This House No Longer Feels Like Home
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Hurt/Comfort/Angst/Drama/Friendship
Summary: For hc_bingo, prompt "Loss of Home-Shelter". After his entrapment, after Walter Sullivan, after the Sacraments, there is no home anymore.
Author's Note: Hm. I guess you could say this falls within the same universe as Silent Hill Survivors Anonymous, but… Hm. It could stand alone as well.
Disclaimer: I don't own Silent Hill. It belongs to Konami/Vatra.

[-]

There was no 'home' anymore.

Before his entrapment, before Walter Sullivan, before the Sacraments, Henry was not a man that particularly enjoyed the company of others. He kept to himself, occasionally greeted his neighbors when he ran into them, and rarely if ever actively sought out human company. He had a few people he kept in contact with from college and high school, but those calls came and went only on a rare basis.

It wasn't that Henry didn't like people. It wasn't that they bothered him. He simply preferred to be alone, a concept that only a precious handful of people seemed to understand and respect. He was shy to boot, which meant that, in general, Henry was at his best when he worked alone.

After his entrapment, after Walter Sullivan, after the Sacraments, things changed- to a degree, anyway.

Where Henry could spend countless time alone in his apartment before being driven out for work, food or a desire to find things to photograph, now he couldn't stand more than a few hours of it. When it got too quiet, when his focus drifted from his surroundings, something would snap him back, usually a thought of- WAIT, wait, what was that sound? Was that a ghost? Where are the candles?!

But there were no ghosts, because Walter was dead (really dead) and the ghosts were gone. The frame of mind that had come with being trapped for so long in his apartment stuck with surprising tenacity; he had lost count of how many times those paranoid thoughts had compelled him to go and check the door to make sure that the chains hadn't returned.

Even Eileen couldn't fully understand. She had been stuck in Silent Hill, yes, but not after five days of being trapped in her apartment with no hints or clues that she would ever get out again, help so close but so far away; Henry had actually given up and had a brief but painful moment of hysteria on the third day where he had screamed into his pillow and thrown a lamp across the living room (it was there the next day, whole as if nothing had ever happened).

And even if she could relate to that particular aspect of their hell, Henry would not have imparted it on her. He was not accustomed to confiding in people; and even though Eileen and he had grown close, they weren't that close- yet. And every time he started to dimly contemplate sharing a bit of what was going on in his head with her, he saw the bruises that hadn't quite faded yet on her face and arms and remembered that she had her own problems. She didn't need his as well.

[-]

As his apartment was an endless source of anxiety, Henry had taken to long sojourns through town whenever he could- he was calmest when away from the apartment building altogether. He would walk through the park, eat out whenever his budget allowed for it, and walked aimlessly enough through and past enough stores that many of the staff had become somewhat leery of him. Sometimes he would take photos of different locations, other times he would just sit or stand, for the first time really having to be mindful of the "No Loitering" signs.

In the process of staying out of his own apartment, he had gotten to know his neighbors better and that was awkward to a degree: Henry had wandered through their apartments (twisted versions, at any rate) when he was trapped in Walter's world, and knew things that perhaps they wouldn't want him knowing.

Madison (204) gladly insisted that he join her for dinner every Wednesday night; she was a great cook, and though simply being in the building was enough to allow the anxiety to rise, Henry was happy to be out of his own room. Madison was lovely, and Henry was interested enough in cooking that they had some interesting conversations.

Mrs. Noble (304) took notice of Henry coming and going more often and occasionally began to flag him down for a bit of banal conversation about the weather or his health or his photography, and one time even offered to pay him to do some photographs of her and her husband's Dalmatian. The Nobles were friendly, warm people, but Henry had a strong suspicion that- at the very least- Mrs. Noble could see his anxiety.

It was fairly common knowledge by then that Henry had been "attacked" along with Eileen and Richard (no one seemed to know Cynthia, Jasper or Andrew), even if he hadn't been in his apartment when he was found; rather, Henry had collapsed on the pavement bloody and bruised, but too euphoric to be breathing free, fresh air to really care. Apparently he had even laughed sometime between the paramedics arriving and waking up in the hospital, something that had alarmed a few people.

Oh well. After that hell, he was entitled to be a little weird.

