The auditorium was so large and its ceilings so sky high that they would trigger a poor acrophobe to cower. Its enormity, of course, was meant to wow the audience and steer the eye to the magnificent star attraction at the distant end of the room (though, when coming through the doors, was the first thing to see anyway), as well as carry dramatic voices as far as possible without the use of microphones (which, unfortunately, wouldn't be very far at all). Nevertheless, someone had calculated impressive dimensions for a high school stage, built for sturdiness against the test of time and adolescent abuse.

Additionally, contributing to its grandeur were hefty, deep burgundy curtains drawn and tethered by thick, tasseled, golden rope at the wings. The expensive stage was clear of set pieces and props, viewing only the cords, levers, sandbags and pulleys that made the theatrical magic happen. It all looked very professional, and Harry could only wonder what the drama clubs had cooked up throughout the years. But one must confess that, while the bells and whistles were all very nice, the sad loneliness of it made it all look dull.

Since there wasn't a play to watch, the auditorium floor sponsored a different event. Six long, collapsible tables evenly divided in twos were arranged in a blocky U shape up against the western wall, looking sort of awkward and ridiculous in a room that dwarfed them. The pair wandered over to the middle of the setup, attending an event they were too late for.

At the two head tables, white construction paper signs were cut into modest rectangles, one at each end. They were crisp and plain, so there would (should) be no confusion over where anyone was supposed to be.

These tables designated two lines for PAID and UNPAID.

To the left of them, one flawlessly measured, orange construction paper sheet fit the entire length of the two tables. A road of masking tape layered over and over cemented the banner in place. Whoever had done it used a boggling amount of tape to the point that the layers were thick, and probably depleted a roll to near half. All that neatly supported a banner decorated by an artistic hand. Proportionately painted stars, uniform, wiggly neon lines, smiley faces, cutesy butterflies, and big, shiny stickers bedazzled the station.

This banner read FRESHMAN/SOPHOMORE.

On the direct opposite side and spectrum, was a performance piece of its own. There'd been a mistake judging how much paper would be needed for the sign, and whomever had been in charge of it forgot to care. Two cuts were made, one long enough to reach the middle of the second table; the other was short and shorn at a drastic angle. Because of this, the pieces needed to overlap to make it something of a proper rectangle, which shortened the whole thing by probably five inches. Three stumpy rips of tape solved that problem to keep them together; it reminded Harry of Frankenstein stitches. Inconsistent taping collapsed a corner too weak for the heavy-ended, overall imbalance of the paper, and shamefully hid some kid's black, bored brushstrokes.

This posted masterpiece read JUNIOR/SENIOR.

Fitting.

On the class-marked tables sat cardboard boxes - some open and others sealed by clear packing tape. They kept a few unorganized stacks of thick books good company. Any extra boxes were presumed hidden beneath the tables (and confirmed by the junior/senior banner disaster). It seemed efficient enough.

Since it looked the most important, Harry first checked out the head tables. Spreads of notebooks, named binders, miscellaneous papers, dried-up pens, and two clipboards on either side looked very official. There was even a plastic three-ring binder with PAID written in fading Sharpie on its transparent pocket front. Harry rotated the nearest clipboard for readability, and could hardly even remotely try. Rosters listing names, classes, and attendance checks had been photocopied so much that all the text was fried. Two more copies would undoubtedly render it all into a smudgy box.

Or maybe Harry needed reading glasses.

Since UNPAID practically mirrored its sister side, Harry was turned off to look through it. Just as he turned around to leave, James appeared next to him out of thin air. Harry didn't startle, glancing at him. The notebooks apparently had more appeal to the conduit, who decided to stay and lazily investigate. Harry left him to it, meandering to the attractive FRESHMAN/SOPHOMORE table to look at its wares: yearbooks.

MIDWICH HIGH SCHOOL '9–

A MOST RADICAL YEAR

Oh, he was sure it was radical. He admired the yearbook's professional hardcover and its 90's flair. The book was as heavy as he expected, being so thick; Midwich must've had over six hundred students enrolled. Flipping it over showed a blank backside, and the spine only bore the school name. Harry studied the front cover again, then put it back on the table to peruse.

