James was bored.

Well, no, wait - that's putting it too tamely. Let's try again.

James was bored— out of his ever-loving, fucking gourd.

It was because Harry was talking. He was talking so, so much, and by god, James just didn't care.

But, whatever. The contents of that one-sided prattle was going - in vast majority - through one pale ear and right out the other. This meant, in essence, that Harry was talking to the library, and not to James - like he oh-so-innocently thought he was doing. Truth was, James had duped Harry a long time ago to think he was listening by uttering the occasional noise as a way to string him along; Harry, too optimistic for his own good, took his bare minimum involvement at face value.

Besides! Mostly-ignoring Harry gave James plenty of time to do other, far more important things - like be bored - and it was, for better or for worse, a task he was keen on committing to with gusto. As such, the conduit presently sat at the table, steeply slouched into his elbows which were bent at an acute angle to anchor his weight. Those supportive elbows also lofted his hands up high, where they together held the triangular die in his fingertips, right up to the end of his nose.

He stared at it.

It seemed like eons ago that he and Harry had won this little prize for smashing open the radio. James himself had forgotten about it until he'd spotted it on the charcuterie board of inventory Harry had laid out when they'd first arrived. He'd graciously taken it upon himself to play with it (ahem: or maybe one meant, to study it) to bide the time while his chatterbox companion did his thing.

Interesting as it was, it did however beg the question: was this enough to keep his mind busy?

The answer was plain: not at all. At this very second, whilst he (ever-so-boredly) rotated the die over and over, James's thinker was running on idle and pondering nothing of real note.

Or, that was.. until one of those old sayings warning of idle minds came true, and James's own went wandering into the devil's playground. In said devil's playground resided the devil's sandbox; and in the devil's sandbox, was where he discovered something fascinating to wonder about.

Thanks to that happy accident, James began to wonder:

What if..?

And what if?, indeed. Inspired by the new mind game, James's renewed focus put Harry on full mute as to devote every last critical shred of his attention to the four-sided piece. James took in everything he saw during its constant, ponderous spins. his narrowed eyes scrutinizing the rust and grit, the engraved numbers, its pyramid shape.. and the familiarity; the familiarity.

Wait. The familiarity?

Oh, James thought hard on the familiarity.

An idea was brewing, and it asked: what if..? He couldn't be sure. Logic and reason wanted to keep him grounded, and interrupted his runaway train of thought to ask a bigger question: was this idea of his harebrained, or genius?

Or both?

It caused James to wonder, and wonder, and wonder: What-fucking- if..?

He had to know. With that, James permitted Harry's yapping to filter back into his ears.

".. so if Leonard donated the moth missing the wing," the patriarch unawares was saying to nobody but himself and the library, "I'm curious if the other wing is—"

"Wasn't the Flauros also a triangle?"

And what a way that was to get Harry to shut his gob! The author's tongue came to an abrupt and bewildered standstill. A silence commenced and lingered for a stint wherein Harry scrambled to recover and process. He was still actively working on that when, after a handful of seconds, he turned his clueless head to his left and blinked at James.

"Uh.. m. Y-yeeaaahh..? Whaddabout it?"

Alas: no response. (As if Harry should ever expect one.) Harry watched James scrutinize the tiny die as intimately as a jeweler appraising a diamond for authenticity, just too busy being lost in private thought to follow up. (And because he was used to this by now, the lack of response was found somewhat admissible on the basis that James was just being James.) This same excuse was also applied to Harry's realization that his companion had probably been willfully, and very rudely, ignoring him this entire damn time - as per fucking usual.

That revelation alone dropped a dose of annoyance to voice when he tried to prompt, "James?"

Nada. Harry decided to be generous and wait it out a little; after all, patience was his forte. He set down his pen, folded his arms on the table, and observed James observing the mini-pyramid turning random somersaults in his ghostly fingertips. The silence was given another moment of pardon, and then Harry gently, but firmly, called on him again.

"James. What about it?"

"I think you drew it in your notes. The Flauros. Right?"

The sound of fluttering paper didn't break James's inspection on the die, nor his thinking, his wondering,while he waited on Harry for the update; and certification came quick.

"Uh, yeah.. I did!" Harry said. "Huh! Don't remember doing that, but hey, at least you did. That's kinda neat. M'glad someone's got a working memory around here."

"How big was it?"

"Well, uh.. looks like I wrote down a little about it here, but it's kinda vague; heh, go me. Buuut, I think it was..?"

Harry's left hand rose into the air, and thus, into James's peripheral vision. Momentarily lured from the die, James watched the older man claw, flex, and jitter his fingers to gauge approximation. The dance seemed to be an effort to materialize the thing out of his cache of dodgy memories and into his hand, or so James assumed by the looks of it. He waited. Harry hummed.

"Well.. I wrote that it's about the size of the palm of my hand, but eeehh.. I dunno. If you want to get specific—"

"Yeah."

"Then, it was.. probably.. oh, a bit more, like.. ehh, maybe about heel of the hand to the middle knuckle, here?" He pointed them out on his splayed palm. "Yeah. That's probably about right. It was kinda big."

James made a face. "Yeah, that is pretty big."

He had a short laugh. "Yeah! And I had to keep the stupid thing around in my jacket pocket; it barely fit in there, y'know! What a pain in my fuckin' ass."

"What about height?"

"Ohh, ehh.. maybe about, oh, yea tall?" To assist the visualization, Harry connected the flat of his right wrist atop his left, then gave it a slant that his head mimicked so as to watch his work. He adjusted the teeter for accuracy here and there, and when deeming it finished, held that position stagnant for James to study to his weird heart's content.

But the Flauros's final projected size had James frowning. He looked back at the die. "Hm. Was it segmented?"

His eyes screwed up to the ceiling. "Uhh.. I don't fully remember. It looked to be pretty smooth..?"

"Hmm."

"It's pretty much the same as the drawing," he said, nodding at it. "I'm an author, James, not an artist, but— wait." He stared down at the hair-ridden forearms folded under his chest. "Okay. Now that you mention it..? It had to be, because when it started floating in front of Alessa, it was also coming apart; and blue light started showing between the lines. Sooo.. yeah! I guess it was segmented. Huh! That was a good question. Nice one."

And what did he get in return?

Oh, just another heaping portion of the James Sunderland Special he wasn't hungry for: a big, frustrating bunch of indigestion-inducing zilch.

Harry needed an antacid.

His shoulders sagged a little, nevertheless. Playing cat-and-mouse for intelligence with James was a common occurrence, but right now, Harry was getting impatient. If James kept this charade up, either the suspension was going to kill Harry where he sat, or he was going to kill James point blank for leaving him out of the loop on a subject as vital and intense as the fucking Flauros.

"C'mon, James," Harry proceeded to sigh after a bloat of silence. "You got my attention. Now what aboutit?"

And it might've worked! For in a surprising instant thereafter, James benevolently granted Harry's wish and announced:

"I think this might be a part of another Flauros."

Oh.

Um.

Well, alright - James got him with that one. Harry had NO idea what to do with that, and sat there, blank-faced and totally stupefied for a song. When he'd at last awoken his tongue, it moved timidly to ask, "What? Wh— why?"

James sniffed, but didn't take his eyes off the die. "I'm not good at explaining things, as you know, so.. just bear with me a second."

Shit- Harry was glad to give him two handfuls of seconds, and a wholesale shopping cart of them too, after a pitch like that. He agreed to cooperation with a nod. James rolled his shoulders, sighed, and unlike Harry, began to do what he didn't do best: talk.

"So.. the Flauros. It broke apart, right? after you encountered Alessa, for the first time— uh, for the first time in person, n-not when she was a hallucination back at the school, or a, uh.. a, uh.. um.."

"An apparition," Harry corrected, for necessity's sake.

James bobbed his head. "Yeah. That. Uhhhmmm.. right. So, when.. uh.. ugh, wait a minute." Needing reference, he reached and grabbed the notepad, and hurriedly shuffled through its pages until he located what he sought. "When that happened," he continued, "you said here that it was the first time you'd seen her use any powers; and that it was also the first time you even knew she had any powers."

"Mmhmm."

"And you also said that the Flauros, uh.." He flipped a page, scanned the passage, and read aloud. "'It rose into the sky, carried within an awesome cobalt halo. It was bright, bathing the Otherworld fairground in morbid beauty; I barely got to blink before it exploded. Alessa was struck down. I feel cold.'"

Harry slowly nodded. James skimmed the text. "And.. after it exploded, you claim here that you don't know what happened to it, and you never asked anyone about it, either - or at least you never say anywhere that you did."

Harry confirmed, "I didn't."

"Okay, so.. what you did know, in the very least, is that after the Flauros disappeared, things got more fucked up, and you went to the Nowhere; but, um.. what I found interesting was that you mentioned way before that— that, uh.."

There, his flow tumbled. James was suffering a problem: he'd discovered that trying to balance thinking, speaking, and translating Harry's shorthand all at once not only super sucked, but it was agonizing, and impeding his efforts here. As a consequence, his willpower was in grave danger of flatlining as he huffed and backtracked through the log, then skipped ahead, only to again reverse. Not getting anywhere and needing to save himself, James resentfully abandoned the notepad altogether and pushed it away.

"Fuck it. I can't find it, but you said it had— that you felt it had power, when Dahlia gave it to you and you touched it. 'The overwhelming power of the gods rests inside this four sided object', is what I think you wrote.. and, like.. holding it was a sensation alike 'an electrical current passing into the palm of my hand', and that 'the power moved throughout every nook and cranny in my body; every bit of me feels like I'm static electricity without sparks'." James shrugged. "Then you wondered what it meant."

Harry formed a fist, set his cheek upon it, and narrowed deeply suspicious eyes at James. Oh, how he did not like what he'd just heard. It was hard not to notice the precision in word choice; they were a little too spot-on to be improvised, and as such, sounded an awful lot like direct quotations: direct quotations, that were recited from memory. The insinuation bothered, even upset Harry for a reason he couldn't quite describe; but in spite of that, this wasn't the time to nitpick or start a fight over it. The matter was trivial in comparison.

Harry resolved to simply nod. "Okay."

"I found something in Balkan that seems to be related to the Flauros, something about a Chinese dynasty," said the conduit, oblivious to Harry's rise in distrust. "It was about some Chinese emperor trapping demons inside a 'three-sided box' - which was weird, because the Flauros has four sides..? Anyway, it was talking about its conception, or, its, um.. its mock-up, or.. something."

