James stormed down the hall. Seeing nothing else through the dark, narrow tunnel as tight as a straw, he strode across the floor in record time until he met the double doors at the end. He collided hard into the push bars and panels as ferocious as a one man army. The doors quaked, but were so tightly locked that were they nothing short of a brick wall. But he made himself a battering ram, throwing his entire weight against them over and over, yet it was not enough to convince its surrender.

A throat-ripping growl escalated to peak when he struck his fists once on the doors. Whirling around, James wildly paced back and forth, his insurmountable rage knotting his muscles taut and burning. Suddenly he spun and pummeled the wall. Unbridled fury blinded him afresh as he pounded on it again and again, the thuds resonating like ferocious war drums.

All the racket could attract unwanted attention, but rational thought was a pipe dream. The pain in his shredding fists was becoming overbearing. James's arms were tiring out, and yet he fervently beat harder and harder until his chest was heaving from exertion, his outrage turning into despair.

James folded into his forearms against the wall. Pressing the top of his tattered head onto the lacquered cream paint, he stamped upon it a patch of watery blood that smeared when he weakly shook his head in place. Trembling fingers slackened from fists, and fell limp over his soaked hair. Then, strained and remorseful, he grit out, "Fuck.." and dropped his head between his drawn shoulders.

Eighteen years. Eighteen fucking years of being nailed to a consecrated ground that indulgently tormented him, abused him, stuck its poisonous fangs deep into his neck. For whatever reason, it needed him; it chose to pull him out of the lake, and call him conduit. James was a toy that needed his rechargeable batteries switched out all the time. And he still didn't know why; everything centered around why- what did Silent Hill need all this energy for, and why did it have to be him?

His throat suddenly swelled, his tongue so thick at the back of his throat that it triggered nausea. A coarse, dry sob broke through, wracking his piteous body. Thorns riddled his raw scalp as it leaked murky water and fresh blood. The cocktail trickled down the wall and the back of his neck, slipping like a secret under his jacket collar.

James thrice thudded his forehead on the wall. From his drenched, flattened hair seeped another thin stream that descended the length of his nose, and beaded under its tip. One after the other, they dropped to the floor. Another trail, trimming his jaw, raced downwards for his chin. Every drop and chill taunted him.

When James Sunderland walked into South Vale, he completed it. He drew the fog into his lungs and signed the devil's contract. The very moment James realized he'd been conscripted for war, he foolishly, tirelessly, tried to desert his duties. But the soon-to-be-conduit would be dragged back to the barracks every single time, trained harder, and be hurled to the frontlines. No matter how he fought, he was destined to founder.

Time was the enemy here in Silent Hill. Eighteen years whooshed by in a thousand centuries and also a minute, and meant naught to the soldier in the fog.

James knew he'd lost everything, but he didn't consider the everything else . The outside was dust in his memories. He couldn't even visualize his apartment in Ashfield, or a true picture of his father (despite the recent, and frequent, thoughts); or devastatingly, his first date with Mary. Important people and life events had been forgotten, presumably forever. Sad as that was, James had made his peace with it. He had no use for memories, anyway.

Then Harry Mason showed up. The bastard was full of life. Life. He exuded it, breathed it, and with it, depleted James on a terrifying scale. No one should be as confident, resourceful, and optimistic as that man in a place like this - and after the torment it wrought on him for the rest of days, too! Harry's life force soaked and strained James, every day wounding him in a way neither would understand. Existence made Harry happy, whatever the cost; and unbeknownst to them, he was a very charitable man. By him, James was given back pieces of himself that had been lost, stolen - and now, found.

And how dare he be so alive! Gritting his teeth, James slid his arms down the wall and folded them over his chest like a mummy. He sank his weight against it, squashing his nose as his face pressed into the cold, bloodied surface.

How fucking darehe.

From Boy Scouts to calling the Pontiac Sherry, to hating corduroy; these were little things he'd thought were permanently gone. Those were essentially a mixed bag of throwaways and inconsequential feelings. They confused him. Arguably, amongst the worst of those recollections were his birthdate, and the year he was handed the cruel gift of undeath.

He's forty-five years old. James squeezed his eyes shut tighter. On September 24, 2001, at twenty-seven years old, he took the last road trip of his life into Silent Hill with his murdered wife in the trunk. He'd parked the car, consummated his journey, and that was that. The outside became a lost cause.

But because he'd never left 2001, James encountered Harry like the man was an extraterrestrial from another planet. Harry practically was; he came from a different world, spoke a different language, knew things James didn't care about, and yet, he knew that they had both originally come from the same place. It seemed to be the only thing they really had in common.

