Chapter 21: A New Beginning

"It's over," Henry said again, when no one made any move to leave.

Eileen limped across the church to him. "It really is, isn't it?"

He looked at her. Despite the injuries she had sustained from the monster, she seemed to be holding up pretty well. She was even smiling. He knew they would all have to stop at the hospital, however.

"Oh no," he said, remembering the start of the trek through Silent Hill. "The car we rented broke down."

"I can drive you back," she said. "I'm sure Rich will understand."

He thought about the man they had inadvertently terrified while trying to rent a car. When they'd left, he had been in the process of barricading himself in the shop. He wasn't quite as confident as her that he'd understand. There wasn't anything they could do about it now, however.

"Walter?" he asked. "Are you ready?"

Walter had been staring at the fallen monster, but he turned and looked towards them. He seemed slightly dazed. "Oh…yes."

"Are you okay?"

"…Yes."

Henry grimaced. He was doing it already—putting up that mask of indifference to hide whatever was bothering him. He was surprised to realize it hurt—after all this time, did he still not trust them enough to show weakness?

"All right, what's wrong?"

Walter looked at the ground. "I just really expected I'd find her waiting for me…"

Henry had almost forgotten that, while he had begun to see it as a quest for redemption, the entire trip to Silent Hill was the result of Walter looking for his mother. Instead he had found monsters and nightmares and nearly lost himself in the process. What had caused that phone call he had received? Had it been the first of the town's delusions creeping over him, just like the whispers he had heard later on? It certainly hadn't been his mother.

He opened his mouth to say something, and then stopped when he realized he didn't actually have anything helpful to say. He didn't think Walter would ever be with his mother. She had abandoned him, and she wasn't coming back.

"It's just…I…" Walter dropped to his knees and hung his head. "I'm all alone again."

Eileen walked towards him cautiously. "You're not alone. You have us." When he didn't say anything, she knelt beside him and seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then she wrapped her arms around him.

They both looked rather uncomfortable with the situation, and after Walter tentatively rested his head on Eileen's shoulder, she glanced over and gave Henry a pleading look. He had to hide a grin. They'd get used to each other. Eventually.

Then something occurred to him. "You know, we walked to this island. What if the ice is gone?"

With that in mind, they all gathered their things and hurried outside. The first thing he noticed was that the ice was completely gone. No longer was the island blocked by a wall of ice, but rather, it was clear. Toluca Lake was very unfrozen.

The second thing he noticed was an empty boat stuck in the shallows.

He glanced around, because they were still the only people on the island as far as he could tell. The three of them exchanged glances.

"Are we still questioning anything that happens in this town?" Eileen asked.

Henry shook his head. It was best just to take the boat as a blessing.

The trip back to the shore was quiet and uneventful, a relief after the previous crossings. The fog had lifted somewhat, making it easier to see the way back to the boat launch where they had come from.

The town was still abandoned, but fortunately, this time it was free of monsters, as well. In addition, the roads they walked on were clear and complete, with no chasms to force them to go through the apartments. It seemed like a normal town again…although not quite. Henry glanced around at the empty buildings as they walked past them, wondering what the truth behind it was. Was the town aware of them in some way and had been testing them deliberately, or was what had happened something else entirely?

He thought about the ghosts he had seen in the forest, and it occurred to him that they might not even have been real. They had helped him deal with his worries, but what if they had sprung out of his own mind?

Was that really Joseph I talked to?

It was unsettling to think that they might have only been figments of his imagination given form, and he put it out of his mind. It was unlikely that he'd ever find out, and personally, he liked to think that Joseph and the twins had really come to watch over them.

They walked quietly until they reached the car that Eileen had rented. She shivered, as though the sight of it gave her a bad memory. Then she inspected it quickly and opened the door.

"Well, it doesn't look like the monsters did anything to it," she commented, with a nervous laugh.

"Are you well enough to drive?" Henry asked, concerned.

"I think so. If I change my mind, you can always take over."

He nodded, accepting that, although he intended to keep an eye on her while they were driving. It was possible she was still hurt worse than she realized. He clenched his fists at the memory of the monster hitting her head against the ground.

Walter cleared his throat, looking a little uncomfortable. "So…I'm going with you? I mean, you really want me to go with you?"