Eerily, none of the pages had a complete year. The 19 was followed by another 9, but never an affirming fourth. Wherever the full date, or even month or year was supposed to be, it'd been scribbled over in pen or just unprinted. Harry found it as confounding as it was strange. Wondering if this one happened to be a bum product, he searched the others lying around to find they were all damaged goods.

Harry didn't know what to think of that.

Putting the mystery on the mental shelf with all the others he'd collected thus far, he backtracked to the beginning of the yearbook and began to flip through. Color photos on special glossy paper depicted slices of daily life: kids milling about the courtyard with their friends, huddled in the busy halls rifling through their lockers during rush hour, and activities that seemingly the whole population were in on. Along the bottom of each were descriptions in tiny italic, letting Harry be a very removed spectator to shenanigans and community pride; snapshots of a more modern era that was still long ago.

Other pictures were fuzzy in black and white, printed on the cheaper, lesser quality gloss pages. Harry squinted at a few of them, most too grainy to really identify. Copying color pictures to black and white ruined their character, so the descriptions at least provided context clues. Turning the page, Harry found more, now organized by grade. He had reached the freshman class. The pictures here were of classroom students in various stages of attention to the teacher caught mid-lecture; smiling groups behind a project; and kids grinning over their shoulder at the camera while they pretended to work.

Harry turned pages after pages of alphabetized kids. The nostalgia was mighty by this point. Clean black and white photos no bigger than this thumb filled the rows, teenagers smiling - oh, that one isn't, or that one; eh, there's always a few - for picture day. Many of them had carefully planned their outfits for their portrait, even though their pictures would be cropped too tightly to show them off. A great majority of them portrayed a wide range of personalities and interests nonetheless, but it wasn't difficult for Harry to pick out the popular kids around these parts.

"Hey, James?" Harry looked over his shoulder at his companion ever busy checking out the notebook on the head table. James looked up. "Did you keep your yearbook?"

He thought about it. "Mm. I don't think I got one."

A doubtful frown creased his forehead. "Didn't get one? Really?"

James shrugged. "I don't remember. I just get the feeling I never brought one home."

"Huh." Harry looked down at the page. Unable to find anything to respond to that, he skipped far ahead to find the elegantly poised seniors in full-sized color portraits and fancy italicized quotes beneath each one. He grinned. The quotes were a mix of inspirational, funny, song lyrics, and references he didn't get. His smile remained as he went over each of them. Senior picture day had been such an exhilarating event for him that was fondly looked back on, as it was for many students from generations gone and will be for those to come. These were fun to look at.

"When'd you graduate?" Harry asked the room. Seeing as the yearbook didn't know its own year, the scrape and flop of turning pages seemed to hem and haw over the question, too. An old song from the totally tubular decade popped into his head, so, as quietly as he could, he cheerfully hummed the melody to himself.

The forecast for getting an answer from James was a big fat 'NO', just like it was yesterday, and the day before that, and last week. Harry'd begrudgingly learned to accept that as a suitable response, even if it still made him inwardly mopey. A long silence floated by, then James suddenly piped up.

"I don't remember."

Even though it was a standard James Sunderland response, the veteran saw it as a starter. Just in case he'd spurred some motivation to share from their chat in the hall, Harry counted his chickens, and cast another look over his shoulder. "You don't?"

"Nope."

"Well, when were you born? You probably graduated when you were seventeen."

James frowned at the notebook he'd been looking through, though his eyes were averted. Harry might've gotten too gutsy with that one. How many times has he tried to lasso that out of him so far? If James were keeping a tally, Harry would've actually liked to know what they were up to; maybe it was his lucky number. It has to work at some point, encouraged the part of his brain that loved a bit of mayhem. It's gone as well as it could go today; would he like to bet on 00?

However, in the conduit's silence - though Harry could easily be projecting, and he was so good at it that he deserved an honorary bachelor's degree - it seemed like he was doing some serious reflection. Cautious, real consideration was pulling that frown in his face, as if he were debating Harry's worthiness (or maybe, he was genuinely curious about it, himself). They'd been together a long, long time, and James's life had been a confidential, blacked-out file. The mood had sort of taken a turn in the corridor, and Harry expected James to be prickly about revealing anything else private.

Though his optimism was unruffled, he would still need a fucking miracle for James to take him up on it.

