Disclaimer: I do not own Silent Hill or any of its characters. I only own my OC's and this plot.

A/N: Happy Halloween! And thanx so much to Okami for reviewing! Reviews and CC are always welcome.

As always, beware of the SH1-SH4 spoilers throughout this story.

Please enjoy: )

Chapter 5: The Invader

When next Henrietta awake, night had obviously fallen over Silent Hill. The snow that had fallen during the afternoon had dissipated, half an inch remaining on the ground. The sky was very clear, and the moon was nearly full. The young woman on the ground groaned slightly as the chill seeped into her body. She sat up painfully, brushing a dusting of snow off of her clothes.

As her memories slowly returned, Henri felt a strange twinge of pain in the middle of her back, like something had been pressing into it during her sleep. Twisting around to look under herself, she could not find anything. Maybe she had just slept on it wrong…

Pushing aside these useless thoughts, she hesitantly looked over at the wallet lying open by her side. In the darkness, she turned on the pocket flash-light. Picking the wallet up again, she looked at the rest of the contents. She grimly noted the pictures of Jamie, Frank, Mary, and Henrietta herself that took up the majority of the space inside. She smiled sadly as she flipped through the photos, remembering a better time…until she reached the last picture. She abruptly frowned, eyes narrowing.

In the final picture slot of the wallet was a picture of a woman Henrietta had never seen. And a strange looking woman she was, too. She had dark hair and eyes, and looked to be only in her late teens. She wore a dark cloak, and a sad, tired expression. She wasn't beautiful…rather, she was plain, but not really unpleasant to look at. Her most striking feature, however, was her heavily swollen stomach, displaying the final month of pregnancy. She didn't look particularly happy about it, either.

There was one other person in the photo: a middle-aged man, standing behind the young woman, one hand on her shoulder. He too wore the black cloak, and shared most of the same physical features. He was probably her father. He had a far different expression on his face. Where she looked sad and hopeless, he looked proud and pleased. Why would the father be happy about the pregnancy while the daughter looked traumatized?

Turning the picture over, Henri found something scribbled on the back:

Mariana W. and her father, Nathanial W. – taken about 23 years ago

If this had been written recently, then Mariana should be about Jamie Sunderland's age. Though, judging by the sickly state the girl seemed to be in, Henrietta couldn't help but wonder if Mariana had lived beyond her dreaded pregnancy.

Of course, there were many things to consider here. For one thing, why was this picture in James Sunderland's wallet? Did he know this girl and her father somehow? Why were they dressed so strangely, so much like Shelton Palmer?

Perhaps most importantly, why had the wallet of her missing uncle turned up so unexpectedly in Rosewater Park, seven years after the fact? Putting the mystery aside for now, Henri closed the wallet, tucking it in a pocket and pulling her backpack up from the ground.

She was about to leave the waterfront when the flashlight caught something in the corner of her eye—something small and red. Turning back to the memorial, Henri found two more boxes of pistol bullets held together with a rubber band. A small piece of white paper was tucked under the band. Opening the folded paper, Henri's heart beat faster upon reading the words:

For my Angel

There was no signature identifying the giver, but Henrietta felt a chill run down her spine. Could it possible be a coincidence that the tag bore the same nickname that Uncle James had always used for her, or was someone really playing some kind of sick joke on her? She thought it was probably the latter, but couldn't bring herself to crumple the note. She tossed both bullets and note into her backpack.

Finally exiting Rosewater Park, Henrietta continued, warily, westward on Nathan Ave. The dark streets were still deserted, and a deathly stillness was in the air. She would have given anything for the growling of a Gruesome Mosaic right about now, but nothing so much as a breeze swaying the trees broke the silence.

The town was finally living up to its name.

Henri soon found the Texxon Gas Station. She looked around the station for a good fifteen minutes, but failed to find anything that she thought would be worthy of its marked place on the map she had found in the trailer on Saul St. She looked around the pumps, underneath cars, and even in the station itself, but found nothing.

Beginning to get frustrated, Henri was about to leave when a strange urge came upon her. Turning back, she noticed a small book stand in front of the station. She had seen it before, but had not thought it particularly interesting.