"How it was made?"

"Yes, but— no. No, it was about what it was supposed to be for, or do. The thing was supposedly created to house demons, to, uh— t-to lock demons away in, originally."

"Hm. And how do you know it was talking about the Flauros?"

James looked at him. "Because it said so."

"Hm.. and did you happen to bring the book with us?"

He cringed and shook his head. "No, I think I dropped it when the town un-broke your nose, and I just forgot to pick it back up. It's probably still on the floor back at Balkan. Sorry."

"Shit happens," Harry shrugged. "Just keep going."

James obliged. "So anyway, I remember the book calling the Flauros 'the cage of peace', and Dahlia had called it that when she'd given it to you."

"I wrote that down?"

"Yeah. It's in your notes." James watched Harry nod. He did the same. "But like I was saying, the Flauros is called the cage of peace because, like.. I guess..? because it's meant to entrap and house demons in it like a cage, or whatever? Dahlia herself said it was meant to 'counteract the wrath of the underworld' — but that confused me, because like.. did she mean the Otherworld?"

Harry tipped his head side to side. "Yes and no," he refuted. "Not quite. I got mixed messages about the Otherworld, if I'm gonna be honest - and I thought she was talking about the Otherworld at first, too." He frowned softly to himself. "I think, originally, it was manifested by Alessa, or partially. If I recall correctly, it was sorta her nightmare that'd gained sentience - but it was also a taste of what the Order's vision of Paradise was supposed to look like, and Alessa was trying to fight it off. It's kinda hard to say, so it's best to assume both."

".. hm."

Harry jumped his brows. "But you also gotta mind the fact that Dahlia was a huge fuckin' liar. So, I dunno. Assume both."

The answer was informative, but didn't quite answer his question. James accepted it with a noncommittal shrug and moved on. "Regardless, I just think it's incredibly interesting when you think about how it came apart when you made contact with Alessa, like as though it was trying to entrap her. I mean, that makes sense, right? Everyone had been calling her evil and a witch to begin with, and she did have powers."

"Right: it was basically supposed to stop her, or weaken her. Which it did. I dunno about entrapping her, though.."

"Okay, well.. there were these five words that stood out to me when I was looking at the book. They were Past, Present, Future, Truth, and Falsehood," said James. "The thing about that - or those, rather - is that the book was saying that those were what each segment of it represented. That's what it was calling them if like, if you were to take it apart into individual boxes, that's what they're supposed to represent; so like— you know how I asked before if it was segmented? Well, I asked because I remembered about the words I just mentioned, and how those words are supposed to be linked to the names of the boxes, or, or like, describe what they're meant for— which obviously then answers the question if you can take it apart, because you obviously, then, can take it apar—"

"James, I'm trying to bear with you here, like you asked," Harry lowly intervened. "But you're running in circles right now, bud. I'm gonna have to ask you to find your tail and get to the point."

James fired him an indignant scoff. "Pot-fucking-kettle, Harry! I'm trying,but—"

"I know. I know you are, James. But you're getting long-winded. It's okay, take a deep breath," Harry coached, inhaling one for himself to set an example. "Just take a minute. I'm sorry for being a hypocrite, okay? You're okay."

Solely to keep the peace, James begrudgingly did as Silent Hill's local health and wellness guru told; and afterwards, undeniably felt a little calmer. He didn't want to waste time being chagrined about it though, and without further delay, picked right back up right where he left off. "The Flauros can break apart: that's my point. It doesn't look like it can, but obviously, it can when it needs to, and when it does, it comes apart into five pieces. And, Harry?" James centered on him a half-assed glower. "I know I'm repeating myself; and I don't fucking care. So I'll say it again:

"According to the book, the pieces on the Flauros are supposed to represent Past, Present, Future, Truth, and Falsehood - that, we know. So, in knowing that.. it just makes me wonder, if— now, okay, just— just really bear with me here, Harry, cuz.. what I'm wondering is.."

Faltering, James looked down at the die for courage and, gripping it like a good luck charm, gave it a morale-boosting wag. "Is, since we don't know what happened to the original Flauros after it broke apart, and we're just guessing it shattered.."

The tip of James's tongue nervously wet his lip, and his eyes sent the writer beside him a lateral glance. "Harry.. what if this is a piece of it, like I said?"

Skepticism came discouragingly swift. "A piece of it? Hold on, you said a piece of another Flauros before, so which is it?"

Embarrassed, James retorted, "That's what I meant. Just WORK with me here, Harry."

He relented. "In that case: I dunno, James. The Flauros was pretty big and solid, and that thing is really small, so—"

"Does it matter? Harry, you said it exploded."

"I don't actually know what it did," Harry argued. "A lot was going on, and it was really fuckin' bright when it happened. I was probably working on logic and just guessing."

"Well, whatever happened doesn't change the point that it was there, and then it was gone. What I'm saying is that it could've broken apart, literally shattered into tiny little pieces of itself, Harry," James asserted, brandishing the die at him. "And that's why this is so small. I think that not only is it a piece of the original, but it's going to be a part of making a new one. To replace it, or rebuild it."

Harry was failing to grasp the concept. "Whadda'you mean, replace or rebuild the Flauros? You gotta be clearer with me, James; I'm trying to follow you, here."

The poor man floundered. "Well, that, I mean— I don't— I don't really have anything else aside from that, Harry," he mumbled. "I don't know how it could be done, okay, it's just— it's something I'm making up as I go along, really— it's just a theory, b-but it's a theory that I think.. kinda has some meat to it.. right? Work with me here, Harry.. please."

Yes, it sure was a theory - and all things considered, Harry did have to agree that it was one that could have some potential; but if James was so hellbent on it to say please work with him? Then Harry knew he had to take it seriously. Broodingly rubbing his mouth, Harry fixated on the alleged artifact James held so dear (and had returned to toying with), and considered it, deeply. Once a bout of quiet went by, he pointed at it with a request. "Hey - can I see it?"

James looked up, then at his triangular plaything. ".. sure." he said, then hesitantly, and delicately, relinquished it to Harry's cupped palm. Picking it into his fingertips, Harry imitated James's study poise with his elbows on the table and holding the die up close to his face, taking a good, critical look at its mystery.

The die was, of course, minuscule in comparison to its probable sire; and was a size that was only further dwarfed in Harry's big hands. It seemed to be a totally unassuming game piece, and a pretty one, at that; even attractive enough to be mistaken as a custom-made artisan piece. Slathered on its sides were autumn hues in various opacities, giving off the impression of having been painted on by the gentle, deliberate strokes of a brush. There were hints of a dark, iron-colored base beneath the thinner plates of rust, on which the single numbers were engraved.

So far, so interesting.

There was a conundrum to add to this, Harry had to note, and it was that it was strange how when James had handed the die to him, it had been cold to the touch - not even a tad lukewarm. That, realistically, shouldn't've been possible when James had been handling it that whole time. Why isn't it at least a little warm? he wondered, confused. That doesn't make sense. (But let's not get distracted by the specifics of that now, Harry, chided the peanut gallery from within. He agreed, and the subject was promptly dropped.)

Other than that, it did remind Harry of the Flauros, he had to admit. Other than its appearance and heft, however, too many important aspects of the original were lacking for him to be entirely sold on the idea - and a major one of those, was the emptiness within it. There had been a power coursing through the original so great that even a nobody like him could experience it, but this piece here was devoid of even a current's faded whisper. This flaw had to be taken into account - after all, if Harry felt nothing special when handling it, could it actually be a piece of the Flauros?

He didn't know, because investing in James's leading theory was a lot more difficult without it. But in spite of this, Harry wanted to be fair, and kept an active and busy mind open to possibilities instead of jumping to rule anything out just yet.

He brushed his thumb over the numbers and their coat of coppery grime. As of right now, the count up to four meant nothing - if they even meant anything, at all. His brain juggled hypotheses while his imagination worked to guess what the missing four segments might look like. Harry even attempted to construct a "completed" model in his head, but no dice. (He tended to struggle with things like that, anyway). The failure didn't detract from Harry's inspection (literally) at hand, though, as he sat there wheeling the die in his fingertips, rapt, and wrapped, in thought.

It was a long song of silence thereafter that Harry decided it was high time he lent James some useless commentary before he missed it too much.

"Hm. This thing's a treat. Wonder how much you could sell it for at the flea market."

"Yeah." Beat. "Did you feel anything?"

"Nope."

A disappointed grunt. ".. damn."

"Don't sweat it," his counterpart reassured. "If it's a piece of the Flauros, then it's probably pretty low on juice after getting blasted into smithereens."

"Yeah.. I guess."

"Best way to look at it is as one of Silent Hill's fucked up puzzles, yeah? So if anything, you gotta admire its dedication to consistency, at least."

"Heh.. yeah."

"Heh. Okay. I gotta few ideas, and I gotta few questions," Harry said. "And as a forewarning, they're probably gonna come out just as disorganized and batshit-fucking-crazy-sounding as yours did, so ready another round of 'pot-versus-fucking-kettle'."

"Heh." James offered a smile. "Tomato, tomato."

Harry spluttered out a laugh. "Ha! Oh, you're funny, eh? Potato, potato!" He flashed James a grin. "So, alright - seeing as we really don't have anything else to go on, I'm gonna be going off your theory that it literally broke apart and shattered into a bunch of these tiny pieces, yeah? We'll start with this: if the Flauros exploded, that means said tiny pieces must've fuckin' flown around everywhere, am I right?"

"Right."

"So in my mind, that means someone had to've gone around and picked them all up, cuz I mean.. this thing couldn't've gotten into the radio by just popping itself in on its own, right?"

"Uh.. I guess, yeah."

"Then on that, I think we can assume, too, that the same person to've picked them up, also put the numbers on 'em - or this one, at least, seeing as we have no idea what the others are gonna look like - but whoever it was, could've also been the same person to've hid 'em all away."

James made a face. "Hid them away..?"

"Well, yeah! I mean.. wasn't this hidden in the radio?" He looked at James. "We wouldn't've found it if we hadn't busted it open, or'd'a just chucked it; so ya gotta assume it was tucked away in there for safekeeping, or some shit."

Shrug. "Yeah, okay; true."

