Play@YSDC

The corridor seems empty enough though its hard to be sure with the darkening shadows. The floorboards creak dangerously underfoot as he steps across the charred section. Once more the floor responds to his feet, leaving a wake of char and weakening wood behind him as a tale of destruction and devastation. The door is too splintered and damaged to shut behind him, and there is much more hotel to explore and very few clues with which to explore it.

Show Seon,roll Sanity. SAN loss 0 / 1 for being the lone adult in such a dangerous place.

Strong and resolute, he can now head ... where?

There's a sound that surrounds him, buzzing, trying to get inside his mind. His name, repeated time and again, "Liam," "Liam?" "Liam!" "Liam." over and over again. Different voices, his father's, his mother's, Alessa's, tear through his mind as though something were lifting up and examining all of his old memories. He claws at his face and hair, desperate to repel the invasion, but it continues to burn through his mind. His hands, so hot, he feels them scald against the metal handle, feel the skin pressed tight against it, feels the skin adhere, pull and tug away from it loosely, and the shattering sound of little Alessa's screaming. His knees cave in and he hits the floor, shaking his head wildly, and slowly the assault begins to slow and he hears a little girl's voice whisper in his ear, desperate and needy, "Where were you?"

Something about her voice scores him through to the depths of his mind, and cuts him to the quick.

The floorboards, burnt through from his proximity, creak and burst out from under him, dumping him into the darkness of the floor below. He hits the boards below, bruising his hip, and surrounded by darkness.

"Fuck," Walter said. He fumbled to turn on the clip-on flashlight.

The light comes on to reveal the darkened walls of yet another corridor, this one with charred paintings and portraits upon the walls.

"...I must have fallen to one of the lower floors," Walter muttered.

Or some crazy teleportation/hallucination/reality warp happened. That also seemed likely.

He moved to examine the portraits.

The charred portraits have name plates beneath each one - Gillespie, Kauffman, Garland, Smith, Wolf, Archbolt, Stone, Rosten - though none of the portraits have visible faces. They all look far too charred and blackened to recognise. Scratched into the Kauffman painting are the words: Never forgotten in a childlike scrawl.

He moved further down the corridor. There wasn't anything interesting here. Yet.

The gloom seems to settle around him like wisps of smoke as he makes his way down a corridor that is lined with far too many doors and continues for far too long. It reminds him almost of the times he spent in the hospital, scampering about the halls while his father worked, neglecting the appropriate cold attitude for a more fun and playful approach with his friends. Alessa Gillespie had been so shy. His other friend, Laura? was it Laura?, his mind seems foggy from the fall. She'd been so playful, so vivid. His father had scolded him. What man would spend so much time with girls? But who else? Vincent was a few years younger and a few years was a gulf. Claudia Wolfe was the same age, best friends with Alessa, but so strange, so devout, she'd never been ... he and Laura could never understand her. Never grow close to her. Alessa and her, though, they truly seemed to understand each other. Where Alessa saw cheer with them (when the other children weren't watching, so much, though sometimes he stepped in when she were bullied) - her suffering is vital, Liam, let it built - she found solace with Claudia.

Claudia? Where was she.

She's dead, Liam.

His thoughts criss and they cross and it takes him a moment to realise that they aren't entirely his own. It's as though the channels were highjacked and someone else were channel surfing his thoughts. The world around him burned and charred. He can make out support struts now through the gutted ceilings, the alligator patterning showing that the fire began behind him and came forward, but this hallway is too long, far too long. It's like so many buildings he's seen, combined and coupled, and flowing together. There's meat on the floors, pressed up against the walls, huddling there as though small animals came here to die, yet still they tremble.

Somewhere, from further down the hallway comes a sharp whistling.

Walter ran down the halls towards the whistling noise. "Who's there?!" he yelled out.

The whistling stops and a man rounds the corner wearing an impeccably tailored suit and carrying a worn old book with a leather cover. He shuts it with a snap and tilts his head to one side as he looks at Walter, head tilted to one side. "Walter? Is that really you? You look the spitting image of one of the villains from your novels. Which is it this time? A serial killer who can't find his way home without burying skulls at every crossroads he meets? Or the schizophrenic who thought he saw a zombie but was merely an axe crazed sociopath?"

"You know," Walter said. "That's kind of funny because I did see a dead body come back to life... and this axe did happen to be buried half way into it... Wait... who the hell are you?!"

"You don't remember me?" The mysterious man gapes at him as he approaches. "I'm hurt. Crushed." One eye gazes at him but the other seems to be looking over at the wall. One pupil is also larger than the other. It's been years, decades, since he's since the little child but there's no doubts now who it is. Vincent Smith. The deceitful little cultist from the Order.

