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Pyramid Head, the Master of Silent Hill and Executioner of the guilty, lay awake in the semi-darkness. He listened to the rain rattle on the roof and window, and to the steady, soft breathing of the sleeping friend at his side.
It had never rained this much before the Keeper had arrived in Silent Hill. Something about his presence changed the weather, made it wetter, more dramatic. Pyramid Head didn’t know if that was because the safe-headed fellow had some kind of connection to the skies back where he’d escaped from, or if this was simply Silent Hill’s way of accepting a stranger as one of its own. After all, the fog belonged to Pyramid Head; perhaps the rain had been assigned to the Keeper.
Pyramid Head liked the rain. It cleansed the streets, and made green things poke up here and there; a stark change from the usual dirty, lifeless atmosphere of the broken-down city. However, tonight’s storm seemed much heavier than usual. The glass rattled with the force of the falling drops. The window lit briefly, and thunder rumbled, barely audible above the downpour.
Pyramid Head eyed the fog-clouded window, troubled by the intensity of the storm, before turning his attention to the one who might be causing it; his fellow metal-faced companion and recently-adopted resident of Silent Hill: the Keeper.
The Keeper lay facing the wall, his back against Pyramid Head’s ribs. His great safe of a head rested on a cushion made from his bundled gloves and apron, as his shoulders were too broad for the side of his safe to reach the mattress otherwise. Whatever he dreamed about, sleep held him firmly in place. Both of them, Keeper and Pyramid, reclined on a haphazard pile of mattresses scavenged from the ruin of the school. That had been the Keeper’s idea, actually - he’d even layered the mattresses in such a way that Pyramid Head could rest the weight of his pyramid against them and not feel the strain on his neck and shoulders. Pyramid Head had been using a pile of chairs for that before, as lying on the ground with his massive metal face was not only uncomfortable, but awkward to stand up from. The Keeper had taken one look at the chairs, shaken his safe in disapproval, and gone scavenging for other options, those clever hands of his crafting this current solution.
Pyramid Head leaned closer, looking for his friend’s hands. There they were, curled against his chest, calloused and pale in comparison to the dark blue of his shirt. Pyramid Head loved those hands. Their skill was not confined to traps and crafts alone; they worked wonders on Pyramid-Headed-fellows too.
Thunder rumbled outside. The Keeper shivered, fingers flexing compulsively in his sleep.
Maybe he was setting traps, Pyramid Head thought to himself, amused. Maybe he was gathering corpses for a delicious gray-matter meal. Maybe he was working on one of their projects they’d begun around Silent Hill. Ah, or even gathering seeds from the wildflowers not far beyond the city border. They had only begun their ‘garden’ attempt recently, but were both quite eager to see where it led. They’d spent long, satisfying days breaking up concrete, and had already loosened up the soil and planted a few seeds.
The Keeper stilled briefly, almost as if he’d heard Pyramid Head’s wonderings. Pyramid Head hummed softly over him, resting his great metal head against the safe-man’s back so the sound could be felt as much as heard.
The Keeper relaxed, his hands uncurling once more, and gave a heavy sigh.
Lightning flashed outside, bright against the shadows of night. Pyramid Head lifted his face to watch. This was also a new thing in his experience - seeing the great forked shapes of light in the sky, like fiery trees. He wondered if this, too, was something the Keeper had brought with him from his world.
A rumble of thunder. The Keeper flinched at his side, a brief flare of distress rippling the air between them. His breath shivered in his chest.
The Master of Silent Hill looked at his square friend again, this time more concerned. He, Pyramid Head, was a being woven of thought, memory and desire, aside from his muscle and metal. He could sense, to some degree, what the Keeper was feeling, if he truly reached for it. It was a connection they shared and treasured. However, he tended not to do this unless they were both aware of it, as it could be a little intrusive otherwise. But now…
Another lightning flash. A crack of thunder, as sharp as bullet fire. The door of the Keeper’s safe rattled, a low noise of muffled hurt escaping the fleshy confines. One of his arms cradled his gut, as if it pained him.
Pyramid Head reached for his friend’s shoulder, but hesitated. It was not unexpected for his friend to suffer from nightmares, considering all he had endured before coming to Silent Hill. His worn and bloodstained clothing and hammer spoke of many battles won. Pyramid Head was unsure - should he wake the slumbering safehead? Or allow him to fight to victory on his own?