"Fucking blows my mind that they'd think to hide one in the radio," Harry grumbled, "but hey, whadda I know - nothing makes sense in Silent Hill." Sighing, the veteran plopped his cheek onto his fist and stared tiredly down at the esoteric object sitting placidly in his other hand. "So with all that in mind.. here're some'v my questions:

"One, whowas it that picked up all the pieces, and why; two, who put all the numbers on it, if it was the same person, whadda they mean, and again, why; and three, well.. I wanna know if the townknows we have it."

".. mmn." James sat on those for a moment. "I think we should be asking too if the town even knows it broke apart in the first place, and didn't just upright.. disappear after it came apart in front of Alessa, first of all."

Harry looked over, a bit surprised. "Huh! I guess that's not a bad one to ask, yeah, since we don't know anything for sure. Heh - why don'tcha call it in?" he suggested, light-heartedly. "You got a direct phone line, right? Call the help center."

James flicked over a glance. "Can't."

"Why not?"

"Voicemail box is full."

Harry clicked his tongue in disgust. "Aw, really?"

"Yeah."

"Man! No wonder you get shit for help in this place; there ain't nobody around manning the phones!" Harry theatrically bemoaned. "Somebody better get on that!"

"Better write another strongly-worded letter about it too, Harry."

"Yeah, add it to my list. Heh; shit," he chuckled, "m'gonna be getting some real bad carpal tunnel if it keeps up its bullshit like this, but, eh.. I guess it's for a good cause."

"Mm."

"Yeah; m'glad you agree." Harry looked down at the die. "Okay, all jokes aside, I think it's about time we start thinking about what this one's supposed to do, now."

"Hm? 'Do'?"

"Well, yeah - it's gotta be able to do something, right? If we're gonna go off thinking it's a piece of the Flauros, then it only makes sense to assume that it has to do something cool, broken or not - and even if I didn't feel anything from it."

His shoulder rose for a half shrug. "I guess, yeah. That's a good point."

"Right. So what's it do?"

James's ghostly mug emoted judgment. "I dunno, Harry. I don't have the answer to that."

Harry's expression was dry as hardtack. "Well, golly gee! Now I just feel stupid, cuz I thought you could just reach into the 'Encyclopedia Silent Hill-ia' you store in your ass and drag one out for us."

"Dick."

"Well, since those dreams are dashed," Harry sighed, "I guess we'll just have to go about it the old fashioned way and put our heads together and think about it, James, so let's do that and ask ourselves: what, the fuck.. is a second Flauros supposed to do? And while you let your cranium give that one a whirl, I gotta another question for you to mash around with it."

James could honestly kill him, because damn if he wasn't kidding when he'd warned about getting confusing! And nevermind his joke about 'playing another round of pot-n-fucking-kettle', either; James knew it'd be pointless and hypocritical to complain. He decided to just take it as a hint to practice his patience; and that patience, is key.

"Okay," he said. — Impatiently. (Alright, so it was a work in progress; but he got a silver star for trying, anyway.)

"You mentioned a Chinese emperor had the Flauros crafted as a box to trap demons in, right?"

"Yeah, I did."

"Okay, so, big question: how do we know that the Flauros wasn't already full at the time it broke apart in front of Alessa?"

James pulled his thick brows together. "'Already full'? "

"Yeah: how do we know it wasn't already full? If the Flauros is a box crafted back in the Chinese dynasties, then the thing's been around for ages, James," reminded Harry, looking over. "It was created with purpose in mind, for a purpose, and was probably intended for immediate use; so with that, then how do we know that the Flauros wasn't empty by the time it got to Alessa?"

For that, James stared unblinkingly back into Harry's dark eyes, perplexed. "I— we— .. don't."

"That's right: we don't. When the box opened up for Alessa, it could've released something, as WELL as pulled anything else in at the same time, and that kinda causes a problem, don'tcha think?"

"Yeah, I.. guess."

"We need that book you were talking about before we can go any deeper into how the fucking thing works, I think," Harry grumbled, averting his gaze down. "It's literally hearsay at this point, and I'd rather it not be, as much as possible."

"It's technically ALL literally hearsay, Harry."

"Hey!" He snapped his fingers and pointed at him. "You shaddap. I still got more to say."

He snorted. "Okay, okay, fine."

"Good. So, jumping back to my original thought: what if, maybe, this new Flauros we're gonna build isn't meant to do what the original one did, like harm Alessa? What if it's supposed to do the opposite of that, like— what if it's supposed to be able to em power her, instead? Because then— ah— ah, shit," Harry suddenly groaned, dropping back from the table and slamming his hand on his forehead. "ShiiiiiIT! Shit, shit, shit.. "

James made a face. "What? What's wrong?"

To his right, Harry exhibited all the hallmark symptoms of one hideous popsicle-induced brain freeze, with that ugly expression and head-rubbing; the only caveat being, that he hadn't bitten into any frozen treat. What this could be attributed to instead, was the massive brain fart where Alessa was concerned - and that happened to be embarrassing enough to hurt just as bad. "No.. shit, I fucked up. Forget it; I fucked up."

"How—"

"Yeah, sure, it empowers her instead, great idea— except for the fact that Alessa's dead, James, so the theory doesn't work.It doesn't fucking work! "

Aggravation threw Harry's arms into the air, and landed a resounding slap on his thighs when they fell. He plunked his elbows down on the table, glowering at the die. "Ah, shit," Harry roughly sighed. "Never-fucking-min—"

"Isshe, though?"

Harry's eyes whipped to their corners, peering at him. "Uh.. sorry..? Come again..?"

"Is she,though?" James enunciated. "Because I don't think she is, Harry."

The author warily frowned. "What're you talking about?"

The conduit scoffed. "C'mon - you don't shut up about it. How do you not..?" When no recognition seemed to come, James sighed hard and circled his eyeballs in their sockets. "Really? .. you're so stupid sometimes. Alessa's not dead, Harry."

"Wha—"

"She's Heather."

Harry curled his lip. "I know that, James."

"So if you already know that," James mocked with an attitude undue, "then don't act like you don't."

"You lost me," Harry gruffly replied, unappreciative of the snark. "Be clear - what're you getting at."

"Alessa's not dead, Harry, because she's Heather," James repeated. "If it's meant to empower Alessa, then what you mean is, is that it's meant to. Empower. Heather."

Harry swung up his hand to signal a dead halt to that train of thought. "Whoa. WHOA there," he bit, flame and gravel in his voice as he maneuvered the chair to face him. " YOU hold the fuck on."

"What?"

"If you're gonna wave around a gun, James,learn to keep your finger off the fucking trigger so you don't go shooting people by mistake," he responded snidely, looking quite cross. "Look, I don't wanna jump the gun on my end here, but I do NOT like what you're implying."

James looked at him sternly. "It doesn't matter if you don't like what I'm implying, Harry," he bluntly told him. "You can get mad about it for all I care, but you know I'm right. Face it, Harry: you knowI'm right."

"You be careful," growled the territorial father to his aloof companion. "You be very. Careful. About what you say next. Okay? YOU just almost crossed a hard line there just now, so AGAIN: you gotta be reeaaalllyy fucking careful about what you say next. Capiche?"

"Threaten me all you like, Harry," James coolly taunted, "but you've said so yourself: you know what she is, so you know what she's capable of."

"She's capable of nothing," Heather's single parent bristled. "She is a young, seventeen-year-old girl whose life was given to her by shit's twist of fate, and that's. ALL. This is NOTher fault - she is an innocent, here, James; she is the VICTIM,here!"

"I didn't say she wasn't."

"Then what're you saying?"

The conduit snorted. "I'm saying some things you really don't fucking like, THAT'S for sure."

"Careful. I'm not in the mood."

You never are, until you're the one accusing , James kept to himself. But then he sighed, rubbed the back of his neck, and hoped it was as good a time as any to say, "Harry.. Heather aside, I think it's time you really started to face some facts about what you've done here by coming back to Silent Hill."

Harry flashed him his teeth. (An act to which the resident, somehow, didn't flinch.) "And what, exactly, have I done, James?"

He was amazed with Harry. It really seemed that Harry's trademark self-control was really being put to the test here, as the man looked a wrong breath away from truly tearing James limb from limb. Yet in spite of that (and Harry's weird lapses into anger, lately), it was still hard for the conduit to imagine the Mason patriarch actually stooping so low as to try to beat the shit out of him, or whatever else he'd like to do - not that he cared all. (Hell, even James knew he deserved a clobbering, or five.)

It would nevertheless be wise to heed Harry's advice about being chary in picking his future words; and so out of respect, that's what James resolved to do. But James quickly started doubting himself, wondering if he'd jumped the gun too early, spoken too soon; gone and backed himself into a corner. The old saying, 'you reap what you sow' leapt into mind; if the timing had been any better, James might've laughed at it.

Instead, he looked Harry directly in the eyes. Yeah; you reap what you sow, he thought. James was sure Harry could relate.

He was also sure that trying to keep him safe in the dark wasn't viable anymore.

It was time.

"Don't say anything," one simple instruction demanded of Harry. "I'm going to be telling you things that I'm not even sure I should be telling you, okay? So just don't say a word until I'm done. Just. LISTEN.. alright?"

James got back an expression muddled by a thousand emotions all at once, thus a bit difficult to gauge a real reaction. What he could ascertain from it, however, was that while Harry didn't know what to make of his foreword, he did understand that James had him gridlocked. Unable to do anything but consent to his terms, Harry tiredly sighed, and made a gesture that nonverbally said, All you.

All him. With nothing left to do but speak, James gathered together every prayer that he wasn't making a terrible mistake, swallowed his fears, and told Harry everything he thought he should know.

(Or - almost, everything.)

"The town hasn't been the same since you got here, Harry," James grimly began. "From the very moment you set foot here in Silent Hill, nearly everything I knew about the town got turned on its head. And I mean, almost everything. I'm not going to go through it all, but let's just say that a lot has happened that's not supposed to happen.

"Let's start with the monsters, since they're easiest, and since they're bugging the fuck outta me. I know we've been through them a million times before, and I'm not gonna get too deep into them again now, but Harry— they're bugging the everliving fuck outta me! You wanna know the main reason why?

"It's because I have been alone in this town, for eighteen years, and— which, by the way, I still don't know how to process, so just for the record? I'm not even gonna TOUCH on it right now, or anytime-fucking-soon, so don't ask. I DON'T want to talk about it."

Harry silently nodded. He understood.

James settled a bit. "But it's been eighteen years alone in South Vale, Harry, with no one else but me and my monsters. But it might as well just BEEN me, because you wanna know something else?" He flung his arms incredulously to his sides. "At some point, they stopped CARING about me! Barely been looked my way in years! Just stopped giving a shit about me! Can you imagine how badly it fucks me up?!

