When they got to the amusement park, they both kept their mouths shut. Not five minutes had passed before they reached the enormous, derelict walls and a sign pockmarked by orange, rusted holes. It once meant to merrily welcome potential visitors, but its heyday had been over for decades. Harry stood in the street and frowned down the wide footpath that bottlenecked to turnstiles. Though frustrated about how very, very close they had been, both had to ruefully acknowledge that the hotel couldn't've been skipped.

James didn't let Harry off the road. It's not ours to go to, he told him. That's all he said, and the way he said it raised the hair on Harry's arms. They left it behind.

The new map led them on a mile and a half. Nathan Avenue became Sandford Street, and at the corner they turned due north on Bachman Road. James sensed trepidation coming off Harry. Their silence bore equal parts grim and venerating. A new world within Silent Hill opened for its South Vale citizen and his guts jittered in excitement. Perhaps Harry could likewise sense that from James, and if he did, he hatefully ignored it.

Beyond the perimeter of Old Silent Hill, Bachman met Bradbury Street. Upon entry they evidently crossed an invisible wall, for their initial step into the neighborhood brought them into ongoing snowfall. The men came to a mutual standstill in the crossroad. Harry had been right. James gawked at the puffy flakes drifting to the earth from a low, grey sky. When Harry'd described it James had believed him. He also thought he was full of shit, and had been prematurely sour that it'd likely been a one-time event specifically for Harry. But no: he stood in snow, and its natural beauty didn't deserve to be here.

He wanted to say something. Nothing in particular lay on his tongue but he felt the need to say something, and he looked at Harry for inspiration.

There was a man beside him whose tired eyes were closed and had a faint smile resting upon his lips. Snowflakes passed over his cheeks and collected on his hair, never staying for long, while white dusted his shoulders and tumbled down his back. James found himself studying his profile, feeling like he'd only now noticed the incline of his forehead, the beak-like arch of his nose, the elfin point of his ear. There were many things about the veteran he hadn't seen until the past couple hours; it was as though he were meeting Harry for the first time all over again.

The snow fell in Old Silent Hill, and Harry Mason had once found peace in its silence, his face turned to the sky.

James felt like he was witnessing a re-enactment of a historical event. Seventeen years ago Harry lost his daughter here. Seventeen years ago he also took repose in the streets of Old Silent Hill and let the snow take him someplace soothing amidst a nightmare world. Seeing the way Harry truly seemed to be at ease in it and made jealousy tingle within James. He'd never found something like that for himself in his foggy dungeon. He wondered what Harry must've looked like those many years past, taking respite in improbable snow; or what he looked like then at all.

Harry sucked in a breath and opened his eyes. He twisted the pipe in his hands and smiled at James. "Pretty, huh? Home sweet home."

"Yeah."

"Isn't it just fucking nuts?" He laughed and looked down, scuffing at the snow that never melted and never piled on inches. "Man. I can't believe I miss this sometimes. I can't believe I'm happy to see it, and I think that makes it exponentially worse. Whew. Alright," he declared, clearing the moment to get back to business. "Let's take a literal walk down memory lane, shall we?"

"You think you can remember everything? We have a map, you know."

"Well aware. Don't worry, we'll use it. Somehow I don't think Silent Hill is gonna do the ol' switcheroo on us."

James curled his lip. Really, did he have to continue to be stubbornly arrogant and naive? The scowl didn't pass by Harry and he rolled his eyes in return.

"Come on, James. I know that's tempting fate and fate gets off on it, but— alright. Lemme try again, then: gosh, I hope Silent Hill pulls something funky with the town layout, because I really think that'd really put a pep in my step!" Harry stated cheerfully, setting a hand firmly on his jutted hip and wagging the pipe agreeably at James. "I can't rely on memory alone, as you know, even though I've had week-long very enchanting dreams about walking every square inch of the place. Memories do change a lot as time goes on, after all. Ha, not to mention all the therapy I've dumped money on to deal with all the trauma it gave me. Why, two different people even diagnosed me with PTSD. What a thrill, huh? Ho, hum," he sighed dramatically. "I think we could really do with a good brain teaser, but if something's different here then, why, I think I'd just about lose my marbles! Ha!"

