My Snowfall (Silent Hill, Harry x Lisa)
Title: My Snowfall
Fandom: Silent Hill
Pairing: Harry x Lisa
Author: SS-Sturmbannführer
Recipient: Glass Turtle
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, Seriously AU.
When the snow begins to fall, Lisa dreams.
It’s a strange thing, that she only remembers dreams when snow falls. It’s been that way since she was a small child, a unique trait that she’d kept close to her heart, and every year she would wait for it, curious to see what dreams will befall her restive mind.
Despite her curiosity, snow is unsettling to her, something Lisa always finds terribly frightening. It makes the world so small, so bleak, but she cannot recall the last time she saw it. A year? Two years? It’s hard to determine how long it had been since she’d even been outside during winter; where had she been? It’s not a memory that easily comes to her, and she doesn’t try to remember.
It doesn’t matter, does it?
As long as he was gone, she knows she’ll be fine, even though she doesn’t quite know where he went, or why. No one seems to know, and they don’t seem to care. Mostly, Lisa tries to keep him out of her mind, as well as her memories. For her, there is only one thing she puts trust in; her memories of home, before Alchemilla, tending to her father’s animals and living happily. It was shortly after she left that he was murdered, and she tries not to remember that either.
She mostly lives a quiet life now, and tries desperately to keep some physical proof of her memories. She writes often, and she watches the snow when she isn’t working. She sleeps restively and dreams of things she doesn’t want to remember, and finds waking terrifyingly difficult. Perhaps she doesn’t wish to awaken to this world any longer, a world with a man she fears and a girl she pities - although she cannot remember who these people are, she knows they are not gone, and that they are not just her imagination.
Lisa hopes she’s dreaming now, sleeping somewhere safe and warm and truly alone. The walls are caked with blood, fog seeping into the dark rooms from cracked windows. She stays curled up on the ground, knees pulled to her chest tightly, eyes closed tightly. She doesn’t know if she’s trying to wake up or fall asleep, but either seems like a much better alternative than staying in this reality.
It’s strange to think she was once so happy, so content with her like, so hopeful. It all seems terribly distant. There’s only snow now, and as she awakens that cold morning, she knows she has to see him. And that she must leave, leave the hospital, leave behind the memories of a burned girl surviving in utter agony.
~~~
Kaufmann has never been fond of questions. He doesn’t particularly like asking them, and he hates being asked. It didn’t matter exactly what it is, what it concerns; he lives in fear of questions. Drugs, the burned girl, and the nurse are three things he certainly hates discussing, even with those he’s conspiring with. Life is a precarious balance.
The doctor is asking him questions. If it weren’t for Lisa and her foolish, weak mind, Kaufmann wouldn’t have to sit here and bear this stress. But he can’t leave, can’t simply walk away, because that would be too suspicious. This doctor is far too close to the truth, and Kaufmann cannot allow him to simply draw his own conclusions. Lisa knew far too much.
‘Her hallucinations are only getting worse,’ says the doctor - his name is Jacob Roche, or something like that. Kaufmann doesn’t care to remember at this point. All he knows is that the man is far younger than himself, and too damn curious for his own good. ‘But she isn’t talking much.’
Kaufmann feigns interest, pretends to be concerned or perhaps shocked by this. It’s a difficult emotion to create - he’s seen her hallucinate plenty of times in Alessa’s presence. Lisa had been utterly susceptible to the drugs, so much so that she even saw that part of Alessa’s power. Kaufmann had been caught between fear and exhilaration, listening to the woman whisper vague descriptions through broken sobs, hiding beneath a table with her arms around her knees.
‘Before she came here, did she have any hallucinations to your knowledge?’ asks Dr. Roche, his pale eyes seeking out Kaufmann’s. The pen in his hand is lightly flicking against the folder in his hand. Kaufmann offhandedly wonders what kind of psychobabble is jotted down in those pages. He’s certain he doesn’t want to know. The entire ordeal of having Lisa committed had been more than enough to infuriate him - he just doesn’t want to think about her anymore.
Kaufmann has to suppress a sigh. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he says. The lie is easy, but he isn’t sure the doctor can’t determine how long her hallucinations had been happening.
Unfortunately, the doctor’s only response is to give Kaufmann as long stare, and it gives nothing away. The man’s orderly state of dress, his smooth hair and pale eyes; he’s sharp, albeit a bit distractible. Kaufmann doesn’t want to have to kill him; it would be difficult to pull off without someone immediately suspecting the drug ring.
