Awakening
Who: Henry and [Mary, OPEN]
What: Awakening
Where: Starting inside Jack's Inn, ending just inside the entrance to Rosewater Park.
Status: Unfinished
Rating: PG (for mild language)

Henry opened his eyes. He was lying across a bed, with all his clothes on including his shoes. Such awakenings had become a familiar, if always uncomfortable, occurrence for him. The rest of the scenario, however, was not so familiar.

"What the hell...?"

Henry sat up slowly, hands fisting into the bedclothes as if needing the sensation to confirm the reality before him. This was not his bed, not his room... yet it still seemed strangely recognizable to him. Where was he?

The space was dim, but even so it didn't take much looking to answer that one. Ugly, cheerless wallpaper and cheap, shabby carpet hugged the interior surfaces of the room, in a selection of colors nobody wanted in their home but that minimized the appearance of stains. Then there were the painfully mundane watercolor paintings by artists who would never be remembered for their work because it lacked all originality. The paintings took up space on the wall at conventional intervals merely because something had to, their presence obligatory rather than personalizing. Or perhaps they were there because looking at them bored you to sleep. Rather than striking any chord in the soul, they were like persistent background noise, something meant not to be noticed but that would drive you crazy if you did.

Then the completely nondescript furnishings, meeting the minimum requirement of what a person might need in a day: desk, chair, table, nightstand. Every piece was of a bland style that said nothing about anything, with the old, turn-dial TV also more an obligatory gesture than an attempt at including creature comfort. Well, to be fair, this could have been some dwelling of his own, except for the choice in wall art. Though he might have a decent eye for the picturesque, Henry admitted he had no style for interior decorating. He'd gotten his last apartment fully furnished, with much the same nondescript sorts of furniture, and he'd been happy with it. Less to own meant less to worry about moving when the time came, and he'd felt no need to personalize the decor. Still here it was almost as if the lack of a style was the style itself, one that aimed to look like it was no particular style at all. Every indication screamed it at a single glance: a motel.

It could have been one of any number of shoddy little motels in any town in the world, but Henry only had to recognize it for that to know precisely which one it was. He wasn't one to spend much time in motels... even cheap ones were still too expensive on his budget. But he remembered a time he had stayed overnight, and in a room exactly like this one.

What had started as a day trip to Silent Hill had turned into an overnighter when he had become so caught up in photographing the beauty of the nearby lake that it had been too late to make it home the same day. He had wanted just the right light for his photos, and it had seemed worthwhile at the time. In fact, he remembered having really enjoyed his stay.

Of course, any memory of Silent Hill had different meaning now, didn't it? He stood, and crossed to the window. The drapes open, the thick fog that churned outside of the windows confirmed it beyond his ability to deny, even if his recognition of the room had not. There was no avoiding it. He was in Silent Hill.

He wasn't entirely sure how he'd gotten here, but that too was familiar by now. Still, he sensed one thing with certainty; Silent Hill meant he wasn't free.

He'd failed, somehow.

The last thing he remembered? A burning, throbbing, pulsing pain inside his skull, excruciating... as if the stingers of ten thousand wasps were pulverizing his brain into jelly while it simultaneously hemorrhaged itself apart. It had been far worse than his other headaches, which he'd learned to struggle through with a grimace and eyes half-squinted shut against the pain. This one had made him cry out. It had dropped him to his knees like a blow.

He wanted to pretend that wasn't real... wanted it badly. Except it wouldn't help anything. Anyway, he knew better. There had been too much finality in the darkness that had claimed him last for him to imagine that this was just one more crazy journey connected to the rest. Or that he was still alive and well, even if he felt like he was. No, something was different now, and he knew that he wouldn't be waking up back in "reality" again. Still, at least he wasn't in pain. For the moment.

He glanced out the window, and then took a good look around the motel room, which was mind-numbingly unexciting. On the other hand, it was seemingly safe. He could stay here... and stew, alone with thoughts he didn't want to think and memories he didn't want to recall. Just waiting to see what Silent Hill had in store for him.

No. Bad idea. He'd go crazy, assuming he hadn't already. Besides, it just wasn't like him. Even after all he'd been through, he would rather face something new than be trapped alone with memories, forced to feel whatever they brought. Guilt. Anger. Despair. No, he wanted to get out of here and do something that he could at least pretend was proactive and useful.

He tried the door, and found it easily opened. As the handle turned in his grasp, he felt a tension in him release that he hadn't been aware of. Being trapped in one place again was the last thing he wanted. He took a last look at the room behind him; still uninteresting and not somewhere he wanted to be. But he supposed it might be a good place to come back to later when he needed to rest. If he needed to rest.

Well, sooner or later he'd find out the hard way. Story of his life, he supposed. Henry pulled the door open, and stepped out into the fog; he was only able to see a few feet ahead of him, but he cautiously made his way down the exterior stairs and out to the street.

Nathan Avenue, if he remembered correctly - he'd once walked for what must have been miles along the side of this street as it curved around the lake up toward the central part of the town. He'd been looking for a good place to shoot photos at and the far side of the lake had been better for that. The lake, and that park where the lookout was... they weren't far from here, pretty much just across the street, as he remembers it.

Maybe he should start looking for weapons or supplies first - the various other buildings here might be better for that. But however irrationally, he wanted to see the lake. Would it be like the lake he remembered from his trip, or would it be instead a dark thing, scintillating ominously like a huge predator lying in wait along the deepest part of the valley floor, as it had when last he'd stood overlooking it at the edge of that strange, otherworldly forest?

Henry crossed Nathan Avenue and headed into the park, making his way between the mist-laced hedgerows toward the lake.