Going back to it now, Henrietta looked more closely at the books. She swiftly found an old, green covered book amidst the others: "The Book of Lost Memories".

Frowning slightly, Henri opened the front cover in order to discover the nature of the book. After reading for a few minutes, Henri ascertained that the town had once been a holy place for its original Native American occupants. Come to think of it, she vaguely remembered her aunt telling her something similar. The tale became stranger, and darker, however. The tale spoke of the bloody expulsion of the original people by Europeans. But…something terrible happened that drove even the invaders out, and yet another people took over. However, according to the book, nothing was ever the same in Silent Hill again.

'Humph. I can believe it,' Henrietta thought darkly, tucking the book into her pack.

Bah. She needed to find some place to spend the night. It was getting unbearably cold, and she was suddenly developing the most painful headache—

"AAAHHHH!!!" she suddenly screamed, as an excruciating pain tore through her neck. This terrible feeling was preceded by a heavy weight slamming into her back. She was knocked quickly to the ground. It took a long moment for her to regain her senses, but she finally realized that she was lying on the ground, and that the flashlight had fallen on the ground before her, and the light was shinning in her eyes. Blinking, she felt the suffocating weight of something lying on her back, and an equally foreign wetness on the side of her neck.

She tried to shake her head, hoping to clear it, but something prevented her from moving. An angry growl came from behind her, and something grabbed her hair tightly, holding her in place. Groaning in pain, Henrietta's mind finally registered the fact that the wetness on her neck came from a mouth—a mouth in which hid a nasty set of fangs, both of which were currently buried in her neck.

A woozy feeling came over her as she heard a slight gulping sound in her ear, and her mind grudgingly came up with the conclusion that the creature on her back was drinking her blood.

Luckily, this overdue epiphany was accompanied by a burst of panicked adrenaline. Quickly drawing back her arm, Henri drove her elbow into the side of the creature's head. It gave a startled yelp, abruptly pulling its teeth from her neck. Henri stumbled to her feet, grabbing hold of the flashlight and her bag (unable to find the steel pipe) and running as quickly as she could down Nathan Ave.

It was a difficult task: her vision blinked in and out, and her mind whirled with dizziness from the blood-loss. She soon passed the intersection of Nathan Ave. and Carroll St., and would have run farther if not for the fact that the road suddenly ended immediately after Pete's Bowl-O-Rama. Gasping in disbelief, Henri skidded to a halt, quickly running back to Carroll St.

As she ran, she heard the sound of hissing, growling, and quick footsteps coming up swiftly behind her. The creature must have just recovered from its pain. The darkness was now all-consuming, and Henri ran without any true direction, and soon began to fatigue from over-exertion and blood-loss. Reaching Rendell St., she ran with a now stumbling gait westward.

Panting, Henri let out a chocked cry as she ran into yet another walled-off street.

Now at a dead end, Henri leaned heavily against the wall. Clutching the side of her neck in pain, she began to feel nauseous. A clear part of her mind realized that her pursuer was approaching her—slowly. Looking up, Henri saw the creature come into the range of her flashlight.

It was extremely humanoid, and would have looked just like a human, if not for its (his) extremely pale skin and bloody, elongated canines. He had long, grungy, red hair, and glowing yellow eyes. He was wearing very human clothing: dark pants, a long, black coat, and surprisingly expensive-looking shoes. He would have been very handsome, if not for the vicious smirk on his face.

All in all, he looked like a genuine ax-murderer.

"Well," he said, the smirk never leaving his face, "It looks like I finally have you tired out, then. I'm impressed; you're a tough little morsel." This final part he said while licking the excess blood from around his mouth.

He had a well-educated, self-controlled manner of speaking, which made his actions seem even more bizarre.

"You have a very unique taste…a little extra oomph, if you would. I was just going to drain you and move on, but I think I'll keep you for a while." He gave a mock sigh. "You're the best thing I've found in this astoundingly mundane town."

Henri's eyes narrowed. "You…you're not a creature of Silent Hill?" she asked, something about this idea seeming very disturbing.

He scoffed. "Of course not. I'm no servant of that pathetic fool Sammael." He examined his shoes, as though afraid that the atmosphere of the town was polluting his expensive loafers. Henrietta looked incredulously at the jackass vampire in front of her.

