[Silent Hill] Star
She can't see the sun, but by the hue of the fog and the dull glint of light from metal, she could imagine its progression. It must've been pretty, actually, simmering orange before rich, deep scarlet. And now, it must be below the treeline. The light is fainter, the world harder to make out by the minute, tinted cobalts and blues and heavy with expectation. She felt weighted down in light, but as she walks past the lake that reflects no sun, the haze behind her eyes is burning away in the impending dark, her nerves humming and the hairs standing up on the back of her neck. A flashlight is rapidly going to become a necessity, she realizes, there's no way now that she's going to be able to find Troy Abernathy and a way out of here before the darkness becomes absolute. Her head perks and she watches her surroundings more attentively, now that there's something more subtle than a grown man to find.
Without that renewed paranoia, she would not have noticed the little squeaking sound, or the bit of movement to her right. She stops in her path, but against her better judgment, does not raise her weapon to take aim in that direction. Only looks and listens for the source, brows knit.
It's regular, always moving left to right but never right to left. Metal squealing against metal, that's what it is. She steps closer, shoes crunching over gravel up to a chainlink fence and unlocked gate, fully awake and fully aware but, for some reason she can't fathom, her fear is changing. Into something slippery, harder to define, something that will not make her bleed but that threatens to crush her. She can hardly breathe. She closes the gate behind her gently, treads lightly over the grass, she could even swear that woven into the stuff being drawn into her lungs is a thread of fresh air. Blood is dry on her leg and wet on her face, dirt on her coat and grit in her head, but she thinks she feels cleaner than she has for the last two hours. Not safe, she can't exactly say she feels that way, exposed and vulnerable, but...
But there are no monsters here, she knows that even though she can't see the whole place. It is soft around her, and she is soft in return. There is a swingset, a green rubber one brushes against the back of her hand as she walks by. A rainbow painted down the slide has half peeled away but she knows what it was originally meant to be. A plastic pine tree on a spring was meant for a rider. The merry-go-round spins slowly, creaking mournfully, this is what caught her eyes and her ears. The grass is sparser, torn up and battered by small feet. Kneeling, she can even touch her finger to the imprint of a rubber sole, a little boy or little girl, she doesn't know their name, if they have always lived in this town, if they came here with someone to guard them, if they were among friends. That odd kind of fear surges and she finds she can't stand, looks around her with shimmering eyes.
Are you here, even now?
Can you see me, am I a ghost?
Do I scare you?
Do you need me?
Can you tell me?
Where am I supposed to be?
What am I supposed to be?
Can you tell me what to do?
How to put everything back together.
She was going to have the happily ever after, she wants to tell all the sweet attentive assembled nobodies, she'd never had occasion to doubt that. And then, new worlds had presented themselves, new possibilities, and she'd started taking the tally of her own destinies. Dead. Dead. Doomed. Despairing. Dead. Dying. No happy families, no one who could fairly afford to live without reservation, and as for herself... What to make of what had become of her? As naive as ever, trusting like a fool, but running contrary to what she'd thought was her nature in so many ways. Firing ranges, arcane tomes, silence and lies, giving up her home, cutting herself off from her friends, her family, her cross, to battle a ghost and struggle to move an unmovable force. She winds up in a foreign hotel room, pushing twin beds together with her dear wounded friend, kneeling alone and bloodied in an empty playground, trying to rescue an abuser and a killer, and wanting so badly to believe that this is a terrible accident, that she is meant for something better. But wanting too to believe that this is right, that she has done what she was meant to do and is missing out on nothing. That maybe someone can even feel her still out there, that if she closes her eyes and waits patiently, she will feel someone small brush against her hands. If she lets her empty tired body rest, there will be a voice telling her that it was not all for nothing and it will make sense in the morning.
Somebody is here. She ought to say how sorry she is. She really should. Her mouth is dry but she manages a hopeful, "Hello...?" And then she opens her eyes, and stands.
It didn't feel like a dream, but when she turns around, it is a rude awakening. The chain link fence sags now, the pavement of the street she'd stood upon not two minutes earlier is rough and spattered with something unthinkable, the windows of the buildings on either side of her are utterly coated with dirt and impossible to see through, rust drips from their frames, and in the black, the fog is finally breaking up. This can't be, the world could not change when all she'd done was turn her back to it....
