Aside from their usual day-to-day searching for whatever was supposed to their next target - and of course, looking for information on the mystery girl - it seemed the map had finally settled.

It was enormous, to say the least. They were taken aback by the plethora of businesses, a few new parks dispersed across the map, lodges, an overlook (that was definitely tantalized), and ominously, two huge changes to buildings of acute interest: and one of them was Alchemilla Hospital. Harry wasn't happy to see that Alchemilla had grown in size. The chart detailed several new wards, an E.R., and even a parking lot clustered around the main building. "It'd been smaller than this," he'd griped, comparing it to the original map. "Fuck me, and fuck you, Silent Hill."

The other addition was Midwich High School. It sat beside its elementary sister and hosted a gym, parking, and a sports field that flanked the edge of its jagged campus. Again Harry wasn't very enthused about it, but it was certainly curious. They both knew it would become an unavoidable point for extensive exploration, whenever its time came.

In the interim, they took the opportunity to walk around and look at a few of the new attractions. Shops that were open were investigated - lingering customers given the boot - and their paltry shelves scoured for supplies. When those were exhausted, and they without intentions to load the backpack down any more, Harry broke into another local watering hole.

James was equal parts glad and cross that the bottles were empty. By Harry's comment ("Man, we can't have anything nice around here!"), he wasn't alone in feeling cheated. Never would they get the chance to abscond to the delights of getting blackout drunk. Imbibing would've been reckless and stupid, but oh, what they wouldn't give to brave the consequences anyway.

During the nights in the safety of various housing, James finished the seventeen-year-old story. Towards the final pages it got excruciating to read with that sinister red square living beneath the wad of blanks. Being who and what he was, it'd begun to taunt him three quarters of the way through, and gotten bitterly aching at the end. After finishing Harry's adventurous backstory, James treated himself to some aftercare and laid down in the apartment bedroom to recuperate.

And think.

For as much as Harry went through way back when, James felt like he had to applaud him. However aggravating that the story gradually declined to shorter entries (sometimes just one word, a number, or a crude sketch), the disjointed lapses between events annoyed him the most. It made James a hypocrite to crave more information from Harry when he himself denied the man of answers. That notwithstanding, the epic had ended on a cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers; James was impressed. He also felt teased and irritable over being left so wanting.

He wondered what Harry's books were like.

Harry'd said before that he used to write sci-fi and fiction, turning to true crime and thrillers to cope with the incidents in Silent Hill. Ironically, if James could consider it so, he could somewhat see Harry's future genre switch from the way he wrote here. James was under the impression thrillers were in the same category as horror, so why he'd turn to thrillers to cope after Silent Hill seemed counterintuitive. Wouldn't it be better to write about things that weren't similar? That wouldn't make his problems worse?

And yet, as the old saying went, 'write what you know.'

That said, Harry had a goddamn gift for storytelling.

Which, despite that opinion, was a part of what made the memoir so dissatisfying. It'd started out relatively informative; the tale ebbed and flowed, seemingly coordinating with the intervals Harry had for documentation. James tried to visualize some circumstances that would have chopped up Harry's time to write based on the things he'd managed to jot down at all. Yet with all the holes there was so little to go on, and with only some understanding of locations mentioned, James's imagination was lacking; but to blame Harry for his creative shortcomings was unfair.

His thoughts turned to Alchemilla Hospital.

'Kafkaesque': that's what Harry called it. James was unfamiliar with the term. Thankfully, the descriptions of Alchemilla provided context clues. He gathered it possibly meant something nightmarish. Harry's wild goose chase didn't allow him to get into detail, but Alchemilla held so much importance that it mandated special treatment nonetheless. What he'd written about and how he'd phrased it (sort of) taught James a new word. That was pretty neat.

Harry had every right to be sunken about Alchemilla. No doubt they'd eventually end up there and James couldn't wait to stand upon the hallowed ground for himself. He fought to eschew getting excited over the venture; he knew it was wrong. Taking pathological glee in the Otherworld's beautiful gluttony was just as black-hearted of him, and yet, he greatly anticipated it.

Even though it'd all been confusing, James did solidly identify the hard fact that the cult ruled the land in Silent Hill. There was even more to it, and dozens upon dozens of discombobulated "explanations" told James that the young Harry seldom grasped what he was talking about. The intricacies spun James's head faster than a teacup carnival ride. Again and again he'd read the sections dedicated to the Order and their obsession with Alessa until his vision glazed over and his brain felt numb.

Kinda like how it did right now.

His green eyes roved over the mildew and cracks above. Brooding over Harry's notes and entertaining wicked daydreams guided his eyes over the black and green mold spots dyeing the ceiling, subconsciously treating the network like tea leaves in search of his destiny.

James wished he understood why he had to go on this ill-omened journey. His unpredictable future with Harry Mason to find his daughter, Heather, would've kept him up at night if he had the privilege to sleep. Silent Hill actively sculpted an elaborate scavenger hunt to connect Heather to Alessa, to the Order, to God, all the while keeping Heather's purpose so clandestine that even its own conduit wasn't trusted.

