Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mary's body deteriorated by illness seems a natural extension of the smelly, worn living room in which they find themselves. There isn't the same contrast as the last time he watched her die, in an immaculate hospital bedroom, where the smell of disinfectant and fresh flowers permeated the air, making his wife a jarring decor.
James touches her hand and still feels her warmth. He remains basking in that last deceptive detail that makes her seem still alive, until he falls asleep.
When he wakes up she's gone.

James has learned not to wonder at anything since he finds himself trapped in Silent Hill. The rule of logic doesn't apply, in which you can die of hunger or thirst – but you can die quartered or devoured –, in which time passes with days and nights. The city changes between fog and nightmare, living in a stillness that immobilizes everything.
James walks through the deserted streets, dangling slowly between steps, forcing himself to continue with apathy and reluctance. No longer is any tension over the imminent arrival of some creature to keep him alert. Every survival instinct is dead with the truth and his wife.

The radio flickers some interference and James notices one of the anthropomorphic monsters prowling among the overturned bins on the side of the road. He stares at it a few feet away with the expected desire that it will go toward him, but the creature turns and continues to trudge in the opposite direction. If he were more lucid, he would find ironic how the more survival instincts are high the more violent they are. Or maybe it's not that. Maybe he has just become one of them, a soul who has forgotten his place in the world.
He wanders the city in search of time passing, until it makes him get used to the suffocating white of the fog, the smell of ash, the occasional ragged cries of creatures, the static of the radio. But he never really gets used to loneliness.

He reaches his blue Camaro, which has remained where he parked it. Even on it, time doesn't seem to have passed. But something shakes him, a stomach-churning smell that enters his nostrils coming from his car. He takes the keys he had left in the ignition and opens the trunk.
Horror takes hold of him despite he believed Silent Hill would have accustomed him to everything by now.
His wife, what remains of her, lies decomposed in the trunk. Her skin is hollowed out, her bones raping her body with accentuated prominences, as if little of her flesh remained. Her eyes are wide as they were the last time he saw her, when a hint of lucidity and anguish after the murderous rapture had given him the courage to shake the pillow from her face.

James slumps with his knees to the ground seized by uncontrolled nausea. He vomits bile onto the gravel, so painfully that he cries. He continues sobbing, his hands on his own face, outstretched like claws wanting to seize prey. A deep, visceral self-hatred takes hold of him and gives him the strength to get up off his feet and run to his car, to start the engine insistently despite the clogging. He backs up so fast that the crushed stone splashes under his wheels, without bothering to look in his rear-view mirrors, and takes the main road from which he had come. He drives through all stop signs and dodges every obstacle in his way obscured by the curtain of thick fog.

On his left is Toluca Lake, its reflections whiter and more still than the sky above it. He sees a wooden harbor, and an idea teases him, enlivens his eyes that had been dull for so long. A wrong enthusiasm passes over his stiff, desperate smile. He has a purpose at last, and that's enough to make him alive again for a few seconds.
The car wobbles fast on the planks of the walkway and finally vibrates into the void.
The impact with the water of the lake reminds him for a moment of the dips he used to make as a kid in the elevated slides of water parks.

This memory is enough to give him a gloomy serenity that makes him tilt his head back and close his eyes. He feels the water lap at his ankles, then his calves. The glow of the lake's surface begins to darken as the car descends into its depths. James considers it a fair death, in an oblivion that no longer makes him think about anything. Even if he spends his last seconds in painful spasms of lungs gasping for air, it will be better than the torment that has become his existence.
Darkness pulls at him in a fatal grip. This is how he imagines life after death.

But when James opens his eyes, they are hurt by the sunlight. He turns on his side and spits out water, seized by an uncontrollable cough. His hands feel the stony boulder beach, caress the uncultivated grass and mud. He stands up proven and staggers weakly. He looks at Toluca Lake behind him, the still, white body of water that had engulfed him, and turned blue and filled with shimmering reflections. James remains confused by what probably seems to be the revelation of Paradise that almost all religions speak of, reasoning in a disillusioned grimace that it's impossible. A man like him cannot deserve it.

He takes a narrow dirt road through the trees with circumspection and confusion. That apparent normalcy now frightens him more than the darkness and rust of Silent Hill. The clothes he's wearing are damp, as if he had been standing on the lakeshore for an hour or two. The water has washed away some of the blood and ash stains on his jacket and shirt, but the most stubborn ones are still there, testifying that Silent Hill wasn't just a nightmare. It may be this of now is his new nightmare that will rape his psyche with new torments, the new sadistic game yet to be discovered.

He hears a distant hubbub, the sound of speeding cars. James climbs the last stone steps and reaches the edge of a wide two-lane road. Flat-roofed low buildings characteristic of small American towns line the street. James sees a pawn store, a convenience store, and a bar. On another street, a basketball court appears to be the stage for the town's only outdoor activity, where a group of kids are shouting game directions and arguing about rules – are they real kids?
A man carelessly walks past him, absorbed in the silent relief that comes from the nicotine of his cigarette between his lips, and James backs away fearfully until his back touches the trunk of a tree.

After minutes that seem like hours, shifting his gaze ever more bewildered between one detail and another of the city, James becomes aware that he’s in the real world. The world of the living.
It makes no sense. He had driven his car into the lake, the water had swallowed him. Why is he there?
A sudden weakness in his muscles prevents him from reasoning. It's the hunger pangs he was no longer used to. Driven by a compelling physiological urge he walks down the street to reach the convenience store, but a more tantalizing idea crosses his eyes as they rest on the bar sign. He recognizes it, a visceral and violent need that has accompanied him for the past few months before he became lost in the disorienting and punishing streets of Silent Hill.

He enters the building. The atmosphere is dark, the radio plays Janet Jackson's latest hit, the tables are arranged randomly, the counter is made of wood, and the man who lives there greets him with a bored face, returning to fill the dishwasher without even a greeting. It all seems so mundane, so stereotypical, yet James cannot help but be amazed, studying every detail like a novice tourist in a foreign land.
He sits uncertainly on one of the stools near the counter. The bartender looks at him in silence.
“Whiskey neat,” James murmurs. The bartender takes the bottle of Jack Daniel's without bothering to measure exactly how much to serve and pours it into a tumbler.

James strokes the glass worn by time and limestone with the same desire with which he would touch a naked woman waiting for him on the bed. He slurps the whiskey and a familiar warmth burns his throat and stomach until it lulls him into a placid warmth he knows too well. It's not the same one that dulls his senses, but it's a guaranteed and familiar prelude, an automated action that as soon as executed immediately relaxes his nerves. It's the beginning of the cure that he's sure will give him a few peaceful hours.

“One more,” James says, and the bartender pours him whiskey in the same glass. That little bit of bartending experience during the collage reminds him that every drink should be served in a new glass, but he prefers the man's listlessness that gets him what he wants right away. He drinks again at the drop, the amber liquid is a caress that provides more relief.
“One more,” he repeats. The bartender frowns and turns his back on him, fumbling with something James cannot see. He squints resentfully at having ignored him so blatantly, until he notices that his alcoholic need made him forget to check if he had money. He searches his pants pockets, then his jacket's, realizing he has lost everything. Even Mary's picture. Her letter. This revelation makes him feel an unexpected pain that overshadows any other problem. It takes him a good minute, with great willpower, to turn his attention back to how to solve the money issue.

To his right, a few feet away, is one of the two exits. He might sneak off while the bartender is distracted-not that he has ever seemed attentive, on the contrary he has the impression that he's purposely trying to avoid him-but as soon as he swivels his pelvis a little to prepare to get off the stool four young men enter. They are fully dressed, hair lacquered, smooth young faces of people who haven't worked hard enough to be so rich. James sniffs daddy's boys from afar by the way they casually drop their branded jackets on chairs and order the best scotch. Maybe they don't even know about scotch. It's just that the best costs more. The privileged ones don't know the value of money, that's why they like to spend it.

While they are distracted taking billiard sticks from the wall, James approaches one of the chairs and randomly pulls a wallet out of a jacket. He steals all the cash and places the wallet back in the pocket, then leaves ten dollars on the counter.
“Keep the change,” he tells the bartender before leaving the bar, not too quickly to arouse suspicion.

The sun blinds his eyes again and he forces himself to look down. He puts his hands in his jacket pockets and feels the bills. He turns at the first alley and leans his shoulder against the wall giving his back to the main street to count them. It's three hundred and twenty dollars, more than he thought. He knows that if he doesn't want trouble he must spend it as soon as possible. The situation reminds him of a junkie who used to roam the streets near the first apartment he and Mary had lived in, a guy who did nothing but try to rob passersby unsuccessfully with a face that was so scary it was natural to stay away from him. Yet he somehow managed to ensure his daily doses. James found him pathetic, while Mary only sad. Occasionally she would talk to him about it, asking if anything could be done, but James asserted that people like him were asking for it, people like him are conscious executioners of their own misfortune.
They're a lost cause.

He frowns and grimaces. He scratches his head as if to clear his mind and decides to go to the convenience store. He might have picked up junk food and alcohol – he had money for many cans of cheap beer – keeping some aside to look for a motel for that night. It was a good plan to get lost in the lulling oblivion of dizziness and mental fog, the kind of fog he liked. But the crooked sign of an armory stops James at the curbside and becomes an even more tantalizing invitation. He crosses the street with confident steps and decides to pick up the cheapest gun and a box of cartridges. He's sure he's in the normal world, but he knows enough about the occult sadism of Silent Hill to reflect that it's best to be prepared for the worst.
He says this with such persuasion that he can even lie to himself.

He leaves the store with a common green plastic bag that gives no hint of its true contents and heads to the first empty alley nearby. He lays the cartridge box on a bin and opens the gun case. He pulls it out, inserting the bullets one by one, with an accustomed care and dexterity that no longer surprises him.
The loaded gun is in his hands. It's not like before, caught in an uncontrollable rapture while driving; it's just a distant thought caressing his mind. It is harder to act now. When he drove his car into the water, there was an external, inescapable force that would determine his death, no matter how heinous it would be. But now it is all up to him, which makes it an even more difficult act. The gun now feels heavier, but James manages to raise it, bringing the barrel to his temple. He begins to tremble, adrenaline spinning through his body pumping blood and increasing his heart rate. It rises higher and higher with each little press of his finger on the trigger, finding its peak when he finds the strength to pull it, but it's only a charge-free click that follows.
James leans forward with his eyes wide and his heart pounding, realizing after a few seconds that the cheap gun he had bought is shoddy and defective merchandise. Anger gives him the strength to try again to shoot himself in the temple, but nothing happens, and the adrenaline that consumes him more and more leads him to furiously point the weapon in front of him and fire, caught off guard when a shot reverberates throughout the alley and into his ears. The bullet hits a steel plate on the ground and deflects, embedding itself on the wall of a house near which a woman was passing. The latter, as soon as she notices James with the gun in his hand, begins to scream and running away.
“Fuck,” James whispers, throwing the gun as far away as possible and running in the opposite direction. Only takes a little more than a minute in such a small town for a police cruiser to reach him with sirens blaring. James tries to ignore the feeling that sound gives him, the recent memory of a ghost town giving him goose bumps on his back, turns the street corner until he finds a young officer pointing his weapon at him.
“Freeze!” he yells, and James slumps to the ground on his knees. He hears behind him the police cruiser parks and a man yelling at him to drop to the ground with his arms outstretched and palms up. James obeys, the policeman quickly frisks him then cuffs him, lifting him up by the back collar of his jacket.
“Why the fuck did you try to kill the baker? She makes the best pastries in town,” he says throwing him into the backseat.
James tries to defend himself, but the other policeman quotes him the Miranda Warning as the car has already started. He has young rookie's prudence to do the job perfectly, while the older man drives listlessly with an annoyed expression.

***

James is dragged into the police station shoved by the older policeman. His grip around his cuffed wrists behind his back hurts, but he doesn't let it show, as if his body has become numb to physical, insignificant pains like that. It's other pains that wake him up, and in a sadistic game of fate, a detail in the room appears before him that freezes him and gives him a rush of tension down his spine.
“Move,” the policeman says, pushing him even harder toward the police station cell. James looks at it wide-eyed, he seems to catch a glimpse of Maria's body lying on her stomach on the worn-out cot with a huge hole in her belly.

The policeman takes the set of keys and opens his cell, thrusting him inside.
“What's your name?” he asks him dryly. James looks around beginning to feel an unfamiliar, unusual feeling of claustrophobia.
“I'm talking to you,” the policeman shouts, banging hard with his baton on the bars to get his attention, receiving nothing but a startled look.
“He doesn't have any papers, sir,” informs the junior policeman reaching up to the superior officer. “There was only $13 in his pockets.”
The older policeman scratches his unkempt beard without hiding an annoyed look toward James. “Recently some inmates escaped from the Ryall State Corrections Facility. He might be one of them. Make some calls and ask for a guy in his 30s, caucasian and blond. Compare the sketches of the escapees and see if there are any matches.”

The younger policeman quickly gets to his station and picks up the handset, while the other sits in a swivel, more comfortable chair behind a larger, wooden desk. He sighs and rubs his eyes, then picks up the phone and dials a number. For a few seconds he remains silent, his back to James.
“Hey. I'm calling because you might be interested in an alleged criminal. He has no ID. He seems to be in a state of confusion. Yeah.”

The voices of both policemen become an indistinct, muffled sound. In front of him, beyond the bars of the cell, he sees Maria sitting cross-legged on a stool and smiling mischievously at him. James closes his eyes and opens again, but he still sees her, motionless as a wax statue, yet with living eyes aggressively probing the recesses of his soul.
Time seems to pass as in Silent Hill, without manifesting itself, with Maria's omnipresent presence. One of the policemen spends it studying a case file and the other sipping coffee and writing something on a document.

After what James cannot define whether it was minutes or hours passed, a man enters the police station. He's quite stout, wearing a long tan raincoat and a dark, wide-brimmed hat. He is welcomed by the older policeman, who pats him on the back. They say something to each other in a low voice, smiling, and the stranger hands a bill to the policeman, who hides it in his pocket nonchalantly.

The stranger approaches James's cell, towering over him standing a few steps away. The latter remains silent, looking confusedly at the man's wrinkled face.
“Man of few words, eh? Typical,” he says only in a scratchy, hoarse voice. “Friendly advice: the less a suspect talks, the more shady he appears. Anyway, you don't need to introduce yourself, I already know who you are, James Sunderland.”
James cannot hide a surprised expression that inadvertently reveals that truth.
“I'm Cartland, by the way,” the man continues, hinting at a smile. “But you can call me Douglas.”

Chapter Text

“I'm Cartland, by the way,” the man continues, hinting at a smile. “But you can call me Douglas.”

James, sitting on the cot, watches the man remove his hat and pick up a wooden chair near an empty desk, placing himself in front of the bars. It's a déjà vu that his mind has processed over and over again in the past few hours, yet as he looks into the man's clear, good eyes, James feels his muscles relax for the first time since he entered the cell.

Douglas silently observes every detail of the young man to study his history. His blond hair is sticking haphazardly to his sweaty forehead like strands of dry straw, his jacket is frayed at the collar and sleeves and has a few faded, indefinite stains, but the light red color hints at blood. His posture is hunched and tired, and he doesn't hide it; he's not at attention like the guilty men behind bars who carefully weigh every word they say to avoid betraying themselves about to tell their side of the story. His pale face highlights two red bags under his eyes, revealing recent insomnia.

“You may wonder how I know your name. It's all in here,” Douglas explains, opening a blue folder full of documents. “These are cases of missing people from all over the US. Individuals of different gender, ethnicity, social rank, age, but who all have one thing in common: they visited Silent Hill.”

A name James has repeated in his head many times, but as soon as it's uttered by someone from outside he feels a weight oppressing his soul.

“I gather from your reaction that I don't even need to ask if you know that place,” Douglas says leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and interlacing his fingers. “You've been there, haven't you?”

“I need a drink,” James murmurs with a contrite grimace crossing his face.

“What?”

“If you give me something to drink I'll talk. Any alcohol will be fine,” James insists.

Douglas peers into the young man's blue eyes, realizing that it's not the claim of an alcoholic unable to endure enforced abstemiousness, but the plea of a desperate man, the same plea he found in people who shared stories of their missing loved ones. He tilts his head, peeking to the sides to make sure neither policeman is watching, then opens his raincoat and hunts a flask from his inner pocket.

“You're lucky I'm not a cop anymore, kid,” he tells him while handing it to him. James takes it and starts gobbling so long that a cough is muffled on the back of his hand after holding the air the whole time. As soon as he feels the heat of the brandy slip into his stomach and relax his nerves he takes a long breath, then holds out the flask to the detective.

“Keep it, I don't need it that much,” Douglas says, implying that if anyone seems to need it, it's his interlocutor. That guy has recently lived through an unspeakable nightmare, he's more than sure of that now. He's already seen that kind of escaping reality by getting drunk, about two decades ago, among young men like himself who had returned from Vietnam. Time and substance abuse have soothed some wounds, perhaps even the arrival of a life partner, perhaps a few children. Pain is not entirely gone, but it's tolerable. Douglas wonders if someday that young man beyond the bars might feel that way, too.

He sees James's eyes run through the corners of the cell and back to drink, alternating the two actions with calibrated regularity, as if in his mind there's an inner struggle in which one part would like to recount what he saw by recalling its details, while the other would only want to escape from it.

Douglas casts a quick glance at the flask in the hands of the guy, who keeps it with the thoughtful care of a mother holding an infant in her arms. It's not always a good idea to get one's interlocutor drunk; it will not make a clean interview. Some parts might come out sugarcoated, still it's better than silence.

“I’ve been to Silent Hill twice,” James later recounts in a low voice. “The first with my wife, on a vacation. The second to look for her.”

“Mary, right?” Douglas asks, taking a file from his blue folder, pulling out a photo and showing it to the young man.”She’s also listed as missing.”

James looks at his wife's smiling face and his expression twitches. She was younger than when they first met, her natural red hair tied back in a simple low ponytail, and she had a sincere smile, the kind caught off guard that doesn't have time to pose. He looked away, trying not to think about it – it was still too painful to do so –, forcing himself to focus solely on the purpose of that questioning.

“If I told you what I saw, you wouldn't believe me,” James says looking straight into Douglas's eyes, “You'd think I was a nut.”

The detective returns the young man's intimidated gaze with a more resolute and tenacious one. “Then I'll start telling you what I saw, shall I?”

James arches his eyebrows as the detective pulls his chair closer and leans toward the bars in order to use a low tone, barely perceptible even to his listener.

“At first everything seems normal,” Douglas says. “Common buildings, empty and somewhat dilapidated, then you realize there's not a soul there. When you're outside there's an unusual fog, coming in from nowhere. You realize that you're no longer alone, but it's not human beings who keep you company. And when darkness falls, when sirens rumble through the streets, they increase and become even more dangerous.”

Douglas doesn't need to ask if what he recounted corresponds with the one James experienced because he can tell by his reactions, catching him gasping for breath, seized by a tachycardia he smothers with another sip of brandy.

“You–you've been there,” James murmurs, and the detective nods silently. “Have you found others who have been there?”

“No,” Douglas replies with a hint of bitterness. “You're the only one.”

“So… it's just you and me.”

“There is one other person,” the detective reveals. “She's the one I'm doing this research for.”

“Is she your wife?”

“No,” Douglas replies, smiling. “When I met her she was a sassy, angry teenager.” The man's eyes grow darker and sadder. “A cult of fanatics is after her, which is why I'm looking for survivors like you whom I might glean some information from. Have you ever heard of a group called the Order?”

James shakes his head, getting a resigned sigh in response. The man wrinkles his forehead, quickly flipping through a stack of papers with his index finger.

“They’re a secret society of occultists operating in Silent Hill,” Douglas explains, “and they have been expanding beyond Maine since the '80s. We don't know exactly how many members there are, but I assume at least 200 throughout the United States.”

Douglas shows some identikits of people, drawings of altars, paintings and emblems.

“I don't know,” James says uncertainly, “I've seen so many things that… I'm not sure what I've actually seen…”

“That's okay. We'll talk about it tomorrow with fresh minds,” Douglas offers in a gentle voice.

James expects the detective just gets up and leaves, instead he sits and reads some papers tucked away from the clipboard and later looks him straight in the eyes.

“James, you said you went to Silent Hill to find your wife,” he reminds him in a firm and nevertheless friendly voice. “So you understand me when I say I would do anything, even go through Hell, for someone I love. She's like a daughter to me. My whole life, since the past year, is dedicated to saving and protecting her. Any information you can remember can be a decisive help in this undertaking. Not only for me and for her, but also for you. No one knows what drives the mysterious force of Silent Hill to operate, but if there is one person who can help you understand it, more than anyone else, it's her.”

James listens to the man analytically, examining his demeanor and voice control. He mentioned he had been a policeman, and now James sees the dialectal skill of one who knows the emotional patterns in words to appeal someone and conduct an interrogation. He knows he's probably been trained to do that, yet he finds in his vivid eyes a sincere transport. The middle-aged man really loves that girl.

“What's her name?” he asks, and Douglas arches a surprised eyebrow at that question.

“Cheryl, but when I first met her, her name was Heather,” the detective replies looking for something, this time not in the folder but in his wallet. He pulls out a Polaroid print and hands it to him over the bars. James takes it and stares at two people pictured.

“We were at the zoo, there was this souvenir store full of silly hats with animal ears,” Douglas tells with an embarrassed smile. “As you can see, she forced me to wear one. It's not a flattering picture, but I still like it because she's radiant. There was no space for any real concern, as there should be for a girl her age.”

James looks at the subject's slanted face due to a clumsy, lopsided selfie that cuts her shoulder, eyeing her jaunty blond hair, her smiling eyes, her flushed cheeks cloaked in freckles. The photo is slipped out of his hand, and before putting back in his wallet, Douglas stares at it in silence with a contemplative gaze.

“Is she here with you?” James asks, overbearingly arousing the man from his own memories.

“No, not at the moment,” Douglas replies in a dull voice putting the photo back in place. “Our paths parted. But I found out where she might be.”

The middle-aged man smoothes his loose tie, takes the clipboard and rises from his chair. “McAllister,” he calls in a tone of voice so unexpectedly disruptive that James stiffens his shoulders. The older policeman shifts his eyeglasses with a bored gesture and looks at the detective with dull eyes.

“How much do you want for the blonde guy?”

“Jesus Christ, Douglas, this is a police station, not a butcher shop.”

“I thought that's how it worked here,” the detective jokes with a crooked smile. McAllister's apathetic face shows no reaction to that funny comment, neither resentful nor amused.

“My hands are tied. The baker has filed a complaint for attempted murder. We'll have to wait for sentencing and only then the bail will be set,” he explains monotonously before going back to reading some documents.

“It means I'll stay at the usual motel these days. I hope I won't spend the night off again over Betty's screaming.”

“Sorry, it's the only paid lodging in town. Show some mercy for prostitutes.”

“Prostitutes?” the younger cop interjects, looking puzzled at his boss.

Douglas hides a smile behind his hand as McAllister coughs and clears his throat.

“It was a joke, Turner,” the senior cop says, receiving a reassured nod from his colleague before he returns to fill out some forms.

Douglas puts on his hat and approaches James in slow steps. "Hide the flask properly. McAllister has a habit of confiscating anything appealing," he says in a low voice before exiting the station.

Chapter Text

The night envelops the police station with a black cloak, allowing James to finally surrender in an environment obscured by everything. Only darkness is present, sporadically brightened by the headlights beyond the glass windows of the few cars that drive through the small, miserable city. The darkness can be a placebo, an invitation to enter it. He remembers it as one of the rare moments in Silent Hill prison in which he didn't experience fear or bewilderment.

When the first lights of day begin to brighten the room, James turns on his cot to face the white peeling wall to force himself to see nothing else. He tries to rest, but every time he closes his eyes, no matter how tiredness had harnessed him, sleep never come, followed by the unpleasant impression of hearing the distant screeching of heavy iron against a metal surface. He opens his eyes again and it all ended.

The first policeman to arrive is the youngest, who says nothing, which is probably normal toward a prisoner. None of the more trusting sides of James' mind tickle the idea that he didn't want to disturb what mistakenly seemed a deep sleep.

The other policeman arrives half an hour later. James hears him greet his colleague in an bored, rough tone, then the squeak of the swivel chair under his weight.

Everyday noises become a muffled background. He remains focused on looking at the white wall, mental and physical fatigue making his eyelids twitch until it becomes a blurry, undefined image. It reminds him of the fog in Silent Hill.

