Notes: A little thing that wouldn't leave my head after playing Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. I love Silent Hill so much. D: Written: 01/08/2010


Missionary

The knock on the door of the apartment was loud and persistent. He figured it was Heather coming back from her trip to mall. She probably forgot her key again, like she occasionally had done in the past. She also knew her father napped a lot in his chair while he was reading, which is why her knocks were usually like the one he was hearing right now. She always had to wake him up.

He had been asleep in his chair in the middle of the living room, naturally, a book on his lap and his favorite jacket around his shoulders. He wasn't sure if the book he had been reading caused him to have the dream he was having before being disturbed by the knock, or if his brain just seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he was glad whatever it had been wasn't in his head anymore.

All he could remember was that he died in the car crash they had been in together years ago and she, then known as Cheryl, had grown up alone and blaming the world. He could see her in school, unfocused and popular for all the wrong reasons. He could see her at home, alone and depressed. He could see her at the mall, shoplifting and causing trouble. The last thing he saw before he woke up was his little girl in a psychiatrist's office, the man yelling at her about her father and throwing a glass against the wall.

Dr. Kaufmann? Had he been a psychiatrist?

He figured his past was invading his dreams again, much like it always did.

Stopping at the door, he leaned his face forward and peered through the peephole, expecting to see his daughter, now seventeen and blonde. Heather wasn't there though. He saw nothing. There was no one out there. As he stood with his eye to the tiny portal, another strong knock came again. He hesitated for a moment before reaching up and making sure the chain lock was slid into place. Once he knew it was, he set his hand on the doorknob and thought for a brief moment that it might be Heather playing a trick on him.

He could see her doing that.

He opened the door a crack, the chain lock catching and stopping it from swinging wide. He peeked through into the sliver of dim light that came in from the hallway and that was when a blade attached to an appendage met his face and swooped downwards, breaking the chain that held the only thing standing between Harry Mason and death.