Laura

"Me and Mary talked a lot about Silent Hill. She even showed me all her pictures. She really wanted to come back. That's why I'm here.
 * —Laura to James Sunderland"

Laura is a young girl in Silent Hill 2 and is often seen wandering around Silent Hill, Maine. Like James Sunderland, she is also searching for Mary Shepherd-Sunderland and is unaware of her death because Laura misinterpreted Mary's "I'm far away now. In a quiet, beautiful place" in Mary's letter not as Heaven, but Silent Hill.

She is the only innocent human character in the town who does not hold any darkness in her heart, in contrast to James Sunderland, Angela Orosco, and Eddie Dombrowski. Because of her innocence, she does not see any monsters or serious abnormalities in the town, including Maria.

Biography
Laura is an orphan who befriended Mary Shepherd-Sunderland a year prior to the events of Silent Hill 2, and she became attached to Mary as if she were her own mother. How Laura's parents died and why she was in a hospital is never revealed. She and Mary were patients of the same unspecified hospital (possibly St. Jerome's Hospital in Ashfield) and under the care of the same nurse, identified as Rachel. Mary described Silent Hill as a beautiful place and showed Laura many pictures of the town during her hospitalization.

Personality
Laura is rude and bratty to James Sunderland and Eddie Dombrowski, the two people she encounters consistently during her journey through the town, calling them a "fartface" and "gutless fatso" respectively. With James, she is motivated by the belief that he did not really love Mary, due to the fact that he rarely visited her in the hospital. Even though Laura is first perceived as impolite, she is not malevolent-spirited.

As the game progresses, Laura becomes much less discourteous towards James. In the Lakeview Hotel, she gives him more details about Mary and runs away to find a letter from Mary that she dropped. In Room 312, she asks James to leave the hotel with her when they didn't find Mary there.

Laura seems to love stuffed animals, such as teddy bears, and shows interest in drawing.

Silent Hill 2
Laura somehow finds her way to Silent Hill, having apparently ran away from the orphanage or hospital she was staying at. It is implied Eddie helped her travel to Silent Hill, whom she met by chance on the way to Silent Hill. In the introduction video, Eddie is seen sitting beside a van holding a large map with his finger pointed at it. Laura then gives him a playful kick. It is confirmed by the Book of Lost Memories that the pair crossed paths with one another on the way to Silent Hill and then traveled there together.



James first encounters Laura in the Wood Side Apartments, where she kicks a key out of his reach and stomps on his hand while mocking him before running away. After he leaves the apartment complex, he finds her humming to herself on a graffiti-covered wall. He confronts her in frustration and Laura taunts him by claiming she only 'may' have stomped on his hand. She then reveals to James that she knows of Mary, but then jumps off the other side of the wall before James can get anymore information from her.

She appears next at Pete's Bowl-O-Rama with Eddie. Eddie tells her that he is running from the police, and Laura calls him a "gutless fatso" as he eats a pizza. Laura then confides that she too runs away a lot. She asks Eddie why he can't just apologize for what he has done, to which he responds by saying that nobody will forgive him. Once James appears, Laura rolls a bowling ball towards James and Eddie and then flees the building.



Outside, James pursues her at Maria's request. Laura finds a way to Carroll Street by squeezing through a narrow space between Heaven's Night and a wall, then enters Brookhaven Hospital. Eventually, James finds her inside a room playing with teddy bears on the first floor. James accuses her of lying when she explains her connection to Mary, but he then apologizes for his outburst. As James and Laura are about to exit the hospital, Laura asks him to pick up a nonexistent letter from Mary inside a room. When James enters it, she slams the door behind him, locking James in with several dangerous monsters.

While James is sent to the Otherworld, Laura remains in the Fog World. According to the novelization, Laura returned to the treatment room to find James missing. For a while, Laura made a game out of pretending to be a detective, searching through the empty hospital for clues until she finally grew tired. She decides to go back to Pete's Bowl-O-Rama and check up on Eddie. Laura is seen again on Carroll Street through a hospital window by James. She eventually makes her way to the Lakeview Hotel, likely because of Mary's telling her about the town; perhaps she had shared a picture of the location, possibly relaying to the child her affection for the location. How she actually gets to the hotel is unknown as Nathan Avenue is blocked by a road-in, but it is possible this blockage doesn't exist through Laura's perception of the town.



In the hotel's Lake Shore restaurant, Laura hides behind a piano. When James enters the restaurant, Laura slams on the piano keys, startling him. She asks James if she scared him, and James replies that she did. It is worth noting that James used to watch Mary play the piano and this scene likely triggers James's memories. Laura says she's tired of walking around Silent Hill, talks about Mary with James, and then shows James a letter confirming her friendship with Mary, which she took out of their nurse's locker. While James reads the letter, Laura draws a cat on the foggy patio door.