"Harry, I used to stand in the middle of the street, day in and day out, and nothing would happen to me. Nothing! Just— acted like I wasn't even there! They went from getting on my ass at any chance they got, to doing. Nothing. To me. And worse than that, maybe? No.. definitely worse than that," he hatefully corrected, "was that they gradually started disappearing.

"I should've seen it coming, because it'd been happening for a while , but like I said, it was gradual. They were just.. gradually leaving. Leaving! That's not supposed to happen, right?" James hopefully implored, though both men knew the question was rhetorical, and had no logical answer. "But it was only until you came in that I noticed something, Harry; something dire, something— really, really bad.

"Not only had some of them just somehow up and fucking left, but the ones that were gone? were the ones that I never fucking thought would just.. go." James shakily laughed. "Shit, Harry; I really no FUCKING idea where they went. You'd think as the conduit of Silent Hill, I'd know what'd happened to the monsters that've lived with me - that were MADE for me - that'd suddenly disappeared after eighteen FUCKINGyears, right? —but, no! No! It's AMAZING what I don't know, Harry! And that bugs the crap out of me! I HATEnot knowing anything anymore!"

He pushed his hand through his wheat-colored bangs and gripped the bush at its roots. "Harry, the monster thing's so fucked up that it got me thinking that maybe they got.. replaced, y'know? Like.. by the ones that you brought in, to, like— make room..? I don't know. I don't even know if that's possible , and I wish I did, just as much as we BOTH wish we even knew what they mean! I'm fucking DYING to know what they mean!"

Sighing hard, James unhanded his hair and dropped his fist to his lap. The freed bangs cascaded back into place, disheveled over his forehead. "But nevermind that," he muttered, lowering and averting his eyes. "I just don't know why you spawned monsters in mypart of town. I just don't get it; it bugs me, because that just— that just seems fucking wrong, Harry, and I can't really explain why. I wish I could; but speaking of things seeming fucking wrong, that kinda leads me to my next obvious point: the part where I'm not in fucking Kansas anymore."

There was a soft sound; a stifled laugh. James looked up in time to find Harry attempting to conceal a smile behind his hand, but the crow's feet wrinkling his eyes were tattle-tales. Maybe James should've been mad that Harry found something to laugh about right now, but he couldn't be: he had used that reference for humor's sake, after all. Bearing no ill will, James awarded Harry the faintest of smiles to prove so, before it faded into obscurity in a blink.

"Harry, I gotta be honest with you," James then murmured. "I'm still really, kinda fucked up about South Vale, and I think I'm gonna be, for awhile. You gotta understand, I spent that whole time being unable to leave, and then suddenly I can? .. I've tried so many times to leave, and apparently, all I needed was you, and a bullshit paradox runaround on Nathan Avenue. That makes jack-all sense, Harry, and I'm still, just.. waiting to turn the corner, and, fucking.. find myself back in South Vale." James looked down, knotting his fingers. ".. even though I kind of miss it. It's complicated.

"I just don't get why it was you that walked me out of there. Why did it even LET you? More than that, you didn't just walk me out of South Vale, you took me back to the fucking Lake View Hotel, and that place— no." He batted the rest away. "Nevermind. But after that? You took me further than I've ever been before, EVER! —into YOUR part of town, and, ha!" James sardonically laughed, shaking his head. "I thought you were so full of shit, y'know? when you'd said it'd been snowing out the entire time, and then..?"

Harry gave a small congenial shrug, and a smile that matched. "It's snowing out."

"Yeah. It's fucking snowing out."

The veteran sighed with satirical wonder. "God works in mysterious ways."

"Yeah, well, She's fucking me up."

"Religion tends to."

James snorted. "Yeah. Jeez. Did I forget to mention how much finding out about a cult out of nowhere fucks me up, too?"

"You might've mentioned it once or twice."

"Well.."

"Does it fuck ya up?"

Harry smiled at him, but this time, James could barely reciprocate. "A little. Though I think you'd agree that I don't think much here won't fuck you up, but that's beside the point, because if you combine all I said? You don't even scratch the surface of 'fucked up'." He beset Harry with a leer. "I think the worst part of it all is that ever since you got here, the town doesn't even talk to me the same way as it did; so I think that should give you a clue to how bad it is, now."

Harry surveyed his face. "Can I ask what that means?"

James turned it away. "No - even though I brought it up. Sorry."

He gracefully accepted defeat with a nod and a, "No problem."

A sigh. "Anyway." James set his elbows on the table, threaded his hands together in a ball at his chin, and met Harry's eyes sidelong. "I wanna talk about the radio.

"That thing was working fine, until you walked in. It'd never acted like that before, never malfunctioned once for the entire time I'd had it - until you. We now know it's because of the die," he said, meaningfully dropping his eyes to what Harry still cradled in his hand, "but I can't sit with the idea that it was just entirely because of it, either; Ithink, there's a catch.

"When you were talking earlier, about maybe what the new Flauros could do..? And how you said you didn't feel anything, and that it was maybe 'low on juice'..?" He watched Harry nod. "Well.. it got me thinking: if it's a piece of the Flauros, it's gotta have magical properties, or, uh— magical powers, right? It obviously had 'to've been imbued with something, something that was able to absorb things, so it could suck in demons, or whatever else it was supposed to do - but as proven with Alessa, you gotta assume that means it can absorb power from someone else; but that wasn't the only thing I was thinking about."

James slowly unfurled his hands like blossoms. ".. what if it could also check for it, Harry?"

"I'm not sure I follow," murmured Harry, after a lost moment. "Check for what?"

"Power. In someone. Like you; you said you felt something, touching it."

"The original Flauros? Yes. But I think that gets a pass, James, because at the time, it was at full 'magical power' capacity," he ribbed, light-heartedly bouncing his curled fingers, "and, just for the record?" Harry smiled. "I really don't think I have any special magical powers like He-Man or Alessa or anything. I'm cool, but I don't think I'm that cool."

James rolled his eyes. "No, but– okay, so maybe you don't have any 'special, magical He-Man or Alessa powers', Harry, but also.. what if you do? " proposed an incredible, immediate contradiction of himself; but he didn't skip a beat. "What if you do have some kinda weird, untapped powers that just aren't in the, um.. 'magical' sense..? if we have to use any word for it. .. god," he mumbled, embarrassed. "I hate having to use that word; it makes me feel like I'm a kid playing make-believe, or some shit."

Harry offered a single laugh. "Yeah, except not - though I'm dying to know what your Hogwarts House is. Then again.." he mused, lifting his eyes towards the pretty ceiling overhead. "I guess if anything, yer the one who's kinda like a wizard, James."

"I don't understand whatever you're referencing, Harry," James wryly informed him, "but whatever it is, it sounds fucking stupid."

"Kinda like having to use 'magical powers' to describe whatever the fuck's going on with this? " he asked, holding up their troublesome little prize.

The conduit had to chuckle. "Yeah. Basically."

"Heh. Anyway, all jokes aside: where were you going with that?"

James blinked a bit. "Oh. Uh. .. right, so— Jesus, we got off track," he groused under his breath. "But I was gonna say something else that sounds fucking stupid, so just.. Harry.. what if it recognized you?"

He squinted. "Recognized me..?"

"Yeah. What if— what if you carrying around the Flauros with you for so long, like.. what if you left your fingerprint on it, or something? A 'magical' fingerprint, if— ugh, do you get me?"

Harry's head shook negative. "Not quite. Can you try it again another way?"

James fluffed the air with his arms. "Like– l-like, your time with it, it— you left an impression on it. Like a fingerprint. Obviously we don't know anything about how it works, Harry, but like.. if it remembers..?"

His description trailed off there, unsure of how else to spin the wheel. Visible relief came when he heard Harry's soft 'ah' of understanding, which James's lungs chased with a grateful sigh. "Right, so— back to what I was getting at: what if you walking into Silent Hill, like.. set off an electrical current, of some sort? And, like.. activated it?"

The father stopped him. "Activated it, how?"

James's hands flopped open in frustration. "I don't really know how to explain it, Harry, like– made it start fucking up— malfunctioning the radio. Because it was fine before, even WITH the piece still in it, so I can only assume you woke it up somehow by walking into South Vale."

"With the 'fingerprint' theory, thing."

"Yes."

"Hm." Harry considered it. "Maybe. Except I gotta poke a hole in it real fast, sorry - don't bite my head off too quick, okay," he said to the stony, annoyed face on the resident conduit. "I know you just threw words out there to get your point across, but you used 'electrical current' as your placeholder wording, which got me thinking.. wouldn't've you felt something like that too, if that'd happened? Because you've said before that you felt people walk in - or rather, you felt Heather, and whoever that other guy is, walk in - but I can't remember what you'd said about feeling me walk in."

"I don't really remember either," James said. "But you raise a good question, anyway."

"Which is..?"

"Well, first: keep in mind that I don't know jack shit about you, Harry, or about the Flauros.. okay? I didn't even know about the Flauros being a thing until you walked in and started talking about it. And also , need I remind you that just because I'm the conduit, doesn't mean I know everything about Silent Hill. I mean; obviously, right? Even though the entire fucking town has been fucking obsessed with me for nearly twenty years, it's kept so much of itself hidden from me, too."

"I get that, but what was the 'good question' I raised, James?" he asked, gently redirecting him back to the main topic.

Sighing, James flew the heel of his palm to his face and bedraggedly ground it into one eye. "My point being, is that if you might have some kind of powers; if you left a fingerprint on the Flauros; and even if you don't have some kind of power, whatever— either way, I still think you activated the Flauros somehow. I just.. I can't really explain it, Harry; I'm sorry. I just don't have the exact words."

The hand dropped to his lap, taking his vision with it to watch himself knead his knuckles like tough dough. "There're five boxes on the Flauros, though," he ponderously murmured.

Harry cocked his head, but respectfully stayed his curious tongue. He waited by whilst James untangled some knotted ball in his skull, and it wasn't long until James popped up his head and looked to Harry, green eyes round in their shadowed sockets.

"The radio is a box!" he exclaimed. "Harry, there're five boxes on the Flauros, and the radio is a box, and we FOUND the Flauros inside the box!"

Harry looked startled. "Uh.. what?"

