going to do something damn it! When the puddle stopped moving all of a sudden, Jennifer didn't go over to investigate it. She figured she'd been stupid enough about the whole matter already.

The puddle didn't seem to appreciate her eyes-off attitude. Without any warning whatsoever, it shot towards her where she sat with her back to the door. She rolled away, and it slid under the door. On hands and knees that were caked with drying blood, Jennifer crawled back to the door and tried to peer through the crack at the bottom. At first there was nothing, but then she could see shadows that moved, as if someone were pacing in front of the doorway. Then there was a pitiful knocking sound, as though someone very weak were pounding on the doors. "Harry? Harry, please…" a woman's voice moaned.

Jennifer kicked away from the door out of panic, and got to her feet. Her feet against the door hadn't had any impact on the woman on the other side. She was still sobbing and pounding and begging someone named Harry to help her. "Um…I'm not Harry." She called out lamely.

"Please let me out." The woman on the other side replied, sounding pitiful.

"You're not gonna…kill me if I do, are you?" It seemed stupid to ask a resident of this place to be honest, but Jennifer gave it a shot anyway. After all, logic was on hiatus here; maybe running around evil Silent Hill was like being in the Labyrinth—you just had to ask the right questions.

"What? No; why?" the woman sounded very surprised.

"Lady, you wouldn't believe me if I told you." Jennifer replied, pulling on the door handles out of habit, though she still half-figured the door to be locked.

It wasn't, and Jennifer was assaulted by the woman inside, grabbed and held onto for dear life. The smell of blood and something stronger, something darker wafted up from the woman. Jennifer was holding her breath and she was debating the brilliance of her last move. At last the woman let go, and Jennifer found herself staring at a face that—had it not been covered with thick blackened blood—might have been friendly and welcome. Fear robbed her of her breath to scream, and of her ability to run in the opposite direction. In the long run, that was probably a really good thing.

"You're not Harry." The other girl replied, head cocked to the side. Her eyes were solid black (as if there was nothing left in the sockets), but they glittered with vague intelligence.

"Um…yeah, that's pretty true." Jennifer managed to choke out. Wit too had fled her.

"But you let me out." The girl smiled. "You let me out…" she repeated.

Jennifer nodded. "Yeah…um; who are you?" she really wanted to kick herself for sounding so empty-headed. She was wasting a lot of time with nothing in particular, and it felt as though she really had no time to waste.

"My name is Lisa. I'm a nurse in this hospital." The girl replied.

"Lisa?" the name did more than ring a bell; it broke the damn thing. Jennifer reached into her back pocket. "This is yours then; I found it under a couch in the office." She offered it shyly.

Lisa was soaked with blood from head to foot, but no hump grazed her shoulder blades. She just looked as though she'd been in a terribly wreck…but that smell! That horrible smell of blood and something…something that made Jennifer think of Biology class for some strange reason. However, Lisa took back the note book without attempting to kill, maim, or terrify her, so Jennifer liked her considerably better than anyone else she'd met in the hospital.

"My name's Jennifer. I seem to be…" what was she? Stuck? That didn't seem right. Trapped? Closer, but still…Jennifer kept winding up in different locales so she really wasn't trapped per se… "Unable to get out of here." She finished after only a few seconds of silence. It sounded lame, but it was the top layer of truth and it was all Jennifer had to offer. "Can you tell me anything about that stuff?" she asked, pointing to one of the bottles on the shelf.

Lisa's face contorted and she collapsed, sobbing. Shocked and unsure what to do, Jennifer held her hands out in surrender. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I was just asking, I didn't mean anything by it! Forget I said anything!" she cried.

Lisa looked up at her. "Kaufmann; he killed so many people with the Claudia. He was worse than any pimp pusher in any city. He snuck it into patient's food and IVs to get them addicted and people who told…oh, people who told were punished, punished, word of God, they were punished." She babbled. It seemed as though Lisa was fast losing her sanity.

"Is that what happened here, in this hospital? Kauffman peddled his drugs?" Jennifer asked, wondering just what in the hell this had to do with anything else.

"Then he gave it to Alessa and it did something, it made her live but she wouldn't heal/couldn't heal and Kauffman just kept pouring the drugs into her IV and he told her mother, her crazy religious mother that it was good for her it would make her strong to bear God and I thought they were all crazy and I wanted to leave and I wanted to tell so badly but Kauffman gave it to me and I don't know how but then the bugs came and ate my skin and things began to change…then Harry came and I thought he could save me but I was damned and doomed all at once and he left me in this room until I died but then I went to Hell and I saw Kauffman and I HELD HIM and I DAMNED him with me!" Lisa shouted.

