Silent Hill: Encouraging you to consider the value of therapy
You are James Sunderland and you're having trouble telling if it's you or the women you've been meeting lately.
Still shaken and confused from your encounter with Angela, you leave the room and step into the hallway, ancient, soiled newspaper making odd noises under your feet. You can see no sign of Angela, no indication in the featureless hall of where she might have gone. Where could she go? There's no way out that you've found ... maybe there isn't any way out at all. After all, you did jump down a series of dark pits in rotting, abandoned buildings before you eventually found yourself here ...
You can't let yourself dwell on these things. If Angela isn't visible, there must be a way out ... and you still have to find Mary. Maria.
You continue down the hallway, not so much determined as at a loss for what else you can do.
In a nearby room your stomach knots as you find six bodies hanging from nooses - and then you realize they aren't actual bodies, just effigies of bodies. Somehow, the sight still makes you feel strange and sick, especially when you realize each mishapen figure has been marked with a crime. Grimacing, you back out of the room and try to search another room.
The next door you open reveals a scene that causes shivers of deja vu to run up your spine, because you could have sworn you were just in this room. Six nooses descend from the ceiling, just as in the last room. These ones, however, are empty, waiting, and on the wall near the door are two plaques with strange poems, talking about crimes and deaths and other area appropriate things.
Seized by a sudden, horrible impulse, you walk admist the nooses and stare up at them thoughtfully. Then, you reach up, and tug one of the nooses down to head level.
In the distance, you can hear gears grinding and the sound distracts you enough that you release your hold on the rough coil of rope. Hesitantly, you leave the room and the sickeningly tempting nooses and go back the way you came, back, despite your better judgment, to the room with the dangling mockeries of bodies.
One body is gone.
Beneath where the body hung lies the bit of paper telling of the figure's crime, with a small key lying on top. Compulsively, you take the key and leave the room quickly before anything else can vanish or appear.
Exploration of the twisting, identical corridors does not reveal Angela, or anywhere she may have gone, but you do find a surprisingly sturdy metal gate, locked impractically with a pair of handcuffs.
The key you found unlocks the handcuffs and you can continue to a numbered door.
This one isn't locked.
On the other side is Mary.
Maria.
Dying.
Dead.
Blood splattered around her mouth, blood soaking her torso, seeping into the mattress of the bed she's lying on and you were too late and there's no one else here it doesn't look like where you saw her last were you imagining her talking to you it doesn't matter, it can't matter, this isn't your mind playing tricks on you, you couldn't imagine the tacky feeling of blood under your hand as you check her for anything, anything at all that could tell you why or how or ...
It looks like she's been dead for some time, the blood going black in spots, dry on her face, damp and stinking around her wound ...
You have to leave. You can't handle this. It's all too, too much.
Stumbling, half-blind with confusion, you find yourself in another room, unsure of how you arrived there. You're clearly still inside, still underground, but there's damp grass under you feet, and the smell of dirty in your nostrils, and in the corner, three solid, inexplicable gravestones. bearing familiar names.
Eddie's.
Angela's.
Yours.
Eddie and Angela's graves are filled in, but yours is open, fresh, with dirt steps heading down into darkness.
You follow the steps into darkness and find yourself in a cold room, your breath condensating int he air before you, the floor slick with cold and wet and something else, horrible, that you're becoming overly familiar with.
You're not alone.
Eddie is here, bent over a freshly dead body, the head blasted into oblivion, nothing but a red, raw mess above the chest and splattered onto the wall. Eddie turns to you, a gun in his hand, his eyes wild and feverish.
He doesn't deny what the scene tells you.
He revels in it. He's proud of it. The man deserved it, for calling Eddie fat, dumb, useless, a host of other insults, a litany that pours out of Eddie's mouth so fast you can barely make sense of him. But none of that matters, Eddie says, whether it's true or not, if the one insulting him is dead. Death silences them forever and that, Eddie says, his eyes fixed on nothing, is why he's going to deal with anyone who mocks him in the future in the same way he dealt with the dead man slumped in the corner.
