-1 Silent Hill: Dreams of death

Disclaimer: I don't own silent hill or any of it's products/affiliations.

I do own this story though.

Chapter 1

A flash. Trees being blown in the wind. A flash. A chair, vacant and yearning of the owner. A flash. A knife, lying on the ground, stained with deep red blood. Deserted by the user, and left beside a trail of the same blood that lead to a body. The brown shoes had small dots of the wearers blood on them. The skirt was stained almost as much as the shirt, striped in a maroon coating. The chest had a stab wound. And the face…

Kevin Stoker jerked awake from his nightmare. His face was wet from sweat and tears. His breathing was heavy and desperate. He reached over for his bedside lamp and heard it click as the room lit up to the dim glow. His room was just as he left it, to his relief. He had a problem of sleepwalking and often would bump into a few bits of furniture or move objects around, apparently for no reason.

He got up and went to the bathroom that was opposite the end of his bed. He clicked the light on that shone outwards from the top of the mirror. He turned on the tap and washed his face of the other fluids that covered it. He finished up and looked at himself in the mirror. His face looked white and vacant of expression which contrasted his dark brown hair. His grass green eyes were bloodshot and tired, obviously from the strain of the bright light. He was taller than most of the people he knew, about 6'3", which was often the humorous topic of his friends. They said that he should take up basket ball instead of working at his office job which seemed to dominate most of his time. This suggestion had made him ponder on whether his life was really as full as it could be, but then he realised that it would never be, not since what had happened 3 years ago.

His girlfriend and soon-to-be bride had been murdered 2 weeks before their wedding day. The culprit was never found and due to the lack of evidence that anyone who was known by the victim had committed the crime, the case was dismissed. This had shaken Kevin severely and he had had a difficult time coming to terms with what happened. Most people thought that he'd need time off from work to work through what he was feeling, but instead he engrossed himself in the paperwork, taking on extra assignments and staying later than office hours would allow. Some would have speculated that he wasn't very concerned with what had happened if he was able to stay at work for so long, but in fact this was very far from the truth. Kevin wasn't not concerned, he was so upset that he didn't want to return home, simply because he dreaded arriving there and knowing that Jade wouldn't be there. She wouldn't be there to ask him how his day was. She wouldn't be there to comfort him about his problems. She wouldn't be there to sit on the sofa with him and hug as they watched some trivial nonsense on the TV. He missed all the little delights she added to his life and it only made it worse when he had to come home and miss them all the more.

He finished his self-reflection and took a few deep breaths to calm his sparking nerves. After a while he felt ok to go back to his bed. As he opened the door and clicked the light off, his nerves went into their lightning bolt state again as he saw something that he wondered how the hell he had missed it. On the wall, directly above where his head would have been in the bed, was an inscription in blood. The blood was fresh. It glistened in the light of the bedside lamp. And it bore five very distinctive and piercing words. They read,

"Silent Hill is waiting.

Jade."

The old Volkswagen Golf spluttered and choked slightly as the needle on the fuel meter began to trip over the E for empty sign. Kevin had been going for at least 3 hours on the most direct route he could find. He had asked at every travel agency and every station that had some sort of mainland connection, "Where can I find Silent hill?!" At first nothing turned up and all he got in response was a puzzled look or the odd, "Are you sure that's even a real place?" If he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure if this "Silent hill" was real himself.

Then, just as he was reaching the end of his tether, he struck gold. He had been searching mainly around Ohio's south-eastern counties where he lived, but in a feeling of last-hope luck, he decided to drive a long way into West Virginia and see if anything came to fruition. It did. He stopped off at a gas station for a refill and for something to eat. He brought a packet of Doritos to the counter and said "Pump 4 please". The clerk punched up the numbers for the total and Kevin handed over the cash in a no-nonsense way that he always did when buying from out of town. He was just about to turn and walk away when he thought about trying one last time. He was weary from his continuous car journeys and regular stops to search every source of information that he could get his ears to. But he still had the drive to keep going on his hunt for the answers to the blood on his walls.

"Pardon me for asking, but would you happened to know where I can find a place called "Silent Hill"?"

The clerk looked at him for a second, her eyes seemed to quiver at the mention of the name. Slowly she leaned over, looked left and right to make sure nobody was listening into their conversation, even though it was clearly just them in the Mart. She said, in a very soft tone, "You don't want to go there. Strange things happen in that town."

