I just wanna clarify something before we begin. 'when you see sentences like this it means it's thoughts.' Just in case anyone wasn't aware. Thanks to everyone who has been following this story. This is a journey I am really excited about and I hope you are too. It's gonna get crazy. Which also makes me nervous about how people are going to react as we go further in. This isn't a story I want to rush, this is something I really want to develop more so than others because Silent Hill, I feel, has way too much untapped potential. So, basically, I want to give you a Silent Hill strip tease :P

Also, special thanks to a certain friend of mine who bribed me with sweets to finally publish this chapter.

Please enjoy and feel free to leave your honest feedback/opinions/suggestions/whatever. I really do take them into consideration as I write. I also constantly re-read them when I need a little push *cough* which is, like, all the time *cough* :P But really, I do hope you like it and I'm sorry it took longer than it should have.

I do not own Silent Hill.

Lilith slept to her heart's content and didn't bother making haste to get dressed. She moved lazily around the apartment, making her way to the kitchen where she had begun the task of collecting food. She didn't have much, but it was a start. The water from the tap was safe, but she still collected any bottles she happened to come across. On the first night she spent alone she was hesitant to bathe or drink in it without sterilization, but she didn't really see what she had to lose and tried it without any ill effect.

She chewed on a granola bar and strode about the room, taking note of what she had and what she didn't. She had the basics covered; food, water, clothes. Lily had returned to that apartment where she first found clothes and cleaned it out. She also had medical supplies. Pyramid Head gave her a large bag full of it on the promise that she wouldn't return to the hospital anytime soon. That was a deal she had no problem making. Her skin still crawled anytime she thought about it.

Once dressed, Lily grabbed her large pack from the closet and dropped in some essentials. Pyramid Head had told her she'd killed one of everything, but that wasn't exactly true. Based on her observations, new monsters were emerging to take the place of others all the time. Some even evolved. Only a handful remained constant and those were the ones he was making her kill. Pyramid had also told her that she needed to go out and she wasn't exactly sure if he was hoping she'd get slashed or what, but he was right. She couldn't stay cooped up in fear.

So strapping her fancy new hacker-slasher across her back and throwing on her pack, she headed out. She kept the apartment key around her neck, along with the radio. Lily wasn't sure where she was going to go, so she just decided to wing it and pick up anything she might want or need along the way.

Lilith had a map of the town now, but none of the buildings or landmarks were labeled, so she filled it in as she went (and she hadn't filled in very much, considering the only places she'd really explored was the block between her and Pyramid). She also kept a notebook of all her observations and thoughts concerning Silent Hill and it's inhabitants. Though she hadn't seen her since their encounter by the lake, Alessa made it sound as if Lily should plan on staying a long time. And if that really was the case, then knowledge was going to be her best weapon.

She wandered up and down the streets without incident. She wanted to eliminate all the places she couldn't get into first. A lot of the buildings in Silent Hill had been completely bored up. Theoretically, she could get in with the use of a little demolition, but those would not be a priority as of now.

Lilith managed to map out a great deal of the town before the siren went off. It didn't startle her as much as it did before, but it still put her on edge and sped up her pulse. She quickly tied a black bandana around her nose and mouth to keep the putrid smell and the ash out. Unsheathing her sword and holding it firmly in one hand, she sprinted off in the direction of her building. She was over halfway there when she heard it- the sound of a scream.

A human scream.

Lily turned and raced towards the source. It didn't take her long to come upon a man, cowering on the ground with one of the gray skinned creatures hovering menacingly over him, it's rows of teeth snapping. With one swift motion, Lilith sliced the creature cleanly in half, but even as it fell before him and crumbled into ash, the man didn't stop screaming.

"Shut up" Lilith hissed, "or you'll bring more of them."

"P-p-please don't kill me!" he stammered and begged. As he put his arms down Lilith recognized him as a member of Christabella's congregation. Anger flared inside of her and she raised her sword, the point against the man's chest. His eyes were wide, terrified. All she needed was a simple thrust and the steel would pierce his heart.

But then she had a better idea. "Get up," she growled, removing the sword. He didn't move. "I said get up!" She raised her sword as if to strike him with it, but he scrambled to his feet.

"Help me, please, I don't want to die," he pleaded.