Excitement brought on by revelation started tumbling freefall out of James's mouth. "I think I've fucking got something, I think I've— listen, listen, this matters. This fucking matters! Harry, the radio is a box, and do you know what it fucking—? Do you know what it— it symb— it symbolizes—? Fuck. Okay, wait: look."

The chair smoothly skated back on its felt feet as James brusquely pushed from the table and hurriedly navigated it a quarter-turn to face the writer. "Think about it for a sec with me, Harry," the conduit urged, tucking the chair's proximity closer and then scooting his weight to the edge of his re-situated seat.

(But enthusiasm is often careless. It was an accident that James's kneecap collided head-on with Harry's, and it was a partnership of surprise and reflex that caused him to jolt. He quickly escaped his leg inward to avoid another mishap, eyes round and bewildered, while - of course - James seemed unaffected. Perhaps subconsciousness clocked it, though, for James instinctively flared his knees wider to accommodate; which only made Harry press his thighs tightly together, and feel terribly trapped.)

"There are five boxes, and each one of them symbolizes something. One of them, is Past. The radio is a box."

"U-uhh.. ooo-kaaaay..?"

"And what's the radio a piece of, Harry?"

"The, uh.. t-the past..?"

"Yes!" he praised, eyes alight. "And not only that, but the Flauros is, too! So when you look at them from that way—"

"God you're close, James," the author mumbled, proceeding to scrape his chair a couple inches back to put a more comfortable distance between them. "I'm listening, cuz it sounds like you're on the brink of an epiphany here, but shit, you gotta mind my personal space—"

"The radio, the Flauros, they're pieces of the past," James said, glossing right over the complaints. "But so? Are you." James slowly leaned over, elbows bracing on top of his knees, staring unwaveringly up into the writer's eyes. "But so, am I.

"Every past has a beginning, Harry," he continued, his voice eerily hushed and reverent. "And what's ours? Don't think about the specifics, think about what's the one piece of the past that we share - that we can each call our 'beginnings' in this town."

Harry fumbled to fully catch on. "I, uh.. the radio, I guess..?"

"Exactly: the radio. It's aaaalll coming back to the radio. Don't you get it? That small, stupid, fun little box you broke makes a HUGE piece of our pasts, the same.The fact that we both had one? That links us. Together." James erected a finger. "The one thing that would make this even crazier, would be if that radio I'd had all along in South Vale happened to be yours, too."

".. mine?" Harry weakly croaked.

"Yes. How strong's the possibility that the radio I'd been using back in South Vale could've also been the exact same one that YOU'D used here in Old Silent Hill, back in '99?"

Harry shook his head, flabbergasted. "Uh.. I don't know about that.."

"Okay, then prove me wrong. You saw the thing, Harry; did you recognize it at all? Ever? Think real hard on it," James stressed, "because if I'm right, and it IS the same exact one, then.."

Harry helplessly shrugged his shoulders, hands flapping about like grounded fish. "Then— then what?"

"Just think about it, Harry; c'mon, it was red, no bigger than my hand," he said, presenting that very thing for scale. "It was a fucking radio. Did it look like yours."

The author looked away, squirming uncomfortably in the wooden chair. "Jesus Christ, I don't.." He bowed his head low, gaze evading James entirely as he struggled to think; trying, trying to recall how it looked, other than just red and compact. "I don't..? I don't know, James, I'm sorry. I did see it, yes, but you had it with you, primarily," was the lame alibi. "I hate to blow a hole in whatever theory you got going on here but I'm sorry, James; I can't fucking remember." He then attempted a smile, and a joke. "Maybe if I'd've known I'd be coming back here like this, then maybe I'd've put my fucking initials on it, heh."

James appeared a mite annoyed. "Okay, well, what did you do with the other one, then?"

"It's gone. I don't know, I must've dropped it somewhere. I didn't have it when I left, an' I didn't have it with me when I got home. I don't know where it is, James," Harry said, with a shake of his head. "I'm sorry."

James believed him, of course. The unwarranted annoyance melted away. "It's okay," he murmured. "I guess it doesn't really matter."

The other man wearily smoothed his palm over his age-streaked hair, then tried to offer some comfort to a subject he didn't yet understand. "That doesn't necessarily mean we'll never find it again, James - it might still be around."

That was true, but James couldn't help looking bummed out. "Maybe. But even if the radio I had wasn't originally yours in the past, the Flauros inside it, was. I'm just— ugh!" His hands dragged his frustration through his hair. "I'm just really hung up on the radio right now, Harry - you really did blow open a huge hole in my theory, thanks a lot."

There was a smile in his words when Harry murmured, "Sorry about that."

"Well, whatever; you had a radio, and I had a radio. It– it was like I said before, us having radios was a part of both our beginnings, it pulls us together," he blathered, doing his best to talk out and polish the rough thoughts churning like a rock tumbler in his head. "But– b-but on the same token— we shared this last radio, Harry, until its bullshit got to be too much, and you broke it open.. which gave us the piece; and changed the game, because it told us that we don't NEED the radio as much as we thought."

Harry's maroon shrug replaced speech. James continued, "But what's.. important, I guess, is that radio still served its purpose in the beginning; in the past . There are five boxes on the Flauros, Harry, and one of them is literally called Past. I find that pretty damning, don't you?"

The author gave a small, contemplative wince. "I think I see where you're going with this, yeah."

"This shitty fucking place is all about symbolism," smiled James, wryly. "And the radio's one of the bigger pieces of the puzzle, here. Whether or not the radio we were using was previously yours, it symbolized the same thing from our pasts, and when you think about it, it's the one constant that links us together. The only difference, was the Flauros inside it - which brings me to my next point.

"If I'm right about you imbuing the Flauros with some kind of weird, life-essence-type-shit— even if you didn't know about it, or knew you could do it, doesn't really matter. What matters, is what it is; what matters, is who YOU are."

'Skeptical' was too light a word to describe the look on Harry's face, though it was enough to sell the point. "Excuse me, who I am? What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?!"

"If I'm fucking right about this, Harry - about the life-essence, that the very act of you coming back into town activated the piece of the Flauros somehow, and somehow woke it up- then that means, in my eyes, that you coming back here set something in motion. And I'm not sure what that is; but I don't think the cult, or anything that empowers– or, IS the powers of Silent Hill, ever anticipated something like that ever happening. "

"I'm lost, bud," Harry said, looking the part, too. "Look, I know talking ain't your thing, but I'm trying to understand, here. You're all over the place, James, and I know you're tryin' to figure it out as you go along, but.. dumb it down for me a little more— please. I want to understand where you're coming from."

James ducked his head, sighed, and massaged the back of his neck. How could he dumb down something he didn't fully grasp, himself? He thought and thought, and thought some more; then came up with another way to spin it, and hoped for the best as he glanced up at his comrade from beneath his brows and bangs.

"I don't think we need to pretend you don't mean something to this town, Harry," he quietly stated. "But we also don't need to pretend that this town doesn't hate you, because it does. It really, reallyfucking does. I've been able to feel how much this town fucking hates you since day one, and judging by how you talk about it..? It probably hates you just as much - or more - than you hate it. And it's no big 'duh' as to why Silent Hill holds a grudge. Or you.

"But there are a shitload of coincidences I just can't ignore, Harry. I'm gonna be hung up on the radio for awhile, I can tell ya that," he chuckled, somewhat ruefully. "It just seems too good to be true."

"Or maybe you're making mountains out of mole hills," Harry gently teased.

James took it well with a simple shrug. "Maybe. Could be."

"Cuz your whole rant about the radio almost made it sound like you think someone grabbed the radio, jammed the Flauros in it, then intentionally dropped it in South Vale just for you to find," the author said, ribbing on him a bit. "Like someone foretold my second coming through gyromancy, then went an' said, ' Oop! Welp, we can't have Harry Mason find that shit too easy, so guess we gotta make the worst game of hide and seek outta it to be as fucking obnoxious as possible - eh, put it South Vale, hopefully some other sad sack'll take it and they'll never meet!'. Heh."

The man opposite him actually laughed a little. "Yeaaahh.. I guess when you put it like that, it's easier to believe it could've been a coincidence."

"Heh; funny how that works, huh? Hm.. y'know?" Harry folded his arms on his chest and stuck out his lower lip in a thoughtful pout, absently rolling the die in his fingers underneath his arm. "Even though a coincidence makes sense? I just kinda went and made myself feel unimportant by saying all that."

But James, looking askance, had fallen into ruminating. ".. but.. if it was intentionally put there.."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Aw c'mooon, James.. didn't we just get over that?"

".. it'd be because it was meant to be far away from Old Silent Hill."

"Well yeah, that was a part of the schtick."

"I know - as was you saying that nobody banked on us coming together like this."

"Okay..? And?"

"I don't think any of this could've been foretold by gyromancy, Harry," James said, lending a small joke that made the latter smile, "but rather, just.. it was destiny, instead."

A beat. "We're gonna need to get your head checked. These conspiracy theories of yours got your screws all outta place."

"You enacted destiny, Harry, one way or another," James soldiered on. "You adopted Cheryl; you took Heather away. And don't ask ME to explain it, because Isure as hell don't know," he was sure to disclaim. "But your destiny was sealed - especially the part of your coming back here, because you took Heather away. The shitty part is..? .. I don't know if you think you could've ever escaped it. But I guess that's just how destiny works; but again.. I don't know."

"So you're telling me you believe in destiny, now."

"Destiny, fate - call it whatever you want," he retorted, "but whatever you do, don't ignore it. There're things that are coincidences, and then there are things like Silent Hill." (A hard truth which, when spoken by James, chilled Harry to the bone.) "You coming back here was unavoidable. It was destiny. .. it always.Was destiny."

After that, Harry saw something in the conduit's eyes change that he couldn't quite name. It was strange to look at, and thought it might be pity. His fingers rubbed and rolled the warm die around as James went on, feeling quite disturbed.

"The past never remains in the past, Harry - not where Silent Hill is involved. But I'm sure you know that by now." James awkwardly looked down to pick at his hands. ".. and you know? Something really fucked up just occurred to me."

"Aside from the fucked up things already mentioned?" asked a friendly heckle.

"Yeah, actually."

"Well, rip off the band-aid an' lemme have it! How bad could it be?"

James kept his head down, refusing to acknowledge his gaze in a way that Harry wished he could dislodge his foot from his mouth. ".. let me start by saying that I know I keep saying that you don't belong here, okay.. and I stand by that," James said to the floor between his feet. "But I've realized.. I think that I've just been trying to pretend that I didn't already know, or.. figure it out until now, or just.. didn't want to see it."

