I do not own anything relating to Kingdom Hearts or Silent Hill. They belong to Disney/Square Enix and Konami respectively.

This is the point where things start to get AU. The purpose of Brookhaven is the only huge change to Silent Hill canon, but many of the KH characters will play different roles. In case you're wondering, only the BBS trio, Master Eraqus and Master Xehanort have the same backstory they did in the games.

Chapter 4

"It should be right here. . ."

Aqua looked up and found that, indeed, her assertion was correct. And that she'd just walked into the hospital's fence. Clearly, this was a very accurate map.

Like everywhere else, Brookhaven Hospital was dark and poorly maintained. She didn't think this was a poor city, but if this was the best hospital they had to offer, she would have to reconsider. The walls must have been a bright white a long time ago, but that had faded. Shades had been drawn in all the windows, at least the ones that weren't boarded up. It was a gloomy place, as if the staff didn't want you to forget that people died here.

There was more than enough light to see by inside; it was certainly brighter than it was outside. Her footsteps echoed as she walked down the white hall, passing the closed door of a kitchen as she did so. Whoever ran the hospital had enough sense to see that the inside did not appear as beaten up as the exterior, and there was a dull shine to the floor. Perhaps it was because few feet tread upon it; for a hospital it sure was quiet.

As she reached a branching hallway, she saw a blonde man disappear into a room. Hoping he was a doctor, Aqua ran to the door. Halfway up, her hand stalled. Meeting Room, the label on the door declared. She was reluctant to interrupt just for the sake that one of them might have seen Ven.

She was just about to leave when the door swung open. Bright orange eyes glared at her, and scowling lips grew even thinner as he looked her over. The man boasted a proud moustache and goatee as neat as his slicked hair, dignified enough to give even her Master a moment of self-doubt. Surely, he was a doctor, for the white lab coat felt too formal for a everyday person, even with a red coat draped around his neck like a scarf.

"I have never seen you around here before," he said pointedly.

Aqua had expected a calm, professional manner; but this man was openly hostile, and she found herself spluttering as she said, "Sorry, I'm not from around here."

The man's stern gaze wavered. "No, you are not. I apologize."

Her face hot, Aqua answered, "You don't need to." When the silence stretched on, she moved swiftly to diffuse the tension. "My name is Aqua."

He shook her hand. "Ansem. What brings you to Silent Hill, Aqua?"

"I'm looking for my friend, Ventus. My other friend, Terra, and I were separated from him this morning. He's a little boy with blue eyes, blonde spiky hair and enough energy to power a city. You wouldn't happen to know if anyone's seen him, would you?"

Ansem chuckled. "If anyone had seen him, they wouldn't tell."

Aqua blinked as Ansem continued. "The people living in this town are of a very unpleasant sort. Trust me when I say that your quest will be much smoother if you choose to avoid them."

"Aren't you from this town, sir?"

"Oh, no, I'm a detective from another district. So, run along," he patted her on the shoulder, "I'd suggest renting a room in the town of Kettleby, just to the west of here, and if I see this Ventus I'll bring him to you."

Her smile was brittle. "I'm sorry, sir, but I have no intention of leaving until I find him."

"Miss Aqua, this is not a town you should wish to be overnight in. There are strange happenings here, and it not safe for a lovely person such as yourself to wander these streets alone."

Rainfell did not flash into existence, but through their connection, still made itself known. The power passed through her like the lingering touch of a spell, and Ansem stiffened as if he, too, was affected. When Aqua dryly stated that she could take care of herself, he stayed silent.

"What do you mean by strange happenings?" she asked quietly. Could it be related to the darkness plaguing this town?

"Miss, please, leave this to the professionals."

Ansem gave her a patronizing smile, and Aqua struggled to keep herself civil. The Master may have wielded his keyblade with such grace that it painted her as an amateur, yet even he failed to make her feel as . . . simple as this man did.

Their conversation, or rather lack thereof, was interrupted by a squeak. From around a corner, a young girl with blue eyes peeked out at them. Aqua waved, and the girl gave her a shy smile before settling her eyes on Ansem. The girl's mood immediately dampened.

"Do you have something to say, Naminé?" Ansem stepped towards her, and Naminé shrunk back. "No? Then be gone!"

Aqua was too stunned to react until Naminé was gone. But Ansem's sneering face spurred her into action. "Why did you do that?"

"Were you not listening earlier?" Ansem sounded genuinely surprised. "She's one of them, and those people cannot be trusted by any means."

"She's just a little girl."

"And one day, she'll grow up to be exactly like everyone else. You may think she looks innocent, Miss Aqua, but don't be fooled." Ansem's voice dropped as he delivered his verdict. "Whatever thoughts she has are twisted by her faith. You can trust that she would hand you over to the Order before assisting you out of any goodwill."

"What are you talking about?"

Ansem touched his chin with his knuckles, shaking his head. "You really are not from around here. Come, it's better if I show you."

