What was that scent again? Blood? Rust, maybe. It didn't matter though, did it?

Lost in another nightmare, haunted by visions that he couldn't exactly comprehend — but he knew them, oh, he knew them so well.

The muffled groans of a struggling woman, his palms pressed down on to the pillow so hard that he knew, he just knew that any more pressure would break her neck instead of just suffocate her.

However how much she struggled, he had managed to convince himself that it was what she would've wanted him to do. She was suffering, right? She didn't want that anymore, and neither did he want it, either.

The taste of metal on his buds, then the sharp pain that awoke him and jolted him from the bed. He nearly fell from the mattress, but he had managed to catch himself before he could. James could feel liquid dripping down his lip, and that was when he realized that he had bitten his tongue in his sleep. Again.

A sigh tore from him, and he rose up from the edge of the bed as he made his way silently through the run-down, two bedroom apartment that he had managed to buy with the little savings he had so that he could give Laura a safe space to grow up in.

It's what Mary would've wanted. Or, at least, what he assumed she would've wanted. It didn't matter that much, now, though.

He walked into the bathroom, flicking the light on, only to be met with the stark, depressive and darkened features of himself. Scarlet blossomed from his mouth, and the bags beneath his eyes were so deep that he wondered if anyone would ever look at him without feeling pity. James wouldn't blame them if they didn't.

The water was cold when he turned the faucet on, enough to wake him up from the demons that haunted his sleep every single night since he had left that damned town behind. He wasn't in Silent Hill, but it felt like his soul was stuck there nevertheless.

James knew he wouldn't be able to go to sleep.

As quietly as he could, he dressed himself just barely enough to cover the fact that he was a man going through a mental episode and walked out into the hallway of the apartment complex. It was dark, and the only source of light was from a street lamp outside.

Still, he walked towards the door right next to his own, pausing for a moment when he rose a hand to knock. It was late in the night, you were probably asleep, but you had promised you would be there if he needed your help, and right now... well, it was an emergency.

James didn't doubt himself again and knocked once, then twice before taking a step back to wait.