Well, I figured I'd give this a whirl. The game was kinda itching my interest of late, and I couldn't resist the temptation to pick up the pen and start writing about it. It's the first Silent Hill game I played on my own, without seeing someone else play it, so it kind of has a special place in my heart for that reason. Also, I think the story is great - but could be better. Not that I think I'd, personally, be able to make it better, but it'd still be fun to see what I could do with it while maintaining the basic, fundamental aspects of the plot and events.

So, here it is. I don't know how long it'll take me to get through it. A while, I imagine. Lemme know what you think.

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Simple Works: For my Father.
By Krist./Shikhee

For Tom - for everything.

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Prelude

I've been having some trouble with sleeping lately. . . the dreaming part, now that's no problem: I dream all the time, whether I can remember it clearly or not, but lately. . . the trouble is how often it happens. That makes me sound narcoleptic or something weird like that, but honestly I can't quite explain it, and I don't think that's what it is. For instance, I don't think narcoleptics wake up not remembering how they got there, or find themselves trapped in one of their dreams.

Don't worry, I'm not crazy. I can tell a dream from reality – once the dream is over, and thank god it does because half the ones I've had aren't exactly light and fluffy. They're not the kind of crap you want to keep down in a dream journal, okay? Not something you'd share with, well, anybody. I wouldn't dare tell any of my friends about this kind of stuff, they'd just think I was nuts – though it is kind of hard to hide it when it happens, when they ask me where I disappeared to and why I look like I've just had the bejeezus scared outta me. How can I even begin to explain it to them? Or to anyone.

I used that line on my dad when he had the last straw of it, of me disappearing, and reappearing, and told me he was taking me to a shrink. It scared him just as badly as it did me, which only made me feel. . . guilty, like I was somehow to blame for it all. I used to be angry about how he'd react, but now I just feel terrible, like I could stop it if I wanted to, but I keep pushing it, testing his patience. And he has a lot of patience with me. I don't know how I'd handle it if my daughter. . .

I didn't see what good a shrink would do, and I told him that. I don't like the idea of them, because to me all it seems like they're interested in is dishing out meds like candy and not caring about the person behind the problems. They're just looking for an increase in their paycheck. I couldn't stand the idea of being some sick investment for one of these jerks, so I fought it tooth and nail. I refused to get in the car with him, I'd leave the apartment for a while, ignore his calls, crash at my friend Katy's place for a few hours until I was sure he'd let the issue drop until another time, until it happened again. And it always happened again, like clockwork – well, more like my period, because for some reason it happens more frequently around the time Aunt Flo comes to visit. Great. Some girls get cramps and bloating, I get nightmare realities. Fantastic.

I guess I'm not being very clear, am I? Look, I don't understand it any easier than someone else, and I tried explaining that to the shrinks, to my father, but no one seems to really get it. I'll do my best, though. Maybe if I lay it all out and work over the details, something will eventually stand out to me. Maybe something will finally fall into place, make the whole puzzle complete and solved, the mystery gone.

The first time it happened, I was seven years old. My father had dropped me off at my ballet lesson, in the gymnasium at the elementary school, and I remember being nervous because this was the first time he wouldn't be there with me. I was so used to having my father around that I almost felt like I couldn't. . . be safe without him. I probably sound like I was a clingy, annoying child, but honestly I wasn't. Nor was my dad overbearing and overprotective. He was just there for me, always, and I had grown to rely on that, almost depend on it. So when he left me there I panicked – I didn't tell him, of course. How can a seven year old possibly vocalize that kind of fear, that nervousness, without it being an annoying whine, like a cry for attention? I'm sure if I had pleaded with my dad he would've stayed, he was just that kind of guy, but I didn't. I couldn't. I just sat there in silence as he let me out of the car and told me he'd be back in time to pick me up. I didn't even look at him as he said goodbye and waited for me to get inside before driving off – I thought I would burst into tears if I saw him leave me.

