FINAL CHAPTER: Cecilia: Room With A View

[Kadael]

The tension that envelops Cecilia suddenly disappears, and her arms go slack as she looks at the girl again.

I hurt her. I hurt a child. Willingly.

The warmth, the bird song, the siren... all of it fades into a sort of numbness. Wordlessly, she touches her hand to the girl's, staring off into the distance.

I'm a monster.

[Laraqua]

The little girl takes her hand and guides her forward, moving around the hotel with slow, careful steps down a side path that leads to the rear gardens. The motion reminds her, jarringly, of another walk down this very same path. She'd walked it before, several times, with a beautiful and vivacious young woman, with little Katie in tow. They had their favourite bench on the rear verandah where they could watch the passing boats and the glittering lake. Ash... She'd even been willing to put up with the odd phone call or quick email to or from work. It was Ash who'd pulled her along back here once, just as it was Ash who'd coaxed her into going to Annie's Bar and leave Katie with a good babysitter at the hotel, and Ash who'd convinced her to take Katie to the Amusement Park rather than just relaxing away from all of the queues and the noises. Ash, with the laugh that could warm any room, and distract anyone.

Something in that last thought jars her to her bones.

Distraction...

[Kadael]

It only takes a moment for the images to start coming back. The voice on the phone, too - We need to talk about Katie and where you go from here.

You're not still moping about your gay husband, are you?

Brown eyes, dark hair, that smile. Pieces of a face to put to that laugh. She's starting to remember.

Back when this vacation still seemed like a vacation, Ash was there... listening to the story of Cecilia's divorce, offering her own tale of marital hell. She made it easier to relax, and forget.

Cecilia had hardly thought about Nathan, or... or Katie...

"Ash," she whispers, her grip on the girl's hand tightening. "I was here with Ash..."

[Laraqua]

The little girl doesn't say anything. She simply reaches out and unlatches the side gate, leading her into a garden filled with hedges, where Ash had once told her the whole place had burned down and rebuilt. Ash had been a local once in Shepherd's Glen, and her town had always hated Silent Hill for its prosperity and it's 'wonten ways' as her mother had put it. Ash was married. She had a little girl as well, around the same age as Katie, but she'd run off. Not to find herself, she'd hastened to add, but to lose herself. She was always at least a little bit drunk but always smiling with that kind of freedom that you get when you've hit rock bottom, as she herself used to say. She'd tell Cecilia that all her work worries, all her ex-husband worries, were just that. Worries. Thoughts. Dips in the wind.

In the end, nothing has to matter.

She was always a little manic about that. As though there were a secret there that she wouldn't tell. But she was such fun. She'd sidled up to them one day while Cecilia had been on her smart phone, in the restaurant, and talked her into having a vacation. God, she'd seemed so annoying and pushy, just walking up to a stranger, but she was fun and had a great sense of humor that was infectious and, in the end, grudgingly, Cecilia had started to like her.

The vacation had been fantastic.

Except....

Except....

Something had distracted her.

The little girl led her across the well-trimmed lawn to the path that led down towards the glittering water and Cecilia could remember shushing her daughter, sitting at one of the tables on the verandah, drinking a glass of wine with Ash, and desperately trying to ignore both of them as she hastily tried to deal with just one more email. This one had been a toughie. The toughest. Same demanding guy she'd spoken to before on the road.

Wait....

Wait....

That email had led to a phone call. He'd called her up. She'd had that very same conversation before.

And now, as her feet tread the path, she remembers herself sitting in that car, driving through Silent Hill in the fog, talking to a silent mobile phone as echoes of an old conversation ran through her mind. It was that same conversation. That same conversation which had distracted her.

[Kadael]

...don't normally deal with this kind of thing, but... very serious concern. Have you canceled your credit cards...

Arthur Machos. An older man, and very well-off. Identity theft. He was disagreeable and loud... she remembers, of course, she spoke to him just a day or two ago.

But...

Cecilia willingly took opportunities to distract herself from Nathan - and, by extension, Katie. She was always trying to ask questions about things that hurt, things she didn't understand.

You said babies come from a mommy and daddy's love... but if Daddy doesn't love you, why--

Katie, stop.

But you said I could ask any--

No. Go to your room.

That's not fair!

That was how the conversations ended. And as Cecilia had pulled further away from things like family, friends, and love, they stopped happening.

Ash brought her back. But it was...

None of this seems right...

What happened that day...?

[Laraqua]

The little girl leads her off the path as they come to the sloping shores of Lake Toluca and Cecilia can see the pier in front of her but the little girl doesn't head towards the pier. Instead she veers toward the lake itself. Her hand is so small in Cecilia's. So small, so frail, and so weak. The police sirens can be heard growing increasingly loud as the police car approaches.

