Eddie took a deep breath in an attempt to make his anger melt away. "Eddie." he sighs. "I'm Eddie Dombrowski."

Raleigh smiled. "Cool!" he said. "Well, relax. Those things can't open doors. Welcome to my humble abode."

Eddie looked around. The apartment seemed trashed, and there wasn't much furniture anywhere. "This is your place?" he asked.

"No, not really. I was being chased and this seemed to be the only room available. Nothing has bothered me since I came here, so here is where I'll stay until someone saves me from this place."

"Chased?" The image of the super large knife flashed in Eddie's mind. "By that metal triangle head thing?"

"By the what?!"

"By that big guy with the metal thing on his head. He had a big knife. He was who I was running from."

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Raleigh answered. "But I sure as hell hope you didn't lead him here."

"I didn't. I hope I didn't. I don't hear him." Eddied shuddered thinking about the sound of the knife scraping on the ground.

Raleigh sat on the floor to relax, smiling wider than ever. "So Eddie," he says. "Do you live in this town?"

"No. I'm from Ashfield."

"Wow! That's a pretty good distance from here."

"It's not far enough." Eddie says sadly.

"Oh, okay." Raleigh grins. "You're running from something."

"Why do you say that?"

"Come on, Eddie! It's easy to tell these things!"

"Well, you're wrong! I'm not running from anything!"

"No, not any thing. You look like you're running from everything."

Eddie looks up at Raleigh. Raleigh's bushy eyebrows are raised as if to say, "Am I right?"

"There's a pattern I'm starting to notice ever since I came to this town," Raleigh explains. "I met some older dude the moment I got here. He told me he had acquired a big gambling debt, and he couldn't pay it off in time. He ended up killing some guy who he says was sent to cut off his fingers. He said, if 'those guys' ever get him they'll cut off his arms and legs and leave him to die.

I hung out with him until he found an apartment with a TV in it. The TV wasn't even working, but he insisted on staying to see if the news could tell him what was going on with this town. What a moron. Everyone here is either dead or missing, but the local news guys are giving 24 hour coverage? Jeez! Anyway, something about that room scared me, so I left him there."

"What happened to him?" Eddie asked.

"The hell if I know."

"Well, maybe we should all stick together! Maybe he's right! Maybe the TV will work and the news or whatever will tell us what we should do!"

"No! I'm telling you, dude! There was something not right about that room! I have good instincts about these things. I felt as thought I was standing in my own coffin!"

"But you said yourself those things couldn't open doors!"

"Look, Eddie!" Raleigh snapped. "If you want to go, go. It's upstairs, room 208. I'll admit, it's a much cozier room than this one. It had the TV, an easy chair, some pictures on the wall and a Grandfather clock. But it's not worth it. So if you're going, you're going alone. I'm staying right here."

Eddie sighed. He really wanted to check out that other room, but he didn't want to go back through those halls alone. "Okay," he said, dejected. "I'll stay here."

"Good." Raleigh replied. It was obvious he was trying to hide his relief.

"Have you seen anyone else here?" Eddie asked.

Raleigh smirked. "Yeah! There was this one girl. She was cute! She'd be hotter if she didn't cover up with sweaters and her hair didn't look like she cut it with a piece of glass. I think her name was Angie. I'd probably still be hanging out with her if she didn't freak out on me every time I so much as looked at her! I mean, seriously! I was talking to her and she tripped. I grab her to keep her from falling in her ass…and she screams and takes a swing at me with the knife she was holding! And she was all like, 'Don't touch me! You don't get to touch me!' When she finally ran off, I was like, 'Later bitch!'"

At this point Raleigh was laughing hysterically, though Eddie failed to see the humor in meeting a crazed woman with a knife. "So who do you think she was running from?" Eddie asked.

"Oh, I don't know…her shrink?!" Raleigh bursts into another laughing episode.

"You're really chipper for a guy whose here fighting for his life." Eddie notes.

"You have to have a sense of humor in this place," Raleigh replies, his demeanor changing back into serious. "Otherwise you start thinking about what can happen to you here. You start thinking about your own death, and you start wondering if maybe you're already dead and maybe this is hell."

