Chapter 21: Epitaph
Silent Hill's South Cemetery, 4 years later, January 5th
White snowflakes fell from the afternoon sky with a background of grey fog twirling slowly around. About thirty gravestones protruded from the thin carpet of snow concealing the grass. A small church loomed in front of the yard, crows seated on the roof. The cold wind blew the reeds at the gurgling river back and forth.
One of the gravestones closest to the shore had the shortest, but most carefully carved epitaph of them all: "You will live on forever in our hearts".
A name was inscribed at the top: "Sophie Hardt".
The gate opposite the river uttered a shrill clamour for oil as it was pushed open by a 14 years young girl with black hair. She stepped into the cemetary and was followed by her two years younger brother, a kid with black hair, black trousers and a warm jacket over his Bart Simpson t-shirt. He was holding a bouquet of roses and tulips.
They walked across the cemetary and stopped at Sophie's tomb. Like so many other tourists, she had fallen in love with the quiet town during her vacations here several years ago. When she passed away, this had seemed like the right place to let her rest in peace.
Tommy gingerly placed the flowers in front of the gravestone and stood. For a while, he and Amanda stared at the river. Their foster-parents were waiting up at the observation deck – they thought it would be best for the kids if they let them visit their real mother's grave alone. After all, Amanda and Tommy were old enough to look after themselves.
Amanda broke the silence: "Do you ever wonder why she … Hey look, who's that?"
She had noticed a mist-shrouded figure staggering across the cemetary towards the gate she had just opened. It looked like the person was very exhausted or injured.
They hurried off to meet the figure, which turned out to be a 23 years old woman with red hair, a tired face and a small gun clutched in her hands. Her black sweater and blue jeans were torn and blood-spattered. Her countless bruises and sloppily bandaged wounds also revealed that she had recently gotten into a fight with someone, no, something much stronger than her.
She looked like an angel, but definitely a fallen one at the moment.
"Uh, are you okay?" Tommy asked.
The woman looked at the kid's face. "Your eyes … You remind of that guy," she replied.
"The guy who did this to you?" Amanda blurted out.
The woman laughed and looked down at her wounded body. "No, this wasn't done by some guy. It's a long story … Anyway, I'm Daryl Thurman," she said and held out her hand.
"I'm Amanda Hardt," the girl said and shook hands with the surprised stranger.
"Hardt? So, you must be Matt's …" Daryl's eyes widened. "What a coincidence!"
"Err … Do you know our dad?" Tommy asked.
"Yeah, I, uh, I met him back in the town some years ago," Daryl said. "Do you know where he is now?"
Undying memories cast shadows over the faces of the kids. Tommy replied tersely: "Yes … In wing C-4 of the Penobscot Hospital for the Criminally Insane."
"Oh … I'm sorry. Well, if you get to visit him sometime, show him this," Daryl said, pulled out a small red object and handed it to Tommy. "Tell him that I got out. Tell him I'm leaving town."
Tommy and Amanda were already busy examining the scarlet object. "It's just a radio," Amanda stated. They soon found a normal station, which was only slightly disrupted by white noise once in a while. A male reporter was speaking:
"… continues to puzzle the guards at Penobscot Hospital. I'm standing here with director Humbert Chilton. Dr. Chilton, can you tell us more about this fugitive and how he seems to have escaped?"
The radio started emitting the director's hoarse voice:
"Well, I wouldn't exactly say that Mr. Hardt "escaped". It's rather as if he disappeared into thin air. We simply cannot understand how he could possible have vanished from his cell last night, but nevertheless, that's what has happened."
The reporter's voice returned: "I've been informed that you found something strange on the floor of the cell. Could you elaborate on this?"
Dr. Chilton replied: "Yes, that would be the large red symbol he appears to have drawn with one of the crayons we supplied for his sketches. Mr. Hardt would draw a lot, usually pictures of odd creatures he claimed to have encountered in the real world. But back to the symbol: Very detailed, it actually fills the entire floor of the cell, and basically looks like a big triangle inside two circles …"
Tommy turned it off and looked up from the radio, but Daryl had already walked away and disappeared in the fog.
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Last A/N: That's it! The End. Fin. Hope you all liked the ending – I had a lot of other ideas, like letting Matt commit suicide (but I thought it wouldn't be fitting for his character, and besides, it would seem too SH2-ish) or letting him escape from the town with Daryl (but it wouldn't have the nice "waking up in the plane" twist). I think the ending I chose was the most fitting and SH-esque, tell me what you all think … Oh, and I won't try to explain what I believe happened when Matt drew the Metatron symbol – that one's for the reader's imagination. Anyway, here's a list of the 11 geek-ish references I managed to stuff into this story:
1. Matt Hardt: A combination of the names of two SH3 voice actors, Matt Lagan and Lenne Hardt.
2. "Phantoms" by Dean Koontz is mentioned a few times in this story. It's a fairly creepy, SH-ish book, check it out if you need some real horror …
3. Stu Matheson: Stu is a character in Phantoms. Mike Matheson is another SH3 voice actor.
4. Carpenter Library – John Carpenter. Nuff said.
5. Daryl Thurman: Daryl Hannah and Uma Thurman are actresses in the Kill Bill movies, which are about revenge. And we all know why Daryl went to Silent Hill by now …
6. Cerberus: Famous hellhound from ancient mythology.
7. "Truth may seem, but cannot be; Beauty brag, but 't is not she; Truth and beauty buried be" is from a poem called "The Phoenix and the Turtle" by Shakespeare.
8. The paintings from the sin and virtue puzzles are basically ripped off from old Western art (as Wrath pointed out).
9. Amamet: a nasty creature from Egyptian mythology. In the afterlife, it eats the souls of the sinners …
10. Stepford Day Care Center: The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin is one of the creepiest books I have ever read. Haven't seen the new movie yet, though.
11. Dr. Chilton, the hospital director: Anyone who has seen/read Silence of the Lambs recently should be smacking hands to foreheads right now.
The rest of the names are just random words that jumped into my mind when Matt encountered the characters for the first time. By the way, remember that door in the day care center with "The Only Door that lEAds To Holy redemption" written on it? Try putting all those capital letters together.
Thanks to Jack Tresidder for writing "Symbols and their meanings", which I really ripped off for the painting puzzles and the part where Matt read about swords' symbolism. Thanks to Akira Yamoka for the Silent Hill soundtracks and Massive Attack for 100th Window, I listened to these CD's a lot while writing Family. Thanks to Konami for creating the wonderful world of Silent Hill and to this awesome fanfic-site (for the obvious reasons). Finally, thanks to my reviewers for your advice and encouragement. Thank you all so very, very much for reading this. It's my first fic around here and probably won't be my last, so tune in again when I have come up with another story … –E.P.O.