‘Her behavior indicates that she’s been suffering from these hallucinations for some time,’ says Dr. Roche thoughtfully. ‘They’re very well developed, very advanced. It’s hard to believe that it was a sudden change.’
Kaufmann pretends to be earnest. ‘She was nothing if not a hard worker. I can never recall any adverse behavior,’ he says, putting on a gentle, wistful smile. ‘She was a brilliant woman and never gave me any reason to doubt her capabilities. To put simply, it’s just not possible that this has been long term. It must have begun when she hit her head.’
A lie.
‘Something only you saw,’ points out Dr. Roche.
Kaufmann clenches his jaw. ‘She had a concussion,’ he grounds out, betraying his frustration. The fact that Lisa had a concussion is true, but only because Kaufmann had struck her. The girl had tried to leave her post, after all - Kaufmann couldn’t possibly allow that.
Dr. Roche purses his lips, his eyes narrowing. ‘It’s unlikely that a mere concussion would cause such a psychotic break,’ he says thoughtfully, pen tapping harder against the folder. ‘However, her family history doesn’t seem indicative of mental illness.’
‘What are you implying?’ asks Kaufmann forwardly. He silently berates himself for the foolish question, and reminds himself that he shouldn’t ask questions at all. It gives far too much away, and now he knows the doctor’s attention is focused on him. Certainly, Roche cannot prove that Kaufmann is responsible for Lisa’s mental state, but it’s still a dangerous move.
Dr. Roche gives him a sideways glance. ‘The drugs we found in her system were potent,’ he explains. ‘Their long-term affects are still unknown. They could very well have been the cause of her breakdown. God only knows how much brain damage she sustained when she was on them.’
Kaufmann is now certain that he wants to leave, and leave quickly. It’s suspicious perhaps, but it’s better than being cornered in conversation by some pesky doctor. ‘That’s an interesting hypothesis,’ says Kaufmann breezily, climbing to his feet. ‘But I don’t have time for conjecture. I have appointments I must attend to.’
‘Very well,’ replies Dr. Roche, voice dispassionate. ‘If you remember anything significant, anything at all, you have my number.’
~~~
Lisa is alone, and terribly cold. She doesn’t know where she is, or why she is there, but the walls are covered with blood and she’s crying into her hands. Why is the girl doing this to her? Why isn’t it stopping?
The room is small, and locked. It wasn’t like this before, when Harry found her before. The door was unlocked, and the room was much different, and it wasn’t snowing. She isn’t sure if it had even been the same room; it’s so difficult to remember, and she feels dizzy. All she can remember is his warm arms, her face pressed against a broad chest, breathing in the scent of sweat and blood. He had offered to take her away from this place, but she knew she could not go; she bid him away. But as the room grows darker and colder, she wishes she had gone. She hopes he’ll come back to her.
She stirs when she hears a tap on the door. Harry’s muffled voice calls her name, and Lisa runs to the door, trying to wrench it open. She’s weak - the door doesn’t so much as budge, and her hands are slippery from the blood. Disgusted, she wipes the fluid onto her gown.
‘Harry!’ she calls, pounding on the door, trying not to succumb to panic. It’s so dark, so small, so cold. ‘Help me!’
‘Hold on!’ replies Harry through the door. There’s a pause, and then the sound of pounding. She realizes he must be breaking a lock from the outside, and nervously she awaits, barely able to keep herself from shaking. Her body is gravitating towards him, aching for his warmth, the comfort, the security he can offer her. She doesn’t want to be alone in this place any longer.
There’s a loud sound, a crack, and suddenly the door drifts open. She pushes it open quickly and staggers out into a dark, lonely hallway. Harry isn’t there, but she sees smears of bloody shoeprints on the floor, and the metal pipe he must have used on the door. She picks it up, surprised by the heavy weight in her hands. She can’t bring herself to let it go, however, and she drags it with her uneasily.
The floor is all she can see - the rest is black, and Lisa uncertainly steps down the hallway, reaching her hand into the shadows. She’s trembling, breaths coming out in uneven gasps. She can hear sounds, soft sounds in the far distance, but nothing close by.
‘Hello?’ she whispers, her voice unsettlingly loud. She can’t hear Harry, she can’t see him, but also she can’t go back into the isolation of that room. She retrieves the pipe, trying to ignore how slippery it is, how unnaturally warm. She doesn’t want to think of how many times Harry must have used it, how many times he’s been close to death.
Lisa unsteadily steps down the hallway, trying to contain her fear, trying not to imagine what kinds of monsters are waiting for her. The floor underneath her bare feet is freezing, sending slices of pain up her calves, but her adrenaline keeps her from buckling.
