A/N - This many updates in the same day? You can tell I'm having a slow work day, can't you?

Hand in hand, the two girls made their way along the hallway, Kate sneaking glances at the other girl as often as she could, not wanting to be caught staring. Who was this terrified little creature who, though obviously her senior, was so much like a little girl that, even at sixteen, Kate felt older than her? How had she ended up here? Come to that, what was the other girl's name? The questions occupied her mind, and she didn't notice their progress, past an abandoned pizza parlor, a shoe store, a locksmith's booth. As they came towards the end of the hallway, approaching the plaza, she decided to try talking to the other girl, maybe find some answers.

"So...hi..." she started, "I'm Kate. It's nice to meet you. What's your name?" The girl didn't answer, was too per-occupied with thoughts of her own. Kate stopped and waved a hand in front of the other girl's face.

"Hey, you ok in there?" The girl blinked and looked around, taking in the scene. Kate heard the bubbling of a fountain, and realised they'd come into the plaza. Good, she thought, we're that much closer to getting outta this screwy place. Across the plaza she could see monster corpses on the ground. Devil dogs, one without a head, and security guard monsters. Glad we didn't run into those guys while they were still up and at it, her inner commentator remarked, that coulda been messy.

"This is where I found him again," the other girl stated. "No, that's not right. This is where he found me, and they" gesturing at the monsters, "had been following me. He got in the way, though, so they tried to kill him. We went down... down there to talk" She turned and pointed back the way they came, Kate could just make out the abandoned pizza parlor they'd passed.

"The pizza place?"

The other girl nodded, yes.

"But then the bad man found us. He hurt my friend, and... and then I ran." She looked confused and hurt, as though the world were falling apart and she knew she'd be blamed for it. And punished, and punished, and punished for it.

"It's ok, though," Kate smiled at the girl, trying to reassure her, "the bad man's gone, right? And I can look after you now." The girl smiled sadly.

"I've heard that one before, they never could look after me. Most of them never even wanted to. They just made it worse. And you have a gun, too. Just like the bad man."

"He had a gun, too?" Kate started walking again, thinking aloud, "so he wasn't one of..." she pointed at the corpses, "one of them?"

"No, he was a proper person. He had a face and hands and a gun, they'd eat him too if he doesn't shoot them. Proper people here need to keep something sharp or loud with them, or they die."

"You sound like you've been here a long time."

"I came here a long time ago. I was looking for... I was looking for someone important. I thought maybe she could help me. Even if she couldn't help me stop the things that were happening, maybe she could help me understand things. I didn't find her, though. I tried to... I tried to end it all..." Now she just looked tired. Kate couldn't remember ever having seen anyone look so tired of everything.

"He wouldn't let me, though. I went up the stairs to try to find a way to end it, left him behind, too. He took my knife, wanted it for himself, so I had to find another. But he wouldn't let me. He took me to Brookhaven, gave me a room there. He said it's safe, and they never come for me, but I can see them when I look down the hallway. They haven't come yet, but I think... I think one day they will. She always said I deserved it, that I was a dirty whore who shoulda stopped it, but I didn't, so I musta wanted it. She wouldn't lie, would she? So... I musta deserved it. So they'll come, even if my friend says they can't, even if they haven't yet. They will."

Kate's heart went cold. To just give up, to have no hope at all, was something she couldn't begin to understand, something she had never even thought possible. But here was this pretty girl, who should have been happy and laughing, standing with her in the dingy mall telling her that someone would come to... to rape her? And that she deserved it? Struck dumb, she could only pat the girl's shoulder in what she hoped would be a comforting way. The girl flinched, and no wonder, but allowed Kate to pat her. Having to put up with people touching you, Kate thought numbly, having to fear that everyone was only out to fuck you and do God knows what to you. No wonder she has to make herself tolerate just being patted. I guess she's had practice, though. Poor kid. The thought brought tears to her eyes, and she blinked them away to hide them from the other girl.

"Come on, let's get outta here, then we can find your friend. How's that sound?"

"But he's back there. And he's hurt"

"Then we'll go out and find a way to fix him. We just have to get out right now, sweetie, ok?"

The other girl nodded submissively "Ok mama." She blinked and gasped, realising what she'd said, and backed away in horror. "I'm sorry, I mean ok Kate. You're Kate, right? Right. I'm sorry, I... I get confused sometimes..."

"It's ok, it's ok. Relax." Kate took a deep breath and took the girl's hand, gently. "This place isn't good for anyone, let's get outta here, ok? That hallway looks good to go out of, let's head that way."

They advanced further into the plaza, towards the fountain lit up by the few lights that still worked, and the girl stopped dead at the sight of the figure they revealed. Nathan Crawley.

"Nathan..." Kate breathed.

"The bad man" whispered the girl, holding tight to Kate's hand. Kate's stomach churned within her. So Nathan had become a killer since she had last seen him. She was certain that the guy the other girl referred to as 'my friend' was dead by now, guns were too damn dangerous to expect surviving without good medical care, and that would have to have been done quickly. She had to make sure the girl didn't guess at her friend's death, though, she was obviously fragile enough as it was. So now Crawley the commentator in her muttered now there's a thing.

Stepping forward, Kate spoke to the murderer.

"So you're still here. Having fun? You scared her," a gesture to the other girl, "half to death, you know."

He nodded silently. Said nothing. The empty mall stretched away around them.

"We're getting the hell out of here." she continued. "I guess you'll want to do the same, but stay away from us, ok?" Kate pulled the revolver out from the waistband of her skirt and gestured at Crawley, glaring furiously at him. He pulled out a handgun of his own and made the same motion at her.

