Great.
That's good news.
If everything goes smoothly, once the revenge is complete, Silent Hill will see some big changes.
Barry was looking forward to it.
When you've been stuck in one place too long, you start itching to get out and see the world.
Having fought his way through the revival match, he was eager to live life to the fullest again.
Hopping off the hospital bed, Barry figured it was about time to get to work.
He stepped out of the room and walked down a corridor until he reached a window at the end.
White light streamed through the glass. They were in the Fog World now.
Glancing up at the height, Barry sprinted and leaped, sticking to the wall like a giant gecko. His rough straw hands gripped the surface easily, and he scrambled up, perching on the windowsill.
Outside, the fog was thick, obscuring the view, but that didn't matter.
The straw man squeezed his body through the narrow window gap, let out a "Woo-hoo!" and plummeted into free fall.
Thud!
Dropping from dozens of meters without any protection, Barry smashed into the hard ground.
A second later, he shook off the ash, got up, and strolled off in one direction like nothing happened.
At this point, he was strong enough to give Newton's coffin a good kick.
Falling from a height? No big deal. Even if his head got chopped off, he could stick it back on and keep going.
Soon enough, he reached his destination—the usual spot: Midwich Elementary School.
The school's front gate was open.
There were several footprints of different sizes on the ground.
Someone had entered the school. And not just one person.
One of them had to be Rose, guided by Dark Alessa. The others? Probably cultists.
"They've got some guts coming this far. They're practically begging to get taken out," Barry muttered, his eyes lighting up. This place was a good distance from the church. If they didn't react fast enough, they weren't making it back.
He'd thought the cultists would lay low for a while, but here they were, bold enough to venture out.
Maybe he'd put too much pressure on them, pushing them to take risks. Or maybe they thought they could handle him now.
Barry stayed quiet, following the faint trail of footprints silently.
All he had to do was wait. The right moment would come.
…
"Hold up, don't run!"
A blue figure darted ahead, with Rose chasing after.
She chased, the figure fled, and someone else was tailing them both.
Rose had lost her daughter, and she was in a bad spot. To make matters worse, she was handcuffed like a criminal.
Talk about lousy luck.
Sharon's hand-drawn pictures served as clues, giving Rose bits of information, but they raised more questions than answers.
What the hell is this place?
Where's my daughter, Sharon?
Rose had a million questions, but alone, all she could do was keep moving forward.
Finally, she watched the blue-clad little girl dart into a room at the end of a hall. Rose followed close behind.
She pushed open the creaky wooden door.
It was a bathroom.
No escape now.
Scanning the enclosed space, Rose moved slowly, shining her flashlight into each stall, searching for the fleeing girl.
But she came up empty.
Disappointed, Rose opened the last stall door. Instead of a girl, she found a body—stinking but not fully decayed.
The corpse was strung up in a bizarre pose, bound with sharp barbed wire, its lower half folded upward.
Rose screamed and stumbled back but mustered the courage to grab a wooden block from the corpse's mouth.
She was starting to sense that someone was deliberately guiding her.
The block had the word "hotel" written on it. She knew that was her next stop.
Steeling herself, Rose prepared to leave the school.
But as she poked her head out, a flashlight beam hit her face. She'd run into those people chasing her again.
Rose slammed the door shut, fumbling with a scavenged key, shoving it into the lock. Luck was on her side—she locked it just before the group reached her.
Bang, bang, bang!
The cultists pounded on the door, trying to break in. Rose braced her body against it, clutching the cross necklace at her chest, praying for a miracle.
But no miracle came. Only darkness.
Woo, woo, woo—!
The air raid siren blared. The cultists' faces paled, and they turned to flee.
They'd ventured too far. This group outing was way too risky.
The cultists bolted down the stairs, sprinting toward the school's exit.
If they didn't get spotted by a major monster, the four of them together could make it back to the church.
Their flashlight beams wobbled as a massive shadow loomed at the corner.
A chill shot through them, hairs standing on end. Of all the rotten luck, we ran into a big one!
We're done for.
The lead cultist, running too fast to stop, stumbled forward. He turned to see what monster they'd crossed, bracing for a fight.
The light swept over the figure, revealing… a tiny straw man standing at the door.
The huge shadow was just a trick of the fading light before the darkness took over.
"Prepare to meet your maker," Barry said, arms crossed, single-handedly "surrounding" the four.
"Don't panic! It's just the weakest monster!" the lead cultist said, his face lighting up with relief. The others felt a wave of luck.
They exchanged a glance and charged forward, eyes locked on the exit.
"Rush it!"
On the wide staircase, they shouted and surged forward, pipes raised, ready to clobber Barry.
"Not only are you not running, but you're actually coming at me?" Barry said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, his tiny body inflated like a balloon. Dark power coursed through him, straw sprouting wildly.
In a flash, Barry transformed from a pint-sized straw man into a towering Pyramid Head, looming over them.
A massive triangular helmet, a machete as tall as a person, and a ripped, explosive physique—that was Barry now.
Just looking at him, you knew he was bad news.
Their pipes looked like kid's butter knives compared to his machete.
The cultists' brief moment of hope vanished. Their legs wobbled, and their necks felt cold.
But they were already halfway down the stairs. Turning back now would mean giving their backs to the enemy.
What now?
The two in front were terrified, facing that monstrous machete. Nobody wanted to test their pipes against it.
But survival always finds a way.
One guy had a bright idea. Aha!
He sped up, then slid low, leaning back with his hands propping him up, trying to slide right under Barry's legs.
Another tossed his pipe like a projectile and rolled to the side.