My ballet instructor, all I remember is her name: Madam Sybill. I can't remember what she looks like – which kinda scares me, but I guess the memory got crowded out because of this particular day and what happened. Anyone's bound to forget so small a detail as a stranger's face if they went through what I did. But there I go again, being cryptic. . . Sorry. I walked inside the gymnasium and I felt so small, so helpless. The other girls were there, positioned in a semi circle in the center of the room, with Madam Sybill in the middle of them, instructing them how to hold out their arms and clench their legs. A few other girls were straggling in the corner, adjusting their slippers or letting their mothers tend to their hair. This only made me feel worse at the time, because my dad wasn't here, and because my mom. . . I never really knew her. Dad said that she died when I was born, that she was ill, but she managed to save her strength to give me to him and that I was her last, great gift. Dad called me his miracle, but really, if that's true (which I doubt now, knowing what I do) I'd say she was the miracle, being able to have a child when she knew she'd be dead, that the strain of labor might kill her. I didn't think of this at the time – how could I? I was seven – but I felt a part of it, and I only wanted my dad to be near me all the more. I felt sick. I'm sure I looked it, because one of the mothers turned to me and asked if I was all right. She said she'd take me to the bathroom if I needed it, but I told her I'd be fine by myself. I didn't want this stranger near me, I didn't want somebody else's mother. I wanted my father.

So I headed off to the bathroom by myself. It was down the hall from the gym, and I remember feeling scared and a little freaked out by how quiet the school was. It was like I'd walked into a completely different place once I'd opened the gym doors: there was nobody around, not even a janitor. I knew the way to the bathroom so I walked there was quickly as I could, my feet slipping a bit on the tiles. I pushed open the heavy wooden door, only to find that the bathroom was barely lit. Something must have been wrong with the lights, but I didn't have the presence of mind to think that at the time – all I thought was that something was wrong, something bad was happening, and it was all because my dad had left me – and that made me angry. I think I started crying, then – at least, I remember feeling the same tightness in my chest I always feel when I'm angry and want to cry, like something was squirming inside, itching to burst out, but all that emerged was something like a squeal. This only scared me more, before I realized that I was the one making the noise and of course that didn't help. It just made it worse.

The lights flickered, some of them dying out completely. The bathroom was mostly shadow and strangely damp. I didn't know where all the water came from – there were some puddles on the floor, as if a sink or a toilet had overflowed, and the mirrors seemed dirty, like they could've used a good shot of Windex. I remember walking over to one of them, even though I hate looking in mirrors, and I was surprised to see how scared I looked. My face, always pale, was shining like a beacon in the dark room. I could barely see my hair, it blended in with the shadows. This was a pretty creepy effect, as it made it seem like all I was was a floating head in all this black space, with wide saucers for eyes that were dribbling tears.

I remember speaking to my reflection. I don't know why I bothered, I didn't think it'd do anything, but I was so desperate, so eager to see my father again – maybe if I said something, he'd show up. He'd open the door and hold out his arms, apologize for making me wait, and we'd head back home and I wouldn't have to worry about Madame Sybill and her stupid Plié, Pas and Glissade commands. Fat chance of that ever happening. So I talked to myself, maybe just to hear a familiar voice, thinking it'd calm me down.

“Daddy, where are you?” I remember asking, and my voice was squeaky, like a mouse. I began to cry in earnest then, full fledged sobs that made me shake and echoed off the bathroom walls, making it seem like a dozen of me's were in the room, crying their eyes out over their missing father. I shut my eyes, screwed up my face and turned away from the mirror: I didn't want to look at myself anymore. I didn't want to stay here. I wanted to go home. So I ran to the door, and I pulled on the handle.

But the handle didn't move. Someone must've locked it – I thought, maybe, they didn't realize I was in here, the janitor was closing up for the night and just locked it because he didn't think there'd be some stupid ballerina in here crying because her daddy had to go to a meeting about his new book instead of stay here while his daughter pranced about the gym in a tutu. I remember pulling hard, with all my might, at the giant silver handle but it didn't budge. I screamed, I cried, I did both, I'm sure, and pounded my fists against the door. I hurled my shoulder into it, but the door barely trembled. I remember asking for help, for Madam Sybill, for daddy, for anybody to come find me and get me out of here, but nobody heard me. This only made it worse. I tugged harder, I pounded, I scratched until some of my fingernails tore and finally I remember sinking to the floor, sobbing, feeling like I could die here and no one would be any the wiser.