"My dearest Laura, I'm leaving this letter to Rachel to give to you after I'm gone. I'm far away now. In a quiet, beautiful place. Please forgive me for not saying goodbye before I left. Be well, Laura. Don't be too hard on the sisters. And Laura, about James... I know you hate him because you think he isn't nice to me, but please give him a chance. It's true he may be a little surly sometimes, and he doesn't laugh much. But underneath he's really a sweet person. Laura... I love you like my very own daughter. If things had worked out differently, I was hoping to adopt you. Happy 8th birthday, Laura.
 * —Mary's final letter to Laura"

After he finishes, James asks Laura how old she is, to which she replies that she turned eight last week, meaning that Mary couldn't have died three years prior. Laura then runs away again looking for "another letter", most likely the letter that Mary wrote to James.



In Room 312, Laura finds James after he learns the truth of Mary's death. He tells her that Mary is dead, and Laura, in denial, calls James a liar. After a few moments, she accepts what James said and asks him if Mary died from her illness. James reveals to her that he killed Mary, and Laura becomes furious at him, shouting that she hates him and that she knew all along that James didn't care about her. James apologizes to Laura and tells her that the Mary they know isn't in the hotel and Laura silently leaves the room.

In the "Leave" ending, James exits Silent Hill with Laura (where he found her and how he convinced her to leave Silent Hill with him is unseen), and they travel through Toluca Graveyard. James follows Laura, who then stops and waits for him to catch up to her. They then vanish into the mist, one after the other. This ending could suggest that James is intending to carry out Mary's wishes to adopt Laura.

Laura does not appear in the game's other three endings, so it is not revealed what happens to her. However, since the town was never dangerous to her, it is assumed that she leaves Silent Hill unharmed.

Creator's comment
"Her name is taken from the non-fiction work "No Language But a Cry" by Richard D'Ambrosio, the story of a young girl's search for happiness while struggling to overcome the scars of abuse."

Quotes

 * "Haha!" (stomping on James' hand)
 * "I don't know. Maybe I did."
 * "Huh? Are you blind or something?"
 * "None of your business! You didn't love Mary anyway!"
 * "So what'd you do? Robbery? Murder?"
 * "But if you did something bad, why don't you just say you're sorry? Well... I guess I run away lots, too."
 * "Ha! You're just a gutless fatso!"
 * "That big fat blabbermouth!"
 * "I was friends with Mary. We met at the hospital. It was last year."
 * "Ha ha! I tricked you! Why should I open the door, I'm a liar, right? Want me to open it? Huh? Huh? Do ya? What's the magic word? Okay, I guess I won't open it. I think I'll just leave you like this."
 * "Why you... you... You fartface!"
 * "Did I scare you?"
 * "She's here, isn't she? If you know where she is, tell me. I'm tired of walking."
 * "So there you are, James. Did you get the letter? Did you find Mary? If not, let's get going already, okay?"
 * "Liar! That's a lie!"
 * "You killer! Why'd you do it?! I hate you! I want her back! Give her back to me! I knew it! You didn't care about her! I hate you, James! I hate you! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU! She was always waiting for you... why... why...?"

Trivia



 * There is a high chance Laura's, along with Mary's, outfit was inspired by the character Casey Poe in the movie Con Air.
 * In Lake Shore Restaurant, Laura tells James about the second letter from Mary, but she can't find it. The existence of this letter is unknown; it possibly either wasn't real and disappeared like the one that James had or simply could be dropped somewhere by Laura. She does seem to express sincere concern about its disappearance, implying it is real.
 * In the "Leave" ending, Laura waits for James. This implies that they are not just leaving in short succession, but doing so together.
 * When asked whether James adopted Laura in the "Leave" ending, Silent Hill 2 artist Masahiro Ito replied, "I'll leave it up to your imagination."




 * In Lost Memories: The Art & Music of Silent Hill, there is a photo of Laura and Maria sitting on the wall which never appears in the game.
 * In Born from a Wish, Maria comments that Laura loves teddy bears. Maria then wonders, "Laura...? Who am I talking about?" This shows Maria has Mary's memories. In Brookhaven Hospital, James finds Laura playing with teddy bears.
 * It has been theorized that Laura wrote the messages in Neely's Bar due to the haphazard childish-like capitalization.
 * Laura is, appearance-wise, somewhat similar to Cheryl Mason from the first Silent Hill in that they both wear dresses with shirts or jumpers underneath.
 * Laura also appears to enjoy drawing (especially cats and bears), as she draws on the wall and on the patio door of the Lakeview Hotel. This may allude to Cheryl who loved coloring and also had imprints of kittens on her dress.




 * In the song "The Reverse Will", when played backwards, Laura recites a popular bedtime prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray The Lord my soul to keep. If I should I die before I wake, I pray The Lord my soul to take."
 * This can also be be heard in "Rain of Brass Petals - Three Voices Edit" from the Silent Hill 3 soundtrack.
 * The prayer also appears in the Silent Hill film in Toluca County Orphanage. Like Laura, parentless children recite it.
 * In one of the Silent Hill 2 trailers, Laura is sitting on the wall, singing "Ring Around the Rosie" before James approaches her.




 * Laura makes a cameo in the "Surprise" ending in Silent Hill: Downpour.
 * Elle Holloway from Silent Hill: Homecoming was originally supposed to be an older version of Laura, and she was supposed to wear James's jacket during the boat ride, but the idea was scrapped during production.

Silent Hill 2
Laura ლორა Лора Laura