The sarcasm was outrageous. Nodding, he confidently took his fist, and weapon, over his heart, and thankfully James's reflexes saved him from a future bump on his head. Something about the way the author smiled at the ground said that had been his intention, and the conduit frowned.

"Yes, sir," the older man sighed. "I really do think that'd be a grand o' time. I sure would think back on it fondly, indeed." Harry swung his arm to his side and rapped the grody metal on his ankle. "There. That oughta do it. After all the psychological torment we've been put through, how about we give it back with some cheeky reverse psychology, eh?" He nudged his elbow into James's arm, tilting a charming and deeply corny smile to a face that held regret that he'd ever chosen to help him.

Harry strode ahead, absolutely feeling the remains of the flat, irritated glare on his back. The mirth drained in the mere seconds it took for his blond shadow to reappear at his side. Reality set in. He tried to keep his head held high through the fog, snow, and fear that braided together and whispered Welcome home, Harry Mason.

Together they strolled down Bachman Road, its washed out, broken yellow line separating return visitor from inhabitant. Bachman took them more or less up the middle of Old Silent Hill. They passed a church that Harry pointed out as the Order's haven. A church wasn't the first thing that James would consider to be occult headquarters, but upon short reflection, it made an unassuming front for the ignorant passerby.

Further up along the way it seemed that Harry was on the lookout for something. As soon as he found it, the conduit saw him walk briskly over to a smashed in cafe window. Harry immediately recoiled and when James caught up, so did he.

A smaller glowing sigil matched the one back in South Vale and decorated the wall overlooking the dining counter like a clock. Its size didn't lessen the pain it wrought and they quickly retreated to the road. Harry looked upset about it. James deduced that the cafe was the same one he'd let slip earlier. It reminded him of the written account he was so anxious to read tucked safely in the backpack. Soon, he thought. He'd unravel it all soon.

Farther north on their trail a large shape darkened the fog at the end of the road. James curiously wandered nearer and discovered a rocky cliff side draped across the street. So used to construction scaffolding and tarp blocking his way, this new, organic barrier interested him. He reached to touch it when Harry's eager gasp grabbed his attention, and he rotated to see his larger figure jog into the grey. James softly frowned and meandered after him.

The mist parted for the devastating aftermath of a car crash. A red and white Jeep appeared to have veered right off the road, plowed through a chainlink fence, and the tall concrete border hosting the fencing caught it by its rear bumper and laid it to eternal rest. The car was destroyed. James stood dumbfounded at its red hood and looked up when the Jeep bounced and groaned from unexpected weight.

The glass windshield, though spiderwebbed with cracks and tinted by dirt, permitted him to watch Harry rifling through the car. James idled by - then a dim lightbulb metaphorically clicked on over his head. He realized he beheld a monument defining a cardinal piece of Silent Hill history.

In 1999 Harry Mason was on his way to take his daughter on a vacation to Silent Hill when he careened off the road to avoid a girl running across. The father left the town broken, traumatized, and with a baby held tight to his chest. And this was the fated car.

Interesting. James regarded the Jeep thoughtfully, as though he were the tourist now. (Technically, this rang true; they weren't in his neck of the woods anymore.) Its damage only came at the price of the crash; otherwise, he wagered that Harry once loved and took care of it. The car held great importance and oddly, he felt he stood on hallowed ground. He admired it and its broken glory. In contrast, his dilapidated vintage Pontiac, no more than an eroded grave, brought shame. These two differences spoke volumes of who they were: something cherished wrecked by unavoidable circumstance, and something willfully sabotaged through the years by the means of one's own neglect.

Fitting.

"Bad news, chief," Harry announced, stepping out of the vehicle with a paternal grunt. "Keys are gone. Unless you know how to hotwire a car, we're SOL."

"We talked about that, Harry."

"Oh, yeah. What'd we decide?"

James shrugged. Harry waited for an answer, and shook his head when he realized the shrug was the answer. He stepped back to take in his old, beloved, totaled Jeep and frowned. The hood had been opened, and whoever opened it didn't shut it properly. On that foreboding note he tucked his thumb in the gap and pushed it up to blink dumbly at an empty engine compartment. If it was in any way valuable, it was gone. "What the hell? Who— how did they— why..?"

James leaned over to look in. "Huh."