The conduit looked up. Harry met his eyes head-on with that look he just could not wrap his head around. He felt scared of it; not of James persay, but of it - the expression on his face. That was one thing to fear; as were the words about to come out of James's mouth that he didn't want to hear, and James didn't want to say.

But he did anyway, because he had to.

"You do belong here Harry; you actually do."

Harry felt a bit hot beneath the collar. James didn't elaborate, because it was up to him to ask; to include himself in the twisted discovery. (It was about him, after all.) "And.. why do I belong here, James?"

"Because.. well.." He nervously licked his lip. "I've realized that I'm not the only one supposed to be living here in Silent Hill; that it isn't just my home, anymore."

He crackled out, "Sorry..?"

"No."

There was a long, bizarre, and suffocating pause after that. Harry studied his counterpart with eyes like a fine-toothed comb. The longer they stared at one another, the more he studied the fucking emotion hanging there on his face like some old, rotted haunted heirloom painting. Harry knew it so damn fucking well. It had a name. It had a place, but rarely was it on James Sunderland's despicable mug.

"Because Silent Hill is your home too, Harry."

And that disrespectful emotion he showed, was called 'sympathy'.

It was sympathythat lay deep within James Sunderland's dead, lake green eyes. Harry wished it wasn't there. It didn't suit him, and it made Harry feel fucking sick to see.

The hairs raising on his arms and neck felt like a thousand needles in his pores.

"But— b-but it's not—"

"It is. Just face it, Harry. It doesn't matter that you weren't here long the first time: you made your mark, anyway, and Silent Hill wasn't going to forget you anytime soon. How could it?" he rhetorically asked, helplessly spreading his hands as he shrugged just as so. "The town's very good at holding a grudge.

"But more than that? .. the town SEES you as one of its own.. just like it does with me. And because of that reason - because of Heather, because of Alessa, because of Cheryl - it made you a resident of this town. You have an address here. It's totally opposite, now; when you left this town? You went on vacation, from it. And now.. it's called you back."

A hollow, piteous smile appeared on his corpse-white face that made Harry feel ill. His cheeks burned with fever's heat, but his bones felt cold, hands clammy, and his stomach, jittery and nauseous with acid glass. James clasped his bony hands and he looked the other man directly in the eyes.

"Silent Hill has called you back home."

Harry felt fucking ill.

That somber smile was still sewn to James's face and Harry hatedlooking at it. It gave him the impression of a hangman who'd just wreathed a salted rope around his neck and now waited by with his hand lingering on the lever; or a doctor at the visit that'd diagnose a death sentence. Harry hardly saw a difference between them; hangman or doctor, their jobs were the same.

(Executioner.)

(Undertaker.)

He just never thought a hangman like James Sunderland could look sympatheticrobbing him of last rites or a chance to repent, and simply pulling the trap door switch (ripping off the band-aid) by saying, point-blank:

"Welcome home, Harry Mason."

It was abnormal, even offensive, how soft James's voice had been.

The floor fell, and so did Harry's heart.

(A cinched noose makes it hard for a man to swallow his throat.)

Welcome home.

Luckily, a cinched noise also makes it hard for a man to fucking puke his empty guts out, like Harry wanted to right then - because he felt. Fucking. Sick. Instead, his delicate psyche acted fast before more damage could be wrought, frantically stretching a canopy of numbing wool over itself for safety; but it was too little, too late. The shield was as protective as a membrane of low-quality prop Halloween webs, and thus, was no match for a venom that could melt titanium, when its acidity was concocted from truth.

Harry wanted to scream.

Welcome home, he'd said.

Harry wanted to screamand curse, but his teeth were laced shut by barbed wire, and his tongue was mince in its shallow holding well of nausea-induced saliva.

Welcome home to Silent Hill, Harry Mason.

He really was home; and home was a place where he wanted to scream.

But loathfully, James wasn't done talking. "I'm so fucking sorry that you're back home, Harry," he apologized, and how dare he.Harry wanted to strangle him for it, shove it right back down his marble neck - but he was still as stone. "It's really fucked up that you're back here— and especially like this. I wish Silent Hill was just a stupid tourist town for you, I really do.. but.. not when you are who you are."

'Who he is.'

Harry could've broken his jaw.

'Who he is'– the fuck's that mean?!

Who IS HE to Silent Hill?

Could ANYONE give him the FUCKING answer to that?!

Stay calm, Harry's rational self tried to internally soothe, brawling the overflow of fermented hate for control. Easy, Harry; easy.

He breathed, slow and easy, and stayed calm.

(He was so good at lying.)

If only James knew what was happening behind Harry's facade. He shook his blond head and bitterly laughed. "God, that's fucked up. I wish I never realized it," he then groaned, dropping his head into his hands. "God, that's so fucked up. This is too much shit, Harry; this is too much fucking shit all at once, and I THINK you can agree."

Harry exhaled. He felt like death, and he felt like caving in James's ribs; but all he could do was weakly contribute, "Yeah, no fucking joke?Yeah, man.. fuck this shit. I'm at my fucking limit on it," he said, adding a flimsy wave of his hand, "and I think you'll agree with that, too. .. heh."

"Yeah," James mumbled behind his hands. "No kidding."

A deep sigh. "So let's give it a fucking rest. You look and sound fucking exhausted. Jesus," attempted a chuckle, "I think that's the most I've ever heard you talk in basically one sitting!"

The long-term civilian peered up at Harry over the brim of his fingertips. "Yep. I think so, too."

"I take it you're probably not gonna talk for a while after this, then," Harry remarked. "And I don't blame ya at all."

James watched his worn-out ward half-heartedly jump the die in his soft, big palm; and before he could think twice, found himself tentatively asking, "Hey.. you okay? You look kinda pale."

"Do I? Heh; not surprised. I feel kinda like shit," the father honestly admitted. "But I'll be okay. I always will be. Thanks for asking, though." He tilted his head. "You okay? though I feel like we've already been over that, and I don't hafta ask, heh."

The slight dimple of James's lower eyelid suggested to Harry that he smiled behind the veil of his hands. "Yeah. M'peachy. "

"Peachy keen, ha ha; good to hear! Aaahh.. aaah, man. Welp." Harry looked down at the die and rolled it around. "To look on the bright side, I feel like we made leaps and bounds today, James. I don't know how you did it, but you came up a LOT, and all'v it was some of the damndest, most intense shit I think we've ever heard thus far. It was maybe a little bit more than we bargained for, but hey: we'll take what we can get." He then cast him a smile. "I guess being the conduit of Silent Hill has a lotta unknown perks you gotta unlock, yet."

".. heh. Yeah. Maybe. I dunno."

"That, ooor maaaaybe, you're just a whole lot smarter than you wanna let on! You sly dog." Harry smirked, but sobered at the meager attempt at a chuckle James made in return. He looked down at the awful little die, feeling pretty bad for the poor guy.

"Anyway.. s'cool that you might've figured out what this is supposed to be, but.. take this fucking thing back." Harry clasped it in a loose fist and held it out upside down for disposal into James's hand. "I don't wanna look at, or even think about it for a while."

James accepted it back, bracing his elbows on his knees, and beginning to turn it around in his fingers just like before. "Yeah."

"Whenever we find out who's responsible for that thing? I'm gonna clobber 'em."

He snorted. "Yeah, sure; if they're still around."

"Hey! You shaddap, no bursting my bubble," chastised Harry's wagging finger, with a grin plastered on his face. "Lemme have my revenge fantasies! Besides; weren't you gonna take a break from talking?"

He gave a chuckle to the shake of James's head, then looked at the spread on the table before him. "Eeehh.. alright. I guess I'll get back to it. I need to write all this shit down."

James mustered up a chuckle. "Oh, yeah."

"Mm hmm. " Harry turned his chair back around to sit properly at the table, and opened his log to a fresh page. "Welp; I guess I'll get back to it. I gotta write all this shit down, so.. that'll do, pig," he breezed, smoothing down the paper before reclaiming his pen. "That'll do."

Swif; swif, scrif, were the soft sounds Harry's pen made, already busy at work writing, as promised. But as the author's left hand wrote, the conduit bore a small frown. James at first squinted at the die, then took that squint up as a glance up at Harry's hand for a spell, and then finally, darted his eyes to conduct study on the man's regal, classically handsome Roman profile.

James suddenly had a burning question he just had to ask.

"Babe?"

The pen braked. Confusion put lines into Harry's forehead before he shot James an inquisitive look. "Huh?"

"Babe."

He stared. "I keep tellin' ya, James, we're not that familiar yet." Harry's eyes went down to his work, and his hand, back into motion. "Buy me a drink an' dinner, first."

As per usual, that had James feeling a trifle repulsed. "What?"

"I said don't call me 'babe' until you've taken me out on a nice date and at least told me I'm pretty, first."

He deeply frowned. "I'm not calling you 'babe'."

"Then why'ddya keep saying 'babe'?"

"'That'll do, pig.' It's from the movie, Babe, right?"

Count it twice now that the pen stilled, but this time, its inactivity lingered for longer. Harry absorbed the next few seconds to process what he'd said, then looked over, pleasantly intrigued.

".. yeah. That line's from Babe. Most famous line, I guess. Heh.. that's funny, you saw the movie?"

The conduit equally looked and sounded sarcastically dry. "No, Harry; I just pulled it out of my ass to see if you were still paying attention."

Harry looked a little peeved. "Hey, for what it's worth, I'm pretty good at paying attention," a dose of light snark replied. "Still, that's a weird one to pull out of your ass, in hindsight."

Oh, great - a pun. The incorrigible wordplay granted Harry the miserable scowl he expected out of James, which in turn caused a grin to go splitting his jokester's lips. "Aww, what's that look for?"

"You're so fucking annoying."

"Pshht, aw, c'mon! Don't get boar-ish with me now, James! Heh, heh. I'm just surprised you saw it - cuz that's a kids movie."

James rolled his eyes. "Don't get too caught up in it, Harry. It's just something stupid I remembered, okay?"

"I'm not, I'm not!" the patriarch denied, lifting a deflecting hand. "I'm just saying! Calm your tits, James, m'just trying to make easy conversation!"

"Calm my..? Ugh.."

"Heh, yeah, YOU heard me. .. so.. what took you to see Babe ?"

Though he settled, James still felt a small need to protect his honor, and evaded the question to turn it back around. "Don't remember. Why'd you see it?"

