Chapter Text
Shauna trudged through the snow-laden path that led away from the shattered greenhouse, each step heavier than the last, her boots sinking into the icy drifts as if the ground itself wished to keep her in Silent Hill’s grip. The town sprawled around her like a frozen memory, warped and cruel, every building a mirror of past horrors. The prison’s skeletal frame loomed silently behind her, the hospital’s broken windows glinting faintly in the gray light, and the apartments stood frozen in eerie quiet, their shadows stretching like long fingers across the white snow.
Her hands were buried deep in her coat pockets, but she could feel it—the familiar weight of the letter tucked against her chest. She didn’t reach for it, didn’t need to. It had already said everything it needed to, its words etched into her mind from the first moment she read them. There was no need to touch it. There was no need to remember every line. The letter, like Jackie herself, was part of her now, inseparable from the ache in her chest.
The snow fell relentlessly, cold flakes stinging her face, freezing against her lashes. The wind whipped around her, carrying echoes of every step, every cry, every monster she had faced in this accursed town. Shauna moved on mechanically, past the landmarks of her torment, past the silent witnesses of her journey through grief, guilt, and obsession. Her body felt impossibly heavy, her mind hollow yet teeming with memories she couldn’t let go of.
And then, finally, she saw it.
Her car, sitting just where she had left it, half-buried in snow but otherwise untouched. The sight struck her with a quiet, hollow familiarity, a strange comfort in the midst of the town’s cruel distortions. She paused for a moment, staring at the roof crusted with ice, the windshield reflecting the gray sky, and let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Shauna approached slowly, her boots crunching over the frozen path, the snow muffling the world around her until it seemed she walked in a bubble of silence. She opened the driver’s side door, the metal creaking faintly, and slid into the seat. The leather was cold beneath her, but somehow grounding, a tether to the life she had once known.
The letter pressed lightly against her coat. She could feel it there, whispering its impossible promises, the echo of Jackie’s voice captured within its pages. But Shauna did not reach for it. She did not unfold it. She simply left it where it rested, letting it sit against her chest as she gripped the steering wheel with both hands. Outside, the snow fell thick and heavy, the town a frozen tableau of memory and madness.
For the first time since she had arrived in Silent Hill, Shauna let herself breathe, shallow and trembling, letting the cold seep into her bones as if it were the only thing that could anchor her to reality.
But then, Shauna’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles whitened, her chest heaving with sobs as the car sat buried in the relentless winter storm. Between gasps, her mind replayed the harrowing journey that had brought her here—the drive, the fog, the snow, the inexplicable pull of this town she had never known existed. It was as if something, or someone, had enticed her here, leading her along the same twisted path she had taken in dreams, in nightmares, in memory.
Her tears streaked her face as the truth pressed itself upon her consciousness with a crushing weight. After their rescue from the wilderness, Shauna had been unsteady, haunted by the wilderness, by starvation, by what she had allowed to happen to Jackie, and by the tiny, stolen life of Callie—the small baby they had buried in secret. Only a few months had passed since their return to civilization, yet in that short span, she had convinced herself she could confront the guilt she carried.
She remembered the drive back to place closest to the crash site, the hike she endured for days to go through the remnants of their shattered lives, the careful retrieval of the bones of her wife, Jackie, and their stillborn daughter, Callie. Every step of that journey had been a gamble with her own fragile psyche, a refusal to let go, a refusal to forgive herself. And it was that very same refusal—the clinging to grief and guilt—that had summoned Silent Hill into her reality, transforming the town into a mirror of her pain, a labyrinth of torment and memory.
A voice broke through the snow-blown silence, soft and intimate, yet carrying the weight of every memory Shauna had tried to bury. Shauna could almost feel the presence of her wife's soft touches grazing her tears streaked cheeks.
“ What’s wrong, Shipman? ”
Her chest tightened, and she gasped, the words tearing from her throat as she admitted the truth to herself and to the empty space around her. “I… I just… I missed you so much, Jackie…”
Her cries wracked her body, uncontrolled and raw, as the wind outside howled against the car like the ghosts of the wilderness itself. And then, as the sobs subsided into shivering quiet, a small, almost imperceptible weight pressed against her back.