"Yeah, 'huh'. " Its former owner bent to search the interior and found no explanation. "Fuck me," he muttered. "I'm feelin' kind of disrespected here, and that's saying a lot, considering."

A few words rested on James's tongue that Harry would've found funny if this development hadn't been so personal. With a great, heavy sigh, Harry pressed the hood into place and tenderly patted it like one would a faithful old dog. "Nice to see you again, baby. Don't worry, I'll avenge you, too."

From there, he retraced the first steps he'd made in Silent Hill a lifetime ago. Upon James's questioning, Harry explained they were recreating the chase after Cheryl to the alley where the Otherworld made its introductions. He wasn't thrilled with his own idea, of course; nevertheless, it was the best place to seriously start.

"You're not afraid of dogs, right?" he asked James, passing through the squeaky gate and its canine warning sign. "I probably mentioned it, but we might run into a few of 'em."

"No. Only chihuahuas."

"Oh, I'm with you on that one. Pomeranians, too. I don't like the way they look at me. It's those big, black eyes on such a small dog. Just like chihuahuas. It just looks wrong. Oh, and by the way," he added nonchalantly, jutting his pipe at a large, ugly pile of entrails and flogged remains. "There's the dog."

It looked fresh.

The alley lived up to usual expectations. Wet, stale air lived between high walls of red brick and concrete, striped with piping. James saw Harry's shoulders lift and drop on a deep breath. The veteran had been playing it pretty cool so far; he needed to for his own sake. But as he'd said, this is where the nightmare truly began. Nevertheless, every person has their limit. James had to wonder how long it'd be until Harry's act fell apart.

The path narrowed but its corners ballooned to make up for it. James eyeballed an unsalvageable wheelchair with its singular wheel idly spinning in one of these openings. Feeling the suspicious curiosity behind him, Harry glanced back at it. "No, James, I don't think a miracle happened there."

"Disappointing."

"Funny to see it's still spinning."

"Yeah? Why?"

"I dunno. A reminder that some things stay the same, I suppose."

James hated to agree.

"It got dark around here," the patriarch recounted, gesturing to the area. He looked up at the grey and meager snowfall; it'd dwindled since they set foot in here. "Yeah. The snow stopped here, too, I think. Y'know," he said back to his apathetic shadow, "I think it's gonna be more terrifying if it doesn't get dark. Funny how that works, huh?"

"Mm."

The gurney was still there. Harry curled his lip at the sight of it and its cargo, humming a disgusted noise. He had almost passed it completely by when he did a double take and stopped to look it over. "Hm. Wait. Something's different."

James glanced at Harry, then the obvious corpse covered in a bloody sheet. "Something's different?"

"Yeah."

Wrinkles showed a frown on the blond man's forehead. "It's been seventeen years, Harry."

"I know."

"How are you going to remember a small detail like how a dead body under a sheet is going to look? You weren't in here for very long. Right?"

Harry sighed irritably. "Yes. I know. It sounds—"

"So what's different then? The blood stains? The position off a few degrees?" James looked at him. "Did you write this down too?"

The glare he received would have made a weaker person cower. "You've got some lip all of a sudden. No," he replied, using his weapon to lift the sheet drooping off the side. An arm hung loose and flayed beneath the hem. "This is different."

The sheet itself had been too short to completely hide the appendage. It needed a perceptive eye to find it and there was one person here whose eyes were all too keen. Another frown graced James's brow as Harry's weapon prodded the dangling hand. On one of the dried out fingers hooked a keyring with one tag and its key. James watched the pipe try to jostle it off so that Harry wouldn't have to fetch it himself.

"I'm still not sold on it."

"On what?"

"That you could remember that this was different. I didn't even see the arm there."

"Y'know, James," Harry lightly began as he smacked the stiff, curled fingers, "I've been watching you a lot during our little escapade together." The keyring jingled noisily. "And I've noticed something about you."

James sized him up out of the corners of his eyes. "Oh yeah?"

"Oh, yeah," he concurred, the inflection full of sarcasm. "Definitely." The prize fell to the ground, and Harry raked it to himself to pick up.

"And what's that?"

He exhaled knowingly upon seeing that this tag, too, suffered the curse of age. "If it goes on like this, we're gonna need a bigger keyring to put all these damn keys on," Harry muttered to himself, flipping the plastic over in his palm. The other side was clearer. "Julio's Auto Parts," he read aloud. James glared distastefully at him. "Great. Don't you love this place? This whole key deal is getting redundant, though. Oh, oops. Don't wanna jinx it."

