Utter silence. Complete, suffocating silence veiled the thin, damp air. The constant, moist sensation of the fog caressed his skin. Dew-soaked grass uncomfortably tickled his feet. Desmond was alone; insufferably alone in this new hell called Silent Hill.
Met with a slight breeze, Desmond's skin was soon covered with the familiar sensation of goose-bumps trickling down his arms and legs like a spider-web lost in the breeze.
Gazing deeply into the impenetrable fog around him, Desmond slowly began to walk forward. Clutching his arms lightly, he began to gently rub his skin hoping to find some relief from the bitter tang of the cold that hung so relentlessly in the air.
Shortly after venturing into the abysmal shroud of fog, the sharp bite of freeing water met the tender under-side of Desmond's feet. Being startled by the sudden sensation of water, Desmond quickly flinched, causing a splash-back to venture its way up his legs.
Met with the sting of a cold breeze on his now-soaked legs, Desmond briskly began to shiver, the cold almost too much to bear.
Bending slightly to warm his legs, the faint stench of muddy water wafted in the air, meeting Desmond's nose flirtatiously. Feeling the water beneath his feet, the distinct feeling of mud and gravel became more apparent between his toes. Sifting his fingers through the muck beneath his feet, Desmond was finally assured of his surroundings. Desmond was standing in the shoals of a lake.
Memories of summers he had spent playing and swimming in the refreshing coolness of springs and lakes flittered by, only to be quickly forgotten as if they were smoke dancing through a breeze-filled summer air.
Gazing into the barely visible water below, Desmond say kneeling, struggling to see himself through the grimy muck slowly dancing in the shallow waters beneath him. As the wispy clouds of filth and debris dissipated, the familiar visage of a young man came into view.
Desmond sat staring into the mirrored surface of the water. Almost unrecognizable, the familiar, striking colors of his eyes met his gaze. His right of a crystal-blue pigment and his left of forest green; however, much to his dismay, coursing veins of blood indisputably made themselves evident in his eyes. The tell-tale signs of exhaustion plagued their way across his face, giving Desmond an almost skeletal visage.
Brushing the dark-brown hair out of his eyes, Desmond slowly stood up, the strain making itself known throughout his legs. Slashing his way back towards the grass, Desmond absent-mindedly scratched his throat, the familiar burning sensation returning to his flesh.
Finding the shoes he had earlier removed out of discomfort, lying alone the grass, Desmond complacently led his feet to the bottoms, and robotically tied the strings. Soon realizing that he had forgotten to dry his feet, the annoyingly familiar sound of shoes squishing rang about in his ears, as he rose from the grass. Releasing a frustrated strain of air out his nose, Desmond looked around himself, gazing deeply into the thick, cloud-like fog.
Collecting his bearings, Desmond continued along the dirt path he had originally set out upon, the silence still thickly crowding the air. Reaffirmed only by the sound of dirt being scattered out beneath his feet, Desmond's mind began to slowly cloud, and dispel. The only thing he vaguely gave mind to being the sounds of his black skate shoes crushing the dirt beneath him.
Soon, the smell of mud and water left his nose, being replaced with the aroma of weathered stone and moss. Almost unnoticeably, the silence became more permeating, a feeling of uneasy tranquility sifting the air; unlike the silence before which almost seemed to suck the air from Desmond's lungs. Desmond stood in a place a remembrance, a graveyard.
Looming out of the fog like a mirage in the desert, an indistinguishable outline slowly appeared before him. The distorted image slowly took on a solid body, piercing the fog like a beacon. A young woman holding a lantern held her ground with her back to Desmond's piercing gaze.
As Desmond ventured closer, with a child-like curiosity, the image appeared to move. Scaring Desmond into falling to the ground, the woman quickly jerked her head around, staring at him an empty, judgmental gleam in her stoic gaze.
Defensively rising from the ground, his heart racing, Desmond blinked his eyes, trying to gain a foot-hold in the blinding haze around him. Meeting the woman's eyes, filled with solemnity, the familiar appearance of the typical hues and shades of brown or blue were absent. Staring into a dark, cryptic gray, Desmond soon realized he was not staring into the eyes of a woman. Desmond was staring into the eyes of a statue.
Perturbed by the unusual occurrence, Desmond stared vacantly at the long-dampened statue before him. Feeling his heartbeat slowly return to its monotonous rhythm, Desmond silently reconciled himself, still disturbed by what he believed he had seen. They seemed to have remained still, trapped unrequitedly in its lonely stance for at least a decade. Moss covered the base, forming forest-like tendrils up along the statue's slender body. The stone was weathered down to a remarkable smoothness, clearly evident that the impenetrable mist around him wasn't simply a rare occurrence. The eyes however, frightened him. Unlike the rest of the stone sculpture, its eyes retained a painstakingly detailed luster. A deep sorrow filled her eyes, almost indescribable.
Feeling the return of the slight, bitter breeze, Desmond turned his body, feeling the strain in his muscles. Looming out of the slowly dissipating fog, similar to the sculpture behind him, several ore statures took their forms. Almost frighteningly, the surrounding sculptures of the other, all bound with a solemn visage, stared vacantly into the center of the apparent circle they formed. The now-visible stone fountain stood alone in the center of the stone circle, holding itself upright, standing in a circle of now-dead grass.
Slowly striding over to the long-abandoned bird fountain, standing alone amid grass and something which might have been a flowerbed in a past life, Desmond leaned over, curious of its contents.
