The stereotypical image of God has stuck with Harry Mason for all of his life; that of an older man with a booming voice and immaculate robes bright enough to rival the sheen of his curling mass of hair. Despite the fact that God is typically viewed as genderless, this particular image has been beaten into his brain since childhood, and he supposes- with a tinge of guilt- that he draws comfort from the image, as potentially biased as it is.
This is why it takes a moment for the image of the full-grown Alessa to sink in when he descends the stairs and turns the corner. A part of him fully expects to see a magnificent creature with brilliant eyes and strong hands, a ceaseless river of wisdom floating from its head and filling the room with a magnificent aura. Harry expects a face that has grown old and weary from tossing out insurmountable amounts of love and death with an ever enduring expression. The implications never truly hit him until he turns from Dahlia and focuses on that thing, writhing on the ground after a seven year slumber.
Harry has the hardest time keeping his balance. A child… I'm… going to kill…
And that thing is suddenly lifeless with the addition of a blinding flash of pure white. And it's screaming. She's screaming. Alessa. She's been ripped mercilessly from the womb, bleeding and cold.
And Harry can see it all. Not only the mirror-like syringes, the needles piercing the skull, the bruises that last for days, the vomit floating in the toilet bowl, the unquenchable flames, the gauze that goes on white and is peeled off copper-tinted beige, but the potential. The potential that became reality with the birth of his Cheryl- that of a smiling, slightly klutzy girl that loved stories and ducks and owned a hair ribbon for each day of the week; who liked to draw sticks in an assortment of colors within the chaotic confines of her sketchbook and call them 'aminals,'; who liked to play in the mud and eat ice cream and straight up wear him out. When Alessa smiles, Cheryl smiles, and he now has an idea of what his little girl would look like on the inevitable day he was to give her away.
Harry's hands are sweating horribly, and he wonders if that's why he's having such a hard time loading the gun as he prepares himself for a full-fledged charge. The butt of his rifle is especially heavy against his shoulder as he raises the scope and spreads his trembling legs for balance. Harry finds himself dropping the weapon when the terrified image of his daughter blinds him, and the nightmare becomes a reality when he falls forward and catches a glimpse of her lifeless form before eating the grate below him.
And all he can hear is Dahlia laughing and laughing as her daughter shrieks in agony, and perhaps his imagination gets the best of him when he swears he is hearing the crunching of broken bones. And Harry cannot move, not an inch, not even when a familiar voice appears and the screaming finally ceases only to be replaced by preternatural shrieking and the crackle of flames meeting fat.
Harry finally-mercifully- moves when Cybil slaps him across the face and shakes his boneless body, and even then he can only see the twin corpses, side by side over the open flames as the nightmare boils over and mars everything it touches.
What ifs and potential. Harry crawls back up pitifully as the world around him blurs.