Silent Hill 3: The Fourth Wall, or Heather's Worst Day Ever

Chapter 1: The Mall

I sat up groggily from the table and slowly shook my head.

"What a nightmare."

Good, an Extra New Game, I thought. If I have to get splattered by that roller coaster one more time...

I turned to gaze at the glowing window blinds, and stood up from my seat. My hands automatically began to tuck the Aglaophotis locket out of sight, the same way they had a countless number of times. I went to leave the empty restaurant, ignoring the looping audio of bustling people and cars outside as I approached the sliding glass doors. I loaded out into the bright Mall area and made a sharp left, then walked confidently up to the payphone alcove so Douglas could sneak up on me.

"Dad. It's m—"

What the hell?

I thought I heard some kind of weird trip-hop music coming through the phone speaker. I held out the handset for a moment and stared at it.

"Dad...?"

"Yeah," a thin voice said, buzzing with white noise. "Hold... Can you... ...it down?"

The volume lowered only slightly. It was really clashing with the background music.

"Dad, this isn't in the script," I said, ducking down and keeping my voice hushed as Douglas approached.

"I know, it's just… ...aliens. ...they going... ...the Reven... ending this run?" He didn't sound very alienish to me, and I could barely understand what he was saying.

"No, I don't think so," I whispered. "Is James there?"

"Haven't seen..." He got cut off for a second in a burst of rising static. "About that ending..."

"I'm feeling like they might go Possessed on this one," I said.

"No, no," came an exasperated reply. "Try... ...ing for Normal and we'll... ...what happens."

He sounds so weird without his alien voice.

I guess I was starting to feel paranoid.

"Okay, I'll try," I said. "Promise you'll be dead when I get home?"

"No problem," he answered hurriedly. "Let me... ...ese aliens out. See you later."

I frowned a little and leaned in closer to the partition. "Aren't you forgetting something?"

"Am I? Oh right, don't talk to strangers, see you in a few." The line fell quiet with an abrupt click.

"Okay, I will... I love you too, Dad," I told the dead line, if only to keep the flow going. I quickly hung up and turned to face Douglas.

"That was weird..." he said, glancing at the phone. Then his eyebrows furrowed. "What took so long?"

I shrugged at him.

"Wait..." He sighed. "Hold on." He loosened his tie and started to unbutton his shirt.

I took a cautious step back. "What are you doing?"

"They put the code in, but something went wrong," he answered. "I'll be ready in a minute."

I shuddered and left him there, heading in the direction of the restrooms, but I'd missed all of my cues and had been seriously thrown off. To make matters worse, the soundtrack had begun to skip like a broken record.

This is all going to hell.

I turned to call back to Douglas who wasn't following closely at all. "Are you still following me? Do I have to scream?"

He was standing by the corner of the hall, facing the other way and still fumbling with his clothes. He said something that I didn't catch. His voice wasn't the kind that carried very far, and the music wasn't helping.

I rolled my eyes. "Not interested." I went ahead and pushed open the door to the ladies' room.

The player took control. I was quick-turned to check the bathroom door five times through vigorous button mashing. That weird old detective is out there, so I'm not leaving, I thought repetitively, before spinning back around. I walked forward and side-stepped to face the three mirrors. Then I stood there.

For two. Damn. Hours.

They hadn't hit the pause button.

The broken music skipped on. I cycled through my frustrated idle animation about a hundred times, all the while praying for a power outage... or for their console to overheat and catch on fire.

The door creaked open. I darted my eyes sideways to see that Claudia had come in. "What gives?" she mouthed silently, showing a pulled sleeve and tapping a small wristwatch, which I'd never noticed before.

I shrugged and gave up on the player; I could move myself now. "All I know is there's something really screwy going on with this game, and I don't like it," I said, shifting back and forth on my tired feet.

She rested back against the closed door and nodded thoughtfully. "What do you suppose is happening?"

I crossed my arms with a heavy sigh. "No idea. Too bad I can't ask Dad if anything like this ever happened in his old game..."

"Maybe I should hold off for a minute so you can talk to him," she said. I stared dumbfounded while she fished through her pockets and lit up a cigarette.

I blinked. "Uhh... it's okay, don't. He said we should just stick to the plan." I had a sudden urge to get going, and ran around the room in circles a few times.

"Player's back."

"Oh good," she said, flicking away her cancer stick and crushing it beneath her bare foot. "See you in a little while." She pulled open the door and made a swift exit.

Finally.