"Actually, yeah," Walter said, stepping slightly away. "I do remember you. Vincent."

He coughed.

"So...err..." he said, pointing towards the bloody messes on the ceilings, the walls, and the floor. "What's up with this place?"

"What's the matter? Don't you recognise Paradise? This ... this is Alessa's work. A world created to represent her pain and misery fuelled by that which lay within her womb. Doesn't it just fill you with pride?" There's the touch of irony in his voice, as though he knows he's full of crap about the wonders surrounding them. "Oh, and it's Father Vincent by the way. If you're looking for Claudia, she's not here or anywhere anymore. From what I can gather, she and God had a bit of a disagreement. Alessa isn't here either ... nor should you be. You're just going to cause a fuss, I'm afraid."

Laraqua wrote:"What's the matter? Don't you recognise Paradise? This ... this is Alessa's work. A world created to represent her pain and misery fuelled by that which lay within her womb. Doesn't it just fill you with pride?" There's the touch of irony in his voice, as though he knows he's full of crap about the wonders surrounding them. "Oh, and it's Father Vincent by the way. If you're looking for Claudia, she's not here or anywhere anymore. From what I can gather, she and God had a bit of a disagreement. Alessa isn't here either ... nor should you be. You're just going to cause a fuss, I'm afraid."

"...What."

Walter shook his head.

"What womb? They told me she died."

"She died twice but is hardly your concern now," said Vincent with a dismissive wave of his hand. "What matters is that you get out of here but, unfortunately, Silent Hill has a firm grasp on you and the theoretical protections tend to fade in time so I think.... Yes, I think you will need to pass through Silent Hill. I do have a few pieces of advice. Firstly, keep moving. People sometimes attempt to barricade themselves into places but it will just prolong the experience and make you tired, hungry, and thirsty. Secondly, avoid Laura or unknown small children in general. Thirdly, monsters generally will die but you can't always rely on shooting them. Pay attention to your surroundings. Silent Hill is like the subconscious mind. It will give you hints and clues as to what you must do and ... sometimes ... such clues will lead you toward strange and esoteric acts that you wouldn't normally consider. Alas, such is life here. Oh, and read any notes you come across. They're often what will give you little hints. Stockpile Health Drinks and First Aid Kits and ammunition. You'll be provided with just enough to survive if you're clever but this place does want you to fail and die so don't anticipate it making it easier for you. Any more questions?"

Silence. Walter stared at Vincent long and hard.

He raised an eyebrow. He scratched his head.

"Yes, I have one question. What the hell are health drinks anyways?"

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," said Vincent with a theatrical gesture. "Just try not to listen to little Laura or whatever she's calling herself these days or any of her plans. It just ... isn't ... wise ... to feel sorry for her. Try to understand that, will you? I've had to look everywhere to find you. I don't need you to go causing a fuss." He lays his hand on one of the door handles just as an air raid siren begins to wail in the background. "Let alone a mess. So long." With that, he opens up a doorway into darkness and steps inside.

"...What the hell just happened," Walter mumbled, looking at the magical doorway. Magical. That was the only way that he could possibily explain the door. He shook his head and headed towards the direction that Vincent came from.

The wailing sirens grow louder and more oppressive with each step until it sounds as though the wailing were within his skull, scratching at the bone and struggling to get out. Something about those sirens seem almost familiar. Something about them ... and the hospital ... but he can't quite remember though the sirens themselves are making it harder for him to forget. He staggers forward down the darkened corridor, struggles to keep his feet, and hits the floor face-first.

----

When he awakens, his mouth tastes like booze and old regrets and he's lying in a puddle of puke on a linoleum floor. Looking up and around himself, he finds he's in some seedy little cafe that he barely even recognises. A woman sits in one of the booths, knees pulled up to her chest, and she's chewing her thumb nail as she stares at him like he's some sort of apparition. "You can't see me, can you?" she asks, when his gaze latches onto her. Outside, through the windows, he can see fog-shrouded trees and cars parked up against the footpath.

"No, I can't see you, I'm just looking at something behind you" Walter said sarcastically, lifting himself from the puke. "Ugh, what happened? Where is this place?"

"Should I be frightened?" she asked, raising a hand from where she'd been scratching her curly black hair. Her tone is pretty straight forward, sensible, like she's a bit weary or maybe she's seen it all before. "Like, should I run? I like to know where I stand around these sorts of things. You have an axe. You look like you can use it." She pulls a Desert Eagle from her lap. "I just have this."

"Oh, no I acutally don't really know how to use it. God knows I've tried against the goddamn bodies coming back to life. Missed every single strike! Had to GTFO. No, no, there is no need to be alarmed."

