Chapter XVI: Years of Nothing
{Background image for this chapter: Tarot card XVI - The Tower (reversed)}
This is the first time I write again in seven years. Seven years have passed and no sign of Ethan. The Silent Hill Smile Support Society Vincent was completely empty and I cannot put in words how frustrated I was. I couldn't even write. Father Giorgio has failed too; Can you believe he managed to secretly get the Seal of Ophiel from Vincent's clothes but it turned to be so complicated to counterfeit that he had to put it back just like that! The seal was made of… LIVING FLESH! How do you even begin to fake Living flesh?!
I can't count how many times the both of us were humiliated, wounded, and almost killed by all sorts of demons with unimaginable appearance! I can only hope Ethan fared better than us, if he even is in this town at all anyway...
As if that wasn't bad enough, through all these years of searching and studying this Hell I have become monster-like in appearance. I don't go see Father Giorgio anymore. I am ashamed and I fear he fears me. I must find a way to finish this whole thing… before I turn into a monster inside as well…
I remember that the last thing I told Father Giorgio was that I believed the seal of flesh symbolizes Vincent's material greed: Before seeing the Otherworld Vincent sought happiness through spiritual matters, but once he witnessed the Otherworld, which is a manifestation of the supernatural in material form it provided him with validation for a strictly material view on Happiness. Father Giorgio thought it makes sense. I wonder now – was that seal ever made of something other than flesh?
Confound everything anyway. Today I will swim the Toluca; that is, I will swim until I reach either the other side or its bottom. I haven't told Father Giorgio. I don't feel like confessing anyway. But before my skin gets wet of this cursed water, I wet my stomach with the priest's wine. A toast! My last communion this will be! A toast to Hell, that's what I do deserve!