I squeezed through the bathroom window and dropped down into the back alley. I ran over to the pile of junk nearby and was made to investigate it. The road is blocked with empty boxes and stuff. I can't get through. I turned around and saw the white van blocking the other way out as usual. The person controlling me (an easily distracted type, clearly) opened the menu and ran through my unlocked costumes. They selected the Transform Wand to change me into my Princess Heart ego, and after the pink sparkly animation had completed, I was relieved to find that it had somehow fixed the torturous skipping soundtrack. I sprinted to the door up ahead. Once in the building, they started switching out my outfits again. I glanced down at the rapid costume changes. After a few minutes they set me back to the default clothing choice. I stood in the hall for a while unpaused, but they soon returned and we continued.

I turned left at first, but they must have remembered the game from last time. I made the correct right turn and passed through the door at the end of the hall. Things seemed to be returning to normal. The patterned floor tiles had their mysterious stains, and the creepy muffled loudspeaker sound effects were playing overhead. I ran down to the half-open shutter and ducked under it to get into the clothing store.

I loaded in and waited...

I waited some more.

Nothing was happening.

"What now...?" I groaned and looked around. The Closer was missing. I crouched to scoop up the handgun from the floor, then turned to Angela's recycled character model lying nearby, unusually clean without her blood puddle and splatters. "How can you be dead if there's no monster?" I demanded.

She opened one eye and turned her head.

"Oh... they didn't give you a voice, did they?"

The model shook her head and moved it back into position.

Strange.

"Didn't mean to bother you," I said, and moved behind the counter to get to the exit.

Gah, you forgot the ammo over there! I turned my head to gaze at it longingly, but the player went for the next hallway's door. I ran forward and made a left around the corner to pick up the Central Square Shopping Center map from the wall, and stayed frozen on the map view screen for at least five more minutes.

I raised my arm and stared at my useless watch, growing impatient again.

At last, I ran to unlock the nearby door and entered the looping hallway. At least the Double Heads had bothered to show up, because two of them were patrolling the hall. The player made me fire several shots at them but their aim was terrible. I emptied my gun into the wall, then fled down the hallway to the next door.

Now we were back in the 'dirty floor' part of the Mall. I ran up and once again crouched to get under the partly open shutter. The player noticed the boxes of ammo this time; maybe we wouldn't have to resort to the knife after all. I went through the door behind the counter, took a left turn to the Exit door, and hurried up the staircase.

We passed through the next hallway, checking every broken locked doorknob on the way, and eventually found the room with the Double Head chowing down on one of the permanent monster baits. Instead of killing it, they quick-turned me and left immediately.

I made it into the room with the key hidden under the crates and stared off into space while the player saved their game.

Great, so they're actually gonna keep it.

They skipped past picking up any of the items that were sitting on the shelf nearby and exited through the door again. Back out in the hall, I examined and collected the beam saber disguised as a door handle, then jogged over to the No Smoking door. Through there and out on the second floor platform, I sprinted past three Closers rather than the usual two.

Waitaminute...

I turned back on my own for a double take, and it only confirmed my suspicions. The Closer meandering around on the left side looked oddly familiar. I wrestled for control over my own legs and stomped up to it. "Why weren't you in the clothing store?"

The Closer shrugged its huge beefy arms, incapable of speaking for itself.

I shot it a look before I was forced back toward Helen's Bakery. I made a dash for the inside and slammed the door shut, leaving the other two Closers in the dust.

I must have been seeing things.

"Vincent...?"

There he was, sitting up on the counter beside the cash register. I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the impossible image stayed.

"Hiya, Heather," he said, waving his right hand. The other was holding on to a half-eaten donut. "What took you so long?"

"Do you know where you are?" I asked, equally confused and annoyed. "We're in the Mall." I grasped his sleeve and pulled him down off the countertop. "And you're sitting on my flamethrower."

He straightened up and dusted some powdered sugar off his front. "Of course I know where we are. I just felt like doing a little exploring today... is that so wrong?" He had an unnerving sneer on his face, but it was perfectly in-character, so it fit him well. "Anyway. I brought you something."

"What?" I sighed, looking down and around the counter for the missing flamethrower. The flyer on top read Crispy toasted Dead, but the item had mysteriously vanished.

I peered back at him suspiciously. "Did you take my—"

"No, no," he interrupted, and his tone had started to go all whiny. "Don't you wanna know what I have for you?"

"What is it?" I grumbled, turning to face him.

"Just take this." He took my wrist and pressed a smooth, black flat-shaped object into my hand.