It isn’t Alchemilla, she can tell that much just from walking down the hallway. The layout is different, and she somehow senses that she is on a high floor. It’s strange how connected she feels to this place, but she tries not to think about it. She just wants out, wants to go home, wants out of Silent Hill forever. No more burned children, no more drugs, no more.
She reaches large double doors, but they are locked. Frustrated and near tears, she tries to punch in a code, but she already knows it’s in vain. Harry isn’t there to open the door for her now, he isn’t there to save her. She wants to know where he’s gone, why he isn’t with her, why his arms aren’t wrapped around her.
Unexpectedly, the door opens. The brief moment of joy is quickly crushed when Lisa’s eyes fall on a faceless monster, a woman, awkwardly hunched and carrying a blade. Lisa doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what persuades her to leap at the creature rather than leap back in fear. She knows she doesn’t have the advantage, stumbling through the darkness into the unknown.
Her hand grips the pipe, and she somehow finds the strength to hoist it up, bringing it down in a wide arch. There’s a scream, unnatural and gurgling from the corpse’s throat. Another hit to the side of the head; there’s a loud crack, and Lisa is sure she fractured the skull. The monster collapses with a deep groan, gray hands holding its gushing wounds, black blood pouring onto the floor. Lisa leaps over the writhing body and into the darkness, dropping the pipe with a loud clatter. In the darkness, she hears more of the monsters, so many more, but she somehow finds the strength to carry on.
A door. She pulls it open, finding stairs, finding an escape. The floor is slick and turning warm with blood, everything is bleeding, but she doesn’t slow. She keeps running down into the darkness until she finds the door, the escape. She yanks it open and runs out, running past a gray-faced doctor that stands in her way, more nurses that try to grasp her limbs as she passes. The door, she can see the front door and it spurs her on. Everything is lighter now, white from the snow fluttering outside.
Lisa’s wet fingertips twist at the lock frantically - she can hear the monsters chasing her. She pushes open the door as she feels hands grasp at her back, stumbling into the light, and suddenly the monsters are gone. She staggers into the snow, falling to her knees with a cry of pain. It hurts, everything hurts, but she’s free.
She lays there for a long time, shivering, staring at the bloodstained snow around her. She feels so exhausted, drifting in and out of darkness and cold. It’s lonely, and hopeless, but she knows this death is peaceful. No more monsters.
‘Lisa,’ a voice says, and warm hands are on her face. ‘Lisa, wake up.’
Blearily, Lisa finds herself staring into concerned brown eyes, a handsome face. She feels herself lifted from the snow, wrapped in burning warmth that sinks into her insides.
‘You’re so cold,’ says Harry anxiously, tucking her head into the warmth of his neck. Lisa wants to say something to him, wants to tell him he’s warm and he feels good, but even in her state she feels timid.
Lisa instead whispers, ‘It’s the snow.’
‘Snow?’ she hears him ask before drifting to sleep. She wonders if he can see the snow, her snow. His world must be so much different, warmer perhaps, and she wishes he could take her there. She can see from his eyes that his world is not a happy one, it is not peaceful, but at least he doesn’t see snow.
Perhaps, someday, the snow will melt away. But for now, she sleeps and dreams.
~~~
Dr. Roche has the look of a man who has serious fucked up. This enough is to bring a smile to Kaufmann’s face, but it is not quite enough to brighten his mood. The reason for their meeting is not a reassuring one.
‘Lisa disappeared last night,’ says Dr. Roche, frowning. There are dark circles under his normally sharp eyes, his hair is mussed. Kaufmann doubts he’s slept much, not since their poor little nurse had turned up at the intensive care unit of Kaufmann’s own hospital. Kaufmann is honestly stunned by Lisa’s show violence; the nurse she attacked had been near death when she was rushed into to the emergency room.
‘No one understands how she got the door open,’ continues Roche uncertainly, sounding very tired and completely stumped by the unfortunate turn of events. ‘She was calling out for Harry beforehand.’
‘Harry?’ asks Kaufmann.
Dr. Roche hesitates - Kaufmann can practically hear the man telling himself the standards for doctor/patient confidentiality. However, Dr. Roche opts not to withhold the information - after all, Lisa’s disappearance means she isn’t exactly a patient anymore.
‘He’s an illusion,’ he says. ‘A man she constantly described to us. Brown hair, brown jacket. He was always looking for a little girl.’