And then, the theoretical clouds parted to bless the day; James performed such a miracle, and spoke. "19.. 197.. 2? No. 1974. Yeah. 1974."

Harry was astounded, but for all the wrong reasons. His lips parted; his heart cracked in two like a drowning ship. He felt cold as the color was stolen from his face, pale and staring dolefully at the young, wretched Sunderland. Words played hide and seek on his tongue; he tasted them, and they spoiled like hot, curdling milk.

He didn't know what to say. When he finally picked his jaw up off the floor, his voice was as bleak and faint as he felt. "You were born in 1974?"

James squinted at the ceiling in case he was wrong. "Y.. eeaah. I think.."

The author precariously pushed his luck again. He hadn't the time to wonder why James chose to be so open, hungrily pouncing on the chance he'd never get again. "What day?"

Hesitant silence consumed the auditorium. From here, Harry honestly didn't care if he didn't know the full date; he had the year, and that alone was enough to kill him.

"Uh.. Jul— uh.. no, June.. fff.. first? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's it. June 1, 1974."

".. James."

The conduit met his eyes. James certainly soured upon seeing that revolting, sorry look on Harry's face. Agitation sprung to meld with his frown. "What? What's that look for?"

"I was born in 1971," Harry quietly told him. "February 6, 1971. I'm forty-eight. I'm three years older than you."

".. what?"

"I'm three years older than you."

"I heard you the first time."

"James."

James's eyes flicked back and forth, reading Harry's woeful dark brown. Harry's lies were as opaque as a new pane of glass - so James found absolutely nothing that'd doubt his word. He threw his stare to the weathered hardwood floor, frantically darting his eyes about while he attempted to do the incomplete math over and over for himself.

And in it, he began the first stage of acceptance: denial. "No.. no, wait. That's impossible. That's not right."

"Why? You were born in '74."

"I know that!"

".. so old do you think you are now?"

"How old do I thi- twenty-seven, Harry! I'm twenty-seven!" James shouted, popping his head up. "Okay, maybe I'm thirty by now, fucking maybe.I've got no fucking idea! But there's no fucking way I'm any older than thirty. And don't even start to think about asking me how that-"

"When did you get here, James?"

"That- that doesn't— it doesn't fucking matter, Harry! How does that—"

"When did y—"

"2001!" he spat. "It was 2001! September! Fucking- I don't remember the day, okay - you happy?! Huh? Are you happy now? Jesus Chr- I don't know why I told you anything." James spun in place, pacing fretfully back and forth. "I got here in 2001, and I was twenty-seven - and I'd believe it if it was 2004 by now - so you canNOT be forty-eight if you're three years-"

"James. It's 2019." The conduit stopped on a dime, cautiously lifting his eyes.

"I got here May 23, 2019," Harry softly informed him. "If you got here in 2001, it's been eighteen years. And if you were born in 1974, which again, makes you three years younger than me, you're forty-five years old."

".. forty-fi— no.. no, wait .."

"James," Harry said, like a comforting priest to a grieving family. "God, man. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry."

"I.." trailed off like a waning breeze. Lost for words and lost in the serrated shatters of himself, James stood there in a trance. Splinters he picked from his dehydrated last hopes were too fragile to hold. He couldn't even search Harry's face for an idea of what to do, or how to feel, because Harry wasn't him.

"It's.. it's May?" Harry nodded. ".. of 2019?" A reprisal. "So it's been.. eighteen years..?" again parroted James's small, haggard voice.

"If you're telling me the truth about getting here in 2001, then yes, James. It's 2019 now."

James's countenance took a neck-snapping 180. Outrage provoked spluttering heat within him like an awakening volcano. "Why would I lie about when I got here? What would be the point of that? I know when I got here, Harry," James belittled. "It was September 24, 2001. I know that. I remember that because it was a reallyshitty day for me. So whywould I lie about that?"

Harry impotently spread his hands, and shrugged. James narrowed his eyes. Empathy was one of Harry's most prominent downfalls, and since a couple paltry minutes ago, when James's unfathomable life got a massive overhaul, that empathy lit him up like an ostentatious Christmas tree. Interestingly, an emotion on Harry that James didn't understand lurked behind it, which bruised its overall presentation. It looked fishy.

