They ran. Harry was so close on James's heels that he was nearly colliding on every step. The rusty door banged on the wall when it was thrown open, and the two of them raced down the narrow alley. It took seconds to land on Katz St., the wail of the radio deafening in the abandoned street. They stood in the middle of the road, frantically looking both ways, until James grabbed Harry's sleeve and yanked him to the right. Harry turned on a dime and took off after him, only to stop again in the intersection at the sound of a pitched, gurgling woman.

From the fog emerged a staggering, loose-limbed creature that was closer than either of them had anticipated. It shuffled on buckled legs, its ropey arms swinging carelessly in the momentum. The head drooped on its neck, masking its face from everything but the asphalt, and they ought to be grateful for it. The entirety of this abomination was ravaged in sickening swirls of exposed muscle, black rot eating away at its flesh, and raw, peeling skin. Like most of the hell creatures in Silent Hill, it was an impossibility. The thing moved as though it was treading through tar, but these two were wise to the fact that that shouldn't be undermined.

The stench of it reached them as soon as they saw it, triggering bile washing up Harry's throat, and gritted disgust on James's face. It smelled of charred meat forgotten in an industrial oven fueled by sulfur and was heavy with the unmistakable odor of wet, moldy clothes. Every breath it took sounded labored and painful, and vaguely feminine. In its wake were slicks of thick blood, and if they dared to be any more observant, flung drops of blood from its stiff fingertips as the arms swayed.

This was Harry's welcome party. It was a party of one and that was more than enough. The sight of it left him frozen in place for a multitude of hours that were condensed into several threatening seconds. When struck with terror, one forgets how long seconds truly are. He was stuck in it. The radio was just background noise to the head spinning fear that gripped him.

He nearly ate pavement when James once again seized his arm and pulled him out of the moment and down the street. Harry went after him in a daze, his brain and legs acting on autopilot to keep up with the misplaced civilian he was now reliant on. They raced down Katz, the squeal of the radio still strong in warning, but for the third time in their escape, it was James's turn to brake hard in the road. Harry crashed nto him, the both of them catching themselves before a stumble.

"What're you doing?!" Harry hissed to the back of James's head. "What's wrong with you? Don't just stop like that—"

"What the hell is that?"

Harry looked over his green shoulder. The sigil was still planted right in the road. James stared at it, disquieted. It was foreign to him, and told him it was something he was going to be much more than just an acquaintance to it. It was mocking him. Taunting him. James felt threatened, and with good reason, and all he wanted to do was run away from it, and the way it itched in his brain.

Harry was anxious behind him. "C'mon, James, keep moving," he urged, starting to sidestep him to blindly lead the way. James came to his senses and cut him off, dashing into the apartment building. Harry had to ignore the dread that went along with entering the lobby, and they ran up the stairs skipping a step at a time.

The radio was unrelenting, as was the pitch black darkness of the hall stretching before them. Their flashlights illuminated the disgusting walls as they hurried to the stairs to ascend to temporary safety. The dark made it look like the hall was a mile long. It wasn't; it was easy to cover the distance in under thirty seconds if they ran. They were focused; they were propelled by their survival instinct.

Through the noise of static, Harry heard crying. The crying of a girl was hollow and trapped behind one of the doors as he passed it (the hall was so short! it didn't need to seem to long! he was so close to the stairs!) and then came the voice that speared his heart, and body, in place.

"Daddy!"

Harry sucked a hard breath and looked at the crusted doorknob. Guilt hit him like a truck. The little girl was sobbing on the other side of the door, breaking his heart and kicking his protective fatherly instinct into foolish gear. She sounded so scared. She sounded like she was abandoned. Another cry took his chest in a crushing twist, and knowing that they had to hurry, knowing they were in danger, knowing the town was baiting him, forcing him to stop and make himself vulnerable, but he couldn't live with the possibility that he'd leave Cheryl to suffer alone.

"Daddy!" she cried pitifully. "Daddy, please! Please help me.."

"Cheryl, baby," he whispered in ache, weakly reaching for the knob. "It's okay, honey, I'm gonna get you out."

Like hell he was. James's strength was angry when Harry was ripped away from the apartment and dragged down the hall. He was all but thrown through the stairwell door and shoved up the steps to the second floor, where James manhandled him one more time when Room 212 yielded, and he staggered to the middle of the living room as the door slammed shut.

Harry was dazed. The radio had silenced. His head swam in murky sludge as it tried to catch up with everything that had happened since they left the cafe. Too much information was squeezed into a span of minutes just shy of ten, perhaps, but neither of them would ever know. His eyes rooted to the crusted floor, the flashlight's white ray bobbing as his breath heaved. Harry could barely process anything, much less James's furious step towards him.

