Prologue: Voice in the Night
Travis Grady, a lone and solitary truck driver, was alone on a long, dark stretch of highway, forest and countryside passing all around him. Another trucker, the first one he’d seen in hours, passed by. It looked familiar, and he picked up his radio in a flash.
“Who’d I just pass there? Is that you good buddy?”
“Travis you messed up sonbitch, what you doin’ on my road…?”
Travis couldn’t help but smile, the first emotion he’d felt since he started this trip.
“Late on a gig bud. I’m takin’ the shortcut past Silent Hill, stoppin’ for coffee as soon as I hit Brahms. I’m beat.” He replied exhaustively.
“Bad dreams still keepin’ you awake?” He asked.
He replied before letting him answer, “I told you man, a girl or two would go a long way. Sleep like a baby with a chick in your cab.” He said lightly, although being absolutely serious.
“Guess I don’t meet the right kind of girls bud.” He said uncomfortably.
“Maybe if you weren’t always- - - how or why…”
Travis stopped him quickly, thankful for the partial transmission.
“Hey chill! You don’t see me bringin’ up your issues.”
The man chuckled heartily.
“No need. My ole’ lady keepin’ me fully informed of my failings. The girl keeps notes!”
“You mean she hasn’t left you yet?” Travis asked jokingly, unable to suppress a giggle.
The man laughed again.
“Any day now! See ya around Travis, take it easy…”
He nodded.
“Ten-four. Catch ya later buddy.”
Chapter 1: Welcome to Silent Hill
A steady rain had slowly picked up, more so after getting into Toluca County, West Virginia. If he just kept it on this road, he wouldn’t be in Silent Hill for any more than ten minutes at the most.
Tree’s had become more frequent, now secluding him to the long stretch of road.
He was going a steady 35-mph, and had even set into cruise control. He couldn’t stop his thoughts from wandering, something that he realized would be dangerous to do so close to this town.
Silent Hill was at the peak of development, and a popular tourist attraction. People flocked here every year to visit the Lakeside Amusement Park, and honeymoon in the Lakeview Hotel. Toluca Lake was also a main attraction, bringing in the most people by far.
He had vacationed here a lot as a kid, and had many fond memories. But every time he drove through here he always became uneasy, and he would suffer vivid hallucinations.
He blinked several times, finally going into thought. He saw a graveyard shrouded in fog, several stone tombstones in sight. He blinked again.
“What is this…”
An open spot in the ground. A group of mourners stands around, a funeral. A small, blonde headed child. He looked so sad, staring into the open grave.
He saw something moving to the left in the woods, coming up fast. The figure was small, and covered in a hooded Shaw pulled up close. It looked like it was holding something, and as it passed the middle of the road it collapsed. He only had mere seconds to slam on the breaks, the huge vehicle immediately starting to skid on the slick water covered road.
“Oh shit…”
He lurched forward, the tanker truck finally sliding to a halt several feet away from the crouched figure huddled down. The rain suddenly let up, and he took the opportunity to step out and see if the person was okay.
The cab door slammed, echoing ominously in the darkest of night.
He peered around to the road caught in the headlights of the truck-
-and was shocked to see no one there. He furrowed his eyebrows, reaching blindly toward the handle of the cab door. His eyes darted around, falling on one of the big mirrors attached to the front of the truck.
A fog was coming up quickly behind him, along with the image of a little girl in a navy blue school dress, her black hair flowing and her ghostly pale hand reaching out.
He turned around, seeing nothing but the fog slowly creeping in.
He looked back in terror toward the mirror-
-and let out his breath as he saw nothing there.
“What’s going on here…?”
He back away, looking around for any source of the figure or the girl. Finally, up ahead on the now foggy highway, was a little girl with short black hair, dressed in the school uniform. She stopped and looked over toward him, her eyes somehow beckoning him to follow-
-and she took off, sprinting up and quickly out of sight.
“Huh…Hey wait!”
He ran back and grabbed the pocket flashlight from the dash and stuck it in the chest pocket of his vest. He then began to pursue the little girl, taking off in a dead sprint down the dark road. A street lamp went by, only lighting up a small spot of grass.
He tasted a sour, tangy burn at the back of his throat, and tried to cough it away with no success.
“Something’s happening…”
He started to feel tired, and slowed down to catch his breath.
“What are you doing…?”
He whispered, bending over and placing his hands on his knees. He heard the footsteps, looking over only to glimpse the girl for a second.
“Come back!” He yelled, and took off after her again.
He used a guardrail as a guide and ran faster up the grassy line of the roadside. A green sign came into view, and he spotted a lamp above it.
It was a greeting sign reading
Welcome to
Silent Hill
He was already late for the delivery he was on, but maybe something was wrong?
“Just take a moment to take a look around, then call back on the radio.”
He took another second to catch his breath again, and regained his chase after the mysterious girl.
An old wooden fence came into view, and it started up a narrow dirt path. He went up it, seeing a couple of the footsteps at the beginning of the trail. Through the trees ahead he spotted a disastrous sight.
It appeared like a house, wooden and two stories high, was mostly ablaze. He was breathing heavily, stopping as close as he could to the burning mansion.
“Not fog…its smoke…oh my God…”
He muttered through shuttery breaths, looking helplessly at the inferno. It wouldn’t take no time for the house to be reduce to a pile of ash. He saw a woman at the corner of the house, looking over at the house almost with satisfaction. It seemed like she spotted him, and sneered, then turned and darted away into the forest. A blood curdling scream came from inside.