Dr. Roche restively climbs to his feet, turning to face the window. It’s an overcast day outside, but not particularly cold. It seems to be unsettlingly close to a rainstorm, however. ‘We assumed Harry must represent her father in some ways,’ he says. ‘At least, that’s what we believed initially.’
‘Her father was killed by Walter Sullivan, wasn’t he?’ says Kaufmann. Yet another one of Silent Hill’s numerous celebrities.
Dr. Roche nodded vaguely, distracted. ‘Slaughtered is a much better term,’ he replies, his fingers threading together. ‘But her feelings for Harry seemed much more romantic in nature. She saw him as far more than just her protector. You could consider him a light at the end of the tunnel.’ There’s a grim smile on his face. ‘She always believed Harry would take her out of this place. Help her escape.’
Kaufmann doesn’t particularly like these conversations, the ones that allude to a mystery. He has to suppress a sigh - there is absolutely no way some figment could help her escape. Somehow, one of the nurses must have left her door unlocked. Hell, probably the nurse Lisa had clobbered. The bitch probably deserved what she got.
~~~
Weeks pass, and Lisa is not found. It’s as if she simply disappeared into the shadow of night - even the nurses that had seen her run out the door say she had physically vanished before their eyes. If that wasn’t difficult enough for Kaufmann to handle, Alessa had passed away earlier that evening - something that Dahlia often insisted was impossible. Right now, Kaufmann doesn’t want to even think of the old wench.
It’s dark when Kaufmann returns to his car, slightly tipsy after his night at the bar. He’s not in Silent Hill anymore, but rather on the outskirts - the anonymity is preferable, since he is supposed to be a respected man. Having a few lonely drinks would seem terribly uncharacteristic of him, and would only tarnish his reputation.
There are still a few people lounging on the streets, alcoholics and drug addicts. He doesn’t fear the latter particularly - they need him for their precious drugs. But he doesn’t have time to pay attention to them, not when his mind is still working so hard to solve this odd mystery. Lisa’s escape was too easy, too simple - how could she manage something so spectacular without help? Unfortunately, he had not found the answer at the bottom of his numerous glasses of beer.
Kaufmann hears a sudden, loud cry - a baby’s cry. It startles him so much he drops his keys, cursing under his breath. He wonders what kind of madman would take his child out at such a late hour, in such a dangerous place.
‘What are you going to name her?’ asks a familiar, feminine voice.
Kaufmann can vaguely see a man in the darkness holding the child. He has a brown jacket, and his hair is mussed, his face smeared with dirt and perhaps even blood. Kaufmann is far too inebriated to think this is out of place.
Next to the man stands a woman wearing a jacket with a hood - he cannot see her face, but there are wisps of pale hair falling from the shadows of her hood.
‘I just don’t know,’ replies the man, holding the woman’s hand tightly in his. He sounds terribly broken, terribly stressed. Kaufmann isn’t certainly he wants to hear anymore, if it’s even worth the bother.
The couple walk further from him, their voices fading into obscurity. Kaufmann finds his keys at his feet, but as he’s leaning down to retrieve it, something amazing catches his eye. The couple stand under a flickering streetlight.
The woman lowers her hood. Lisa.
Kaufmann comes precariously close to yelling her name, but he knows she will run. He leans down fully, grabbing the keys in his hand, finding that he is trembling from the sudden rush of adrenaline. The keys jingle softly in his grasp.
When he looks up again, Lisa and the mysterious man are gone.
Loudly, Kaufmann swears and punches the hood of his car. How could that bitch have taken off so fast? There are plenty of trees around, and he knows if she disappeared into the forest, there is little chance of finding her. But why would she run? She certainly didn’t see him, and he cannot hear the baby’s soft cries any longer.
With a final kick against the tire of his car, Kaufmann succumbs to defeat. Too much alcohol, too much stress - it could have just been his imagination.
He climbs behind the wheel and starts the car, angrily tearing back down the road towards Silent Hill. He knows he isn’t fit to drive, but there are no other cars on the road, and it seems most of the people he’d seen earlier had left. There’s nothing left but a stormy sky and darkness.
Kaufmann is too wrapped in his own thoughts to notice how the road closer to home becomes so foggy, so dark. He blearily stares into a silent town and doesn’t think to question why he suddenly feels so isolated, so trapped. Some part of him, a part that’s still conscious and still wary tells him to leave, but Kaufmann’s logic quickly destroys this idea. After all, he has no where else to go, and there is no reason he should just leave home.
He passes the sign, ‘Welcome to Silent Hill’. He sees faint shadows moving in the fog. But his mind pays no heed, and he continues down the lonely path into the mist.