The Keeper twitched and shivered. His fists clenched and unclenched. His biceps strained, relaxed, strained again, and his breathing came faster, misting slightly in their cool room.
Then he reached for his safe-head, and began to twist.
‘
No.’
Pyramid Head grabbed friend’s wrists and pulled them firmly awake from the safe with a deep, rumbling growl.
‘Awaken, Keeper. Your battle is over.’
A note of command in that order; the Master of Silent Hill speaking.
Pyramid Head felt the Keeper come awake - felt the snap of his awareness in their connection, felt the panic and fear, grief and rage that swirled in his still-groggy mind.
‘ My daughter. He is stealing her - I must save…my daughter-!’
The Keeper tried to pull free, but he could not break out of Pyramid Head’s iron grasp. Especially not when Pyramid Head had so much leverage, towering over the Keeper’s prone form.
Pity gripped Pyramid Head’s heart. The Keeper had mentioned this child before, but in his waking moments the Keeper remembered that the girl was not his. Not his, but rather, belonging to the father that had possessed his body. The human that had, for a brief number of hours, filled the Keeper’s heart with a love that did not belong to him, and then left him empty and broken.
Pyramid Head pulled the safe-man up to a sitting position, released his wrists, and took his shoulders instead. ‘My friend,’ he rumbled as gently as he could. ‘She was saved long ago, by her human father. You are no longer in the hospital. You are here, in Silent Hill. With me.’
The Keeper stilled, his great chest rising and falling with battle-heavy breaths. He looked around the room, the dim light illuminating the face of his safe. Pyramid Head could feel the recognition his friend experienced upon noting the details that they themselves had added, each familiar object grounding him further in time and place. There was the Keeper’s metal backpack, with the barbed wire from his face piled on top, stowed away for a night spent snuggled close and warm. There lay their weapons, leaning side by side against the wall. There was their eating space, containing the grisly remains of the meal the Keeper had hunted and dragged here. They had feasted together before slumber, and only a red-brown stain and a few odd bones remained.
‘ You are right,’ The Keeper said, and let out a long, shuddering breath. He reached up, resting his bare hands on Pyramid Heads’ battle-scarred arms, flesh warm upon flesh. ‘You are right. I am here with you, and…’ The next breath he took rattled in his chest, painful-sounding. ‘ And…she was…never mine to keep.’
He bowed his head. Something trickled out of the lower corner of his metal door - clear liquid that dripped down onto the front of his blue shirt. He let his hands fall, let them lay in his lap, open and empty.
‘I know she was not. I know this. Yet when I dream, I still see her. I still…’
He lifted up his arms once more, as if cradling someone. His heavy hands shook.
‘I still see her as she was, in that moment when she was mine. Beautiful, and frail.’
His pain rippled across their connection, deep and aching. He had loved her, in that moment. The love was a thing borrowed from her father, but to the Keeper, who had never before experienced love of any sort, it had been an experience akin to a moth being suddenly exposed to a bonfire. The sudden brightness and warmth had blinded him, dazzled him. He wanted to keep it more than anything, but it was not his.
Pyramid Head made a soft noise of sympathy, and shifted so he was sitting shoulder to shoulder with his friend - trying to be a steady, grounding presence without interrupting his words. ‘What else do you see, in your dreams? You were reaching for your safe.’
They both knew what that meant.
The Keeper reached up, touching his lower panel, remembering. ‘I saw the halls, again. I saw my master, commanding me to kill the intruders. I saw the light bloom from his weapons, felt their bullets tear into me…’
One hand braced over his belly, shielding it from the remembered injury. The other went to his neck, rubbing the so-often-broken flesh.
“Even in my dream, I knew I was not supposed to be there. I knew it was wrong, though I could not remember why. I could not accept those halls again. I could not accept Ruvic in my head, commanding me once more. I was prepared to break free, no matter-’
He stopped, his breathing unsteady, more clear liquid trickling from the corners of his safe.
‘ No matter how many times I had to try….’