“Someone’s in there…!”
She sounded young, and in agonizing pain to boot. He couldn’t possible leave her to burn alive, especially if he could help. He ran up to the front door, bringing his arms up to shield his face from the immense heat.
The living room wasn’t too bad yet, with the fire only in the far-left corner and near the entrance. He saw a staircase going up, and heard another scream from somewhere above.
“Right.”
He darted over to the staircase, going up the first few by twos. As he neared the top they started to collapsed, and he felt the flames erupt from below. He jumped the last couple of steps, landing through the open door directly ahead.
He pulled his dirty flannel shirt to try and stop as much of the smoke as possible from entering into his lungs now that his breathing had become faster and more intense.
He saw up hear was a dining room, most of the furniture burning fast and hot.
Over in the far left he saw a library and reading area. In between some couches there were a handful of candelabras, each filled with long, lit white candles.
“That’s it…!”
He moved around some chairs, watching to miss parts of the carpet that had started to burn. He pivoted around some bookcases, a strange altar coming into view. There was a brass statuette of some sort of creature, his mind moving to fast to stop and examine it.
He saw on the ground, lying face-up and wrapped only with a thin sheet, was the girl he had heard. Her skin was already horribly charred, black and flaking almost everywhere on her body. Blood and puss filled wounds dotted her limbs and face, and she could barely open her eyes.
“Let me burn…”
She whispered pathetically, not even able to move an inch.
He was filled with a sudden unknown attachment to her, and brought to the verge of tears at how bad her pain must be. She needed out. Now.
“Your coming with me…” He said, determination in his voice.
He knelt down and picked her up gingerly, feeling her small hands clasp on around his vest. Her breathing was raspy and labored, and she felt almost plastic. Her skin was incredibly hot, and it made the ends of his fingers numb with pain.
“Need another exit, stairs are no good…”
He started moving as quickly as he could back around toward the area with the least amount of fire. The floor cracked underneath his weight, and before he could react he was tumbling to the first floor below.
He landed as softly as he could, jolting her as he hit down on his knees pretty hard. He stood back up, running around the burning and obliterated staircase and toward the open front door.
“Home free!”
He made a mad dash over toward it, stumbling outside into the grass and open air just as the wooden awning above collapsed in a fiery heap. The air felt cool to his clammy skin, the fire popping and roaring behind him.
“Safe…now…”
He said, dropping down on his knees into the dew covered grass. He laid her down, shock having already taken control and caused her to become unconscious.
He felt dizzy, his vision suddenly becoming dotted and blurred.
“Hey! Someone help her!”
He looked around in confusion, now a headache starting to set in.
“It must be the smoke…”
“Where is…everybody…?”
He started to sway, and then collapsed to the ground below. He coughed as his vision started to swirl to blackness, something else invading his senses.
In the distance there were sirens. Firemen, with police maybe. Hopefully even an ambulance. But there wasn’t something…right about the sound. It seemed sinister somehow. It lurked in his mind as he started to daze away into blackness.
Chapter 2: Abandoned Streets
It was either the unusually cold snip in the air or the sudden abundance in thick fog that slowly brought Travis to his senses, or maybe it was the wailing of the siren still lingering in his subconscious mind.
Either way he sat up with a jerk, blinking several times to try and clear his vision.
“Not me…its fog…”
He touched his forehead with his fingers, trying to slow the spreading of a headache that was now making the corners of his eyeballs ache.
He muttered “What happened last night…?”
He looked around, seeing absolutely no one and nothing moving along the ominously quiet, foggy streets.
“Where am I?”
“That girl…” He whispered. He stood up from the bench he had been resting on and moved up toward a billboard next to the wrought iron gate to his right.
There was a map, which he studied carefully. There was an inscription at the very top that read
Welcome to Silent Hill, please come again!
“Silent Hill? But…that girl, did she make it? They would have taken her to the hospital.”
He used his finger as a guide and moved along the streets, finally seeing one named Koontz that ran right in front of a building labeled
Alchemilla Hospital.
“Koontz street then huh?”
He grabbed the map and followed the street until it turned right, walking on to Koontz. There was an old blue Chevy abandoned, around ‘76-‘77.
The doors opened, but the car was in no shape of running. Inside there was a sticky note taped to the steering wheel.
Into the fire she swallowed their hate
He pondered taking the yellow slip of paper, the words slightly disturbing, but decided on leaving it as is and continuing up the street until the large entrance gate of the hospital came into view.
There was a small courtyard, a white ambulance parked with the back doors facing the entrance double doors of the building.
“Must be the ambulance that brought her in…”
Flashes of the previous night would flash by when he blinked, causing him to remember the texture of the child’s charred skin and his own and her pitiful plea to simply burn and die.
Why?
The scene where he had found her had resembled something ritualistic, and the woman outside must have surely heard her agonizing screams.
It didn’t make sense, and he had to know what had become of her. He entered through the front door, seeing first that he was in reception.
The walls were done in green, with cherry dark wood borders. The furniture and waiting couches matched the décor, and was slightly pleasing to the eye.
There was a notice stuck to a bulletin board mentioning that the second and third floors were under construction, and that at the moment the third floor was impossible to access.
A burst of static erupted from the corner of the room, and he spun to face the reception desk. A small, portable TV that was perched atop a stack of magazines had suddenly come on, the screen filled with the white noise.