He’s home.
Fandom: Silent Hill
Pairing: Harry x Lisa
Author: SS-Sturmbannführer
Recipient: Glass Turtle
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Violence, Seriously AU.
When the snow begins to fall, Lisa dreams.
It’s a strange thing, that she only remembers dreams when snow falls. It’s been that way since she was a small child, a unique trait that she’d kept close to her heart, and every year she would wait for it, curious to see what dreams will befall her restive mind.
Despite her curiosity, snow is unsettling to her, something Lisa always finds terribly frightening. It makes the world so small, so bleak, but she cannot recall the last time she saw it. A year? Two years? It’s hard to determine how long it had been since she’d even been outside during winter; where had she been? It’s not a memory that easily comes to her, and she doesn’t try to remember.
It doesn’t matter, does it?
As long as he was gone, she knows she’ll be fine, even though she doesn’t quite know where he went, or why. No one seems to know, and they don’t seem to care. Mostly, Lisa tries to keep him out of her mind, as well as her memories. For her, there is only one thing she puts trust in; her memories of home, before Alchemilla, tending to her father’s animals and living happily. It was shortly after she left that he was murdered, and she tries not to remember that either.
She mostly lives a quiet life now, and tries desperately to keep some physical proof of her memories. She writes often, and she watches the snow when she isn’t working. She sleeps restively and dreams of things she doesn’t want to remember, and finds waking terrifyingly difficult. Perhaps she doesn’t wish to awaken to this world any longer, a world with a man she fears and a girl she pities - although she cannot remember who these people are, she knows they are not gone, and that they are not just her imagination.
Lisa hopes she’s dreaming now, sleeping somewhere safe and warm and truly alone. The walls are caked with blood, fog seeping into the dark rooms from cracked windows. She stays curled up on the ground, knees pulled to her chest tightly, eyes closed tightly. She doesn’t know if she’s trying to wake up or fall asleep, but either seems like a much better alternative than staying in this reality.
It’s strange to think she was once so happy, so content with her like, so hopeful. It all seems terribly distant. There’s only snow now, and as she awakens that cold morning, she knows she has to see him. And that she must leave, leave the hospital, leave behind the memories of a burned girl surviving in utter agony.
~~~
Kaufmann has never been fond of questions. He doesn’t particularly like asking them, and he hates being asked. It didn’t matter exactly what it is, what it concerns; he lives in fear of questions. Drugs, the burned girl, and the nurse are three things he certainly hates discussing, even with those he’s conspiring with. Life is a precarious balance.
The doctor is asking him questions. If it weren’t for Lisa and her foolish, weak mind, Kaufmann wouldn’t have to sit here and bear this stress. But he can’t leave, can’t simply walk away, because that would be too suspicious. This doctor is far too close to the truth, and Kaufmann cannot allow him to simply draw his own conclusions. Lisa knew far too much.
‘Her hallucinations are only getting worse,’ says the doctor - his name is Jacob Roche, or something like that. Kaufmann doesn’t care to remember at this point. All he knows is that the man is far younger than himself, and too damn curious for his own good. ‘But she isn’t talking much.’
Kaufmann feigns interest, pretends to be concerned or perhaps shocked by this. It’s a difficult emotion to create - he’s seen her hallucinate plenty of times in Alessa’s presence. Lisa had been utterly susceptible to the drugs, so much so that she even saw that part of Alessa’s power. Kaufmann had been caught between fear and exhilaration, listening to the woman whisper vague descriptions through broken sobs, hiding beneath a table with her arms around her knees.
‘Before she came here, did she have any hallucinations to your knowledge?’ asks Dr. Roche, his pale eyes seeking out Kaufmann’s. The pen in his hand is lightly flicking against the folder in his hand. Kaufmann offhandedly wonders what kind of psychobabble is jotted down in those pages. He’s certain he doesn’t want to know. The entire ordeal of having Lisa committed had been more than enough to infuriate him - he just doesn’t want to think about her anymore.
Kaufmann has to suppress a sigh. ‘Not to my knowledge,’ he says. The lie is easy, but he isn’t sure the doctor can’t determine how long her hallucinations had been happening.
Unfortunately, the doctor’s only response is to give Kaufmann as long stare, and it gives nothing away. The man’s orderly state of dress, his smooth hair and pale eyes; he’s sharp, albeit a bit distractible. Kaufmann doesn’t want to have to kill him; it would be difficult to pull off without someone immediately suspecting the drug ring.