"O….o….okay." Jennifer said, drawing out the O to buy some time. Lisa had definitely lost it and she had no idea how to handle that. Then she realized what Lisa had just said, and she understood at last why the smell had bothered her. It was the smell of sulfa and poorly preserved flesh; something she had become familiar with during dissection in Biology. That meant Lisa wasn't anything but the walking dead that somehow managed to pretend to live. "At least he got his." She replied.

Lisa nodded. "He got his, he got DAMNED and I DAMNED HIM but I DAMNED MYSELF TOO and I just want out of this nightmare, I want to die an honest death and no one can help me." Lisa moaned. Then she reached out and grabbed Lisa's pant leg, clinging for dear life. She didn't seem to be bothered by or even notice the blood-caked knees. Or maybe it brought her comfort, that there was someone else wandering around the hospital covered in blood. "I have the key to get out, but I'm not allowed to use it. I can't leave her until I've died an honest death."

"And what exactly is an…honest death?" Jennifer asked hesitantly.

Lisa's eyes sparkled and she smiled. "Someone has to has to has to kill me, I can't kill myself because that would be a sin so I have to find someone to kill me kill me kill me."

"Oh no, no way. I'm sorry but no." Jennifer shook her head. "I am NOT killing anyone else today, sorry." She tried to pull her leg free of Lisa's grasp.

"You don't understand!" the woman wailed. "I'm DAMNED, DAMNED, DAMNED, DAMNED! I don't want to be DAMNED anymore; I didn't do anything worth being DAMNED for!" Lisa let go of her pant leg and was frantically patting her cardigan. "Here! The key for the door in Alessa's room; you need this, right? I can't use it, I'm not allowed but you can!" Lisa was almost drooling with excitement. It was incredibly gross and creepy to watch.

"Alessa's room? In the basement?" Jennifer asked.

Lisa nodded.

"There's only one door there. I know; I've been there." She replied.

"No; in the walls there's another door; I've seen it…it taunts me." Lisa said.

"Show me this other door Lisa; if you're lucky, you might get killed along the way." Jennifer said as she offered the other woman a hand. It sounded horrible to her ears, but Jennifer was ready to say anything to get the crazy woman to stop begging her to perform an execution.

"You think?" Lisa asked hopefully as she took Jennifer's hand and struggled to her feet.

"You never know. I almost died a bunch of times on the way here." Jennifer replied as she tried to take her hand back. The blood caked on Lisa's hands was gooey and truly unpleasant.

"I'm so tired." Lisa said as Jennifer led them out of the room. "So very tired…" she whispered. Jennifer hoped Lisa wasn't going to lay her head on her shoulder. Her tolerance for gross had already been grossly exceeded, and as nice as Lisa seemed (when she wasn't ranting like a 'roid-raging athlete) the smell of death and sulfa was making Jennifer dizzy. Luckily, it wasn't too far to the gurney-barred basement…

Lisa's hand was trembling in hers. "Are you okay?" Jennifer asked.

"So many bad things…have happened in that basement." Lisa replied haltingly. Her eyes were wide with fear.

"It'll be okay." Jennifer assured her. "But maybe you should hang onto my shirt instead of my hand, so I can use the ax if I need to."

Lisa hesitated. "You're not going to leave me here, are you?" she asked pitifully.

"No; I just need two hands free to use this." Jennifer replied, meaning the ax. She kicked the gurney out of the way, making sure it landed on its side so its wheels were useless; she really wasn't going to take any chance if she could help it. Lisa stepped back, and clasped two blood-gummy hands to Jennifer's shirt. Jennifer swallowed reflexively, and then opened the door to the basement slowly. Nothing was waiting for her at the top of the stairs; that was a good sign…right?

The thing that had first tried to attack Jennifer was nowhere in sight. She wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Lisa seemed disappointed. "I thought you said someone was down here." She said accusingly. "I thought you said I could die here." She whispered.

Jennifer shrugged. "Look, there was something down here trying to kill me when I got here. I didn't kill IT when I ran up the stairs so IT has to be around here somewhere." She replied. Sweat crawled down her back, seemingly hairy as it treaded the hot, dust-filled air.

"You lied to me!" Lisa's voice was savage. Her grip on Jennifer's shirt tightened.

Jennifer shook her head, and tried to turn to face Lisa. The other woman's grip on her shirt was too hard; she couldn't turn all the way around. "I didn't lie Lisa; I said you might get killed." She said soothingly. "I didn't make any promises." She pointed out.

