Mona attends a family reunion.

"No, no, no," Mona repeated, slumping down against the wall and hugging against her knees. This couldn't possibly be happening, she thought. This couldn't be real.

He looked just like he did from her memories. Lanky frame, receding hairline, thick glasses, and the same dark, tweed sweater he always wore. It was like he'd walked right out of a photograph. Unlike a photograph, though, here he had form and weight and depth. Here he could touch her.

"I missed you," he said, watching with apparent glee as Mona looked more and more terrified by the second. "It's been so long since I got to see you."

This had to be some kind of trick. This man was dead. She knew that to be a fact. It was almost a decade and a half since that night. Everything burned, him included. It wasn't possible for him to be here now, but Silent Hill never did seem to be bound by the rules of possibility.

Slowly but surely, memories were finally resurfacing. The fire, her family, the hospital, the trouble; everything she'd worked so hard to repress or distort was slowly clicking into place. This did raise many more questions, however, chief among them being how so much of her life was being projected through this town.

Frankly, though, she didn't have time to be thinking on that right now. Not with her father standing right in front of her. As if to confirm her fears and realign her priorities, he took a step forward, Mona shouting, "No!" as she shrunk even further against the wall in a panic.

He laughed at this, complying out of what seemed to be a desire to torment her further and nothing more. "You were always so funny," he crooned in that mockingly sweet tone. "I don't know why you're acting like this. You know I'd never hurt you."

He was lying. He was always lying. He always hurt her. That's all he ever did. He'd pretend not to in front of everyone, but he always did. That's what he wanted to do now, just like always.

"You got so big while I was away," he said. "So beautiful, too. Just like your mother when she was young." He sighed, adding, "But it's not like I'm comparing. You know you'll always be my girl."

Breathing ragged and eyes wet, Mona did the only thing she could think to do and drew her gun. Painstakingly aiming towards his center mass, she held it between her shaking hands ready to fire if he took even one more step closer. The idea of ever fighting back against him was more terrifying than anything she'd experienced in this town so far, but she knew on some level there was no other option. She wouldn't let him do what he always did with her anymore or whatever else he might have in store for her now.

Predictably, he found this funny. "Oh, put that down," he told her. "We both know you won't use that. You can't shoot your papa. Your papa loves you, just like you love him. Now, put it down and we'll go have fun like-"

The shot cracked through the air, Mona's father stumbling back a few paces as the unexpectedly accurate bullet struck him in the center of the chest. It was a shock to the both of them that she actually managed to pull the trigger, let alone hit him given how much she was crying and trembling.

He barely had time for the smile to drop from his lips before she fired again. The entire magazine was unloaded into his body, the only thing louder than each blast from the gun being Mona's wailing. Each of the projectiles struck true, impacting him in the chest and arms and head before toppling him over onto the ground.

Empty as it was, Mona continued to pull the trigger over and over again, screaming something incoherent as she tried fruitlessly to shoot him even just one more time. If each of those bullets represented her hatred for him, she had plenty more to use. The hate only grew more intense as the full scope of everything he'd done to her started to come back.

It was like the fog inside her mind finally lifted, finally allowing her to process all ten years of living hell she had to endure. Every touch, every violation, every lie, and every strike came back to her, remembered with full clarity as if it all happened only days earlier.

Then came the trouble. All of his abuse finally caught up to him when the test came back positive. He forced her to choke down those awful extracts and it ended up with her in the hospital. Either way, it was a blessing in disguise given it meant she was out of the house when the oven caught fire. No one survived except for her. His life ending meant hers could finally begin.

And yet, here he was now. The hell from before was now so much more literal. What was hell without the devil, though? Obviously, that's what he was here for. Thinking on that, would it really be that easy to beat the devil?

No, of course it wouldn't be that easy. It was never that easy. He was already standing back up. What's more, he didn't look happy. Almost entirely unfazed by the bloodless bullet holes scattered across him, he scowled towards Mona with the full weight of his contempt let loose. "I guess you still haven't learned."

Something began to happen with the light hanging in the center of the room. It flashed a few times on and off, then began to dim. As the shadows grew, Mona could see her father begin to twitch, his head twisting on its side more and more. Finally, a loud, grotesque crack rang through the small room as it turned itself upside down, his mouth hanging open as he did it.

He began to gasp and gurgle, falling to his knees as his throat expanded. The white fluid the other monsters bled began to pour from his mouth as he clawed into the ground. His arms seemed to extend as he did this, growing inhumanly spindly while his skin took on a dark, burnt quality. His stomach swelled, as well, his body positioning itself almost like a frog as he crouched low, no doubt preparing to charge Mona.

A dark, rusty piece of jagged metal ejected from his mouth, splattering the burning fluid across the floor before it retracted back into his throat, the weapon pumping in and out as he finally began a slow and menacing creep towards his victim. Moving on all fours like an animal, it would take him no time at all to cross the distance between them. With no more ammunition to defend herself, the best Mona could hope to do was fend him off with her chair leg.

She didn't have much hope of making it out of this one.

Mona's not having a good time at this family reunion. He's a truly vile man.

How is she going to make it out of this one? We'll have to find out next time. Thanks for reading. Share if you're enjoying. Always remember kill without warning.