An unexpected noise shakes him violently enough to bring him suddenly back to reality. It's the sound of sirens. They are not just any sirens; they are the same ones he learned well on his journey to hell.

“Let me out!” James shouts, grabbing onto the bars with all his strength to shake them. The two policemen turn in bewilderment watching him struggle with wide eyes.

“Quiet!” McAllister exclaims, slamming his hands on the desk.

“We have to leave! We can't stay here! Let me out!”

The older policeman approaches the cell and begins slamming his baton on the bars, causing James to fall with his butt to the floor. “I said quiet, you freak! What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“I think he suffers from lilapsophobia, sir,” Turner comments approaching the two.

“Lila-what?”

“Fear of tornados.”

James stares confusedly at the younger cop, trying to master the adrenaline tremor that has subjugated every living shred of his body.

“Don't you know? A tornado is passing over our little town,” Turner explains looking at the prisoner who at that realization is slowly beginning to regularize his breaths. “All the news reports have been warning since this morning. The siren is informing civilians not to go outside.”

James doesn't say a word. He gets up sluggishly and lies back down on the cot with his back to the two officers.

“You crazy piece of shit,” McAllister mutters, stowing his baton back on his belt. “If it were up to me I'd kick your ass out in the street right now.”

He looks grimly at the subordinate for a moment, forcing him not to comment on what he has just heard, then returns to his post.

James closes his mouth and thins his eyes in the verge of tears. It's no use plugging his ears: the deafening sound of sirens pierces his eardrums and violates his mind. The rational part of him knows that it is just a common tornado warning, but the more preponderant part of him cannot forget bodies caged in beds dangling in the ceiling, the sickening smell of their flesh when it was being ravaged by his spiked bat. He cannot help seeing Eddie's madness-driven face just before James fired a gunshot into his chest, receiving as his last flicker of life a look that carried both resentment and astonishment. He couldn't help but think of Angela's black eyes staring back at him, a bottomless pit that had sucked him in as she insinuated that the knife he had taken from her would be used to kill himself, and James had replied that it wasn't true.

He has the impulse to reach for the flask hidden in his jacket, but an even greater need forces him to leave his hand forcefully on his ear to muffle the sound of the siren. An indefinite amount of time passes that seems like an eternity, until James gives himself up in a state of surrendered resignation that makes him feel nothing more. Then, the siren ends.

McAllister sips his second cup of coffee, rises from his chair and cracks his back, emitting an annoyed cry.

“Turner,” he says in a dry voice, “stay at the desk, a barrage of phone calls will coming in. I'm going to take a look at the damage in town.”

The older policeman reaches the coat rack and pulls off his uniform jacket, when he's blocked by the arrival of a second siren.

“Seriously?” he mutters in a bored voice. James stands up with his upper body, remaining seated on the cot. With great force of control, he waits for his ears to sharpen before coming to hasty conclusions, until, after a few seconds, he's truly certain. It is not the same siren as before; it's sharper, rusty, and rumbling through the room.

James grabs the bars, adrenaline makes every body muscle contract again. “You must listen to me, please!”

This time it's more of a plea than a warning. But the two officers don't hear him, focusing their attention on the plaster on the wall, which in an inexplicably fast manner is deteriorating and blackening until it falls to the ground in dry shreds. The stain rises upward, revealing the structure of the building.

“What the fuck is going on?” McAllister yells, impulsively laying his hand on the gun in his holster.

An abnormal crack is created on the ceiling wall, as if something is pushing from above. James looks in the direction of it and notices a creepy thing he has never seen. A creature, if you can call it that, whose torso consists of a long cylinder covered in some sort of rusted metal, with two lower limbs of rotting flesh. It’s alive, breathing hard and emitting guttural noises. It leans down in the direction of the younger policeman below, who, confused by the changing environment and the darkness that has even begun to swallow the light from the chandeliers, doesn't notice it.

“Turner!” James shouts, shaking the bars. “Above you!”

The young man reacts instinctively by looking up, not even understanding from whom the warning came, but he cannot grab the gun in time. Out of the monster's cylinder comes something that has the features of a human head, but more grotesque, with a long neck, no eyes, and a misshapen mouth. Its sharp teeth clamp down on Turner's head and snap it off. The sound the monster emits is similar to a gunshot.

“Fuck! Fuck!” McAllister panics as he begins firing wildly toward the creature. James tries to alert him as well, but is out of time. Another creature from the wall behind bites him in the back and throws him toward the cell. James jumps backward instinctively, hearing the horrible thud of a body being thrown with such speed it cracks the bars. As McAllister finally falls to the ground, James hears the sound of his neck bone snapping.

He has no time to react emotionally to the brutality of that death, because he senses behind him some loud banging on the wall. He turns around in fright, noticing it beginning to fill with cracks that increasingly resemble a grotesque pattern of a spider's web. The plaster at the epicenter of the hits crumbles, letting out a guttural cry and labored breathing.

James turns sharply as he approaches the bars and notices, beyond them, a set of keys on the ground next to McAllister's lying body. He tries to reach for them by extending his arm without success, so he pushes forward even further, injuring his shoulder between bars until his index finger grazes the indentation of one of them. He hears the monster's cries growing louder, the sound of the wall crumbling, but decides to not turn around, to focus all his attention on the lock of the cell.

He inserts the first key, then the second, and on the third he finally manages to turn it. He opens the door and slams with a kick as the creature, already about to attack him, splats on the bars and screams, a scream that sounds like hatred and frustration.

James hides behind Turner's desk, where his body lies. He grabs the gun in his holster and shoots the creature's leg near the front door, making it slump just enough to have time to head to the door and exit.

What awaits him is neither complete darkness nor the fog he knows all too well, but violent gusts of wind sweeping debris and garbage cans through the air. James slumps with his back against the wall, looking up in horror. The sky is dark and above it huge tongues of fire cover it like a long hellish ceiling. He cannot look away from that gruesome vision so similar to a contemporary painting of Doomsday. Hot air blows through the streets with the same power of a tornado. A few sediments of ash and dust forcefully enter James' eyes, who raises his left arm for cover and continues down the sidewalk. Some armless bipedal creatures are flying in the eye of the storm, emitting high-pitched, inhuman cries, overcome by the madness of a force even greater than the nightmares of Silent Hill.

James trudges near the wall until he notices a large, crooked sign mounted on a two-foot structure. It's the motel, the only one in town according to McAllister. He remembers a good-eyed detective who knows the same hell.

James crosses the street, quickening his step to avoid being swallowed up by the tornado, concentrating on looking ahead. An earthenware pot carried by the wind smashes into him, injuring his back and making him stumble. He quickly gets up and runs until he reaches the entrance of the motel.

He opens the door with atypical ease, realizing only belatedly that he has been facilitated by the wind, the same fierce wind he struggles with to close the door again by throwing his back hard on the door leaf. He feels a pain in his hips, remembering the vase. No time, and he focuses his attention on searching for the motel's reservation book, moving his arms tentatively across the desk due to the sudden darkness in the building. He finds the last written page, the twinge in his back causing him to let out a cry of pain that closes his eyes, then forcefully opens them again. Douglas Cartland, room 12. As he turns to enter the hallway, he does not notice that in the darkness, to which he has yet to accustom his eyes, a bipedal creature emerges under the dim emergency exit sign. The monster attacks him, but James shoots it over the head in time, receiving only the beginnings of an acid splash that luckily catches him mostly on the thick sleeve of his jacket, only a few drops on his exposed wrist. He advances with the gun pointed forward until he reaches room 12.

“Douglas!” he shouts, receiving no response. He opens the door by forcing the lock a little and finds the man sitting on the floor with his back against the dresser, arms slumped forward and legs disheveled.

“Douglas!” he calls again, crouching over him. The detective strugglingly opens his eyes. James, kneeling in front of him, notices a sharp tube running through him from side to side at the level of his collarbones, his light shirt stained almost completely with blood.

“It was them… the Order…” Douglas murmurs, fumbling between words. “They came looking for her, but they didn't find her…”

“We have to get out of here,” James says with determination, trying to grab him by the arm away from the injury.

With unexpected strength, considering the way he's badly injured, Douglas abruptly pulls the young man's hand away and points to the bed. “Get the folder I hid under the mattress…”

“There's no time.”

“I'm not moving until you do what I said.”

James spots an imperative order in the man's eyes; he knows he's not bluffing. He lifts the creased mattress and between it and the iron mesh he notices the folder he saw the day before.

“There's everything you need there to find her,” he murmurs, relaxing his muscles and letting the blond guy help him up, grabbing the folder with his free hand.

James says nothing, focused on spotting any possible attack with the gun pointed forward. They advance down the corridor with slow steps, slower and slower. James kills two creatures, one in front and the other behind him, as Douglas's pacing becomes progressively weaker, harder.

“Keep your eyes open,” James warns him, receiving in response nothing but the man's increasingly shallow breathing.

“Promise me you'll find her,” Douglas murmurs. The young man is too busy killing another creature to respond.

“Promise me you'll protect her,” the detective whispers, abandoning his head forward.

“I promise, I promise,” James responds with agitation. “But don't give up, we're almost out.”

And then what?, Douglas wishes to ask with a hint of irony and bitterness, but he doesn't have the energy and closes his eyes, abandoning himself to oblivion.

James feels his weight overwhelm him and he unbalances himself. He holds him tightly and stretches out his free hand to grab the front door.

When he's outside, he’s blinded by the late-morning cloudy sky. He drops to the ground with the man on top of him, and there is no more creature, no fire, no wind, just miscellaneous debris encroaching on the roadway.

He raises his torso and all the strength he had in his muscles stores in his lungs to call for help.

James is in the hospital waiting room, sitting on a bench against the wall. He's leaning forward, his elbows on his thighs and his hands holding his head. His muscles are still tense, adrenaline not leaving him, agitation over the feeble fate of his only remaining ally, who has been transported to the operating room for more than an hour.

He hears footsteps approaching and instinctively stands up. His back hurts less now that it has been bandaged.

“Are you a relative of Mr. Douglas Cartland?” the doctor asks, having just gone through the two large doors that divide the visitors' area from the staff area.

“No,” James replies, telling the truth, unlike before where he had to explain his friend's bizarre injury by telling that the tornado had thrown the pole toward him, stabbing him. “I just accompanied him. Please tell me how he is.”

“He responded well to the operation, but he is still under anesthesia,” the doctor says with a measured smile.

James feels his limbs suddenly relax and he slumps back on the bench. The muscles in his face distend into what would have been the beginnings of a smile, his first since returning from Silent Hill, if not for the telecast on a TV set up in the upper corner of the room stealing all his attention.

On the screen, a brunette woman with a firm voice and steady gaze says:

“The tornado has done some structural damage, the most serious on the roof of the city hall. There are several injured people taken to the hospital, no news on their condition. There are no confirmed deaths. It amounts to two people missing, a fire crew from Brahms is searching for them: Jack Turner and Thomas McAllister, two police officers.”

Chapter Text

Heather slowly runs her gaze over the pub interior, which has, in keeping with tradition, lined the walls with old posters and black-and-white photos of Irish landscapes. The few dim lights in the room barely illuminate the frames, reducing the subjects to amorphous, extraneous blobs. She cannot tell if it's an effect intended by the owner, a misjudgment on him, or if perhaps it's just her who, on the third Long Island, can no longer focus on anything that isn't right under her nose.

She smiles, moving her head slowly to the beat of unusually slow music. She's sitting on the counter stool, where it's easier to invite human contact than at a lone table, where there's the implicit demand around a limited space of wanting to be on one's own.

Heather is alone, but she doesn't want to be on her own. She realized a few months ago that it takes little to bring a man closer. A flamboyant wig, for example, with the dual function of confusing her pursuers and attracting glances. That evening it's light blue, with blond streaks at the tips, slightly wavy.

A young man is standing at the counter a few feet away from her. He gives a quick nod to the bartender to order, then turns to look at her. Heather returns with a determined, sagacious glance, going back to sucking the last remnants of watered-down alcohol with a straw.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

They always ask, but are never really worried.

“Feeling great. And are you okay?”

The guy is taken aback by that question. He can't tell if it's irony or just politeness.

“My name is Jerry,” he then says, hinting at a smile.

“Lily,” she introduces herself. She has to change her name every new town she stays in, and she decided that Lily is perfect. It's a name she's liked since childhood because it represents a beautiful flower with a slender stem and long, striped petals. It's a good contrast to her real name – the name her father decided to give her – which is a common climbing herb that has no scent or vivid colors. Besides that, Lily is also a slutty name.

After introducing herself, Jerry finds the courage to approach. Sitting on the stool to her side, Heather can get a better look at him: a slightly taller African-American guy with narrow shoulders and delicate features. What catches her eye are the upward arched eyebrows that give him a sad look.

“Do you know any jokes, Jerry?” Heather asks, painting a fleeting smile on her face.

“I...” he replies, looking at her numbly. “I can't think of any.”

“Too bad, I like guys who tell jokes,” she comments turning a vacant look in front of her.

“I actually know one but I'm warning ya, it's not very good.”

Heather swirls her pelvis toward him holding up her head with her hand, her elbow resting on the counter in a clear signal of interested anticipation.

“Okay, uhm, a guy asked God, 'is it true that to you a billion years is like a second?', and God said yeah,” he begins in a monotone voice, hardly fit for telling a joke, but it's a contradiction that amuses her. “Then, the same guy wanted to know, 'is it true that to you a billion dollars is like a penny?', and again, God said yes. At the end the guy asked God to have a penny, and God replied, 'sure, just a second’.”

Heather hides a smile behind the closed palm of the hand holding her chin. “It wasn't that bad.”

“Yeah, well, I was on the fence between that one and the one about crazy wives. Since you're a girl I thought the first one was less distasteful.”

“You thought a joke about God was less distasteful?” Heather asks causing the guy to stiffen for a moment. “I like that.”

She crosses her legs and leans toward him.

“Why don't you buy me a drink and tell me the one about the crazy wife, too?” Heather proposes tilting her head to the side and dropping a synthetic wisp in front of one eye. “When drunk, I'll laugh at any joke.”

Jerry raises his hand to call the bartender and Heather looks down at her glass, the nearly melted ice giving the drink a faded hue. It reminds her of the color of rust, but her mind strains to move away from that thought in search of a sweeter comparison, finding in the recesses of her memory a morning in which her father, after she got out of school, had given her a Mou candy* of the same color.
In the middle of the fourth Long Island, Heather feels her own senses mist up. The voice of the fuzzy-silhouetted guy comes to her muffled. She doesn't listen to the words, and when it happens, she doesn't have enough lucidity to grasp their meaning while they're juxtaposed with each other. After a while, her clouded gaze manages to focus on Jerry's sad face. She realizes that he's talking about some money problem and the precarious condition of his parents, looking for one job after another. So Heather presses her index finger to his lips to shush him, causing him to straighten up with his back from surprise.

“Don't talk about anything sad,” she says in a tone that came out more abruptly than she intended. She slowly pulls her hand away from the guy and paints a smile, lit blue by a neon over the counter.

“Let's play a game. Whenever you feel sad, instead of talking about it, give me a kiss.”

Jerry remains still and gives her a stunned look, so Heather laughs under her breath, showing off chubby red cheeks plastered with freckles.

“So what, have you stopped being sad already?”

The guy kisses her quickly, a little awkwardly. He looks into her eyes in search of consent, and does it again, until she pushes him into a firmer kiss. Jerry takes her by her face with both hands, surrendering to that contact without any more fear.

“You are such a sad guy, Jerry,” she says.

Sad like me.

What follows is a script Heather knows best. The guy walks her out and offers her a ride home, which she declines because she doesn't want anyone to know where she lives, preventing her from leaving any traces of herself, crumbs that lead to an open door instead of a stand-alone adventure that takes place on neutral ground.

She decides to get driven into a side street that ends in a dead end, and before Jerry has even turned off the engine, Heather is already out to sit in the back seats. When the guy follows her, he finds her slipping off her panties. Wearing skirts has a distinct advantage for a quickie in the car.

Jerry opens her legs, and Heather leans back, letting it happen. She's never the one to act, mainly because the alcohol stuns her to the point that she doesn't have the strength. Besides, that's what she's after. She likes her head spinning so much that she no longer has the faculty to think. She likes enforced loneliness if it is mitigated by the occasional company of a man who for a while unites with her in one of the most intimate and natural acts. She doesn't experience the sensations described by the erotic books she used to read secretly with her classmates, in which a growing pleasure explodes in fireworks in her breast, a conclusion still unknown to her. But at the age of eighteen she has already realized that the most authentic illusion of being loved is when someone who doesn't even know your real name desires you over everything else.

Darkness has been descending for hours, making that godforsaken city a complex of monotonous, anonymous buildings looming under the dim light of a wedge moon. James reflects it has all the hallmarks of colonial towns that were born in the wave of the American dream and ended up isolated in the middle of nowhere, with only an old, rugged roadway acting as a link to the rest of the world. He notices with a single glance the complete lack of public maintenance. Almost all the streetlights are broken, the only city park has unkempt grass, and the statue of a Mr.-whatever-likely-founder is missing a hand and has some cracks on the face.

He parked his car near the only working streetlight in the square, watching the goings-on of people entering and leaving the only hotel since that morning. He has studied their faces from behind the car's closed windows, but none of them comes close to hers. James sighs and crinkles his eyes.

Douglas may be on the wrong end of the stick. The town he mentions in the diary and in which he's sure there are traces of her, more than a day's drive from Brahms, may be just a blunder, the wishful thinking of a sad and lonely man in search of a young girl, a strange story that hints that she most likely deliberately ran away from him.

Another half hour elapses in which not a single soul passes by. James stretches out rubbing his jacket with the leather seats. It's a nice car, he considers, the kind from the 1970s that still had the luxury of having wood interior trim. He hasn't asked the owner's permission to use it, nor has he asked permission to take all the money left in his wallet. It's a fair price to pay for the selfless and dispassionate gesture that drove him into the middle of nowhere to look for an unknown girl. A part of himself, the part that after Silent Hill has learned to listen more, knows that it's a lie being told to feel better. If he left, it wasn't because of a desperate man's plea, but for the fading hope that this girl will be able to explain what is happening to him.

He touches the flask in his inner jacket, sensing its weightlessness. There is only a few sips of brandy left, which has allowed him to remain lucid during the stakeout. He decides that in absence of movement for more than an hour he can afford to postpone the search until the next day. He starts the car and drives slowly down the main street in search of an open bar. Just two drinks, maybe three, just enough to encourage sleep and to rest for some hours in the car.

He easily finds a pub, the only building with lights on. He parks without giving himself time to set the car in the right way and walks briskly to the place.

The pub is dark, wooden, uncrowded and small, just what he was looking for. The kind of pub equal to others that brings him a pleasant, though wrong, familiarity.

Before heading to the counter he notices a woman, the only one in the room, and lingering his gaze he realizes it's her. Heather, or Cheryl, the same girl laughing in the photo. Her hair is different, fiery red to her shoulders, but he's sure it's her, remembering her oval face and diaphanous skin.

She's sitting on a small sofa, slumped backward with her legs bent unnaturally, gracelessly, like those of a doll whose heavy joints are fighting against gravity. On either side of her are two men, one of them dressed like a banker. In the dimness of the corner where they stand James cannot figure out their age.

He approaches their table, gaining the attention of the two men, who at his prolonged silence begin to grow impatient.

“This table is taken,” the one in casual clothes says abruptly, while the elegant one returns to look at her. James notices his hand on her exposed thigh continuing to caress in a way too shameless to be guided by good intentions.

“What are you doing to her?” James asks with irritation, thinning his eyes at that dirty detail.

“It's none of your-”

“She's our friend,” the well-dressed one replies politely, putting a hand in front of his mate to shush him. He seems to want to tame him like a pet dog, and indeed he succeeds. The well-dressed man stands up holding the girl from under his arms. “No need to be rude, if you want this place so badly we'll leave it to you. We'll go have fun somewhere else.”

“Do you know these two?” James asks without listening to the man and directing his attention to her. He watches her half-closed eyes, which try with visible effort to stay open. The gaze is vague, the pupils wide. She doesn't try to push back the man's firm grip nor to reply. She has no strength for it. James recognizes the symptoms, he has suffered them and seen in his drinking buddies. She’s in an advanced stage of drunkenness.

“Let us pass, come on,” the elegant one says in a disgustingly, artificially polite tone. James gives him a furious look, and in response the other grabs him by the lapel.

There was a time when he would not have had the courage to face two strangers, but Silent Hill has tempered his spirit, confronted him with dangers comparatively scarier and leave a permanent black mark on his soul. He finds easy to respond to that silent threat, but what he doesn't realize is that he finds even easier to use more violence than necessary.

The impact of his fist on the man's jaw holding him by the lapel is so strong that it knocks out a tooth and causes him to fall backward onto a table. The other man tries to fight back but James gives him no time and lands a punch on his nose causing him to bleed. He falls back, covering his nose instinctively, leaving his grip on her who drops forward without energy. James manages to catch her from under her arms, kneeling nimbly and holding her with his hands at the height of her shoulder blades.

“Hey!” the pub manager yells from behind the counter. James notices the emergency exit near him, the path to reach it allows him to turn his back to the manager and avoid recognition. He passes a hand under Heather's knees to hold her and runs quickly to the exit, pressing his back on the panic bar and pushing the door with his shoulders.

He continues running, turning down unfamiliar alleys, past the netting of a baseball field, until he finds himself in a narrow street that opens onto a plantless plowed lot. He stops to catch his breath and looks at the girl in his arms who has given herself up in a risky loss of consciousness.

He lays her seated on the ground, resting her back on the wall, holding her face in his hands to keep it up. It may be alcohol intoxication.

The cold of the oncoming winter wounds his skin with a sudden gust, and that's probably what wakes her, who opens her eyes and a violent shiver seizes her. James realizes only then that her arms are bare, unable by the haste of his escape to have had time to search for her jacket.

“Heather,” he calls her now that she's awake. The girl rolls her eyes from right to left, silent.

“Cheryl,” James then tries, with the impression that she responds imperceptibly by arching her eyebrows.

Heather tilts her head, sliding her wig over her forehead. James removes it from her, noticing the same shaggy, unruly, short light-hued hair he had seen in the picture. He calls her several times, alternating names, until she slumps forward and holds on with her hands, caught by a retching that James hears as well.

He turns her face to face with the ground, with one arm around her shoulders and his palm on her forehead, helping her to free herself. The acidity of the rejection hurts her throat, and the lack of energy makes the process last longer than she intended.

“It's okay,” James says as he continues to hold her head up. “You'll feel better later.”

When Heather finishes vomiting, she loses her energy and closes her eyes, but James manages in time to keep her from falling by contracting her arm muscles and intensifying his grip on her shoulders. He lifts her up to press her back against his own chest, staying on his knees behind her, and encircles her in an embrace that keeps her held up and at the same time warms her bare arms, which are still battered by shivers.

“I want to go home...” Heather whispers in a feeble voice.

“Where do you live?” James asks her, but she doesn't answer and abandons her head forward. The young man suppresses his own agitation by releasing a long breath and begins to search through Heather's clothes. Touching her belly he realizes that the tank top she's wearing has no pockets, so he runs his hand down her hips, feeling a prominence press against her thigh. He slips his hands into the pocket and finds a key and a number four keychain. He settles the girl on his back and lifts her slowly from under her legs.

“Hang on,” he tells her, but realizes it was useless to do so. Thus he leans forward a little bit so that, although unconscious, she can stand on him without falling over.

He proceeds through the alleys until he spots the high hotel sign, closer than he thought. He walks past the guest parking lot and observes the numbers on the doors. Arriving at four, he inserts the key and enters. He double-locks behind him, leaving the key in the keyhole, and turns on the light.

The room is spartan, with a low ceiling, a small bathroom, a chair, and a one-person bed. There are no pictures or mirrors. He notices a puffy, light-brown backpack at the foot of the bed, the only item that gives a touch of inhabited.

James slowly lays the girl on the bed, settling her into a sitting position with two pillows behind her back. He swipes her bangs away from her forehead, realizing that she's sweating a lot. It's a side effect he knows well.

He goes to the bathroom, removes her toothbrush and toothpaste from the only glass he sees and fills it with tap water. He returns to her, kneeling at the foot of the bed, and raises her face. Heather responds to his hands gently holding her chin with a moan. She slowly opens her eyes to look at him.

“Drink,” James tells her, bringing the glass closer to her and raising it slowly. The girl sips for a while until she shakes her head. James places the glass on the nightstand.

Heather returns to examining the features of the man kneeling at her side, with a vacant, confused look, as if she were looking at him for the first time.