Of course, maybe that made a certain amount of sense. Thus far, no creature of Silent Hill origin (Sammael's origin, perhaps) had ever attacked her. The vampire standing before her must be a foreign creature—an invader, perhaps.

Another tide of vertigo washed over her, causing her to sway. Holding her face in her hands, Henrietta hunched over in discomfort.

"Ah, how rude of me. You must not be feeling very well. No wonder, after losing all that blood. Come now my dear, let me take you home," he said, the nasty smirk returning to his voice. He approached her slowly, arms slightly out. When he was finally just a few inches from her, his arms circled her waist, bringing her against his cold chest.

In a parody of affection, he began to stroke her hair. "There now, don't worry. I'll take good care of you. You'll be much happier with me than in this pathetic rubbish-pile those black-robed freaks call a town." His voice lowered, grew huskier as he tightened his hold. "I am Maddox, by the way. And you?"

Absentmindedly, Henri told him her name, all the while staring at the front of his coat, the breast of which was now eye-level. She saw, quite clearly, that there was a symbol on his front pocket.

A blue pentagram.

A memory came rushing back to her. "…it seems most effective on the creatures that bear the blue pentagrams." Yes, this must be the sort of creature the note in the Director's Office talked about. Trying to be a subtle as possible, Henri reached into her left pocket, pulling out the crystal vile and popping out the lid.

While the garrulous blood-sucker rambled on (getting a little too touchy-feely for Henri's taste), Henri suddenly brought her knee up into the creature's crotch, making him howl in pain and anger. As he started to regain his bearings, he turned a furious look at her, but she quickly followed up with a brief splash in the face with the clear liquid.

Now Maddox's cry was far more tormented, and he reeled with excruciating agony. Looking at his face, Henri realized that the liquid was actually causing it to…melt. His skin was actually becoming saggy, and bubbled, as though he just got a face-full of acid. Maddox quickly fell to his knees, cursing acerbically in a foreign language Henri did not recognize.

Taking her chance, Henrietta ran back up Carroll St., leaving the vampire to his misery. Her mind was slowly becoming clearer, but she still needed some place to spend the night, before she met any more of Maddox's friends. But where was she to go? All of her closest escape routes were now blocked or impassable. She needed a building…a large one that would provide her with ample hiding space.

Henri soon found her answer. About a quarter of the way up Carroll St. was Brookhaven Hospital. Running quickly to the front entrance, Henri was nearly ecstatic to find that it was unlocked. Quickly entering, Henri shut the door quietly, wishing she had a key with which to lock it. Sighing in momentary relief, Henri looked around her.

Brookhaven was a very depressing place. The walls were covered in rust, grime, and blood. Looking to her left, Henri saw a hospital map on an announcement board on the wall. Taking it down, Henri looked over the room lay-out: Examination rooms, pharmacy, day rooms, visiting rooms…Special Treatment rooms? Henri frowned, a memory returning to her. Brookhaven wasn't just a hospital—it was a mental institution.

She had been here herself, but not since her early childhood.

Now less comfortable with her find, Henri never the less had to find a place to hold up for the night here. If the note in the Firehouse was correct, then the vampires should be weak in the day.

Another bout of nausea fell over her. She really needed to sleep off the exhaustion that swept over her thanks to Maddox's midnight snack. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, Henri began to look for a place to sleep. She was kind of hungry, too. Maybe she needed to find some sugar to give her a boost after her involuntary blood "donation".

She found that the door to the Reception Office was unlocked. There was nothing particularly interesting in the office, but she did find something strange in the Documents Room connected to it. There was a typewriter in the back of the room, a paper still in the machine. It was a note of some sort:

Welcome to Brookhaven Hospital. We hope that you will find sanctuary here from whatever demons pursue you—real or imagined.

Brookhaven exists to serve you, and will faithfully protect a child of Silent Hill, no matter how long you have strayed from the place that you belong.

If you should find yourself tired, you shall find peace in our comforting west wings. If you are hungry, you'll find something very welcome in our cafeteria. And never worry: our qualified staff will make sure your comfort is never interrupted.

