This does contain spoilers. I'm warning you now. It takes place after Silent Hill 4, which means, well, it gives away the ending. At least one of them.
Author's Note: This fic will eventually down the long, long road contain HenryEileen. Until then... Henry has to start his life again.
Walter Sullivan is one crazy mother fucker.
Is? Was?
How could he know? How could he possibly tell? At any second, moment, turn around a corner, the blond-haired maniac could pop up behind him, raise his pistol and...
Henry Townshend would never be the same again. It's one thing to read about it in the paper, watch the story be reported on the news, he would mutter to no one in particular much later while images all too disgustingly familiar flashed themselves across numerous television screens in the state; It's another to live it. To breathe it. To wear the scars like bitter trophies of war...
People take for granted the safety of their homes. Perfection always has to be questioned, always. The demons of a twisted reality make their own homesteads in the closets, nooks and crannies, walled off rooms of any thing that might sound remotely like perfection. Henry knew this for a fact. A hard, touchable, ohmyfuckinggod fact. Walter, the storage room, he didn't know, he didn't know! All along, staring, staring at his bedroom. 11121... 11121... 11121!
Step, throbbing pain, limp, keep the arm in hand. Step...
The injuries he bore had been caused by the unexpected descent into that twisted reality and Walter fucking Sullivan. Maybe not directly. Maybe those bullets that pierced his skin hadn't even been real. Everything he did, all he saw, was credited to Walter Sullivan. Through his own selfish method of bringing back his mother (as it would only be selfish to Henry, could only be selfish) he in turn brought out an undeniable Hell. The world itself. The monsters. Oh God, nightmares for the rest of his life.
Those nightmares wouldn't come now. None. Unflawed, puffy clouds and blue, so blue, sky existed in this world. Full trees, their limbs blown by a light, cooling breeze, bright blooms of flowers sticking up from carefully tended to flower beds, it was a fucking happy ending brought to life. The asphalt under his overworked shoes was hot and cracked, serving as his only reminder that this wasn't a damned fairy tale. No, not even one of Shakespeare's far too long and over rated plays. This was life, his life. A horror story yanked from the television screen and brought to shocking reality. Blood, guts, and even ghosts. Ghosts. Wait, spirits? Hauntings? The real and true name didn't matter to Henry.
Not as he limped away from his perfection. Limped because the fucking whatever it was that Walter had been wielding (when not raising his pistol and oh God, did immortal 'villains' such as him really have to use mortal weapons) had, at one point, a happy meeting with his right thigh. Hard as hell. Above the distressed screeches of the strange machine spinning ever around, around, around, he swore he had heard a tell-tale crack. The fracturing of his bone, some bone, no matter how big it was or how thick it was, there was no doubt that something had suffered for the blow. He hadn't taken but a second to think over the injury. So much of the fight, a living Boss fight, had been left. So much running, so much inability to run, the pain shooting through every fibre of his being like fiery hot stars bent on Hellish torture.
Still he limped. Putting weight on the leg was as having it whacked all over again. Again. Again. Having no one to help him from the building, he was forced to put a momentary, slight, small bit of weight on the injured leg. Again. Again. Again. The world was slowly disappearing behind him, each small step at a time.
Henry would even let his mind wander to the injuries above his waistline. The ever growing burn, and the slow, warm feel of blood as it joined with sweat and trickled down to the small of his back, where it halted for a second before finishing it's journey at the hem of his shirt or the bottom of his pants. He couldn't think about it. More and more blood made it's way from his body as the minutes passed. The crimson, throbbing, aching slowly growing with each step.
Again. Again. Again.
Where was he going? How would he get there? A foot, twelve inches, seemed as if it were an entire mile. As the mile lengthened, the more Henry knew, absolutely knew, that no one would believe his story.
"Oh, yeah..." he would say, nervously scratching at the slight stubble on the right side of his jaw. "For the past few days I've been chained in my apartment from the inside. Some crazy, immortal serial killer managed to bring me into his horrible world in an attempt to finish his..."
