So, as you can see, I decided to make this a multi-chapter fic. It'll probably be around three to five chapters long.
Henry nervously wrung the worn handle of his rusty ax, twisting his weapon of choice in his hands. He was somewhere in the Forest World again, creeping through trees like a wanted fugitive to avoid that man. Never in his wildest dreams did he think his life would come to this: five weapons stored in the waistband of his pants, surviving only on the dropped bottles of a thick brown liquid known as nutrition drinks, and beating monsters as he tried to avoid the murderer who wielded two pistols and never seemed to take any damage, despite being shot, hacked, and beaten.
Eileen limped about a meter behind him, puffing heavily. In spite of her broken arm, bruises, and gashes, given to her by the murderer, and wearing high heels and a party dress, she never lost her determined spark, clutching a riding crop and just daring a monstrous dog to use her as a chew toy.
"This is a nightmare... this can't be happening." Her high, feminine voice was foreign in the ominous quiet. Henry had no words of comfort for her, and what he had said before was hollow and of no comfort at all.
"We just need to get to Wish House and we'll be safe, okay?" He paused to let her rest and placed a hand on her shoulder. "We're close. See where we are?" He beckoned to the Mother stone, that large rock he'd rather not look at.
She wrapped her arms around him in a loose hug, a tear sliding down her cheek. "How many more?"
Assuming she meant how many more gates, he replied, "One or two." He tried as hard as he could to sound optimistic.
"No," she whimpered. "How many more worlds?"
Henry counted all the portals he'd walked through after he watched Jasper Gein die. "Just two or three..."
"Just," she laughed bitterly. "None would be better!"
"Yes, it would," he agreed, "but the truth is, we're stuck here. And no amount of wishing and praying is going to change that. If we want freedom, we'll have to fight for it. The only way out is through more worlds, more monsters, and more of that bastard that keeps attacking us." He searched frantically for any sign of dirty blond hair or a bloodstained trench coat.
Henry brushed a stray lock of hair out of her eyes hesitantly, murmuring, "We'll get out of here, and not in two pine caskets, alright? We're the only ones left to protect the apartment from that guy."
The subtle appeal to Eileen's altruistic nature hardened her resolve. She nodded firmly, stating, "Alright." She swung the gate wide, a small smile on her lips. "After you. You have the ax."
The moment he stepped through, he heard a mocking chuckle and the click of a gun cocking. Eileen screamed, ducking behind a tree as Henry dropped his ax and fumbling for his revolver.
Just as he found the grip of the gun, a bullet burned through his left shoulder. He groaned in agony as blood darkened the sleeve of his shirt. The revolver fell to the leaves, and then the man approached at a run.
"Dammit, no!" Eileen roared, flinging herself on the murderer in a barrage of blows from the riding crop. He staggered but did not fall, a series of cracks resounding in the night air.
Another gunshot sent a bullet straight through Henry's brain, and his eyes rolled back into his head as he fell to the ground, limp as a ragdoll.
"Henry. Henry!" The voice was foggy in his ears, and his eyelids snapped open. He stared wildly around the room to see Eileen shaking him softly. He felt about the surface on which he laid, finding tangled sheets damp with cold sweat instead of the wet ground and slick leaves he expected.
All a nightmare, he told himself, exhaling shakily and burying his head in his palms. He was in his bedroom. Walter was dead. Henry had survived. He was safe. But that nightmare...
"I'm terribly sorry. I walked by and noticed your door was open, and I figured I'd check on you. You seemed to be having a nightmare, so I woke you up. Like I said, I'm really sorry," Eileen apologized.
"No, it's fine. And thanks." He removed his hands frorm his face to gaze at her. She backed up from his bedside to allow him to stand, where he pulled on a plain T-shirt over his bare chest, wincing as it roughly dragged over the claw marks and bites decorating his spine.
"Have anything planned for today?" she questioned, this bubbly side of her something he hadn't seen in Silent Hill.
"No. I was going to hang out around here," he groaned, lumbering after her into the living room. He turned into the kitchen, opening the overhead cupboards and pulling out two glasses. "Want anything to drink? Hungry? I haven't been grocery shopping, but I've got a few old bags of chips and stuff."
