OPEN POST; [ JAMES SUNDERLAND / SILENT HILL 2 ]

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(( out of her head, she sang ))

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[James drops his hand and looks at him, scoffing. He steps closer.]

No. That's not how it works.

[And steps closer again, pointing his pipe at the dead monster on the pavement. Whatever shock he first experienced upon seeing its wretched form, it's gone now.]

This came from you. [It's definitely not James'!] This town brought you here for a reason, and that's not just for your work. Whether it's something holding you back, or something you're denying yourself, or a past anger, or hurt—

[With a man who works for Death? It could be anything, he thinks.]

But it's your job to figure it out. You can't leave until you do.

[reapoman]

[ Ivan can't help but look a little taken aback at the... not quite an outburst, but certainly close enough coming from a man as quiet as James has been. ]

I've been alive for a long, long time. I'm out of lessons to learn and things to process.

[ Lie. He's simply stopped acknowledging those things and called it good enough. ]

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[James is often quiet, but rarely is he passive. For what it's worth, what fire he had seems to drain from him just as quickly, and his arm goes limp by his side again.]

You actually believe that?

[reapoman]

[ James gets a long look in response, which is just as telling as any answer Ivan could ever give. Beyond that, he doesn't deign to reply.

He's going to get out of this hell town one way or another, with or without any meaningful confrontations with his trauma. ]

We should keep moving.

[redsquares]

[A flat look in return. Oh, buddy.




We're going to be here for a long time.]

...Fine. For now, we'll keep heading towards the hotel like you said.

You shoulder, is it already healed up?

[reapoman]

Yeah, I'm fine.

[ His suit is all bloodstained and torn, but rather than waste the energy to fix that, he figures he's in for a lot more hurt before this tour of Silent Hill is over. Might as well leave it be. ]

I'm sure you figured this out already. I can't exactly be killed.

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[Healing up quickly was immediately obvious; not being able to die at all makes logical sense if someone's already working for Death, but James just frowns. Then he turns to keep walking, expecting Ivan to follow, ignoring the niggling feeling of unease at having him at his back.]

...Terrible for you.

[It's wry, but it's not necessarily a joke. Especially if this man's lost his wife. Especially if he has to "reap" souls for all eternity.]

You've always been that way?

[Unable to die. A reaper. The way he is in general. Take your pick.]

[reapoman]

[ Ivan's used to making people uneasy, even those that don't know what he is. When you spend so long steeped in Death, you just start to give off certain Vibes. So, he just follows along, hands in his pockets, knowing there's nothing he can do about the way James feels.

He doesn't give the remark much thought. It is terrible for him, thank you. He thinks James gets that, and that's why it's not as biting as it could be, so he lets it slide. ]

No. I was human once. Lifetimes ago.

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[The street beyond is wide, grey, foggy, and entirely empty. There's no sound of fluttering moth wings or something large stomping about at a distance. But sometimes it's the quiet that's the most unsettling, and even while James has this strange conversation with Ivan, he's trying to keep aware of their surroundings.]

So why the change?

[reapoman]

It wasn't a choice, if that's what you're asking. It's a punishment.

[ At least one of them is keeping a weather eye. Ivan is very bad about looking for danger, though perhaps that's a given considering how little danger anything actually poses him. ]

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[Someone has to keep this reaper guy safe even if he might not actually need it.

He isn't sure if this counts as needling or not, but on the off-chance it isn't, he asks. In fact, James simply asks because he's curious, too, in a morbid way.]

For?

[reapoman]

For disrespecting the cycle of life and death.

[ What does that even mean! Ivan isn't big on explanations, it seems. ]

[redsquares]

Disrespecting the cycle?

[He glances over him briefly from over his shoulder, a pinch to his brow. That's not much of an explanation, though, but James is clever enough to intuit a thing or two.]

Is that something anyone can even affect?

[reapoman]

If you try hard enough, believe me, Death notices.

[ He's proof of that. Ivan's gaze flicks up to meet James' for that brief moment, and something indescribably sad crosses his features. ]

I wanted to save her. No matter the cost.

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[Oh. What a look that is. James has worn it before, too, and still feels it on nights that drag on for so, so long. So empty. It's a special kind of misery, being the only one left, and the guilt that comes with surviving when you don't really deserve it.

It's hard to look at.

He breaks his gaze away.]

You mean your wife. Was she sick, too?

["Too."]

[reapoman]

[ That "too" carries a world's worth of weight, and Ivan can't help but wonder if whatever drew him here drew James to him, too. Two men with that sort of horrible tragedy in common... just trying to get by. ]

She was. In an era long before the modern medicine that might have saved her.

So I turned to darker means, instead.

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[Maybe it was some kind of bizarre fate that brought him back to Silent Hill just to meet this man. Someone who's felt similar loss, and who reacted to it in ways that were... worthy of "punishment", it would seem.

James swallows thickly. He's not sure how to feel about that, either.]

...Last time I was here, I discovered some old history about this town; about a cult, and some of the strange things they did. And I found a book that detailed a ritual that could apparently bring the dead back to life.

[Weird cult shit.]

Bullshit, I thought. But then, as crazy things kept happening, I began to think maybe it was possible. Sometimes I still wonder about it, and about whatever power Silent Hill really has.

Doing something similar... Is that what you mean by "darker means?"

[reapoman]

[ Oh, it was just figure that there was weird cult shit happening in this town. Fate has got one cosmically shitty sense of humor. ]

Something like that, yeah.

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[There's really off-the-rails cult shit happening in Silent Hill that James is unaware of because he's from the wrong entry in the franchise. But even what he found, though never pursued, still rubbed him the wrong way.

Partly.]

I can't blame you. I thought about maybe finding out if it was real, too... Just to have Mary back.

[He sighs.]

So Death didn't like what you did, though, huh?

[reapoman]

[ There's a little solace in that, knowing he's not the only one who would do insane things for the person he loves, but there's also something in the look he gives James that says it wouldn't be worth it. He's living proof of that. ]

To say the very least. So here I am, collecting the souls of the dead until my debt to the cosmic balance is paid.

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[Something like that comes at a cost, he can see that very clearly in Ivan. Moreover, James has simply the accepted the reality of Mary being dead, and he won’t go back on that. He can’t.]

And how much more debt is left?

[reapoman]

[ The smile he flashes James is deeply, deeply sardonic. ]

You don't want to know.

[redsquares]

[Yikes…]

It must have been a pretty nasty ritual. Or… whatever it is you did.

[reapoman]

I don't like to get into the details.

[ And that pretty much signals the end of that conversation. It wouldn't have gone on much longer anyway, as they both round a corner to find the street closed off by a thick wall of writhing, thorny vines. ]

Ah. Is there a way around?

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[James is not entirely sure he'd understand the details, anyway. And maybe he doesn't want to. He can only imagine how egregious it was for Death to keep him in debt to this "job" for so, so long.

The vines drag his attention to a more present problem, anyway. James, being who he is, steps forward and... reaches out to pull at one of them, careful not to prick himself.]

Vines... That's odd. [He'll answer Ivan here in a second. Right now... tug, tug.]