Eddie cringes. "Yeah," he sighs. "I'm starting to think this is hell."

"So what are you running from, Eddie?"

"Just like you said. From everything."

"Wanna talk about it? It's not like we don't have anything but time on our hands."

"How do I know you won't go running to the cops?"

Raleigh laughs. "Cops?"

"Don't laugh at me!!" Eddie growls.

"I'm not laughing at you! It's just…have you seen a cop here since you got here? At least one? One that wasn't mysteriously torn to pieces by some unknown creature? I mean, if you have, let me know so I'll feel better."

"No."

"Okay then. Then we agree that the Silent Hill Police department is gone along with everyone else. Look…if you tell me why you're here, I'll tell you why I'm here. And what I'm running from is probably a lot worse than yours."

"I doubt that."

"Come on. Now I'm dying to know."

Eddie stares down Raleigh, searching for any signs of sincerity and not a path to humiliation. Mentally and physically exhausted, he sighs.

"Okay." He replies. "Yesterday, I lost my job."

"Where did you work?"

"At an arcade. It was the biggest one in town, and I've been working there since I was 18. There was this guy there. The moment he walked in, I swear he looked at me and decide to make my life hell. Every weekend for at least three friggen years he came in and called me fat, gross, stupid…and my boss never did anything about it. No one ever stuck up for me. The only one who did was my Aunt Tina, and a week ago she had a heart attack and died."

"That sucks."

"Yeah. And I did something stupid and went to work right after the funeral. And there that guy was, just sitting at his favorite game, calling me a fat disgusting piece of shit. He got up and tells me to move my fat ass over to the token machine and get some tokens. And I remember thinking I wanted to kill him. I mean…actually kill him." Just thinking about the guy was making Eddie angry.

"Well?! What happened? Did you?"

"I…I don't know what happened! Next thing I know, the guy is on the floor with blood on his face, and he's not moving! Two of my co-workers are holding me back, and my boss is screaming at me! Everyone in the freaking arcade is looking at me. I'm thrown out of the place and my boss calls me a fat psycho and says he's going to help the guy press charges. I looked at my hands and I saw blood all over them. I don't know…I guess I started wailing on the guy!"

Raleigh twisted his face. "That's it?" he said. "That's what you're running from? Jeez, you probably would've got a few nights in jail and a fine for that."

"I'm not finished!" Eddie exclaimed.

"Sorry."

"I went home and decided I was going to get out of that stupid town for good. So I went upstairs, packed some stuff, stole some money I knew my mom was stashing, and left the house. I took my dad's gun and a bunch of bullets just in case anyone messed with me.

As I was walking to my car, I saw my neighbor's dog had escaped. I hate that stupid dog! He's bit me at least four times! And there he was, growling and running at me. So I pulled the trigger and BANG! The dog yipped and fell down! This reddish-pink stuff started coming out and he started gnawing on it!"

"So, you beat the shit out some punk, shot a dog…"

"And my neighbor. He came out of his house and started screaming that I killed his dog. I pulled the trigger and he went down. He screamed like a girl, and I only shot him in the leg! People started coming out of their houses, so I got in the car and drove away."

Eddie took a deep breath and looked straight into Raleigh's eyes. For the first time in my whole, Eddie noticed Raleigh looked uncomfortably nervous. Eddie found he enjoyed Raleigh's slight twinge of fear. "As I was driving," he continued. "I realized that for the first time in my life, I felt good about myself. For the first time, people were afraid of me and were not thinking about the next fat joke they could play on me. I decided the next place I go, people would know they had to respect me, or else. I kept seeing these signs all over the place while I was driving telling me about Silent Hill, so I…"

"What?"

"I just realized that I can't remember seeing any other signs to any other town. And there's at least three towns between here and Ashfield, right? There's Crown City, Brahms…"

"Pleasant River."

"Yeah, and Pleasant River! But I didn't see any signs for those towns. Or…maybe I didn't notice them. Maybe I only saw the signs for Silent Hill."

"Yeah. It's like something you brought you here, isn't it?"