Harry's eyes asked if he was dumb. "I'm a dad, James; I saw it with Cheryl back when it first came out."

.. oh. Right. Somehow, the civilian managed to withhold a cringe. "Um, yeah.. right."

Quiet laid its quilt over their heads. The air was stuffy, much like they were entrapped in a pint-sized pillow fort erected in an airless room. So in effort to pull back the curtain and encourage in a draft to freshen the scene, he decided to ask Harry, "When'd it come out?"

"'95," came the instant reply.

James blinked, a little taken back by its quickness, but guessed Harry had anticipated that. Though still keen on lightening the mood, he first had to know, "How do you know the—"

"A lothappened that year, heh."

".. oh."

James looked down and nervously fiddled with the die, mortified.

Oops.

Harry looked over. He saw the way James hung his head and his gut reflexively sank. Oh no, you don't, scolded a very loud thought in James's direction. They were JUST getting back on their bantering feet! Like hell Harry was gonna allow this sorry sack of a man to start in on his favorite pastime of wallowing and self-beratement; not on his watch.

"Ah, James.. '95 was a hell of a year, but good things came out of it, like seeing Babe, " Harry smiled. "It's a good flick! We went to go see it a lot when it came out in theaters; probably saw it more'n five times, actually. Cheryl couldn't get enough of it. We bought it on VHS after it came out on video too, naturally, an' shit! Ha, she watched that movie so many damn times that she damn near wore the tape out. I almost had the whole thing memorized!"

James cast him a gander. Harry tossed back a grin. "She was all about the mice; just loved those little guys. And she liked the duck; and the sheep, and the sheepdogs, heh, heh.."

"Mmn."

"Kids're easy to please; show them talking animals, and you got 'em eating out of your hand."

A soft snort. "Yeah, I guess so."

He smirked. "And their parents' wallet. Man.. Babe was such a damn great movie," the author fondly reminisced, taking his wistful eyes and smile up at the balconies overhead. "S'real good shit - a perfect family movie.. if not a liiittle dark sometimes, if I recall, but those were the times back then. Things were a little looser with the censors and uproar, I guess.."

James rubbed one thumb against the other. "Well.. kids are easy to please, like you said."

Harry snerked. "Yeah, but pleasing their parents is harder! Because also like I said, you gotta mind the uproar. But, ah! Doesn't matter," he said, disregarding it with a wave of his hand. "You remember any of the characters? I think I always kinda liked Ferdinand the best."

"Umm.. I don't know. Who was Ferdinand?"

"He was the duck. A worrywart type."

James hiked his shoulders. "Don't really remember him."

"No big. You'd probably remember the ewes a lot more - the sheep girls. They were a big part of the movie, of course; they were also the ones who taught Babe the codeword for when he went to the sheep-herding competition, you remember that?"

"Uhh.." James squinted off to the side in thought. "I..?"

"'Baa-ram-ewe! Baa-ram-ewe!'" Harry suddenly, cartoonishly bleat, giving James a start. "'To your breed, to your fleece, to your clan be true! To your clan, to your sheep be true! —baa-ram-ewe!' Haha!" he cackled, not once noticing his cohort's wide, green-eyed shock. "Oh, man! You remember that? Hell— I can't believe I remember that! I haven't heard it in years! And I think I got it right. Amazing, huh?"

He looked over. James had already recovered, and was smiling at him, now; just a little smile, but it was there, visible enough to see. (And maybe, if Harry could indulge in some better projection of his own - just maybe, the smile was also present there, in his mossy eyes. Really, he was just elated to see the expression there on his perpetually sad face at all.) That's better, Harry thought proudly, and grinned back. God, it's good to see you smile.

"Yeah; I remember that," murmured James. "It was funny. Wow. I can't believe you remember the whole thing."

"Yeah, like I said: me too!" Harry joyfully agreed. "The mind's a fun one, eh? Heh! Ah, Babe; what a classic."

".. yeah."

"What a classic," Harry softly echoed himself with a chuckle, playfully wiggling the pen betwixt his loose fingers. "I love that movie; what a great memory. I love that, James. Thanks for that." Then his lips spread a distant smile and dark gaze peered skyward again as he remarked, "Y'know..? I oughta give it a watch when I get home. Heather liked it a lot, too. Probably not as much as Cheryl ever did, I don't think.. but overall enough to scratch up the DVD, at least, heh. Heh— kids're so funny about shit like movies," Harry off-handedly chuckled. "They'll always wear out the ones they like the most, no matter if it's DVD, VHS, Blu-Ray, or what - but I think that's just their way of giving it the highest compliment they know how to give."

"Heh."

"By wrecking it."

".. yeah."

"There're some good songs in the movie, too," Harry rambled on. "Though, come to think of it..? I think there's only one," he murmured, contemplatively dipping his head to watch the pen's rollerball nib turtle in and out of its tip whenever his absent-minded fingers twisted its segmented barrel. ".. yeah. I mean, there's only one song— it's the only song that matters, really.. since it's the only one anyone ever remembers from it, at least, cuz it made it famous.."

The civilian seemed curious enough to indulge. "What song izzit?"

"'If I Had Words,'" Harry's reflex swiftly replied, as afore. "It's a Scott Fitzgerald, originally put it out in the 70s, but the movie made it fucking iconic .I love how movies do that, y'know? reintroducing old songs to a newer generation? But that song.. man! What a helluva choice. Whoever thought to put that one in deserved a hell of a raise."

He chanced a glimpse at James. Though he was starting to sound like a broken record asking this question many times over, it was necessary when he was interested to know if: "You remember it? Or it, uh.. ring a bell, at all?"

James diverted his stare to think. "Uhhh.."

A prolonged moment made it seem like the answer was 'no', but Harry's slight shrug forgave him. "S'alright if you don't; s'not like it matters in the long run, anyway," nonchalance claimed, to mask disappointment. "It's just kind of one of those things, I guess; just a fun piece of trivia, nothing more."

The response he got was a noncommittal grunt.

Cheryl and Heather's solitary parent looked down at his work after that. ".. yeah. S'just kind of a nice song. Good stuff.. good stuff." He jiggled the pen. ".. anyway."

Harry got back to writing. James supervised, however partially distracted by the effects of the last of their little talk.

That the song from Babe Harry'd mentioned - what was it, 'If I Had Words'? - had revived a fished up a cloudy memory from the depths. It felt important, something worth remembering, but its picture was smudged, smokey, and indiscernible, like an inexperienced artist's charcoal scribbles on soft, crumpled paper. Yet it beckoned him to unweave its tangles, and James tried. He tried and tried, and repeatedly failed to make sense of the abstract. It was aggravating.

The memory felt so tangible, almost promising, but was just out of reach. There was a feeling there; then a hint of something more; a suggestion, a speculative feeling, that it could it have to do with.. with—

James was suddenly filled with urgency unlike any other to unveil what lurked in the grungy mist. Remember what he'd forgotten; except.. how? Without the lyrics - and having only the title and a feeling to play unreliable witness - how was he supposed to—

His eyes locked on Harry; and likely in part due to having spent his allowance of good ideas on the Flauros, James started to think a most uncharacteristic, and utmost dangerous thought.

"Hey.. Harry." The man in maroon lifted his head. (Oh, James hoped he wouldn't come to regret this.) "When was the song sung in the movie?"

"Oh, uh.. towards the end, pretty close to the end. Why? You—"

"It was sung by that old guy, right?"

Harry burst forth a hearty laugh. "'That old guy' , hah! Yeah, it was sung by 'that old guy', James Cromwell. Farmer Hoggett. The mice sang it too - but they sounded like Alvin and The Chipmunks, and weren't the 'old guy', heh. I'm pretty sure everyone remembers Farmer Hoggett singing it best, anyway."

"Hmm."

A grin powered by anticipatory glee spread across Harry's face. "Nice, so it sounds like you do remember it."

"Eh." James's lips dealt Harry a self-conscious frown before he looked away. "Only sorta, " claimed a white lie.

"Only sorta, eh? And what's 'only sorta' mean?"

"It means I don't remember the words, or the, uh.. the melody line, or anything like that."

"Aw, that sucks," Harry tutted, clicking his tongue. "That won't do. Well.. I'll betcha you'd know it if ya heard it."

That brought James's eyes back to his ward. He'd laid a trap, and Harry had taken the bait like he was born yesterday. It was almost disappointing how stupidly easy it was; but then again, swindling Harry into making a not-so-thinly-veiled offer to provide a musical rendition of anything when he never passed up the opportunity on his own volition wasn't particularly rocket science, either.

And just to make it perfectly clear: while it was a highlyunusual desire for him to harbor, getting Harry to sing is exactly what James actually wanted, at the moment. That said, he was also notoriously prone to being wishy-washy.

So to err on the side of caution, he professed , ".. maybe."

Now, Harry was an idiot, but he wasn't a fool: he'd caught on to something being afoot. Very interested in his curious swing of behavior, Harry abandoned his work in favor of getting to the bottom of whatever game James was playing, setting down the pen and folding his arms on the wooden surface. Once taking careful stock of the ever-guarded man at his left, he said, "It's a pretty short song; just four lines total, I believe."

James blinked surprise. "Four lines? That's it?"

"Yeah! It's one of those easy little ditties that repeats itself over and over. There're lotsa songs like that, so it works pretty well."

"Hm. I thought it'd be longer."

"Naah - it was pretty short in the film, too. James Cromwell only went through it once in the scene, but he had music to accompany it, too: flutes, n' shit. Gave it an Irish jig kinda-feel, if that jostles anything around."

Oddly enough, relating it to an Irish jig gave the memory a pulse; a damn faint one that barely dispersed the smog. He tried to revive it on his own, but it was in vain. (What a silly man he was, being so avoidant of his own conceived machinations, but fact stood: James had always been a fool of his own making.)

"That kinda helps," he shrugged. "But I still can't remember the tune."

There was a pause; a curious pause before Harry carefully broached, "You might, if you heard it. I know it, so.. do you wanna hear it?"

This was it: now that he'd asked aloud, the time had come for James's last chance to back out. If ignorance was what he truly wanted, he could very easily say 'no' and leave the memory an unsolved mystery; leave it to rot in regret, to fester and eat at his brain like a parasite - but did he want that? Didhe?

.. no.

You don't have to be miserable all the time, James, Harry'd once told him. Depression is shit - and people try to tell ya all the time, 'oh, just be happy!' —but I know it's not that simple. Still, I do know enough about being depressed and living a hell life to know that there's always something that makes me happy. Whatever it is for you? You should take part whenever you can.

