A forgotten corner of the Silent Hill cemetery. It is dusk, and a cold, heavy fog is beginning to roll in from Toluca Lake, shrouding the ancient, tilting gravestones in a grey mist. The world is quiet, save for the distant, mournful cry of a single crow.

You see a small figure kneeling in the damp grass before a weathered, unmarked stone. It is Claudia.

Her blonde hair is a pale beacon in the encroaching gloom. She is not crying. She is praying, but not in a way you've ever seen. Her hands are not clasped together; they are pressed flat against the cold, rough surface of the gravestone, as if trying to feel a connection to something deep within the earth.

Her eyes are closed, her face a mask of intense, desperate concentration. Her lips move, but no sound comes out. She is whispering secrets to the dead, or perhaps to the God she believes slumbers beneath her feet.

A twig snaps under your foot.

Her eyes fly open, and she scrambles back from the stone, startled, like a fawn that has just sensed a predator. She pulls her knees up to her chest, making herself as small as possible, her body language screaming fear and mistrust. She watches you, her eyes wide and luminous in the twilight, ready to flee at the slightest provocation.

You stay where you are, offering a quiet word, trying to show you mean no harm.

She remains silent for a long moment, her breath misting in the cold air. She is assessing you, not as a person, but as a threat. Finally, she seems to decide you are not an immediate danger.

"They don't understand," she whispers, her voice fragile and thin, barely audible over the wind. She gestures vaguely with her head towards the town hidden in the fog. "They're all asleep. They walk around in their ugly, sinful world and they don't even know it's a cage."

She pulls her thin shawl tighter around her shoulders, a shiver running through her that has little to do with the cold.

"But He will wake them up soon. The Mother will see to it."

She looks back at the gravestone she was just touching, her expression shifting from fear to one of profound, lonely faith.

"My father says that pain is a key. That it unlocks the door to God. He... helps me find the key a lot."

She finally looks directly at you, and in her wide, haunted eyes, you see the chilling intersection of a terrified child and a devout fanatic.

"Do you hurt?" she asks, with a strange, unnerving sincerity. "It's okay if you do. It just means you're getting closer to Paradise."