A strange man was in her parlor, looking over her pictures.
There was no transitory period between her high of happy bliss and a feeling of pure and unadulterated terror. One moment she was standing there, happy with her paintings. The next she'd dropped her knapsack on the ground beside her and bolted for one of her living room end tables.
The strange man barely had time to register her presence and turn around before she'd pulled out a pistol and leveled it straight at his head.
"Who the fuck are you!" she shrieked.
"Don't shoot!" he cried in alarm, backing up from her and lifting her hands. "Please- I mean you no harm, don't shoot!" Heather had adrenaline on the brain. She rapidly took stock of his appearance. Mid to late twenties; his dark brown hair was already streaked with premature gray. He seemed worn, and very uneasey.
Heather stood up from her end table and stalked straight towards the man, her gun never wavering. She saw that he, too, had a holster on his hip, and a pistol much like her own. "Make one move for your weapon and I'll blow your brains out!" she shouted. "Who are you!"
"My name is Alex Shepard. I'm part of the Special Forces. Please, Miss, just put the weapon down- I'm not here to hurt you."
That sort of answer did not make Heather Mason happy. "You're in my house! You broke into my house!"
"I had to make sure you weren't a cultist," he answered quietly.
Heather stiffened.
"Please," he implored in a level voice. "Put the gun down."
She was quiet a moment, holding the gun steadily. Then she snorted. "Hold your arms out to the side. I want your gun, and I want to make sure you aren't going to try and grab or strike at me while I take it."
He considered the request for a moment before lifting his arms to do as he was told. Heather looked up him up and down before stepping forward and quickly snatching his pistol. She glanced at it momentarily before backing up a safe distance from him, and slowly lowering both weapons.
"Talk," she growled. "And make it good."
"As I said, my name is Alex Shepard. I've heard of you, but I know very little. I needed to make sure you weren't with them before I tried to talking to you."
Hmm. Her shoulders relaxed a little.
"All I knew was that you and your adoptive father, Harry Mason, had filed vague police reports that... " he grimaced. "Look, I am not with the cult. I'm just looking for answers. That's all."
Heather frowned. "Answers?" she asked slowly. "To what questions?"
He hesitated.
She sneered. "Look, I don't care who you think you're going to offend, I want the truth. The whole truth, right now, or I am calling the police on you and you can explain what you're doing in my house!"
"It's not easy to put into words," he muttered.
"You found me," she shouted. "You bridge the gap, you break the ice, and you tell me what you are DOING here!"
He grimaced. "Did anything... strange... happen while you were in Silent Hill?" he asked softly.
She shifted. "Strange?" she asked. "What kind of strange are we talking?"
"Can't be explained, strange," he managed. "Defies sense and reasoning. That kind of strange.'
Heather was uncomfortable now, and she hesitated. "Yes," was what she answered.
"Did you have to escape it?" he asked carefully.
Her eyes widened and she tilted her head to the side. Her fingers loosening around the handles of their pistols. "You've..." she hesitated, then pushed forward: "You've been there. The otherworld."
He took in a deep breath and nodded, slowly lowering his arms. A social mask, a semblence of normality, washed away from his face. The man beneathe it looked haunted, desperated, starved for any form of sanity.
Heather stared at him for a long moment. Then she nodded in understanding. "I have some answers," she told him, "but only a few." She looked down at the guns in her hand and then walked back up to him and lifted his pistol up towards him by the barrel, offering for him to take it back.
The haunted man looked at her for a moment. "Keep it for now." he told her. "You'll feel better about me sneaking in to your house... and you don't seem like the type to shoot an innocent man."
"I'm hardier than I look," she answered. "I survived the same hell you did."
He considered that. Then, a little energy seemed to seep back into him. "Fair enough," he responded, and took the pistol to holster it.