Henry sighed. Whatever had happened to him back there with the monster, it seemed to have left him in bad shape psychologically. It had been so different when they started out—with Walter being the one sure they could get along in time, sometimes acting like they were already old friends, and generally treating everything with a more lighthearted air. Now he had fallen to the other end of the spectrum, and that wasn't any better. Something had to be done. Hopefully he hadn't already lost his new sense of humor.

He fixed him with a mock-serious look. "Of course you're coming. Do you really think we'd just let you run loose around the countryside?"

For a moment, Walter looked shocked, but then he smirked. "Oh, shut up, Receiver."

Satisfied that things were back to normal—that word certainly was taking on a wide range of meaning—Henry got into the car.

xXx

When he walked into the waiting room and heard shouting, Henry almost immediately turned around and left. It had only been a week since they arrived back from Silent Hill, and life was already taking on a sense of organized chaos. He was starting to wonder if deciding to talk to the superintendent about the untenanted apartment had been a bad idea, even if Eileen had finally agreed.

When they returned the car to Rich, it had been nearly impossible to explain to him what had happened to the other one. The building had been barricaded to the point of resembling a bunker, and while he had opened the door for Eileen, he had closed it as soon as he noticed Walter.

Eventually they had slipped a note under the door. If he had spent the entire day and night there, for fear of walking outside on his own, it didn't seem likely that he would be coming out any time soon.

Walter's shouted apologies for scaring him had, if anything, had a negative effect.

They had stopped briefly at the café, to apologize for the trouble they had caused there, and when that went fine, Henry almost had enough time to stop worrying. Unfortunately, on the way out, they bumped into a couple who stopped and stared, looking aghast.

He hadn't recognized them at all until they began stammering and looking around for a way to escape. Then he realized that they had been the final couple in the café that morning. He remembered quite vividly Walter explaining to them that they had better not leave.

After assuring them that everything was fine, and that no, of course none of them was a homicidal maniac, they had managed to get away. He had been sure the hospital would be a safe place, and it was where they really needed to go.

They hadn't agreed beforehand on a story to explain their injuries. Therefore, it was a confusing mess of adventure that the doctors finally heard. Henry had been working on convincing them of a car crash followed by a dangerous hike, but it soon included wild animals and perilous climbs, and Walter was working his way up to a part with a train before they realized it was getting out of hand and stopped.

Since Henry's injuries were relatively minor, he was allowed to go home at once. He had almost immediately been mobbed by other tenants when he arrived at the apartment. Word had spread fast, and most of them were friends of Eileen's who were concerned about what had happened. He had managed to give them a more concise version of the story, while laughing aside those who were asking about rumors that he and Eileen had been seen with a man who looked suspiciously like a dead murderer.

"A dead murderer?" he had asked, forcing a laugh. "What, do you think he's come back to life?"

They had agreed that it was a ridiculous idea, to his vast relief.

Partway through the week, he had gone to the hospital to visit Eileen and Walter. Things had quieted down, both in the apartment building and in the town, and he expected a normal visit.

Things had been much as he expected when he visited Eileen. He had taken her flowers, reminding himself eerily of the events three years previously. She might have thought about that too, judging by the odd expression on her face for just a moment.

After that everything had been fine. They had enjoyed a few moments of conversation, and in particular, they had gotten the discussion about the empty apartment out of the way. Then, he had gone to see Walter.

In retrospect, he should have started to worry when he realized he could hear voices from partway down the hall. Those voices had become yelling voices, and he had opened the door onto an argument between Walter and a few nurses on whether or not he was irresponsible. They hadn't accepted his insistence that using his broken arm had been necessary, and they hadn't been too fond of his suggestion that it just proved he was a tough person, either.

Henry had stepped in before it could get out of hand. He knew Walter wasn't going to hurt anyone anymore, but he hadn't seemed too opposed to scaring them, either.

"Don't do things like that," he had muttered, once the nurses had left.

Walter had innocently asked, "Things like what?" as though he hadn't just been giving them that too-calm smile and unwavering stare that made him seem like he was a step away from sanity.

Now, Henry was back at the hospital, on the day they were both supposed to be discharged. He hoped the shouting had nothing to do with them, and he knew there was no way he was going to be that lucky.

He sighed and kept walking.

Eileen was already out and waiting for him. She waved. "Henry! It's good you got here! Walter may be a while."

He walked over to her. "Did he do something?" he asked, glancing nervously in the direction of the shouts.