No one in their right mind would believe that. Even Henry himself found the story laughable. Things like that only happened on the big screen or in the long, drawn-out narratives shoved in the faces of public by tired writers. If he could have found his voice, stopped biting the tip of his tongue to get his mind of the pain... He would have laughed. He would have screamed. No, he would have stop his awful hobbling, throw his head back to face the endless sky, to face God, and yelled so loudly that his throat would tear, rip, no longer be of use.
Instead, he stopped his walking. Stopped biting his tongue. Thought back. Loose gravel from the street crunched under his feet as he was quick to remove the weight from his injured leg. Burning, burning, the Sun. Burning like the final room, the final adrenaline rush, the final...
"Eileen..."
Walter Sullivan is one crazy, dead mother fucker.
Henry hadn't made it three steps out of South Ashfield Heights before an urgent cacophony of sirens broke harshly through his train of thought. Perhaps because of the relief of the beautiful screeching, he allowed himself to collapse onto a near-by block of cement serving as a fence post. Or maybe, maybe, his body was taking into account that a part of him was drifting away and out of the human world. The end, the fucking end. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again, wide as ever. The world about him seemed to go in and out of focus, doubling, becoming unrecognizable from what he knew. It didn't feel as if he were truly remaining still, leaning against the pole for support. Things almost seemed to rotate around as if he were stuck on a horrible carnival ride, horrendously dizzy. A ride that could only have existed in Walter's world.
Walter... Walter...
The name was the last thing echoing through his mind while his body slid down the pole and to the ground where darkness consumed him.
He awoke to a brilliant light trying to filter in through his eyelids, the sheer brightness of it causing what normally would have been complete darkness to radiate as a sort of reddish tint. Weary to open those eyes, the only clue to where he could have possibly been came from the prodding of something along the most painful areas of his body and shouted orders. Someone seemed overjoyed over his new reactions, being that he was awake and was unconsciously swiping at the hand of the person behind the prodding. They seemed the most attracted to the injury of his leg, each touch of it sending a new rush of pain up and down his spine.
Instead of focusing on the pain, Henry could only think of one thing. Oh Jesus... They stole my clothes.
That's all he needed. Naked, vulnerable, in a bed... That wasn't in room 302.
Oh man. He wished this were a dream.
They gave his clothing back eventually, laundered, pressed, and stained slightly with awful brown spots here and there that didn't seem to want to leave. Without haste Henry pulled on the garments. Though his bones ached and the bruises were painful to touch, the thin, unsightly hospital gown was soon on the floor and he was dressed in the attire that would forever remind him of only horrible things (of course, he would one day wear the pants again. Why spend eight bucks on pants with the aged look when, inevitably, he had created his own pair?).
Without a second thought, he wandered from his room as if he were a lost soul, the shuffling of his bare feet echoed through the eerily deserted hallway. The vibrations, seeming to bounce off every wall and escalate in volume with each step, pulled at the depths of his mind. It took every fibre of his being to wrench himself from the deepening terror, blinding terror, of which could quickly pull him under. Again into the nightmare he had barely escaped. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, oh God, how easily they twisted, warped, turning red and writhing under his skewed gaze.
A door opened ahead of him, its old hinges protesting loudly. Crimson walls disappeared, giving way for the solid white purity of reality.
"Mr Townshend!" and then he was in the hospital room before he could so much as open his mouth in protest.
Days later a door stood in front of him, the only thing separating him from the one person who might partially understand what type of hell he had gone through. With others he could narrow his eyes and bite the tip of his tongue, continuing along the road of being the quiet, good guy. Inside, clawing like a thousand monsters trapped in his intestines, was the urge to spit out biting words. They couldn't possibly know, as much as Henry hated to be an unreachable emotional entity hanging in front of a crowd of slack-jawed minions. Each of them sympathizing with a situation they couldn't possibly know. Their soft voices and gentle touches, these people... He didn't want to think about it. People were staring at him, at his clothes, at the small bouquet of mismatched flowers he clutched in his right hand.