“My name is James,” he says in a moderate, gentle tone.

“Whatever,” Heather replies, suddenly finding the strength to slip off her shirt and abandon it on the bed. The unexpected sight of her naked breasts stiffens James.

The girl flops down on her back and closes her eyes. James, forcing himself to look away, hears her heavy breathing, recognizing a light snoring that reassures him.

He covers her breasts with the blanket, turns off the light and sits in the only chair present. He knows he will not catch sleep, so he watches the girl the whole night, finding in that monotonous activity a familiar reminiscence he had long forgotten.

Chapter Text

A slap smacks her violently, causing her to turn her head abruptly. Her cheek tingles hard, her heart quickens its beats, but she can do nothing but remain helpless to the frightening rage of that woman so imposing, so invincible.

“Why didn't you say mass this morning?” she asks her daughter, taking her by the arm. “I saw you, you weren't moving your mouth. Everyone saw you. You make me ashamed!”

The child reacts with a silent cry, not trying to excuse herself. She knows her mother's blind rage, the kind of rage that listens only to itself.

Dahlia tightens her grip on her arm and drags her upstairs to the house. Alessa sobs, beginning to gasp as she sees her lowering the retractable ladder that leads to the attic.

Panic takes hold of her, she struggles to breathe, and only then does she try to wriggle out of her mother's fierce grip.

“No,” she repeats between sobs. “Please.”

“It's all your fault. You never learn,” Dahlia affirms with a hate-contracted face. Alessa has seen so many imaginary mothers in religious paintings in church, in picture books of children's stories, but none of them had that expression while looking at their child.

Dahlia drags Alessa up the stairs and pushes her into the attic, locking the door. The child tries to open the door by turning the knob and pushing, knocking hard with her open palm until she feels it tingle.

She slumps on the wall and cries. She knows that punishment for as long as she can remember. She knows she will not be released for a few hours, sometimes even a whole day. She can only wait and let the darkness of the attic gripses her and enter her, slowly, caressing the darkest part of her soul that finds its comfort in horrible thoughts.

At just over six years old, she closes her eyes and hopes she never has to open again.

However, when it happens, she sees a very familiar ceiling. It has plaster peeled off in several parts, pieces of the supporting structure visible beyond the cracks. The room is lighted from below, she hears the crackling of candles around her and the fire under the platform she's lying on.

The unbearable heat burns her back. She tries to free herself from the chains, even though she knows it's useless to try anyway. It's the survival instinct that overtakes her, stronger than any rational surrender. Fire laps at her flesh; it's the beginning of excruciating pain that will last for a long time. She begins to scream, begins to cry, the melting skin slipping off her as her tears do.

Heather wakes suddenly on the hotel bed making a choked cry, as if she had been holding her air the whole time. She takes her head in her hands and hides it between her raised knees, trying to regularize her breathing.

Since she discovered the truth about her origins, a door in her mind has been opened letting out memories of her forgotten part, the little girl from Silent Hill. These memories mostly manifest themselves in dream form and always end the same way, in the last moment of Alessa's life before she transforms into the supernatural entity that rules the town.

“Are you okay?” she suddenly hears from her left, and turns around transfixed. She notices a blond man sitting in the chair near the entrance and instinctively covers her breasts with the blanket, looking frightened at him.

“It's me, James,” he says, raising his hands slowly to reassure her. “Do you remember? We met last night.”

Heather squints, vigilant and focused. She scans the young man's features, the squared jaw, the straight straw-colored hair, the beginnings of an unkempt beard on his chin and cheeks. She's not surprised to wake up next to a stranger whose face she has no memory of, it's happened before; what doesn't make sense is that he's with her in the hotel.

“I never tell anyone where I live. How did you get here?” she asks him suspiciously. “Did you follow me?”

“I rescued you. You were in a pitiful condition, I searched your pockets and found the key to the hotel where you're staying,” James explains modulating his voice.

The girl's troubled look softens as fuzzy little memories of the past night begin to take a clearer shape.

Noticing this, the man relaxes his muscles and lowers his hands. “It's okay, Cheryl.”

Before he can even continue speaking, Heather snaps out of bed covering herself with the blanket, opens the drawer in the nightstand and pulls out a gun, pointing it at his heart. James, just over three feet away, straightens his back and raises his arms in surrender, so confused he cannot speak.

“How do you know my real name?” she exclaims, staring at him blankly. “You're one of them.”

“Wait-”

“Answer!” Heather orders, raising her aim to his head.

“I'm a friend of Douglas,” James explains, now finding difficult to use the gentle, calm tone from before.

“Bullshit. Douglas has no friends.”

He only had me, she reflects, contracting her facial muscles for a moment.

“It's true. I met him at the police station. He showed me the picture where you're at zoo, the one where you're wearing hats with ears,” James explains and notices a flash of astonishment pass over the girl's eyes. “He told me about you, that's why I know your name.”

That's more bullshit, Heather thinks, knowing that Douglas would never put her in danger by flaunting information to some random stranger. “I knew it, you're part of the Order.”

“No,” James replies unintentionally too fervently, making her further nervous. “On the contrary, Douglas thinks I can help you find them.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I've been to Silent Hill, just like you.”

Heather swallows on hearing the name of the town where her greatest nightmares took place. A tense silence descends on the room, Heather's hand imperceptibly loosening her grip on the gun, but not enough for James to notice, remaining rigid with the dread that a bullet could leave the barrel at any moment.

“What do you know about Silent Hill?” the girl asks, looking him straight in the eye.

“Only what I've seen. It's like a hell full of monsters far from any imagination. An isolated city inside the fog,” James tells quickly without lingering on details. It's a nightmare too recent, a wound too fresh for him to have the audacity to do so. “I was there until a few days ago, but suddenly I returned somehow to the real world. That's why I looked for you. Douglas told me that you more than anyone could have helped me understand why.”

“He said that?” Heather asks with manifest disbelief.

James nods, barely lowering his hands, turning his fear into despair. “I don't know what else to do. Sometimes Silent Hill brings me back to its dimension. Plus, there's some mysterious force that won't let me kill myself.”

The girl's eyes widen in shock at that strange confession. James is aware of how absurd his words sound, but they are the truth, a truth that has been difficult for even him to confront. All he can do is acknowledge her out loud in front of the one faint possibility that that girl might actually help him. He scans Heather's hesitant gaze, realizing that his words alone are insufficient to substantiate the authenticity of what he claims.

“I'll show you,” he says with conviction. “Give me a knife.”

“Do you think I'm stupid?”

“Either that or the gun,” James proposes with an inappropriate impertinence that makes her grimace in annoyance. She stands looking at him in silence, understanding that if it was really a made-up story to attack her, it was weak and disadvantageous to him. She wants to test him. She has nothing to lose.

“I slide a knife to the ground,” she proposes in a sharp tone. “If I see you take even one step toward me, I'll shoot you.”

“All right,” he agrees firmly.

Heather kneels in place, continuing to look at him and point the gun at him, while with her free hand, clutching her arm over her ribs to keep the blanket from falling off her, she opens her backpack to her side and rummages through the items inside. She takes out a knife, lays it on the ground, stands up and kicks it lightly until it slips to the young man's feet.

James doesn't stop holding the girl's determined gaze. He crouches down slowly and after grabbing the knife gets back up with the same phlegm. With his ring finger and little finger he grabs the flap of his jacket and lifts the sleeve up to mid-arm. He places the knife on his uncovered left wrist and looks at the blade.

Without realizing it, his hand begins to shake. Pointing a weapon at himself should be a familiar gesture, yet, unlike other times, it is not death wish that accompanies him but fear. The doubt that there is no mysterious force but simply luck that prevented his death overwhelms him, who grits his teeth and looks up at the girl hoping to find some afterthought. Heather seems to frown, but continues to aim the gun at him.

James again lowers his gaze to the blade and closes his eyes, beginning a masochistic mind game to give him the strength he needs to act. He thinks back to Mary's hollowed-out, swollen body in the trunk, thinks back to her serene smile that portended no danger as he kissed her forehead, when in fact the lucid intention to kill her was underway in his mind and a hand had already grasped the flap of the pillow. He thinks back to the force with which he smothered her as she screamed and tried to free herself by grabbing his arm. He begins to gasp for breath, to feel his eyes sting, and with a decisive gesture he plunges the blade into his flesh with all the energy in his body. The skin rips, but as soon as he laps at the vein the knife breaks and the blade falls to the ground, fouling the carpet with drops of blood.

Heather watches the whole scene in a stunned silence. She frowns and observes James' face, finding her own disbelief for a moment.

“See?” he says only dropping his arms and looking at her with a dull, vague look similar to a deceased person whose eyelids have not had time to droop.

“Hand me the blade with a kick,” she says forcing the coldness not to leave her just at that moment, and he obeys. The girl shoves the blade into her backpack, a heavy silence once again makes its way into the small, claustrophobic room they are in.

“Why did you try to kill yourself?” she asks after a while, no longer able to help but feel pity for that ordinary man, no longer spotting the potential enemy.

James thinks back to Mary for a moment, tightens his lips and frowns. It's a grief too personal and dark to be exposed. So he grants her a different, yet still true, explanation:

“I saw Silent Hill. Isn't that reason enough?”

Heather lowers the gun, overwhelmed by that stranger's heartfelt pain. She engages the safety lock, stuffs the gun into her backpack, and, with the bag in one hand and the other dragging the blanket still draped over her breasts, heads to the bathroom without a word.

James hears the door close with a thud, and soon after, the sound of the shower spray. Perplexed, he sits on the unmade bed and looks around for no reason, to avoid thinking and let the time pass.

When she returns she has a turban-like closed towel over her head, wearing a green denim skirt and an orange sleeveless sweater. James stands up facing her with a grave look.

“We've gotta get out this town,” he says advancing until he is only a step away from her.

Only when he's close to her, Heather notice the young man's height towering over her by about eight inches. She instinctively backs away and notices a trickle of blood run down the man's left hand.

“You're bleeding,” she asserts looking into his eyes. James lowers his gaze in confusion, making her guess that he didn't noticed.

“Take off your jacket,” she says in an inflexible tone, and he obeys, placing it on the back of the chair. He fails to understand the purpose of that order until he notices that the girl takes a small first-aid kit from her backpack. She approaches him and lifts the dark sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow. With her left hand she holds his arm while with her right she disinfects the wound with hydrogen peroxide, then wraps the limb with gauze. She has a gentle yet firm touch, giving the impression that she's used to performing these types of medications.

“Thank you,” James says in a tone that sounds unexpectedly grateful even for him, and Heather responds by turning a silent glance from beneath the blond bangs that conceal any hint of emotion. She closes the first aid kit to store it in her backpack, while James grabs his own jacket keeping it suspended in midair.

“I need a shower,” he then admits, dropping his jacket on the chair again. “Can I take advantage?”

“Sure,” Heather replies closing her pack. “There are no more towels, though.”

James shrugs his shoulders and enters the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

He undresses and lays all his clothes on the sink, opens the shower and waits for the spray to warm up before stepping in. The coil is worn by time, the white wall slightly crusted, the curtain stained in some spots and the siphon lets the water out in erratic jets, yet the satisfaction he feels is better than any shower he remembers. He rubs his face and hair, letting the warm water relax his muscles and wash away any residue of death and smell of ash that Silent Hill has marked on his skin.

He closes the knob and steps out of the shower, looking at the bandage on his chest in the mirror, which has begun to loosen, falling from one end onto his pelvis. He watches the surgical precision with which the blond girl has bandaged his arm and is the first part of his body he dries using his own long-sleeved black shirt. He dresses quickly, puts on his shoes and, with his hair still wet, heads to the exit. When he tries to open it, he hears something blocking the door.

“Heather,” he calls knocking, but gets no answer. He insists for a few seconds, and a bad feeling induces him to check his pants pockets, where he no longer finds Douglas's car keys.

“Cheryl!” he shouts, slamming his hand hard on the door, pushing with all his might to open it.

After a few attempts, the door opens abruptly causing him to stumble forward, falling onto the chair on the floor that was probably blocking the passage.

He gets up quickly and spots through the living room window Douglas's car in the middle of the parking lot. He runs quickly in its direction, noticing midway the girl huddled in the driver's seat with her hands over her ears.

“Heather!” James exclaims in annoyance, slamming his hands on the hood. “Why the hell did you try to run away like that?”

The girl looks up, her eyes soaked in horror and despair so obvious that James can recognize them despite the dirty, tinted windows of the car. A shiver runs down his spine before he realizes that darkness has begun to descend upon them, as fast and inescapable as in a time lapse of a wildlife documentary.

When darkness engulfs them completely, only then, does he hear a siren in the distance.

Chapter Text

“Listen to me, Heather,” her father said that day to her, who already knew at the age of nine that every time Harry used that sentence he was anticipating an important lesson. He knelt before her, sitting on the edge of the bed, and looked at her solemnly. “Not all people tell the truth. Sometimes it's hard to spot a liar, because they often come across as kind or meek. Remember the man who was supposed to accompany you to the information point when you were lost in the mall?”

The little girl nodded. Even now, Heather remembers that day as one of the first real scares she ever had. As an adult she would discover that mind is a strange and capricious construct that tends to memorize life's negative moments more easily than the positive ones, and therein Silent Hill had taught her the greatest lesson.

“That man was taking you to the opposite side of the building,” Harry reminded her, furrowing his brow, highlighting the first wrinkles on the sides of his forty-three-year-old eyes. “When I found you at the housewares department and asked him where he was taking you, he told me he had taken a wrong turn. There was no proof that he was lying, but there are a few ways to figure it out. If you ever run into a similar situation where you are forced to be in the company of any adult, always ask for their wallet. Inside you will find everything you can figure out about a person: ID, club and store cards, pictures. Nearly his whole life is there, or at least what can be reported on paper. Most importantly, if you ask to show you the wallet and the person doesn't want to, he or she is surely hiding something. That's what liars do, they hide the truth. If that happens, promise me that you will run away and ask for help.”

Sitting as back then on the edge of the bed, Heather slips on her last sock and looks at the closed bathroom door. When she senses the flow of the shower stream, she stands up, choosing not to wear the abandoned boots at the entrance in order to walk stealthily on the carpet. When she reaches the bathroom door, she slowly turns the knob and opens the door, holding her breath at the slight creak caused by the rusty hinges. She watches James's silhouette behind the thick shower curtain as he continues to massage his face. After a few seconds in which she ascertains that the man has not noticed her presence, she silently walks over to the sink to search in the pockets of his jacket, finding some bills. Without stopping watching James for any suspicious movement, she puts a hand in his jeans pocket. There is a car key, but no wallet, not even an ID. Her father's words begin to rumble in her head, until she feels a thin, plasticized material. She slides it out of the pocket and finds the polaroid of her and Douglas at the zoo stained with blood.

She stifles a choked groan with her hand and stares in horror at the picture. Gathering all the self-control she can muster, she manages to remain still, not to let her emotions dominate her. The more lucid part of her mind, the part that has managed to win against emotional meltdown, clearly understands the events that brought the stranger to her hotel room. He found out where she was by forcing Douglas to talk, tortured him, perhaps even killed him, and gained possession of his picture. It's stained with blood; it couldn't have happened under friendly circumstances. That's why he knew about the day at the zoo; it wasn't Douglas who told him about it.

It's the typical deviousness of the Order members, she has seen it before, she had been a victim of it. She fell for it again.

She grabs the key and walks out of the bathroom, failing to be completely silent due to her haste to get out as soon as possible. She closes the door, takes the chair and wedges the backrest under the knob to lock it. She puts on her backpack and hastily puts on her boots, beginning to shake with her hands. Panic, now that she is no longer as focused as before, begins to take hold of her. Her heartbeat quickens, an atypical dyspnea makes her breathing labored, short and heavy. She leaves the hotel and begins to run around the parking lot looking around. The key in her hand has a Ford brand as its only clue. She sees two parked ones and tries to insert it into both cars, failing to turn it. She starts on the main road and looks around, catching sight of a car she already knows. It's an old-fashioned brown convertible, a Ford Taunus Gxl. That son of a bitch stole Douglas's car. She gets in, drops her backpack at the foot of the passenger seat, and starts the engine. She presses full throttle, causing the Ford to skid and merge into the road, avoiding at the last moment a Chevrolet circulating in the oncoming lane. She ignores the frustrated preaching of its prolonged honking and speeds toward the town's exit.

A man in a light brown raincoat crosses the street without looking, walking forward with a misplaced calmness opposed to her agitation. Heather turns suddenly at the hotel parking lot to prevent running him over, braking sharply to avoid colliding with a parked car, causing the engine to suddenly cut out.

About to turn the key in the lock to restart the Ford, Heather hears a noise. It's a murmur, a ditty sung in a low, closed-lipped voice. It comes from behind her, inside the vehicle. The girl turns around frightened. There's no one in the back seats, but she hears it, now clearer than before. She knows that tune, a silly country hit that was all the rage in the 1980s. One morning Douglas confided in her that it was his son's favorite, which is why he used to sing it often as he went about manual labor or household chores. The girl realizes it's coming from beyond the seats in the trunk. She gets out of the car disconcerted, following the initially muffled, now increasingly clear murmur as she approaches the back of the car. She widens her eyes when she notices a red trickle leaking from the closed slot of the trunk. She reaches out her trembling hand toward the switch, the murmur echoing in her ears, making her eardrums throb like standing under the laudspeaker of a disco. Heather opens the trunk and an inexplicable silence returns to hover in the air. Nothing is inside except the cables for the battery and a few work tools. The girl leans ahead to make sure it's true, and an unseen force suddenly closes the trunk, producing a gust of air that passes over her forehead and dislodges her fringe, making her take a step backward in fright.

She hears the squeak of the driver's door opening. Lowering her gaze to the asphalt, she notices red-stained footprints heading toward the entrance. She follows them troubled, resting a hand on the top side of the door to open it wider and gain access.

On the passenger seat, Douglas's body lies slumped backward, his head abandoned forward, eyes half-closed, opened lips which streams of blood continue to flow unabated, fouling his chest. His belly is torn vertically down to his lap, showing some guts. Heather covers her mouth to stifle a gasp, her eyes begin to sting.

None of this is true, she keeps repeating to herself, moving closer to Douglas and reaching out to touch him. It's just an illusion, she tries to convince herself, but as she brushes the man's cheek she feels the beard sting her fingertips. Can an illusion be so corporeal?

An overpowering slam of hands on the hood rouses her, making her look beyond the windshield. She sees her father as she did last time, cyanotic, bloodstained and with a wound at his stomach level.

“That's what happened to me too, a violent and unexpected death,” Harry says looking at her with a dry look that rings of disdain, “and it's all your fault.”

Heather plugs her ears and curls up in the fetal position. None of this is true it's the mantra she repeats to herself every time her nightmares take shape, where as often happens fear paralyzes any will to wake up, making the sleeping person a victim of the sadistic games of their subconscious.

“Heather!” she hears screaming beyond the windshield, but the voice is different this time. She raises her head and meets James's heated gaze. “Why the hell did you run off like that?”

The girl turns to her own right, noticing that there is no one in the passenger seat. The view becomes more and more difficult as an abnormal darkness falls over the entire city.

“We have to leave!” James exclaims with agitation. Heather gives him a furious look. If he were killed in the horror dimension she wouldn't mind, but a part of her would prefer to find an ally to help her survive the hell of Silent Hill rather than risk her life alone.

“Get in the car!” she shouts, starting the engine.

The young man gets into the passenger seat and the Ford screeches forward before he can even close the door. She drives into the main street where not a soul is left. The cars in the street are stopped and abandoned, the streetlights broken and worn, the walls of houses peeling and burned. The only clear view Heather has beyond the windshield is the portion of the street illuminated by the headlights.

The car speeds through the dark streets, swerving left and right to dodge obstacles and stationary cars. James holds on to the handle at the top of the door to avoid slamming into the girl, and out of the corner of his eye he notices a strange iridescence behind them, reflected in the side mirror.

He turns around startled, spotting something he had never seen even in Silent Hill. A strange red light coming from a mysterious source, big enough to go over the roofs of houses, radiates everything it touches, drawing it to itself, encompassing and engulfing it, like some kind of wrong-colored black hole. That strange phenomenon, about fifty yards away from them, comes closer and closer.

“Speed up as fast as you can,” James manages only to say with his eyes wide and voice shaking.

“I am,” Heather states uneasily, remaining with her gaze on the road ahead. She suddenly changes direction, causing the young man to slam on the door while he was distractedly watching the red light.

“Come to the driver's seat,” Heather says in a peremptory voice.

“What? Why?”

“I have to do something. It might be the only way to save us.”

“We can't stop!”

“We won't,” the girl explains as she turns at an intersection to avoid a large split in the roadway. “Put your foot on the accelerator.”

James looks at her in disbelief and confusion, noticing the determination on her stern, focused face, a coolness such that fear doesn't overwhelm her. He extends his leg over the girl's, pressing his foot down on hers. Heather slowly pulls the sole off the accelerator, leaving it to him.

“Take the steering wheel,” she says, and James obeys, looking focused at the road, aware that at any moment he would be in command of the vehicle. The girl leans her back against the seat to give James a way to sit in her place, sliding into the interior of the car.

“On the count of three, I'm going to leave the steering wheel and jump into the back seats,” Heather reports, and he takes a long breath, stiffening his arm muscles. The girl counts, then jumps back as James slides into the driver's seat. In the process of doing so, the car skids twice, momentarily stepping onto the curb and narrowly missing a light pole.

Heather switches to the passenger seat, opens her backpack and digs out a wallet. The young man notices some movements out of the corner of his eye without being able to distinguish them, occupied with watching the road. Occasionally he casts a fleeting glance in the rearview mirror, swallowing as he notices that the iridescence has swallowed the pole he had just avoided.

The girl slides a photo out of her wallet and looks at it. The only available source of light is from the frightening black hole behind her, but it's enough to bring into focus the gentle face of her father framed in the picture with her. She closes her eyes concentrating, trying to grasp the memory of a few hours before that shot. She hears James gasp, caught in anguish, as he curses a few swear words. All sounds begin to become muffled and soft, until they disappear. What she sees is only Harry's smile.

“Listen to me, Heather,” he told her that day. She was thirteen years old, and for more than half her life she knew that sentence anticipated an important lesson. It was an autumn morning, Heather remembers the dry, wet leaves on the sidewalk that made the path slippery. Her father had been sitting on a bench while she, after pirouetting amusedly over the leaves, had looked back at him a few feet away.

“Whatever happens,” Harry told her smiling, “please know that I have never stopped and will never stop loving you.”

“Daaad,” Heather replied giggling embarrassedly, like a typical preteen facing a parent's sudden emotional outburst.

“I mean it,” Harry assured her, ignoring his daughter's amused upset, looking her straight in the eye. “I've never regretted adopting you. If I hadn't found you I'd be a lonely, unhappy man, and nothing will ever change my mind, not even the worst of circumstances.”

“Are you referring to the math assignment?” Heather asked, pouting. She still remembers how her father had laughed heartily at that sentence. Only when she grew up would she realize how much a failing grade in a school subject, a worry that at the time seemed frightening and insurmountable, was nothing compared to the problems of an adult who had experienced even a few hours of Silent Hill hell.

“Come here,” Harry stated, and his daughter obeyed, sitting by his side. “Promise me you'll remember these words, because they are the most important lesson of all I've given you.”

James grips the steering wheel and enters a tunnel. The dashboard begins to glow red, the radiance spreading through the car. He tightens his lips and frowns, letting the resigned and terrified idea into his mind that no matter how hard he tries to fight, an inevitable death will seize him at any moment. The light blinds his eyes, and what he hears between his pounding heart and the labored panting of his heavy breaths is a faint voice coming from his right that says dad.

A different light blinds him as soon as he steps out of the tunnel. The sun irradiates everything around him, including passersby and cars cruising the streets. James manages to brake in time at the intersection, avoiding colliding with a Toyota. The driver yells something from the open window, but James hears nothing, with the accelerated beat of his own heart still ringing in his ears. He pulls over to the side of the road and looks at the girl, finding her crouched forward with a thin object in her hands.

“We're alive,” he murmurs, letting his breathing gradually return to regularity. “How did we do it?”

Heather doesn’t seem to hear him. She abandons the photo at her feet and wipes her tear-streaked cheek.

“Are you okay?” James asks, and the girl, in response, suddenly rears back and punches him in the jaw, causing him to slam the back of his head into the headboard of the seat. She fires another punch less unexpected than the other one, which James manages to block with his open palm.

