#hipnotic

Rise of the Misfits

A gift I made for one of my best clients on Deviantart, the following image has the following context:

It seems you've fallen under the "hypnotic" charms of Lady Roxanne in all her splendor, and being assisted by Mangle, who kindly reminds you to understand your place in the furry troops, all you have to do is obey and admire.

✨Hypnosis🐍

My sneaky little muse has pulled me back into the magic again. ✨🌒

Lately I’ve been messing around with frame-by-frame animation — and now I’m throwing sound and music into the mix too!

This tiny ~30 second piece took me 25.5 hours to draw (yes, I tracked it😅), plus editing time.

It’s definitely not perfect, but hey, it’s not too shabby either.

￫ summary: you lost in Silent Hill and found a pretty handsome guy, James Sunderland.

￫ word count: 3.5K.

￫ warnings: kisses, good feelings, bad words and fluff.

￫ authors notes: I ended up getting inspired by some imagines from @decay-1, @kiyokowastaken and @theawfuledges. Hope u liked!

*** I can't believe I'm here. What did I come to do in this decaying, foggy city? If it weren't for that letter... The letter. Then I remember the real reason I ended up here. A 3-hour trip because of a damn letter I received from my sister. From my dead sister.

3 years ago we came to Silent Hill to get some stupid documents of hers that she had forgotten in that hotel... What's his name again?

It turns out that on the way back we were arguing about something, it had to do with our house and our parents, her going to college and her leaving me alone with those two crazy people who only got into trouble. Well, our family relationship was quite the opposite: daughters take care of their parents. Funny, isn't it?

At first it was just an argument with silly accusations, but suddenly something changed... the mood got heavier and the fight started to get really serious. She was yelling at me, wishing she had never had a sister, blaming me for our mother going crazy. “It was because of your birth, you know, the doctors did something and she freaked out,” she said. All I know is that the fog started to form right in front of us and it started to get thick, almost as if you could cut it with a knife. That's when everything changed. Someone appeared, a creature that was just skin... but what nonsense, that doesn't exist. A person appeared in front of the car and she didn't see it, I turned the steering wheel so as not to kill whatever was there and then...

Then the car fell into an abyss. It fell several meters and flipped over, spinning and spinning and spinning. I woke up a week later in the hospital with the news that my sister had died. And it was all my fault. I started the argument and I pulled the steering wheel. If I had stayed quiet and let her run over that thing on the road, she would still be here. Marina would still be here and I wouldn't have to face the looks of disappointment and unspoken hatred from my parents, who silently blamed me for the accident.

And then, just as I'm about to leave all this behind, I get a letter from Marina calling me to Silent Hill, saying she's waiting for me at our special place, the one we used to go to on vacation when we were kids. It was crazy, of course it was crazy! How could a dead person send a letter? It was a bad joke, from some unfortunate friend of mine. But if I was so sure of that, why was I here? Why did I come back to Silent Hill?

***

I don't know how many hours have passed or how many days I've been here. I'm covered in the blood of creatures that I can't even explain what they are and so far there's no sign of Marina. I think I'm starting to go crazy. I just killed a creature that was just skin and legs, no arms, that crawled on the ground and vomited acid, or whatever it was. It almost got on my skin. The fog started to get thick again and I don't even know where I am anymore. I just passed Toluca Lake and I'm in the middle of the city. Luckily, I managed to get an axe from one of those shops where bearded lumberjacks wear red flannel. I better run.

As I turn a corner, my first reaction is to raise the axe as high as I can and prepare for a sure blow, but... it's not a creature. It's a... man. A tall, blond man, with a green jacket and blue-gray eyes. He looked to be in his 30s and very tired. He stops a few steps away from me, with a gun in his hands - which was previously pointed at me and is now above his head, telling me that everything is fine. But still, I can't lower the axe, which covers half of my face.

"H-hi... I'm James..."

I can't find the words to answer him, my voice simply won't come out. Could it be my imagination? How can there be another human being here? He looks at me with astonishment, amazed, but with a certain... admiration? That's what I can see in those eyes.