He hurried over and flipped the switch off, the screen still remaining on. He reached back and pulled the power cord from the wall socket, and the power or white noise still didn’t go away.
Feeling threatened, he moved around the desk and down the short corridor, checking the door with the sign hung above it that read
Exam Room. It was locked, something that didn’t surprise him, and he moved on to the doors ahead.
“Something is different with this place. No, something isn’t right with this whole town. What’s happened here…?”
The hallway this opened too was decorated the same, with a quick turn left leading to a corridor with four doors on the right side on one straight at the end. Amazingly enough all the doors were locked except for the one at the end, which opened to a brighter, better-lit corridor.
He was checking the doors when he heard shuffling followed by the tick of someone pressing an elevator button, He hurried around the hallway, seeing a suited man standing with his back toward Travis.
“Hey!”
The man turned, keeping his face and attitude calm and collected. His dark hair was combed to the side, showing off his handsome, masculine face.
“Can I help you?” He asked in a voice just as smooth and cold as himself.
Travis asked, “Are you a doctor here?”
The man nodded, again repeating “Can I help you?”
“The fire last night, the girl who was burned, is she here?” He asked, the elevator reaching the first floor.
“We haven’t received any new patients in the last day or so…Are you a relative? What did you say her name was?” He was still speaking in his authoritative doctor tone.
Travis got agitated, replying quickly
“I don’t know her name! I mean, she must have been brought to this hospital. Are there any more around here?”
The doctor shook his head, turning to open the doors to the elevator.
“Perhaps someone in reception can help you, I have urgent business to attend to.”
He stepped inside, flashing him a smile and before the doors could close he said
“Goodbye Travis.”
He stood, watching the numbers above light from 1st to 2nd.
“He’s either lying or not telling me everything. And no one in reception can help me…”
Travis pushed the call button for the elevator, listening to the low hum as it descended toward him. It might look fishy if the doctor caught him following, but he wasn’t too worried; Travis could hold his own.
He stepped inside the cubicle and pressed the 2nd floor, the ride short and sweet. This floor was darker than usual, lights and windows both absent from the small waiting room. There was a ladder and some construction supplies piled in the corner, almost covering an elegant loveseat.
There was a single door in here, and he went through it. The first thing that caught his attention in this corridor was the figure of a woman, judging by her attire she was probably a nurse.
Her posture was wrong too; her shoulders were slumped and her heard was jerking from side to side sporadically, disturbing and not human like.
“Miss…?” He called out, the echo of his voice seemingly so loud it pierced his eardrums. She turned quickly, too quickly, and came at him with a scalpel raised.
He looked from side to side, spotting a sledgehammer resting on a hospital gurney. He grabbed the wooden handle and immediately swung it up, connecting with her chest.
There was a sickening crunch, and he took the opportunity while she swayed back to take another powerful swing to the temple of her head, causing a dusty cloudburst of blood to spew from a giant gash, revealing glistening bone.
Her nurse hat fell to the ground, and he saw her face looked stretched and warped beyond and sort of human recognition. She slumped to her knees, her body convulsing and spasming. He swung on last time, this time coming down on the top of her head.
He heard the neck snap, and she fell facedown in front of him, sticky red blood instantly forming a pool around her disfigured head. A rotten stench had soon invaded his nostrils and he moved into the nearest available room after seeing halfway down the corridor was completely block with junk and debris.
He found himself inside an operating room, his eyes falling first on fresh bloodstains on the operating table. It reflected light, indicating some was still wet.
He shuddered, checking the cabinets and in tables in hopes of supplies, but came up short handed. Finally he took time to examine the large mirror on one side of the wall, and realized there was something different with the reflection.
“Something’s wrong with it. It doesn’t look normal…”
Everything down to the tools and furniture were the same, even Travis himself standing in the room, but it was dark, and the walls were covered in blood and rust.
The tables looked skeletal and metal, and the floor was wire grating. Everything was crumbling and decrepit, a frightening sight into a horrific world. He moved toward the exit, a high pitched screech piercing the serenity. He looked back and saw a girl in a navy school dress and short black hair.
Could it be…?
She reached out and placed her hand on the mirror, a bloody print staining and dripping down on the other side. She stepped back and admired it, a look of pleasure on her face. He got closer, his hands trembling.
“You…You’re the girl from the fire…” He reached up, compelled to touch the bloody spot she had touched.
“But how did you…-“
His hand made contact and it was followed with a burning rush of pain, red plasma suddenly spreading from the spot.
His reflection started to move sporadically in quick movements, and he was suddenly weightless and engulfed in darkness, closing his eyes as the heavy rush of wind came to his ears.
His feet hit solid ground and quiet was left in the wake of the sudden movement. He opened his eyes, staring into the mirror in the operating room.
The reflection was normal now, with everything looking as it should. But he took a glance around, a deeper more primal fear spreading from his gut.
Blood, rust, darkness.
The room had changed. It was like something from a horrible nightmare. But he was standing here now, in this room of blood and gore. He looked at his hands, whispering unbelievably
“I’m seeing things…this ain’t right…”
Chapter 3: Alchemilla Hospital
He switched on the pocket flashlight, a small blessing in this hellhole. In an almost trance like state he looked around, stunned at how everything was in fact the same, just transformed horribly.
He tried touching the mirror again, hoping he would zoom back to the regular hospital. But there was nothing. He tried several more times, hitting the glass harder and harder.