"Ooh, I wanna go swimming!"

Katie's words, echoing through Cecilia's mind.

"Later, honey."

"Aww! It's always later! You said that days ago. When can I go swimming?"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Machos, you were saying?"

Katie had sulked for awhile and Ash had tried to cheer her up but then Ash had gotten that withdrawn, thoughtful look in her eye and had hurriedly taken a few drags of a cigarette (she gave it up, but she changed her mind, why plan for tomorrow when it may never come). Katie had grown bored of her sulks (she always did) and started running around the lawn, darting around bushes, and chasing birds. Cecilia had watched her for a little while, but then she'd needed to check something on her laptop. Ash had gone to buy more smokes.

The little girl stood on the edge of the shore and pointed into the water. "There."

"She's in there."

[Kadael]

No. It's a lie. Like everything else. It's not true, it's not, it's...

Cecilia's hand slips away from the little girl's. The lake is mirrorlike in its calmness, a reflection of the sky, blue as the girl's eyes. It seems to stretch forever.

She told Dr. Jameson that she'd wanted to die in the ocean. She would swim as far as her arms and legs could carry her, until she was too tired to go on, and too far from shore to go back. So that there would be no other option. Her mother had given birth to her in the water. It seemed fitting.

He looked at her, the line between his eyebrows growing deeper. "It's good that you changed your mind. As hard as this is for you, your daughter needs you. I think you know that."

"And drowning is one of the most horrible ways to die."

She sinks to her knees, palms flat against the soft ground of the shore, completely still save for the movement of her breathing. She stares out at that vast, blue lake, as though she could see her daughter's tiny silhouette drifting within the waters. All of the hours spent running around town, sleeping in Annie's Bar, waiting for something to happen. None of it matters. None of it ever mattered.

"I don't know," she says, fingers curling into fists and grabbing handfuls of the dirt, "how I... can go back home, or keep... God, I..."

"I killed my daughter. I killed her. I..."

That's the last coherent thing she says before bursting into tears, sitting on the shore of the lake with only a mockery of Katie's life as a witness.

[Laraqua]

"Parents never really love their children as much as they love themselves," says the little girl almost absent-mindedly. "You called to the town. You wanted to be here. You wanted me." She sits down on Cecilia's lap and wraps her arms around her and gazes up at her. She looks so much like Katie but for the hair cut and though blue eyes. "Silent Hill brings so many dreams to life. Nightmares too. We could go together. We could go home. I'm all you have." Her lower lip trembles and tears start to spill down her cheeks again as the facade breaks. "Please, I ... I don't want to die here. I don't want to go back. They'll take me back. They'll...."

She glances out over the lake, near trembling with fear.

"Please don't give me away like my mummy did."

"I don't want to go back. I ... I...."

She gazes at Cecilia with those big, blue eyes.

"I'm scared!"

"I don't want to burn again!"

[Kadael]

Cecilia throws her arms around the little girl, holding her close as though she really could be her daughter, pressing her fingers into the soft strands of her blonde hair. And for a while, she just sits there on the shore of Lake Toluca, crying with her, shutting her eyes, pretending they're in some space separate from the outside world. But the police siren beats into her skull, the waters lap hungrily at her knees, and time is still moving.

She goes quiet when there are no longer any tears left to cry, and slowly opens her eyes. Nothing seems real. Like a playset for a dollhouse: coated in plastic, unfeeling, trying to pass itself off as something more than an imitation. Swallowing what little fear is left, she pushes the girl away and rises to her feet.

The water is cold as it touches her ankles.

[Laraqua]

The little girl steps back and watches her step into the water. She doesn't argue or fuss. Simply stands by and watches as Cecilia makes her decision.

The sun is so warm against her face, providing a stark contrast to the cold water that envelops her feet.

[Kadael]

She half-expects to hear tires on asphalt again - that time, though, she hadn't even made it into the water. That's right, there's no one to stop her now.

Will it surprise anyone? Will they care? She can imagine herself as a statistic on some website, the ones that pretend to give a damn about you so you'll buy their books, their CDs, whatever. She's seen it all before, and it's sickening. Maybe this is something she should have done a long time ago.

There isn't even anyone she'll miss -

and then she thinks of Jack

- No. Cecilia wades further, faster into the water. The less time she has to think, the more likely it is that she'll go through with it. One last promise to keep.

After all, this is what she... wants.

Deserves.