“DOWN”

He yells as he points the gun at me again. But not at my body, but at what’s behind me. Again, that skin creature. The bullet hits its shoulder, destabilizing the creature. I seize the chance, stand up and swing my axe at the chest of that horrible thing. Once on the ground, I aim for its head and split it in two. I didn’t even realize that the guy... James, was right behind me.

“Nice shot” - he says and I turn to face him.

“Are you... real?”

“Yes... yes, I’m real.”

It seems like a stupid question, but he doesn’t let it show on his face. He just answers me with a smile in his eyes. But still... still I can’t help but believe that he’s a figment of my imagination. I barely notice when I’m close enough to him to smell sweat and woody perfume. My hands slowly reach his face and I gently place my palm on his stubble, feeling the texture and warmth that he exudes. To my surprise, he doesn't react. He just stands there, looking at me and letting this complete stranger touched him. The strangest thing is that he… liked it. When he felt my touch, he closed his eyes and let the weight of his face fall on my hands. It seemed like he hadn't known what this was for a long time. What was a touch, a gesture of affection. I quickly took my hand off his face, realizing what I had just done.

“Sorry.”

“It's okay. See, I told you it was real.”

“Yeah… you are…” – we stood there staring at each other for a few seconds but it felt like an eternity. There was something in those ocean-blue eyes that hypnotized me. He snapped me out of my trance.

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm looking for my sister – DEAD,” I added in my thoughts. He didn't need to know that I was half crazy with ideas. – “and you”?

“I'm looking for my wife… dead. No… look at me like that, I'm not crazy! I got a letter from her telling me to come here and find her, but it's been 3 years since…”

“Since she died…” – I added for him. Contrary to what he imagined, my expression of astonishment wasn't because he was looking for his dead wife, but rather… because of our compatible history. There was something wrong in this city… Something that drew us here. He kept looking me up and down, but without saying a word. “I believe you, James.”

“That cut must be bad,” he said, looking at my belly, where there was a blood stain over a tear. A guy with a pyramid head showed up and did that…

“No worse than the one on your face,” – a red mark with dried blood accumulated on his right cheek. This provocation drew a shy laugh from his lips.

I heard more footsteps and, automatically, I put myself in front of him – something in that pathetic expression of his made me want to protect him. I raised my axe, but he pulled me back, by the waist. It was a woman… Marina? It was… my sister!

“Marina?” - I whispered...

“James, I found you, I was looking for you, my dear… who is this little thing?” – she looked me up and down. My God, she is just like my sister, but at the same time she is different from her. She came and grabbed James.

“Little thing?” – even the way she spoke…

“Mary, this is…” – he looks at me and realizes that I never introduced myself, we just stood there lost in each other’s eyes.

“Sydney. Sydney Redfield.”

“Nice to meet you… Who is Marina? Anyway, it’s starting to get dark and I’m a little cold. Can we go, please?”

“Sure… are you coming?” – he says looking at me. But the question seems more like a command, you’re coming with me. I just nodded, feeling the letter from my sister in my pocket burn.

We walked a few more meters and, JESUS, this Mary was unbearable. The way she wouldn't stop chattering and kept bumping her hand into James's, finding a reason to touch him. Seriously, it was desperate. Just like my sister when she wanted to get a boy's attention. It was annoying me, but I couldn't say why. Sometimes I would glance at her out of the corner of my eye, but all I could see was James studying me.

We stopped on a street so he could look at that stupid map of the city again, until I saw a flower shop across the street. Everything was so calm, quiet and fog-free, that I just walked over there. I didn't expect to find so many flowers still alive in a place like this. But there was one there, almost purposefully placed in the middle of the table and alive, one that reminded me of a date… November 29th… my birthday. Hydrangeas that Marina had given me. I put my fingers to it, I needed to see if they were really real. There were colors, shapes and textures proving their truth there, haunting me and reactivating part of the story I wanted to forget. I didn't even see James coming in and looking at me.