Finally it cracked, and a piece shattered. His heart sunk as he saw there wasn’t some portal, instead the bloody hospital wall. His hopes faltered. The sink next to him was leaking profusely, and had graffiti on the side, scrawled in blood. He couldn’t quite tell if it said BitCH or BirTH.
Either one didn’t make sense, so he decided to let the little things go. Inside the sink however was something that made his stomach churn. It was a pair of human lungs, covered in a glistening layer of slime.
They looked deliberately placed, and he couldn’t resist the urge to reach out and take-no just touch-the organs. They were soft, warm, and moist. He jerked his hand away, gagging and turning away as bile burned at the back of his throat. He almost vomited.
The gurney, once stained with fresh blood, was now dried and crusty. On it was something useful, a sharp scalpel. He picked the small blade up, moving toward the exit when he spotted a medicine cabinet.
Hopeful for another mirror he inspected it, although any trace of the actual cabinet was gone. He exited the room, the sudden darkness of the corridor catching him off guard.
He was terrified for a moment as he realized the decay and blood had spread further than the room, but abnormal grunting behind him caused him to spin and face another nurse monster.
He stumbled back, swiping the scalpel blindly in hope of getting the deformed creature. He sliced open the skin near her collarbone, exposing bone in a gruesome manner. Even so, she kept advancing toward him, the gaping wound not having any effect.
He kept stabbing at her, finally getting a good shot at her neck. She dropped her weapon and staggered back, reaching up to clasp her throat. She dropped with a heavy thud on her back, and he moved quickly to stomp her head and snap her spine, ending what life she might have.
“This can’t be real. This is simply beyond anything considered real. I must be dreaming, sleeping in my cab at a truck stop somewhere near Silent Hill and its causing me to have fucked up dreams. Or maybe I’m in a hospital for the smoke inhalation because of saving that girl. I did pass out, remember?”
His thoughts were swirling, but the decayed scent of rotten flesh directed his thoughts to moving from the blood soaked corridor. There were double doors ahead of him, and the rest of the hallway was cut off as the floor simply vanished.
He spotted several more doors that were just inaccessible, and he opted for the first choice.
“No jumping across endless abyss’ today…”
This opened to another dark corridor, thankfully free of any monsters. This was a patient wing, and he decided that even though the place had transformed he could still search for the burned girl. Room 201 was jammed but 202 opened easily. There was a long sink in here, directly across from a row of rusty lockers.
He spotted two things on the sink, a slip of paper and what looked like a hen’s egg. Curious of the out-of-place object, he walked over to examine the items; surprised to see it was a highly decorated piece of metal, shaped like an egg. It was orange, with yellow flames whipping alongside the bottom of the trinket.
He stashed it in his pocket and picked up the paper, finding some parts of it purposefully obscured with black marker.
Worry not.
. I have used the Fl to contain her power.
. No one can possibly come to her aid now. one of the five pie .
Hide them. Protect them.
It was a jumbled mess, and only added to the pool of confusion in his brain, so he only took the egg before leaving. 203 was jammed as well, with the last one left opening.
Inside the walls were oozing with thick red fluid, making sickening slurping sounds as it was forced through the cracks in the tile. At the far end there was a box sitting atop a lone gurney, a methodic rhythm of a heartbeat penetrating the otherwise eerie silence.
He saw sturdy locks encompassing the small white box, and after the experience with the lungs he decided not to bother with it and instead turn and leave. The room was overwhelmingly creepy anyway.
A quick check of the map showed another set of double doors at the end of the corridor, this one leading to a staircase back to the first floor. He moved on, going down the broad, rickety staircase carefully.
There was a wail far off in the distance, followed by the disturbing reply of several more closer by. He felt chills run across his skin, and wished desperately to find the portal back to the real world. What had made things like this? Was he the only one who could see it?
“I wonder if it’s too much to hope for the front door to still be open…?”
The second set went down diagonally, leading to another set of decrepit double doors. As his hand touched the rough texture of the chipped handle, the doors jumped slightly. He jerked back, petrified as he stood motionless, then he relaxed.
“What the h-“
They shook again, this time the force on the other side much stronger, creating a loud thump! He jumped back with the scalpel raised, the doors suddenly exploding open as a nurse came crashing through.
She tripped over an unseen object and toppled to the ground, Travis taking the moment while she struggled to stand to dig the sharp blade deep into the back of her head. The skin, and skull, were both sharp and he hit the lump of brain instantly. She flattened to the ground, twitching once more before dying, and he relaxed.
He checked the map, shocked to see that when everything was normal he had already been here. The contrast of the bloody walls and darkness was almost like seeing a different corridor.
There was a men’s and women’s restroom here, with the lobby across from him. There was a plaque on it, however, gray in color and shaped like a hollow pair of eyes. There was an inscription underneath.
The blind need eyes to see
He went and checked the women’s restroom door, seeing it also had a plaque mounted on it. This one was done in gold, the recess about the shape and size of an egg. Underneath was an inscription as well.
Even in the inferno of flames I saw life born anew.
It took him a moment of deliberation, but he pulled the decorated egg from his pocket and slipped it into the indention with a resounding click.
There was a crash, follow by repeated stomps from nearby. He fumbled with the handle, trembling with fear as the assailant came nearer, sounding as if it were struggling to walk. No telling what deformed creature was lurking.