Once more he gripped the sides of his square head, as, Pyramid Head knew, he had done a thousand times before, when he had to break his own neck to transfer from one head to another. This time, however, those pale hands trembled.
‘I escaped those halls long ago. Ruvic is gone as well. Why do I still dream of them, and of her? Why do these painful things stay?’
Lighting flashed outside once more. Rain poured down, mirroring the now steady trail of tears that bled from the safe’s door seams. His next breath came as a sob, a torn thing that shook his solid body, like a leaf shaken by thunder.
‘Will I never be free from my past? These hands, this neck, this heart - will they always be chained to the pain of my memories? Will I never escape those who tore me apart and left me to fade away?’
Once more, Pyramid Head reached to pull those pale hands away from the Keeper’s metal head. This time, however, his touch was gentle. He shifted so he was sitting across from the Keeper, and he leaned forward until the front of his pyramid rested against the face of the safe.
The Keeper’s tears dripped onto him, wet and warm. Pyramid Head hummed a low note, letting it reverberate through both their metal faces.
‘The past is not something that can be ignored, or forgotten,’ he told his friend, squeezing his hands. ‘ This I know. Even if you wish to escape it, it clings to you. However, that does not mean you must submit to these chains you speak of.’
‘ I do not understand,’ The Keeper said, misery and frustration heavy in his words.
‘You were made by one clinging to the past…’ Pyramid Head rumbled, knowing the truth of it. They were similar creatures, the Keeper and Himself. He had known they were as one the first time he had seen that square head, had known they were two shapes cut from the same cloth. ‘...as I was summoned by one running from it. But you, and I: we are both more than what we were made to be.’
He squeezed the Keeper’s hands tightly, feeling their strength and solidity.
‘ These hands…I claim them from the past. When they ache for a love that was not yours, use them to reach for one that is .’
The Keeper, soothed by both words and touch, hummed in agreement to this, squeezing Pyramid Head’s hands in return. ‘ I see the wisdom of this.’ He rubbed his safe upon Pyramid Head’s face, making it quite clear who he would reach for.
Pyramid Head rumbled firmly, tilting his head, using the front of his pyramid to lift the Keeper’s safe up.
‘This neck, once broken out of service, now whole.’ He cracked his metal jaws open, gave the aching flesh a soft lick. The Keeper shivered under his touch, but did not pull away. ‘ I claim this, too, from the past. No more must you harm yourself to fulfill duties. Here, with me, your task is to heal and grow, and help Silent Hill heal and grow,” He brought to memory their shared hunts, their small, fledgeling garden. He felt the Keeper pick up the memory and hold it as well - soft pride between them, shared over a patch of soil revealed beneath concrete, and seeds gathered from what growing things they could scavenge.
“And I…’
A few more strokes of his tongue on that aching neck. He couldn't help it - the Keeper was just a tasty sort of shape. The Safehead made a higher-pitched noise and squirmed, but stayed close, his amusement and affection brightening the connection between them.
‘I will help, both to remind you and to ease you.” Pyramid Head let his face tilt back to its usual angle, so that the Keeper could rest against him once more. As for this heart…’
The master of Silent Hill freed one of his hands, resting it upon the Keeper’s broad chest, feeling the pulse within. It quickened under his touch.
But he hesitated. A heart was not as easy to claim as hands, or a tasty neck.
The Keeper covered Pyramid’s Head’s hand with both his own.
‘ It is yours,’ he said softly. ‘ Already yours. Perhaps it was yours even from the first moment I saw you.’
‘ You mean when you hit me with your hammer?’ Pyramid head chuckled, snaked his tongue out to lick away the last of the tears, and nuzzled his face against the Keeper’s. The noise of metal on metal was not one most would consider cuddly, but it was one of his favorite sounds in the whole world.
‘Ah, well. I did not know there was any other way to greet one so strong and handsome.’ The Keeper ran his hands up and down the sides of Pyramid Head’s face.
Pyramid Head purred, leaning into him. ‘Perhaps so. You have certainly learned better ways since coming here.’
‘ Yes, I have a good teacher. Even if he is heavy. You are leaning too hard-!’ The Keeper grunted, trying to re-adjust his position and apply his strength better to keeping them both upright.