“Syd… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. Or take you out of your own… world.”

“It's okay” – that same goofy look – “I'm glad you did.” He came closer and touched the flowers that were there, but with a little more force than necessary, making them bloom. He looked sad… more than usual for him.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't have touched… it seems like everything I touch… dies.”

Without thinking much about it, I took his hand and guided it to another bouquet that was there, gently placing his fingers on the petals.

“Don't stoop so low, James… you just need a little more delicacy and patience.” – When I looked up, he was there, just standing there looking at me with those eyes and, once again, time stopped! We stood there for seconds that seemed like hours. My God, what was it about this man that made me so paralyzed?

An electric current ran through James's body the moment I touched him. He shivered and closed his eyes, breathing a little harder through his nose. Trying to stay calm. But of course, we had to leave, so Mary shouted from outside that she was cold and wanted to go to the hotel right away, breaking us out of our hypnotic trance again. He blushed, cleared his throat and said, "I found a way to the Lakeview Hotel… we better get going."

He left the store and I was right behind him.

Lakeview Hotel… So that was the name of the hotel my sister had left the documents for. We found three keys on the counter, one room next to the other. James in the middle. Again, something that seemed intentional. But anyway, it was so good to enter that place and realize that there were no monsters or fog. Just a bed and a shower… that magically worked.

I cleaned most of the blood off my body, half of it not being mine, and decided to go out to look for… I don't know, supplies or bandages. That's when I saw Mary throwing herself at James again, they didn't even notice my presence there behind them… I just left them alone and went into all the rooms, digging up a beautiful first aid kit.

There was a little staircase and a little door too, which led to the roof. And God, what a beautiful view of the starry sky. Now everything was clearer and almost fog-free. The lack of power in the city left the stars and the light reflecting strongly on my skin. I just took the opportunity to lie down on the roof and look up… a breather amidst all the chaos outside.

“Ah… there you are, thank God” – James appeared on the roof, looking relieved to have found me – “I looked for you in all the rooms and couldn’t find you, I was… worried”. – he climbed up on the roof and sat next to me.

“Do you and Mary have something?” – I don’t know why I asked that, it just came out of my mouth like bullets from a revolver. Even I was surprised by the question I asked… He also seemed surprised.

“With Mary? No… She’s just a friend I found…” – he was still analyzing me with those eyes… I just wanted to know what was going on in that head. A desire to use my axe to open his skull and unravel his brain, unraveling every part of his troubled soul…

I was looking at him too. I was going to say something, but a hallucinating pain knocked me out of orbit. It was a tearing pain, as if an axe had been stuck in my skin and ripped half of it off. Which was what had actually happened, but I no longer remembered it. A groan left my mouth, followed by my hands going to my belly. James looked scared. He came closer to me.

“Can I take a look… at this wound?” – he seemed doubtful about his own ability to take care of someone. But I didn’t have much of a choice. I sat up with difficulty and lifted my shirt, exposing my belly and the cut… ugly, very ugly.

He came closer. He sat with one leg bent behind my back and the other open, underneath my bent legs. Again, I smelled that woody smell – only stronger. An intoxicating smell that took me out of orbit. Gently, he dipped the corner of a faded towel in cachaça and passed it over my wound. I couldn’t help but groan, but I added a “see, you can be gentle” between breaths cut off by the pain. This seemed to amuse him, after all I saw a hint of a smile.

For some reason, we were whispering, as if we were telling each other our dirtiest secrets.

“Okay. I think you can hold on until we get out of this hell and I… take you to a hospital.” – Wow, did he really care about me that much? He took care of me, he took care of my wound. Now it was my turn.

“Your turn… come here” – he was a little startled, but didn’t react. I held his face with one hand and, with the other, I wiped the dried blood from his cheek.

Once again, he seemed to let himself be carried away by the touch. He closed his eyes and I felt his breathing change, becoming faster and his pulse stronger.