That'd chapped his ass raw until recently. Thanks to the clues picked up in Midwich and the insider information from the girl of many faces, James was willing to overlook the snub for now in favor of the daughters of God.

Heather. Heather, Cheryl, Alessa. Alessa, Cheryl, and Heather. Three of a kind; three peas in a pod sewn together at the souls with a red string; three girls welded as conjoined triplets.

Alessa, Cheryl, and Heather.

What secrets did Harrykeep?

James couldn't shake the idea that the father had hidden some kind of key in his seventeen-year-old tale. Call him a conspiracy theorist, but in reading and thinking about it all, James was convinced there was something lurking between the lines. It must be so in-his-face that he was blind to it. Harry was the worst goddamn liar in the world, and as James became more acquainted with him, he suspected that the survivor's cleverness balanced it out. Perhaps Harry was duping James in ways he couldn't grasp.

Or maybe James was just being batshit irrational. Whether he was on to something or not, the foundations of his budding theory hinged on the presence of the red square.

Those shouldn't be in circulation anymore. They had no right or reason to be. James completed their puzzle, and since then, hadn't been seen again. Their return meant nothing good - duh - but Harry'd reacted the same way James had too when he found the first one in the well. It was beyond reasonable doubt that they were connecting him to something big. The conduit hummed low in his throat. No, it wasn't just about Harry; it was about him, too.

Why?

It reminded him that oftentimes while he read, it felt as though some busybody were peeking over his shoulder to read along. Intense paranoia came with it, making him want to huddle over the text like a child trying to shield his work from cheaters. He had, in fact, done it a few times - and it'd surprisingly worked. The nosy presence would leave.

Whatever it was, James hoped it wasn't Silent Hill trying to spy on him.

It's like something's groping around inside my skull, he remembered Harry complaining. James knew how it felt before he said it; the same hand scraped the inner walls of his head, too. It's like something's groping around inside my skull, once hissed a young widower looking for his dead wife. Impossible, the conduit had then thought at the hotel bar. That's fucking impossible!

And yet, there it was. Like the myth of the deadly black spot, the exposure of the crimson squares marked a man for destruction. Harry already had a target painted between his eyes; a target that was painstakingly searing a brand into his flesh, and it was uniform to the one that scarred a sinner's pale skin.

One down, eight to go.

Losing time around here was Silent Hill's trademark pastime. James must've blankly stared at the ceiling for more than half the time it took for night to pass. It went by in a flash and suddenly, Harry's knuckles rapped softly on the open door.

"Hey. Fog's up. Time to get a move on."

James turned his head and looked at him over his cheekbones. Harry made a friendly shadow in the door. (Frank should've swapped those intimidating silhouettes for kind once in a while.) (Good god, he was fed up with thinking about Frank.) "Where're we going?"

"Eh, this way and that," Harry replied, head going side to side. "Maybe over the river or through the woods. Might stop at grandmother's house. We'll see how we feel."

Over the river and through the woods.. grandmother's house..?

Whatever. "Okay."

Harry watched James rise from the bed and don the backpack. "How's that thing feeling? Do we need to do another assessment?"

Now that he mentioned it, James rolled his shoulder and wrinkled a nostril. "Yeah. Maybe."

"Well, let's do that now, then," Harry offered, stepping out of the threshold. "Maybe it'll help us figure out where to go." He nodded upwards at the memo pad James swiped off the foot of the bed. "How's the reading?"

"Done."

"All done with it?"

"Yeah."

"Heh, what'dja think? Is it bestseller list-worthy?"

"Could use editing."

"I'll phone Maggie when I get home." Harry wryly pulled his smile inward. "My editor and agent."

"Editor and agent?" James questioned, side-eyeing him as he passed into the living room. "Kind of a lot, isn't it?"

"Workaholics know no boundaries," the author excused for her. "I think she's in it for the thrill."

"The thrill of what?"

"Deadlines."

"Deadlines..?"

"Deadlines, the unforgiving and cruel gods of time and fortune," Harry proclaimed, pressing his fist over his heart. "Doused in her own blood, sweat, and tears, she engages the enemy - me - in riotous battle to determine career life or death. She's unafraid, and she scares the shit out of me, how she claws at time itself. Eyes bloodshot, stinging no better than a wasp's pincushion heralds the symptom of the bygone memory of sleep; and oh, how the battle rages."

Harry crossed the floor to meet James at the couch, grinning a wolf's grin in retaliation to James's flat stare. "Are you talking about her," asked the younger man, "or yourself?"

"Yeah, mostly myself. I hate deadlines," he grunted, easing himself to the floor on the opposite side of the table. "I think Maggie loves 'em so she can go on a power trip and whip me into getting my work done. She's promised she's gonna send an assassin to take me out someday, and I'm kinda disappointed it hasn't happened yet."

The resident flicked his eyes up at him. "I noticed."

"Yeah, I'm still kickin'. Maybe for my birthday. Alright, enough of that, let's get that thing dumped out."