“You killed Douglas!” Heather screams. Although she had posed with him in mostly violent ways, James had never seen her pervaded by such inflamed rage. “You murdering lying son of a bitch!”

“What the fuck is wrong with-”

“I found the bloodstained Polaroid in your pocket!” the girl exclaims, trying to slap him with her free hand, stopped in midair by James holding her wrist blocked.

“Of course it's stained with blood, I had come out of the Silent Hill dimension a few hours before I left.”

“I don't believe you!”

James notices passersby casually strolling in the direction of the car. The tinted windows do not allow them at that distance to see what is happening, but Heather's screams may suggest that he is assaulting her. He slumps over the girl, crushing her back against the seat and holding her with one arm at shoulder level, plugging her mouth with his free hand.

“I didn't kill Douglas,” he asserts inches from her face. “I'm not his enemy, and neither yours. Why else would I have watched over you all night long?”

Heather thins her eyes, manifesting sincere hatred. She knows the tricks of the Order, aware that the least dangerous way to approach her is precisely to make her think they are friends.

James doesn't notice her right hand sliding under the seat and reaching into the open pocket of her backpack. Her fingers tap the objects inside until she spots the cold, metallic surface of the broken knife blade. She rotates it until she turns the tip upward. The man above her is plugging her mouth with his left hand and keeping his elbows low, allowing her a clear trajectory toward his exposed neck. All it would take is a quick, swift movement and she would drive the blade into his carotid artery. Even if the man tries to defend himself, nothing could save him from an inescapable death.

“Listen to me, Heather,” he says to her, and those words stop her, making her hold her breath. James catches a glimpse of a different look in her eyes, revealing an unexpected warmth. His eyes soften, too, as they intimately probe her. “I didn't kill Douglas, and I can prove it. He left me his mobile phone number, asking me to call him in case I found you.”

The girl's eyebrows arch in surprise and he, noticing this, begins to loosen his grip on her shoulders.

“I'm going to take my hand out of your mouth now, but you don't have to scream,” he whispers to the girl, lifting her arm slowly and releasing her face. “I don't want to hurt you. I just need to open the dashboard to look for Douglas's number.”

Heather stares determinedly into his eyes, which never stop returning the gaze, making sure she doesn't try to hit him again or scream. Each time he pulls a piece of paper from the open dashboard, James casts a fleeting glance to locate the right one. After a few tries, he shows her a torn piece of paper with a number on it. The girl looks at it for a moment and returns to stare at him. As much as James has kept his promise and shown supposed proof of his innocence, a strange tension continues to hover in the air. He decides to be the first to break it, raising the arm that kept her leaning against the seat and opening his hand in a sign of truce.

When she sees him rise with his torso, Heather releases her grip on the knife and lifts up propping herself up with her elbows. She slips the paper out of his hand, takes a few coins from her wallet, places it back in her backpack and closes it, putting it behind her back. She opens the door without a word and exits.

James imitates her, staying close to the car and watching her approach a low, uncovered public phone booth. Heather inserts a few coins and dials the number, hearing it ring. She has already decided that if no one will answers she is five steps ahead of him and can run to call for help. They would almost certainly rescue a girl fleeing an aggressor.

On the fourth ring, when resignation has begun to make her study the neighborhood to glimpse a busy store – the best place to get assistance – she hears the click of someone answering the call.

“Hello,” says a tired, hoarse voice over the receiver that Heather is certain to know. She remains silent by arching her eyebrows, tightening her lips that have begun to tremble.

“Hello,” the voice repeats several seconds later, this time more firmly, a tinge of nervousness to which Douglas not very proudly easily falls victim. Heather remembers all the times he got mad the minute his old computer stopped working or stained his jacket with chili sauce. Her eyes begin to sting, covering her mouth with her hands to hide a sob.

“James?” she hears him say, and only then she puts down the receiver, letting herself go into a liberating cry. Douglas is still alive, and this brings her a happiness she hasn't felt in years. She leans on the telephone booth pole to keep herself balanced, abandoning her muscles and slipping to her knees. James looks at her frowning and confused, not knowing whether he should console her or leave her alone. He opts for the second one, aware that he has never been good at understanding other people's moods, especially when they are so extemporaneous and intense.

He waits for the girl to cool down on her own, patiently, and only then approaches her.

“You need to call Douglas again and let him know you're all right and which city you're going to.”

“No,” Heather replies, pulling up with her nose.

“He's worried about you.”

“I have my reasons,” the girl insists, looking at him once again with the nervous look she had in the car. “If you want to come with me you don't have to say anything to Douglas, these are my terms.”

James frowns in confusion. Obviously that girl loves him. He doesn't understand why she reacts this way.

“Are you in or not?”

Part of James would like to investigate her refusal to cooperate, feeling sorry for that tormented man in his exhausting search for a beloved person – it reminds him of himself. The other part sees in that unreasonable blond girl the only chance to figure out how to heal the curse that makes him find no peace in either life or death, knowing that this would mean betraying Douglas's trust.

James sighs resignedly and gives her a bitter look. “Okay. Deal.”

“Fine,” the girl says, turning her back on him and heading for the car. She gets into the passenger seat and James, a few steps behind her in calculated anticipation, goes to the driver's. He raises his hands to the level of the ignition switch to start the engine, but can't find the key. He looks around confused, until he feels something from the right drop between his thighs. He picks up the key and turns an interdicted glance to Heather, finding her rummaging through her backpack with indifference.

That girl is a resourceful rogue who had arranged an excellent escape plan for herself. James would even have admired her acumen and sense of initiative if he wasn't the victim of that plan. He sees her take a road map out of her backpack and open it, noticing a series of scribbles on it.

“What are all of those signs?” James asks.

“Cities subdivided by different factors. The signs in red indicate cities with less than a thousand inhabitants, in green cities not connected by main highways, in yellow cities without stations, and in blue cities built after the pioneer era and thus without religious foundations. These are the places where it's easier for me to hide. Every time I move I have to find a different city from the previous one, so I don't create a pattern that can let other know where I might go.”

James listens to the whole explanation, looking at her face fresh with youth despite what they have just gone through-what she must have gone through in the last year, all alone having to deal with a supernatural and ruthless world forcing herself to become cautious and calculating too quickly.

“How old are you?” he asks her in bitterness.

Heather turns her head and raises an eyebrow, taken aback by that odd question. “You should never ask a woman her age.”

James starts the engine and looks out through the windshield again. The car moves forward and turns onto an elevated highway. Silence falls over them, he looking wearily ahead, she gazing tediously at the billboards on the sides of the roadway.

“Before you follow me, you need to know something,” the girl says, continuing to look out the window. “It's always dangerous to be around me.”

“I don't care,” he replies, shrugging slightly, and adds, “I'm twenty-nine.”

Heather turns around amused by the casualness with which the man has jumped from one speech to another, as if what she has just told him has no relevance. James notices out of the corner of his eye that he's being watched and turns for a moment to look at the girl, who has enough audacity not to look away.

“I'm eighteen and a half years old,” she informs him smugly.

“You're still a child,” James comments, shaking his head.

Heather frowns. “Did you hear what I said? I'm eighteen and a half.”

“Only children say and a half.”

The girl gives him an offended and stymied look. “You are a real shithead, James.”

“I would've bet one and a half shitheads,” he replies in a serious tone, springing a laugh so loud and unexpected that it catches him off guard. He takes advantage of the queue at the intersection on the elevated highway to stop and look at her, reflecting that it's the first time since he returned from Silent Hill that he's seen someone laugh, bringing him a feeling of everyday normalcy he hasn't felt in a long time.

And then, unexpectedly, he catches a glimpse of a soft smile directed at him. “You idiot,” she whispers, shaking her head in amusement and looking out the window again.

James' lips curve upward, not even noticing. He was sure he had unlearned how to do it.

Chapter Text

The early afternoon sunshine didn't afford the warmth James was hoping for. Leaning his bottom against the hood of an abandoned car, lifting his jacket collar to cover his face from the cold winter breezes, he watches his new traveling partner from about ten yards away. It's a neutral and poetic way of calling her, less unpleasant than companion of misfortunes or the only uninjured one I know exists who survives with me through the torments of Silent Hill between nightmare and reality.

The dirt road they came on is dusty and muddy, fresh from a thunderstorm two nights earlier that still has not given the ground a chance to dry out. Both sides of the road are lined with car carcasses stacked on top of each other. The stench of the junkyard can barely be smelled, contrary to what James believed. The graveyard of cars doesn't have the same stench as trash abandoned in dumpsters of the neighborhood where he lived, where the lack of professionalism of ecological workers let it pile up for days on end. The only smell the junkyard has is of rust and gasoline.

Riddled with boredom, nervousness and cold, James feels the sudden and forgotten urge to light a cigarette. He hadn't smoked for years, having quit at the first signs of his wife's illness. For a while he had been afraid that it was their shared habit that had made her ill. He sighes, trying not to look at the desolate, dirty environment around him that reminds him of Silent Hill. It was Heather's idea to drive there, of course. It's dangerous to travel in Douglas' car, because either he or the Order could have tracked her down. She knows all the tricks of the fugitive trade, including who to contact for new illegal license plates.

With her back turned to James, she's talking to a slim, pale, shaved-haired fellow. He poses as a lived-in man, yet he has the glabrous face of a young man who finds hard to grow a beard. He deliberately wears an oversized black leather jacket to hide a scrawny body.

“Four hundred dollars?!” she angrily exclaims, putting her hands on her hips. “Jesus, I asked you for a license plate, not a kidney.”

“I'm risking a lot for this favor, sweetheart,” he retorts with a contrite grimace.

“Please,” Heather says sarcastically, shaking her head, “all you do is take the license plates off the cars you scrap.”

“That's my fixed price for the license plate and repainting service,” the guy insists, approaching her to towering over her in a game that at first is one of pure dominance, but as his gaze lingers on Heather's delicate and feminine features, on her pouty and fleshy mouth, it turns into something else. He slides a lascivious, quick glance over her exposed thighs that doesn't go unnoticed by James, who straightens his back and gets to his feet.

“We can come to an agreement,” the shaved guy says with an eloquent smile. Heather gives him an outraged look, turning away as soon as she senses footsteps behind her. James, reaching to her side, takes her by the wrist, observing the bills in her hand. He counts them with a quick glance, slips a hand into his pocket and hunts out a hundred dollars, waving them under the shaved guy's nose.

“Here's the other money. Now go do what you have to do,” he says sharply. The young man gives him a smile halfway between mocking and menefrecious, takes the bills and leaves without a word, while Heather looks at James in annoyance.

“What the hell?” she exclaims, wriggling abruptly out of his grasp.

“From now on we'll always do such bargain together.”

“What a bargain! Letting win to a loan shark who was taking advantage of the situation.”

“He was taking advantage of you.”

“What did you expect from a criminal? That he would address me formally and offer me a cup of tea?”

“He’s a pervert.”

“Well, welcome to women's world, James,” Heather ironizes, gesturing nervously with her hands. “Add to that period cramps and condescending looks when you ask to be taken seriously and you'll have an overall idea of what that means.”

James looks away and takes a deep breath.

“It's just,” he says looking at her again, intensely, “I don't like you being treated like that.”

Heather is caught off guard by his assertion to the point that both anger and irony leave her in an instant. That blonde man must be one of those protectors of women who immortalize themselves for them, convinced that they are incapable on their own. He may sound insolent and butch, but there's something sweet about it.

The girl just shrugs her shoulders. “It was no big deal. Nothing compared to what we've been through in the last few hours,” she considers, sketching a nonchalant smile.

“Minimize one problem and you'll have an overall idea of what it means to be a woman,” James says receiving a confused and amazed look from Heather. “My wife used to say that.”

“You're married?”

“I was,” the young man replies, putting his hands in his jacket pockets. “Her name was Mary.”

He is surprised at how it was an unthinkable and casual conversation that led him to talk to her for the first time about his wife. He notices that his traveling partner looks at him hesitantly, as if she is waiting to receive more information without using straight questions that would have turned out pretentious and indelicate, with the inkling that it would under no circumstances be a cheerful story.

James pulls up with his nose, the crisp air tickling his nostrils, and turns away.

“Let's go,” he says only, and the girl follows him in silence.

When they arrive at the workshop, they find the guy from earlier with a bandana over his face taking apart some of their car's body parts to repaint them with an army green spray can.

“That color is an eyesore,” Heather comments with a grimace, shaking her head softly. “Douglas is gonna kill me.”

James says nothing. He finds no consoling lie that would ring true.

They spend the rest of their time in the workshop. James prefers its chemical scent of rubber and paint to the desolate sight outside the building. While waiting, he ate a trivial cheddar sandwich, oblivious to any physiological instincts, accompanied by the simple, rational consideration that he must sustain his body or his strength would fail him. To his right, Heather has her back against the wall and a chupa chups in her mouth, with which she fiddles boredly with her tongue.

When the job is done, the girl is the first to enter the driver's seat. James gives her an intrigued look.

“Let's alternate driving, so you can get some rest,” Heather suggests as she belts herself in.

“Whatever. I'll rest my eyes, but I don't think I'll sleep.”

The girl gives him a tired look, suffering from the same lack of sleep. Insomnia is a silent beast that grips both body and psyche. She looks forward to the next town where she can make use of all those dissolute and tested methods that can give her a few hours of sleep. She wonders for a moment, in a distant, random thought, if he will do the same.

She starts the engine and turns her nose up disgusted at the smell of paint circulating inside the car. The sixteen-hour straight trip they will undertake forces her to get used to it almost immediately.

They spend the night interspersing the guides until, late in the morning, they arrive at their destination. A modern town in a valley ringed by hills and mountains, the ideal place to hide and isolate oneself. Not as small as the previous one, on the contrary it also has a hospital, more than one school and even a shopping mall. This can easely help them find jobs.

They choose a suburban motel for lodging, as usually it's the most secluded and cheap in town, a guess that turns out to be almost exactly right. After parking the car, Heather gets out and stretches her legs. James crinkles his eyes and puts his hands in his jacket pockets, stifling a yawn.

They trudge to the lobby, a dark cubbyhole with a small bay window and a switched-on TV as its only two sources of light. A middle-aged indian man, sittings beyond the counter of the tiny corner reception desk, looks up bleakly at the two newcomers. He turns in the ergonomic chair with wheels, the only likely expensive investment in the entire facility.

Heather rests her elbows on the counter and crosses her ankles. “We need a room for two for an indefinite period.”

“The room is paid in advance week by week. Within twenty-four hours after the first missed payment, you are out,” the man says in a monotone, crooning voice as he returns to watching television. His bored tone gives James the impression that what he has just heard is a rant repeated in parrot form for years.

“A double with separate beds,” Heather specifies, slipping off her backpack and kicking her wallet out of the external pocket.

“No separate beds, only king size,” informs the Indian, annoyed by the sudden ringing of the phone on his desk that echoes throughout the tiny room. He answers the call in the same dry voice with which he spoke to Heather, and James takes the opportunity to gently take her by the wrist and move her away from the counter a few steps. It's pretty obvious why that motel has only double beds, the same reason why the receptionist hasn't asked them for their IDs yet: those are places set up to hide infidelities, clandestine affairs, or prostitution rings.

“I'll sleep on an armchair or a sofa, if I ever do,” he proposes in a low, caring voice.

“It doesn't matter. Besides, we can take turns,” Heather says, arching an eyebrow, “if I ever sleep.”

The room is in a detached building across the parking lot, one of those anonymous two-story prefabs that have doors on the outside. They walk up the iron staircase and across the long balcony to their room. It's sober and functional, with a single window and a corner bathroom, a little larger than the one they first met in. There is even a cathode ray tube television and an armchair.

Heather abandons her backpack on the bed, pulls off her boots, dropping them confusingly on the carpeted floor, and flops onto the mattress on her stomach. She swings her legs as she searches for something inside the backpack.

“You'll need an ID to work,” she informs James, pulling out some items and placing them on the bed.

The young man approaches, noticing T-shirts, jeans and shorts loosely rolled up, a Walkman, a VHS, three wigs, a packet of chips and a sparkling soft drink. Three open documents have been laid on the mattress, and he picks one up to inspect it. It's a well-made fake, in which Heather has a different name and wears a wig. He notices that the other documents are also fakes, with other names and hair styles. The only thing they have in common is an age of twenty-one, a detail that doesn't go unnoticed-a clever ruse to be able to perform any job and drink alcohol.

“How did you manage to get all these fake documents?” James asks, casting her a dazed look.

“It was my father who made me find out how,” Heather replies, opening a case of toiletries. “Although not directly. I found the counterfeiters' contacts in a drawer in his room when he was already dead.”

James frowns and stands motionless watching her carefully try to lift the staples securing the photo of one of the documents using an eyebrow tweezers. He hadn't thought of this before, and yet it should have been the most obvious thing in the world: a young girl wandering all alone around the States and relying solely on herself could be nothing more than an orphan. The man sits on the edge of the bed, his thigh in contact with her elbow. When she feels the mattress being pressed down, Heather looks up at him for a moment, then returns her focus to the staples.

“I'm sorry,” James merely says to her. Nothing more comes out of him than that trite and overused sentence, but the sincerity with which he utters it brings Heather to look up again, this time tenderly. She goes back to glancing at the tweezers between her fingers to lift the last staple, and James seems to catch a glimpse of a sad look from under her bangs.

“He was the best, even if he was a bit stern at times. I thought because he was a hyper apprehensive parent. Only later did I realize that he was trying to protect me,” Heather says as she removes the last staple and slides out the photo, looking at it with a touched and somewhat wistful smile. “He found me in diapers and raised me as if I were a biological daughter.”

“What happened to him?” James asks, and suddenly a shiver of irrational disquiet runs down Heather's spine. She lifts her torso giving him her back, sitting on the opposite edge of the bed.

“I don't trust you enough to tell you this,” she says, arching slightly her back and wrapping her arms around herself. Life has taught her to mistrust anyone and to put herself with such bluntness that she willingly or unwillingly turns others away. James looks at her in sympathy, without being offended, realizing that it's only natural with all she's been through – he doesn't have the arrogance to know exactly, but he knows their shared vicissitudes that led them to emerge psychologically tested from Silent Hill, and that's enough. He knows that trust is not a foregone impulse but a seed of a plant that must mature with time and mutual will. He knows that if he wants to earn it, he'll have to be the first to open up and share information about his past, about the hardships and tragedies that have transformed him into the man he is, and that would mean talking about Mary. The fear that Heather will discover this side of him, that he will have to face his recent vile trauma again, makes him act in the most cowardly of ways.

“I can understand that,” he only says to her, standing up and stiffening his muscles.

Heather looks at his hunched shoulders hidden under the crumpled, thick fabric of his green jacket. She looks again at the photo of her father, stroking his square features and affectionate expression with her thumb, deciding to keep it in her wallet with the others. She gets up in turn and stands beside James, handing him the document.

"From now on you will be called Harry in this town," she informs him, returning to deal with him in the detached tone of before. "Let's go out and find a photo booth, attach a picture of you, and go look for a job."

James reads the details in the document and arches a confused eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be over 50?”

“You're already on the right track. One more night of insomnia and you'll look like a 50-year-old man,” Heather jokes, returning to the edge of the bed to stow all the items back in the backpack.

James gives a slight resentful grimace. “That's not nice,” he tells her in a stern, scolding tone that sounds so much like the ones her father used on her.

The girl picks up the gun, turns suddenly, and points it at his head. James' eyes widen and he recoils a step, the fear appalling him to the point that he finds himself unable to comprehend what is happening.

“Did it work?” the girl asks in a jaunty voice, lowering the gun.

“What?”

“I've heard a big scare can age you ten years.”

“Are you telling me this is some kind of joke? Fuck, Heather!”

“To think about it, it doesn't make sense,” she considers casually placing the weapon in the nightstand drawer. “If it were true, we should have aged at least 30 years in the last two days.”

“Maybe it's the reverse, since I'm standing in front of a five-year-old girl!”

She gives him a sincere laugh. “When you're under pressure you become really funny, James.”

“As opposed to you having a terrible sense of humor.”

“I'd already been told that,” she admits with a nostalgic smile at the memory of the awkward good cop who had accompanied her to Silent Hill.

James snorts and exits the lodging without even bothering to close the door, striding wide strides down the balcony. The cold scratches the skin of his face, he shoves his hands into his jacket pockets in frustration and stops at the ramps of the iron staircase. He wishes he could ignore her, punish her for that inappropriate stunt a moment ago, but he can't help but turn his head to look for Heather, catching her about ten feet away enclosed in a winter coat at least two sizes larger as she reaches him with an uncertain walk. He has known her for only two days, but he bets that all that ostentatious shyness is just an act to bullshit him, a way of making herself docile to be more easily forgiven. The chick is a fox, a loose cannon, a brat. She will only give him trouble. He knows it, but he can't help standing still and waiting for her before going down the stairs.

They walk side by side, until silence is interrupted by a low giggle from her. James gives her a bewildered and resentful look.

“I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh,” she admits and grabs his arm with her gloved hand before he manages to walk away from her again. They're facing each other, Heather on a higher step that makes her as tall as him. She takes his hand from his pocket, causing him to frown pervaded by a strange feeling, astonishment and warmth mixed with suspicion – James cannot define it. She takes a pair of gloves from her own pocket and hands them to him, letting go of her grip.

“Is that enough to forgive me?” she asks, and he persists in not looking at her delicate, pretty face, not wanting to fall for it again, so he focuses his austere gaze on the gloves he tries to put on with some difficulty. They’re tight, more suitable for her hands.

Heather grabs one glove by the flap and pushes down to help him.

“Even your hands are like a five-year-old girl's,” James comments in a harsh voice, his state of mind still reeling from the dirty trick of her forcing himself to retaliate.

The girl bestows a posed smile. “Chinese people consider small hands a sign of femininity.”

Which you completely miss, would like to taunt the cruelest part of him, the part willing to hurt while telling a lie, but he makes the mistake of looking up and resting his gaze on her big eyes directed at their hands. He wonders what is that force that makes it hard for him to look away his eyes full of resentment and fascination, that stiffens his shoulders as he senses a warmth between their fingers that shouldn’t be exist as they’re covered by a thick layer of wool.

As she finishes putting the last glove on him, Heather returns his gaze, which is overwhelmed by a mood that is no longer angry but frightened. James doesn't give her time to investigate further as he steps back and turns his back to her.

He walks alone to the car without a word.

Chapter Text

Insomnia has the upside of having people get a night job that gives higher pay, James reflects as he drums his fingers on the steering wheel and keeps his gaze up at the traffic light waiting to leave. Fresh from a recent and exhausting sixteen-hour trip, the last job he would have liked to choose was night taxi driver; apart from this detail he has nothing to complain about, aware that he has no real professional inclination or vocation. 

The car departs, accompanied by the woman's giggling in the back seats into the arms of an older man. An aged, well-dressed fellow with a leather briefcase abandoned at his side. That's an important clue, Frank would have told to the baby James. His father had an unbounded passion for detective stories, he remembers the yellowed and ruined editions occupying every corner of the house. They were a constant source of quarrels between his parents. Nevertheless, they gave him the most paternal and formative memories of his childhood. At the age of ten he fantasized about being a detective, accumulating clues to figure out who the murderer was before he even finished the novel.

The briefcase indicates that his client never came home from work. He has a wedding ring, but the woman is not wearing anything on her left ring finger. The most obvious conclusion is not difficult to come to.

“Don't you dare, I haven't yet forgiven you for smearing wine on my favorite dress,” she whispers, but the laugh she muffles shows that she's not really angry. 

“Let's get it off you as soon as possible, then,” the man murmurs in her ear. The absolute silence hovering in the car makes James hear everything. He wonders if his client is aware of it. He probably is, from the way their eyes meet in the rearview mirror and, realizing he's being spied on, the man doesn't move his hand away from her buttocks, as if he's not ashamed to be caught in the act – as if James doesn't exist, a mere accessory of the car. He doesn't mind, quite the opposite, he is heartened. He loves this aspect of the job that allows him to be invisible and not be required to relate to customers. 

The car stops at the intersection at another red light. James shifts his gaze boredly along the rooftops of the buildings, then directs it back to the rearview mirror, to her tanned face, attracted to her lips by a detail he catches only later: she is wearing a plum lipstick, the same color Maria used.

The woman notices being watched and bestows a smile on him. James immediately looks away and slowly presses the accelerator. He turns left and reaches his destination. 

The older man takes a handful of bills from his wallet, not failing to show them to the woman on his right. He leans ahead and holds them out to the driver.

