Epilogue: Rebel, Suffer, Fight, Love and Die
It took a couple of hours to drag the three bodies out to the pier. The lake was calm, the air still and the mist kept its distance. She was tired already and wounded but it didn't matter as there was much more work to be done before she could rest. The boat took them across water as smooth as glass except for the gentle waves her paddling made. Steering it towards the opposite shore it did not take long to locate the small strip of land she sought even in the swirling white. Perhaps it was the fact that she thought of this place often or that she had recently been here...or maybe Daniel Kewahqu's poisoned blood was exerting another hidden influence. It wasn't important, not anymore.
Coming to the stones underneath the great oak tree she took a moment to reflect on everything that had happened. First coming to this cursed land, realizing she could not leave it at will, heading back into town with no other options, being born here. Dying here. It wouldn't be so bad to join the people in her life, would it? All the fighting, the heartache, the anguish, the fear and devouring emptiness had led to this. Standing alone, surrounded by endless mist and the departed. She would have wept but there was nothing left in her withered tear ducts.
Searching the nearby buildings she collected all the items she would need. Returning to the stones she started to toil by herself surrounded by the billowing fog that almost seemed comforting instead of hostile. For hours she dug straight down into the dark earth with no other sounds than the shifting soil and her ragged breaths. When she was done with the first she started in on the second even with her back sore and hands beginning to blister. The day wore on and her body cried out for food, rest, water but she ignored it. Night began to fall and she continued digging with the help of her flashlight, her last friend. When she was done with the third she used the ladder to temporarily leave the site and head indoors. Staying in someone's old bedroom she spent hours carving words into metal until her fingers bled and her eyelids kept falling down. When she did finally sleep it was fitful, harried, unwanted.
Rising in the morning with first light she again disregarded the gnawing hunger and parched throat that dogged her every step. Returning to her labors she sweat under the eternally somber Silent Hill sky once more. The last hole was the hardest to dig but she did it anyway and moved on to finish the carving. When the words were finally done she returned to the boat she had beached the day before on the green grass blowing in the wind, dancing. Hauling the what was left of the first body out she dragged it back to the where the stones waited patiently. It had taken her some time to saw him free and he left a streak of black along the ground as she tugged what was left of him along. Lining it up with the deep hole dug the day before she rolled the body into the first grave. Shoveling for many minutes she filled it nearly to the top but left a foot and a half of space back to the grass line.
Moving the nearby uprooted sapling to the center of the grave she set it into the dirt and fastened it in place. Filling in the divet around it and patting the soil down with her shovel she did not bother giving this one a commemorative plate. The tree would be all the memorial he would have wanted. Here and now, she upheld her end of the bargain just like he could have if he had been the one to live. For all his faults he was at least a man of his word. She could not think of something to say; she did not think that there was anything to say.
To the right of the tree and above the second grave she stabbed a plate of metal into the ground and jumped on it with all her weight to embed it into the earth. Scratched onto it with deep enough grooves to withstand the onslaught of time it read, "Charles Taylor, friend". Heading back to the boat she hefted his weight and dragged him too back to the yawning maws of the ground waiting to eat their fill. Stopping before rolling him in she noticed that his face was not bunched up in pain and fear but serene and calm. She wondered if the tortured soul had found some measure of peace before he died. Casting him in she spent many minutes working the ground until he too was safely enclosed in it.
Throwing aside her shovel she stood over the makeshift resting place. Searching her memory for something to say she could come up with precious little to give to him. "Goodbye, Chuck. You were a good kid at heart. It was...an honor to fight beside you. I hope that the world will not forget what you did to redeem yourself."
Sighing she moved on to the open space in between the second grave and the old headstones that had been there for almost since her birth. Retrieving a similar slab to the first one this one read, "Alex Stormson, brother + son". Planting it in line with the other chunk of metal and the stone epitaphs it did not have a body for her to lay to rest along with it. Making sure it was good and deep she came to look at all three of the Stormsons in a row. Facing them like this was harder than she thought and she could not justify what she was doing. "I'm sorry." she said and turned away.
The next one took her a few minutes to work up the courage to do. She held the bit of metal in her hands for what seemed like forever before she got up to put it in place. Planting it at the head of the fourth grave to the right of the older ones it read, "Victor Rosencrantz, hero of SH". Trembling as she made sure it was steady she made the long, aching trip back to the boat. Staring at the last body she reluctantly gripped it and dragged it back to the others. Returning to the boat one final time she gathered the items inside and pushed the small craft out onto the open water to drift.
Walking to the sad work site she set down the objects in her hands and knelt by the only body not yet given a proper send off. Running her grimy fingertips along his inert forehead she knew this decomposing lump of bone and flesh was not the man himself but she grieved anyway. Rolling him into the grave made sorrow find her again and she was almost blinded as she worked. The words welled up in her chest unbidden and she did not recognize them nor care where they came from.