"Right now, I don't really care if it's not at the top of the holiday resort lists, I just need to get there, and soon."

"You think I'm not serious?!" Said the woman with a suddenly loud and alarming voice. "Don't go there! You're going to regret every second you spend in that place! I mean it!"

Kevin was taken aback by the unexpected outburst from the woman, but he soon remembered why he was talking to her and said with a slightly more meaningful voice, "Hey, I said I need to get there now! If you know where it is then I'm going to have to get you to tell me! I've been travelling all over the state trying to find this god-forsaken place and the first chance I get you tell me not to go there? To hell with that, I'm going there whatever it takes! Now will you please tell me!" He ended up nearly shouting the last sentence because of his frustration.

The woman looked at Kevin like he was slightly deranged, then sighed and said, "Ok fine, you take the route around the mountain side that's at the second right from here. When you hit the thick forest you just have to look out for the signs that point you in the right direction. Be careful though, some of those signs are really old. They mightn't have anything left on them."

"It's ok, I'm good at finding my own way"

He turned to go away when she reached over and grabbed his arm. He turned back to see what she wanted.

"Take care. There's a lot of weird things in that town. You'll want to leave very soon."

He turned around and looked into her eyes with all the meaning that he knew there was in this journey of his.

"I'm not leaving until I find what I'm looking for."

She nodded to agree but still looked despairing as he whisked out of the mart and slid back into his car. He started up the engine and chugged out of the gas station.

He followed the directions given to him to the dot until the point at which he had to go by the signs started. The first one was easy enough to recognise, it was part of a series of other signs that directed drivers to other places. One of which was Ashfield. He turned right and sped on, but not too fast seeing as it was getting dark. After about 15 minutes the next sign appeared, and Kevin could see why the clerk had told him about the visibility of the signposts. He could only see S--en- -ill printed. The rest of it had been practically scraped off of the metal. He continued to meander down the small country road until he came to one last sign. This one didn't even have complete letters, and it actually looked like…there was something smeared across it. In the weak light Kevin couldn't quite make out what it was on the sign that had been spread across the front. He drove a little closer and suddenly realised…blood. Something that was bleeding had been physically smeared across the sign he was looking at. This scared him deeply, and he felt the cold sweat coming back again. He decided to keep driving on, and quickly. He took the left turn indicated, and then fell asleep. He had no idea what had happened, and was still partially awake so he could see images of the road as well as the images that his dream was bringing to him.

A flash. Trees being blown in the wind. His car was still rolling along the road, approaching a hill. A flash. A chair, vacant and yearning of the owner. The car went down the hill and lost control, veering off to the right into the trees. A flash. A knife, lying on the ground, stained with deep red blood. The front of the car crashed into the body of an oak. Kevin's head hit the dashboard. He thought no more and fell into a complete sleep.

Wind. Movement. Trees rustling. He opened his eyes and saw the wrecked remains of his left window. He lifted his head and saw the damage done to the front. One of the wheels had come off and both front lights were smashed out. There was a slight hissing sound emitting from the engine. He slowly unbuckled his seatbelt and forced the door open which had had it's locking mechanism bent out of shape. He stepped out and suddenly noticed something was definitely different about the surroundings. For one it was lighter that it had been before he had been knocked out so he could only assume he had been unconscious until the next day, but that wasn't the most obvious factor. The area which he had crashed into was now covered in a thick fog. And not just any fog. This fog swept the ground and was flying between the trees. It covered everything. Kevin couldn't see more than 10 feet in front of himself. The silence that had fallen over the forest was eerie, almost frightening. Kevin decided it was no use going back to the town he had just come from so he decided to carry on to Silent Hill.

As he walked he tried to remember which way he had being going before the crash, and once he found his bearings it was easy to get back on route. Minutes passed. The gentle thudding of his leather shoes was all that could be heard as he followed the road. Occasionally there was a rustle from the leaves in the trees and the blowing of a light breeze through them, but other than that total silence dominated the misty trail.

After what seemed to be hours he finally reached what seemed to be an indication of where he was heading. A road that twisted around a steep hill could just be seen from through the trees. He picked up his pace and rounded the corner. He stopped as he saw a sign up ahead. The card on it was torn in places and the letters had been worn out a bit, but it still clearly read what it intended:

Welcome to Silent Hill

Population - 262

He stood for a moment, slightly relieved and also irresolute about seeing his destination reached.

He only started to stir when he realised there was something standing in front of the sign.