“Keep the change,” he tells him with a smirk. The cynical part of James reflects that the man has no more youth, no handsomeness, no charisma, so what is left to impress the woman is only his own wealth.

He takes the bills by nodding his head and thanks in a neutral tone. 

The two exit the car hand in hand, staggering on the road and chatting loudly. Her laughter is the last thing James hears before driving off again.

A daytime taxi driver would have had a diversified clientele – workers, families, tourists – but since he began his shift, James has had only one kind: groups in morbid search of distractions offered by the city's nightlife, most often already drunk. Cheaters, drug addicts, frustrated workers or unhappy loners, a conglomerate of sinners and moral shallowness in which he feels comfortable, proving affinity and empathy for those hopeless wretches. Perhaps it's just an illusion, due to the perception of one's own faults being downsized in front of the dubious morality of those people.

James wanders around the neighborhood for a while, waiting for the next call. After a few crossroads he decides to go somewhere for a drink, but passes the first bar he spots. It's not where he wants to go in; he knows the reasons behind it. It's the human, physiological need to seek companionship, to cling to the only handhold he has to avoid loneliness through an 18-year-old girl who is most likely even more lost than him.

He parks the taxicab on a one-way street and walks toward a vintage-style bar. James opens a glass door by pushing with his palm on the knocker, finding himself in a dark, crowded café. The bar consists of a single, high-ceilinged, square-based room with a cocktail bar in the middle and the kitchen to the side. A curtain of smoke floats in the air, brightened by the multicolored chandeliers on the walls, and a Simple Minds track, winking at the intergenerational complicity among the tables, resonates in the room. Almost every occupied seat has a smoker and a nearly finished watered-down cocktail. It's among the empty glasses that James spots her, with a tray on one hand and the other picking up the finished drinks, silently circling the table without disturbing the chattering, laughing clientele. Heather wears one of those old-fashioned waitress uniforms, the classic style that stopped in the 1960s, with puffed sleeves, a white apron around her waist, and a skirt that comes above her knees. She wears a short brown wig, the same as in the picture in the fake ID. He only remembers at that moment that her name, now, is Anne. James sits at the counter and watches her, noticing the agility with which she holds the now fully filled tray with one hand and zigzags between standing customers. This is definitely not the first time she has engaged in that trade.

When Heather sets the tray down on the counter, she turns around and notices him in turn. 

“Welcome,” she tells him with an unusually wide and enthusiastic smile. James arches an eyebrow caught off guard, wondering if her artificial politeness is simply a constriction of her job role. He sees her approach and take a notebook from her apron. “What would you like to order, sir?”

James gets the hint, freezing in time in mocking her for the ridiculous uniform she's wearing. She's pretending to not know him in order to not compromise their covers. Or maybe just because she doesn't want to talk to him. Serves him right, because now he's more interested in the question she asked him. Usually it would have been the ritual phrase that would have made him order three or four rounds of different cocktails, deliberately alternated gradation to be able to inhibit him sooner, but he reflects that his cab driver's job doesn't allow him to drink alcohol, not until the end of his shift.

“One Pepsi,” James orders monotonously.

The girl writes quickly on the command, tears it off and hands it to the bartender a few feet away from them, taking her leave without a word. 

The bartender hands him the drink and one glass, and James pours it carelessly, following Heather with his gaze. She's handing out drinks to a table of young boys and girls, fresh in their early twenties.

“I've never seen you, Anne. How long have you moved in?” asks one of the group, a brunette guy with shaved hair on the sides wearing a psychedelic sweatshirt. Carrying a nametag engraved under the collar of a uniform is not only an enforced invasion of privacy, but a rough invitation to hook up.

“I arrived a few days ago,” she replies vaguely.

“Where are you from?”

“Who ordered the Mojito?” Heather asks slyly, and James arches an amused eyebrow. She changed the subject to avoid answering that question without making it obvious. It was clear only to him, who knows her vicissitudes.

“We ordered an extra one. Do you want it?” goes a Hispanic guy with backward hair and a dark skin tone. He has an impudent face and a nose piercing that give him the rebellious look to which simpleton girls easily fall victim. 

“Sorry, I can't drink that,” Heather informs, barely shaking her head.

“’Cause you're working?”

“Because I'm not a Mojito girl,” she retorts with a complicit half-smile. The Hispanic boy's smile widens further.

“We still have an extra cocktail. Pick one of ours, and in return you give us your phone number.”

“Manolo,” a girl calls him in a serious voice nudging him, then turns to Heather. “Forgive him, he's a hopeless playboy.”

James watches his traveling companion shrug, not uncomfortable at all. Ever since they met, she has treated him with manifest disdain and suspicion, so he assumed she was a dodgy, introverted girl. However, what he sees at that moment proves quite the opposite: it's like Heather has a natural propensity to interact with others, aggregating and adapting to the most disparate human beings. He has no idea how such a disposition can exist, because he has never had any. He has never been the life of the party, nor good at leading a chat for more than a few minutes. 

“Tell you what,” Heather proposes to the group, taking one of the glasses in her hand. “You buy me the drink and in return I'll tell you my name.”

“That's a start,” the guy in psychedelic sweatshirt says, only realizing after Heather has drained all the drink of the tiny but important detail he missed. “Wait a minute. We already know your name, it's written on the nametag.”

Heather wipes her mouth with her wrist and laughs heartily. James watches the scene in amazement. How can such a young girl manage to gulp down a cocktail composed almost entirely of hard liquor in one sip?

“Why don't you join us at Blue Vegas after you get off work?” proposes a black girl addressing Heather as she sips a Manhattan. “It's a club open until morning located near the highway exit. They make good music.”

Before his companion has time to speak, James hears a call from his work mobile phone. He answers the customer, and when he looks up Heather is gone. He turns to the bartender and leaves him some coins.

“Keep the change,” he says as he gets up for the exit.

Past five in the morning made the city streets empty and quiet, making James' cab ride fast and uneventful. He has just finished his shift and unloaded the last customers a few minutes earlier, a group of middle-aged women in search of lost youth. He goes over the speed limit, taking advantage of the total absence of cars, and heads to the garage, passing the place where Heather works. A distracted glance over the intersection suffices to realize that it's closed. He assumes this is to be expected, given the hour.

He parks the car and gets out, closing the door slowly, less out of politeness and more out of a sudden fatigue that weakens his muscles in a heartbeat. He walks down the hallway that runs alongside the workshop, eyeing other drivers about to start their shifts. There are four of them, in the waiting room, yet none of them speak to each other, caught up in inhaling tobacco or absent-mindedly flipping through some motoring magazine. It's as if that job invites people like him, lonely and unwilling to chat. He merely nods to a colleague who casually looks up from a magazine, then heads for the exit. He reaches the military-colored Ford and takes the road to the motel.

After parking, he stretches and exits the car as quickly as possible, driven by the urgent need to get away from the confined and claustrophobic space of whatever vehicle. He climbs the motel stairs and accesses his room by hastily turning the key. He pushes the door slowly and steps forward lightly to keep from waking his companion. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he notices that the bed is empty. He flips the light switch and reaches the closed bathroom door, knocking softly and calling out to her. Receiving no response, he turns the knob and looks out, finding only darkness and silence. In a fit of annoyance and concern, James wrinkles his nose. That damn girl. Hasn't she run away again? This is not the first time, and he has an inkling that it would not be the last, either. If this worst-case scenario is right, she doesn't have a vehicle, and that may give him an advantage, unlike last time.

As he ponders looking in the mirror, a memory strokes his mind. The guys chatting with her at the bar had mentioned a club. He doesn't remember the name of it, but the fact that it's near the highway exit. He turns the handle on the sink and flushes his face with cold water, impetuously, intending to wake up and chase away the stress that would follow him in the minutes – or even hours – of searching. He hastily puts his jacket back on, thanking the cold wind that scratches his facial skin, waking him up for good as soon as he opens the front door. He sighs as he reaches the car, felled by the faintly thwarted hope of not driving again for at least another sixteen hours. He puts on his seatbelt with irritated automaticity and sets off. 

Reaching the venue is not hard. The exit to the highway leads into an industrial area, consisting of a single road bordered by old establishments, some disused, some closed. He notices a parking lot full of cars and motorcycles. He pulls over and observes the environment beyond the window, noticing a plaza full of people talking loudly in an attempt to drown out the thunderous music echoing through the street and coming out of the only open, slightly lit building. 

James knows those places. They have not changed since the days of his early youth, during his high school years, in which an abandoned factory was used as a discotheque, taking advantage of the absence of inhabited buildings to make as much noise as needed. The place is a modern prefabricated pre-stressed concrete building, white and anonymous, and so too is the clear and spacious interior, where only a few speakers set up on either side of one stage and a small bar counter give indication that it's not a real factory. A few colorful theater spots have been placed on the structure below the ceiling, their beams intermittently illuminating the room crowded with people.

Everything is the same as ten years earlier, except for the music. A Fatboy Slim hit – Right Here, Right Now– echoes throughout the building, the British DJ's single that's been booming in recent months.

After parking, he makes his way to the plaza, struggling his way through people to enter the building. Groups of dancers crowded together raise their hands in time, covering the view of the entire interior. James walks along the walls until he reaches the stage, on which he climbs halfway up the scaffold and leans sideways, squeezing his eyes tight to focus on the room. He finds his partner a few moments later, less time than he thought: it took only a moment to glimpse Heather's canary-yellow work uniform, a jarring, anachronistic spot among the dark and sober attire of '90s fashion. She stands at the end of the room dancing with raised arms, wiggling like a wild girl with her new acquaintances she gained at the bar – James recognizes the psychedelic sweatshirt of one of the boys.

He quickly steps off the stage and heads her way, thrusting some individuals intoxicated by music and various drug effects that make them completely numb. When he reaches her, he turns her toward him by the shoulder; Heather responds by accompanying the movement and resting her hands on his chest. Only when he sees her move in time with music does he realize it was an automatic reaction to an invitation to dance. After a long look at his face, the girl realizes, with a delayed snap, she is facing her traveling companion.

“Mr. Mason!” she exclaims laughing sincerely amused, far too amused, and what is stranger is that James detects no artificialness in her smile. He observes her glazed eye and weighted eyelids, realizing she's drunk. Not like in the pitiful condition he first found her in, but enough to consider his company mysteriously worthy of interest. He has experienced similar moments himself, however dodgy he has always been. The worst part is that he still considers that the best laughs and friendships were had on those faded nights, between the fumes of alcohol and picturesque tales of unknown drunkards. 

Heather stands on tiptoe and hugs him around the neck with the same heartfelt drive of someone who hasn't seen a close friend in a while. James holds her up with his hands on her back feeling her falter, ignoring the surprised looks of her new acquaintances.

“We have to go home,” James tells her in a firm voice.

“Why?” interjects the guy in the psychedelic sweatshirt. “Who the hell are you?”

“I'm her boyfriend,” he replies out of the blue, without thinking. Heather takes a step away only to give him an even more confused look than her friends. Luckily, her back is turned to them and they cannot see it.

“Aren't you a little too old to be her boyfriend?” the Hispanic guy asks, approaching James suspiciously, puffing up in his leather jacket and raising his chin to match his height.

“Fuck,” the blond man retorts, looking at him crookedly, “I'm not even thirty.”

“Really? Let me see your ID then.”

The two stop sustaining their gaze when they hear a twittering laugh that gradually increases in intensity. It comes from Heather, who is laughing so hard she has to hold her stomach and lean forward. James stands dumbfounded, while one of the girls in the group giggles sincerely amused.

“Man, she's really drunk.”

That's definitely it, but there is further justification for that laugh, and it's a criminal secret shared only between the two of them: James' ID card reads the age of a 50-year-old man. Or at least that's what he assumes is the unusual detail that caused her to laugh so hard. Odds are that in a less tense and more benign context it would have amused even him. 

“Anne,” James says after Heather has calmed down, and he pulls her by the wrist to get her attention. “Anne,” he repeats louder, to remind her of the fake name she gave herself and forgot as soon as she lifts her elbow, “Come on.”

“Let her do what she wants,” the black chick alters, approaching Heather to encircle her arm. “I've had a boyfriend like that too, Anne. Don't let their possessiveness and jealousy rule you.”

James cannot hide a contrite grimace at that heartfelt, feminist outburst. What she asserts isn't wrong, but her unfamiliarity with their dangerous situation has led her to the wrong conclusions. Come to think of it, if he had told them he was her brother it would have been less problematic.

Heather smiles at her friend and approaches James with an uncertain step, taking him by the arm. “Don't worry, he's not the one in command, I am. Isn't it, dear?”

James responds with another grimace, this time resentful. If there is one true thing, it's just that: since their first meeting, she has always been the one to dictate rules and orders.

“I want to dance, not go home,” Heather says, then turns to her fictional boyfriend to give him an eloquent look. “I want to dance with you.”

James casts a quick glance at the small group of twenty-year-olds intent on listening and judging with looks of annoyance or amusement. “Okay,” he replies hastily. Without those nosy kids in the way he will have a way to act idly.

Heather smiles and presses a kiss to his cheek, her warm alcohol-smelling breath bumping James' nostrils. The girl takes him by the hand and leads him to the dance floor.

Taking advantage of the confusion, James tightens his grip on the hand to drag her to the exit, but Heather manages to wriggle out and blend into the crowd. The young man sighs in annoyance. She reminds him of a certain little girl he met in the worst of circumstances. The nightmare of Silent Hill kept his mind too busy to mind the few other unfortunates he encountered along that perilous path, but Laura's presence, along with Maria's, had been the most significant. Heather reminded him of her: a mischievous and elusive child, a thorn in his side that a series of vicissitudes had forced him to endure. Yet, in the same way, an inexplicable protective feeling led him to care sincerely, to defend her from danger at the cost of risking his life.

She watches Heather as she dances and twirls in place, wondering how she manages to have so much energy and agility to not stumble even once, as if the alcohol coursing through her veins doesn't give her the unwanted and more common effect of clumsiness and dizziness. He late notices the bottle of beer she guzzles without stopping moving, offered by a guy who takes advantage to get too close. James grabs her by the arm to draw her to him, and Heather giggles, returning the empty bottle to the stranger. She continues to dance spinning around herself and around him, so fast that he barely follows her with his eyes. He grabs her by the forearm to force her to stay in front of him, and she goes along with his wishes by taking his hands and moving in time, urging him to do the same. 

“Are you always so stiff when you dance?” she asks him, moving closer to his ear to be heard. James ignores her blunt consideration, searching with his eyes for the exit, noticing that the spotlights have begun to cast a dimmer light, accompanied by an increasingly slow beat. A new song resonates in the room, a chorus in the background that James relates back to the harrowing voices of ghosts haunting a mansion – The velocity of time turns her voice into sugar water. He wonders if it was Silent Hill that messed with his head enough to pair such an creepy fantasy with such an erotic song.

It's almost casually that he lays his gaze on Heather's body in front of him moving at a slow, loose pace, her eyes closed, rapt and caged in an intimate dimension far removed from the noisy, crowded room they are in. He almost envies the way she is able to do it. He wishes he could. 

She entwines her hands behind the back of James's head, then loosens her grip and her fingers caress his jaw, stiffening him. He watches her smile as she turns her half-closed eyes elsewhere, and reflects that she is just hungover, that anyone could be in front of her and she's just lost in an unknown, mystical dimension. Heather turns slowly, her back to him a few inches away, moving her arms upward in rhythm. From that angle, underneath the short brown wig, he sees her uncovered neck beaded with sweat. It's thin and white, and he doesn't know why he can't look away, can't help but lean forward, sensing the scent of her skin, the smell of her sweat, awakening a long-forgotten reminiscence deep within him. 

James contracts his body, which a moment before was moving to the music, standing steady and with his hands abandoned, an unnatural contrast to the rest of the room, like a blade of grass among many in the wind but unlike the rest being shaken it remains inexplicably still. Heather takes his hands and places them on her hips, restraining them with her own, continuing to move her shoulders, head, and hips with a fluidity that contrasts the rigidity that has taken hold of James. With every sway of her, their bodies touch, for a few moments, just enough for a wrong tingle to run through his bowels. He tightens his grip on her, climbing onto her belly, and Heather turns. In a hint of probable awareness she seems to cast him a look of astonishment, but it lasts a moment and turns into a smile. James' hands are back at her hips and her arms on his shoulders, fingers entwined behind the nape of his neck. Their faces are inches apart and, unlike before, James doesn't feel disgust at any smell of alcohol, far from it; her lips are now a disconcerting invitation. He feels her gaze penetrate his eyes; he's conscious that she now sees him, no longer as an unfamiliar, faded silhouette, and this particular detail is what terrifies him to the point of releasing his hold and grabbing her wrists to lower them roughly and coldly. Unwillingly, his hands squeeze harder than necessary, causing her to grimace in pain.

What the hell was he doing? Behaving like a teenager reacting to the first, slight provocation. He casts the girl a look that appears intimidated, even resentful, finding her in her former state, abandoned between the present and an imaginary reality created by the alcoholic languor.

He takes her face in his hands to look at her firmly. “Close your eyes.”

“Why?” Heather asks, slurring words.

“It's a game,” he explains, flickering a new amused anticipation into her heated eyes. She smiles and lowers her eyelids, indulging in the once again frenzied music and in his arms holding her and making her do a few pirouettes. She feels even more lost than before, but this only entertains her more. It feels good to exist without knowing where to be anymore.

An icy gust of wind abruptly brings her back to reality. She opens her eyes in confusion, finding herself outside the threshold of the club's entrance. 

“What the hell,” she protests trying to wriggle out of his grip, and in response James leans forward, grabs her by the hips and lifts her off the ground, settling her on his shoulders like a potato sack. At first Heather struggles with her legs, but the sudden throbbing in her temples at finding herself upside down causes her to dizzy further, prompting her a sudden, thunderous laugh. Groups of people turn to watch him proceed briskly toward the street, holding her with surprising firmness as she shakes her whole body and holds her wig that was almost about to fall off. The fact she laughs so hard reassures most of them, who return to their drinks and chatter.

“So, my boyfriend is a caveman,” Heather considers in laughter, propping herself up with her elbows on his back to raise her torso and look into his face. All she can see is the back of his head. “By the way, how long have we been together?”

James ignores the question, but she continues undaunted, as if not really addressing him but her own thoughts. 

“It's important to know,” she considers looking up broodingly, “I mean, I only turned eighteen a few months ago. If you want to avoid prison, it's better that you've only recently met me. Or maybe you're one of those fellows who likes it?”

James snorts, finding it difficult to continue as he searches with his free hand for his keys in his jacket pocket on the opposite side. He stops to avoid losing his balance as he rotates with his pelvis and tilts his shoulder.

“I've made up my mind, we've been together less than a month,” Heather decrees amusedly. “We're living the honeymoon phase where we have to get to know each other yet. The one where we fuck a lot and fight hardly at all. What do you think?”

It's another rhetorical question, because she doesn't wait for his answer before continuing.

“I've never been with a guy eleven years older than me,” she ponders, adjusting the wig on her head. “I wonder how Dad would have taken it…” 

James senses a more prolonged silence than usual, then the girl's hands gripping the fabric of his jacket at his trapezius level. 

“Let me down,” she tells him in a dark, low voice, “I can walk to the car by myself.”

The young man stops on the side of the road and slowly loosens his grip, uncertain. He senses that his companion is not responding, so he encircles her waist with his free arm and slides her slowly down until he's facing her. Heather turns her back to him and walks toward the Ford without saying a word.

She waits for James to unlock the car, then she opens the back door wide and plops down on the seats with her arms folded and her gaze furrowed. The young man glances at her frowning, sits in the driver's seat and starts the engine.

They spend the whole way back without saying a word to each other.

The motel room door is thrown wide open while supporting Heather's weight as she grabs the handle to hold herself up. She stumbles a few steps until she flops onto the bed on her stomach, abandoning herself languidly. James closes the door behind him and watches her, evoking in that scene the desperate image of a castaway touching land after hours of swimming.

Heather turns and grabs her boots to take them off and carelessly throw them on the ground. The young man takes off his jacket and sets it on the coat rack at the entrance, but when he turns around he finds her with a flask in her hand.

“Hey, that's mine,” James realizes with annoyance approaching her. “You little thief.”

“Look who's talking,” Heather replies curtly, looking at him with defiance. “This is Douglas' flask.”

The young man tightens his lips and frowns. “Give it back.”

Her lips pull up and the hand holding the object reaches overhead. “Come and get it.”

James looks at her with suspicion and apprehension. That's a dangerous game he doesn't want to play. “Do whatever you want, it's empty anyway.”

The girl smiles victoriously and begins to drink from the flask, earning a confused look from James. “The guys at the club refilled it for me. They're a lot nicer than you.”

“Why are you doing this?” he asks in a tone that has lost all remnants of nervousness and weariness.

“What?”

“Smashing yourself like this with alcohol,” James replies, looking at her with a gaze that is neither critical nor shows disdain. It would be hypocritical to judge her for that, because he himself is a victim of it; he knows well the illusory relief that alcohol can give. It takes a good deal of sadness and self-destruction to be capable of it. 

Heather watches him in silence, peering into his eyes that show no disgust but only imperceptible concern, making her let her guard down. She takes another quick sip, then looks at him again. 

“A year ago I discovered a part of me that I didn't know. It happened when my father… since he's not around,” she says leaning with both hands on the mattress and her back against the headboard, “This part of me comes out when I'm sad or angry. I tried to keep it at bay, to have positive thoughts by reading no idea how many self-care manuals, but I could never control her. So one night I started drinking, and I found that I felt happy, for a while. It's not real happiness, it's just… I don't think about being sad.”

James fully understands the meaning of those last words, and the thing that puzzles him is that it was a young girl of just over eighteen who understood it in such fitting words.

“This part of you that comes out… what do you mean?” James asks referring to the only point in the explanation that he didn't understand.

Heather shows a sad smile. “Forget it, James. It's just some drunk's talk.”

He wishes he could be one of those balanced, mature adults, the kind who helps younger people who are losing their way. He wishes he could say that alcohol is not the solution, that true happiness is located through positive attitudes and sweet little things that life offers. But he cannot do that, because he's like her, has been for years. He remains silent as he watches her drink and then take off her wig, exposing her blond hair held back by hairpins. She removes them one by one, with exasperating slowness. From time to time she tilts her head to facilitate her movements, and James looks at her without saying a word.

Heather returns his gaze, for a long while, beginning to smile. “Was your wife blond?”

The young man falls from the sky at that question. “Why do you ask?”

“I bet she was.”

“No, she wasn't,” James replies, omitting the fact that her counterpart, the one created by his imagination and the cruel projections of Silent Hill, was. A beautiful, shiny blond. She had an enigmatic, provocative smile. In that moment, Heather reminds him of her. She has the same insolence, the same disinhibition, the same audacity in seeking physical contact. She's sitting with her legs bent and her knees resting on the mattress, languid and relaxed. Wearing her maid's uniform, she looks like the subject of one of those typical 1960s pin-ups drawn by hyper-ralist illustrators. She looks like Maria, but she also has something different. Maria was seductive in an amused and spontaneous way, while Heather's charm is accompanied by an adolescent rage.

After removing the last hairpin, she looks at James with a deep gaze. “Alcohol is not the only way to make me forget to be sad. Sometimes I let strangers approach me. It's nice. Occasionally, I even fuck them.”

The young man stiffens his shoulders. He does it in such an obvious way that amuses her. “Do you like fucking, James?”

The latter gives her a stunned and tense look. Should he seriously answer such a question?

“If I'm with the right person,” he replies, ashamed to play the role of the mentor who teaches the young person the well-meaning dictates of society, a construct he had skillfully managed to avoid up to that point. It's a lie, she knows, and that makes her laugh.

“With the right person,” she repeats wryly, shaking her head in amusement.

“You're drunk, Heather.”

“And the sky is blue and the grass is green…” 

“I'm not the type to take advantage like the ones I first saw you with,” James explains, getting a confused look from Heather. “I bet you don't even remember. You were high, almost unconscious, and those two wanted to seclude themselves with you. One of them almost put his hand in your underpants in front of everyone. Luckily, I showed up in time and got you out of trouble.”

He expects her to thank him, to finally catch a glimpse of his moral and selfless side, but all she does is shrug her shoulders and look away. “You should have let them.”

James remains interjected at those words, and a surge of sadness causes him to frown. “What are you punishing yourself for so much?”

Heather looks up at him in a fit of spite and bitterness. She quickly gets out of bed, staggering to her backpack to grab some clothes. “I'm going to change,” she says only entering the bathroom quickly and leaving the door open. 