Harry pantomimed pinching salt off the air and tossing it over his left shoulder. There was no salt to throw in the devil's face. There was, however, a keyring still - or once was - in Harry's possession that would've hit him smack dab in the eye. The mistake dawned on him just as it sailed over his shoulder, and Harry turned his back to James to stare down at a joke gone tragically awry. James smirked at the back of Harry's head; that was a hell of a gratifying dose of instant karma.

The gaffe kept Harry's head down to avoid the smug satisfaction. James could bask in this all he liked, but as far as Harry was concerned, he was going to have the last word one way or another.

"As I was saying , I've noticed that you're not very perceptive." He frowned pointedly at him and pushed the item into his pant's pocket. "You miss a lot of things, bud."

James followed Harry walking ahead. He had to confess it was cute how he was trying to save face. "Like what? Where?"

"Back in South Vale."

"Heh. You think so."

"Sure seemed that way."

"And how would you know? Didn't it occur to you that I knew literally everything about it top to bottom, so everything you found was brand new to you?"

"Oh yeah, that occurred to me plenty. There were quite a few times I chalked it up to you glazing right over everything because it was like reading the phone book at that point to you."

"Okay," James said, a touch belittling as they turned the corner. "So can you tell me an instance where I 'missed' something?"

He waited. Harry didn't give a retort. "I wonder how much you're going to miss now that you're in a place you know and I don't."

Still nothing. His cockiness slowly drained. James became annoyed; he didn't think Harry would stoop low enough to give him the silent treatment over a little debate, let alone surrender without a friendly fight. They hitched a right and all that irritation got put on the back burner.

The brick walls had transformed into chain link fencing crowned by barbed wire and doused in the oranges and browns of oxidation. They mimicked the alley's blocky corners and created a wide, hexagonal clearing that hooked a turn into a narrower lane. Bright, fresh blood dripped from the twisted metal as though someone had thrown a bucket of the stuff onto it, and looking down, he was treading in a crimson puddle. James lingered a moment and looked back the way they came. Down one side of the path loomed concrete, identical fencing on the other. It looked misplaced under the gloomy blueish light overhead, like it had only meant to be perceived in the dark. And James didn't catch wind of any of it, because he was too busy trying to get the upper hand.

Maybe Harry had been right about that after all.

James caught up to Harry and quickly dodged an unanticipated cutting swing that violently clanged and shook the fence. He hastily backed up, avoiding the jerk of Harry's arm preparing another hit.

"Whoa, whoa, hey! Hey, hey, it's me." James defensively threw up his hands to a wide-eyed, unstable, tense man that had radically changed head to toe from embarrassed yet playful to 'kill first, ask questions later'. That look was fierce and disturbing on a guy like him. Whenever he'd seen it - and to James, seemed incredibly, thankfully rare - it marked the only instances in which he feared for his own safety. A concept so foreign as that left an perturbing impact on him.

Harry's fierce reaction also cleared his earlier assumption about the silent treatment. James could save the guilt over that for later.

He steadily brought his hands down when Harry lowered his weapon. Harry took soft, clipped breaths in his recovering panic, and shook his head once before going on. James let out his own held breath and cautiously stepped into place behind him at a conservative distance.

Their journey came to a dead end. James caught himself mid-stride and backtracked to avoid collision when Harry stiffly reversed a couple steps. Harry loitered at the mouth of another boxy dungeon, restlessly bouncing the pipe by his leg.

James edged aside to get a look for himself. A gutted carcass that reminded James of a butcher's choice slaughter lay (he assumed) its own blood at Harry's feet. In fact, the entire ground hosted a whole lake system of red ichor, fleshy clumps, and skeleton parts adorned by traces of stringy meat.

But the main attraction was a mutilated body strung up and crucified like a scarecrow by ladders of chicken wire fringed in gore. The head hung between putrefied arms, its bloated fingers stretching the torn remains of chunky black gloves. Its chin rested on soaked tatters of a once-blue shirt that did nothing to conceal a ribcage split at the sternum. Something thin and brassy glinted off the beam of Harry's flashlight, sandwiched in the coagulated black mess beneath the bones. Cooked muscle and viscera connected the upper body to lower, and the legs suggested they were as carelessly shredded as the black pants it wore. Lastly, one lonely black boot crossed a naked ankle, bound tight in chicken wire like the twine on a roast.