She saw no one else as he led her to the stairs. The walls gleamed, bare. They passed a gurney with brown wheels and dusty sheets. She tried to avoid looking inside the rooms out of respect for the patients' privacy, but the few glimpses she caught revealed them as empty; the beds lacked sheets and linen, medical stores held only a few bottles. A perpetual hush hung over the hospital, as if mourning some great tragedy, one that Ansem refused to appreciate.

As they climbed the stairs, he spoke, "Every man and woman in Silent Hill are members of the same cult, the Order. I have yet to find the name of their idol, but they all cling to it as their God. In regular circumstances, few would care, but this religion is one of evil. They're hardly human anymore."

"Don't you think you're being a little . . . extreme?"

He didn't answer and opened a door to the second floor. Aqua cautiously went along, following him to another door. This he flung open and with a sweep of his arm, beckoned her forwards.

A metal table sat in the middle of the room. It was rectangular in shape, longer than it was wide, and chills shot down her spine. A single light shone down on it, the reflection so blinding that she raised a hand to shield her eyes. Cabinets were scattered around the room and there was another small table next to the far side of the first.

Ansem ran his hand along the metal table's edge. "See these?" He hooked a finger under a leather restraint, tugging. "They used to strap people down, I'm sure of it. And these?" From the smaller table, he produced a dull scalpel. "This may be clean, but when I first arrived, the others were stained in blood. Some of the reports I've recovered are simply fascinating. They washed up, made sure their clipboards and papers were nice and neat, and then they brought the knife down on their subject's chest and cut. They seemed to have a particular interest in the heart."

"I. . ." Aqua closed her eyes, willing the images to go away. "Why hasn't anyone done anything?"

Her eyes opened again when Ansem laughed. "Why? Because I'm the first to investigate. It was only a couple of years ago when anyone in authority realized that something was amiss. A man and his daughter, Harry and Cheryl Mason, went to the police with the most unbelievable tale. We would have written him off as insane, if he didn't have the support of one of our officers who claimed she was a witness. No action was taken at that time, but then a man named James Sunderland went missing. His body was later found not far from Silent Hill in a submerged car, a suicide. But the evidence we found was . . . troubling. A team of my colleagues dug deeper, and found that Sunderland was not the first to mysteriously kill himself in that area, and that locals from neighbouring towns knew of dozens who had gone to Silent Hill and never returned."

"So, they only sent you?" she asked, unsure.

"No, I am just a follow-up. There was a team sent some time ago, but we haven't heard from them."

The room held a single window, and Aqua could see how the fog shrouded the outside. Yes, it would be easy to get separated here – she knew that from experience. Now, she also wondered what nature hid from her. What was going on in that blanket of secrecy?

"I could help you look for them," she said, "and we could look for my friends at the same time."

Ansem smiled. "A kind offer, but I'm afraid I must insist that you leave." The table rang as he dropped the scalpel on it. "If this is not enough to persuade you that this place is dangerous, then I sincerely question your sanity."

"I will not leave without my friends."

"Then I'm afraid I must decline regardless. If you are simply searching for your friends, you should be able to avoid some of the less . . . savory aspects of Silent Hill – ones I have no option but to investigate. If I meet this Ventus of yours -"

"Could you keep an eye out for Terra as well?"

Ansem nodded. "Or Terra," he agreed, "I'll be sure to mention that you are looking for them. Good day to you, Miss Aqua."

Alone again, Aqua was left to explore. However, the room didn't present much. There was only so much you could learn from a table and leather straps. Apart from the scalpel, the smaller table did have some more instruments, but looking at them for more than a second disturbed her.

The cabinets appeared to have been raided – presumably by Ansem – but through a crack, she saw a hint of paper. Aqua opened it to reveal a small notebook innocently sitting on the uppermost shelf. The spine was worn although the black cover looked new. There was no title, just a note inside that labeled it as some kind of report.

Town inhabitants are hostile, read the first page. Felt like they were going to shoot me if I turned around. Made sure my guns were clearly visible to everyone. The lunatics don't even have a liveable cop station around, so we've taken over an out-of use hospital. Least there's food.

The others disapprove of the language I've been using. Say I need to be more impartial. As if! I've been here for less than a day and I already know these people are freaking insane. I would just cuff them all and send them away if it were my decision, but the boss says I can't do that until I get some evidence. Looks like I'll be staying here for a while.

Aqua glanced over her shoulder. This must have been the team that Ansem had spoken about. But it was odd that he would leave it here like that. Perhaps he had overlooked it.

She stepped out of the room, calling his name. Her eyes fell not on him, but on Naminé. Like the walls around here, she was draped in white and the pale colours only made her vibrant blue eyes that much more striking. Unlike before, she clutched a sketchpad close to her chest and a crayon in her hand. She squinted up at Aqua, then at a sketch that she hastily changed.

Despite Ansem's words, Aqua felt no hostility. "I don't think we've been properly introduced," she said. "My name's Aqua." She knelt down, meeting the girl at eye-level. "I'm really sorry for what that man said to you."

"It's not his fault. He has reasons to say those things."