James sighs and sits bewildered on the edge of the bed. His mind is still stuck on the last exchanges of words they had.

“Fuck,” Heather curses beyond the open door.

“What is it?” James asks as he looks out, finding her struggling with the zipper of her uniform all the way down her back.

“Stop,” James says reaching behind her and taking the plastic puller from her. “It's stuck.”

He waves it up and down without straining it too hard, until he can free it and slide it along the metal catches. He doesn't wait to be thanked, having realized that Heather would never have such impulses, and he makes to back away a step until a detail stops him. It's the back of Heather's head, white and thin, observed from the same angle as when he danced with her. The smell of skin, in the narrow, aseptic bathroom, is even stronger. He leans forward and Heather straightens her back, buffeted by shivers caused by his warm breath tickling her neck. James laps her skin with his lips under the hairline of her head and Heather lets out a long breath and moans in pleasure, causing the man to lose his last glimmer of rationality. She takes his hands and brings them to her breasts, over her uniform. She's lustful and so easily turned on, like all young girls. James tightens his grip, feeling between his fingers, beyond the shoddy fabric of the maid's outfit, the nipples that have become turgid from the chills on her neck. In a second he sends all the nice words from before to hell and turns her around abruptly, leaning her against the doorframe. She looks at him with labored breathing and declared expectancy on her shiny eyes.

Fuck. He hoped to be a better man coming out of Silent Hill.

He grabs her by the shoulders and backtracks toward the bedroom, pulling her with him, then shoves her badly onto the mattress, lying on top of her without crushing her.

“James,” Heather mutters, squinting her eyes and getting serious. “I felt a strange thing in my stomach when you pushed me…” 

The girl tries to stand up with her torso by putting a hand in front of her mouth, and, sensing the trouble in doing that and her dismayed look, James puts a hand behind her back to help her. As soon as she's up, she runs straight to the bathroom, in such a hurry that she doesn't have time to close the door. The noise that follows is so predictable that the young man is not surprised. 

He faces the bathroom doorstep, catching Heather hunched over the toilet seat kneeling on the floor as she throws up. He sighs, deciding to half-close the door, just enough to give her some privacy and allow him to act promptly in case she needs help. He nervously walks around the small room, rubbing his jaws with a worried look. He was about to make the biggest screw-up since his return from Silent Hill. He had a drunk, lost girl under him, just like him. Two lost, frightened wretches needing escapes to feel less lonely. Together, they're dangerous and out of control. He's thankful for Heather's stomach sickness, which arrived with lucky timing.

James hears the flushing sound and the running of water from the sink. Five minutes later, he sees Heather emerge with weak steps wearing a plain T-shirt and cotton shorts. She doesn't even look at him, silently lying down on the mattress until she's lying sideways on the opposite edge, her back to him.

“Are you okay?” 

James knows he asked a stupid question. Of course she's not, suffering from the most vicious and annoying alcohol hangover.

“I'm over the moon,” Heather still manages to answer with her ever-present irony. It's a sign that she's not too sick. “I hate when parties end like this. I stay up all night with stomach cramps and a headache.”

James sensed that she suffered from insomnia like him, and an idea pops into his head.

“I'll get you something,” he tells her, heading to the coat rack and looking for something in his jacket pocket. Heather looks around in curiosity, barely turning her neck with effort, weakened by the side effects of the hangover. She spots in his hand a small plastic bottle filled with pills.

“I think they can help you,” he explains, approaching her as he opens the lid. He doesn't have time to sit on the mattress that the girl mysteriously recovers all her strength and rises up with her torso, extending a hand in the direction of the bottle with a craving in her burning eyes that looks desperate. James pulls the bottle away from her, intimidated by that reaction. She's willing to accept whatever is offered as a palliative without inquiring whether it's unsafe or not. It could have been a drug or any other dangerous substance and she would not care.

“It's Restoril, a benzodiazepine sleeping pill. I bought it today. It's very strong, and you can buy it in this State without prescription,” James explained, shaking the bottle slightly with the opening facing the palm of his other hand and popping out a few pills. “You can take two at the most, no more, Heather. Two only, understood?”

The tone he used sounds like a teacher talking to a child with learning disabilities. It may sound annoying, but he doesn't want to have any more burdens on his conscience. Lacking the right dose, those pills can give dangerous side effects.

“When I can't get high and I'm alone, I watch the videotape,” Heather mumbles in a low, slurred voice. “Sometimes I can even fall asleep for a few hours.”

James looks at her in curiosity and confusion, noticing her eyelids become heavy from sudden tiredness.

“I'd like to pick it up from my backpack, but I don't have the strength,” she murmurs, taking a long breath. “It feels so good. It feels like being on the clouds.”

The girl closes her eyes, tilting her shoulder the moment all the muscles in her body relax. James continues to look at her, silently, and guilt mixed with tenderness leads him to linger his gaze on her half-open mouth and the rebellious wisps of hair that fall confusingly in front of her eyes. He gets out of bed and pulls down the sheets and blankets beneath her, trying to shake her as little as possible. He takes the edges and lays them over her up to her shoulders, then rests a serious, lingering gaze on her backpack. He approaches it, unzips it, and rummages through things until he finds a VHS box. He opens it slowly, finding inside an unlabeled tape. An uncontrolled shiver runs down his spine, caught in a deja-vu that causes him to gasp for a few seconds. The last time he found a videotape in his hands was when he discovered the truth about his wife's death. He tries to overcome his own fear and slowly approaches the television set. He inserts the cassette into the player and turns on the TV.

The anxiety that has stunned him disappears as soon as James sees a little girl's smiling face on the screen. It's a close-up slightly blurry, as if the person who shot it had zoomed in to maximum. He can tell from the cardboard set behind her that it is a theatrical play. The little girl has a chubby face and dark, shoulder-length hair pulled back by a red headbend. She's dressed like a beggar or something, but she hardly speaks. She says only two lines, putting emphasis and punctuating the words well, with an unnaturally high tone of voice, like all novice actors of that age. When she ends she looks toward the camera and waves.

The same little girl, shortly after, is lying in the arms of a tall, Caucasian man. It's only a few shots later that James realizes he's the same person in the ID Heather gave him, a younger version. The logical consequence comes naturally, and James sees the same freckles and wide smile on the little girl as his traveling companion.

The young man sits on the edge of the bed with his arms resting on his thighs and leans forward, catching every detail that passes on the screen. The child has grown up. She's about thirteen years old and at a birthday party. She has bob hair and is laughing along with other peers, mostly girls like her. She runs into the backyard to chase a large dog with a tennis ball in its mouth, intimating it to stop in a voice that is both angry and amused. She asks her father to help her instead of filming her.

She's fifteen, maybe sixteen years old, and stands in a skate park. She addresses the camera person by calling her by a female name, asking to frame past her without being noticed. There is a small group of boys a little older than them, the reason they are there. Heather has a crush on the blond guy on the skateboard going down the ramp. She asks her friend to film her using the rollerblades. She turns on the music in the stereo and begins to dance on the rollerblades, following a choreography she learned by rote. The camera zooms past her, focusing on the group of boys. Finished dancing, Heather approaches the camera and asks if the guy she has a crush on has looked at her, and an embarrassed, sincere smile spreads across her face as soon as she receives an affirmative answer. Her cheeks turn red, and in an embarrassed move she hides her lips behind her fist. Dark, wavy locks down to her shoulders move with the wind.

She's blond now. The shot is distorted because she points the camera at herself. She explains that her father is in a bookstore signing copies of his new book. The camera pans around, framing him waving awkwardly as he sits on a desk with two tall stacks of books. A few people stand in line and look confused toward the camera, blindsided. The father apologizes for her impetuousness, and in a voice that is shy but also has a hint of pride, he tells them: she's my daughter.

James smiles and looks at the girl, the real-life one sleeping behind him. Suddenly, Douglas' words come back to him: in this picture she was radiant and there was no space for any real concern, as there should be for a girl her age. The subject framed on the television traces those words: a teenager having a crush with a witty banter, a little girl running in a yard, and a child taking part in a school play. Everything is so ordinary and mundane that James feels for the first time truly sorry for her. The passing roundup of little glimpses of her past is a remarkable contrast to life she leads now. He is aware that he deserves the tortures of Silent Hill, but he wonders why a lively, normal girl like her should have suffered the same fate.

James gives her a sad smile, then grabs the bottle of pills. He swallows two of them, grabs his jacket from the coat rack and sits down in the armchair next to him, settling the indument over his legs like a blanket.

On the screen, Heather is asking a New Yorker for directions to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her smile, as she calls out to her father who has wandered off in the wrong direction, is the last thing he sees before his eyes close.

Chapter Text

James opens his eyes watching the faded green carpet under his feet, awakened by a background noise. When his ears identify the continuous buzz of radio-like interference, a rush of adrenaline stimulates every muscle of his body, awakening him violently. He instinctively brings a hand to his belt to reach for a nonexistent knife, and an increasingly raging pulse begins to pound his chest. When he focuses on the static on the turned-on television screen, a memory makes its way into his mind, at first confused, then increasingly clear. He fell asleep at dawn while watching Heather's videotape, the tape ran out, and no longer receiving signals, the TV transmitted white noise all morning.

At that realization, James tries to master every fiber of his body to calm his heartbeats, until in one long, silent minute he succeeds. He rises from the chair on which he had slumbered and turns off the television, sending back the tape in the recorder. He looks at Heather who hasn't moved since he last saw her, still placidly sleeping in a restful slumber. She has a relaxed expression that he's sure he's never seen in her awake state.

The VHS tape cuts off, making a sudden, dry noise in the absolute silence of the room, and James pulls it out of the video recorder to put it back in her backpack. He turns to his companion worried that she might have woken up, finding her in the same position as before with her eyes closed and her breathing slow. He cannot restrain a smile, against every rational will, lingering with his gaze on her delicate face and the coat of freckles coloring her cheeks. The only thought that finally manages to eradicate him from that unreasonable demeanor is the fear of frightening her if she woke up at that moment. He walks to the front door and grabs his jacket, searching his pocket for the pair of gloves Heather gave him. He struggles into them, too small for his manly hands, and leaves the room, making sure to close the door softly.

He walks down the stairs to head to the two vending machines he had spotted the day before. He approaches the coffee one, driven by the compelling need to wake up, and inserts some coins taken from his inner jacket pocket. As he waits for the coffee to be dispensed, he glances at the vending machine alongside, noticing some soft drinks, snacks and condoms stored there. The district in which the motel is located has no supermarkets nearby, so the owner has thought to install what he considers basic necessities for his customers. He sips his coffee, smiling for the man's entrepreneurial inventive. He would have been a model of perfect professionalism if not for the grumpy attitude with which he receives his guests.

Finishing his drink, James throws the paper cup into the wastebasket and lingers his gaze on the vending machine, inserting another coin. He doesn't want to fully investigate what was the impulse that led him to make that act thinking of her. By no means that he's an unkind person, far from it. But he reflects that such attentions shouldn't exist between two roommate. She's a stranger he doesn't even know her coffee preferences, a lost presence with no future like him that makes him feel a little less lonely. But maybe something has changed since he forcefully snuck into her life through the glimpses of her videotape. There is an impulse that moves his intentions no longer of pure survival.

He returns to the room, closing the door slowly, but the creaking of rusty hinges causes her to wake up this time. She emits a low moan and squints her eyes, her vision is still blurred but she can sense the intense smell of coffee teasing her nostrils. She smiles and turns slowly, laying on her back.

“Doug?” she murmurs, but when her eyes focus on the man in front of the door they distinguish the tall, sculpted figure of her traveling companion. “Ah, James,” she says in a slurred voice and a hint of embarrassment. The young man might have expected even a hint of disappointment, but none can be found, far from it, she bestows on him a slight, sincere smile.

“I brought you coffee,” he says approaching the bed and reaching out his hand with the cup toward her. Heather gives him an amazed look, then hesitantly grabs the paper cup.

“Thanks.”

James reflects that this is the first time she has ever thanked him for anything. So little is she used to it that he can't help but arch an eyebrow in surprise.

“There is no sugar,” he only informs in a monotone voice.

“I like this way,” she refers with a half-smile, savoring the coffee with obvious relish. “Black and long.”

“You naughty girl,” James jokes, making her laugh while drinking. She coughs and hits her sternum a few times, giggling.

“Idiot,” she says looking at him with amusement. It's the same wide smile that accentuates her cheeks he saw in the videotape. He's not the type to make jokes. Now and then, maybe, but not the kind so openly equivocal. He just hoped to see her smile like that.

Heather continues to drink, and a protracted silence bursts into the room. Not knowing what to do, James sits in the armchair, while she rests her back on the headboard and lifts her knees under the covers, encircling them with her free arm. Embarrassment and tension begin to creep into him. He wonders if his companion remembers anything from last night, like the kiss on her neck or her breasts being probed from above her maid's uniform. He fears to find out.

“How much did you earn yesterday?” he asks to urgently break that onerous silence.

Heather places her finished coffee down and grabs the abandoned uniform on the bedside table, searching through her pockets. She lays some coins and bills on the bed, counting them one by one. “Eighty-five dollars. Since yesterday I was in trial period the boss gave me forty in cash, the other forty-five are tips,” she informs with satisfaction.

“Drunk are giving people,” James claims in a conversational tone.

“Or maybe I'm just a good waitress,” Heather retorts, smiling mockingly.

“I’m a terrible cab driver and I got more tips than you. As it happens, my customers were almost always drunk.”

The girl makes a resentful grimace. “So what, you ask how much I earned to compete?”

“No, to find out how much money we have in total, approximately $140. The rest arrives in my paycheck at the end of the month,” James explains as he gets up from his chair to head to the window and draw the curtains. The day prospects clear skies with cloudy patches. “We can go to the mall.”

“To the mall?” she repeats in disbelief rather than incomprehension.

“We can shop and have lunch there. I hear there's a huge arcade, too,” he says, but the explanation isn't enough to make her stop getting that amazed and confused look. He takes a step closer to the bed and looks at her with care. “We deserve some entertainment. After all, what's the point of keeping so much money aside? We don't know what the future holds.”

Heather knows it's just a common saying, but the way it reflects their situation is tremendously and tragically real. Yet, she finds no agitation or despondency in James' gaze. In fact, he seems more enthusiastic than any she has had so far.

An excited smile outlines on her face. “It's been ages since I've been to a mall,” she confides to him, vigorously getting out of bed, grabbing her backpack and running to the bathroom. “I'll just take a quick shower and I'm ready.”

“Don't use up all the hot water, I have to make it too,” James says, receiving in response a vigorous slamming of the bathroom door. He scratches his head and looks out the window, resting his gaze on the semi-deserted streets at 1:45 in the afternoon, where everyone has returned from work and retired to eat their lunches. If what will be left of his life are short-term stops and road trips, he will have to set himself up with the right equipment. A backpack, some new briefs and pants, a T-shirt or two. A toothbrush – he can use her soaps, toothpaste and deodorant. He touches his jaws, feeling a beginning of a beard under his chin and near his cheeks, reflecting that he also needs a shaving foam, a razor and an aftershave.

He glances at the gloves sticking out of his jacket pocket. He ponders whether to buy a pair more appropriate for his large hands, then shakes his head. Those he already has are fine.

As soon as they parked, Heather runs to the mall entrance, leaving James behind who locks the Ford and sighs at his companion's predictable reaction. She did nothing but talk the whole way about what she was going to buy and look for at the shopping center, peppering him with information that James only half understood. Nonetheless, he decided never to interrupt her, letting her talk her heart out. After all, he didn't really care to know about lottery booth or loyalty cards.

James enters the large semicircular atrium of the mall by stepping through the automatic sliding doors. The building is so tall that he didn't get the usual feeling of being indoors as when he walks through a door. Above him, two floors of balconies run around the rectangular perimeter of the facility, reached by two rows of escalators and a glass elevator at the side. In the lobby on the ground floor are several itinerant stalls, some of them selling out products from the recently passed Thanksgiving holiday, while others offer the most overused and common Christmas merchandise. A holiday jingle resonates in the air, but the loud, overpowering hubbub of the customers almost drowns it out.

Heather grabs her companion by the arm to get his attention.

“Look, there's a car dealership,” she tells him enthusiastically, pointing with her finger to the first store on the left past the entrance.

“Are you looking for a $140 car?” James jokes, but the girl doesn't listen to him and drags him along. The young man rolls his eyes and lets himself be carried away.

The dealership environment is much more somber and classy than the lobby, an abrupt jump to a completely different world simply by crossing the door. It's a feeling that brings disorientation to James, while excitement to Heather. The latter notices the salesman on the other side of the huge room singing the latest Fiat model's praises to an Asian family, and she takes the opportunity to head for the farthest exposed car, taking her companion with her. She enters the car, motioning for him to follow. James ponders whether or not they are contravening some company policy, but, catching sight of the salesman encouraging the Asian family to do likewise, decides to follow her.
“You could have simply asked the salesman to show you the car,” he says after slowly closing the door.

“He would only storm us with questions and information. I don't care.”

“Then why are we here?”

In response, Heather closes her eyes and leans back on the seat headrest. “I like the smell of new cars.”

James watches her distended face and relaxed smile, then inhales to catch whatever she's talking about. It's an intense, chemical smell not found anywhere else. The smell of cars fresh out of factories.

“You know, no matter which car you get into, the smell is always the same,” Heather informs, remaining with her eyes closed. “But if you buy it and use it even two days, you don't smell it anymore.”

James wonders what her nostalgic memory paired with that smell is, whether a school trip or a vacation with her parents. He knows he will never find out, satisfied with seeing her happy. He closes his eyes too, savoring the silence and closeness of his companion, both of their elbows resting on the armrests touching.

The idyll is violently interrupted by a loud and cheerful voice: “May I be of assistance, sir and madam?”

The two open their eyes at the sight of another salesman, younger and withback-lacquered hair.

“No need, thank you,” James replies politely, but as soon as he tries to exit the man steps in front of him blocking his passage.

“As many as 48 liters of tank capacity, only 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers! Low-cost, environmentally friendly fuel! It's a golden bargain, gentlemen!” he exclaims in a faux-exuberant voice.

“The seats aren't that comfortable, though,” Heather claims, swaying her back as if trying to find a comfy position. “My boyfriend and I love to have sex in the car, but this model lacks ergonomic seats and the armrests are so stiff. Don't you think so, too, darling?”

James gives her a confused look, while the salesman one intimidated and even more shocked.

“Excuse me?” he manages only to say.

“We also simulated our favorite positions, but we're not convinced. The vehicle has a low roof and very little space, and it doesn't allow us to do it in threesomes. We have an overwhelming passion for threesome sex. Perhaps you would like to sit down to get an idea of what I mean?”

The salesman quiets his smile that he had skillfully managed to maintain all that time.

“I think… Mister and Madam are looking for something more suitable we don't have.”

“Too bad,” Heather says as she walks out and takes James by the arm, heading for the exit.

“Was that necessary to scare him like that?” he asks after a few seconds of disorientation.

“It was the only way to stop him. Did you notice how much he was blathering?”

“I'm sure there were less extravagant methods.”

Heather pauses to turn around and throw him a jaunty smile. “Okay, maybe I like to take the piss a little bit, but only with those who wear suits and ties.”

James shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips. “You are really a nasty girl.”

The girl giggles in satisfaction, as if she has just received a compliment, and heads for the escalators, closely followed by her companion, who, in contrast to her, advances at a slow, mechanical walk. As they arrive upstairs, they notice a stall selling books and magazines, and next to it some children are sitting on the floor listening to a woman reading a story in an armchair.

Heather narrows her eyes to focus on the title, A Visit from St. Nicholas. The woman decants the poem in rhyme, articulating words and looking at all the children with a motherly glance.

“I don't know this story,” Heather admits in a low voice to not disturb the reading.

“Really?” James asks incredulously. “All Americans know it, it's been fobbed off every Christmas since childhood. Even I know it by heart.”

“Is that so?” Heather says distractedly, more absorbed in the story than in the conversation with the man.

He shrugs and starts leafing through some motorcycle and news magazines. At another time, he probably would have pushed himself to even look at some Playboys, even in the midst of all those children, if it were not for her presence. Something in her innocent enraptured air as she listens to the Christmas story restrains him from doing the most vulgar, erstwhile most everyday actions. The long period in which Mary's illness had worsened to the extent that she had been forced to spend a year in the hospital, suffocated by fear and loneliness, had led him to seek distractions in erotic magazines and cheap porn.

When the last verse of the story is decanted, a roar of applause echoes through the room. James catches sight of his companion smiling, but when she realizes she's being watched by him she recomposes herself by displaying a detached attitude.

“It wasn't bad,” she claims in an indifferent tone.

The young man puts down the magazine and hides a smile.

After a short walk, they head to a cosmetics store. It's the largest one they have entered so far, with a high ceiling and walls lined with advertisement posters featuring famous singers and actors.

“I need to buy some things, too. I'll meet you at the checkout,” James says as he started off in the opposite direction from where they were going.

“Eyeshadows aren't that way” Heather jokes, and the young man turns to predictably catch her looking at him provoking and amused.

“Men don't use eyeshadows,” he replies seriously, “those with taste use pencil.”

The girl's smile grows even wider than before and she steps closer. “Not only did you not take offense when I questioned your masculinity, you even made a funny joke. You know, James, the more I discover your hilarious side, the more I like you.”

A strange impulse prompts him to turn fully toward her and return her smile with a more posed, adult one. He scans her large, hazel eyes, but only briefly, until he catches an unusual hesitation in them. He retreats a step and puts his hands in his pockets.

“See you later,” he says only after he turns his back on her.

He looks for the man section with a lost look, distracted by other thoughts. He had never had such a strange relationship with a woman before, made up of shameless flirtation and at the same time chaste cares, such as toward a child. By no means that she's one. But at times she acts like one, while at times she is shameless and provocative. He wonders if she remembers what happened last night, the inevitable end toward which they would have headed if a simple external factor had not interrupted what was taking place on the bed.

He thoughtless contemplates a shaving foam in his hands, caught off guard when Heather calls to him from behind.

“Look,” she says to him, holding her left hand open to show her outstretched fingers. Each fingernail has a different color, randomly and uncaringly juxtaposed, lacking any color balance. “Which one do you like the most?”

“What did you do to your fingers?”

“There are free nail polish samples you can try on, and I've used them all,” the girl hastily explains, waving her fingers even closer. “So which one looks best with my skin tone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, I just asked for your advice,” she argues, looking at the shaving foam in his hands. She steals it from him without advising him, puts it down on the shelf and takes a smaller pack. “This one is for travel, it's more handy, and this one,” she continues to say taking an aftershave, “Dad used to put this one on all the time. It doesn't itch and it smells good.”

James looks at the packages in his hands, then gives her a puzzled look.

“See? I gave you some advice, too,” the girl reiterates with satisfaction, imperceptibly stiffening her shoulders as soon as she feels his hand take her palm from underneath to get a better look at her colorful nails. She avoids looking in that direction and lifts her gaze to his concentrated, brooding eyes.

“I like the yellow one,” he tells her, letting go and returning to look at the highest compartment on which the hand razors are displayed.

“Hmm,” Heather only murmurs unconvinced. “Lilac is more suitable for my skin. I'll take that one.”

“Why did you ask my advice then?”

The girl ignores him and heads briskly to the nail polish compartment, causing him to sigh in condescension. Alone again, he contemplates the aftershave package, considering whether to open it and smell the scent, but decides it's okay. She likes it, is the passing thought that crosses his mind without intentionally wanting to give it any weight.

Coming out of yet another store, they both carry three bulky and colorful bags. Heather seems to suffer no effort, still thrilled after so many hours by the chaotic and colorful atmosphere of the mall.

“James, look!” she exclaims in disbelief, suddenly stopping, almost colliding with him if the latter hadn't had his reflexes sufficiently ready. “That store is called Chapel of Love. They sell wedding dresses, rings, accessories, and oh my God, there's a real chapel where people can marry.”

The girl rushes to the window and, getting used to her enthusiasm that has never changed a bit, James follows her without even asking why, approaching her side as she studies every detail in the store. “I can't believe it, who came up with the idea of people getting married in a shopping mall?” she asks amused and astounded. “God bless America,” she jokes using a tone somewhere between scoffing and stupefied while looking at her companion.

“So what do we do? Do we get married?” James asks in an apathetic tone.

Heather turns theatrically putting her hand on her chest in a touched demeanor. “This is exactly the marriage proposal I've always dreamed of.”

She giggles and walks past him to enter the store. It's small, with simple white walls, furniture the same color and minimalist style. Every corner is plumped with lace and puffs.