"Ok, you wanna play cowboys, kid? We can do that. Except this time I'm armed, too. You aint got the advantage over me no more. I've already used this once, your new friend can tell ya how I took out the guy holding her prisoner" He waved the gun at the other girl, who yelped and hid behind Kate. Kate was suddenly very confused. Prisoner? But the girl had spoken of the guy as a friend.. Maybe the room in Brookhaven? Does it matter? He's got a gun pointed at you, idiot! Deal with that first! ranted her commentator.

Dismissing the thought she rolled her eyes at the man. Apparently he hadn't learnt anything useful from being stuck in here. Not even to get over himself in the attempt to get the hell out.

"Look. Dick. We just wanna get outta here, ok? Now, I dunno what it is you're wanting, but I'm tired and wanna go home. I'm tired of devil dogs that try to eat you alive, I'm tired of insane burger boys who vanish into thin air, I'm tired of security guards who turn out to be monsters, and, dick, most of all I'm tired of you. Take your ego and shove it, cause I'm done worrying about you."

With that, she turned her back on him and started toward the exit hallway, her long loose hair flying out behind her on the incoming draft. He ran to catch up to her, and was halfway to her when something slid out from under his foot, making him fall heavily to the metal ground. At his sudden yell of pain and shock Kate spun round, revolver raised, to see what had happened to him or what had attacked him.

"Nathan! You ok?" She hurried over to him, the other girl stayed back. She had yelled at his yell and now stood there with her hand over her mouth, wide-eyed in shock.

"Yeah, kid, thanks. I'm ok," he grumbled, embarrassed. "I guess I just slipped up on..." he felt underneath himself. "On a newspaper? What the..?"

Kate reached down, took his hand and helped him up, then crouched down next to him to read the paper. A big photo of a spotty student took up most of the front page, with the headline "LOCAL STUDENT MISSING, SUICIDE SUSPECTED" underneath. Kate took a sharp breath, shocked, and stood up, holding the paper for the man to see.

"Nathan, look! This is the burger boy! He's the one that I saw!" Nathan scanned the headline, pointed at the date, five years ago, and raised his eyebrows inquisitively. Kate went white, her heart beginning to pound, panic beginning to set in.

"So he's been stuck here? All this time? But he hasn't aged at all! Even the grease and burger blood on his clothes were fresh!" If the burger boy had been here for five years since disappearing, would they themselves ever get out?

"Local student Jeff Brookman vanished without a trace during his shift in the newly-opened Lakeside Mall here in Silent Hill," Kate read aloud, "Co-workers said that he had been looking very depressed on entering the kitchens and had been lethargic, bitter and despairing throughout his first hour, prompting his shift manager to banish him to the back of the kitchens, out of sight of the customers.'I told him we couldn't look ourselves in the mirror if we at Happy Burger were making our customers unhappy just by the sight of us,' Pam Estel, graveyard shift manager, told the Silent Hill Gazette, continuing 'I told him that I knew this isn't the best of jobs, especially for a bright young man like him, but that he had to smarten up. That's when he told me he'd flunked all his SATs. Girl trouble, he said. He was real cut up about it. After that, it was more a mutual agreement that he'd stay in the back for the rest of the night. He agreed that it might help him decide what to do from here on out. I hope he's ok, though, he was real cut up about it.' Ms Estel has since quit the Happy Burger chain in search of a more productive and humane employer, an anonymous source told the Silent Hill Gazette."

Kate looked up from the paper and into the man's eyes, almost pleading with him to tell her it couldn't be true. That was all she could read. Somehow the words, perfectly legible when she saw them from the corner of her eye, just formed into blocks of black or ran away in all sorts of different directions when she looked straight at them.

"There's more about his mom and his brothers, but it's not readable," she said, "It's as if the words just don't want to be read." Nathan craned over her shoulder to try to read what the hell she was talking about, and had to admit he 'couldn't read jack squat' himself.

"He seemed real cut up about it..." he muttered. Kate gagged, trying to ignore the growing stench from the fountain behind them. "Real cut up...Hey kid, pipe down, wouldjah?" This last was to the girl in the light top, who was beginning to whimper again, but getting louder and more hysterical as she went on. The girl's whimpering, though, merely got louder, and Nathan turned to yell at her, but found the words dried up in his throat. Kate turned to see the other girl, standing like a statue, pointing at the fountain, gibbering. Kate turned to see the sight for herself, and her jaw dropped. The fountain was gushing with thick, hot blood, and a human figure was rising up from under the surface, the entrails floating in the blood getting caught on it, dangling from his shoulders.

Nathan grabbed Kate's shoulder, but to no avail. As if through a thick fog, Kate heard the other girl shriek and flee, bare feet flapping, heard the door slam shut, but couldn't tear her eyes away from the figure in the fountain. Jeff, the disappearing geek, the guy who had maddened her with his 'schoolgirl' taunts, stood bleeding and bloody in the pool before them. He held his slit, gushing wrists out to them plaintively, his Happy Burger uniform soaked in blood. He spoke, and more blood fell from his mouth, slopping over the claws that should have been fingers. He spoke, and Kate saw the gashes across his legs where he had been too slow for some low-lying demon with knives or claws. He spoke, and a nailed nightstick that Kate remembered so well fell from his battered chest. He spoke, and the walls closed in, trapping the two of them in with him.

He spoke, and the world ended with every word.

"I'm very cut up about it"

A/N - I live for R&R. :-D