“Oh man shit shit shit…”
He glanced around, only making out dim outlines in the shadowy darkness. He couldn’t see anything, but the racking noises were getting much closer. The door flew inward, and he scrambled inside the musty bathroom, throwing himself against the door to keep it closed.
There was a knock, followed quickly by a powerful slam that jolted the door. He kept his body pressed firmly as the monster tried several more times to break in with no such luck.
He stepped forward and did a quick 180 spin, eyeing the door for several moments until the silence became deafening. The skeletal stalls came up with nothing, and he turned his interest into the main prize of the room-another residual mirror.
It was crusty, outlined in red smog, but he could still see clearly into the clean, safe looking restroom on the other side.
“No time like the present…”
He closed his eyes and reached out, only feeling the smooth glass for a second before suddenly soaring through blackness, rushing wind surrounding him. His eyes opened as soon as his feet hit solid ground, and he was looking back into the ‘Otherworld’ in the mirror.
It now felt like a terrible daydream, but he was back. Somehow. He let out his breath in a big sigh, suddenly sagging against the back wall for support as unknown fatigue hit his joints.
“I’ll never do that again…”
Sitting on the sink was a white purse, maybe belonging to a nurse working here, and he spotted a tag attached to a key. He hated to be nosy, but didn’t resist when his arm shot forward and he snatched the key, seeing Staff Lounge scrawled in pencil.
A check of the map showed that room only one door away, in the corridor to the right of this bathroom. He peeked out of the door at first, making sure the rest of the hospital was back, and he was relieved to find that true.
“Seriously, was that some sort of vivid hallucination?”
He moved quickly to the adjacent hallway, surprised to now find the lounge unlocked and the key useless. Someone had already been here. He didn’t know whether to feel happy or afraid.
What if they were still inside? He opened the door, looking into the quaint staff room totally empty.
It was modeled after a Victorian living room, done with dark green wallpaper and burnt beige carpeting. A coffee table was situated next to a loveseat and couch, with a kitchen system and cabinets against the opposite wall.
The single window was letting in the only available light, the fog diffusing most of it before reaching inside. In a turquoise rock ashtray there was a cigarette butt still smoking, another sign someone had been in here recently.
“That doctor maybe…?”
Hanging on a rack next to the door was a single key, this one labeled Exam Room. He turned to leave when a notice attached to the wall caught his eyes for some reason.
Staff Notice
As you know, the renovations of the upper floors have run into some major problems, including leaky plumbing and uneven tile placement. Plus, all the materials needed have cut off most access to the third floor wing.
We still face six months of construction and will have to reduce work up to 50. We ask doctors to refrain from committing patients. We encourage home stays and visits cause unless they’re dying in your arms, don’t book ‘em in!
Staff Party!
The party is still on for Friday. Everyone meet at Annie’s Bar at 8pm. Free food and alcohol. Be sure to snag a trainee nurse, they go fairly quick!
He was again reminded of the girl from the disastrous fire. He remembered her labored breathing and rapid unconsciousness. She was surly on the verge of death, so why had the doctor told Travis that no patients had been received?
He hated to keep sidetracking his thoughts, but noting in Silent Hill had made sense so far, and he could only find more questions instead of answers.
He exited the lounge and moved through the corridors back to the main lobby, where the locked exam room was.
The name Kaufmann was embossed in black on the front, and after unlocking it he stepped inside. The white on white resembled an operating room, and the anatomy doll on the gurney almost confirmed that until he realized it was made of plastic.
There were plastic organs on a rack underneath the bed, and he went to check if all were there. He remembered the real organs in the Otherworld, and it caused him to hesitate before picking them up.
He was compelled to place them in the doll, remembering a phrase from high school to get the correct order. He was surprised to see the eyes open as he placed the last organ, the heart, into the plastic chest.
The glass eyes were strikingly realistic to the plastic face, something that creeped him out.
The blind need eyes to see.
Wait, where did that thought come from? He scratched his head, looking around for someone or something that caused the strange voice. The door he had came though was still closed, and the only other exit was a door boarded up with two-by-fours.
An office desk in the corner was cluttered, but he spotted a handwritten memo among the paraphernalia.
To all staff,
It is strictly forbidden to enter my office unaccompanied until further notice. Trespassers face serious consequences.
Dr. Kaufmann
The blind need eyes to see.
There it was again. He was still clutching the glass eyes, and he examined them as the phrase popped into his mind again. They were icy blue in color, with realistic detail. Wait, in the Otherworld he had seen a plaque with hollow eyes. Could these be the missing parts to the puzzle? The inscription had said the blind need eyes to see.
He left the exam room and moved back to the women’s restroom, facing the mirror portal back to the alternated hospital world.
“This is really what I don’t wanna do…”
His mind whined. He reached out and instinctively his eyes were closed, his stomach becoming weightless as he whirled through while time seemed to stop.
In a second though he was back on his feet, standing in the dark and even quieter bathroom from hell. The destination was right outside, and he moved swiftly from the restroom to the door at the end of the hallway, hearing the shuffling of several nurse monsters at the top of the stairs.
He stuck the glass eyes into the appropriate slots and the door opened on its own, the eyes unlocking the mechanism to the main lobby. He ran through-
-and cried out, stumbled back as he ran straight into a pack of two nurses. They started grunting and whimpering, unable to produce vocal sounds through the twisted mass on their faces.