You really don't have to be miserable all the time, James.

And he was right; damn Harry Mason to hell, he was goddamn fucking right. There was a morsel of the past tucked safe in his head that was happy and good - and he wanted it back. The scary part was that he could have it back in seconds; Harry could help him remember something sweet, so long as James gave him permission to. Knowing that Harry had the power to do that? Was frightening.

The men studied each other like two wary animals in the odd stillness that lingered: Harry, a bird; and James, a cat. Prey and predator, watching; waiting; watching.

James needed help if he wanted to uncover this memory just out of reach - and there was only one man who could assist. He hated to ask, let alone acknowledge he required his help; but worst of all, James wantedhis help. All he needed to do was very simple: give Harry permission.

Say 'yes'; say yes to him singing away the fog - to sing a song of the Past. It was your idea, after all. Just say—

"Yeah. Sure." (Because he truly didn't want to be miserable all the time.)

The wayward father, enigmatic in a league his own, took him at his word, and began to hum.

James recognized it; he recognized it the very instant the faded melody touched his ears. There were no words as of yet, but oh GOD - he recognized it! Anxiety trapped his breath in his lungs as Harry's throat hummed broken, halting notes to warm it up, to build suspense; perhaps biding his time for confidence? James distantly wondered.

Then James watched Harry tipped up his chin; parted his lips; and with their eyes locked hard upon one another, he sang - for James.

(For—)

"If I had words," a smile suggested to the conduit's expressionless, chalk-white face, "to make a day for you;

I'd sing you a morning golden and new.

I would make this day last for all time;

And give you a night.. deep in moonshine."

That was it; that was the whole song in its entirety. It was short and sweet, just as described, lasting not even thirty seconds. But it was interesting.

In the times prior that James'd heard Harry sing - which were in the several million (or so it seemed) - the veteran's musical numbers were goofy, intentionally ridiculous, like a comedian giving it his all to try to get a laugh out of a tough crowd of one. It'd damaged James's perception of any capabilities Harry might have, which in turn, kept expectations disastrously low. But in spite of Harry's common boisterous flair, there was no room for his tomfoolery today; the veteran performed this song seriously.

Softly, but seriously.

Nevertheless, the change in enthusiasm didn't remove a particular characteristic of the way Harry sang, so he discovered. What James thought was rooted in silliness, actually seemed to be an honest-to-god stylistic choice. It surprised him quite a bit, because he didn't think it was real.

See, Harry Mason didn't quite sing the way people normally did; instead, he "sang". Instead of maintaining a smooth stream of uniform notes as directed by the sheet music, Harry interspersed seemingly random spoken word alongside. It gave the song an informal sound, yet in great contrast to the disorder that one might expect from it, its sound was quite natural; even.. pleasant.

That wasn't to say, either, that Harry didn't ever sing the notes as he was supposed to - he could, but they were sporadic. Whenever they arrived, however, their renditions were warm; soothing; paternal. (Very 'Harry'.) But Harry seemed to have trouble when dipping into the low notes, and there were quite a few of them in this song. They made his deep voice rumble and crackle like gravel in the heart of his throat.

Without really thinking it, James thought he liked those the best.

Altogether, the marriage of these aspects produced an airy tenderness laced by masculine tonality, cultivating a vintage style of sing-talking that appealed to the lilt of an old-Hollywood crooner.

And yet, after all the times James heard his companion's jaunty vocalizations (despite his impression of it (and Harry, for that matter) already negatively shaped by annoyance and second-hand embarrassment), hearing its true nature now.. he just never thought how drastically different it'd sound - or how differently he'd view it afterwards.

It suited Harry, matched who he was as a person so perfectly well that James couldn't imagine him singing any other way.

"How'ssat?"

James barely nodded.

"Yeah."

"You good with that, or you wanna hear it again?"

(James noted here that Harry's voice, post-song, sounded like it was drenched in maple syrup. It was muddled, slow, and thick, and even did quite well to pronounce his paternal, masculine nature.

He also conveniently forgot to log that he, well.. he kinda liked it.)

But maybe it wasn't exactly a matter of convenience, for in all that, James suddenly realized that his ruminating had gotten the better of him. He was privately horrified to find he'd accidentally, very nearly abandoned the memory that all this was for - and he couldn't let it escape him again. James neededto remember it; it was irreplaceable, because he had a feeling that— no. He knew that she was there.

"Yeah. I'd like to hear it again."

Curiosity initiated a series of dull, mellow taps on the table from Harry's cascading fingertips as he tried to read an unreadable man. But soon, he smiled in the way he was best known for, and the inert kindness - the gentleness - of his smile felt like bristlethorns to James's heart.

He knew why, too: because it was nostalgic. It reminded him of his dad.

(He felt homesick.)

Harry's smile warmed a little more. (James missed his dad.) The conduit tried to smile back.

The reprise began.

"If I had words.."

If James had words, he might've called the start of the reprise sounding 'lachrymose'. It'd been jauntier in the movie, a leaping Irish jig, though James supposed its mood was fitting. The song had significance, after all, and maybe it was just starting to sink in for Harry. (Harry liked it; Heather liked it; Cheryl liked it.)

"To make a day for you."

.. and so did, Mary.

James got goosebumps, and the whole world went still - because he suddenly remembered.

There it was:

The South Ashfield Cineplex; in South Ashfield, Maine.

(the one off Northridge and Border.)

It was 1995,

and there they were, out on a date. It was the end of the evening. They were going home.

Shewas hanging onto his arm.

"I liked the mice singing," she quietly giggled.

"Cheryl likes the mice too," he told her, making a strange change to the memory of past.

The echo of Mary willfully played along. "She sounds like such a lovely little girl." she said with a smile.

"Yeah.. I'm sure she was," James barely replied.

SHEtook his hand on a wintry December night so long ago, in the year of 1995. He squeezed her hand as hard as she did his then, too.

"I liked the song," she said.

He did, too.

"Stay the night?"

He did. They slept comfortably.

It snowed.

James faintly smiled.

"I'd sing you a morning.."

When he awoke, it felt—

"Golden, and new."

Yeah: just like that.

Harry broke eye contact with him, looking down at the pen he now held in the thumb and forefingers of both hands, passively spinning its slim mechanical world around; and around; and around, in place.

"I'd make this day.. it'd last, for all time." (James wished this memory could, too.) "And give you a night.." (It was one of the best he's ever had.) "Deep, in moonshine."

Then he blinked, and she was gone.

James was alone there now, in his head. The song had cleared the mists and made art out of chaos, revealing something pretty, something foreign and beautiful - something almost golden and new - but the void it left was no special place to be. It could be argued that it became a 'special place' for nearly an entire precious minute, but now that it was done, it was done. Having served its honored duty, the memory retired itself safely away into a glass cupboard somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, where it'd come to lay to rest in moonshine's bittersweet peace.

And now, because of (and thanks to) Harry, James wasn't feeling so miserable anymore, because he'd decided he didn't have to be.

James's eye caught movement. He looked, and discovered Harry peeking at him around the cap of his maroon shoulder. His face was partially hidden by it, but James needn't see his full visage to know a smile adorned the father's lips. The clues were already nestled in his tender, melancholy eyes. James stared back into them, his unsmiling expression at neutral, and realized that he felt..

Strange.

His chest had become a noisy hive of television static. The condition didn't seem unfavorable, yet he wouldn't assign it the definition of 'good', either. It confused him more than concerned him (which was always the preferable outcome of the two) and James didn't know what to make of it, or much less call it. Whatever the feeling was, it neither bettered nor worsened the longer the two stared at one another.

It - and he - just felt.. strange, and he wished he knew why.

The men sat in silence for some minutes more.

"Remember now?" Harry asked.

"Yeah."

"Heh. Ah, Babe . Not you, I'm not calling you 'babe'," Harry laughed, harkening back to the misunderstanding that started it all, his shoulders shaking a little along with his head. "Ah.. man. What a good movie. Mmm.. should definitely watch that when we get home, don'tcha think?"

".. yeah."

Harry drew up his head a little more. James saw the smile, now. It looked bigger. "Yeah."

Surprisingly, that was all Harry had to say. James watched him shrug, playfully wiggle the pen in his uncommonly dominant left hand, and return to writing. There was a spirited pep guiding its inky dance. It told James that Harry felt content and renewed.

The conduit looked down on the die. He turned it slowly in his fingers, seeing it and not. It'd been a long time since he'd seen Babe, and he agreed; it'd be nice to watch that again. It'd be nice to go home, too.

It'd be nice to know if he even had a home that wasn't.. here, anymore.

But Harry did. Harry had one home that was here, and one that blessedly wasn't. Wherever his better home was with Heather (and James wondered, for a fleeting moment, where they rested their heads), Harry awoke daily to fresh, gilded mornings, and went to bed with the moon's ivory glow spilled across the nightly world. It was a place where the fog rolled in, but it didn't last forever; a place where it snowed, but only because it was in season.

Days as they were meant to be.

There was a place out there in metropolitan wilderness beyond this small corner of hell that was the Masons' vacation home from the one in Silent Hill: one that they knew was there for certain.It was home where Harry aged, and his daughter, Heather, grew from girl to woman: where they were a family. Where they had a life.

Where they were safe.

The Masons had it all, and James envied them.

It was just another reminder how much he needed them to leave - to get out of here, to go home to their humdrum life, wherever it was, and see the days the way they were meant to be, without the confining fog; without the everlasting snow.

All that he wanted - so desperately needed - was to do the same, and just. Go. HOME.

(If only he weren't already home.)

It was quiet in the library. Beside him at his right, Harry didn't talk, because there was nothing for him to talk about. The pen spoke for him in his stead, narrating whispers on paper as Harry Mason worked on rewriting a nonfiction story he shouldn't have to retell. Meanwhile, James looked down at the triangular artifact sitting heavy in his hand.

Playtime in the devil's pit was over, and boredom was a luxury squandered. James sank into the supports of his bent elbows and squinted at the tarnished piece of the past he held in his cold, cold fingertips, up close to his face. He had a lot to think about, now; too much to think about. He confined a sigh to the privacy of his head.

Soon, prophesied the conduit of Silent Hill, to no one else but himself.

It should all be over soon.

Deeply wishing for boredom's compassionate return, James slowly began to turn, and turn, and turn the die, and hoped to God that he was right.