"Are you fucking crazy?!" James bristled. "What was that? You can't stop in the middle of the hall like that! Didn't you hear the radio? Don't you remember what that means?"

Harry couldn't respond in his struggle to process. James scoffed over his shoulder and fidgeted. The questions were mostly rhetorical anyway. He sighed and rubbed at his forehead, and took a walk to the kitchen to cool off.

Harry was beginning to pull himself together when they both looked up in cold horror. There were footsteps running beyond the apartment. Light ones, like a child's. They passed their hideout, stopped, and then returned. The tread sounded heavier now, like they'd grown to an adult's weight, and came to a stop outside the door.

The tension was thick. Both men were waiting, staring at door with bated breath. There was hardly a full minute of rest. The town had gleefully initiated the hunt, and had decided to begin with a marathon. They were not just kept on their toes; they were kept on the tips of the hair that stood on end.

Then the knob rattled. Like lightning, James hurled himself at the door and slammed it shut the moment that it tried to open. He braced his weight on it, his eyes wide as the knob rattled again and again, and a force attempted to counter his strength.

It gave up. James didn't. He leaned everything he had into keeping that door shut, and then looked pleadingly to the disoriented father in the middle of the room. "Harry," he whispered, "please. Help me keep it shut."

Harry was at a loss. His eyes roved blankly to James. There was desperation in the air, and he couldn't do anything about it. His body felt numb; it didn't even feel like his. A knock rapped on the door, and a girl's muffled voice begged for her father.

"Daddy, please help me. I don't know where to go. I don't know what's going on. Dad.. please.."

The voice was familiar, and too unnatural to be trusted. It rose and fell in pitch from child to teenager in each sentence. James stared anxiously at Harry, watching his every move - more like the lack thereof. But Harry was trapped in place by his own deadened mentality.

The girl's weeping went ignored. Soon it petered off, and the footsteps receded down the stretch of the hall. Only when they were gone did James feel for a lock on the door, and to some miracle there was, and the deadbolt slid into place.

Neither of them noticed that the radio's static was hushed but humming that entire time. James peeled his body tiredly from the door and looked out at the man who wasn't in himself. He looked so despondent.. lost. James's anger had washed away, and now he appeared awkwardly sympathetic.

"That was Heather, wasn't it?"

Harry nodded slowly. "Yeah. And Cheryl."

James's head bobbed their brief uncomfortable silence. "Yeah. But that wasn't her."

His lousy attempt at comfort actually brought Harry back into the present. He stared at him like he'd told him the earth was flat and he had a globe to prove it; he was astounded at how empty James's head was.

That dealer was out on a really, really long smoke break.

"You don't say."

The snap of the icy sarcasm caused James to look away. Harry, heavy with the stress and confusion of everything, turned his back. There was a stained green chair that faced a broken TV, and he trudged over and sank into it.

He needed a few minutes to sort himself out. He didn't want to hear or see James, or the rest of this decrepit space, or acknowledge the blood that was caked to the unit in front of him. He didn't even want to think. He could barely feel. Harry needed to breathe and come down from the displacement of his brain from his body. He just needed a few minutes to himself.

James silently took in the scene. He'd seen this before. Harry was no dead body with a gaping hole in the back of its head and remaining features concealed under blood, like the other man was. He recalled feeling like it was an omen then. Now he felt mocked. Harry sitting in the chair like that was a cruel joke.

He had to wonder if that decision was Harry's alone, or if the town had something to do with it.

Of course, he knew the answer. James quietly left the living room. He went into the bedroom and sat on the edge a mattress that was yellow and sagged. Harry needed alone time to gather himself, that was made abundantly clear. He understood that. There were many times in his life where James could relate. In that, though, James felt the pang of rejection.

He'd upset Harry. He had been hotheaded in that whole stressful escape and battle for sanity, and he knew that was a flaw he had to live with. How selfish of him to feel rejection at a time like this, from a person he barely knew, whose prior visit to Silent Hill had left him unprepared for the rest of his life. James was so full of self-pitying that he went to wallow in it alone in the aftermath of someone else's trauma. He was pathetic, insensitive, and helpless to know how else to be.

He didn't think with words. He thought with feelings, and though there was a numbing effect to his foul pool of negativity, he was resigned to sit in it until Harry was ready to join him.

So James waited. He was accustomed to it. He was good at it. He hated it. It left him alone with himself, and kept him lonely. As his mind took the merry-go-round of problems and emotions that played over and over ad nauseam, he waited. And waited. And sighed.

There was no point in noticing how his hands were getting cold, and droplets of water gathered at his fingertips, and plummeted at will to the dark floor.