She winced. "Well…"

"What did Walter do?"

"It's hard to say he really did anything bad…"

"What did he do?"

"He just gave them his real name, and they found him in the hospital records. They're trying to work out the fact that either he's not who he says he is, he doesn't exist, or he's dead.

Henry groaned. "I'll go see if there's any way I can help."

xXx

"They had no right to tell me that I don't exist."

"It's all right," he sighed. "We'll get it all worked out."

They were walking away from the hospital at last, and Henry couldn't have been more relieved. He had vouched for Walter and managed to get them off his case, but he was sure they hadn't heard the end of it. He wasn't too worried, though. After dealing with a town full of monsters, the legal system didn't seem all that frightening.

He looked around. They had only spent one day in Silent Hill, but it felt good to see a normal town. He knew that mysterious fog and rusty, bloody buildings were going to haunt his nightmares for a long time.

That reminded him of the other matter he had to take care of.

"Walter," he said, "at the apartment where we live, there's a room that hasn't been rented yet. I know that you don't really have a place to stay, and, well, once Eileen and I talk to the superintendent, I'm sure we can…" He trailed off. Walter was shaking his head.

"I can't stay."

"Why not?" he asked, bemused.

"You don't remember?" Walter sighed. "I promised you that once the trip to Silent Hill was over, I'd go somewhere far, far away from here."

Henry stared at him, wondering if he really had lost his mind again. "You don't really expect me to hold you to that, do you? Things are different now. I don't expect you to just…go away."

He looked rather unhappy. "I know what you're saying, but…this is a new beginning for me. Breaking a promise seems like a really poor way of starting out, now doesn't it?"

"It's not breaking a promise if I don't want you to keep it anymore," he argued. "I'm your friend; I've forgiven you…don't you understand?"

"I understand that it would be dishonest, and I don't think I can afford to start doing small dishonest things, because they could grow until I'm doing real dishonest things, and then—"

"Walter, you're acting irrational!"

"I know I'm acting irrational! I'm afraid of what I could become, and I will not break my promise. I'm going somewhere far away!"

Before Henry could argue further, Eileen cut in smoothly, "And once you've returned from your vacation, would you like to move into the apartment?"

Walter blinked and stared at her. Then he looked back at Henry. "You…you never did say how long I had to be gone for, did you?" He smiled. "Why, thank you, Miss Galvin—Eileen. I think I would like to see this apartment."

As they walked together, Henry had to shake his head. He would have never expected to find himself in this situation. Strangely, it seemed like everything was going to be fine. While Walter and Eileen weren't quite relaxed around each other yet, it was close enough that almost no one would notice.

Looking at them, he realized that there was one more thing that had to be said.

"We really went through a lot," he said, thinking about the monsters, the terror, and all of the horrible things that had happened. "I think if, at any time, any of us needs to talk about it… Well, let me put it this way. If either of you needs or wants to talk about what happened, I'll be there for you."

"So will I," Eileen said. "Sometimes people need to talk."

"And me," Walter added. "Perhaps this time there won't be as many nightmares."

Henry wondered, briefly, what sorts of nightmares he had had. He glanced at Walter's face and was relieved to see that he no longer looked quite as haunted as he once had. He did not so much look like a man desperately trying to atone for his crimes, as he did a man who was truly being given a second chance, and a new beginning.

Note: Well, we've finally made it to the end! Thank you all for sticking with me this long, and I hope you've enjoyed it! I had a really fun time writing this story, and I hope you had fun reading it. Even if you didn't like it, maybe you had fun disliking it; I don't know. I'd like to thank all of the friends who helped me with this story, whether it was with monster designs—special thanks to my one friend, who helped with the designs for both the Joseph boss and the Eileen boss—or just by patiently listening to me ramble on and on. I also owe a great debt to the Silent Hill Wiki. After a while I simply set up camp there, especially on Walter's page—it acted as a convenient hub to visit all of the victims' pages. And of course, my greatest thanks go out to Konami and everyone who worked on Silent Hill 4.
And if you've been throwing dismal glances at my my humorous works, never fear! I have at least one idea for another serious story, so keep an eye out for it.
As always, feedback is appreciated. I want to know what you're thinking, and what you would recommend for the future. Thank you all again, and never forget that the only condition for forgiveness is repentance.