It wasn't like James had been cultured by any means in 2001; it was seen as a rather wacky transitional era. But his ward talked a lot and about things that really, really left James's brain overcrowded and jumbling about like a gambler's dice. Even so, to reiterate, James bore no interest in asking about them before. They never mattered.

But now they did matter. They really did fucking matter, and the reason for that was because the year was goddamn fucking 2019. In fact, the very notion of that year existing at all made his brain pound in his skull.

No wonder it all sounded like hogwash! No wonder why Harry made him feel like an alien in his own goddamn town! Harry was a time traveler from the future who thought he was still in the present, and James wished he could shove him back on his flying saucer and throw it like a frisbee out of his life forever. James knew too little; Harry knew too much. And why?

And why was that?

Oh, if only he'd never said a thing.

"FUCK!"

As loud and grating as a rock destroying a blender, James screamed with all his might. The conduit drew back, and after he delivered one last knock-out blow to the wall, shot back his arm. He sucked in a sharp gasp through clenched teeth. His back turned to lean, in agony, on the slippery wall, cradling his throbbing fist to his chest.

He grimaced at the ceiling, then suddenly, since its contents were jutting into his spine, remembered the backpack. Hastily removing it, he flung the wet bag away from him. It skidded across the floor and an urge he almost couldn't repress told him to go kick it until everything was broken and useless. Broken and useless.

Broken. And useless.

His unhindered back connected with the wall, then he slid to the ground. James's wrecked hands dug into his hair again, trying to ignore the stiff, swelling hurt in fingers that couldn't even claw. If the bones were splintered or broken, it's what he deserved. All he'd ever done was make his own problems, shatter himself, go through life sabotaging anything that could've been worth living for. A now mostly-useless hand was no different.

Heaving enormous breaths that didn't satiate his constricted chest dizzied him. The pain was astronomical, but he also knew better. His hand would hurt for a while and it would repair itself, good as new, save for some lingering soreness. That was one of his most hated threads of mockery Silent Hill knit for him. No matter what he tried to do, no matter how deep a cut or tight a rope, James Sunderland could never stay harmed for long.

Water ceaselessly flowed down his body, and spread a crawling lake over the floor.

And eighteen fucking YEARSof that! James lamely tried to twist a clump of hair off his head, only succeeding in wringing the water out and straining his bones. Alone in the corridor, he layered on the abuse until he was spent, and the downpour became a dribble. He sat in the lake of his misery until it dried up, his clothes along with it. All the while, his head was empty and dull.

He slowly stretched out his fingers. They were, remarkably, getting better; just sore, as predicted. (That was fast.) James opened his eyes to half mast, staring up at the edge where wall met ceiling.

Harry was forty-eight and he, forty-five. He couldn't get over it - or any of it. They were so damn close in age; only three years between them. Though his birthdate would always claim his real age, he'd never be anything but twenty-seven. God. He shook his head.

Harry looked like forty-eight, not that James had any perceptions about how a person should look in those years. The greys were coming in thick at his temples and just one thin line of it shot back over his head, off-center of his deep widow's peak. James wondered when he'd started greying. Then he wondered if he would've begun to grey by now. Perhaps his hair would've faded to white like his father's.

His father: Frank Sunderland. James curled his lip. It was again Harry's vibrant life force to blame for digging out memories of Frank from the depths - and if James were to ever find out about that, he'd leave him for the hounds. The memories had started out good; as touch and go as their father-son relationship had been, James thought fondly of his dad. There were good times to remember; but now, he'd started to recall what sort of a man Frank Sunderland had been - could be. His head shook harder.

He'd spent so much time not giving his old man a second thought, and to bring up some of the truth about Frank wasn't what he wanted to deal with right then. Or ever. Unfortunately for James, it'd already begun - and en masse.

Frank Sunderland was a complicated man. The childhood he brought his only son up in was done as a single father - a wife and mother missing - so there was no feminine touch in their lives. James wanted a mother and for his dad, a woman to love, but one wouldn't come about.

So without a her, Frank did his best to provide. There was no handbook to offer tips and tricks in raising a child. Honestly, and James would forever be staunch about his opinion, Frank did his very best; he'd been good to him. He had the necessities, he saw birthday cakes and opened toys for Christmas. When he needed a bandage, Frank smoothed one on; when he needed comfort, it made his father uncomfortable, but he hugged James nonetheless.