[Laraqua]

As Cecilia wades further into the water she remembers her daughter's wet hair on her arms as she'd pulled her floating body out of the water. The stark terror as she applied CPR. The relief when it worked, when Katie puked up the water, but Katie didn't wake up. She didn't regain consciousness. The sirens. Different sirens. Ambulance sirens. The police came later to ask all the right questions and ensure that she wasn't to blame. They'd been politely official. Grieving mother and all that. It wasn't likely that she'd drowned her own daughter, after all.

Then the doctors. The nurses. The news. Katie had been without air for around five minutes. That was a long time. She was young, but there was bound to be brain damage. They couldn't tell her how much. They wouldn't know until Katie woke up. If she'd woken up.

The phone call. Breaking it to her ex-husband. Calling the others. Family. Friends. Others called her. Shared in the news. Commiserated. Asked questions.

A parade of visitors and well-wishers dropping by Silent Hill. The pitying looks from the Silent Hill hotel staff.

Katie didn't wake up.

Ash grew distant. Starting poking into things. Conspiracy theories. She once said she swore she could hear Katie calling to her in the ward. She stopped that pretty quick after Cecilia swore at her, yelled at her, blamed her for the whole thing. Ash went back to the bar, kept drinking, muttering stuff about searching out conspiracies on the odd occasions they met in the Lakeview Hotel hall. Last Cecilia had heard, the bartender there had been stabbed.

The cold water laps at her heart as she continues to wade purposefully into the water.

[Kadael]

She wants the memories to stop, but they keep coming, replaying themselves over and over again in her mind. Were these last couple of days - the bar, the hospital, the deserted hotel - just a delusion? The mannequin. Her injuries. Jack kissing her. Merely constructs of a broken mind trying to pull itself together...

Cecilia's been screaming at people to stop lying. Even before Silent Hill. She said that lies were destroying her. But the one person who never could seem to tell the truth was herself.

Holding Katie's hand in the ICU, trying so hard to put on a brave face, and reading her stories out loud from her favorite books. She remembers that.

Please wake up, Katie. I miss seeing you smile so much.

Involuntarily, she takes a breath just before her head goes under the surface.

[Laraqua]

The lost little girl stands by the lakeshore and watches as Cecilia walks into the water until she drops beneath the water and out of sight. There is no need to linger. No need to wait and watch for bubbles or any sign of a struggle. Lake Toluca takes whatever is freely given even more than it takes what struggles against it. Cecilia will not escape the waters cold embrace and, for that, the little girl is glad. Her death appeases the violent, vicious shard within her that has been flamed countless times over the decades that she has waited here. This is the woman whose stubborness kept escape from her and it feels good to similarly deny her escape.

The girl glances back at the hotel over her shoulder and smiles faintly to herself.

At least she still had Katie. The girl she had lured into the water, only to have been retaken by a desperate Cecilia re-entering the foggy nightmare of Silent Hill. Yet the town had not seen fit to allow its prize to be returned so readily and so the girl had the chance to take her away again. So perhaps she would not yet have the chance to finalise her plan and bring her family back together again but she had pieces of it.

And Silent Hill could be so much fun during the tourist season.

She turned and skipped away from the lake, bounded across the lawn, and unlatched the gate. The police sirens had stopped outside of the hotel and she had very little time to retrieve Katie's present before she was spirited away into the Other Side. She saw Cybil Bennett leaning against the police car, arms crossed over her chest, and a wry grin over her face. Soon that grin would slip once they were safely back in Silent Hill. Soon the officer would panic and struggle against the monsters in shock and horror. Perhaps she would 'turn', again. Perhaps she would remember. More likely not. It didn't really matter. Cybil would keep her safe even as she kept her trapped here.

Alessa's parting gift.

The girl crouched down beside the kitten's lifeless body and picked it gently, gingerly up, and as she did so the kitten sprang into life in her hands. It was like Katie. It couldn't live out in this side of Silent Hill but it could exist within the Other Side. The girl was as much a part of the Other Side as she was of this place and so her hands allowed it life.

"Do you think Katie will like her prezzie?" asked the girl innocently.

Cybil smiled down at her. "I'm sure she will but we have to go now."

"Okay, but I think we should come back here to visit Katie."

They would begin the drive and the fog would roll in and the car would stop and it should be easy enough to convince Cybil to turn around and head for shelter in the hotel. As the little girl climbed into the police car, clutching the growling kitten in her hands, she spared one final glance at the lake that had just claimed another life. She always imagined that all those killed in the lake lived at the bottom of it, caught and frozen in agony, much as she so often was, although perhaps it was true what the Order said. Perhaps the lake cleansed what it killed. Perhaps it was atonement, freedom.

If so, then Katie should be proud.

Her mother was free.