He ducked a devastating swipe of a scalpel from the nearest one, a third coming up from the corridor behind Travis. He dashed into the nearest door, the exam room, and slammed the door. He bent over to catch his breath, looking immediately to where the anatomy doll had been.
He wasn’t shocked at first, thinking he was looking at the doll again. But his flashlight twinkled off the skin, and it wasn’t because of plastic. He made his way slowly to the homicidal scene, seeing that the skin was in fact absent and instead glistening muscle.
The girl had been gutted open and had her internal organs torn out as well, which was probably the ones he had seen throughout this place. The horrible creature that had done this had also cut out her eyes in a gruesome manner, leaving the optical nerves and entrails strewn over her skinned face.
He brought his hand to his mouth and stepped back, reaching blindly behind him to find the door handle, but he was dumbfounded to see the door was even there anymore.
“This can’t be a dream…What’s happening to this place?”
The door that was boarded up previously was open, however it looked like a large gaping wound instead of a door or doorway. He squeezed himself through, stumbling into the dark chamber.
The walls and floors were all white at one time, now stained with dark red and brown spots. The salty smell of blood hit his nostrils hard, and the sudden jerk of something in the corner startled him.
He turned, the flashlight beam falling on the crouched figure. It was the shape of a man, but as it slowly stood his saw the arms were pinned tightly around the creature as a skintight sheathing was seemingly stretched around the monster.
The head was falling and twisting erratically, and the face was obscured by infected, bleeding sores. A hole was located in the chest of the beast, and foul smelling liquid was dripping from the edge.
“What on Earth…”
Before he could react a steady stream suddenly shot out, missing Travis by inches as he dived to the ground. The putrid black acid singed and smoked as it ate through whatever it touched.
He crawled and scrambled to his feet, keeping his eyes locked on the dangerous monster. It tried to screech something inaudible, the cyst on its face only distorted the muffled sound.
He glanced around for a weapon as it began waddling toward him, walking bow legged in a disturbing fashion. He stabbed at the chest, the black acid dissolving the scalpel in mere seconds.
“Not good.”
This was close enough for the monster to jump up and wrap its bony legs around his waist, squirming and writhing on his chest. He saw more of the acidic fluid forming near the circular gash, and he began punching the head of the creature with all his might.
He heard a sickening snap and the thing fell to the ground.
Travis spotted a metal, wiry looking chair discarded in the corner and as he tried to jump over the monster it jumped up, sending him slamming into the wall and sprawling on the ground. A groan escaped his lips, and he looked up to see the thing aiming his chest at the ground. He rolled, hearing another blast of the liquid searing into the floor.
“That one could’ve been me…”
He jumped back up, closer to the chair, and picked it up and began spinning around. He let go right as the monster turned to face him, and the pointed metal impale the creature in several fatal locations near the chest and head.
It collapsed to the ground in convulsions, and he eagerly jumped on the chair to ensure a solid death of the abomination. A burst of light erupted from the floor, and in its wake there was the same strange symbol he had seen the girl laying on in the burning mansion.
In the center there was a fist sized triangular object. He picked it up, the weight not matching the size at all. It was a good five pounds. There were odd designs etched all over it, and he was fascinated by the intricate designs.
“What is this…?”
A child, however, broke him from his trance as she stepped from the shadows. The navy school outfit was strikingly familiar.
“You…you’re here too…What was that thing?-“
It was the girl from the fire, and she closed her eyes dreamily. A piercing siren soon invaded his ears, instantly causing a mind numbing migraine. It sounded like a tornado warning alarm. He clutched his temples, dropping the piece and falling to his knees.
“This…isn’t…happening…”
Regardless of what he wanted to believe he soon slipped into unconsciousness once again.
“Are you okay?”
The pleasant female voice awoke him from the horrible nightmare. He sat up, gasping involuntarily before focusing on the woman in front of him. She was attractive, wearing a white blouse and skirt and red sweater.
Her hat was tilted slightly, and her long blonde hair was down and resting on her along her back and shoulders.
She gave him a soft, nice smile. It was truly a beautiful sight compared to what he’d seen.
“Sorry, did I startle you? My name is Lisa Garland, I’m a trainee here.”
He was trying to comprehend how he was back and take in what she was saying at the same time. So the girl wasn’t here? Was she really unharmed? Was it only an illusion in that hellish place? She seemed to notice his apparent confusion.
“Are you waiting for someone?”
He looked up.
“No. No, I’m just…well, I guess I’m done here.”
He stood up, shaking his head.
“Name’s Travis. Nice to meet you, Lisa.”
She chuckled, the sound light and melancholy.
“You sure you’re okay? You look a little shaken up…sorry.”
She reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, only for a moment, then regained some distance between them.
“No, I think I’m okay. To be honest, I’ve been a little…off…all day. I was in a fire last night. It must have boiled my brains a little…” Lisa was instantly interested.
“The fire in the business district? How awful. I heard about that, no one knows how it got started. And that poor little girl, Alessa Gillespie…to die at only seven years old like that.”
The news struck him harder than he expected, and he had to choke back before speaking.
“Alessa…? She died…?”
“Yes she did. I’m sorry, did you know her?”
He shook his head.
“No, but…” He locked eyes with her.
“…Nevermind.”
“Well, I have to run. Dr. Kaufmann wants to meet me at Cedar Grove Sanitarium and he’ll be mad if I’m late. Maybe see you around?”
He nodded.
“Maybe…” She smiled again, this time winking at him.
“Take it easy Travis…”
“You too, Lisa.”