The backpack lost its contents to the coffee table, and its miserable, limp carcass dropped to the floor. While they took inventory for the first time since the town center - ages ago, by this point - Harry inquired after the notes.

"What'd you think?"

James hummed low. "It's a lot." He carefully splayed his fingers over the shotgun shells, spreading them in a row for counting. "There're a lot of holes, too."

"I can imagine," Harry replied, brows shrugging. "I need to go over 'em."

"You get incoherent towards the end," he continued, feeling the stare on the top of his head. "I know you couldn't write down everything. It's just.." His lips twisted as he tried to connect words. "It sucks."

"Yeah, it does.. but there was little I could do at the time."

James flicked his eyes up at him from beneath his brows. "I know."

"That's why I want to read them," Harry stressed for the umpteenth time since they were found. "I'll bet - I hope - it'll jog a memory or two." Stacking the Sunderland-exempt memo pad, bible, and sketchbook, Harry sighed and dropped his shoulders. "Look, I'm sorry I've been on your ass about it," he apologized. "It's just every time I think about it, it makes me nervous."

".. nervous."

"Yeah, like.. I dunno. Like someone finding your diary and reading all your dirty laundry top to bottom."

"You offered it to me to read."

Harry sharply huffed. "I know. And your outsider's input is invaluable. Still, I feel like it's pretty personal."

James slid the memo pad to him. "All yours."

"Technically, it was in the first place."

Though the resident's eyes were lowered, Harry saw James's eyes roll behind his lids. He chuckled softly, and pushed the tome to the side to give them better room. "But anyway. I doubt it made much sense," he commented, slouching on his folded arms. "It didn't make much sense at the time, either."

James habitually grated and sucked on his teeth for a moment. "It doesn't. Like I said, there're a lot of holes. You wrote down a lot. Some of it got incoherent."

"Like you've said."

"The whole Alessa saga is interesting," he went on. "You talked a lot about the cult."

"They're a big player here."

"Yeah." James frowned softly. He wanted to ask Harry questions that required more detail. Until Harry read for himself, James was sorta shit outta luck. His mouth twisted. "It's hard for me to put it into words. I dunno. It's a lot."

Harry's exhale was quiet and sounded somewhat resigned. "Yeah. Once I get through it, we can come back to this."

"Yeah." Glancing up at him, James added, "Cybil, though.."

He looked curious. "What about her?"

His weight shifted on the couch. "I still think it was her in the alley."

Like a sack of sand, Harry dropped heavily back on his calves. "I don't know, James," he said tiredly. "I don't remember the alley."

"You don't remember a lot, lately." Their eyes met in scrutiny. "I don't like it."

Harry spread out his arms. "And what am I supposed to do about it? I dunno, James, maybe it's the stress? We've been hit over and over pretty much in succession lately, too," he grumbled. "We've been lucky the past few days. Shit all has happened."

James glanced down at Harry's knuckles thrice knocking the table top. "Yeah. I don't expect you to do anything about it, Harry. I'm just telling you."

"What am I forgetting? Big things, little things..?"

"Both." He shook his head. "I— I dunno. Like the alley. You don't remember any of it. That's not good."

Looking away, Harry sighed and ran his hand over his hair. "I probably blacked it out. That's all I can think of. Shit happens, James. The ol' thinker doesn't work right."

His companion studied him. "It's that PTSD thing, huh?"

He chuckled wearily. "Yeah. I'd put two dollars and some odd cents on it." A cheeky smile then slid across his lips. "And I'm getting pretty old. My memory's bound to choke. Y'know what? I'll blame it on that."

James retorted a nasally scoff. "You're not that old."

"Easy for you to say! You're still young and spry, or at least you look it. How old are you, anyway?"

James replied on a different topic. "I think we're boned. We've gotta keep all this stuff."

Harry vaguely pouted in disappointment, but left his inquiry unsolved. "Yeah. At least for now. Maybe it'll come into use. We should probably start thinking about renting a storage space."

"I'll keep a lookout," James blandly assured, then packed up their belongings.

"Keep your eyes peeled for a good deal, too."

"Mmn."

When they stepped outside, Harry inhaled a deep, expanding breath. He lifted his chin, bearing his face to the gloomy sky and the fluffy white snow that never ceased. His eyes closed, a soft smile on his thin lips, and slipped into a solitary world where there was peace.

James watched him drift away, then too, brought his eyes to the snowfall. Blinking against the flakes that fell upon his face, he wondered where Harry went when he accepted asylum in an esoteric, colorless shroud. He looked over at Harry again, who seemed to feel his eyes, and shifted his smile and dark gaze to James.

"Alright. Ready to head off?"

The conduit nodded. "Alright," confirmed his fellow widower. Reorienting his grip on the rusty pipe, Harry pocketed his hand, and swung up his arm to point the steel up the cloudy street. "Off we go into the wild grey yonder, my dear Sunderland."

James knit his brow as Harry turned away, gazing at the back of his silver-streaked head, then trailed him into the fog and snow.