There were, of course, moments when interacting with others from the building wasn't such a good thing. Brandon, the ten year-old son of the Morse family (206), found Henry on a bench outside of the building one day. Henry had been fiddling with his camera lens until he saw the kid lean over the back of the bench. "Hey, you're the guy from 302, right?"

"Mm-hm."

"Across from 207?"

"Yeah."

"You know the guy who got electrocuted?"

Henry stiffened, but then forced himself to swallow the growing lump in his throat and nodded. "Uh-huh."

"My brother and I saw his body."

Henry's heart was racing. It was remarkably uncomfortable. "Oh really?" His voice came out a little raspy.

"Yeah. The police pulled the blanket off his face when they were wheeling him out. It was all purple and black and red and gross." Brandon grinned. "It was awesome."

Henry couldn't blame the kid: Richard was, by the consensus of many, a damn prick. And given that he had shaken a revolver in Little Walter's face, it didn't take a great leap of the mind to consider what sort of things he may have done or said to Brandon or his siblings in the past. He was probably glad to see Richard go.

All the same, Henry was starting to feel sick. He already couldn't look out his windows anymore because he was afraid he might see Walter standing in Richard's window or by the subway entrance. It was too easy to remember the ambulances in the parking lot and on the street as they came to take away the bodies. Too easy to remember when he knew that he was probably next.

Henry stood up and shoved his camera back in his bag. Time to go for a walk: Going back to room 302 would only make that sick-feeling worse. "Yeah, well, don't let your parents know."

[-]

Henry had established a new nightly ritual: Unplugging the TV, taking the batteries out of the radio, putting his shoes in the closet and locking all of the doors- including the one to the storage room, which had been installed about a week after Henry had gotten home from the hospital.

Frank had asked how the hole had come to be, and Henry had lumped it under the 'beaten so bad I can't remember anything' excuse and prayed that if he didn't have the head-injury to back it up, the doctors would assume it was psychological trauma. He was getting recommendations to attend therapy left and right, but like hell Henry was going to go talk to someone so that they could dissect the incident piece by piece and figure out he was lying. The truth would land him in a mental institution.

Frank knew that Walter (not by name) had been messing around in 302 some years prior- his diary had said as much. But Frank didn't know that Henry knew that, and so he kept his mouth shut about the fact that the superintendent had, in his inspection of the room, overlooked the fact that an entire room had been blocked off without his knowledge. Walter's body- though not the stench- was long gone, which left the majority of the scandal out of it. Frank brought in a repair crew to adjust the wall and install a door, and that was the end of it.

Of all of the rooms in the apartment, it was that one that caused Henry the most anxiety. Realizing that one had been sleeping with a corpse less than ten feet away for two years was enough to give anyone nightmares, but Henry had a strange fascination and fear of the room itself: He felt compelled to check and make sure that Walter's body had not somehow magically returned, but at the same time the act of doing so was enough to make him queasy with nervousness.

Sleeping was difficult- sometimes, impossible. If Henry was fortunate enough to not spontaneously remember that detail about the storage room and Walter's corpse, sleep came easier. If he did, there was no point to even staying in bed because sleep was just not going to happen. It was hard to drift off when you had heart-pounding images of that corpse dragging itself through the wall like a ghost.

On this particular night, Henry got into bed and forced his mind to stay blank. A benefit to spending more time outside meant that he did more activities, and more activities meant more energy spent. His body was more than willing to shut down, if not for the cooperation of his mind. Shutting his eyes was crucial, not having to look at the wall or the window or the ceiling or his closet and remember the times he had woken up on the bed after returning through the hole.

On this particular night, Henry fell asleep. He even managed to muster a few pleasant thoughts, such as the fact that there was going to be a fair downtown tomorrow and the opportunity for photography would be excellent. And around so many people, it would be impossible to be sucked into the other place…

On this particular night, Henry dreamed.

It was not a good dream.

Like most nightmares, it had the horrible quality of not only feeling very real, but also being very possible- insofar as Henry's new perception of what was possible went. It was almost the same as that vision of Walter's corpse dragging itself through his bedroom wall: But in this dream, Henry could hear that sick, twisted laughter, could hear the bang of the revolver as it fired, could hear ghostly moans intertwined with the two. Walter didn't come through the wall in this nightmare, but rather crawled up through the floor, out of the storage room and right into Henry's room.