"Nah," Eileen turned down his offer, sitting down on the sofa, stretching out her legs and folding her hands over her stomach to watch him. "I'll have a glass of water."
Henry filled up the two glasses, taking a sip from his own cup and handing Eileen hers. She accepted it, then left it abandoned in her clutch.
"Your cast is gone," he observed.
"Yeah." Eileen grinned, twisting her arm in the air to scrutinize it. Henry became aware of the multiple scars puckering her pale flesh, one the size of a pencil zigzagging through her clavicles, another the size of a nickel flat and glossy on her bicep, a bullet wound. Pink marks, not yet scars, formed the shape of a dog's mouth on her forearm. And on her forehead, above her right eye, a reddish line curved. "We're regular heroes now, Henry."
"Hmm?" He had become inadvertantly distracted.
"I said, we're regular heroes now. The local news wants to know our entire story. We even made it to the Today show! 'Henry Townshend and Eileen Galvin, two neighbors in a South Ashfield apartment building, were kidnapped to fulfill a strange cult ritual, where they fought for their lives against a murderer in the forest of the nearby resort town of Silent Hill- and won,'" she joyously reiterated what the news anchor had said of their experience.
"They forgot to mention the portals, the monsters, and just about everything of real importance," Henry chuckled, though he recalled with a shudder the portals, the monsters, and everything of real importance.
"Well, when you consider it-" Eileen took a gulp from her water- "the only ones who could believe us are dead or in a mental hospital."
"True." Henry finished his water, setting the cup on the coffee table without a coaster, one of his major pet peeves long before Silent Hill. Now, those small things didn't matter.
"So, when are you going back?" Eileen pointed out his wraps and stitches.
"They gave me instructions on how to do it myself," he responded. "I'm looking forward to removing them myself." He was honestly indifferent to the prospect of pulling out the threads, as the wounds had to hurt more being created than having something pulled out of them.
"Ah." Eileen set down her cup as well. "You know, a plastic surgeon is donating free scar revision surgery if we want it."
"Yeah, I heard." Henry shook his head in dissent. "I'm not going to take it."
"Same. In a way, I kind of like my 20121 scar. I can't get rid of it, and if people have a problem with that, they can go to hell. I rescued South Ashfield Heights- with you, of course- so I think I've earned these."
Henry just laughed.
"And Henry, thank you." She righted herself to touch his bandaged wrist.
"For what?"
"Coming to my aid in all those worlds; you didn't have to, but you did. I was probably a greater hindrance than help to you, in my state at that time."
He stiffened abruptly. "It was nothing."
"Come on, now's not the time to be humble. It was something. It was everything." She grasped lightly so she didn't hurt him. "Without you, I wouldn't be here. Even when you left me, you always returned. So thanks."
"No need to thank me," he muttered tersely, standing sharply and taking his glass.
"Henry..." He dumped it into the sink, chipping the rim, and he slammed his hand against the counter. Eileen jumped at his sudden outburst; she never in a million years would expect the soft-spoken hermit to have a violent streak.
"I don't want to talk about it!" he yelled.
"Henry, we can't pretend that it never happened. Obviously, we have things wrong with us, things we'll likely need therapy for. If you won't talk about it, you'll never get better," Eileen reasoned, raising her hands in surrender.
Henry sank onto a stool, massaging his temples. "I'm not getting therapy."
"I'm in therapy, Henry. It's not as bad as you think it is."
"I'm not going to be treated like some psychopath like everyone else!" His brain then caught up with what he had said, realizing the new hurt expression on Eileen's face. "Eileen..."
She shot to her feet and stomped past him. "Goodbye, Henry. I know you wouldn't want to talk to a psychopath like me."
"Why are you making such a big deal of this? I said I'm sorry," he cried after her.
She stopped and gazed at him from the doorway. "Whether you want to admit it or not, you have what I do. So does that make me a psycopath or normal?"
"I really wish we could be normal," he mumbled.
"We're normal. Just a different kind of normal." And the door closed with a click. Again, Henry was alone.