Glass cases display rings, necklaces and even bouquets of flowers. Wedding dresses are on one side, tuxedos in every color on the other. A small corner department sells children's clothes. Behind them, an open door leads to a room used as a photo set, in which a flower archway and a small staircase are set before a professional camera on a tripod.

“James,” Heather calls in a whisper, grabbing him by the flap of his jacket and pulling him with her under an open doorway. In front of it extends a small narrow hallway, surrounding on the left side by a wall lined with wedding photographs and on the right side by a low sheetrock partition beyond which is the chapel, a small rectangular-based room with four white pews and a low staircase on which a wedding ceremony is taking place.

“Who would ever think of getting married here?” the girl murmurs as she looks at the bride and groom, a man and woman in their 30s holding hands while, next to them, a priest is in the midst of a heartfelt oration. Only two people are assisting the event, standing on either side of the steps, probably their witnesses.

“Perhaps poor people, or generally those who cannot afford twenty thousand dollars in ceremony,” he considers, following the scene with a blank stare.”Maybe couples on elopement, or who have to do it discreetly because they have a secret or obstructed relationship…”

Heather carefully observes the expressions of the bride and groom-to-be and smiles. “They look really happy.”

James tries to focus on the detail that catches his traveling companion, but he seems to notice nothing but his agitated expression and her intimidated face. He cannot see beyond that surface, perhaps because it was different for him. He had a grand wedding, a celebration with more than a hundred guests, almost all attending as Mary's acquaintances. Born and raised in a Catholic family, with a sunny and communicative nature, it had been inevitable that she would receive such presence and love on the most important day of her life.

Lost in his own thoughts, James absentmindedly returns to reality to the moment of the two strangers' promises in the chapel.

“I promise to be faithful to you always, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health,” the groom-to-be recites, and only then an unpleasant shiver runs down his spine. He grabs the girl by the wrist, tugging her unintentionally more than necessary.

“Let's go,” he tells her dryly as he exits the store without waiting for her. Heather watches his back with concern, wondering if it wasn't a sudden care for intruding without permission into such an intimate moment between two strangers that made him so uncomfortable.

She follows him grabbing the bags left at her feet and her stomach begins to rumble noisily.

“I'm hungry,” Heather loudly refers, following such a mundane consideration with an unusually amazed expression. “God, I haven't felt that hungry in a long time.”

James turns to look at her awarely, without needing to ask for an explanation, because he knows well the feeling of having no appetite; he also hopes that one day he will enjoy the same, sudden miracle.

“How about lunch at the pizza place on the ground floor?” he proposes.

“I know where to go, just follow me.”

She said it in a way by which it's deduced that it's been different so far, but in fact he hasn't stopped following her all afternoon. He shrugs his shoulders and follows her in resigned silence.
He's not surprised to find in a shopping mall, the highest form of materialism in a four-walled and fifty-thousand-square-foot conglomeration, the largest fast food franchise in the world.

After ordering, while waiting for their food to be prepared, they sit at a set apart, small table. Heather has taken a straw from the counter, discarded it and bites into it, while James takes the opportunity to lie down on the comfortable back of the small sofa to rest his legs.

“You don't like shopping malls very much, do you?” she asks in a conversational tone.

James is unsure whether he should tell the truth or not, given her enthusiasm. “No,” he replies, choosing honesty. “They’re noisy and crowded. I hate the hustle and bustle.”

He feels something small and lightweight hit his cheek, looks down at the table, noticing a torn and crumpled tissue rolling in front of him. It's not hard to find the perpetrator, on the other side of the table and with the straw still pointing at him like a blowgun. She slips out an indisposed, amused smile as James returns with his back to the armchair and folds his arms. Not having the strength to respond in words, he decides to give her a silent scowl.

“You like malls too much in my opinion. You look like a child in a playground,” he argues with a grimace. Heather rests her feet on the edge of the sofa and raises her knees.

“Pretty much, yeah. I always liked them, but I stopped after the last time I went alone.”

“Why?”

She first looks at him surprised, then bursts into sudden laughter that makes him arch an eyebrow in confusion.

“I'm sorry it's just… it's weird,” she explains encircling her knees with both arms, “I can tell you the truth without seeming like a freak.”

James tilts his head doubtfully as he watches her put back her feet on the ground to be able to lean toward him.

“The first time I entered the Silent Hill dimension was while being in a shopping mall,” she explains in a low voice after becoming serious again. “There were many monsters and I nearly died. Since that day, I've always been afraid to go there.”

James looks at her with sorrow, not knowing what to say.

“I'm glad you took me here,” Heather admits, giving him a sincere smile, “I had a good time and even overcame my fear.”

The young man smiles back at her, shyly at first, continuing to linger his gaze on her which gradually becomes more intense.

Heather bestows a faint, quick smile, then looks away, bringing her gaze to the table top.

“Do you really know A Visit of St. Nicholas from memory?” she then asks, returning to look him in the eyes.

“Of course.”

“Why don't you tell me?”

“Now?”

“Especially now, we're in the Christmas spirit. Plus when I got to the book stand the reader was already halfway through the story.”

“It certainly must have been hard for you to follow the whole plot,” James ironizes in a serious tone, receiving a light, playful kick from under the table followed by a feminine chuckle. He looks at her with a gaze that is once again intense, but he decides to quickly dampen it and focus on the story that he had recited and heard recited in every Christmas play during elementary school.

“'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house,” James begins to tell in a neutral, quiet voice, “not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.”

“Why a mouse?”

“I don't know, those were different times.”

“Weren't they carrying diseases?”

“I think so,” James replies uncertain. “Maybe the children will get a cat from St. Nicholas, if they've been good.”

Heather giggles and rests an elbow on the table, holding her chin with her hand, absorbed.

“The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,” James continues to narrate. “In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.”

A sound more tantalizing than James' voice catches Heather's full attention: the clerk at the counter announcing their order number.

“I'll get it, yours too,” Heather says as she hurriedly gets up and runs past his shoulders.

While waiting, James massages his achy neck and stares up at the ceiling, where some plastic Christmas decorations hang from the rafters. Out of the corner of his eye he catches a glimpse of his companion returning with two trays in her hands and placing them on the table, then imitating him by looking up.

“I bet you were searching for mistletoe,” she says as she sits down in her previous place, “to have an excuse to kiss me.”

James lowers his head and gives her the most bewildered look he's ever afforded her, sparking a cheerful, loud laughter from her.

“What a face you made,” she tells him, puffing up her cheeks with a wide smile.

James crouches backward on the sofa and gives her a grim look. “You are so spiteful.”

Heather makes a resentful grimace as she watches him bring his lunch portion closer. She hoped he would tell her to be provocative, certainly not spiteful, something that sounds like a children's warner.

“Is that your whole lunch? A hot dog without sauces and a small bottle of water?” Heather asks in disbelief.

“I don't have much of an appetite lately,” James explains in a vague and hasty manner. “You, however, did you order for a whole country or what?”

Heather resentfully scoffs at him and unwraps the package containing her burger. “This is my lunch, I got that extra package for the surprise.”

“The surprise?”

“Yeah.”

“What about the food inside?”

“I don't eat it,” she replies, shrugging.

James looks at her in a bewildered silence. “Did you hear that?”

“What?”

“The sound of all the Third World children cheering you on,” James ironizes, biting reluctantly into the hot dog.

Heather gives him a somber, resentful look. “Fiiine. I'll get my food wrapped and we'll take it to the motel. Geez,” she says rolling her eyes with a bored look. “And you're no better than me anyway. I think some Asian kids are cheering you on for the brand-name T-shirt you bought.”

James gives her a startled look and remains silent.

“Yeah, I know the conditions in the multinational corporations' factories in Asia and child labor. My father was socially active and wrote a lot of exposé articles. You can't beat me at that,” Heather explains with a victorious air.

James gives a half smile and takes a sip of water. “Your father was right.”

Taken aback, she looks away in a fit of embarrassed pride for her father. He was the best, as a parent and as a human being.

“Hmm,” Heather moans in pleasure as she bites into her burger. “This is exactly how I remember it. Junk food is so libidinous.”

James shakes his head amused by that sentence.

“Before Doug and I first came back from Silent Hill, he asked me what was the first thing I wanted to do when I returned to the real world, and I told him to go to this fast food restaurant. He couldn't believe it when I told him,” Heather says as she wipes the mayonnaise-stained corner of her mouth with her index finger. “So, we went to the car and he drove me to the first one we found on the street. He didn't like the food, and he didn't even understand the whole surprise thing, just like you. Still, it was a nice return to the real world.”

James smiles, at first, but the corners of his lips get heavier as a memory comes back to him. “The first thing I did when I got out of Silent Hill was drink whiskey,” he tells her, and Heather looks him straight in the eye to grasp the mood with which he said it. Whether it was a joke or a sad confession is hard to determine, because what she finds in James' turned-away eyes is a distant, indecipherable look.

Feeling the gaze on him, the young man looks at her in turn, and a note of melancholy crosses his cold, blue irises. Heather is almost certain that the experience of returning to the real world has been different for him, and that he isn't telling her everything; she can guess this from what he had revealed to her the first time they had spoken and the extreme gesture by which he had to prove to her he was the victim of a strange curse that a higher force had cast upon him.

Unable to contain herself, Heather casts a worried glance at his bandaged wrist near the water bottle. Noticing this, James pulls up the sleeve of his jacket to hide it and brings his arm under the tabletop, frowning.

They are surrounded by an onerous silence, and each of them stands looking uneasily at their food.

“I didn't think about doing it anymore,” James confesses seriously, looking into her eyes again.

Heather frowns slightly, caught by a strange and bittersweet feeling of relief and regret.

“Maybe partly because looking after you procures a wasteful expense of energy,” he says with a half-smile, receiving a chip in the face thrown by her and an amused laugh. He looks at her softly, and the more hopeful part of him thinks that maybe those moments can be enough to restrain him from making extreme gestures, even to bring him serenity again.

James is caught by surprise when his stomach unexpectedly begins to growl.

“I'm still hungry,” he realizes looking at the wrapping paper package of his finished hot dog.

“Take my food,” Heather says, opening the child's package. She takes the small unopened box containing the surprise and pulls the rest closer to her companion. She unwraps the surprise and evident disappointment crosses her face.

“Fuck, I already have it,” she says, stridently putting down the small plastic figurine representing Mickey Mouse's famous dog. “I only have Donald Duck left to collect, but I can never find him. I think there are fewer of them because he's the character everyone loves.”

“You think so?” James skeptically asks, still chewing on the large bite of hamburger.

“Everyone thinks Mickey Mouse is the favorite one, but if you ask around you will almost always hear Donald Duck. That's natural, because many people see themselves in him. He's a loser, always angry, and never understood when he talks.”

“I can relate to him,” James says discursively, “he always has to look after three brats who aren't even his own children.”

Heather widens her eyes mock offended. “Is this meant to be some kind of joke?”

“I was just referring to the three baby ducks, Luis, Dundly and Howie.”

“Huey, Dewey and Louie,” Heather corrects him with a laugh. “Heck, your ignorance blows my mind.”

James smiles as he hears her laugh out loud but forces himself not to let it show and looks away, resting his gaze on her right hand.

“Did you put nail polish there too?” he asks her, wondering that he hadn't noticed it before.

“I took full advantage of the store's free samples. The colors aren't laid out the same, though,” Heather says raising both hands with their backs facing him.

James leans forward to get a better look, then raise his left arm, the one bandaged at wrist level, from under the table to take her hand and look at it. He runs his fingers over her palm to allow her to lay hers next to his thumb. She has a small hand, slender fingers and a thin wrist, while he has a wide palm and long, wiry fingers. James' gaze lapses into those details until he stops giving any attention to the nail polishes.

He feels her wrist warm and her fingers cold. He strengthens his grip, encircling her entire back with just his fingers, intending to warm her up – he thinks, he doesn't know. He lowers his arm until it touches the table and loosens his grip, seized by a rush of rationality and fear. When he tries to pull his hand away, Heather holds him back by entwining her fingers around his, and the muscles in James' arm don't struggle; rather, they rotate his palm down to wrap around her knuckles.

They don't make eye contact, forcing themselves to look away while doing other things. She drinks her soda from a straw while he chews a cold fry extremely slowly.

They have no idea what it means to hold hands. These are effusions between lovers, but also between parents and children, friends, siblings. They just know they want it, letting go of all unnecessary words.

Chapter Text

One year and five months earlier

A bead of sweat runs down Heather's neck as she tilts her head over the back of the couch and lets out a dejected sigh. She hates the heat of a July afternoon, she hates the old ceiling fan above her head that provides no comfort, just a constant, annoying squeak; but most of all, she hates Molly Green.

Sitting in an armchair in front of her, Molly Green watches her silently, cross-legged, hands in her lap, posture composed - unlike her - and a faint, steady smile on her lips. She's a fleshy, middle-aged black woman with shaggy, short, greying hair that doesn't hide behind artificial dyes. She always wears gold hoop earrings and smells of moisturiser.

“How everything is going at Foster Care these days?” she asks in a low, musical timbre, the kind of voice associated with gospel singers but which Heather can only relate to Molly Green's tireless and annoyingly friendly face.

Heather turns her head and looks from the ceiling fan to the open window overlooking an unkempt garden. Every neglected and dilapidated detail reflects the atmosphere of the building she has been forced into. She has been living there for three weeks, and it is the second place she has changed since returning from Silent Hill two months ago. This is how foster care works, temporary housing for underage orphans until they're adopted, and she's sure she's too old for that eventuality.

Heather considers how to respond to Molly, whether with honesty or a lie that might soften the blow and end the session. But bluntness has always been her nature and her weakness:

“This place sucks.”

“How come you think-”

“I don't want to talk about it.”

“Fine,” Molly agrees in a thoughtful, polite voice, and the more impassive she is to her interlocutor's explicitly brusque manner, the more aggressive Heather becomes.

“Aren't you supposed to be a psychologist or something?” she asks, leaning against the back of the sofa with her arms crossed and a defiant expression on her face.

“It says so on my private practice certificate. What makes you think otherwise?”

“The fact that I go out of my way to make it clear to you that I don't like you, and you don't even notice.”

“And that, for you, undermines my ability to do my profession?”

“Is it possible that you can't make a point without it being a question?”

“All right,” Molly says, leaning forward and resting her clasped hands on her closed knees, “if it's a consideration you want, I'll lay it out for you. You don't hate me, Heather, because we don't know each other well enough for you to have such an intimate feeling. You don't hate me, you hate what I represent, and that is a human and understandable reaction, because there is nothing more upsetting than being forced to confront your own pain and trauma.”

Heather half-closes her mouth to say something, then frowns and looks away, crouching with her arms crossed. 

The descending silence is periodically broken by the creaking of the ceiling fan.

“These orphan facilities have a number of rules and restrictions, such as curfews and lunch times,” Molly breaks the silence, accompanying her thoughts with a soft sigh, “and they also include two sessions a week for anyone who has experienced problematic family situations or whose parents have died violently. I don't think you should see these sessions as an imposition from Foster Care, but as an opportunity to help you face your future.”

“What future? It will be a lot if I can finish school.”

“Those who have had difficulties in life are better prepared for any challenge, and have more incentive to face it successfully.”

Heather arched her eyebrows and pursed her lips. She knows of only one person who could masterfully turn one of her ironic and destructive remarks into a peaceful and constructive discussion, and that was her father.

For a second, she seems to see him in front of her, sitting in an armchair, correcting a manuscript.

“Do you really think I could overcome so many difficulties?”

“Heather,” Molly calls to her with motherly gentleness and a sincere smile, “I know that for a very young person like you, the sudden loss of a father seems like an insurmountable pain, a pain that is compounded by the strong emotions of the teenage years... but believe me when I tell you that, precisely because you are so young and strong, you have a whole life ahead of you to process the bad experiences, and time to experience new and wonderful ones.”

The girl gives Molly a puzzled look, and she returns it with an affectionate one. 

“When you are older, you will understand my words. In any case, our time together is over and you can go back to your room.”

“Thank you,” Heather only says as she gets up to walk down the corridor, but unlike the other times she doesn't use a dry tone, but a sincere one, accompanied by a smile.

Molly Green watches her disappear through the open doorway and gets up to head for the exit. 

The rays of the summer sun are tempered by a blanket of clouds, making the weather even more humid, while cicadas chirp loudly and aggressively in her ears. Molly sighs and adjusts a forelock that has fallen to her forehead, then narrows her eyes in surprise as she notices a man across the street. Her gaze falls on the familiar detail of the tan mackintosh and dark hat, an eccentric and timeless outfit that she can easily associate with a person she already knows.

“You're late, Douglas,” she warns him with an amused smile as he crosses the road. “Visiting hours are over. Heather's already back in her room studying.”

“Damn it,” the man curses, scratching his beard. He, too, is a victim of the unbearable heat of this unseasonably humid summer, but despite his flushed face and sweaty brow, he can't bring himself to take off his fedora.

“You haven't changed a bit. You were always the last policeman to arrive at the station.”

“I see you remember. I made an impression.”

“Not necessarily good,” Molly jokes amusedly.

“Yeah, well. While I'm here, why don't we have a drink? My treat. I have a right to improve my image,” Douglas offers with a tender smile. 

Molly glances at her watch. “I've got half an hour free. I know an outdoor bar nearby that's not bad.” 

Sitting on wooden folding chairs, their elbows resting on the small round table, they finish ordering their drinks. Douglas tilts his head to read the sign of the café, Lounge Pine, a kiosk in a park two blocks from Foster Care, beyond the parasol under which they sit. The heat makes the man more impatient than usual; although it has been a few seconds since they ordered, he feels an overwhelming urge to reach for the pack of cigarettes in his mackintosh pocket. He puts one between his lips, then hands the open packet to Molly.

“Oh, right,” he mutters, cigarette in mouth, “you quit smoking.”

“Three times. But I started up four more,” Molly jokes, taking a cigarette from the packet.

Douglas smiles as he picks up the lighter. “Someone once said that the only way to break a bad habit is to start a new one.”

“Is that why you're a straggler? Trying to quit smoking?”

Douglas chuckles and inhales the cigarette with gusto. “You're funny. We should have chatted more at the station.”

“Yeah. I guess it was hard for you cops since I was the department's psychologist.”

“Maybe,” Douglas mumbles with a sigh. “By the way... how's Heather?”

“You know I can't talk about my patients. Professional code,” Molly says, leaning forward to light her cigarette with the lighter the man hands her. “Let's talk about you instead. How are you?”

Douglas chuckles. “God, that's so true. It's so weird to be asked that by your ex-psychologist.”

“I'm just a friend now,” Molly claims with a sweet smile. Douglas scratches his neck and leans back against the backrest.

“I'm fine,” he says, knowing full well that the evasive way he says it sounds like a matter-of-fact answer. The woman takes a drag from her cigarette, still looking at him.

“I hope you've got over the death of your son,” she says with a slight frown. “I know you didn't have time when you were a policeman. You quit shortly afterwards and opened your own detective agency. But now that so many years have passed, it might be the time when the bad memories give way to the good ones.”

“It's hard to say,” Douglas replies truthfully, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. 

“May I be frank?”

Douglas looks up. “You know you don't have to ask. I appreciate honesty, and not just because it's a professional deformation.”

Molly smiles and nods. “What happened to your son was a tragedy, but it's a good thing you can't shoot anymore because of it. You fought in Vietnam at a very young age, and shortly afterwards you joined the police. In professions where the use of a gun becomes routine, every human life is considered less and less important. But now that you can no longer shoot, for the first time you can start to think about the preciousness of other people's lives, and that will make you a better person.”

After listening to her with strict attention, Douglas gives a measured smile. “You always find a way to look on the bright side with brutal sincerity.”

Molly chuckles softly, her gold earrings jingling. “Brutal sincerity. Just like Heather, huh?”

“She’s brutally sincere. Most of the time she seems to want to talk just to drive you up the wall.”

“She's a teenager,” Molly just thinks and begins to frown imperceptibly. “She's not doing well, Doug. She clams up and it's like she's trying to hide something. Sometimes it's hard to decipher her emotions, sometimes it's all clear.”

Douglas becomes serious again. An obvious worry crosses his furrowed brow, which he tries to disguise with a wry smile. “I thought you weren't supposed to talk about your patients.”

“My career is in your hands.”

Douglas' smile, unable to control it, suddenly fades. “Is she having such a bad time?”

“It’s normal. Her father died a few months ago, but it's not just that. She has been travelling all her life without ever being able to stop for more than a few months. Having never had a home, school, friends or other relatives to refer to, the only real connection she ever had was with her father. So when she lost him, it was not just like losing a loved one, it was like losing the whole world.”

Douglas sighs sadly. “I never thought about that.”

“She needs a new reference point and possibile a more stable life where she can go to the same school and live in the same house for many years. And as long as she's a minor, that's not going to be easy. Foster care is temporary accommodation.”

Douglas feels the need to take another cigarette from the pack in his pocket. He lights it, worried and brooding, thinking as he watches the nicotine smoke waft before his eyes. 

“Anyway, she's a very strong girl,” Molly thinks with a comforting smile. “She doesn't suffer pain passively, she always tries to confront it, even if sometimes with questionable methods.”

“She's lucky to have you as her guide,” Douglas says only tenderly. “I hope she realises that.”

Molly smiles, then looks up at the waiter approaching their table with the tray. As soon as he sets down the two glasses of iced lemon tea, Douglas ignores the cigarette, thanks the waiter and drinks voraciously. The cool drink is a panacea for the heat, and sweetens his mood.

“But now let's talk about you. How are you?” he asks Molly with newfound brio. The woman raises an amused eyebrow.

“I bet you psychologists aren't used to being asked that, are you?” Douglas jokes, adjusting the collar of his raincoat.

“As a matter of fact,” Molly admits with a laugh. “The only one who asks me is my neighbour. It's kind of sad.”

“You should live in a flat like me. We always pretend we don't know our neighbours.”

“How is that supposed to help me?” Molly jokes, laughing and jangling her earrings again. 

Her voice and the condensed, cold glass in his hand help him endure the afternoon mugginess of late July.

Douglas picks up the mail on the doormat and enters his own home, a cramped three-bedroom flat furnished in the style of the 1980s, just as it was the first day he moved in. 

He tosses the mail listlessly onto the coffee table in the hall and hangs his jacket and hat on the coat rack by the entrance. He glances at the letters - the usual bills and advertisements for products he never uses - and loosens his tie, heading for the small corner kitchen to grab a packet of frozen lasagne from the freezer. He turns to look at the dining table, moved by a subconscious urge that turns into a vivid memory: his preteen son asking him to add parmesan cheese to the lasagne before microwaving it.

Unlike his ex-wife, he was never much of a cook, so he spoiled his son with junk food whenever he had the chance. 

His little Mike. He loved pre-cooked lasagne with parmesan cheese. He called it Dad's version.

He puts down the unopened package of his meagre dinner and looks at the solid wood cupboard near the balcony. He knows there's a box inside that he hasn't opened in years, stored with studied purpose on a high, unreachable shelf, hidden among old, out-of-season clothes. 

Douglas pulls up a chair and places it in front of the wardrobe, then hesitantly opens the door. He climbs onto the chair, stands on tiptoe, grabs the box and carefully carries it to the dining table.

With a knife, he cuts the sealing tape and finds some wooden toys, model cars and a jigsaw puzzle depicting a superhero flying between the skyscrapers of a metropolis. He picks up a family album and opens it.

He cannot help but smile heartily when he sees the soft, round face of his son Michael. He was 10 years old, and the picture shows him in his first baseball uniform. As he turns the pages, he finds him with his mother at Luna Park, and another time with him at a school science competition, where he had built a steam train.

The more he turns the pages, the older his son becomes, until, having reached adolescence, Douglas suddenly closes the album. Perhaps it's too soon for the bad memories to be replaced by good ones, as Molly had predicted, but the fact that he's managed to capture some of them at all is enough.

He wonders if he will ever be able to forget the last morning he spent with Mike, amidst heated shouts and disappointed recriminations, where every sentence was a vile and poisonous wound that still bleeds, where anger had soured every word. The last year of his son's life had been punctuated by angry outbursts and quiet depression. Had he been a more attentive father, he would have realised sooner that his mother's death and desperate financial situation had led him into a life of drug dealing and addiction. If things had turned out differently, he might still be alive, is the nagging regret that has haunted him for years. Had he not been so nervous that night, Douglas might not have been so trigger-happy, might not have shot the balaclava-clad robber who had locked himself in a convenience store, pointing his gun at the owner's temple, one arm around his throat. Custom dictates that when a criminal points a gun at a colleague, action must be taken. He simply did what had to be done. He would not have paid attention to the predicted death of a criminal who had made the only mistake of being overcome by panic, if seconds later he had seen the face of his son under the balaclava.