‘Her behavior indicates that she’s been suffering from these hallucinations for some time,’ says Dr. Roche thoughtfully. ‘They’re very well developed, very advanced. It’s hard to believe that it was a sudden change.’
Kaufmann pretends to be earnest. ‘She was nothing if not a hard worker. I can never recall any adverse behavior,’ he says, putting on a gentle, wistful smile. ‘She was a brilliant woman and never gave me any reason to doubt her capabilities. To put simply, it’s just not possible that this has been long term. It must have begun when she hit her head.’
A lie.
‘Something only you saw,’ points out Dr. Roche.
Kaufmann clenches his jaw. ‘She had a concussion,’ he grounds out, betraying his frustration. The fact that Lisa had a concussion is true, but only because Kaufmann had struck her. The girl had tried to leave her post, after all - Kaufmann couldn’t possibly allow that.
Dr. Roche purses his lips, his eyes narrowing. ‘It’s unlikely that a mere concussion would cause such a psychotic break,’ he says thoughtfully, pen tapping harder against the folder. ‘However, her family history doesn’t seem indicative of mental illness.’
‘What are you implying?’ asks Kaufmann forwardly. He silently berates himself for the foolish question, and reminds himself that he shouldn’t ask questions at all. It gives far too much away, and now he knows the doctor’s attention is focused on him. Certainly, Roche cannot prove that Kaufmann is responsible for Lisa’s mental state, but it’s still a dangerous move.
Dr. Roche gives him a sideways glance. ‘The drugs we found in her system were potent,’ he explains. ‘Their long-term affects are still unknown. They could very well have been the cause of her breakdown. God only knows how much brain damage she sustained when she was on them.’
Kaufmann is now certain that he wants to leave, and leave quickly. It’s suspicious perhaps, but it’s better than being cornered in conversation by some pesky doctor. ‘That’s an interesting hypothesis,’ says Kaufmann breezily, climbing to his feet. ‘But I don’t have time for conjecture. I have appointments I must attend to.’
‘Very well,’ replies Dr. Roche, voice dispassionate. ‘If you remember anything significant, anything at all, you have my number.’
~~~
Lisa is alone, and terribly cold. She doesn’t know where she is, or why she is there, but the walls are covered with blood and she’s crying into her hands. Why is the girl doing this to her? Why isn’t it stopping?
The room is small, and locked. It wasn’t like this before, when Harry found her before. The door was unlocked, and the room was much different, and it wasn’t snowing. She isn’t sure if it had even been the same room; it’s so difficult to remember, and she feels dizzy. All she can remember is his warm arms, her face pressed against a broad chest, breathing in the scent of sweat and blood. He had offered to take her away from this place, but she knew she could not go; she bid him away. But as the room grows darker and colder, she wishes she had gone. She hopes he’ll come back to her.
She stirs when she hears a tap on the door. Harry’s muffled voice calls her name, and Lisa runs to the door, trying to wrench it open. She’s weak - the door doesn’t so much as budge, and her hands are slippery from the blood. Disgusted, she wipes the fluid onto her gown.
‘Harry!’ she calls, pounding on the door, trying not to succumb to panic. It’s so dark, so small, so cold. ‘Help me!’
‘Hold on!’ replies Harry through the door. There’s a pause, and then the sound of pounding. She realizes he must be breaking a lock from the outside, and nervously she awaits, barely able to keep herself from shaking. Her body is gravitating towards him, aching for his warmth, the comfort, the security he can offer her. She doesn’t want to be alone in this place any longer.
There’s a loud sound, a crack, and suddenly the door drifts open. She pushes it open quickly and staggers out into a dark, lonely hallway. Harry isn’t there, but she sees smears of bloody shoeprints on the floor, and the metal pipe he must have used on the door. She picks it up, surprised by the heavy weight in her hands. She can’t bring herself to let it go, however, and she drags it with her uneasily.
The floor is all she can see - the rest is black, and Lisa uncertainly steps down the hallway, reaching her hand into the shadows. She’s trembling, breaths coming out in uneven gasps. She can hear sounds, soft sounds in the far distance, but nothing close by.
‘Hello?’ she whispers, her voice unsettlingly loud. She can’t hear Harry, she can’t see him, but also she can’t go back into the isolation of that room. She retrieves the pipe, trying to ignore how slippery it is, how unnaturally warm. She doesn’t want to think of how many times Harry must have used it, how many times he’s been close to death.
Lisa unsteadily steps down the hallway, trying to contain her fear, trying not to imagine what kinds of monsters are waiting for her. The floor underneath her bare feet is freezing, sending slices of pain up her calves, but her adrenaline keeps her from buckling.