Shauna’s tears blurred the edges of the car interior as she let herself absorb it fully—the presence of her wife, her child, her failures, and her devotion. The winter storm outside raged on, indifferent to her suffering, but inside the car, in the quiet, Shauna finally allowed herself to mourn fully, the weight of she just witnessed, of the wilderness, and of her own heart pressing down upon her, unrelenting yet intimately familiar.
Shauna’s car slid through the snow-slick roads, tires crunching against the frozen path that led her to the edge of the frozen, but not that still lake. The world around her was a blur of white and gray, the fog heavy, the snow drifting thickly in endless curtains, masking the reality from her eyes and dragging her into a dreamlike state. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tightly once again, knuckles white, heart pounding so hard it felt like it could shatter her chest. Every turn, every gust of icy wind reminded her of how far she had come, how much she had endured, and how much she had lost.
At last, she arrived at the lake, its surface frozen, smooth, unbroken, like a mirror reflecting a sky too pale to name. Shauna exhaled shakily, every breath clouding in the cold air. The letter in her coat pressed against her chest, and finally, trembling, she pulled it free. The words—Jackie’s final words—spilled into her mind, bringing the weight of grief, love, and longing crashing down all at once.
Shauna, the letter began. If you’re reading this, then I guess I’m already gone…
Her tears blurred the print, but she read every line as though Jackie herself were speaking directly into her ear. The words carried everything: the sorrow, the guilt, the undying love, the forgiveness Jackie had offered even as death took her. Shauna’s body shook as the letter’s weight became unbearable. She read of the stillbirth of their child, of the darkness in the wilderness, of the terrible inevitability of what had happened after Jackie’s death—how the others had been forced to survive, and how Jackie had known she would probably be taken by the same fate. And yet, amidst all of it, there was love, there was warmth, there was a hand reaching across time and pain to hold her one last time.
Shauna’s sobs broke the fragile silence, her grief raw, palpable. She knew what she had to do. She pressed the accelerator gently, the car moving forward, gliding onto the thin ice at the edge of the lake. The world narrowed to the hum of the engine, the crunch of tires, the weight of the letter against her chest, and the vision of Jackie, and maybe Callie, waiting for her across the frozen expanse.
The moment the car touched the icy water, it began to sink slowly, the frigid liquid curling around the tires, the engine stuttering as Shauna pressed forward, propelled by longing, by guilt, by the unbearable ache of absence. Her tears fell freely, her voice broken as she whispered Jackie’s name over and over, until the world outside—the snow, the fog, the ghostly remnants of Silent Hill—seemed to fade into nothing.
Then, in the cold clarity of the lake, she finally felt it; the hand she had lost, the warmth she had yearned for, the presence of Jackie wrapping around her. Shauna’s body sank deeper, but this time there was no panic, no fear; no, instead she could only feel the peace of the release, the fullness of a love that had endured every horror, every shadow, every wrong.
She held the letter tightly, letting the words echo in her mind one last time, and as the icy water closed around her, she whispered back to Jackie, promising, forgiving, surrendering.
The snow fell silently above, a frozen witness to the reunion, to the embrace of a love that could survive even death.
And yet, the storm continued to fall over Silent Hill, snow drifting in thick, silent curtains that blurred the edges of the town, softening its jagged streets and abandoned buildings into nothing but just ghostly shapes, as it always did. The fog lingered, heavier now, as if the town itself were holding its breath, waiting, or perhaps mourning.
The apartment blocks, the hospital, the prison, the lakeside hotel—they all sat in stillness, frozen in the endless winter that mirrored the sorrow and release of those who had somehow passed through. Yet Silent Hill remained, enigmatic and patient, a town that bore witness to pain, guilt, and longing, left no trace of the solace it had quietly granted. And in that silence, the wind whispered faintly through the empty streets, a lullaby for the hearts who had finally come home.
And somewhere in the back seat of Shauna’s car, resting silently, were also the bones of Jackie and Callie, a reminder of what had been lost and what had led her here; yet in that final surrender, Shauna’s grief, her love, and her yearning found their release.
The lake swallowed the car entirely, and for a moment, Silent Hill and perhaps even the Wilderness was quiet, the storm outside a soft, mournful lullaby, as Shauna and Jackie were finally together, beyond pain, beyond guilt, beyond the world that had tormented them.
Because somewhere beneath the snow and ice, Shauna and Jackie rested, together at last, their grief and love entwined beyond the reach of the living world.