Somewhat mystified by this strangely worded greeting, Henri turned the paper over. It turned out that the strangest part of the message was on the back in bold, slightly uncontrolled, hand-written script:

Welcome home, Henrietta

Henrietta decided that the most disturbing thing about whatever controlled Silent Hill was the fact that it seemed to know every place she would be. She also wasn't particularly happy that that same entity thought that this town was Henri's true home. Henri would take Pleasant River any day.

Now that she thought about it, the place she really belonged right at this moment was cramming for her Mammalian Physiology test at Pleasant River University. And never had she missed her dorm room, Room 6 in Stone Hall, as much as she did now.

Sighing again, Henri noticed something on the table next to the typewriter. It was a key. Examining it under the light, Henri found that it had something scratched into the head: "C2". Henri found this room on the map to be in the west wing of the first floor. The west wing must be the personal patient rooms, then.

Leaving the Reception Office, Henri tried to enter the other rooms in the east wing of the first floor. Everything was locked except the Cafeteria and the Doctor's Lounge. She found the moldy cafeteria to be empty, but the door connecting it to the Kitchen was unlocked.

A large refrigerator stood across from the entrance. Walking closer, Henri found that a note had been taped onto the door of the refrigerator:

I knew you would be working the graveyard shift, so I left some food for you in the fridge.

P.S. I found that key you were looking for. I taped it onto the mirror in your locker.

Allison

Opening the fridge, Henri found that it was working, and the food inside was still good. In the middle of the second shelf was a platter containing cold meats and cheeses. Figuring whoever that note had been written for would not mind at this point, Henri took the dish out and began to eat.

After having her fill, she put the left-overs in the fridge and exited the Kitchen. The only other door in that wing left unlocked was the Doctors' Lounge. The Lounge was only dimly lit, and the furniture was covered in blood. In the middle appeared to be the remains of a couch and coffee table. There was yet another note in the remains of the table, this one appearing to be a memo:

The newest patient proved to be far more violent than we had anticipated. He attacked Nurse Danielle, and somehow managed to get his hands on a large knife: how, we are not sure. In consideration of all of these facts, we decided to put him in Special Treatment Room #4.

Be wary of approaching him. He attacks without hesitation, and has a very animal-like personality. He has very few reasoning abilities, and seems to live mostly by instinct alone.

Great. Just wonderful. Knowing Silent Hill by experience, Henri knew that this was probably her cue to visit the Special Treatment ward on the third floor—were all the really violent crazy people were. The fact that she planned to do just that probably proved that Henri had very few "reasoning abilities" herself.

Exiting the Lounge, Henri made her way to the west wing. The stairway door was locked: however, the door to the west wing corridor was unlocked. She decided to explore the rest of the hallway before unlocking C2. It proved to be a useless endeavor. She first tried to enter C1.

She could enter…sort of. She opened the door and stepped through. She closed the door behind her, turning to look at the room before her—only to find herself back in the hallway.

Blinking somewhat unintelligently, Henri looked around herself in disbelief. However, the same thing happened when she tried C3, C4…every room in the wing. Finally standing in front of C2, Henri decided that "The Powers that Be" wanted her to go into that room as soon as possible.

Although she did not like this idea, she realized that she was becoming more tired and dizzy with every room she tried: she had to sleep, and that's all there was to it. Using the key, she unlocked the door.

The inside was surprisingly neat. Unlike the other rooms she had seen in the hospital, this room was covered in a pleasantly soft shade of off-white paper, and the bed was clean and comfortable-looking.

For some reason, Henri was hit with a sense of familiarity. She had the feeling that she had been here before. Maybe she had. After all, she had been here briefly for treatment of the strange illness from which she suffered.

In fact…yes. This was the room she had slept in during her brief stay in the hospital.

She wondered how she could have forgotten.

Once she began looking at the bed, however, she quickly abandoned her uneasy trip down memory lane. Having seen the bed, she now had a great deal of difficulty looking away from it. There almost seemed to be some force drawing her to it.

Sighing in resignation, Henri finally gave into the exhaustion that had been dogging her since her encounter with Maddox. Walking to the side of the bed, Henrietta turned off her flashlight and dumped her bag and ax on the table next to the bed. She then flopped down on the bed with a contented sigh.

Closing her eyes, she was asleep within a few minutes.