"Goddess of love, goddess of death, eater of filth, mother of all seasons." she said as she retrieved her shovel. "Mother of the rivers, cleanse your son with waters flowing from the fountain of youth." she prayed as she began to fill the grave. Each little bit that covered him only hurt more until he was mercifully out of sight under a thin layer of soil. No one should ever have to do something like this.
"Mother of the mountains," she sobbed, "caress him with murmurs, take him into your bosom, the dream of your deepest can-...cany-...ca-..." Her voice cracked and she stopped shoveling for a few moments to cry onto her forearm. Her chest was wracked by heaves and it was some time before she got them under control. Wiping her eyes with her shoulder she resumed shoveling. "Take him into your bosom, the dream of your deepest canyon." she finished.
The sky had darkened by the time she was done and as she patted down the last bit of dirt she whispered, "Mother of the night, weep with us, light his path with the stars above." Throwing aside the shovel she laid on top of the freshly moved earth and cried gently as night fully descended around them. Hours passed as she drifted in and out of sleep. Waking for good in total darkness she patted around find her light and turn it on once more. Picking up his wavy bladed sword that lay nearby she sunk it to its skulled hilt in the ground above his body.
Moving to the third grave next beside her parents' headstones and next to his she set up the final piece of metal with words scratched into them. This one read, "Julia Stormson, daughter + survivor" and she sat on the edge of the large hole to let her legs dangle into it. Picking up the Dark Grail at her side she rolled it in her hands as Daniel had done once long ago. It was heavy, heavier than it even looked. Ornately carved and priceless beyond measuring she set it aside in the dirt next to the Crimson Ceremony and Kewahqu's journal.
Looking over at the headstones around her she said a mental goodbye to all of them except Victor's. This one she lingered on as a thousand memories of the man flooded her mind. Everyone else she could have lost and still lived. Not happily, not without regret but lived on regardless. This solitary casualty she could not abide by. It wasn't fair, it wasn't right. They'd come here to defend Silent Hill, stop evil from flourishing and this is how they were repaid? Even the Spirit Of The Night Air, the one who had dedicated both his life and unlife to this place, lay dead and buried. How was that justice?
Picking up the revolver that had ended James Sunderland's twisted existence she rolled out the barrel. Only one silvery bullet remained and one was all she needed. Rotating it into place and sliding the weapon back together she cradled the gun in her lap. This was supposed to be the easy part but she was finding it immensely difficult. She had many opportunities to change her mind, take another path, think about things differently.
People said it was a permanent solution to a temporary problem but those people had never been in her shoes. There was nothing temporary about the crushing, soul-shredding agony she was in. There was nothing out there for her, nothing to get back to, nothing to care about. Her family was all dead, the man she would have married was dead and anyone who could have understood exactly what she went through was dead too. No one beyond the town's limits could even understand the gravity of what they had done. They'd throw her in a mental institution for talking about half the things she'd seen.
Time crawled by and she finally worked up the nerve to lift the barrel of the revolver to her temple. Shaking badly she had to use her other hand to keep her arm from vibrating the gun off target. After so many words poured out of her for Victor she could not think of any for herself. She tried taking deep breaths and closed her eyes in preparation. Inhaling hard she grimaced and clenched her teeth before pulling the trigger. She heard the click by her ear.
Nothing happened.
The breath in her chest exploded out and she was gasping, bewildered and stunned. Looking down at the gun like it had betrayed her she nearly vomited from the experience. With quivering fingers she discovered that the bullet wasn't in the proper chamber; she had rotated it too far. The desolate pilgrim was sure she had moved it to the right place, dead sure.
She felt flush, unsteady, suddenly woozy. The weight of the gun dragged it back down to her lap as she fought through a titanic adrenaline dump. Looking around herself in the dark she hoped for a hundred horrors surrounding her tiny light but there were no monsters coming from the void. Perhaps they knew there was nothing more they could to do to her. Perhaps the black blood in her system kept them at bay. She thought about Daniel and his tragic path that brought him to become a conduit of Silent Hill's wrath. For all of his words she'd listened to or read he never mentioned how he managed to shoulder the weight of his actions, how he went on living when he was already dead inside. He never even told them who he really was.
Something the Fater once wrote flit through her tormented mind. Putting the gun aside for a moment she opened the Crimson Ceremony. Flipping through it she scanned the pages by flashlight until she found what he might have been talking about. "Upon the hill where the light descended, the Beast intoned his song. With words of blood, drops of mist and the vessel of night the grave become an open field. The people wept in fear and joy at the reunion but my faith in the salvation of Xuchilbara did not waver." she recited.
The words swam through her forlorn psyche but minutes passed before she could comprehend their meaning. They were nothing but a tiny, mad flicker of hope like a lit match against an infinite ocean of darkness not unlike her flashlight keeping the ghost town's endless shadow at bay.
Looking up at the silent headstones arrayed before her and back down to the heavy gun the pilgrim knew in that moment what she was going to do.
Above, on the gnarled branches of the mighty oak nearby, a solitary crow watched her with the light reflecting in its deep, abyssal eyes.
The End