The moment when, crouching over his lifeless body, he realises the truth, it’s like the frame of a movie that stops against the viewer's will; it's the only image he can bring into focus in the hustle and bustle of the room. The same frame he dreamed about every night for ten years. After that, it had become a faded memory, but now, with overwhelming persistence, it came back vividly to Douglas' mind.

He sits uncomfortably in his chair, as if struck down by a sudden physical ailment, and closes his eyes with his thumb and forefinger, trying to suppress a cry that is rising against his will.

It's not true that time makes things less painful. It hurts just as much as the first time.

He has not been able to hold a weapon since that day. He couldn't work at the station under those conditions, he couldn't help but blame the badge on the chest of his uniform for what had happened, so he left. Changing jobs and friendships has not allowed him to forgive himself. He knows he won't be able to; he doesn't care. He just wishes he could be a better man.

But now that you can no longer shoot, for the first time you can start to think about the preciousness of other people's lives, and that will make you a better person.

Molly Green's words run through his mind and cause him to turn his bright eyes to the window, beyond which the tops of the buildings rise, shining brightly in the night. Raised from a young age on the patriotic notion that using a gun was a sign of heroism, he had never considered Molly's point of view. Over the past 12 years he has saved many lives, deserved and undeserved, including hers.

Heather.

He vividly remembers the pain in his leg that had forced him to sit on the ground, the amusement park with its gloomy atmosphere distorted by the nightmare of Silent Hill, and the teenage victim of her own anger and pain who had turned her back on him to take the path that would lead her to Claudia. Douglas had his gun pointed at her. It was a simple and effective solution to prevent the receptacle containing the monster from releasing it. A sacrifice justified by a higher purpose. Surely the old Douglas, the one who hadn't suffered the loss of his son, wouldn't have thought twice about shooting. But the new Douglas, the one who couldn't find the strength to do so, gave her a way to confront the monster and those who wanted it, and brought her back to him alive and well. 

He's happier now that she's part of his life.

He starts to cry again, hiding a smile with his hand. How strange. It had been a long time since he had shed tears of emotion. 

Until this moment, he hadn't realised how much he cared for her. An affection that grew gradually, unexpectedly, between spontaneous visits to the foster home and outings to tape shops, cinemas and cheap junk food. The teenager's company is a relentless, uninhibited stimulus; she speaks freely, unfiltered, with irony. Sometimes she's problematic, but he's able to forgive her because of the influence she has on him. In some ways, she reminds him of his son.

Douglas chuckles softly. He gets up from his chair, grabs his raincoat and hat and opens the front door. He continues to grin like a fool, even as he passes Mr Weston from 101, who goes down with him in the lift to take out the rubbish. Not that he ever worried about his neighbours, but at that moment he wouldn't stop smiling even in the presence of the worst of men.

The persistent ringing of the doorbell inevitably awakens Mrs Cho, who abruptly pulls back the covers and stretches out a hand in search of her prescription glasses stashed on the bedside table. Mrs Cho is a woman of Asian ethnicity, the owner of Foster Care, and old enough to be physically affected by a rude awakening in the middle of the night.

She opens the bedroom door, dangling in the darkness, until she sees the cause of all the commotion behind the glass door: a burly man wearing a wide-brimmed hat.

“Police!” the man shouts, holding up his badge. The strange fear that something might have happened to the children in her care, or that they might be the perpetrators of a crime, wakes Mrs Cho with aggressive celerity.

“Oh God, has something happened?” she asks in alarm as she opens the door and looks out.

“Don't worry, ma'am, I just have to deliver some things,” the man says as he enters the house without asking permission. Just before he puts the badge in his pocket, Mrs Cho notices a detail.

“It says retired!” she exclaims, and the adrenaline still coursing through her body gives her the courage to grab the stranger by the arm. “You're not a cop!”

“I'm looking for Heather Mason, which room is she in?” the man asks, jerking away from her with a quick flick of his arm and accidentally hitting her with one of the plastic bags in his hand.

“This is not visiting time, you have to leave!”

“I'll just be a second, I just need to know where Heather is.”

“I'm calling the police!”

“Fine, then I'll do it myself,” the man says with a half smile. “Heather!”

“Stop shouting!”

“Heatheeeeer!” he calls loudly, knocking on the nearest door. A little black girl with a confused, sleepy look on her face opens it and looks at the man in confusion. He peers into the room to see if one of the silhouettes lying on the bunk beds belongs to the girl he's looking for, but to no avail. He paternally ruffles the girl's hair and heads out into the hallway.

“Heatheeer!”

“I've called the police, they'll be here any minute!” Mrs Cho calls from across the hall.

“Good, I'll be glad to see some old colleagues again,” the man jokes, knocking on all the doors. “I promised them I'd visit them, but this way we'll make it even quicker.”

“Douglas?” cries a girl in pyjamas behind him, leaning on an open door with one hand.

“There you are at last,” he says with a sincere smile as he reaches her.

“Are you drunk?” 

“What are you talking about? Have you ever seen me drink?” Douglas replies offended. “And by the way, I've never been more sober than I am now.”

“Then you've just started to be going bananas,” Heather thinks with a confused half-smile. “It's after midnight and you're screaming like a lunatic.”

“I know. But I wouldn't be doing it if it wasn't important,” Douglas explains, taking a step away from her. He looks at her intently, then lowers his eyes to the six bags in his hands. “I stopped by that fast food place you like so much, the one we went to after Silent Hill, remember? You bought a children's box with the surprise and told me you were only three characters away from completing the collection.”

“You came here after midnight to bring me a surprise box? Is that the important thing?”

“I bought ten of them,” Douglas informed as he picked up the envelopes. “Of course you don't have to eat them all yourself, you can share them with the foster children, but the surprises are all yours.”

“Doug.”

“Unless you already have doubles and decide to give them away.”

“Doug!”

“I want you to be my daughter.”

This sentence stops all the buzzing of the children and teenagers who have come to watch the show, even Mrs Cho's inappropriate remarks. Heather's eyes widen and her mouth half-closes.

“What?”

“I want to be your dad, Heather.”

She tightens her lips, which begin to quiver.

She throws herself at him, hugging him tightly, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

“Okay,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” she repeats in a firmer voice, nodding her head.

Douglas carelessly drops the envelopes so that he can hug her in turn.

Walking through the front door of her home for the first time, Heather gazes at every detail of the living room with wonder and contemplation. She's like a tourist entering a museum of ancient archaeology, a room filled with objects and monuments that seem to be part of an unknown past. It's a flat like any other, but the idea that it could be a permanent home changes everything.

Behind her, Douglas watches the one worn suitcase she carries. She told him during the trip that it was always the only one she had. She never accumulated unnecessary things, just the essentials. The only goodies she has taken are a videotape of her and her father, an inscribed book by the latter, and a family photo album that includes Harry's late wife and her other self, little Cheryl.

He will never admit it, but in anticipation of Heather moving in, Douglas has cleaned the house from top to bottom. It had not been this tidy since he could remember.

“Let me show you where your room is,” Douglas says as he leads the way. It's so nice to hear that. Not her quarters, not her bunk bed. Her room. The man leads the way down a small hallway and points to a bedroom with an open door.

It's small, with a single bed, a two-door wardrobe and a desk with a chair. Beyond the basic furnishings, there is no sign of the personal touch of someone who has lived here before, except for one detail. Heather notices a framed photograph on the desk and picks it up. There's a teenage boy, about her age, maybe a little younger, in a baseball outfit.

“Is that your son?” she asks, without stopping to look at the subject of the picture.

“Yes. His name was Michael. This was his room.”

Heather remembers him. He had told her about him in Silent Hill when she found him injured in Luna Park. He had told her that she looked like him and that he was dead.

“He was really cute,” Heather admits sincerely, then puts down the frame and looks at him defiantly. “You know, I don't think he was really your son.”

“Young lady,” Douglas scolds her playfully in a low, stern tone, “I know you won't believe this, but I was quite successful. A lot of people called me a hottie when I was young.”

“Was that before or after the wheel was invented?”

She is such a cheeky little bitch, with the same sense of humour as her son. He should be offended, but a flash of tenderness and nostalgia bends the corners of his mouth upwards into a sincere smile. He sits down on the edge of the bed next to her and she, inspired by Douglas' sweet expression, returns the smile.

“You know, I was thinking of putting one or two pictures on the desk. I really like this one,” she says, with the family album open on her lap, pointing to a shot of Harry holding her from behind, smiling into the lens. It was Thanksgiving, they were living in an apartment in Idaho, and she was fourteen. “Oh, and I have to put these, too,” she adds, taking a small bag from her backpack and tossing its contents haphazardly on the desk. She arranges the small items one by one.

“Are these the fast food surprises?”

“Yes,” Heather replies as she sits back down on the bed. “I have all the characters except Donald Duck.”

“He's my favourite,” Douglas confesses, arching his back and resting his palms on the mattress. “Disney should make him their official mascot.”

“I agree,” she says with a half-smile.

The next morning, Douglas is woken by an unfamiliar and pleasant smell. He gets up, eyes squinting, and shakes off the covers. When he appears in the kitchen, the right sleeve of his white T-shirt is rolled up and his hair is dishevelled.

“Good morning, Doug,” Heather greets him as she fiddles with the stove. “There were only eggs in the fridge, so I scrambled them.”

In truth, it's rare for him to have fresh food and use the stove. He makes do with cheap takeaways and pre-cooked meals that he heats up in the microwave. 

“So... you cook?” Douglas asks in surprise. He had planned to be in charge of their food, not the other way around. 

“I've been used to it since I was a little girl. Sometimes Dad would write at night to get his books in on time, so I would make breakfast and lunch for both of us,” Heather replies as she tilted the frying pan to pour the scrambled eggs into the two dishes. “If you buy milk, I can make pancakes too.”

Douglas sits at the dining table and looks at her with a mixture of confusion and pride. 

“This coffee sucks. My God, Doug, how bad is your coffeepot? I spit in the sink as soon as I had a sip,” she says with a grimace as she sits down in front of him.

“I'll buy a new one,” he promises, shoving a forkful of eggs into his mouth. “So you got up early to make breakfast?”

“Also to get to school on time. I studied the whole route with the road map.”

“Oh. I thought I was supposed to drive you.”

“No need,” she replies, getting up and putting the finished plate in the sink. “I'll be home around 2pm.”

“Okay,” Douglas replies as he watches her put her rucksack on her shoulder and walk out the front door.

Douglas hated to watch cereal adverts. They were always the same, featuring white, affluent families, attractive young parents and perfectly toothed, chubby children. He hated them because they were contrived, because no family would wake up at 7 a.m. with so many smiles and so much exuberance, because no woman would have such perfect hair and make-up as soon as she woke up, and because no man would wear a brand-name suit with a pressed tie at breakfast.

Then he understood why they were so popular with viewers. Because the most common way to show family warmth was to sit down together at the table. It was the start of a good morning, the clatter of the stove and the sizzle of the bacon in the pan. Douglas had forgotten it, but the last ten mornings reminded him of it: getting up to the smell of coffee, pancakes and eggs, and finding his daughter in front of the stove with a steaming mug in her hands.

They chat about how school is going and which case he will be investigating that day. His clients are always husbands or wives on the lookout for infidelity, but despite the monotony of their conversations and their food, he's happy with the routine, happy with the human warmth he'd forgotten.

That morning, at the metro station, he sees another cereal advert on the screen on the wall, and this time he smiles.

“Heather is phenomenal. She's so responsible and resourceful,” he tells Molly one early afternoon during their lunch break. They set off to meet at the café in the pine forest that, despite being out of the way, has become their new place to meet. Molly smiles sincerely as she pokes a few salad leaves onto her plate with her fork.

“I've never seen you so relaxed,” she comments after she finishes chewing.

“Yeah. And I haven't smoked for a week. I managed without picking up a new bad habit. You know, you should come and dine with us sometime. Heather would love to see you again.”

“I'd love to,” Molly replied, secretly enjoying the ease and naturalness with which her friend spoke in the plural.

At the bus stop after school, Heather decides not to take the usual route home. She does this by accident as she looks at the timetable, lingering on a destination she has never set foot on, no matter how hard she has tried for months.

She lets the bus she takes every afternoon pass her stop and, fifteen minutes later, gets on the bus to the suburbs. She gets off after about ten minutes and heads for a flower shop, but a small stall selling books catches her eye. After entering and buying a novel, she passes two intersections and crosses the street to enter the cemetery. It's large and quite old, and it takes her a while to get to her father's grave.

She sits cross-legged on the dirt floor in front of the gravestone and opens a plastic bag.

“You know, I was thinking of bringing flowers, as is customary, but I found this book,” she says, putting down the purchase she has just made. “It's the new novel by Norman Mailer, one of your favourite writers. I'm sorry you missed it, but maybe I could read it to you, and I know it sounds crazy, and that the idea of a dead person actually being able to hear me would once have made me laugh at how silly it was, but... ever since I came back from Silent Hill, I've begun to open my mind to new possibilities, however inexplicable. Maybe it's just a foolish hope, but it makes me feel better. I hope you like the book more than the flowers. Anyway - I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I just couldn't. I was too angry, or sad, and couldn't accept what had happened to you. But it's different now. You see, I've been living with Doug for two weeks now. He's my new dad. He wants me to call him that instead of his first name, but I still can't. I would like to, though. Maybe one day I will. He's a good man, but I don't know if you would have got along with him. You know, he was a soldier and worked for the police, and you had no sympathies for law enforcement. And you were against the use of firearms. Doug told me he hadn't fired a gun in over ten years, so who knows?

He's pretty messed up, but he loves me and always tries to let me know. He is worried about my schoolwork. By the way, this will be my last year at school. Do you remember? You were so anxious to see me off on graduation day. Although at the same time you told me that you would like to avoid the ritual of giving your daughter a flower bracelet when my prom date came to pick me up. I never thought I could actually have a date. It was enough if I made a few friends in class. But now that I've been able to stay at the same school for a whole term, maybe I'll be able to make real friends. Maybe even a boyfriend. Ugh, if I had said something like that when you were alive, you would have given me your usual jealous, suspicious dad face that you always made when you saw me at home with some friends. I thought you were just being overprotective. I didn't realise that this strange behaviour, the fact that we moved all the time, you were doing it to protect me. Maybe if you had told me the truth I could have eased your burden a little… 

You didn't have anyone to help you, but I did. Doug not only looks after me, he knows everything about me. He is also familiar with Silent Hill. I know you did it so that I could have a normal life, but ... maybe things would have been different.

I don't know... maybe what happened would have happened anyway, but it's all over now. There are no more strange cults, no more horrible women trying to make me give birth to gods, no more monsters trying to kill me or my loved ones. Douglas is as safe as you have never been in my company. Sometimes I feel responsible for what happened to you, while other times the good memories I have of us take me back to all the times you told me you loved me, that you were lucky to have me, and that you would never change your mind. I hope that was true right up until the last moment we were together. I miss you, Dad. I love you so much. I don't think I could ever love anyone else as much. And I hope you loved me as you loved Cheryl…”

Heather clutches the book in her hands, then leans it against the base of the gravestone, next to her father's picture.

“I was the luckiest daughter in the world.”

She stands, kisses her hand and touches the gravestone, then walks away.

It's dark by the time she gets off the bus that's taking her home. Heather walks along the deserted sidewalk, hands in the pockets of her jeans jacket and headphones in her ears, bobbing her head to the beat of a Tori Amos song, Cornflake Girl. Arriving at the intersection, she turns to jaywalk, and halfway across the roadway, the sudden skid of a car jolts her awake, causing her to almost stumble backwards in fright. A few inches away, the bonnet of a BMW that narrowly missed hitting her emits a heat so piercing she can feel it without touching it, and behind it a man in a suit gives her an angry look through the windscreen.

“Always look before you cross the street, bitch!” the angry man shouts, in a manner so confident and overbearing that instead of frightening her, it only infuriates her.

“There's a crosswalk, shithead!” Heather replies loudly, slamming her hand on the bonnet.

“What the fuck did you say?”

Heather rolls her eyes and walks off, returning with her hands in her pockets, now clenched into two tight fists as adrenaline makes her heart race.

“I'm talking to you!” the man shouts as he gets out of the car. As soon as Heather hears the car door open, she turns around in disgust.

“Do you really want to have a fight in the middle of the road when you are in the wrong?”

“Apologise to me.”

“Forget it, you sick motherfucker!”

“Insolent bastard,” he exclaims, grabbing her arm.

Blood rushes through her body. She feels her muscles tense until they shake.

"Get your hands off me," she says through clenched teeth, glaring at him. "Fuck off!"

She makes an abrupt movement with her arm to free herself from him, but what follows is so unexpected that for a few seconds she can barely believe it.

The man's body, as if propelled by some brutal, inhuman force, is thrown backwards about 20 metres until it hits the side of a parked car, then slides to the ground, leaving a large crack in the bodywork and setting off the burglar alarm.

Heather stands frozen, eyes closed, watching the man's head fall forward. She cupped her hands over her mouth, which began to tremble. Instinctively, before she even thinks about what has happened, she reaches out to the man to save him, but the ground beneath her shakes and she falls forward. Not wanting to hit her head, she stretches out her arms, scraping them, and pulls herself up on her hands and knees, then looks ahead: a laceration tearing the tarmac from one side to the other, getting bigger and bigger. Heather stands up and, feeling the ground give way under her feet, runs in the opposite direction.

The soft high note of Tori Amos and the sound of the piano through her earphones begin to flicker, then become static. 

It's the same white noise she heard in Silent Hill.

This realisation makes her throw her headphones to the ground and run even faster, turning the corner of the street. Only then does she realise that the darkness engulfing her is not that of the evening: it is a hostile, deep darkness that swallows up every artificial light.

She doesn't even take the time to ask herself why she has returned to this dimension; she only thinks of escaping, she doesn't know where, hoping to find the normality of these streets she now knows by heart. But she finds nothing but darkness and distant silhouettes slowly approaching her. They are the same humanoid monsters she first saw in the mall, striding lazily, their unnaturally large upper limbs grinding against the ground, their faces swinging in all directions with superhuman speed.

The growl of a two-headed dog makes her turn around, but her reflexes are not quick enough to dodge the bite on her calf. She kicks the beast and jumps onto the boot of a car, then climbs onto the carport, hoping to keep the dog from attacking her again. She has no weapons, she's unprepared, and running is the best she can do. But she cannot stand still and wait for the creatures to catch up with her. So she takes off her denim jacket, wraps it around her right arm and bangs on the windscreen below her. She knows that in the Silent Hill dimension, every building, every structure, every object is its own deteriorated version. Even the glass of this car, which already had a few cracks, and it took little to shatter it, sending a curved, sharp shard out of the crack in the windscreen. She feels the dog pull her by the flap of her trousers, kicks it and, taking advantage of the fact that it’s lying on the ground, throws herself at it, stabbing it in the neck with a force dictated by fear, fuelled by adrenaline.

The last lunge is deeper, the other hand pressing into the flesh until the splinter is almost completely in and the creature shudders for a few moments before collapsing to the tarmac. One of the bipedal monsters with enlarged upper limbs reaches out from behind her and tries to attack her, but she manages to dodge its slow movement and runs around the perimeter of the building. A dozen such creatures surround her; she knows she would be risking her life if she tried to get past them, so she does the only thing she can: she tries to enter one of the palace doors. The nearest one is locked, the second as well, and with every second, with every attempt, the monsters get closer to her. There is a dead end to her right, but she knows that entering it will only make it easier for them to surround her, so she runs quickly to the last door, which has already been reached by one of the creatures, and throws herself at the doorknob with all her weight. The door opens, the monster attacks her, but she manages to close it in time, pushing with all her strength to keep it from opening, feeling blows so loud that she can feel the doorjambs shaking. She notices a key already in the keyhole and turns it twice, letting go slowly to make sure the door can withstand the blows.

The room is small, semi-dark, and the only source of light is a light bulb attached to the ceiling by a long cord that swings above her head. She notices a sink in front of her. When she recognises, to her right, wooden structures raised from the floor that act as stalls, she realises she is in a public toilet. She looks at her own reflection, the denim jacket around her arm slipping over her hand, the obvious wound on her calf still bleeding, and her broad, almost ostentatious, mischievous smile.

But something’s wrong. She's not smiling.

She touches her jaw, her lips, foolishly checking such an obvious detail, and her reflection mimics every movement. She knows she’s not smiling, knows that nothing but fear is painted on her face, but what she sees is different from reality.

A thought clearly enters her mind: this isn't me.

And at that moment, her body stops responding to the commands of her brain. 

She remains motionless, then takes a step forward against her will. 

She fights with every fibre of her body to resist this movement, but fails, as if the person in front of her is the real one, while she is only her reflection, imitating her every gesture.

She takes another step towards the sink, then raises a hand until it touches that of her own reflection, in a mistaken and inappropriate gentleness.

The swinging bulb makes the reflection disappear in the darkness for a moment, revealing a different girl, with black hair and a washed-out complexion, covered in blood.

“It's good to see you again,” the reflection says. It speaks, its own voice, similar to hers but different.

“You are…”

“I am you. The version before you. The one that lived in Silent Hill.”

“No, that can't be,” Heather murmurs, feeling her own eyes pinch. “I killed you. I drank from the cruet, I destroyed God. My life is back to normal, everything is over.”

“On the contrary, it all started that day.”

Heather gives her a startled and confused look.

“Don't you see?” the reflection urges, coming closer, almost touching the mirror with her forehead. “When Claudia killed your father to make you feel my suffering, to awaken my memories, she not only caused the god my mother always longed for to grow in your womb, she also awakened your powers. You are me, in every way. You saw it for yourself not long ago.”

“You mean... it was my fault...?” she murmurs at the memory of the man thrown into the air just before the road was split by a gash. '”Is he... still alive?”

“Is that all you have to ask?” the reflection says contemptuously. “Don't blame yourself, you'll soon get used to these hiccups.”

“Hiccups? What you call hiccups are murders!”

“They deserve it,” the reflection shouts, and Heather feels the glass she's touching shatter with tiny cracks. “Human beings are filthy pigs who will do anything to get what they want without thinking of the consequences. No one excluded. In time you will understand. They will hunt you down, they will use violence. They don't care about the means because they justify it with the end. Every time you sleep, you will dream of everything I went through and realise that we are not to blame because it was the world that made us this way.”

“No. Dad never treated me badly, on the contrary, he always loved me. Just like Douglas. You have a distorted view of the world.”

“Really? But now it's you who have created the distorted world we are now.”

Heather would like to turn her head to verify this claim, but she can only obey the reflex and observe her surroundings out of the corner of her eye. Those rusty, decaying walls covered in blood, those creatures out there trying to kill her, the darkness swallowing up all the light: was she really the cause of all this?

“I don't believe you.”

“It's OK. You will find out in time. And when you do, we'll meet again.”

“I don't want those powers.”

“Why do you say that? You're lucky,” the reflection says with a smile, then rests her cheek on the mirror, and Heather does the same, feeling the coldness of the glass, but the deluded perception that she might actually be in contact with her alter ego's skin makes her blood freeze even more. “You are lucky because you have everything I had, but unlike me, who spent most of my life in a hospital, you can have a real existence and interact with the world.”

“Please leave me alone, I don't want this life,” Heather replies and begins to cry. The reflection moves away from the mirror and looks at her with the sad expression of a child who has been told by an adult to stop playing. It takes a step back, without stopping to look at her, then reaches for the sink and picks up a stick. Heather watches the scene passively, imitating every movement like a marionette in the hands of a puppeteer. She holds the stick in her hand, struggles to stretch her fingers so that it falls to the floor, but fails. The cane is now above her head. She opens her eyes and stares at her reflection in horror.

“You... are going to kill me?”

“Don't talk nonsense,” the reflection says, chuckling softly. “Why should I? They are the one who must die. And only then will our agonies and grudges be at an end.”

Heather's arm makes a quick movement above her head and the cane hits the light bulb, shattering it. As the darkness engulfed the room, she regained control of her body and the muscles that had been trying to fight the dark force controlling her, caused her to fall forward. She covers her face with her arms in time, bruising her wrists on the porcelain floor, then rises to her feet. 

Beyond the walls, in the street, she hears the sound of an ambulance driving by. She struggles to her feet and opens the door to reveal the glow of street lamps, the moonlight in the sky and a few passers-by running agitated in one direction.