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love never takes, but i've seen it take everything

Summary:

Silent Hill recently gained another legend tied to Toluca Lake.

(Or: an article from the Silent Hill Gazette about James and Mary after the In Water ending)

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Work Text:

THE SILENT HILL GAZETTE

September 6, 19██


Silent Hill recently gained another legend tied to Toluca Lake.

Since one month ago, a few witnesses have claimed that they saw two figures on the lake’s surface. One of them is a man who looked to be in his late twenties. Some reported seeing him slowly walk along the water, his head turning here and there, his gaze wandering. The other is a woman of the same age with the same sort of mannerisms. Splotches and scars were scattered across her skin.

Accounts of them only occurred on foggy days, sunsets, or pitch-black nights. Every single part of them was drenched in water, from their hair to their clothes. Moss clung to the pair’s tattered clothing—the man’s green coat and the woman’s faded brown jumper—as if they had crawled out of the lake itself. Others even said that their eyes were milky white, akin to the haze that would overrun the town in the fall. 

Their faces held unease and dread, no sound coming from their mouths as they’d call out into the air. At the sight of them, one could sometimes hear distant disjointed echoes just over the waves, something caught between a wail and a whisper. But just like their figures, they would fade away before long.

Most notably, no one has ever seen the two together. Their apparitions tread in such random patterns that one would expect them to eventually meet, but they never do. Some residents surmise that they’re searching for each other. Perhaps they had loved each other in a past life, but by some cruel fate, had been cursed to never cross paths in the next. Perhaps that was the reason for their drowning, for their confusion and sorrow.

To this day, no one knows who these two souls were, nor if they’ll ever find each other. It’s still debated whether seeing them brings luck or misfortune. Some consider the two as a bad omen, the sign of a breakup or the end of a relationship. Others, however, believe the opposite, regarding them as a symbol of hope undying. A sign that a partner’s devotion is strong enough to persist even after death.

Whatever the case, Toluca Lake has always been a special place for lovers.

Notes:

Wanted to try something new; I tried to make it read like a news article but I originally wrote it as a straight narrative. A lot of the nuances and details about the In Water ending were left out because this is written from the perspective of a local reporter, someone who doesn't know anything about what really happened.

Something about James and Mary searching for each other, even after death, just gets me right in the feels. owch.