It isn’t Alchemilla, she can tell that much just from walking down the hallway. The layout is different, and she somehow senses that she is on a high floor. It’s strange how connected she feels to this place, but she tries not to think about it. She just wants out, wants to go home, wants out of Silent Hill forever. No more burned children, no more drugs, no more.
She reaches large double doors, but they are locked. Frustrated and near tears, she tries to punch in a code, but she already knows it’s in vain. Harry isn’t there to open the door for her now, he isn’t there to save her. She wants to know where he’s gone, why he isn’t with her, why his arms aren’t wrapped around her.
Unexpectedly, the door opens. The brief moment of joy is quickly crushed when Lisa’s eyes fall on a faceless monster, a woman, awkwardly hunched and carrying a blade. Lisa doesn’t know why, doesn’t know what persuades her to leap at the creature rather than leap back in fear. She knows she doesn’t have the advantage, stumbling through the darkness into the unknown.
Her hand grips the pipe, and she somehow finds the strength to hoist it up, bringing it down in a wide arch. There’s a scream, unnatural and gurgling from the corpse’s throat. Another hit to the side of the head; there’s a loud crack, and Lisa is sure she fractured the skull. The monster collapses with a deep groan, gray hands holding its gushing wounds, black blood pouring onto the floor. Lisa leaps over the writhing body and into the darkness, dropping the pipe with a loud clatter. In the darkness, she hears more of the monsters, so many more, but she somehow finds the strength to carry on.
A door. She pulls it open, finding stairs, finding an escape. The floor is slick and turning warm with blood, everything is bleeding, but she doesn’t slow. She keeps running down into the darkness until she finds the door, the escape. She yanks it open and runs out, running past a gray-faced doctor that stands in her way, more nurses that try to grasp her limbs as she passes. The door, she can see the front door and it spurs her on. Everything is lighter now, white from the snow fluttering outside.
Lisa’s wet fingertips twist at the lock frantically - she can hear the monsters chasing her. She pushes open the door as she feels hands grasp at her back, stumbling into the light, and suddenly the monsters are gone. She staggers into the snow, falling to her knees with a cry of pain. It hurts, everything hurts, but she’s free.
She lays there for a long time, shivering, staring at the bloodstained snow around her. She feels so exhausted, drifting in and out of darkness and cold. It’s lonely, and hopeless, but she knows this death is peaceful. No more monsters.
‘Lisa,’ a voice says, and warm hands are on her face. ‘Lisa, wake up.’
Blearily, Lisa finds herself staring into concerned brown eyes, a handsome face. She feels herself lifted from the snow, wrapped in burning warmth that sinks into her insides.
‘You’re so cold,’ says Harry anxiously, tucking her head into the warmth of his neck. Lisa wants to say something to him, wants to tell him he’s warm and he feels good, but even in her state she feels timid.
Lisa instead whispers, ‘It’s the snow.’
‘Snow?’ she hears him ask before drifting to sleep. She wonders if he can see the snow, her snow. His world must be so much different, warmer perhaps, and she wishes he could take her there. She can see from his eyes that his world is not a happy one, it is not peaceful, but at least he doesn’t see snow.
Perhaps, someday, the snow will melt away. But for now, she sleeps and dreams.
~~~
Dr. Roche has the look of a man who has serious fucked up. This enough is to bring a smile to Kaufmann’s face, but it is not quite enough to brighten his mood. The reason for their meeting is not a reassuring one.
‘Lisa disappeared last night,’ says Dr. Roche, frowning. There are dark circles under his normally sharp eyes, his hair is mussed. Kaufmann doubts he’s slept much, not since their poor little nurse had turned up at the intensive care unit of Kaufmann’s own hospital. Kaufmann is honestly stunned by Lisa’s show violence; the nurse she attacked had been near death when she was rushed into to the emergency room.
‘No one understands how she got the door open,’ continues Roche uncertainly, sounding very tired and completely stumped by the unfortunate turn of events. ‘She was calling out for Harry beforehand.’
‘Harry?’ asks Kaufmann.
Dr. Roche hesitates - Kaufmann can practically hear the man telling himself the standards for doctor/patient confidentiality. However, Dr. Roche opts not to withhold the information - after all, Lisa’s disappearance means she isn’t exactly a patient anymore.
‘He’s an illusion,’ he says. ‘A man she constantly described to us. Brown hair, brown jacket. He was always looking for a little girl.’