James also knew a man that had a short temper, prone to snapping at him or anybody else, disappearing half a bottle of whiskey in a night. There were terse, perhaps over the top reactions to things like a bad report card, shoes by the door, James coming down with the flu and still shoving him out the door to go to school.

Sometimes, Frank was an unpleasant man to be feared, and it worsened over time. He swindled and lied. James had trouble remembering what he had or hadn't done. It got contentious and muddling, but Frank wasn't always like that. There were apologies and hugs, and weeks would be great until something set him off all over again.

Then his only son brought a girl home. She was pretty and sweet, and James held her hand. (Why couldn't he remember her face right now? Herfucking face!) After that, Frank decided enough was enough, and started to turn his life around. Frank smiled, laughed, made embarrassing jokes; that was the man James remembered (or preferred to remember) well. He'd been so proud of him - though once he realized that Frank's main motivation was to live through James, to have a last shot at being a husband, that respect for him gradually diminished.

Frank still had a Hyde to his Jekyll slithering under his skin, and it broke his child's heart.

And ever yet, James knew his father loved him; and Frank knew he was loved by his son, too.

James hung his head and stared between his legs at the dried vinyl tile. His mind, sitting as dense as a boulder in his skull, wore itself out bringing Frank back alive. That took a lot of effort that he hadn't consented to, and it overwhelmed him to exhaustion. The conduit rubbed his face, harsh and rough, wishing his palms were sandpaper. Fuck's sake; he wanted to know why it'd been Frank in particular to break out of the mental prison where James had locked him away ages prior, but knowledge was a double edged sword.

But so was wanting to know why he gave in, (willingly! willingly! what the hell had he been thinking?!) and told Harry what he'd been nagging him for since the start. He could blame it on the good mood Harry lended when he spoke about Jodi. James didn't even know why he'd been interested. Harry sounded like a lovesick puppy talking about her. This was a man still passionately in love with his wife (who was dead, James'd gathered a while ago). Oddly, Mary had slipped his mind during story time - and that was just fine.

Then a carrot got dangled in front of Harry, and strangely, he didn't nibble. He didn't want to hear about Mary. (Or perhaps, Harry somehow knew it was poisoned.) It rightfully shocked both conduit and town.

But his respect for James opened up the resident's exceedingly rare generosity. In a way, he felt good about it. He'd decided to reward Harry as thanks - but no good deed goes unpunished. It promptly, and vindictively, bit him in the ass. Now Harry knew even more than James was ready for him to know. If he could take it back like a loutish, grumpy child taking his ball and going home, he'd turn heel and stomp off right now.

James didn't owe Harry an ant's shit of information about himself. The patriarch ought to be as humble as a worshipper at the foot of a god's throne for his kindness, for that was going to be the last time he'd see recompense. He'd better fucking treasure it.

The conduit jammed the heel of his palm into his eye socket, scrubbing at it like a feckless restaurant dishwasher trying to mush soggy food into the drain.

Yes, he remembered September 24, 2001. It was the worst day of his life, and he'd lived it soulless. He remembered her, and him, and her. From that day on, he'd lived a new life - if he could even call it that - in Silent Hill as a purgatorial thrall for eighteen whole, harrowing years.

If it'd been so long, and their objective achieved, then why were the red squares back? What purpose did - could - they serve?

Moreover, where was he?

Setting his forearms on his bent knees, the pathetic, singular resident of a town that didn't let him die stared emotionlessly at the floor. Fate was fate; it was he who weaved his future web, and Mary's first cough cast it on. That was all twenty-one years ago, beginning late in the year of 1998, three months before—

He suddenly frowned. Wait. Eighteen years since 2001 made 2019. That was certain. However, Harry'd persistently said it'd been 1999 when he brought Heather home. She was supposed to be seventeen now.

That didn't sound right.

James's fingers danced in the air while he worked the math, but it was too much to visualize in his head. To better solve it, he drafted the numbers on the floor with the tip of his finger. He went over it four times and four times the answer was the same.

Going off the Masons' timeline, it's unfeasible that Heather was seventeen, or that it was 2019. The math didn't add up. His calculations decreed it to be 2016. Ergo, there were three irrefutable years missing.

James clenched his jaw so hard his teeth felt concrete as marble. Un-fucking-believable. He didn't know how Harry'd done it; that man was an open book with a clear cover and housed transparent pages.

Harry was lying. There was no doubt, no perceivable way he could withhold this indispensable, greatly contradicting information without him being made. It was fucking impossible, and yet, the real truth stared him in the face.

That goddamn lying bastard.