Chapter XVII: Heaven
{Background image for this chapter: Tarot card XVII - The Star}
Did I drown? Ethan! I see you, I see you! Ethan! Ethan! I see you! Oh, how beautiful a garden, this is Paradise, real Paradise!
Ethan… I see you a yard apart. There are flowers like none on Earth. I see birds like there are none on Earth, songs like there are none... And a joy that simply pervades… I only believed such wonderful gaze because saw it with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears. I simply feel I would have never had the strength to believe this garden if anyone told me. I can say it was objectively the most beautiful sight one could ever have in the universe and beyond. And to think it sprouted in a place like Silent Hill... (Are we still in Silent Hill!?) If only Claudia could see this… I wonder if it would heal her…
Ethan, I see you distracted by the unimaginable beauty of this garden; you can't see me yet. I must confess I am drawn to it too, as if magnetically… Ethan, is this where you live? Oh, Ethan, in your childlike innocence you made the park like this… Is this your home now? Should I call you? Approach you? Oh, Perfect Heaven! Drops of golden dew like there are none on Earth condense gently upon my... monstrously deformed skin…
Ethan, you've found your garden, but I, I don't belong in here. I can't; not 'yet', I hope, at least. You can't see me like this, no, you cannot! I must leave before you spot me; before all this magic around you falls apart. Hideousness always tramples over beauty – I must leave at once! I must turn around- Priest! What are you doing here? "What do you mean? I saw you plunge into the lake, I saved you from drowning! Were you going to leave me like that!? When we were so close to glory!?" - The priest exclaimed. In shock I looked down and then around, confused, and I noticed that some parts of that garden did indeed faintly resemble a place in Silent Hill: The Rosewater Park. - "No, no, no we must go back! Giorgio, please, we must go back, we must go back!" - I begged, but Father Giorgio seemed to have stopped listening to me or seeing me – He too was mesmerized by the sight of the Garden. Giorgio in fact begun to weep, and he cried vigorously. I think he believed we both had died and were in Heaven. Father Giorgio spoted Ethan and began running towards him. The priest was now smiling with immense joy, he stretched his arms wide open to hug Ethan. He must have seen the purity in his eyes. Looking back at it I believe he mistook Ethan for God himself… But I jumped over Giorgio and we fought. I held his feet. He dragged me through. I cried, "Please, leave him there, don't go, I beg you; he can't see us yet; please, please, listen to me! I beg you, don't go yet; this will all fall apart in a second if we do! The plants will rot, the birds will die and the song, oh, the song… All song will cease! You can bet it will! Please, priest, please, I beg you, I beg you, I beg you! Put some sense in your mind, please, we… look, we have Vincent to stop, still, please, Father, please. Stop, please! I'll craft the fake seal for you, I'll find a way, I'll make it of my own flesh if I have to but please, Father!". But Father Giorgio would only shout me: "Stand up, Cyrus! Look where we are! Let go of Fear already! Look where we are and let go of it all for once!" At this point you looked back and finally noticed us.
"Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices... That, if I then had waked after long sleep, will make me sleep again; and then, in dreaming, the clouds methought would open and show riches. Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again" - Shakespeare