That turned out to be a big mistake. "You're just as evil as the rest of them; Dahlia and Kauffman and Harry too!" Lisa's fury made her bloodied frame shake. "Liar; liar!"

Jennifer struggled to get away; she heard the seam over her left shoulder rip; that had to be the side Lisa had her best grip on. "Lisa, let go. You're not thinking right." She tried her best to sound sincere and gentle.

"Everyone always lies to me!" Lisa bellowed, suddenly letting go. Jennifer pitched forward, loosening her grip on the ax as she sought to stop her fall. "No more lies!" she shrieked, reaching for Jennifer. Her fingers were hooked like claws, and her teeth were bared. She didn't look like she wanted to talk anymore.

"Lisa, please!" Jennifer shouted. "Stop! I'm not lying to you! I never lied to you!" she pleaded. "Stop it now Lisa; I don't want to hurt you! Don't force me to fight you!"

Jennifer's pleas fell on deaf ears. Lisa was gone, replaced with a hellish denizen of Silent Hill in a nurse's uniform. The thing clawed and snapped and left a dozen scratches, cuts, and bruises on Jennifer. She tried to dodge, but the cumbersome backpack and her ax slowed her down too greatly. They also threw off her center-of-gravity; a well-timed lunge of Lisa's sent Jennifer sprawling to the ground. The ax bounced out of her hand and just to the tip of her fingertips. Lisa was on her in an instant, clawed hands wrapped around her throat and squeezing with more force than Jennifer would have thought possible in the nurse's frame.

Jennifer's vision blurred at the edges and there were pinpoint flashes of light dancing around. Blindly her fingers scrambled for the ax though her brain wasn't registering the struggle. Her other hand was on Lisa's chest, pushing with as much strength as she could muster.

Lisa was screaming indecipherable messages to God and anyone else she could think of; she was too absorbed in the violence to notice Jennifer's fingers pulling on the ax or to register that Jennifer had gotten her hand all the way around the handle.

Responding with only instinct, Jennifer swung the ax as hard as she could; though it couldn't really do much good. The ax was in her left hand and Jennifer was right-hand dominant. Still, the ax was in such good condition, even after the wig-man's backside; it hit the side of Lisa's head and split it like overripe cantaloupe. Lisa pitched sideways, her fingers losing their grip on Jennifer's throat. It took Jennifer a few moments of lying on her side, knees curled to her chest, to get her breath back. It took even longer in that position for her to realize what she'd done.

"Oh god…oh Lisa, what have I done? I'm so sorry…" Cold tears splashed down on Lisa's unmoving corpse. Jennifer was shaking with untold sobs. She bowed her head. "Lisa…please forgive me…" she whispered.

The part of Lisa's face that wasn't broken was slack and peaceful. In the end she had gotten what she'd desired; an honest death. Unlike Jennifer, she was no longer condemned.

The thought of looking over Lisa's dead body for a key sickened Jennifer so much she had to retreat to a corner of the hall and heave, though there was nothing left in her stomach to give up. When Jennifer returned to Lisa's body, green and still shaking, she noticed the red notebook in Lisa's hand. "That…wasn't…there before." Jennifer picked the notebook out of Lisa's cooling hand with two fingers. She squeezed it in her hand. "I hope wherever you've gone it's a whole lot better than where you were ten minutes ago." Jennifer told her. She opened the notebook, flipping past random notes and entries, until she was almost at the end of the book. On one of the last few pages was a doodle of a key. Jennifer stared at it. "You have GOT to be shitting me. I went through all this for a goddamn doodle?" she demanded of the empty room. Jennifer then sighed. Of course it was going to be something stupid she had had to risk her neck over; that was the whole point of this place, wasn't it? To drive her crazy? It was doing a damn good job of it; that was for sure.

She went back into the room with the rotting bed; Alessa's picture was in it…that meant it had to be her room, right? On the far wall, there was a drawing Jennifer hadn't noticed before. It was of a door, and it was an ugly door at that. "Damn that's ugly; whoever did it would've made a great bride for Dali." She declared, ripping the piece of paper with the key on it out of the notebook. She looked at it, and then at the ugly door. "If this works, as soon as I'm done with this hell hole I'm playing the Lotto." Jennifer declared, pushing the scrap against the illustrated door hole.

Surprisingly enough, it worked. Of course, by this time, Jennifer wasn't surprised. A sort of veil had fallen over her mind, working well to dull the extreme range of emotions she was battling at the moment. That was a good thing; as badly as she wanted to cry and scream over what she had done, the rotting hospital room wasn't the time or the place. Jennifer stepped through the opened door, fully expecting to not see the other side…