"But...err... seriously. Do you know how I got here? And where is this place?"

"Cafe Mist," she said. "Fitting, really. I don't think that's your puke. Look beside you."

Walter glanced next to him

His head aches a bit as he turns it to the left, looking away from the strange lady and the gun to see a man's corpse lying beside him with a large hole in his forehead and a similar one out of the other side. There's blood behind him, but congealing puke, mostly watery, frames his mouth and runs under where Walter's head had lain. A whiskey bottle lays near his hand, empty. There's a counter with a red formica counter top further behind him, spattered with blood and with a sharp scratch along the wood.

"I may have moved you in a trolley," said the woman, her expression unchanging when he looks back to her. "I didn't know what to do with you. I had to find a place to put you. The monster won't smell you past the vomit and dead man."

"Oh." Walter said, looking at the hole in the man's forehead. "Uhh... Thanks, I guess? Can I ask you what your name is? Mine is Walter,"

"We're on Katz Street," she said. "Southern Silent Hill. There's a Fire Station nearby. You smell vaguely of smoke. Is that where you want to go?"

"Why thank you, but no. I'm actually looking for someone. Her name is... errr... Cecilia Brooks? Cecilia Brooke? I think that's her name? Yes... her daughter got lost and needs to find her."

"Have you called the police? They're very unhelpful this time of year." She gazes over her shoulder at the street outside. "It's all that fog. I think it gets inside people. Makes them crazy." She turns to look back at Walter and her eyes re-settle on the axe. "There might be something about her at the police station. Do you know anything else?"

"Yes. Have you seen a little blond girl, about this tall?"

"No," said the woman. "But that's not a clue, is it? Don't you have anything that could suggest where we might look for them? I'm not going out there on my own. I like it here. There's no pies in the warmer, though. That makes me sad. I don't suppose you have any food on you?" Her dark brown eyes gaze at him with sudden vulnerability and she adds in a small voice, "I'm hungry and I can't wake up."

"... I had a box of frut roll ups and cheetos with me, but I didn't bring it out. On hindsight, I probably should've, but I wasn't exactly in sound mind at that point."

"Actually," Walter added. "I am not sure if I'm in sound mind right now either. You never told me your name, what was it again?"

"Oh, well, we probably should get going then," says the woman, unfurling herself from the booth. "There's other places we can go. We might find food there." She looks down at him gravely. "You don't have to follow if you don't want to, but it's probably a good idea."

"Okay," Walter said, shaking his head. Whoever she was, she wasn't in the mood to really talk. "We should probably check the area around the hotel. Do you know how to get to there from here?"

"No, you can never be certain, really, but I know the right directions," she said. "We can only hope they stay direct, though I doubt it." She approaches the door and holds it open for him. "There are wet wipes on the counter if you want to wipe the puke off your cheek."

"Thanks," Walter mumbled, looking for the wipes. Something suddenly came across his mind.

"Wait, what monsters?"

"You haven't seen them yet?" asked the woman. "Why do you have an axe if not for the monsters? Is it a people-axe?"

The wet wipes sit next to a health drink and some ketchup on the counter. There's a note that states: IF I RUN BEFORE YOU WAKE, I PRAY YOUR SOUL THE DEVIL DOESN'T TAKE

Walter pocketed the note, the ketchup, the health drink, and the notes. "I found it inside a person... who came back to life and tried to kill me... so...err... yeah, I guess I did see monsters. Who wrote this note, by the way?"

"You're not going to use the wet wipes?" asked the woman, looking suitably grossed out. "What are you saving them for? A more vomity day?"

"Of course I'm going to use it," Walter said, picking up the box and using it to clean himself. "Listen, are you ever going to answer my questions, or..."

"I answer the questions that matter," said the woman. "What's in a name? What do they mean? Nothing. You could be a Damien or a Roger or a Jack. I could be a Susan or a Claudia or a Monique. They're just words. Random conglomerations of syllables that taste nice or nasty on the tongue. It really doesn't matter what syllables you assign to me. I am me and I am unchanged by whether your designation for me begins with an S or an L. As for the note, you ask it too broadly. You already suspect who wrote the note and yet you make no assumptions verbally, only mentally, and in that way you are being deceitful and sly. I choose not to answer deceitful and sly questions. Are you coming?"

Laraqua wrote:"I answer the questions that matter," said the woman. "What's in a name? What do they mean? Nothing. You could be a Damien or a Roger or a Jack. I could be a Susan or a Claudia or a Monique. They're just words. Random conglomerations of syllables that taste nice or nasty on the tongue. It really doesn't matter what syllables you assign to me. I am me and I am unchanged by whether your designation for me begins with an S or an L. As for the note, you ask it too broadly. You already suspect who wrote the note and yet you make no assumptions verbally, only mentally, and in that way you are being deceitful and sly. I choose not to answer deceitful and sly questions. Are you coming?"

