Disclaimer: If I owned Silent Hill, I'd cry myself to sleep every night from pure joy. Instead, I cry myself to sleep from pure misery.

Summary: Every time he enters that room, it feels like he's giving up a piece of his soul. (For Henry, the nightmares never ended.) Post game; Mother ending.

Numbered

Returning to South Ashfield Heights feels wrong. Frank is friendly enough, still making polite conversation with Eileen and taking an interest in Henry's photographs. But his smile is strained and the other tenants wary. Richard's absence is a strange lingering; a reminder of the twisted events in the building. Henry often finds himself lying on his bed in Room 302, watching the fan circle around and around, thinking of the holes that are gone and of the fifteenth and wondering if something has happened to the world, or if it's just him.

-

Henry takes Eileen back from the hospital to her apartment and begins to straighten out the room while she sets the flowers he'd given her in a vase. Blood drops are leftover on the floor, untouched since the attempted murder and they lie there, like the epitome of blissful ignorance. Henry ignores them and focuses on righting an upset chair, settling it on its legs and tucking it neatly under the table it belonged to. When he glances into her room, her pink stuffed rabbit, Robbie, is staring at him, blank plastic eyes laughing and bloodstained mouth smiling mindlessly.

Henry looks away and shuts the door. Eileen joins him momentarily and they work together to clean the place up. Throughout the entire ordeal, Henry's eyes stray to the marks on her back, peeking out from under her tank top. (20121)

When he leaves, he glances at the flowers in the vase. They are already withering.

-

The first time Eileen kisses him, Henry doesn't like it. It's tender and soft and thoughtful, but when he passes a hand over her upper back, he can feel the hard dips and rises of scars.

It's been over a month, and the markings haven't begun to fade at all.

-

Sometimes, late at night and in his sleep, Henry thinks he can hear the wailing of his radio, the sounds of crashing in his bathroom, and a steady knocking on his apartment door. When he wakes, he's disoriented and stumbles about, a headache beginning to form behind his eyes and steadily growing worse. The first time he finds himself wondering where his red typewriter is, he starts to sleep with one of his spare saint medallions in hand.

-

He thinks the medallion must be working until he starts seeing strange things in his photographs. Knots in trees that look like a demon's face. Strange shadows, words, symbols, like a message that only he can see. Finally, he throws away several rolls of undeveloped film and puts his camera away. It leaves him with a strange, empty feeling, a restlessness, something words cannot define. It doesn't help that shortly later he wakes to find his medallion cracked in his hand.

-

When Eileen asks him if he wants to go out, Henry feels oddly hopeful and accepts. It's just a coffee shop they go to, drinks in their hands and sitting across from each other. It's... nice, being in the coffee shop. Like coming up for air after being in water for so long. It's a feeling Henry quickly comes to love; the too-bitter coffee, the hum of voices, and Eileen smiling across from him.

When she reaches over to touch his cheek, Henry thinks of Cynthia, her pretty face, her blood everywhere, and the sight of her corpse struggling across the ground toward him. "This is just a dream, and a really terrible one too."

Henry draws away and looks down and he feels like he's in water again.

Eileen is still for a long moment, and when she finally moves, it's to push her chair back and stomp out. Bells jingle as the door opens and shuts, cheerfully mocking him.

Henry closes his eyes and hates himself.

Just a dream...

-

Henry glances mournfully at Eileen's door (303) when he returns, light shining out from under it, and trods into Room 302. Every time he enters that room, it feels like he's giving up a piece of his soul.

That night, he dreams and wakes in a cold sweat before finding himself vomiting into the toilet. Sometime later, he hears the phone ring. When he finds strength to sit up—he doesn't know how he got back in bed—he picks up the phone.

"I'm always watching you," a distorted voice tells him, and he associates it with Schreiber. (The puddle on the ground, small at first, but getting bigger and the Crimson Tome, you fool, you didn't...)

When Henry wakes, it's on the bathroom floor. The air has the acrid smell of vomit and Henry fumbles to flush the toilet. His body feels too hot and he stumbles back to his bed. When he glances to his right, he finds the phone off the receiver, the mouthpiece dangling in the air, its innocence nothing more than a lie.

-

The next time there is knocking on his door, it's Frank, brow lined with worry and eyes melancholic.

You haven't come out for three days, he says. Is everything alright?

It feels like a mock form of déjà vu, but Henry just shakes his head, says everything's fine (even if it's a lie) and closes the door.

Frank was lying. It hadn't been three days—one, maybe, but not three. Henry leans against his door and closes his eyes and for a moment he feels hard, cold strands fasten him to the door, like chains, and he hears young Walter's voice, pleading and wistful and innocent and wrong.

When he opens his eyes, there's nothing.

He goes to his room and lies on his bed and watches the fan go 'round and 'round for a few minutes. He later sits up and glances at the clock (it says he was lying there for several hours; it's lying). He rubs his head, an ache growing there, and wonders when everything became so empty, so nothing. He wonders when dreams started to take over his life, when he became afraid of the camera he cherished, when he stopped reading, when he became so incapable of... everything. When he started to lose himself in the hours that were like minutes.

Why it took so long to notice.

-

"I'm not going to die here," he tells Eileen what he thinks is the next day. His voice is steady and strong, a comfort to himself. He sounds brave, but he just wants to run away.

She's looking at him from her door, her brows knitting at that cryptic statement, but even then Henry knows he sees understanding in her eyes. She knows. It's a relief and a fear all at once. She knew, but never spoke. She knew, so he's not alone. He's not just crazy.

"I'm leaving," he continues, and there is a regret in his heart. Despite it all, he doesn't want to leave; this has become his home in the last two years. He'll miss the windows and Frank, but he doesn't know what else he might miss. If only for one more thing... "Come with me?" He meant for it to be a statement, to not give her a choice, but he can't find it in him to be like that. His breath is slow, the air feels thin as she stares up at him, not answering and he hopes—oh God, he hopes...

She reaches out and curls her fingers around his, lose but still so there. She smiles up at him, and for once, for the first time in a long time, he finds it in himself to smile back.

End Numbered

That ending is way too happy. But I just couldn't bring myself to make Eileen and Henry waste away in their apartments.