Rewarded with nothing but moss and stains meeting his disappointed gaze, a faint glint crept its way into his eyes as he turned away. His curiosity piqued once more, Desmond once again leaned over the stone rim, hoping to discover what had previously taunted his eyes.
Seeing the familiar sheen of metal, Desmond knelt in closer, looking into the abysmal tunnel in the center of the long-abandoned decoration.
Entranced by the faint glow at the bottom of the center of the bird-bath, the cold, distinct feeling of sharpened metal sent a sudden shiver down Desmond's spine as he gingerly dipped his hands within, causing his joints to ache.
Finally gaining a sufficient grip between his two fingers, Desmond carefully pulled the metal object from its long-hidden spot of refuge. The gleam of a metallic surface meeting his eyes more thoroughly now, the sudden stillness of the previously breeze-filled air crept its way into Desmond's subconscious.
Feeling the air become almost painfully cold, a sudden, strong gust of wind plagued its way across the silent graveyard.
Covering his face to defend against the sudden tempest, the faint sound of paint ripping off its long-held surface softly met his ears.
Opening his eyes once more, Desmond scanned about the now-dissolving place of solitude. As of the world itself had skin, it slowly flaked away, like fallen leaves, following the cyclonic gusts of wind raking across the grass.
Almost unnoticeably, the clear sound of a siren filled the air like a virus, as the winds gained speed. Soon the wail of an air-raid siren ripped across the graveyard, its deafening cry assaulting Desmond's ears.
Feeling the painful winds and siren dissipate from the air, Desmond slowly opened his eyes. The cold, dank and empty place of rest he had been standing in was gone. In its place sat a field of horrid flesh and filth. The gentle grass appeared to have burned away, its life long-extinguished from its host with indescribable age. The stone pathways, weathered down to an ugly shade of brown and burgundy.
As Desmond viewed the terrible, new world around him, the startling lack of fog that had so relentlessly clung to his skin was gone, replaced with a humidity so fierce his cold flesh felt as if it were burning.
Gazing into the sky above, Desmond viewed the twisted delusion of the once hidden sky, plagued into a fierce orange pigment. Tendrils and puffs of pitch-black clouds slashed across the sky violently like a storm captured into a single instant. The somewhat comforting sight of the sun, or moon, was nowhere to be seen.
Yet what most unnerved Desmond was not the cryptic dementia that surrounded him, but the once melancholic statues around him. The sentinels that once stared sadly at the now-demolished fountain beneath Desmond's feet bore faces of pain and anguish. The stone visages they had held only moments ago were now covered in flesh and dirt.
Desmond fell to the ground, his mind and body in shock. Raising his head off of the sharp corpses of long-dead grass stabbing into his face, dirt was strewn about by his head and hands. Slowly tilting his head to view the now-deathly women of stone, Desmond's breath stopped; his throat burst into an unbelievable amount of all-too-familiar pain.
Gasping, mouths desperately crying in pain, the statues were all bound by rusty tendrils of barb-wire. Bound into the earth below, the wires crudely sank themselves into the legs and torsos of the statues' frighteningly realistic skin and tattered strands of clothing. Some held their hands on their chest, hands desperately trying to free themselves from its metal torment. One held her hands in her throat, palms out, the obvious last-defense against the wire's deadly grip; the palms were terribly scarred. Yet one held an unbelievably saddening pose. The statue he had seen first, the one that had scared him into falling to the ground with its startling appearance of spinning to meet his eyes, was bound in the most spikes of all. Instead of desperately tearing away and attempting to free herself from the wires, she laid kneeled on her pedestal, her face raised, as if gazing into the world around her.
Forcing himself off the husks of grass and dirt beneath his knees, Desmond sat, hands on the grounds trying to focus on the statue only a few feet before him, fighting desperately in a battle of will to remain consciousness. His throat still burn, as if burning wires were bound across his neck.
The woman of stone that sat exhausted on her knees before him bore a face of exhausted anguish. The incredibly detailed eyes still held their unnerving luster, yet were now replaced with a look of desperation, in place of melancholy.
Soon Desmond found himself standing above her, his heart exploding into fear, madly pumping heated blood throughout his body. Even with panic and trauma raking his body, his legs stood strong, bound with unknown resolve.
Gazing into the eyes of a beautifully crafted piece of aged masonry, Desmond felt the unsettling familiar blur of empathy. The woman's lips slowly began to move, almost unbeknownst to Desmond; they slowly formed two words.
'Help.. me...'
As the finally syllable left her lips, her body stood frozen. The stillness of the air around her was shattered by a sudden blast of heat emanating from the statue's base. The shattered remains of the previously-held lantern began to crumble in an orange and deep-red glow. Quickly looking back into the woman's stead-fast eyes of torment, Desmond's mind began to crumble.
Blood slowly escaped the statue's stoic eyes, gradually falling down her face likened to tears of a child.
Desmond fell to the ground, his mind exploding into a flurry of memories and panic. Releasing a scream that shook his entire body, Desmond's exhausted stature quickly released itself in a torrent, racking his body like a storm's waves against troubled sands.
Feeling his throat painfully reestablish itself, Desmond's eyes slowly began to blur, closing. A sinking, falling feeling crept its way through Desmond's body. Finally shutting his eyes to the world around him, Desmond began to slowly fall head first into an abyss of darkness. Desmond was losing consciousness.
Desmond was dying.