Silent Hill: Child of Flames

Chapter 5 The Hidden Room

The room, which was hidden behind a painting, looked like a normal apartment; what's more it wasn't at all like the rest of the building. It was, to put it into a sense, normal.

Just normal.

There were no signs of rust, blood or monsters, just a normal apartment which almost felt extremely jarring after what he had just dealt with. It felt almost like a dream, a horribly twisted sick kind of dream.

Marissa closed the painting and then the door and used a number of locks on the so that no one else could enter. "Make yourself comfortable," she said with an exhausted voice as she went over and sat along the ledge of the windowsill, with it being so dark it was as if someone had painted all the windows over with ink. Even looking outside he couldn't see anything.

Marissa didn't say anything as he walked around but as he went to a room, which the door was closed, Marissa spoke. "Don't go in there. It's fine if you look around but don't trample over my hospitality by going into rooms you shouldn't."

"That's not my intention." He said softly, but then changed the topic so that he didn't have to deal with the stifling silence or strange sounds that he could hear in the hall from the monsters that wandered about. "That painting, what's it from exactly?"

Marissa remained where she was looking out the window as she answered. "It's a painting of one of the Gods, Xuchilbara also known as the Red God. Why?"

"It's an interesting painting, with the woman but that thing next to her... it's kind of disturbing." He said recalling the image of a beautiful woman in a red dress with the image of some kind of humanoid man creature wearing some strange large rust colored helmet almost in the shape of a pyramid.

Marissa merely shrugged in response. "It's just a painting, it's not like it's going to come to life at all." she paused then frowned. "Although, perhaps it has... for someone else or a number of people. But who's to say for sure..."

Patrick glanced more around the apartment, but his eyes went back to the girl who remained sitting on the window ledge. Taking a shot in the dark he cleared his throat and asked. "What exactly did you do back there?"

She glanced at him, those eerie blue eyes watching him remaining silent.

"That sudden fire, it came out of nowhere... was that... you?"

Again she said nothing, she merely watched him.

"I'm just wondering really, it's alright if you don't tell me."

"You ask a lot of questions." She stated.

"I'm a detective it's my job." When she didn't elaborate he asked again. "So? Where did the fire come from?"

She turned to face him fully. "If I told you, told you about the fire would you believe me? Or pretend that something like that didn't happen even though you saw it."

"I... well; I'm not the type to ignore things. In a place like this, ignoring what you see is rather impossible wouldn't you agree?"

But she wasn't taking the question dodging. "That's not the point, would you believe me if I were to tell you something or not?"

He thought about it for a moment, he didn't know the girl all that well, but she had saved his life twice. There wasn't a reason for him to not trust her, even more with the fact of who she resembled. But then who really knows with a town like this. "Yes," he said. "I would."

Again, she watched him before running a hand through her hair and shaking her head. "You should probably get some sleep, the world will go back to the way it was before but until then you should recover your strength."