The sight was as repulsive as it was grotesque. James hated to be so entranced by it. It felt cold-blooded to take it in like a piece of art crafted purely for shock factor next to someone actively suffering and reliving traumas from long ago. He further disgusted himself for wanting to get a better look up close.

Harry fidgeted anxiously and choked on a whine. James glanced at him. The veteran wasn't doing very well here. His forehead glistened with sweat and he looked like a trapped mouse in a corner hoping to get a chance to escape and hide, but James was wiser. Though Harry looked scared he was in fact more dangerous, if the attempted bashing and murderous glint in his eye had anything to say about it. Kill first, ask questions later.

He didn't want to have to worry that Harry could turn against him like that.

Above and around them, the atmosphere changed. James's eyes darted to new hazy shadows, then drew them upward. Harry whipped his head back and gaped at the dimming sky overhead.

"No," he whispered pitifully. "No, no, no no no no.." Harry frantically pivoted on a dime and led the mad dash for the only exit which was, woefully, back the way they came.

Running and weaving through the lanes would have been less cumbersome without a loaded backpack and carrying a gun. James was agitated by the time they got to the bystreet. He adjusted himself and the straps while Harry bent over, supporting his quivering arms on his knees. The poor guy looked like he was seconds away from vomiting. Having no interest in watching that possible outcome, he took a gander at their surroundings.

Now they were out in the open again the snow resumed and the fog thickened. They'd left the glooming sky behind. James chewed on the how's and why's they'd fled from while Harry straightened, thrice ran his hand over his hair, and ambled away from James.

Harry sought a bit of privacy in the frame of a garage door to finish pulling himself together. Though he was a man unafraid to show weakness, he resented how he'd reacted. He'd worked so hard for years with what felt like countless professionals to cope and even relive his hell. So much time had been spent retrieving what his brain forgot in order to protect him, jotting down details he didn't think he'd ever remember, relearning to not be afraid of the dark.

Those memories filled many notebooks and he frequently poured over them (an act his therapist chastised him for). That habit was proving beneficial. He made himself an even more valuable asset. But a new problem arose - he couldn't fully recall what'd just happened back there.

It was nice that his brain wanted to help him by filtering the horrors, but if Harry starts forgetting things, he was going to be less of an irreplaceable specialist and more like a severe impairment. Not only did James count on him now they were in his territory, but Heather did, and he himself, too. All he could do was monitor it along the way.

Harry ground his bent wrist into his eye socket and made one more pass over his hair. They couldn't afford to dawdle, and he didn't want to just stand around thinking about all these issues and what they'd seen, anyway. It was time to move on.

Harry cleared his throat and returned to James, pulling out the new keyring and the map. "Right. So. Julio's Auto Parts."

James studied Harry as he went over the map. He looked like shit. Everything that happened intrigued James on a new level. Getting to know this wayward father was being done in a roundabout way that he didn't feel great about calling exciting, but unfortunately, that's what it was. The more of the things he saw that shaped Harry Mason to be the person he is today, the more James wondered how innocent he could actually be.

Harry stuffed the key into his pocket again and beckoned his guardian with the folded map. "Let's go, soldier on. We're just a hop, skip, and a jump away."

James joined him at his side. Harry began to talk about suburban neighborhoods, likely inspired by the back alley driveway lined with garages they passed through. He tuned him out. Whatever Harry blabbered on about was to soothe himself, since his incessant talking was one of his coping mechanisms. It annoyed James. All that talking made it more difficult for him to do his own investigative thinking, and they hadn't gotten to have their own time apart from each other in a while. Those days started to seem like they were over. They were probably going to need to work out a substitute not only for their own mental wellbeing but for the recovery they both really needed from each other's drain.

But those worries were put on the wayside while James ignored Harry's ramble and thought about the scarecrow in the alley. The archive was just waiting to tell him about it. He wondered who it had been, or if Harry knew at all. In Silent Hill, everything was connected, and James was starving to know what connected Harry Mason to fire and rust.