"If you don't want to die then you better shut your mouth and follow me." She didn't know where she was going to take him, but only one placed seemed logical enough. Lily led him down the block. "Keep up," she snapped when he slowed his pace. She took him to Pyramid Head's room, but walking through the door she didn't even recognize it. There was no bed, but there was a chair in the middle of the room. There were chains on the wall, razor wire and trays of butcher knives. The floor and the walls were both covered in thick red veins that grew and crawled around one another.

The man turned around and ran for the door, but Lilith blocked his path and pushed him back into the chair. "Sit," she threatened. He didn't move as she drug the razor wire over to where he sat.

"Please, don't do this. Let me-" he sentence morphed into screams as she wound the wire around his arms and legs, tying him to the chair. Blood poured out and bled through his clothes.

"Why did you try to kill me?"

"I didn't-"

"You people. They beat me and threw me out to die. Why?" The man didn't say anything. Lilith struck him had across the face. "Answer my questions." He spat onto the floor as the blood poured from his mouth. She'd hit him harder than she realized.

"They said you would come."

"Who?"

"Another one. Another. Like… him."

"Like who?"

"To punish. To execute. No forgiveness. Out of the pit she comes to reap the souls of the innocent and cast them into damnation."

Lilith felt an itching agitation clawing just beneath the surface of her skin as she listen to his delusional rambling. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Kill the serpent before she sheds her skin. Burn her. Burn the witch."

"I am not a witch."

"Witch," he hissed.

"Shut up." her heart began to race as he continued, all of his words beginning to slur together. Too fast. Something wasn't right. It wasn't right. "Shut up."

"-devil whore-"

"Shut up!" She struck him again, busting his nose and his lip, blood pouring down the front of his body.

"Witch."
"No," she said, shaking her head.

"Witch."

Lilith backed up as he stared at her with hatred, condemning her with his gaze. What was she doing? Torturing people? That wasn't her. What was she doing? This isn't right. This isn't right.

Suddenly her head spit open. The pain shot through her like someone had just put a bullet in her skull. She squeezed her palms against her temples and doubled over. It was agonizing.

"Witch!"

"SHUT! UP!" She screamed at the top of her lungs, grabbing the sword from the ground where she dropped it. In one quick, jerky motion she swung, hacking into the man's neck. The blade stuck halfway through. Blood squirted, covering her face, making her gag. His eyes darted about and he made sickening gargling sounds, bubbles of blood popping through his lips. She yanked the sword out of his neck with both hands, gripping it like a baseball bat and swinging again. His head rolled over to the side, barely hanging on by a few inches of skin until the weight caused it to drop to the floor.

The pain stopped. As if flipping a switch, it was gone and she was cast back into reality. Her eyes went wide and her lungs forgot how to breathe. "What have I done…" she dropped her weapon and stared at her hands, gloved in red, then back at the freshly decapitated corpse.

She screamed, pulling her hair and sinking to her knees. "No, no, no, no," this wasn't right. It wasn't right. Who did this? She could never… "what's happening to me," she begged, her tears leaving streaks in the blood covering her face, pouring into her mouth as she sobbed. She lay fetal position at the foot of the chair, large round eyes staring at her from the other side. She could feel the floor slither, the veins eager to drink up her generous offering. She felt them slide over her exposed red wrists, but she hardly cared.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she repeated, shaking her head, "it wasn't me. It wasn't me." But the dead eyes stared, condemning her to the truth.

The door opened.

'Holy shit,' Pyramid Head dropped the body he had been dragging to stare at Lilith on the floor, covered in blood and the decapitated body tied up in his chair.

"Wasn't me, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she was sobbing. He didn't know what the fuck he was supposed to do now.

"Lilith," he said, but if she heard him, there was no response. She just kept crying and mumbling. What the hell was she crying for anyway? All she did was cut his head off.

He drove his sword into the floor and went to stand over her. The floor veins had practically swallowed her arm, but she didn't even seem to notice. "Lilith," he repeated, reaching down for her. When he touched her, she jumped and finally seemed to register his presence. She moved for him, but was trapped in place by her wrist to where she lay. She began to panic, "get it off! Get it off! Get it off!"

'I heard you the first time, girl, he thought. She squirmed too much, trying to pull herself free. 'God damn, hold still.' He knelt down, wrapping an arm around her shoulder to steady her as he gathered up the floor veins in his massive hand, pulling. They made a ripping sound as he uprooted them, pulling them from her arm as they poured back the fresh blood they'd just soaked up.

