Requests

Annette looked around the once grimy room that now was cleaner than it was a few hours ago. She had sketched something, but as she had looked around the foreboding room; she knew that this place needed a makeover, thinking of the home's previous state compared to the tidied room she now stood. This place not only needed a makeover, but a serious makeover. A woman's touch. And a woman's touch was what this home got. This caused her to smile, as she mentally patted herself on the back before walking into the small kitchen. She had remembered seeing various can foods in the dusty, cobweb-eaten shelf. Looking at the stained packaging of the label on the can, she sighed. "Wonder how safe this food is."

"Canned food can last longer than you think, it's kind of what everyone goes to for food in this town." She heard as Leonard said from behind her. "I eat it all the time and it's still safe."

Annette smiled, turning her head to face him. "How was your nap, I didn't hear any talking? Dude, you have a lot of sleeping issues, don't you? That's good to know about the food. I had thought about doing away with the canned food in my apartment my mother gave it to me and I do not know how long she had it. I'm glad I kept it then. With the storms that are coming through in Brahms next week, maybe I'll need to keep them."

Leonard shook his head and said, "My second nap was pleasant. The potent smells of cleaning supplies woke me up, though. I wouldn't worry too much about Brahms canned food it is probably safer than the food here. I wouldn't know much about the condition of the food here. I may live here, but Brahms isn't a long way to go to do shopping." He chuckled. "It almost seems cruel that people here don't use that common sense, as if they have a choice in the matter."

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't they have a choice to go out of Silent Hill to get something to eat? Does this town keep people trapped in it, not allowing them to leave?" Annette asked as the taller man shrugged his shoulders. "Right, then. Lunatic guide 101: Random outburst of craziness. So what do you want to eat? Fruits or Pizza Bagels, I checked those, and they were still good. You better hurry and eat them though before they ruin."

Leonard sat on the chair at the table. "You choose, you're the one cooking. Ladies' choice, I may be a lunatic, but I believe in giving women opinions. Mainly ones that are in control of the painkillers and aren't afraid to hold them for ransom if I misbehave." He looked around the room. "I forgot what this place looked like without all that junk. Because this place was a mess when I found it, so this whole look is new to me. What did you do with the trash? I don't see any and there were tons of it lying around."

"I threw everything out in the dumpster outside of the building. I borrowed some garbage bags from the pharmacy since I don't think they needed them. I found some cleaning stuff, as you have noticed, and got some of that too. I got detergents and everything to mop the floors, but as always luck wasn't on my side how do you bathe dude? There is no water."

"Well, I'm impressed. Water, I don't suppose you snub your nose at bathing in haunted rivers, if so forget I said anything."

Annette stood to her feet, dusting herself off. "Pizza bagels it is. I'm craving pizza and that is the closest thing we got. I'd love to have some actual food, a nice steaming plate of spaghetti, and garlic bread. But beggars can't be choosers." She walked over to the refrigerator opening it. "Bathing in haunted rivers, it doesn't make me happy, but when you got to bathe, I guess. What else can I say?"

"If you want spaghetti, I can go pick it up for you, though I thought I picked up some stuff to make it a week ago." He stood up walking to the cabinet. Opening it up, receiving the ingredients handing them to Annette. "Here."

She looked at the stuff as he laid them on the counter. "Pots, pans, and everything you will need is under the sink." He walked back to his chair as Annette grabbed him a bottled water.

"Don't you find it weird that this town has zero water, except haunted rivers, but the power seems to be limitless? It has its advantages I guess living in a ghost town, you probably have no bills. Even though I no longer have a car, the lack of transportation seems like it would be stressful. Being isolated in one town with nothing to do, seems like it would be a little difficult. I need to go shopping sometimes."

"Annette, this entire town is a mystery. After thirty-some years I've stopped trying to figure this place out, and let it do whatever."

Annette got her task underway. "It's obvious this town's haunted. Is that what drove you to insanity. The crazy creatures and the environment changes, from foggy to nightmarish?"

Leonard looked at her. "Not quite. Insanity was something I was born with. Crazy parents produce crazy offspring. I fell from the crazy tree and hit every branch on the way down." He chuckled. "I look at myself as quite sane considering the surrounding I'm in."

Annette looked at him. "Sure dude, if you're sane then I'm the Queen of Silent Hill." She laughed. "You are ninety-nine sorts of crazy."

Leonard smiled. "Thank you so much. I worried you had grown soft and lost that spark that I had enjoyed earlier. Now that would have hurt my feelings."

Annette looked at him. "Dude, that would have hurt your feelings. You don't get out much, do you? No girl has ever dumped you, has she?

Leonard looked at her, confused. "Me? I've never had a girlfriend, as for getting out I do all the time. I'm used to this town's treatment and their hostility, no longer phases me. They don't even challenge me anymore, of course. I wouldn't expect the red carpet. I would like a bit of competition every once in a while, it's not that their lives depended on it. I'm a sweet person… sometimes."

Annette looked at him. "You know Leonard, you're a weird dude, but you're cool in my book, you'd be a handy person to have around." She looked at him as he looked at her. "When I ever get out of this town, let's go to Brahms. Give you a fresh start with people who don't hate you, in a home with working water and all the food you could ever want. I would never hurt you. I would treat you like someone. Could you at least think it over before you say no?"

He looked at her. "You want me to leave this place and join you in the world of the living? A world that is foreign to me." He sighed, standing to his feet. "I'll think about it. Right now I need to re-bandage this." He walked from the room, leaving Annette to watch after him. She sighed, getting back to her cooking.

Leonard got to the living room to see the open sketchbook lying on the wooden table, the pages yellowed by age, but the scene that covered the surface was an event that he knew too well. The three crosses on a tall hill, how could he not know this image, it hung in his home as a youth; he remembered vividly the self-portrait of Jesus over his bed. He questioned this man's existence, many times asking himself, 'Why would someone die in such a cruel and embarrassing way, just to save people those who loved excepted the sacrifice, his mother for one. Why would he try to win over the monsters such as his father, who didn't seem to believe this man existed?' Leonard himself, however, knew the stories of the risen savior for as long as he could remember, his mother would sit in her rocking chair and he would sit on her lap and she would tell him stories, he had gone to church with her in his youth, but teenage years he stopped going, but he supported his mother's beliefs, he could tell his sliding away from her teachings broke her heart, but like every teenager, he thought he knew it all, he thought he had all the time in the world. But sickness was something he hadn't counted on. His forever life died in a bathtub from the hands of a man that hated him, hate that drove him to murder. Leonard sighed, placing the drawing on the table walking from the living room.