And when she turns back around, the playground has followed suit. The chains on the swings are broken, the slide is cracked down the middle, the merry-go-round spins faster now though there's no breeze to urge it to do so.
She is not clean. She is not safe. She is afraid, in every way. Rosewater, says the spinning tilted wheel, rough and unfit now for any soft little hands.
She nods to no one, and takes off at a jog, northward. The world shudders and growls at her as she passes through.
Without that renewed paranoia, she would not have noticed the little squeaking sound, or the bit of movement to her right. She stops in her path, but against her better judgment, does not raise her weapon to take aim in that direction. Only looks and listens for the source, brows knit.
It's regular, always moving left to right but never right to left. Metal squealing against metal, that's what it is. She steps closer, shoes crunching over gravel up to a chainlink fence and unlocked gate, fully awake and fully aware but, for some reason she can't fathom, her fear is changing. Into something slippery, harder to define, something that will not make her bleed but that threatens to crush her. She can hardly breathe. She closes the gate behind her gently, treads lightly over the grass, she could even swear that woven into the stuff being drawn into her lungs is a thread of fresh air. Blood is dry on her leg and wet on her face, dirt on her coat and grit in her head, but she thinks she feels cleaner than she has for the last two hours. Not safe, she can't exactly say she feels that way, exposed and vulnerable, but...
But there are no monsters here, she knows that even though she can't see the whole place. It is soft around her, and she is soft in return. There is a swingset, a green rubber one brushes against the back of her hand as she walks by. A rainbow painted down the slide has half peeled away but she knows what it was originally meant to be. A plastic pine tree on a spring was meant for a rider. The merry-go-round spins slowly, creaking mournfully, this is what caught her eyes and her ears. The grass is sparser, torn up and battered by small feet. Kneeling, she can even touch her finger to the imprint of a rubber sole, a little boy or little girl, she doesn't know their name, if they have always lived in this town, if they came here with someone to guard them, if they were among friends. That odd kind of fear surges and she finds she can't stand, looks around her with shimmering eyes.
Are you here, even now?
Can you see me, am I a ghost?
Do I scare you?
Do you need me?
Can you tell me?
Where am I supposed to be?
What am I supposed to be?
Can you tell me what to do?
How to put everything back together.
She was going to have the happily ever after, she wants to tell all the sweet attentive assembled nobodies, she'd never had occasion to doubt that. And then, new worlds had presented themselves, new possibilities, and she'd started taking the tally of her own destinies. Dead. Dead. Doomed. Despairing. Dead. Dying. No happy families, no one who could fairly afford to live without reservation, and as for herself... What to make of what had become of her? As naive as ever, trusting like a fool, but running contrary to what she'd thought was her nature in so many ways. Firing ranges, arcane tomes, silence and lies, giving up her home, cutting herself off from her friends, her family, her cross, to battle a ghost and struggle to move an unmovable force. She winds up in a foreign hotel room, pushing twin beds together with her dear wounded friend, kneeling alone and bloodied in an empty playground, trying to rescue an abuser and a killer, and wanting so badly to believe that this is a terrible accident, that she is meant for something better. But wanting too to believe that this is right, that she has done what she was meant to do and is missing out on nothing. That maybe someone can even feel her still out there, that if she closes her eyes and waits patiently, she will feel someone small brush against her hands. If she lets her empty tired body rest, there will be a voice telling her that it was not all for nothing and it will make sense in the morning.
Somebody is here. She ought to say how sorry she is. She really should. Her mouth is dry but she manages a hopeful, "Hello...?" And then she opens her eyes, and stands.
It didn't feel like a dream, but when she turns around, it is a rude awakening. The chain link fence sags now, the pavement of the street she'd stood upon not two minutes earlier is rough and spattered with something unthinkable, the windows of the buildings on either side of her are utterly coated with dirt and impossible to see through, rust drips from their frames, and in the black, the fog is finally breaking up. This can't be, the world could not change when all she'd done was turn her back to it....
And when she turns back around, the playground has followed suit. The chains on the swings are broken, the slide is cracked down the middle, the merry-go-round spins faster now though there's no breeze to urge it to do so.
She is not clean. She is not safe. She is afraid, in every way. Rosewater, says the spinning tilted wheel, rough and unfit now for any soft little hands.
She nods to no one, and takes off at a jog, northward. The world shudders and growls at her as she passes through.