"What? What the fuck's that look for?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

"Harry. You are the worst liar I've ever seen. You couldn't lie to a fucking baby. It wouldn't believe you. So, what?" Harry lagged, and when it took too long, James parted his lips. He couldn't believe his eyes, because to him, he thought Harry actually looked skeptical. It was repulsive to see that on Harry, especially over something as serious as this. In fact, it was so against his personality that it seemed illegal, and for it, James rashly took his guesswork to heart. "Do you think I'mlying?"

Harry's eyes widened, the accusation distressing and sickening. "No- no no, god no, James! No! Of course I don't!"

"Then, what?"

"I'm just.." He gesticulated uselessly. ".. having a hard time processing this."

James loudly scoffed, incredulously stuttering a few manic laughs. "You're having a hard time processing this?! Holy sh— you'rehaving a hard time processing this?!"

"Eighteen years, man."

"I fucking KNOW!"

James picked up his pacing, his hands flying up into his hair; Harry looked dismally on. Blond clumps stuck out from between James's fingers like a mad scientist's electrified mop as he aggressively pulled at the roots. He heaved heavy grunts of agitation and harm, wound up as tense as a jack-in-the-box with its rotating crank teasing the inevitable. The veteran could do nothing for him, standing on the sidelines to bear witness to a man wrathful at the world and all who walked it, but who believed only he deserved to wear its punishing chains.

Abruptly, James whipped his hands from his head. He pivoted and began long, angry strides that carried him swiftly across the auditorium floor.

Harry watched him pass and stalk off, tracking him with his eyes as James went for the exit. "James? James!" he called after him, quickly turning. "James, don't—"

"I need a fucking moment, Harry," the conduit ground back, banging the door open. "Just give me a fucking MOMENT, okay?!"

Harry couldn't protest, and mournfully watched the door sigh closed. He exhaled hard, sagging back on the edge of the table, the paper crackling like weak thunder. His shoulders slumped. Cruel. Eighteen years of rotting; eighteen years stewing in hell's cauldron; eighteen years of being chased by the demons of himself, a man frozen in time.

What the hell could he have done to deserve this?

Nothing could have prepared him. All this time, Harry cracked a lot of jokes that were based on references of a modern world he knew, and not once had James asked for any clarification. He'd just let it all breeze on past. It never bothered Harry. All it did, really, was let him assume that James had no interest in them - and for the most part, found his humor too corny anyway - because he knew enough to get by. Harry gathered that he'd been stuck in Silent Hill for awhile, but he figured maybe four, six years at the most? Even six years had seemed too unrealistic to him whenever he speculated on it. It'd seemed too long; simply impossible.

But eighteen? Eighteen years of Silent Hill?

That was an entire lifetime; and a lifetime, Harry gruesomely realized, that was one year older than Heather.

Harry dragged his hand down his face and dropped it in his lap, staring down at the floor, hopelessly empty. He hated to pity him, but there wasn't much else to do. His brain raced a hundred miles a minute trying to figure it out. All he got were a sequence of blanks, as though he were dancing a threadbare ribbon around a maypole that slipped and slid around the loose top knob, insolently refusing to wrap.

If the cult hadn't dragged him in, then what the hell did? What could James have done to qualify him for eternal lockdown in Silent Hill? A flurry of options bounded through his head like an overturned basket of cheap, prize counter bouncy balls, and Harry hated all of them. None of them held any water; he didn't know what brought people into Silent Hill if it wasn't about the Order. He had nothing to go on.

So who was he? Who the fuck are you, James?

Harry had no goddamn idea. He'd been happily naive to think that at any point of their travels together, he'd get to know James as a person, no matter how many times the resident - the hostage - put him back in his place; no matter how many times he waved off his own number one rule. Periodically, too, Harry doubted James even was a person at all, and not just something the town dreamed up to use as a scapegoat.

Oh, he loathed to consider that.

Whatever, whoever, that self-titled conduit was, that poor man was only three years younger than he. James was caught in a deadlock at 27, a future, a life, snatched away eighteen years ago by the hands of a town that sought to kill, and kill, it did.

Silent Hill was a slaughterhouse for all who saw its fog.

Poor, wretched James Sunderland.