You gape at Eddie, unable to believe what you're hearing. Is he crazy? The words slip out, even though your saner mind is sure there are few worse things you could say to Eddie right now.
Eddie twitches and turns on you, raising his gun, and you have no choice but to defend yourself, fending him off as best you can with the board, grimacing when Eddie's wild, sloppy hold on his gun reuslts in bullets being fired, grazing you but missing anything vital.
Then, Eddie abandons his assault and retreats, running through a heavy door, letting it slam loudly behind him.
You don't want to follow Eddie, but you can't see as you have another choice. There's no other door and you don't want to stay here with the dead body. You brace yourself and follow Eddie.
This room is colder than then previous one, the floor slippery and icy, your vision distorted by clouds of wet, foggy condensation from your breath, the warmth of your body, and the bloated carcases of meat hanging from the ceiling. Somewhere in the fog, Eddie laughs, unrestrained, from somewhere in the cold, dark corners of the freezing room. Nothing he says makes sense; he babbles about torturing, shooting, killing a dog, shooting out a man's kneecaps, running away, being called here, your hypocricy, your similarities, you don't know what he's talking about, you have nothing in common, and now he's shooting at you, hiding behind the swinging meaty husks, and all you can think about is surviving, getting some sense into Eddie's head, at least hoping to God he runs out of bullets.
You dodge, you duck, you sweat in the cold, and finally hit Eddie hard enough that he drops his gun, falls to his knees, to the floor.
You gasp, pant, trying to catch your breath, and you kneel down by Eddie, checking how badly you hurt him ...
There's no pulse.
He's dead.
You killed him.
You killed a man.
You didn't mean to.
You stagger to your feet, looking around the cold, impossible room, wondering what's happened, why any of this is happening, and what it could possibly have to do with Mary's death ... or her supposed death ... if she's here, calling to you ...
Swallowing your bile, you stagger out of the room, and, somehow, into open air, the sky dark and stars hidden by the fog, bracing yourself against the side of a cold brick building.
You have to find Mary, figure out what happened to her. It's the only way.
Still shaken and confused from your encounter with Angela, you leave the room and step into the hallway, ancient, soiled newspaper making odd noises under your feet. You can see no sign of Angela, no indication in the featureless hall of where she might have gone. Where could she go? There's no way out that you've found ... maybe there isn't any way out at all. After all, you did jump down a series of dark pits in rotting, abandoned buildings before you eventually found yourself here ...
You can't let yourself dwell on these things. If Angela isn't visible, there must be a way out ... and you still have to find Mary. Maria.
You continue down the hallway, not so much determined as at a loss for what else you can do.
In a nearby room your stomach knots as you find six bodies hanging from nooses - and then you realize they aren't actual bodies, just effigies of bodies. Somehow, the sight still makes you feel strange and sick, especially when you realize each mishapen figure has been marked with a crime. Grimacing, you back out of the room and try to search another room.
The next door you open reveals a scene that causes shivers of deja vu to run up your spine, because you could have sworn you were just in this room. Six nooses descend from the ceiling, just as in the last room. These ones, however, are empty, waiting, and on the wall near the door are two plaques with strange poems, talking about crimes and deaths and other area appropriate things.
Seized by a sudden, horrible impulse, you walk admist the nooses and stare up at them thoughtfully. Then, you reach up, and tug one of the nooses down to head level.
In the distance, you can hear gears grinding and the sound distracts you enough that you release your hold on the rough coil of rope. Hesitantly, you leave the room and the sickeningly tempting nooses and go back the way you came, back, despite your better judgment, to the room with the dangling mockeries of bodies.
One body is gone.
Beneath where the body hung lies the bit of paper telling of the figure's crime, with a small key lying on top. Compulsively, you take the key and leave the room quickly before anything else can vanish or appear.
Exploration of the twisting, identical corridors does not reveal Angela, or anywhere she may have gone, but you do find a surprisingly sturdy metal gate, locked impractically with a pair of handcuffs.