Dr. Roche restively climbs to his feet, turning to face the window. It’s an overcast day outside, but not particularly cold. It seems to be unsettlingly close to a rainstorm, however. ‘We assumed Harry must represent her father in some ways,’ he says. ‘At least, that’s what we believed initially.’
‘Her father was killed by Walter Sullivan, wasn’t he?’ says Kaufmann. Yet another one of Silent Hill’s numerous celebrities.
Dr. Roche nodded vaguely, distracted. ‘Slaughtered is a much better term,’ he replies, his fingers threading together. ‘But her feelings for Harry seemed much more romantic in nature. She saw him as far more than just her protector. You could consider him a light at the end of the tunnel.’ There’s a grim smile on his face. ‘She always believed Harry would take her out of this place. Help her escape.’
Kaufmann doesn’t particularly like these conversations, the ones that allude to a mystery. He has to suppress a sigh - there is absolutely no way some figment could help her escape. Somehow, one of the nurses must have left her door unlocked. Hell, probably the nurse Lisa had clobbered. The bitch probably deserved what she got.
~~~
Weeks pass, and Lisa is not found. It’s as if she simply disappeared into the shadow of night - even the nurses that had seen her run out the door say she had physically vanished before their eyes. If that wasn’t difficult enough for Kaufmann to handle, Alessa had passed away earlier that evening - something that Dahlia often insisted was impossible. Right now, Kaufmann doesn’t want to even think of the old wench.
It’s dark when Kaufmann returns to his car, slightly tipsy after his night at the bar. He’s not in Silent Hill anymore, but rather on the outskirts - the anonymity is preferable, since he is supposed to be a respected man. Having a few lonely drinks would seem terribly uncharacteristic of him, and would only tarnish his reputation.
There are still a few people lounging on the streets, alcoholics and drug addicts. He doesn’t fear the latter particularly - they need him for their precious drugs. But he doesn’t have time to pay attention to them, not when his mind is still working so hard to solve this odd mystery. Lisa’s escape was too easy, too simple - how could she manage something so spectacular without help? Unfortunately, he had not found the answer at the bottom of his numerous glasses of beer.
Kaufmann hears a sudden, loud cry - a baby’s cry. It startles him so much he drops his keys, cursing under his breath. He wonders what kind of madman would take his child out at such a late hour, in such a dangerous place.
‘What are you going to name her?’ asks a familiar, feminine voice.
Kaufmann can vaguely see a man in the darkness holding the child. He has a brown jacket, and his hair is mussed, his face smeared with dirt and perhaps even blood. Kaufmann is far too inebriated to think this is out of place.
Next to the man stands a woman wearing a jacket with a hood - he cannot see her face, but there are wisps of pale hair falling from the shadows of her hood.
‘I just don’t know,’ replies the man, holding the woman’s hand tightly in his. He sounds terribly broken, terribly stressed. Kaufmann isn’t certainly he wants to hear anymore, if it’s even worth the bother.
The couple walk further from him, their voices fading into obscurity. Kaufmann finds his keys at his feet, but as he’s leaning down to retrieve it, something amazing catches his eye. The couple stand under a flickering streetlight.
The woman lowers her hood. Lisa.
Kaufmann comes precariously close to yelling her name, but he knows she will run. He leans down fully, grabbing the keys in his hand, finding that he is trembling from the sudden rush of adrenaline. The keys jingle softly in his grasp.
When he looks up again, Lisa and the mysterious man are gone.
Loudly, Kaufmann swears and punches the hood of his car. How could that bitch have taken off so fast? There are plenty of trees around, and he knows if she disappeared into the forest, there is little chance of finding her. But why would she run? She certainly didn’t see him, and he cannot hear the baby’s soft cries any longer.
With a final kick against the tire of his car, Kaufmann succumbs to defeat. Too much alcohol, too much stress - it could have just been his imagination.
He climbs behind the wheel and starts the car, angrily tearing back down the road towards Silent Hill. He knows he isn’t fit to drive, but there are no other cars on the road, and it seems most of the people he’d seen earlier had left. There’s nothing left but a stormy sky and darkness.
Kaufmann is too wrapped in his own thoughts to notice how the road closer to home becomes so foggy, so dark. He blearily stares into a silent town and doesn’t think to question why he suddenly feels so isolated, so trapped. Some part of him, a part that’s still conscious and still wary tells him to leave, but Kaufmann’s logic quickly destroys this idea. After all, he has no where else to go, and there is no reason he should just leave home.
He passes the sign, ‘Welcome to Silent Hill’. He sees faint shadows moving in the fog. But his mind pays no heed, and he continues down the lonely path into the mist.
He’s home.