"Not to you."

Naminé smiled. "Thank you."

Straightening up, Aqua asked, "Where is everyone?"

"Few people come to this hospital anymore." Naminé grabbed Aqua's shoulder, using it as support as she stood on her tiptoes. She whispered, "That means it's safe."

Safe? Before Aqua could phrase her question, Naminé wandered past her, running a hand along the wall. She disappeared into one of the rooms and with a lack of anything else to do, Aqua trailed her.

Naminé's room curiously held the most colour out of anywhere in this town. The building's structure was still white as were the sheets on the bed, but pictures drawn in crayon covered every inch of the walls. The rainbow shocked her eyes; it was too much to take in at once. Naminé herself was lying on her bed, crayon in hand. She pushed the sketch book towards Aqua, allowing her to see it.

"Is that me?"

Naminé nodded. "It's not very good," she said apologetically. "I couldn't get a very clear image of you." Wistfully, she added, "Your heart must be filled with light."

Aqua couldn't quite follow Naminé's logic, but that did stop her from admiring her work. It was undeniably her clothes that the person wore, if one wasn't able to tell who it was from the blue hair. The drawing grinned at her, triumphantly raising Rainfell amidst a white background. Wait, what? Aqua had never summoned her keyblade inside the hospital.

"Did you see me earlier?"

"Outside? No. I don't go out there; it's dangerous for me."

As Aqua pondered this, Naminé took her sketchpad back. She flipped to a previous page and began filling in shapes with a grey crayon. The shapes were all rounded at the top and flat at the bottom. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them at first, but when she switched to a different colour and began to trace out a cobblestone path, Aqua realized she was creating a cemetery. When Aqua stared, Naminé blinked up at her. Abruptly, Aqua was reminded of the girl she met outside the apartment, a girl whose eyes held the exact same shade of blue.

Naminé was engrossed in her task, so Aqua felt it appropriate to get up and examine the other pictures. Strangely, Naminé herself seemed to be in few of them. Rather, they focused on strangers. Here, a man carried his sleeping child down a foggy path; here, a couple held hands on a lonely bench. The waxy lines were all thick and childish, but there was still something real about it, like it was a snapshot in time. As Naminé worked away, Aqua studied the collection.

Yet as she went further along, when she turned to the wall with a window showcasing the outside, the collection took a darker turn. There was an immediate change in the brightness of the drawings, as though someone had come along and sucked the colours right out. Red and black reigned here, blotching out all the others that struggled against them. Aqua directed her attention to the misshaped drawings by the window, the papers of which were torn and wrinkled. Unlike the others, they appeared to have completed with little care or time, as if there was a sense of urgency about them. Of these, two of them had the honor of being pasted right in the center of the glass. The first made little sense to her. It featured what she thought was a man, or maybe a monster. The body seemed humanoid, but the head was . . . it was a triangle? Well, that wasn't entirely accurate; it was a helmet designed in the shape of a triangular pyramid. With one hand, the figure grasped the handle of some kind of giant blade. That was about all she could make out. The drawing was smeared with red crayon so that it blurred every feature. The second drawing was the complete opposite of the first. Where the latter had every inch filled in, this one was fairly empty. All it featured was a sleeping boy, who seemed more and more familiar the longer she looked.

"You've seen Ven?" Aqua gasped.

"In my drawings."

"Naminé, do you know where I can find him?"

Naminé bit her lip, looking at the ground as she answered yes. She sat up, folding the sketchpad so that only one page was visible, and wordlessly handed it off to Aqua. In the short time she'd been here, the picture had evolved; no longer just a cemetery, but the front yard of a building with stone stairs and two massive doors.

"He's at this church?" Aqua asked.

"He is now, but I don't know how long he'll stay."

That last statement barely entered Aqua's mind. At last, she had found some clue where Ven had gone! Now, if only she could say the same for Terra.

"Have you seen another strange boy around here? He's taller than me and . . ."

Naminé said, "I'm not sure where he is."

"You know who he is?"

"Yes," Naminé answered quietly. Like a switch had been flicked, Naminé wilted. Aqua gently put her hand on her shoulder, not sure what had just happened.

"You should stay here," Naminé said. "You may not think so, but Terra will find this place. Ven . . ." She trailed off, and then started up again with forced confidence, "Ven will come here too! Then you can face the darkness together."

"That's a lovely idea." Naminé stared at her hopefully with the same puppy-dog eyes that Ven had long mastered. Maybe it was a universal thing among children. "But I'm afraid I can't do that."

Naminé sighed. "I know. Just promise you won't forget."

"Forget what?"

"Here. It's safe here."

Safe? her mind asked again. "What do you mean by that?"

"I can't tell you. This place is safe, but they still might. . ." Naminé bowed her head. "Please, Aqua, promise you won't forget."

Aqua was patient, waiting until Naminé gathered the courage to raise her chin so that Aqua could look her in the eyes. Only then did she say, "I promise."

Next chapter, we'll finally see what Ven's up to.