They couldn't wait any longer. It was time to head to that place for real.
Rose, gazing at her daughter's sleeping form, made up her mind.
It was a quiet night.
Rose drove with her daughter, Sharon, heading toward the road to Silent Hill.
As the sky darkened, after a few twists and turns, Rose spotted a fork in the road leading to Silent Hill.
She floored the gas pedal, casually smashing through the barricade gate, barreling down the same path Barry had once taken.
The silver Jeep plunged deeper into the fog. Suddenly, a harsh burst of static crackled from the car's radio.
Sharon flinched, as if the noise pierced her ears, instantly on edge.
It was Alessa making her move, wielding her dark powers to open a gateway to another Silent Hill.
Dark Alessa's figure appeared abruptly in the middle of the road, head down, strolling like she was in her own living room.
What kid just wanders into the street like that?!
Rose's heart nearly stopped, thinking she was about to hit someone. She yanked the steering wheel hard and slammed on the brakes.
Amid Sharon's screams, Rose's head smashed into the steering wheel, knocking her out cold for a solid nap.
Moments later, a motorcycle roared up behind them, its siren blaring beep-boop-beep-boop.
Officer Cybil, worried about a crime in progress, had been tailing Rose. Her bike was moving too fast to stop in time and crashed into the Jeep.
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Right then, Dark Alessa finished opening the portal, pulling everyone in the car's vicinity into another layer of Silent Hill.
Dark Alessa: "Did I pull in an extra one?"
"…Whatever, not my problem. She crashed into this herself."
With all the key players in place, it was time to set the plan in motion.
Dark Alessa could hardly wait.
Thirty years—do you know what those thirty years were like for her?
All she could do was watch the cultists suffer, tweaking their torment like a game she'd long grown bored of.
Every day, she wanted to wipe out everyone in that church, but their damn faith kept her locked out.
You ever feel that agony of seeing something you can't touch? You get how much that hurts?
Nine years ago, she had a spark of genius—a long-term scheme.
Alessa's good side was split off into a newborn baby girl, sent to an orphanage in the outside world to be adopted by a loving couple.
Sharon grew up surrounded by love, with a mother who adored her.
And that mother, if willing to become a vessel for darkness, could bypass the church's barriers.
Then, it'd be a bloodbath, a harvest of souls.
Silent Hill, the Otherworld.
A suffocating darkness swallowed the town like a massive beast.
In the silver Jeep, blonde-haired Sharon opened the car door on her own. Eyes closed, she moved effortlessly through the dark.
She didn't know what she was doing.
She just kept walking forward, like a puppet on strings, no consciousness of her own.
"Go, go, go…"
She'd hide in a safe spot for now, like an NPC waiting for orders, guided step-by-step by Alessa to carry out her mission.
Meanwhile, Alessa would let Rose feel the pain of losing her daughter, using her love to push the plan forward.
…
Do the dead need to sleep?
It's a deep question, one worth chewing on.
For the past two weeks, Barry had been wrestling with this profound mystery.
And honestly? He was starting to think the answer was yes.
Because it helped pass the time.
He lay on his side in bed, under tattered blankets, letting his mind drift into sleep.
Morning, noon, or night—it didn't matter.
In Silent Hill, the usual day-night cycle was meaningless.
He used to have a phone to check the time, but those rotten cultists had swiped it.
Barry's sense of time was getting hazier, and he was craving something new in his life.
Silent Hill was a small place. Before and after death, Barry had explored every inch of it over and over.
Even fighting Pyramid Head couldn't spark any excitement anymore.
Loneliness, it turned out, was a brutal thing.
Every day was the same monotonous grind. Even chasing down cultists to hack at them wasn't fun anymore.
And those damn cultists were getting way too cautious!
Once, Barry got too close by mistake and got kicked a few yards away in a panic. After that, their fear of him dropped big time.
If it weren't for his one trick—setting himself ablaze and turning into a flaming straw man—he'd probably get zero respect.
But with his short legs, he couldn't catch up to anyone. It was frustrating as hell.
The chase game had turned into a boring daily check-in.
Later, Barry decided to level up, to make himself strong enough to stand tall in the Fog World like a real man.
He decided to get jacked—build up his straw body.
Not with push-ups, crunches, running, or lifting weights like some regular gym bro, but by getting to the core of things.
In the Otherworld, he used the Book of Strange Tales, experimenting with different forms, studying how the straw was woven and structured.
Back in the Fog World, he recorded his insights in the Book, adding new entries to the straw man's page.
Sometimes he nailed it; sometimes he flopped.
When he got it right, the entries stuck. When he got it wrong, they vanished like they were never there.
Thanks to the Book's convenience, Barry could filter out the wrong paths and save a ton of time.
Then, he focused on the right direction, tweaking and weaving his straw body to mimic battle-ready forms, aiming to gain some solid fighting power in the Fog World.
Slowly, with the Book's help, he started to transform his body.
Straw man, transform!
Countless strands of straw flowed like water, shifting and rearranging inside his frame. After a complex structural overhaul, Barry succeeded for the first time.
His body was stronger, more solid than ever.
The new straw man sported a white mask, broad shoulders like double doors, ripped muscles, a towering, badass frame, and a heavy machete!
I'm a new man now.
Barry looked up at the chair, which seemed even bigger now, and his moment of triumph fizzled.
He'd gotten shorter.
No magical dark powers, no Otherworld environment—guess the saying's true: the smaller, the mightier!
Right now, Barry was basically a super-mini Jason Voorhees, wielding a Pyramid Head machete… but kid's toy-sized.
Looking like this, he'd be lucky to sit at the kids' table with Silent Hill's giant bugs. One wrong step, and he'd be squashed like a juice box.
But Barry didn't lose heart. A good start was half the battle.
He was on the right track—just needed a bit more tweaking.
And so, he dove back into his dull, repetitive experiments.
Until now.
Barry heard from Alessa that her revenge plan was about to hit a new phase.
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