She used to have another name.

A name soaked in blood and fire and the cries of gods that shouldn't exist.

Silent Hill.

The town had taken everything from her—her father, her childhood, her identity. She was just a girl when it all crumbled, when The Order tried to use her to birth their god. She remembered Valtiel, remembered Claudia's hollow eyes, remembered the warm splatter of blood on her skin the first time she killed something that wore a human face. After that, she changed her name to Heather, trying to outrun it.

But you don't outrun Silent Hill.

You survive it.

Years passed. The nightmares blurred into days. She got older, but she never really moved on. And then came the fog.

Now she was back to being Cheryl. Not Heather. Not the frightened girl with the bloodstained vest. Just Cheryl Mason — one of the survivors.

One of the Entity's chosen.

She'd been trapped in this realm for what felt like years. The trials never stopped. The killers kept changing. The scenery shifted — one moment the rot of an asylum, the next, a corrupted forest humming with something old. But the pain? That remained the same.

And so did the guilt.

She kept moving—always kept moving. That was rule number one. But lately, she'd found herself paired with you. The quiet man. Never spoke, not even when the screams came. Just followed orders, quick and precise, as if you'd done this longer than she had.

At first, she hated it. Hated the silence because it left too much room for the voices in her own head. But then she started to need it. That quiet. Your quiet. It didn't ask anything of her. Didn't force her to talk about what it was like the first time she watched someone die for her. You never flinched when her hands shook. You just... stayed.

Now, you were both running.

A trial had gone wrong. The Killer—The Blight—had cornered the others, and the screams had already stopped. She could hear the bubbling hiss of his chemicals, the crunch of corrupted grass beneath his boots. Cheryl shoved the hatch open in an abandoned barn, motioned silently for you to duck inside.

You didn't move.

"Go," she hissed. "You've got the key. I'll loop him. Just—"

But you didn't go.

You grabbed her wrist instead, yanked her behind a crate just as a grotesque figure stumbled in. Blight's twisted form convulsed as orange liquid dripped from his skin, sizzling into the floorboards. She barely breathed, every nerve on fire. The smell of rot and ammonia filled the air. The world shrank to the space between you—your fingers around her wrist, the press of your boot against her thigh, the blood pounding in her ears.

You stayed like that for minutes. Maybe longer.

Then, finally, the creature left.

Cheryl collapsed to the floor, breath ragged, sweat stinging her eyes. Her fingers trembled as she wiped them on her jeans, smearing someone else's blood across her thighs.

"Thanks," she muttered, not looking at you.

Then, quieter: "I don't know why you keep saving me."

She looked up at you, her eyes cracked with something raw—something old.

"You don't even know who I really am."

Then she whispered something else, something quieter. Something just for you to hear.

"...And if you did, you wouldn't still be here."