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Silence lingered in the air, charged with tension and unsure of where to go. Where was the silence wanted? It didn’t know, but it watched Heather Mason quietly.
Freckles and blemishes decorated Heather’s skin, her blonde hair showing its true brown color at the root, her eyes a little disoriented in the memories of what had happened two days ago. But her hands, busy with a fork and the breakfast, moved unshaken, decided, like unthinkable horrors weren’t flashing before her in her head. She had woken up with no nightmares to shake her, woken up with her diary (or… Cheryl’s?) in her arms, sunlight creeping into her childhood bedroom. The apartment no longer reeked of death, no thumping could be heard, only the clink-clank of Douglas Cartland arranging breakfast as quietly as possible.
Now, they both sat down in front of one another, like a bizarre family picture, just eating in peace. A fractured family with a past unbelievable.
Forks scrapped the chyna, munching sounds echoed in the quiet and empty apartment. A maddening silence that both Douglas and Heather learned to live with in that horrific incident. Ah, there those thoughts were again, squandering a nice breakfast. But those thoughts had a lot to say. They were grotesque, disturbing, it reminded each other of their frail sanity. Amongst the disturbing thoughts, Heather wondered if she was truly alive. It was only sane to question, Silent Hill was (or, is) a peculiar place to be in and a lot of people had never come back from its powerful grip. She wondered, wondered, wondered and could not find an answer to her mystery.
Harry got out with her in his arms, he lived and existed as far as Heather could tell -- his books, a small, local success, could be seen in libraries, the funeral was full of people who loved him just like her.
But… she still questioned it. Mostly, she questioned for herself and Douglas, because there was no doubt Harry lived. He just never told his tale.
His tale...
She looked at Douglas while he was distracted, noticing that same stoic face she had on. He, too, wondered if he was truly alive. At the same time, he probably reminisced of his own sins, his past. Nothing to be done about that now, but Heather wondered what he had seen in his own personal hell. Giving it more thought, she didn’t want to know.
Instead, she only knew her story.
Her own story…
The whole incident remained unmentioned for them, save for a few moments where Heather broke the silence about some bits and pieces, which Douglas could relate to -- all with quiet compassion and unsure words of reassurance. Most of the time they just glanced at each other, like understanding each other’s mourning process and recovery, nodding to say it was okay. A father-daughter connection that was just as bizarre as the incident itself.
Let’s not kid ourselves, it was more of a shared trauma than a connection, but it was the base for a true friendship to bloom.
Either way, with breakfast finished, Heather got up unceremoniously.
“Thank you for the breakfast, Douglas,” she said quietly, heart lightly poured on the sentence. “I’ll be… by the typewriter.”
Douglas looked up, only a glimpse of surprise flashing in his tired eyes. He hadn’t heard her say anything like this, and it was far sooner than he expected. “Are you sure?”
Heather nodded with the faintest hint of a smile. “I’ll be fine.”
It was going to happen one day, wasn’t it?
With that reassurance, Douglas had that vague smile on his face as well. Was it a sad one? Was it coated with worry? Heather could not tell, but neither could Douglas. It was becoming a thing with the two of them to be unable to tell what their own faces were saying, for their emotions were an endless turmoil of confusion.
“Okay.”
Nothing more needed to be said, they understood each other perfectly.
Heather walked away to her bedroom, braving herself to relive a nightmare. However, this time she had good reasons to. Instantly, her eyes were glued to the typewriter and the diary sitting quietly (yet, strangely ominously) next to it. Never in her life she would think that she would follow in her father’s footsteps as a writer. Never in her life she thought she would sit before the typewriter, glancing at her father’s most trusted possession.
Never in her life did she think that she would continue his legacy in the world of literature, no matter how local her contribution to it might be.
But while Harry never spoke about his own incident to anyone (not even Cheryl--er, Heather), Heather was going to.
Her fingers only pressed a key hesitant at first, then everything else flowed like a natural current, undisturbed and unstopping. Something had been unleashed, and Heather simply made sure to have a lot of paper around for this stream of consciousness that could not be stopped.
It should not be stopped, no matter how long it took.
She had to say something.
Douglas sat by the table way after breakfast was finished, merely daydreaming and thinking of what his brain couldn’t stop thinking about. The thick silence of the apartment was broken when he could only hear the furious clacking of a typewriter coming from Heather’s room. It was like a current, so precise and timed, then that characteristic DING! bounced off the walls spectacularly. It was telling, something had switched on Heather, but Douglas wasn’t certain if this was a good thing or a bad thing. He merely looked at the closed door, wondering. He knew what she was writing, and he was curious to hear what she had gone through.
What he was wondering was something else. He worried, just like a father would.
For madness and genius walked hand in hand.