"What is this...?" I asked, turning it in my fingers. "A smartphone?"

"Yeah, what do you think?"

"Vincent, have you lost your mind!" I cried. "Put this away!"

"Why?" He held up a second phone. "Look, I'm texting your old man as we speak. We were playing games on them earlier and he got me a couple of times." He grinned and pushed up his glasses. "He's a pretty sneaky guy, you know. And not half as dumb as he looks!"

"Shut your mouth." He was making me angry, and he should have known better.

I laid the phone down on the counter and backed away, wringing my hands. "These things are gonna screw up the game. How can they be here? They haven't even been invented yet!"

He picked the phone up and slid it into my vest like a reverse pickpocket. "Just take it, what's the worst that could happen? I can even let you know of anything else weird that's going on. Just keep it on you... you don't even have to use it if you don't want to."

"Where did you even get these from? Who made the art?"

"Something bizarre is going on," he said. "I can't wait to see where we go from here. Exciting, isn't it?"

"Doesn't this get to you at all? I feel like I'm going crazy!" I marched across the room and snatched up the tongs, and pointed them at him when I turned back around. "Don't let me catch you around here ever again. I'll see you later, okay?" I went for the door.

He shrugged his arms at me, but the sly grin on his face never faded. "Whatever you say, Heather. You're the boss."

Was that a cutscene? I wondered as I loaded out of the bakery. Then the genius at the controller made me run the long way across the platform until they found the appropriate door. I continued back down the corridor, trying to open every broken locked door (again), and made it back to the key room.

The player tried to use the tongs, found that I wasn't close enough, and scooted me up until I was mashed against the wooden pallet. I got down on my hands and knees and retrieved the key. I rushed back out the door, swerving past the Numb Bodies strutting around just outside. I ran through the door at the end of the hall and made a beeline for My Bestsellers to unlock it.

The screen cleared and I froze. Unbelievably loud music was blaring from some sort of invisible speaker system.

"BLUE SKY TO FOREVER! THE GREEN GRASS BLOWS IN THA WINNND, DAAANNNCIN'!"

I clamped both hands over my ears. It was the game's intro song, and it was way, way too loud. I felt the player leave me again, probably to go mute their TV.

How are we gonna do the Shakespeare puzzle with all this damn racket?

I got down and crawled along the floor, as if it would help me escape the noise somehow, picking up the Shakespeare Anthologies along the way, and stood up in front of the bookshelf.

"SO NOW WHAT SHOULD I DO? I'M STRUNG OUT, ADDICTED TA YOU!"

My ears had had more than enough of Mary Elizabeth Mcglynn's aural assault, and I pulled open the menu. The background music option was still there, but the slide wasn't working. I had a choice between ear-piercingly loud or off. I selected the latter. That's too bad, 'cause I really like Akira's music at a decent volume, I thought. Although it was cool to be able to hear myself think again.

The smartphone beeped in my pocket. I plucked it out and slid my thumb over the screen unlock. I saw that a contacts list had already been set up, and I scrolled through some of the names. Most of the characters in Silent Hill 3 were listed there, as well as several names from other games in the series. Nobody outside of Team Silent's realm, though.

It was Vincent who had texted me:

What was all that noise in there? Having a party w/out me?

I rolled my eyes and hit the side button to turn off the screen. Hell, for all I knew, the phone might have been the cause of it. Perhaps the god was voicing some displeasure. I shoved the thing back down into my pocket, suddenly remembering a certain other game that had featured a phone like this.

Blasphemy, I thought.

The person came back and made me arrange the Anthologies on the bookshelf. I guess it was safe to assume that they probably weren't the brightest crayon in the box, because the Riddle Mode had been set on Easy. A pity, because the puzzles were awesome on Normal and Hard (but maybe it was best to keep this weird game as short as possible). I sprinted over to the keypad to the right of the door.

I entered the number code.

Nada.

I entered it again, in case one of the numbers hadn't taken.

Zip.

We ran back to the shelf to check the numbers again even though I was pretty sure we'd punched them in correctly.

I stood there alone for about twenty minutes. They'd gone AWOL again.

I ran myself back over to the door and mashed the code into the keypad three times. Dammit! I pounded hard on the door and gave it several solid kicks. "Open the hell up!"

I was huffing and puffing as I slid down to a sit against the door. I grumbled and pulled out the phone reluctantly, and started to look through the list of names again. Claudia's contact was listed. Did she have a phone too?

And she's just on the other side. Maybe she can unlock it for me...