But he was too late. Pyramid Head pushed him right over with his pyramid, rumbling with amusement and pinning him to the mattresses with his face and arms. ‘ Heavy? Your shoulders are broader than mine, and yet you call me heavy.’
The Keeper made a startled noise at his imprisonment, squirmed, then laid still, thinking. It was cozy, for a few seconds, their forms pressed so close, warmth momentarily shared. ‘ What you say is true…my shoulders are broader than yours…’
He moved then, slowly but surely, pushing upwards, forcing the Pyramid back. The Keeper only pressed closer, though, slipping his thick arms around Pyramid Head’s back and legs. He braced himself for a breath, then, lifting Pyramid Head with him as he went, rose up; first to one knee, then, with steady, relentless strength, standing tall. Pyramid Head found himself cradled in the Keeper’s arms as if he were the delicate, frail creature of a dream. ‘ There,’ the Keeper said, very pleased with himself. ‘ Once again you are correct. Not so heavy, after all.’
The Keepers' limbs did not tremble, but Pyramid Head could feel those muscles bulging with the feat of bearing his considerable weight. He could feel, too, that strong heart, still under his palm, beating with power. It was a nice feeling.
Pyramid Head, carefully, so as not to upset their balance, leaned his head against the Keeper’s face and shoulder. In his entire life, nobody had ever carried him in such a matter. It was a strange experience to be held so tenderly. ‘ You are, truly, the mightiest square that has ever lived.’
The Keeper chuckled, gave him a slight squeeze, and took several slow, steady steps, carrying Pyramid Head over to the window. ‘ And you are, truly, the sweetest of triangles.’
Together, they looked out the fogged glass into the misty, pre-dawn sky. The rain had slowed to a fine, gentle sprinkle. Whatever thunder was left rumbled peaceably in the distance, far from Silent Hill.
‘ It is all worth it,’ The Keeper said. He leaned his head against the side of the great pyramid, and his safe creaked open an inch, one tendril slipping out to rest on Pyramid Head’s face. ‘ All the pain, and the memory, and the dreams. All worth it, to wake up, and be yours.’
The Master of Silent Hill rumbled cheerfully, wrapping his arms around the Keeper and giving him a tight squeeze. ‘ Just as you are mine, dearest friend, so too I am yours in return. And I agree.’
He heaved a happy sigh, feeling more content than, he was quite sure, anyone else had ever felt in Silent Hill.
‘ It is all worth it.’
The Keeper shared his happy sigh. He lingered a moment longer at the window, then turned, walking with steady steps back to their mattress nest. He knelt with care, maintaining his balance and grip, and set Pyramid Head on the mattresses as tenderly as if he were made of glass.
Pyramid Head scooted over to make room, and the Keeper eased down beside him. Strange shapes they might be, but it was not difficult for them to curl against each other, hold each other close, and rest their heads against one another’s in a way that felt as if they were made to do so, flat side against flat side.
‘ I hope you have better dreams this time, my mighty square,” Pyramid Head rumbled. He could already feel sleep reaching for him again, but he didn’t surrender yet. He wanted to help, just a little, and be sure the Keeper achieved a less fretful slumber.
The Keeper gave a soft hum, and rested one hand on the side of the great pyramid. ‘ I will,’ he said. ‘ I am sure. After all…’ He chuckled, making the dials turn on his face with a faint click-click-click sound. ‘ I am…safe, in your arms.’
Pyramid Head wheezed out a laugh, and squeezed him tight. ‘ That you are.’
They slowly drifted into sleep, both of them hoping that their dreams would be exactly the reality they shared in this moment; resting peacefully in each other's arms, safe from the shadows of the past and dreams of violence.
Somewhere deep in Pyramid Head’s core, it occurred to him that Silent Hill itself might be trying to move forward from its own bloody history. Maybe that was why it had appeared to the Keeper in the first place. Maybe he was the key to true change, in this ruined town that had once been a sanctuary of peace.
Maybe in the morning the rain would clear, and they could work a bit more on their garden. How wonderful it would be, to find their cleared space dotted with tiny green sprouts, poking out of the well-watered soul.
Pyramid Head could almost feel Silent Hill agree to the idea. Oh, he couldn’t wait to show the Keeper. Their garden was going to be so wonderful, with all this rain…