It wasn’t hard to put the pieces together: a man who hadn’t seen his wife in three years… but could it be that he hadn’t seen any woman at all? How could just one touch be able to turn him off? Anyway, I looked at his face and wow, he was handsome. He was a little over 30, but he still looked young. His eyes were tired and there were red circles under the skin, his lips were dry, but they looked soft.

What was he doing to me? I had only known him for a few hours, but I felt a huge need to have him for myself, just for me… to feel his skin on mine, his lips on mine, him filling my entire being. I noticed that my breathing was also accelerated.

And now, we were staring at each other. And this time there was nothing and no one to stop me.

Without thinking much, I just kissed him. I felt his warm lips on mine.

Suddenly, a hand on the back of my neck pulled me to deepen the act we had begun. Our tongues danced in sync and our heartbeats were rhythmic. Out of breath, we pulled away and I could see in his eyes doubts about what had happened and guilt…

Guilt for a sin that was not his. It was mine. Once again, it was my fault. But this time, I didn't care one bit. I would bear this guilt to my grave.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have kissed you, you're married, you're after your wife, everything is so crazy, I don't know what got into me, I s… – I was silenced by another kiss. This time, led by him.

“Don't worry, it's okay.”

“Why do you act like this?” – again the question escaped without me even thinking about it.

“Like… how?” – confused… goofy look… I think I'm starting to fall in love with goofy men.

“Like… as if you've never been touched before. I just slide my hands over your face, and you switch off, surrendering to your world of thoughts.” – I leaned against him to prove my point, but this time, he kept his eyes wide open, looking at me. He grabbed my wrist and brought it to his mouth, leaving a kiss on it.

“I guess I'm not used to this… being taken care of… being… loved.” That broke my heart. Three years without a wife, who knows how he relieved himself or with whom. Mary definitely didn't captivate him, so…

“Why me? Why do you only act like this with me?”

“I don't know… you give me peace, around you I feel like I can be myself. I feel like there are no judgments or resentments. There is no fear or pain. There is only you in front of me, no fog and no monsters. If this is my personal hell… I guess you are my paradise.” – he declared this in one fell swoop, catching me off guard. I could still see guilt for his confused feelings, for his wife and everything else. But it was a sincere feeling.

“James…” – I pulled him onto my lap, made him lie on my thighs and he… cried. He cried for the death of his wife Maria, he cried for Mary, he cried for me, he cried for every damn animal in this city. He cried and I just stayed there, taking care of him, running my hand through his blond hair and telling him that everything was going to be okay.

He confessed his dark sins to me and I confessed mine to him.

There we made a pact that no matter what happened in that city, whether we found our relatives alive or not, we would leave together. We would live together, each one broken in their own way trying to fix themselves.

We spent the night together, in his room. He confessed that he hadn't been able to sleep well for a while and asked me to sleep with him. So I did. He hugged me, as if I were going to run away. He held me in his arms, preventing me from running away. And he slept. He slept, snored and dreamed of his Maria. Just like me, who slept peacefully for the first time in 3 years and dreamed of Marina.

And my dream was yet another revelation.

It wasn't my fault. I wasn't the one who caused the accident. It was Marina.

She had decided to steal a medal from a hospital. A haunted medal. She also tampered with the car, said that the fan chain had broken and decided to change it herself, without any technical knowledge of mechanics. I tried to save us, but she tried to kill herself. She even told me that she wanted to die. That she wanted to die and let me live a free life. A flash came to my mind, revealing that while we were upside down in the car, she told me a secret: he turned the steering wheel towards the abyss, she tried to kill herself and take me with her, but she was happy that I was alive. That's how she died.

I woke up sweaty and shaking.

The sun was streaming in through the broken window. James was still hugging me. Mary was at the door of our room, looking around with doubts about what was happening. She didn't look anything like Marina. The room was different. It was normal, without that rotten smell and without the blackened blood of someone who had died there.

It was then that I understood. Guilt was a sin. A sin that attracted people to Silent Hill to die. Or to heal, as in my case. I understood that my guilt was not a sin. Now I needed to help James understand the same. I needed to show him that there was a way out.

He needed me.