She turned and walked past the exam room through the double doors, and disappeared from sight.
“That was…nice.”
He checked the front door, finding it locked now, and followed where Lisa had went through a hallway and back into the corridor he had first seen the doctor.
He spotted another exit and moved accordingly, happy to find the doors open easily. Outside was a courtyard, decorated with small round garden.
“Lisa said she was meeting Dr. Kaufmann at the sanitarium. Maybe I can find out what’s going on if I follow her there?”
He knew one thing. He wanted to leave Alchemilla Hospital as soon as possible, and he ran all the way back to the main road.
Chapter 4: Ground Beef
Travis followed the brick wall enclosing the courtyard of Alchemilla and on to Canyon Street. A couple of beauty parlors went by, next to a run down cake shop and a ruined pizzeria. Everything was lifeless. The air around him, shrouded in fog, was the same. The buildings were no different.
“Dead. There is nothing in this place but death…”
Even his footsteps didn’t seem to echo, a sound you wouldn’t even imagine as lively but it is once it’s absent. There was a four-way intersection to cross before reaching the road leading to Cedar Grove. But there was a problem.
The center where all four roads should meet was just…gone. Just like an earthquake had it, the jagged edges had been violently ripped open and obliterated from the ground below. It appeared like a bottomless chasm with the thick fog.
“No way…can’t that be possible…”
He shook his head, almost wishing it would cause the disastrous sight to vanish but instead it seemed to grow increasingly larger. Disturbingly, the cracks spread ever so slightly and he heard the rolling sound of pebbles falling into the endless ravine.
It caused him to retreat slowly, looking around the edges of the road for another way across. Next to the intersection, dangling dangerously close to the edge was a butcher shop.
The sign overhead was weather beaten and peeling, with the large logo and insignia of the small meat packing store readable, but only with concentration. It appeared to continue over to the street that he could take to the sanitarium, but the ravine was a ghastly sight to behold, especially with the building teetering so close to a fatal plunge.
The radio had cracked with a loud burst of static, causing Travis to jerk his head up from the sight. Behind him, deep in the fog and hard to see, were two or three figures of grotesque monsters. There was no way he had the strength or firepower to take out all the creatures that roamed Silent Hill, so he opted for the vacant butcher shop instead.
He entered quickly, debating between leaving the door open slightly for light or shutting it completely. The thought of monsters inside the dark was unsettling, but letting more in from outside was only foolish. He closed the door, turning on the chest pocket flashlight and inching away from the door simultaneously. The front desk, complete with a cash register and junk papers, was mostly useless.
He went over and rifled through them, glancing up to inspect the front room more closely. There was a thick metal door in the back, and several empty rows of shelves. There were traces of a red substance that dotted the dirty white tile of the floor, and everything looked as if it hadn’t been touched in days.
Finally he came up with a tattered map, and he found out that the building was actually much smaller in scale than what he had originally thought. He didn’t take the map, and instead moved around the front desk and toward a slab of meat hanging from a device overhead.
There was a meat hook embedded into the slightly decayed remains of what appeared to be a pig. He took a firm grip, pulling once, and then jerking hard once again before the weapon became dislodged. He swung it several times to get a feel, smiling with the find, and then turned toward the only door in the back.
The shadows were suffocating enough, but he opened the door anyway, fighting his own childish fear of the dark. The flashlight offered a fair view of the next room, which appeared to be a storage corridor. He took several steps in before movement to the right caught his attention. He immediately ducked down, becoming terrified to the core when his eyes watched the gruesome sight unfold.
There were two figures, one a pale woman wearing a worn out nurse outfit. She looked like a monster, partly because of the disfiguration of her facial features and partly because of her lack of a left arm. The second figure was distinctly male, and much larger than her.
She was sitting on a bench, and he had one large hand around her throat. He was clad in a white tee and butchers apron, with part of an odd, bell shaped helmet attached to one side of his face. The side that wasn’t covered looked horrible, with the lips gone exposing teeth and the eyeball glossed over with a milky white color.
He lifted the nurse monster up, raising an abnormally large meat cleaver in his other hand, and pressed the end to her chest and held it a moment-
-then pushed, the blade slicing neatly into the flesh with a wet squishing sound. But he wasn’t done yet. Just as the creature he was impaling starting to squirm, black fluid pouring from the gaping wound, he forced the cleaver down in one swift movement.
Like a rag doll she split in half, settling to the ground in a pool of her own blood. The killer didn’t spot Travis, and he drug the weapon as he trudged down an unseen hallway and through the door. Travis stood stunned, waiting until his heart started to slow before breathing again.
“What did I just see…?”
He blinked several times, as if the corpse or gore would disappear. But it didn’t; in fact it made the scene all more vivid. The smell hit him next, another reminder that what was happening was indeed real and that he needed out. He peered down the hallway for any sights of the killer and was satisfied that there weren’t any. But would it be safe now to leave through the same exit as the monstrous being that split the nurse monster?
“Its either that or trying to jump the bottomless chasm right outside door number one…”
He gripped the meat hook tighter and inched down the hallway, cracking the door slightly once he reached the end. Outside the air was chilly, and aside from the fog he saw absolutely nothing. He checked the map, realizing he was now on Toluca Avenue.
This road would take him right to the main gates of Cedar Grove Sanitarium. He started a steady stride, hugging himself lightly as he walked the ghostly streets. It was all a little surreal, and he felt as if he was walking in a dream.