With a deep breath he reached out with his right hand and pushed at the barrier. It gave easily to his will, swinging in enough to allow Henry to slip quietly inside.
She didn't look from the window until the soft whoosh-click of the door as it closed seemed to reach her ears. She turned then, her cheeks a light pink color, offset by the deep maroon of the occasional gashes and fading bruises that marred her body.
Eileen Galvin.
Her eyes managed to catch his. So brightly green, the color reflecting an innocence that he truly wondered if it was possible she still possessed after what they had gone through. Almost unreal.
A giggle, light and airy, school girl-like in the way it carried itself, alerted Henry to the fact that he had been staring. His cheeks flushed with embarrassment and though he tried to hold it back, a quiet laugh of his own escaped. Having found the perfect opportunity (despite the fact that he had managed to make somewhat of a fool of himself), he unveiled the flowers from behind his back. This earned an 'awww' from Eileen, a trigger to cause Henry to blush even more.
Shuffling to the bed, he held the small bouquet out for her to take. Their hands brushed momentarily as her own hands joined around the ribbon-tied base of the flowers. He was quick to pull away, even more fucking embarrassed than before. Oh, how he was acting like he was back in high school, eleven years younger. She was, what, four or five years younger than him? Maybe six? He was laughing again, laughing over his own strange feelings and, even more, the mix of emotions a simple brush of the hand had evoked in him.
One would think, after days of being chased around by an undead serial killer, girl problems would be the last thing on the mind.
The twentieth and twenty-first Sacrament together. What would Walter think?
He was staring again. His cheeks burning like fucking hot plates. And, as usual, he stood prone and unable to say a word of what he was actually feeling. Come on, Henry, get it together.
Never, ever, ever.
Eileen was talking to him. Short, simple words that he was sure were nothing but compliments or some sort of other drivel to men his bruised ego. Judging by her radiant smile, he could tell she thought he was hanging on her every word. At least, that's what he thought.
A few seconds later, he realized a smile just as wide as hers had spread its way across his face.
Still he smiled, though he made the effort to listen.
"I guess I'll go back to South Ashfield Heights now..."
And he might have still smiled; he might have even let out a genuine laugh. Inside, tucked away and hidden securely in his oh-so-secret mind, he frowned, partially scowled, and the words, 'you crazy bitch,' echoed again and again.
Oh, Eileen, what you do to me...
What would Walter think?
"Are you sure you want to do this?"
"Yes," the tone of the voice was nothing but uncertain.
"Are you ab -..."
"Yes, yes," a little more certainty had been interjected into the voice. "I won't have any thing, otherwise."
Henry really didn't even have his wallet. Nearly eighty percent of his earthly possessions were tucked away inside the apartment; Clothing, his photography equipment (which meant more to him than the clothing and wallet combined), and other odds and ends that his mother had forced upon him to make the place look a little more homelike. It needn't be said that without those things he was merely a man with nothing but the clothes on his back and no place to go.
He fumbled with the key in his hand. 302. The numbers were scrawled on a dirty paper tag in red ink, a splotch of something unidentified nearly blocking out the two completely.
Eileen stood attentive at his left side, her eyes on the key in his trembling hands. He had given her a ride home, which had proved to be a rather unnerving journey after a day in the hospital. Each block closer to South Ashfield Heights had been like a day closer to the end on death row. There they stood, both of them, before the executioner.
A key separated them from their ending.
Henry's hands wouldn't stop shaking. Though he had somehow managed to grasp the deadly piece of metal between his thumb and forefinger and it was well ready to be slipped in its proper place...
"Henry," Eileen's bitter-sweet tone wavered through the haze of panic weaving its way through his mind. He turned his head momentarily to give her somewhat of a side glance. He was listening. "Henry, everything will be fine." Simple words. Simple, wonderful words. He needed only to take a deep breath, step forward, and remember that someone was there for him.
When they key had done its job and the door was swung open (you couldn't pay Henry to step inside at that very moment), a scream, near deafening, ripped through the apartment building.