Chapter Two

Oh, how she so truly and deeply wished for the freedom she had once possessed before her time in Silent Hill. Even with her daughter's constant need for attention, there had been time for her and no one else. Now though, it seemed that the visit to that horrid place had worsened Sharon's fits, and drowned her even deeper in the world of dream-filled sleep, during which she would rise and physically fight her mother as she attempted to leave the misty house. All whilst she was asleep. Never waking until the morning sunlight weaved its way through the thick laden fog and into her dirty window, so that it might touch a single ray upon her face and rectify the wrong that had been done to her in the past darkness, only to have it come upon her again, a continuous cycle of goodness and evil clashing for all eternity, never for one to win or lose, but rather be matched in equal superiority. Rose was frightened more than ever for her daughter's health, and had at times considered placing her in another's care. Perhaps a hospital or institution, where she might finally have some peace, and her mother the same. Yet the fog that choked the house wasn't present only within it. It entirely enveloped the structure from the outside in, and the forest and roads and cities were also cloaked and hidden by that very same mist. The mist composed of soot and ash, blanketing all the hurting family had ever known, and denying them sanctuary.

It had become obvious to the young mother that life wasn't ever going to be normal again; her husband and all other traces of human kind had vanished; 'twas as if the town that was Silent Hill had followed her home, and invaded, infected, and contaminated the peace she had been hoping to receive upon she and her daughter's return. Yes, this truly was the curse of Silent Hill. Rose and Sharon were blindly and utterly alone, as if living in another realm of the world they had once known, where life existed and thrived but was entirely unreachable. She felt as if she could taste it and smell it and feel it and hear it, but sight was limited, and she was steadily losing more, leaving her unable to find her way home. Perhaps if Cybil had been alive she would have returned to the town of Brahams, if only to discover she was still alone, save for the manifestation of the devil and his opposite that was Sharon Da Silva. Alas, the officer was no longer amongst the living, and Rose would never return to a town so near to the place that had filled her with far more than just grief.

Unless of course she finally realized she had no other choice but to return.

Sharon's fits had continued to worsen, and quite obviously they weren't intending to decrease in intensity any time soon. Rose would inevitably be forced back to the ash-caked Silent Hill, whether she liked it or not. Love and concern for her daughter—who wasn't even of her own blood—would compel her. The strength of the family bond was immense; love like an invisible tissue unable to be fully severed from the ones it connected; Rose couldn't possibly compete with the natural need and maternal instincts that demanded she aide and protect her daughter—even if she was adopted. There wasn't anything in the world—be it the one she was currently residing in, or the one she had known all of her previous life—that could cause her to relinquish that crushing grip on the hope that her daughter might one day be at peace, and able to live as Rose had intended her to; to grow into a beautiful and successful young woman who was content with herself and her life, and who would age gracefully, and one day die beside those who cared for her. Not trapped in the hellhole that was Silent Hill.

As the first rays of dawn filtered through the air, heavy with worry and silence, Rose gathered her legs beneath her and stood, rounding and laying a wary hand upon the glinting golden doorknob, turning it and opening the door just so, and allowing herself a quick glimpse of Sharon, who lay in her bed, the comforter thrown off to one side, the remaining sheets twisted angrily about her small form like a cocoon—a sign of another night's lack of peaceful sleep. The mother's eyes softened at the sweet innocence that seemed to envelope the girl in her resting, but she knew it would be short lived. For soon the girl would wake to find she was still locked in this everlasting nightmare, her window still barred shut, the slightly bloodied scratches upon the glass courtesy of nails upon desperate fingers, having attempted to claw her way through the pane. And she would remember none of the evening past. And she would cry and plead to her mother that the nightmare be stopped. And her mother would close the door and collapse to the mahogany paneled floor so as to plead the same, and cry with the knowledge that she could do nothing to ease either of their suffering.

Or perhaps this was not the case.

In the very depths of that war-torn, battle-scarred heart, Rose Da Silva understood what she needed to do. Nothing good would ever become of the mother and daughter were she not to seek in Silent Hill the answer she had been longing to find since first learning of her child's past. Alessa's attempt at an explanation may have sufficed for Rose and Sharon's time in that misbegotten community of sinners, but it did nothing in the way of deciphering the causes of what they were now experiencing—this kind of non-violent Hell, whose method of torture consisted only of silence, confusion, and solitude. After all, from what Rose had gathered from Alessa's tale, the mother and daughter were the only purities present in that awful place. What had they done to deserve fates such as that which they had apparently received? Rose herself had aided in the devil's entry into the sacred grounds of the church, allowing for her vengeance and the destruction of the woman Christabella, among others. She had done all that was asked of her, in the hope that perhaps one day she and her child might return to the life they had been meant to live. But still they lay tortured in their own loneliness and lack of understanding.

Closing the door just as quickly as she had opened it, the barely audible squeak that emanated from the twisting of the knob seemed to split the atmosphere at its seams, and Rose immediately dropped to her knees and covered her ears in physical pain. Having become unaccustomed to the sounds of society and life in general, the slightest vibrations of the bones in her ears were like the sound of two foghorns held not an inch away from them. Something needed to be done which would end this, and she briefly considered the availability of the pistol that lay only a few feet beyond her immediate reach.

Cybil's gun.

She didn't even recall how it had come to be at her disposal. Had she taken it before or after the young cop's death? And why didn't she remember doing so? Or had she simply happened upon it, and retrieved it by sheer instinct alone? It was empty—so it wouldn't have proved much use to her, either in Silent Hill, or now as she kneeled before the door, hands still glued over her ears and head bowed into her chest, hot tears trailing down her face, and stubbornly refusing to release themselves to the hard floor, thus clinging to her and likely to be frozen by the inherent frigidity of her current emotional state.

No.

Suicide was not an option here, though not only because of the absence of bullets in the gun. Instead Rose had come to grasp the fact that taking her own life would only ensure the fading of her daughter's. No, not even the overwhelming desire to put an end to this agony could so surpass her motherly instincts. They were a part of her she sometimes wished were not present, unable to be overcome. Whoever said sentiments were both a blessing and a curse hadn't been lying. A blessing in the sense that they could be truly lovely when seen in the right light; a harrowing curse when viewed in the wrong.

At last the woman removed her ghostly white palms from her ears, trembling the whole way back to her sides, until they were placed firmly against the smooth wooden surface beneath her, and pushed her to a standing position once again. She sensed activity in Sharon's room, but feared opening the door, lest she be taken down by the pain of sound a second time. Instead she leaned her head gently against the door and spoke in so quiet a voice, it could scarcely be named as such.

"Mommy's leaving for a bit, honey."

The panicked truth suddenly hit them both, and Rose broke down yet again, though whilst remaining standing and holding her position; Sharon scuttled across the floor of her misty room so as to take on a position so strikingly similar to that of her mother's, it could have been said they were indeed of shared blood. Her small ear, covered partially by stray locks of ebony silk, pressed against the door she knew her mother stood behind, though she was for the moment imperceptible.

"When is Daddy coming home Mommy?"

Composing herself, the woman stroked the door absentmindedly, as if it were the child herself, reaching down with the other hand to soundlessly rotate the lock upon the knob. Blue eyes strayed to the pistol a second time, and then to the form of the front door, and the silver SUV parked before it. Her lips quivered and she bit down on them for a moment's time, uncertain what to say next, eventually settling on an answer so vague, she knew it would offer no comfort to the girl. There was nothing else to say.

"Soon darling. Very soon."