The key you found unlocks the handcuffs and you can continue to a numbered door.
This one isn't locked.
On the other side is Mary.
Maria.
Dying.
Dead.
Blood splattered around her mouth, blood soaking her torso, seeping into the mattress of the bed she's lying on and you were too late and there's no one else here it doesn't look like where you saw her last were you imagining her talking to you it doesn't matter, it can't matter, this isn't your mind playing tricks on you, you couldn't imagine the tacky feeling of blood under your hand as you check her for anything, anything at all that could tell you why or how or ...
It looks like she's been dead for some time, the blood going black in spots, dry on her face, damp and stinking around her wound ...
You have to leave. You can't handle this. It's all too, too much.
Stumbling, half-blind with confusion, you find yourself in another room, unsure of how you arrived there. You're clearly still inside, still underground, but there's damp grass under you feet, and the smell of dirty in your nostrils, and in the corner, three solid, inexplicable gravestones. bearing familiar names.
Eddie's.
Angela's.
Yours.
Eddie and Angela's graves are filled in, but yours is open, fresh, with dirt steps heading down into darkness.
You follow the steps into darkness and find yourself in a cold room, your breath condensating int he air before you, the floor slick with cold and wet and something else, horrible, that you're becoming overly familiar with.
You're not alone.
Eddie is here, bent over a freshly dead body, the head blasted into oblivion, nothing but a red, raw mess above the chest and splattered onto the wall. Eddie turns to you, a gun in his hand, his eyes wild and feverish.
He doesn't deny what the scene tells you.
He revels in it. He's proud of it. The man deserved it, for calling Eddie fat, dumb, useless, a host of other insults, a litany that pours out of Eddie's mouth so fast you can barely make sense of him. But none of that matters, Eddie says, whether it's true or not, if the one insulting him is dead. Death silences them forever and that, Eddie says, his eyes fixed on nothing, is why he's going to deal with anyone who mocks him in the future in the same way he dealt with the dead man slumped in the corner.
You gape at Eddie, unable to believe what you're hearing. Is he crazy? The words slip out, even though your saner mind is sure there are few worse things you could say to Eddie right now.
Eddie twitches and turns on you, raising his gun, and you have no choice but to defend yourself, fending him off as best you can with the board, grimacing when Eddie's wild, sloppy hold on his gun reuslts in bullets being fired, grazing you but missing anything vital.
Then, Eddie abandons his assault and retreats, running through a heavy door, letting it slam loudly behind him.
You don't want to follow Eddie, but you can't see as you have another choice. There's no other door and you don't want to stay here with the dead body. You brace yourself and follow Eddie.
This room is colder than then previous one, the floor slippery and icy, your vision distorted by clouds of wet, foggy condensation from your breath, the warmth of your body, and the bloated carcases of meat hanging from the ceiling. Somewhere in the fog, Eddie laughs, unrestrained, from somewhere in the cold, dark corners of the freezing room. Nothing he says makes sense; he babbles about torturing, shooting, killing a dog, shooting out a man's kneecaps, running away, being called here, your hypocricy, your similarities, you don't know what he's talking about, you have nothing in common, and now he's shooting at you, hiding behind the swinging meaty husks, and all you can think about is surviving, getting some sense into Eddie's head, at least hoping to God he runs out of bullets.
You dodge, you duck, you sweat in the cold, and finally hit Eddie hard enough that he drops his gun, falls to his knees, to the floor.
You gasp, pant, trying to catch your breath, and you kneel down by Eddie, checking how badly you hurt him ...
There's no pulse.
He's dead.
You killed him.
You killed a man.
You didn't mean to.
You stagger to your feet, looking around the cold, impossible room, wondering what's happened, why any of this is happening, and what it could possibly have to do with Mary's death ... or her supposed death ... if she's here, calling to you ...
Swallowing your bile, you stagger out of the room, and, somehow, into open air, the sky dark and stars hidden by the fog, bracing yourself against the side of a cold brick building.
You have to find Mary, figure out what happened to her. It's the only way.