And then I heard something. Behind me, the sound of a valve turning. It was a high, splitting squeak, louder than the sounds I was making, somehow, and I remember that it shut me up quickly. Maybe I wasn't alone in the bathroom after all – maybe something else was locked in here, with me. That wasn't much of a comfort, though. I turned around, but I didn't see anything – I couldn't, it was too dark. No light was shining through the windows, though it had been midday when my dad dropped me off. It was like a heavy blanket had fallen over this room, with me trapped inside it, and there I was, hurtling through the unknown, detached from the world. This feeling never faded, even as I got older; each time this. . . thing happened, I'd feel like I was barely connected to the world I knew, like the cord was flimsy, weak at best, and could easily snap and leave me floating in this nothingness, in this nightmare, in this. . . Otherside.

I stood up and walked a little closer to the source of the sound – still I couldn't make out anything. The squeak kept happening, with a pause for a second, as much time as it takes a hand to move back to its original position and start turning again. I passed by the first mirror, the second, and came to a stop before the third – I knew I was running out of space, that the only thing in front of me now would be a wall, a solid wall, with nothing else to it. I shivered, suddenly it had gotten so cold – how could it be this cold?

A flicker of movement from my left caught my attention, so I turned to it – it was the mirror again. I looked back at myself for only an instant, because as soon as I turned my head my reflection disappeared. It became something else.

It was another girl, about my age, with my same features – at least, I think we looked alike. Honestly it was hard to tell because she was. . . burned. She was horribly disfigured, like an accident victim. Her skin was blotchy with scabs, with puss and sores, with heavy, horrible burns. She looked like a hotdog left on the burner too long, patches of flesh sticking out painfully from all the wounds. Her eyes – she had my eyes. How were her eyes unharmed? The rest of her was – her hair was all gone, even her eyebrows. Her lips were puckered, swollen, her nose. . . I couldn't see if she had a nose. Her face was so dark, and the room was full of shadows. But her eyes, they were bright, they were wide, and they were mine.

She pointed at me, but I didn't move. I didn't point – how could a reflection look like someone else, do things you didn't do? She pointed at me and I thought she would scream, that she would start talking to me, accuse me of. . . I don't know, I don't know how I knew this, or felt, it but I couldn't make any sense of it. I can't even make sense of it now, and it's been ten years. She lifted her other hand, and then I realized that she was pressing her hands against the glass, against her side of the mirror. Her palms were as black as the rest of her, and the movement made her skin crack and bleed afresh. I saw the blood press into the glass, trickle down it like tears – and I saw it hit the sink at the bottom of the mirror, and roll into the basin.

That's when I started screaming again, because there was no way I could've seen that. The blood was coming out from my side.

I don't know how long I was screaming for. Everything went dark then – the lights could've turned out, I could've shut my eyes, or the terror of it all could've made me black out, I'm not sure. All I remember was hearing my own voice, screaming, wailing, calling out for my dad over and over again, but I couldn't see a thing. I thought I'd finally gotten lost in that nothingness, in the Otherside, that the girl in the reflection had pulled me across somehow and I'd be trapped forever – but I wasn't. I don't know how, but I got out.

I remember coming to – I didn't “wake up” so much as light and sight and sounds rushed back to me with all the force of a stampeding rhino – back in the gym, still screaming my head off, crouched down in the corner near an exposed pipe. I don't know why it was there, and I can't remember how I got there – none of the mother's knew, either, because they started screaming, too, and turned to stare at me, horrified.

“She came out of nowhere!” they said.

“We didn't see her come in!” they said.

“I want my daddy!” I said, and Madam Sybill called to have him come get me.