Once she was free, she clung to him, her body shaking violently. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," she said again. What did she want from him? Why did she apologize? It wasn't his head she sliced off. His job wasn't to comfort her or make her feel better. It was just to make sure she didn't kill over.

So when he wrapped her up and said, "it's okay," he didn't know what the fuck he was doing or why he was doing it. He didn't know why he bothered to pick her up or why he cared that she couldn't be in here any longer. He should just leave her. Let her wallow in her own pathetic wails and pools of blood. He wanted to leave her. But he didn't.

He took her back to her apartment. He had been glad when she left and he could finally put it back to how it was. Pyramid sat her down on her feet. She'd stopped crying, but her eyes were red and vacant, as if she didn't really see anything. She turned from him and went into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly. He thought for a moment what was on the other side of it. Her naked, quivering body covered in blood. Pyramid Head grinned at the image and wondered what she would do if he ripped the door off the hinges and took her.

But he knew he couldn't, so he tossed it like garbage from his mind and went back to his room. He bent to pick up the sword when a small, familiar voice rang out from the doorway, "well, well, she's making herself quite at home."

'She's making herself quite a fucking mess is what she's doing. Look at this.'

Alessa skipped over to the chair and sat in the headless man's lap, giggling, "don't act like you don't like it."

'As far as we can tell, she's human and you know what happens when humans who don't belong here just show up. They go bat shit crazy. How much longer do you think she has?'

"Long enough, if you do your job."

'You want me to let her learn to survive and protect her at the same time.'

"Yes. I do," Alessa responded. She cocked her head at him and grinned, "why does it matter to you anyway how long she has? I thought you didn't want to even deal with her in the first place."

'I don't. But I'm the one fucking stuck with her so I'd really rather not have her unravel so soon. Especially since we don't even know how long we have to babysit the bitch.'

"She's human. Her mind is weak and vulnerable. You need to keep her grounded."

'No, all I have to do is keep her alive while you go off doing whatever the hell it is you do these days.'

"I'm touched by your concern."

'I'm not concerned. I'm pissed you've left me here to do this on my own. This wasn't supposed to get this big.'

"Well, it did. And do you really think that they're going to like it if we hand them over a babbling sack of meat? It won't just my head, it will be yours too."

'How do you suggest we do that then? She's already lobbed off some bastard's head.'

"We need to give her something that will remind her to keep her sanity in check."

'Like what?'

"I was hoping you would know the answer, seeing as how you spend so much time together."

Pyramid Head thought about it for a minute, gnawing at his tongue before it finally came to him. 'The dog. She has a dog.'

Alessa seemed to turn it over for a minute before finally nodding, "I'll bring it through." Pyramid Head shot her a mental image of how Lilith had described the beast.

'You realize if the dog dies, it's just as likely to set her off.'

"I'll see what I can do about that. You just go keep an eye on her for now. I'll tell you when I bring it through," Alessa popped up from the chair and crossed the room without another word and disappeared through the door.

Pyramid Head stood there for a moment in silence. He didn't want to go back to Lilith's apartment, but he supposed he'd better go make sure she didn't decide to eat a bullet. With her bag in one hand and her sword in the other, he materialized himself back in her living room and dropped the stuff on the floor. He could still hear the water running from the bathroom. Alessa had allowed clean water and electricity to flow in her room after he told her she had moved. Apparently she thought it would be beneficial in some way, but he didn't see how.

He sat himself on the couch and looked out the window at the ashy town he'd be damned to for too long now. It was never supposed to go this far, to be this difficult. They were supposed to avenge a little girl and give her a front row seat to her own nightmares unleashed on the townspeople. But Alessa fucked up. She wouldn't admit it, but that's what happened. She messed with something she shouldn't have and now they were stuck there.

The water stopped running and Lilith came out in a towel with the same spaced expression on her face. She didn't even look at him. She just walked into the bedroom and shut the door. He didn't bother stopping her. But for too long he heard nothing but silence from behind the bedroom door. Even with the water running, he could hear her faint cries, but now he heard nothing. Maybe she'd gone to sleep. Or maybe she hung herself in the closet.

Pyramid got up and walked over to the door and pushed it open. It was locked, but it easily gave way under his strength. She lay there in the bed, staring out the window. She didn't acknowledge him so he didn't provoke her. He simply left the door open and returned to his seat on the couch. It was directly across from her bedroom so he could see her lying there from his position.