And Henry couldn't move, couldn't move, and he tried to scream but it sounded so quiet to his ears. He had to watch, helpless, as Walter's hulking corpse dragged itself across the floor, onto the end of his bed, up over his legs and chest and then face-to-face and Henry was panicking, screaming, help! help! and his head hurt so, so badly-

A loud slamming sound jarred Henry out of the dream. Before he had time to fully realize that that was all it had been, his bedroom door flew open and he let out a sharp yelp of fright as someone came hurtling in. It took a second for Henry to fumble to the right and flip the light on.

Eileen Galvin was standing there at the end of his bed, a pistol in hand, shoulders shaking with either fear or adrenaline (possibly both). Her eyes were wide, as was her mouth. For a moment, all they did was stare at one another. Finally-

"…Oh God."

"Eileen-"

"I'm sorry."

"It's-"

"I just, I heard you screaming-" Had she? Come to think of his, Henry's throat felt a little raw. "I thought you were being attacked."

"It's all right." Henry said quickly, waving his hands. "No, really, it's fine. I- I actually appreciate that." He gave a brief, nervous laugh and got out of bed. Once he was standing, though, Henry noticed that he was shaking uncontrollably and cold from the layer of sweat now covering his skin. "I'm sorry if I scared you."

Eileen sagged back against the wall. "Oh no, it's perfectly okay- I'm just glad you're all right. I thought…" She trailed off, and he knew exactly what she meant.

There was a moment of awkwardness between them that hadn't really been present in Walter's world. In a dire situation where lives were on the line, they worked well together; somehow, it wasn't so easy when there was no real threat anymore. Or maybe it was just the fact that it was one AM and they were both in their nightclothes.

Henry sat down on the edge of the bed, legs still shaking a bit. Eileen wandered over and sat down next to him, setting the pistol down beside her. "Are you all right?"

No, Henry was not all right. He was losing his mind.

And he was just so damn tired.

"I can't stay here anymore." Henry said, voice croaky with fatigue and the screaming. "I can't. It'll be the end of me. I have to move."

Eileen reached over and rubbed his arm. "I don't blame you." He was really, really glad that she didn't say something like 'I know the feeling', because really, she didn't: Her home had not become her prison for danger to creep into at a moment's notice. Her home hadn't had a corpse hiding behind her bedroom wall for two years (and beyond).

"I know Walter's gone. I know my apartment is safe- or at least, I think it is, and I can't even be sure about that. Honestly, if it wasn't for you I would have sworn the entire thing was just a massive hallucination."

"Likewise." Eileen chewed her lip for a moment. "Can you stay with your parents?"

"No." There were at least a hundred reasons why that cannot and would not happen, and Henry didn't have time to list them all for her.

"Any other relatives? Friends?"

"Not really."

Eileen hesitated. But then, "I've been looking into moving too. I've been looking for something that's… Not an apartment. Preferably no peep-holes."

"How will you know who's knocking, then?"

"Hopefully I'll find something with the windows at an agreeable angle. Anyway, it would probably be easier to find and rent if I had a roommate; someone who could chip in on the payments, because something that isn't an apartment would probably cost more."

Henry was surprised. "You're inviting me along?"

Eileen smiled sadly. "We both need to get out of here. Badly."

He couldn't disagree with that. "You're certain you'd want me as your roommate?"

She snorted. "Are you kidding me? After what happened, you're on my top-ten list of most-trusted people, right under my sisters and my parents."

Henry felt his cheeks warm a little at that. "Wow. Thanks."

"If I recall correctly, I should be thanking you." Eileen gave his arm a pat, and then stood up and stretched. "You'll think about it?"

"Definitely."

"Great." She picked up her pistol and gave him a little salute with it, winking. "Good night."

Henry smiled. "Good night."

She started to leave, and then stopped, cringing. "Oh, uh, by the way: I kind of kicked your door in. If the lock or the knob needs to be fixed, just, uh… Let me know. I'll pay for it." With one more little wave, Eileen ducked out of his room and headed back to her own apartment.

Henry chuckled and laid back on the bed. Yes, he could definitely live with Eileen.

That night, he slept peacefully.

-End