My dad didn't say anything to me on the car ride home. He'd spoken, briefly, with the mothers, with Madam Sybill, to try and understand just what the hell happened that made his daughter freak out and huddle down in the backseat of the car, not speaking and jumping at the slightest sound. They couldn't explain it, they all said I'd been there one minute, gone the next, and back again, as if I popped out of thin air. His lips were tight, like a grimace, when he came back to the car and drove me home. We drove in silence. He didn't even look at me in the rear-view mirror, just kept his eyes on the road and his mouth shut for the time it took us to pull up at our house.

When we got inside, he drew a warm bath for me and told me to clean up. I remember crying again, softer this time, begging him to stay with me like he used to do – but he told me I was getting too old for that now. That I could manage to take care of myself, or at least clean myself. I remember this shut me up rather fast because it was the first time I could remember my father ever being the least bit mean to me, ever outright denying me his presence and comfort. He didn't even look at me – his face was like stone. He seemed angry – of course, now I know better. Back then I thought he was just mad that I made it happen, that he was punishing me for what I did, and that I'd just have to deal with his stony silence until it blew over and I was his precious little girl again, his miracle. Now I know that he wasn't mad – he was frightened, like he was expecting it to happen all along.

And it did happen again. It kept happening, sometimes worse, sometimes not as bad, and eventually I figured out a way to handle it. Not “deal,” because I sure as hell didn't know of a way to deal with something like this. Mostly my handling strategy consisted of me crouching in a corner, a safe corner, away from sights and sounds and light, shutting my eyes tight and thinking of my dad. I can't say that I prayed for him, as I was never particularly religious nor was I raised that way, but I guess it could be seen as the same thing. I thought of his face, his smile, his laugh; I thought of his arms and how strong they were, how they could lift me up and carry me away from anything, how they could hold me and protect me from any fright, any terror; I thought of how he called me his miracle, I thought of how much he loved me, and I simply waited for it to pass. It always did. I'd come to in a matter of minutes, though it certainly felt longer, and I'd collect my bearings, calm myself down, and go back to wherever I had first been, hoping no one had noticed that I'd gone missing, and that they wouldn't ask why I looked like I'd seen a ghost. Or a girl in a mirror that shouldn't have been there – because she was always there, whenever a mirror was around and I was stupid enough to look into it. She never left, and she never got any better, either. She stilled remained burned, bloody, and horribly marred – but she got older as I got older.

So, the same thing has been happening now – only it's worse, it's happening more often, getting longer every time. It gets to the point where I don't know if I can even leave my room for fear that I'll turn a corner and end up somewhere completely different, end up completely cut off from the world I knew, and I just can't bear the thought of that. My dad, of course, thought I had some kind of anxiety disorder and he told the shrink this – so they prescribed some Klonopin and called it a day, told me to check back with them if I had any problems. I already had problems, but they didn't care about that.

I don't know if I want to take it – I haven't been taking it, because I hate the idea of medication and allowing myself to depend on it to function, because I sure as hell should be able to function just fine on my own, but I'm starting to wonder, lately, if I should give it a try. Maybe it'd help – I mean, it's worth a shot, right?

I just needed some convincing. I wasn't about to do it for no good reason. I kinda felt like if I took it and just sat around the house, it'd be a total waste. What was the use, then? Luckily – I guess it was luck – my dad asked me to run an errand for him the day after that. Said that he would be busy waiting for a call from his editor, that he had to take it and couldn't miss it, and he insisted that I go out and pick it up for him. Looking back, maybe this was his way of pushing me out of the apartment, of making me test out the medication (of which I suspected he knew I wasn't taking) or at least to get me out of his hair for a little bit. I wasn't exactly the best of company, cooped up and terrified as I was. Figuring this was some sort of sign that I should give Klonopin a whirl, I took the pill and told dad I'd pick up what he needed at the Mall.

Now, I wish I hadn't taken the damn thing and just stayed at home, locked in my room, under the covers, because maybe if I had none of this shit would have happened. Maybe if I had, my dad would still be alive.