Between trips to a dark world of darkness to the impossibly foggy streets of present day Silent Hill, he was finding it hard to decipher between the lines of reality and nightmares.
The radio thankfully remained silent until he reached the curve on to Acadia Road, and the gothic style gates came into view. Embedded in the wrought iron above the gate was
Cedar Grove Sanitarium
He pushed past the slightly ajar opening and up the quickly inclined walkway. As it leveled off at the top, he could just barely make out the silhouette of Cedar Grove behind the front courtyard of small cherry blossom trees and stone water fountains.
The further he progressed, the more detail came into view. An expensive looking car, probably Kaufmanns, was parked in front of the main entrance. The desolate sanitarium, which appeared to be one of the older buildings in Silent Hill, was just as empty and quiet looking as the streets were.
It didn’t look as if anyone had been inside for months.
“So…why are Kaufmann and Lisa meeting up here?”
He braced his nerves and approached the front door, opening it a little bit.
“Hello…?”
He said so quietly that he thought he’d imagined it. He opened the door all the way, inside pitch black. He turned on the flashlight, once again calling out.
“Anyone here…?”
This time it was louder.
And once again, there was no reply.
“Well, something here interests those two. So maybe it will interest me?”
He was already going to miss his delivery, and seeing as how he couldn’t leave Silent Hill it wouldn’t hurt to take a look around.
….Right?
Chapter 5: Cedar Grove Sanitarium
The front lobby was big, with plush sofas and expensive looking tables. The architecture was tipping slightly toward a gothic feel, and nothing was hanging on the bland colored walls. There was no one behind the reception counter either, the chain glass windows only casting ghostly shadows. Oh, which reminded him of the biggest thing; it was really really dark.
He instantly had to turn on his flashlight, and was surprised to see it was the only source of illumination the further he went in. And with each echoing step, the lobby seemed to grow in the increasing darkness. Now in a circular room, there were four different paths he could take, all only visibly thanks to the bean of light on his chest.
The darkness was unsettling enough, and he began to wonder why anyone would set up a meeting here. He lifted a payphone from its cradle as he passed it, not surprised to hear dead silence, and he moved on.
More teal colored sofas were in here, as well as notes on several poster boards. The tile had a spectacular pattern in the middle of the room, a swirling circular formation making him slightly dizzy as he studied it. It looked familiar, but he couldn’t remember seeing it, and he moved on to his options.
There were four doors, and after a simply mind elimination, he picked the one he was closet to, a set of double doors next to a jammed door on the adjacent wall. With his hand on the handle he froze; something skidded to the floor somewhere back in the lobby. He turned his head slightly, only moving his eyes-
-and he saw nothing but darkness, hearing now a crumbling sound from above.
“Is this place structurally sound?”
He moved on into the next room, not wanting a confrontation, and saw now he was in some sort of patient’s room. A wheelchair was discarded in the corner, and although the room was large it was basically empty. And dilapidated, which was odd.
“I think the janitors should be fired…”
He spotted a map on a junky oak desk, rifling through other papers to no avail, and then exited the room through the only other door available. He immediately heard footsteps, and instinctively grabbed a discarded two-by-four amongst the trash and junk on the linoleum. As the footsteps came closer, he also heard whispering, the voice definitely female.
“It could be one of those monsters…”
He could tell now it was chanting, and wondered if maybe it was Lisa or Kaufmann. But it didn’t make sense as to why they would be alone, so that thought was ruled out.
He gripped the board tighter and jumped out, hoping to surprise the visitor. The person looked scared at first, shrinking back, but then a calm look played over her unnatural features. She was in dark tatter jeans and a plain shirt underneath a winter jacked and fluffy hood. Her wrinkles said that she was already into her forties.
Then he recognized her once she smiled, the smirk coming back to haunt him.
“You were at the fire, I saw you there.” He pointed a finger, but she didn’t even flinch. In fact, she seemed pleased that he remembered her.
“Of course you did.”
She said matter-of-factly, crossing her arms.
“That was my house burning, and my daughter Alessa.”
He couldn’t believe it. It was much worse than what he had originally figured. He thought back to the charred flesh and pitiful cries from the little girl for it to end, as well as the smell of burnt meat. Even the ghostly apparition came back to mind.
She broke him from his thoughts.
“So, were you the hero who saved her?” Her gravely tone matched the dark mood she caste, making him uneasy again. He felt angry now, staring the child’s murderer in the face.
He spat
“Yeah, she’s your daughter huh? Why did you leave her there, I can’t believe you didn’t get anyone to help. You left that poor soul to burn.”
She nodded, the conversation now taking a confusing twist. She replied in an equally harsh tone
“So we did, the world is stranger than you think.”
“You’re crazy. What happened to her? Lisa said she was dead!”
He interrupted, this seemingly making her angry.
She scowled, starting to back away from him some at the outburst.
“Alessa is with those who care for her. And that’s the least she deserves now that you are in the picture.”
She started to walk away, saying over her shoulder
“Do not trust her Travis; she does not know what she is doing.”
He blinked, and could only watch as she disappeared into the shadows.
Lisa and Kaufmann was one thing, but this nameless woman had gone off the deep end; he was sure of it. But there was something she had said that disturbed him, something so small he could have brushed it off with all the other weirdness he had seen in Silent Hill. But he just couldn’t.
“How does she know my name…?”
TO BE CONTINUED
