When Harry stepped out of Rosewater Park onto Nathan Avenue, he felt relief. There was quite a delay of emotional consciousness in him that he would come to realize was going to be a common occurrence in his stay here. A depressing weight had been looming over his head from the moment he encountered James, and now it had lifted away like a net of balloons. He took a deep breath and shook himself off.

He stepped off the curb and only then, too, realized he was in unfamiliar territory. When he was first in Silent Hill, the businesses and streets were different. He looked up at the corner and, knowing full well he wouldn't immediately recognize any of the street names, felt that he was a totally different part of the town. There was an inn across from him, and this main road stretched far to his left and right.

He'd come from the corner down the road, so he took the street directly in front of him. As he approached a block of apartments, he was haunted by the civilian in the park.

Why was it that there were normal people walking around in this abandoned town? He remembered Lisa, and Kaufmann, and Cybil. He wished he didn't remember Dhalia, but her face and her voice scarred his nightmares. It just never sat well with him. On one hand it had been a comfort that there were survivors - is that even a respectful way to put it? - in this hellscape. On the other hand it didn't seem right. They felt like marionettes placed there to perform a specific dance for him. He'd questioned whether or not that they were actual, real people that had existed.

Cybil was a real person. He solidly knew that and took respite in it. She kept in contact with Harry for half a year post-Silent Hill, then she ceased communication. It worried him at the time, and still he thought of her. It almost like abandonment when he never heard from her again, left alone in the fog of trauma. He understood it. Harry guessed that she wanted to wash her hands of the whole matter and cut off for her own sanity. How could he blame her? He didn't. He wished her well. If Cybil could repair her life and walk as free as she could from the tragedies she experienced, he hoped that she'd succeed.

Harry found that the wire fence skirting the building had a door. It was unlocked and ajar, and he swung it open with a nudge of the pipe. The brick didn't display any sort of name, and as threatening as the dark of it was, he was compelled to enter.

The lobby door creaked and hissed closed. On the bulletin board he discovered this was the Blue Creek Apartments. If there was a map of the building, it was missing. The diagonal wooden tiles were scuffed and gritty under his feet, and the railed metal staircase sounded hollow when he climbed it.

Harry pushed open the door to the first floor row of apartments. Naturally, it was nearly pitch black, and he didn't have a flashlight. In his haste to get to Silent Hill he packed nothing, perhaps by the will of the town's impossible reach. Last time he'd found a flashlight, so eventually, he'd likely pick one up somewhere.

He also realized he didn't have a radio. If there were monsters lurking, he'd have no idea. So far there was a terrible lack of them. The silence, other than his own noise, was suffocating. It practically rang in his ears and also filled them with cotton balls. Thanks to Silent Hill, radio static was a trigger for him now, and yet the thought of its absence struck icicles through his heart. He needed that awful racket. Without it, Harry's anxiety suddenly shot through the roof. He took a few rattling breaths to try to bring himself down and realign his current focus. It worked.

The stained hallway yawned forever, and boxed him in tight. There seemed to be space enough for only one and a half people, the type of hallway where residents would need to slip by each other sideways. The thin carpet squished when he tread. It had the consistency of water damage, like there was a minor case of flooding. He wouldn't ponder the mystery of it. Harry, with the shadow of trepidation hulking over his shoulder, began to try cold knobs on each of the doors.

As he encountered locked room after locked room, his thoughts traveled back to the mystery of civilians. Harry automatically supposed that James was one of those town natives that was trapped in the sore side of Silent Hill. He felt sorry for the man. He'd looked so lost and defeated. Maybe he wasn't a resident. James appeared as though he had accepted his fate and sat down on that bench to drown in time.

It was weird. Now, after the fact, Harry couldn't quite shake the depressing aura that permeated from that young man. He frowned as he thought about it. James shouldn't be here; nobody should. There was just something terribly off about him. If Silent Hill was indeed a puppeteer, why would it put James in his path? Why did he meet him? Why didn't Harry stay longer to talk to him, or offer more help, or, more importantly, feel the urgency of finding his daughter?

That was something that was chilled him the most. Heather was missing in Silent Hill again, and was desperate to find her, scared for her life, and yet he was taking his time searching for her. There was a frightening lack of urgency.

Why? After all he knew, why? What kind of a father was he? His baby girl, reborn from a heinous god, who he protected and loved so fiercely and did everything in his mortal power to keep her away from here, was missing. Harry was beside himself, prematurely grieving, twisted with anxious need to find her safe and bring her home once more, and yet.. why did he feel so casual about it?

It was alarmingly heartless of him.

His heart sank and worried itself into a tangle of knots when one of the doors yielded. Relieved, he stepped into the room, and something that instantly spooked him cold.

In the darkness of the room, there was a dressmaker's cloth mannequin. It stood in the exact middle of the floor, presenting itself to him in uncomfortably pristine condition. It seemed to illuminate the room despite there being no other light, standing out amongst the shadows. It belonged there. It was like a museum display, something that held significance; look, contemplate, and don't touch.

Harry felt that he was meant to see it. Its presence meant nothing to him, confused him really, but he knew it wanted him to see it. Seconds crawled on as he beheld it, and then he recoiled in its existence. Now the mannequin was upset. Harry had gotten his look and now he had to get out and leave it alone. How dare he walk in on it so boldly! How dare he stare at it for so long, like some kind of deviant creep! He had the distinct thought that it was pushing him away, forcing him out of the room, and he dropped his eyes to the floor. Shame and embarrassment hung his head as he began to close the door.

Then he snuck one more glance at it. The mannequin looked so lonely in that room. It was pitiful. It was apologetic. Perhaps it acted too brashly. Harry doesn't have to go! Please, stay. Keep it company for a little while longer.

But Harry couldn't stand the heaviness of his shame. He took his eyes to the floor and slowly closed the door to the pleading of an inanimate object.

When the lock clicked behind him, Harry stared down at the flooded carpet. The sobs that he heard inside his head trailed off, and ceased completely.

He wouldn't be able to open that door again. He didn't have to, or want to, to know what was now in that room.

Harry slowly continued his journey down the hall. There was a haze that he was swimming in now, unfeeling and absent.

In that room, where it didn't belong, where it was misplaced, the mannequin succumbed to decay.