"Umm..." Walter said. "Okay, I'll call you Wendy for right now... I'm coming."

"And I'll call you, Guss, so come along Guss," she said, holding her Desert Eagle in both hands, pointed downward. "Bring your axe along, Guss."

The glass door swings shut behind him as he steps out into the cool, moist air of Silent Hill. Somewhere in the distance, an air horn moans mournfully, likely from some boat upon the lake.

"If we could get to the docks, we could see if there's a boat there. That might be interesting. There's a dock out the back of the Lakeview Hotel."

"The lake..." Walter wondered. "I don't actually know where this lady might be... So that place might be good ti start as any. Alright, let's go."

"If you see anything in the fog, try to keep up with me because I'm not going to slow down," she said as she starts down the middle of the road. "But be careful if you're running. The roads have holes in them. Deep holes. I don't know what happens if you fall into one. Perhaps you die ... perhaps you enter a worse part within this place. How could I know?" Then she holds up one hand and hesitates. "Listen." And she moves across to the side of the road quietly to duck down beside the boot of a car.

Walter does as he is told.

Walter can hear something that sounds somewhat like a police radio crackling in the distance and coming ever closer. Wendy grabs him by the arm and pulls him around the kerb side of the car and motions for him to duck his head out of view as a car starts to trundle in from the fog. Red and blue lights split the fog occasionally. It is really a police car slowly driving by at around 4 miles an hour? As he crouches there he can hear voices in the static: "looking for ... brown hair ... armed and danger ... suspec ... arson at 5 Finney ..."

5 Finney Street? Wasn't that Alessa Gillespie's old place?

"Armed and dangerous... Brown hair...Did you do that, Wendy?" Walter asked, looking into the fog after the police car.

"5 Finney street... Maybe we should go there."

"Armed and dangerous... Brown hair...Did you do that, Wendy?" Walter asked, looking into the fog after the police car.

"5 Finney street... Maybe we should go there."

She gives him a grave look. "That description could match either of us." She peeks over the bonnet. "It doesn't matter." She gazes in the direction the police car went. "They're not real." She gets up and heads on down the street towards Finney Street, scuttling across to hide behind the cars as she goes. "Nowhere's real."

"That's actually really funny because I had a short discussion with a woman named Emily abou- yeah I should stop talking," Walter said.

"Who am I kidding... I should find Cecie. Lighthouse is close to the hotel, right?"

Wendy turns to him, her fingers tightening around the butt of the Desert Eagle. "Cecie? Emily? Who are you talking about, Guss? Why the lighthouse?"

"Oh, you see," Walter said. "A crazed woman hit me in the head with a bottle of hallucinogen, causing me to massively trip out. There was this woman named Emily, a librarian of this town: she's a fan of my books you see. I'm an author, by the way. Anyways, I asked her and a guy to take me to a hotel so that I don't die in the streets and so that I don't get caught by the policemen, who are bunch of bastards.

Anyways one thing led to the other and we found ourselves trapped in a burning hotel room with 20 different chain locks on the door, a box of condoms and other weird stuffs in the closet, bunch of cheetos, and a little girl called Katie who lost her mother, Cecie. I'm supposed to be looking for her, but then I met this guy named Vincent and then somehow I was with you."

Walter drew a breath.

"Yeah, that about covers it."

"Why the lighthouse?" asked the woman, taking the rest of it in her stride.

"Didn't you say that we are going to the docks? I lived in the town before so I think I remember that the Lighthouse and the hotel and the docks are close to each other," Walter said.

"At least, I think."

"So you're just going to chase everyone else's problems and neglect your own?" She shook her head wildly. "What's your problem, anyway? That kid ain't your own. Don't you have any loyalty?" She scoffs, shaking her head. "You're not the person I thought you were at all! Maybe you should just make your own way without me."

OOC: Ohhh yeah. I forgot about that too.

"Ehhh... what..." Walter said. "How did you draw that conclusion from that? Doesn't matter. I'll find Alessa and solve Katie's problem too. It'll work out. I hope."

She reaches out to grip his wrist. "All right. Come with me then. Have you been to see the priest? Father Vincent? I think he's making his rounds of Brookhaven Hospital. He should do ... maybe. I'm not ... sure. Listen, head out onto Nathan Avenue and follow that around to West Sandford. You'll be fine ... I think. I've got to ... I've got to go, Guss. I need to ... I need to go." She starts walking away, her feet shuffling against the asphalt, the Desert Eagle clutched in her long fingers.