I selected Claudia Wolf and pressed the call button curiously. It rang one and a half times before being picked up—surprisingly fast.

"I am Claudia," said a voice on the other end.

"Yeah, I know that already. Listen, I'm on the other side of the door and the code's glitched out or something. Can you just walk up and open it?"

"Oh," she said. "Um... hold, please."

There was a pause.

"Alessa?"

"Yeah, still here. Did you get it?"

"I don't think it works that way," she said, sounding a bit worried.

"What do you mean? Just flip the lock."

"I don't see a lock from this side."

"Damn... How do puzzle doors work anyway?"

"I'm not really sure," she said. "Nothing like this has ever happened before."

"Oh, hold on. I just thought of something. If not, I'll call you back." I hit the red button and ran back outside to the platform.

"Hey," I said, looking up.

The same Closer as before shambled over to me and stood there, swaying slightly. I held it by its large meaty arm thing and guided it through the entrance of the book store.

I pointed over to the keypad door. "Can you get that door open for me? You look strong enough..." I probably should have warned Claudia to move back a bit, but rash decisions were part of my character design, so I just hoped for the best.

The towering monster narrowly made its way past the shelves, swinging its arms as it moved. It stopped behind the counter, reeled back, and SMASHED! the door open in one swift motion, partially ripping it off of its hinges. I walked over to check out the damage, amazed and relieved that my idea had actually worked.

Claudia was thankfully unhurt, and she pulled the door aside as she peeked into the room. "That did it," she said.

"Nice," I told the Closer. I went to high-five it, but of course it had already lumbered away. I went to join Claudia in the elevator hallway.

"I can't believe we haven't even gotten to the Nightmare Mall yet," I said, shaking my head.

Claudia jogged back up to the end of the hall, got into position, and cleared her throat. "They've come to witness the begin—"

"Wait," I interrupted. "They aren't back yet."

I started to space out while we stood waiting for the player for another awkward few minutes. When I looked back at Claudia, I saw that she was leaning back against the bulletin board on the wall to the right. She had taken her phone out again and was messing around on it.

"Did you get that from Vincent?" I asked.

"Mhm," she responded absently. "I never realized how useful these things are. Maybe our game could use more technology..."

I stared at her, incredulous. "What are you saying?"

"Well, it's like... everything we have is so retro. It's kind of sad."

"I can't believe you of all people would say that. It's the style..." I sighed. "And your place is full of candles and stuff... and no TVs."

"True," she said.

I started to wander up and down the corridor impatiently.

"Are they ever coming back?" she asked without looking away from the screen.

"I guess not..." I said, and shrugged. "Maybe we should just go?"

She tucked the phone back into her side pocket, straightened her posture, and moved back into place. "They've come to witness the Beginning. The rebirth of Paradise, unspoiled by mankind."

I took a few steps forward. "What are you talking abou—hey... did you just say 'unspoiled'?"

"Yes, why?"

"It's 'despoiled'. Where are you getting 'unspoiled' from?"

"The script."

"No! Here, let me look it up and show you."

I took the phone out one more time to run a search. When I opened one of the first links, all I found was some weird forum full of people with ridiculous avatars arguing heatedly back and forth. I got out of there quick, and eventually found something worth looking at.

"That's the HD Collection," I told her.

"Oh," she said, looking a little surprised. "I thought that's what this was..."

"No way," I said assuredly. Even if everything had been a disaster earlier, her voice still sounded like Donna Burke's and mine sounded like I could be seventeen. "So it's 'despoiled', okay?"

"I suppose so." She was starting to look bored, not that I could blame her.

"Uh-huh. Now let's go, we've already wasted too much time on this." A nagging worry had started to creep up: that he might get fed up with waiting and actually come looking for me.

She let out a small sigh and glanced back over her left shoulder. "All right..."

"Okay," I said.

"Good luck with everything," she said. She turned and started to make her way up to her secret exit door.

"Yeah, catch you later," I called after her, still slightly irritated.

HD Collection... are you for real? I shuddered at the thought as I jogged down the hallway and stepped into the elevator. I wondered why Claudia would need to read the script again, seeing how we'd gone through it millions of times.

The elevator doors slid shut behind me, and I started to feel a little silly just before the next cutscene, knowing no one would be watching it. I folded my arms and rested back into the upper right corner.

I must have been standing in a once in a lifetime unlucky position, because the next thing I knew, the radio came crashing down from the ceiling and thwacked me over the head.

I remember falling to my knees and holding the back of my head, and then everything went dark.

...