Recently finished Silent Hill 1 for the first time and I've got some questions.

First off, even if it definitely hasn't aged well, it's still a banger of a game who I can absolutely picture becoming a huge classic at the time.
Some of the best atmosphere in gaming, a super unique OST and pretty good graphics for the time too.
The story is super confusing and I get that it's on purpose, the whole thing about Silent Hill games is that they're surreal and never really give you all the answers, which allows people to have their own take on certain things. (At least, that's what I heard.)

Buuuut there's still some stuff that I've been wondering about :

1 - I can't really figure out if the characters have been taken into another plane of reality, in the fog world and such, or if it is actually reality being changed ?

2 - Where did everybody go ? Especially if we go with the idea that this is actual reality being changed and not some astral plane. Did they just get snapped out of existence ?

3 - Is Cybil experiencing the same events that we do ? It certainly doesn't seem like it, given that she never acknowledges that there's monsters roaming around. She even dismisses Harry's version of what's happening to them a couple of times.

4 - When did Cheryl get merged ? I've seen online that she got merged immediatly after the accident, which I sorta get. But if so, what's up with the notes at the start of the game, the phone call and the TV screens ?

And finally : Does this mean that Cheryl was utterly erased from existence ? The "Merged Cheryll/Alessa" that we meet a couple of times doesn't exactly seem to show any love toward her adoptive father outside of the bad ending. I guess it's because they're too focused on what's at stake ?

I'm really curious to read some of your ideas and explanations about these few things !