The tragic, pre-mature death of his wife Mary left him a living, breathing shell of his former self. A man blessed with physical fitness yet cursed with emotional atrophy. It was a trauma he could not shake, could not avoid, and could not ignore. Wherever he went, there it was. Wherever he would go, there it would be. There seemed to be no end to it, and no hope for any kind of change for the better.

That was when he got the letter.

James has come to Silent Hill at Mary’s bequest. That Mary wrote the letter beckoning him was beyond question, and that it came to him three years after her death could not cancel out the terminal ache in his heart, could not drive him to consider logic and objective reality if it meant that the letter could not be real. For James, there was no alternative. Mary said she was waiting for him in this special place, and James would leave no stone unturned if there was even a remote possibility that he might see her again.

Little does he realize just what it is he is walking into, or that for all the terrible mysteries that await him in the town, the most devastating ones of all are locked within the confines of his own mind.

No one knew exactly what it was that was killing her. No one had any idea how to stop it, or even slow it down. The doctors could give her nothing but comforting words and an expiration date. In the end, she could not avoid meeting it. Mary Shepherd-Sunderland, a sweet, quiet woman, the light of her husband’s life, was allowed only a quarter-century of existence.

Her husband, James, has lived a life of terrible limbo these past three years. Their marriage was their own secret territory, as any good marriage must be, and he has roamed a lost man in the barren wilds of that territory. She left him caught upon himself, and he cannot let go. When she died, it seemed as though something in him died along with her.

Perhaps Mary is roaming secret lands of her own. James is certainly given reason to believe it. Could that letter be real? If so, Mary may well remain on this mortal plane, awaiting her husband in her most sacred of places: the town of Silent Hill. In life, she had been in unabashed love with the quaint lakeside town. For her, Silent Hill was a cooling salve on the wounds of the spirit. Here, she felt a peace no other place on earth could provide. Perhaps, a heavenly sort of afterlife would, for her, bear strong resemblance to this place. It is for that reason, above all others, that James ultimately decides to make the journey to the town in the hopes that he may be able to accept the words at face-value.

Ultimately, the truth of her fate, and her current state of existence, is the axis around which James’ entire adventure revolves.

James’ was not the only life touched by Mary’s presence.

While languishing in the hospital, lonely, frightened and weary, Mary came to know a young orphan named Laura. Young woman and little girl found, in each other, kindred spirits, resulting in a fast and remarkable friendship. They would spend their days talking about all kinds of things. In particular, Mary enjoyed telling Laura of Silent Hill, showing her dozens of photographs taken while she and James made their visit. Friendship grew into a kind of love, and it was Mary’s desire to adopt Laura into the family. The Sunderlands had no children of their own, and Laura had no parents of her own. It would have been a wonderful arrangement for all involved.

Sadly, it was not to be.

Laura and James encounter one another in Silent Hill. James is looking for Mary, and to his considerable surprise, Laura claims to be there for precisely the same reason. Though James has no idea who Laura is, Laura does seem to know him, and initially treats him with scorn and resentment that has no obvious explanation. Worse, she has a lot to say about Mary, and a significant amount of this seems to stand in direct contradiction to what James knows is the truth. Neither James nor Laura realize it at first, but this young girl with the sassy mouth holds many keys to this mystery, and she will prove to be a vital catalyst in determining the course of James’ adventure.

When she came to, everyone was gone. The streets were deserted, of human life, anyway. Monsters and beasts of impossible anatomy roamed about, hunting for blood and attacking on sight. It was now reduced to venture forth and risk death, or administer her own end with the snub-nosed revolver in her possession.

Eventually, she decides on the former. After making a detour to a supposed ‘haunted mansion’, she ends up meeting James in as he arrives at Rosewater Park. The initial encounter becomes a mental rollercoaster for James, as Maria bears a remarkable, uncanny resemblance to his wife. Though the two women differed in their styles of hair and clothing, they seemed to be a step apart from twins in every other physical aspect. Desperate for company in this world of madness, Maria coerces a reluctant James into allowing her to tag along.

She is a strange woman in almost all respects. At times, she treats James with derision and condescension, yet can transform, in seconds, into the very model of care and concern. She is very reticent about her past, yet she has a knack for displaying knowledge that she cannot possibly know. Her resemblance to Mary is so stark that James honestly confuses the two, a folly which both annoys Maria and serves her as a tool of emotional leverage. She is the very definition of ‘enigma’. She might truly be lost and frightened, one of the few survivors of whatever made Silent Hill into what it is. She may also prove to be as dangerous as anything else is in town.

Maybe more so.

Though Silent Hill is populated mostly by monsters, so too does it host the victims of monsters.

Angela already knew something was seriously wrong with the town by the time James made her acquaintance. From the outset, Angela herself seems to be slightly off-kilter, speaking in a childish manner and displaying considerable discomfort at James’ presence. She acts as a woman frightened. As James proceeds into town, he is given good reason to assume the cause for her nervousness and fear.

As with many assumptions, this one would only be partially true.

Angela’s demons are much closer to home. It is not the roaming monsters of Silent Hill that terrorize her, but the memories of family, the beasts of relation. A lifetime of being badly used in this manner has left her on the knife’s edge of despair. It also has given her a remarkable clarity, which surfaces almost at random, when Angela the timid mouse becomes Angela the rock, all sharp edges and biting perception. There is surely some dark secret inside of her, but it may be so deeply buried that it may consume her, a secret from which the timid mouse cannot hide and the rock cannot weather.

If ever a man was tailor-made to receive punishment, Eddie would be him.

His chubby, boyish features are amplified by his manner of dress and his propensity to speak in simple sentences, causing a grown man in his 20s to appear as an oversized adolescent. He does not appear to be overly bright, and indeed, the average onlooker could not be faulted for believing Eddie to be an unfortunate simpleton. It is possible that they might even be right.

However, when James encounters him in Silent Hill, he is immediately given reason to make other assumptions about Eddie, assumptions that perhaps point to a darker side of Eddie Dombrowski’s nature. It may simply be bad luck or poor timing, but there often seem to be dead bodies around whenever Eddie is nearby, and in none of the cases are these deaths natural. He denies involvement, and vehemently, yet sometimes not until he cracks a joke or two about the deceased, or offering reasons as to why the victim had it coming to them.

Eddie seems to have a connection to Laura, though even she, an eight-year old girl, appears to hold Eddie in low esteem. Certainly, he does little to command James’ respect, but Laura makes no effort to hide her derision. He appears to take it in stride. Yet, there does seem to be a side of Eddie that is tired of being everybody’s punching bag. There is a side to him that craves respect. And, there might be a part to him that is willing, even eager, to subscribe to the credo of Caligula, Emperor of Rome:

Oderint dum metuant.