He tried to keep to let his mind wander, but his thoughts and his eyes always came back to the figure curled up in the bed. He told himself he was watching to make sure she didn't do anything stupid, but he knew it was more than that. It was curiosity. He hardly ever felt curious about anything. He never had a need to. But nothing like this had ever happened. He didn't know anything more than Alessa told him and he was relatively sure she told him everything she knew, which wasn't much to begin with. Which he knew for a fact by how agitated she was. He'd never seen her so frustrated with anything for as long as they'd been together (which was a significantly long time). It was her fault. The whole mess was her fault, but he long since surpassed the era of holding grudges. There was a time when he had been overcome with rage, but it was gone, along with most other emotions he might have had at one point in time. Physical sensation was all the had left for now, except for when it suited him (which it hardly ever did) and the faint whisper of something deeper every so many decades. So to feel such a nagging curiosity both frustrated him and excited him at the same. But he didn't know what the hell he was supposed to do about it, so he simply pushed it aside. Or, at least, tried to.

Lilith sat up, her bare feet smacking against the floor with wet hair sticking to her face. She stood up and stood still, as if she wasn't sure exactly why she got up in the first place. Then she turned her head and looked at Pyramid Head sitting on her couch. She thought it was a rather funny sight to see such a large monster acting as a couch potato. But all she wanted was to be alone. Alone with her thoughts and her feelings and her doubts and her conscience. She played the scene back in her head over and over, but it didn't feel real. It was as if the memory belonged to someone else. Not her. Lilith tried to justify her actions. He had tried to kill her. It may not of been him exactly but he had been a part of it. Still, it didn't matter. In her heart she knew there was no justification for what she had done. She'd killed monsters, but they were monsters. They weren't human. She tortured and killed another human being. She was no better than those things she had been so afraid of. She was just another monster of Silent Hill. Lilith asked herself how she could bear to live like this. And the answer was obvious.

She couldn't.

Lilith walked into the living room and stood in front of Pyramid Head, "I want you to leave," she told him.

"No."

"I said leave."

"I said no."

"Please?"

"No."

She chewed the inside of her lip. "Fine," she said, "then I'll leave."

He grabbed her arm a little too tightly. "No." She tried to jerk away but his grip was too tight. "You will stay until I say otherwise."

She felt angry. Who said he was allowed to have control of her? What would he do? Kill her? It wasn't like she particularly enjoyed living now anyway.

"He will make you wish you were dead," Dahlia's voice echoed in her head and she jerked her arm away again, Pyramid Head letting go this time. Her hands balled into fists. What was he really capable of? Lilith realized then that she didn't actually know and didn't want to find out. If she was going to die, she at least wanted it to be quick and painless and she doubted quick and painless was exactly his thing.

She plopped down on the other end of the couch and hugged her knees against her chest. Pyramid felt as if he was supposed to say something, but he didn't know what. So they sat there in silence for what seemed like too long. "You shouldn't apologize," he finally managed to say.

"What?" she asked, "why?"

'Because it doesn't change anything,' he wanted to say, but didn't. He simply turned his gaze back out the window until something reach out and touch his mind. It was Alessa. 'It is done,' she told him.

Pyramid Head stood up and looked down at the girl. "Come," he said holding his hand out for her.

"Where?" she asked.

"It is a secret." she looked at him skeptically. "Come," he urged. And with immense hesitation, she placed her hand in his. He thought it seemed too small as his fingers wrapped around it so completely. He pulled her off the couch and picked her up. The closer something was to him, the easier it was to bring it with him.

Lilith blinked and then she was somewhere else. She wasn't in her apartment, rather she was at the edge of town, where the road dropped off into nothing. Pyramid Head sat her down easy, the gravel pressing into the bottoms of her feet. "What are we doing here?" she asked. He didn't respond, but there was a loud, echoing sound that made her jump. It was also a familiar song. She heard it again and she knew what it was.

She squinted into the fog as a figure came quickly toward them. He was so white she almost couldn't distinguish him from the fog. "Ghost!" she screamed, crouching and opening her arms. He ran up to her eagerly, knocking her over in the process and licking her face. She laughed. And cried. Wrapping her arms around the large German Shepherd's neck and brushing through the soft fur of his back with her fingers.

After a few minutes of holding her beloved companion, Lilith jumped up and threw her arms around Pyramid Head as far as they would go. "Thank you," she said, "thank you." He stood rigid for a moment before placing a hand gently atop her head and the other one around her back.

"You're welcome."