CHAPTER TWO: Cecilia: Searching

[Kadael]

You seem to know an awful lot, she thinks to herself, remembering just minutes ago when he screamed at her. About how she doesn't deserve to be a mother, and everything else she's done wrong.

Cecilia pulls her arm away, raising an eyebrow. Her expression is otherwise blank. "No, I'm all right now," she says. "I... don't really... do hugs."

"Where are we going, anyway? This doesn't look like the way to the park I passed." And with that question, she's back to sounding like her usual self.

[Seon]

Jack seems to be suddenly reminded of something and his facial expression grew even darker.

"Towards the amusement park," Jack said. "I bet that's where she is right now. Robbie is the park's mascot."

[Kadael]

"But she's never been there," Cecilia says, putting a finger in her pocket. Maybe the kitten is feeling better now? "How would she know about Robbie?"

If she'd been able to talk to Ash, she could have gotten some answers. Maybe she still can - she's not dead after all, right?

[Seon]

"Does that matter? She said bring Robbie, so obviously she knows what Robbie is. If she knows what Robbie is, then she probably also knows about the amusement park," Jack said hurriedly. He looked around the streets to get his bearings.

"Hey... about before... when I tried to... erm... kill you in the bar..." he said, shakily. "I... I really don't know what happened. When I saw you in there... something... something just snapped... and I became a different person..."

"Why didn't I just stay in the morgue?"

[Laraqua]

The kitten licks her finger happily enough, its tongue raspy against her skin. At least it remains warm and fluffy, a reminder that somewhere, somehow, there are places that are nice and decent. Places far from this one.

The buildings seem to have vanished, replaced by water-stained concrete walls sized like the buildings that once were there, sometimes with jagged tears or holes in places that bleed out more rusty water, often with chunks of barbed wire chain, thick and sturdy, that criss cross alleyways and drape across some of the walls. Every so often something seems to move in the water. Whether floating trash or something else, it's hard to say, as it's always on the edge of their flashlight beams. Luckily, the water's only up to their mid-calf, so there can't be anything all that big lurking within.

Maybe.

[Seon]

"Did you see that?" Jack mumbled. "The water's just going to get deeper from here... do you really think that it's safe too..."

[Kadael]

If she didn't know better, Cecilia's response to his explanation would be "Does that happen a lot?" Fortunately, she's equipped with at least a bit of common sense.

"By the way, you were wrong about the kitten." She strokes its fluffy forehead, thinking of how much Katie will love it. "It wouldn't leave me alone, so it's still alive."

She waves her flashlight uselessly in the darkness. "Do we... I have a choice? If Katie's there, that's where I need to be."

[Seon]

"Wouldn't leave you alone?" Jack said. "That implies that you, at one point, tried to leave it, you know."

Jack sighed. "Nevermind that right now. Katie... this water's like, waist high for her? How do you think she went through this place?"

[Kadael]

"I thought it would be safer in the bar. It followed me, so it's in my pocket."

She stops, and glares at him. "Well, where else would she be? You're saying we should just run all over town until something else tries to kill us?"

He has a point, though. If the water gets much deeper from here, Katie probably wouldn't bother. Especially in this cold.

[Seon]

"No..." Jack said. "No, I am sure that Something's there..."

He paused and stared off into the distance thoughtfully. "It's just that I don't think you'll like what you find."

"I... I wanted to talk to you about something else," he said. "Why... Why I came back."

[Kadael]

"...I'm listening." She folds her arms, trying to see whatever he was looking at. Maybe he was just thinking.

Came back. Does he mean from the dead? That's crazy talk...

[Seon]

"I... I'm not really sure," Jack said. "I don't... I didn't remember dying... Nor coming back... But now that I do... I think I know."

"I came back because of you."

Jack suddenly shot Cecilia a glare.

"I don't know why, but you are the reason why I am here right now, breathing again."

"You did something. Something that neither of us can remember."

He walked past Cecilia deeper into the waters. "You know what? Forget I said anything. Let's go."

[Kadael]

Cecilia's eyes widen as she listens to Jack talk, but she stays silent. What the hell? She hasn't even known him for longer than a couple of days, at most. Bringing people back from the dead is impossible.

And isn't it convenient that neither of them remember this apparent thing she did?

"How can I forget something like that?" she asks, but he's probably too far away to hear by now. She wades through the water to catch up to him.

[Seon]

"How can I forget being stabbed?" Jack said.

[Kadael]

"Touché," Cecilia sighs, deciding to chalk it up to Jack's instability.

[Seon]

"Of course," Jack said, stopping. "You also seem to have forgotten a lot of things, lady."

He shot her a glare again. "A lot of things."

He sighed and began to wade through the water again. "Let's just say that it's normal for the resort town of Silent Hill to be suddenly be abandoned, filled with bulletproof monsters, flooded, terraformed, transformed, right before your very eyes within a span of five minutes. Let's just say that there's a logical explanation to all of this and...I wasn't dead..." he said the last line almost hopefully.

"What do you think I should do after that?"

[Kadael]

"Get out. As fast as you could." As if that isn't the obvious answer. What sane person would stay in a place like this without reason?

...Exactly.

"There's nothing keeping you here, you know." She shrugs, feeling uncomfortable under his glare.

[Seon]

"Like HELL if I didn't consider that!" Jack hissed. "Did you know that I lived much of my life in New York instead of this godforsaken town?! Did you know that I graduated from the top of my class with a major in psychology? I don't need to be here. I can do anything I want elsewhere!"

"But this place it... it calls you back..." Jack said with a shudder. "You can't... you simply can't... you can't escape it... Even if you think it is the most horrifying place in the entire world... it will still drag you back here. It wouldn't let you go. As time goes on, you'll find yourself longing for this place again and again until..."

"No... no... that's not right..." jack shook his head. "It calls to you because you NEED to be here... Do you know... do you have any idea... how many drug addicts there are in this damn town?" he chuckled. "There's a lot, Cecie. A lot."

"And I tried to help them! Behind everyone back... there were too many eyes watching me... I tried to get them off PTV... Do you know what happened with them?! NOTHING WORKED! I couldn't help them. They were too far gone... they would do anything...absolutely anything to feed their habits. They would ruin their entire lives for the damn drug. NOTHING. EVER. WORKED."

"I couldn't do a damn thing..." he said.

"Never could do a damn thing."

"Enough about me though," Jack said, suddenly cheerful again. "I hope that you are still planning on visiting Katie after you... uhh... give her up. You can't just disappear from her life, right?"

[Kadael]

Cecilia backs away with a slosh of water, staring nervously. New York? Psychology? Is that how he always seems to be right? He's been reading her like a book...

But she takes a hesitant step forward, and lays her hand on his shoulder - the one that wasn't stabbed. "Jack, for what it's worth..." She pauses, looking to choose her words carefully. "You've done good things. I know that. And... at least you can find it in yourself to try."

She gives him a gentle sort of half-smile, tempered by her nerves and the tension in the air.

When he asks about Katie again, she falters. She was thinking of going to the ocean again...

Images of her daughter fill her mind. Katie getting picked up from school early. Katie asking why, with tears in her eyes. Katie in black, her hand full of soil.

"I... I don't know." She looks away, off into the distance.

[Seon]

"I really think you should continue to visit her," Jack said. "It's the least that you can do."

That's what I would want you to do if I was your child.

"It's going to hurt, but just simply disappearing isn't going to help anyone other than yourself."

He shifted his feet nervously. "Have you ever felt like you are going to die?"