Prologue
"A Vacation"

To call me a lucky man was a lie. I haven't had work in a few months and I was almost broke, about 200 bucks to my name in total. My wife died about 5 years ago when our daughter was 2 years old, we had moved from a home me and my wife owned to renting a small 2 bedroom to finally the one bedroom me and my 7 year old daughter Cheryl lived in I slept on the couch so she could have the bedroom, and we were basically living off McDonalds for the past few months, and though it all Cheryl seemed so bright, never really to sad about anything and she was doing okay with her school making A's but you know in the 4th grade school is more fun then work to them. I am a writer, and well my work seemed to take a downfall and in all sense I was writing nothing but 50 pages of paperweight. So my life has not been the best lately.

We were foster parents and adopted on our last vacation to Silent Hill, it was a small town and had a lot of history something about religion, I never cared much about the towns history myself, that was more my wife, but for me the town was just a break, it didn't matter if it was that town or somewhere else, I just needed time to think usually. That being said, I loved that town, the air smelled clean from the lake nearby. Low pollution levels so there were a lot of small animals, the kind of place where a squirrel will crawl on you trying to find a nut.

I mentioned we were foster parents, there was not a huge life changing reason why, we never tried to have kids, never took it in great thought, and so the want to have children didn't make us adopt, my wife was perfectly capable of baring a child we just didn't make a big fuss over it. So why adopt? Well on our way home from Silent Hill the last time we were driving and on our way back and something caught our eye, it was a blanket wrapped in a ball. It would not have made us stop had it not been in such contrast to everything, we were in a spot where a cemetery was on the road it was just outside the fence, and we picked up the blanket to find a small baby wrapped in it. Thinking back now I laugh at how cliché' It was a little girl. We named her Cheryl, we saw her and knew we could not let her go she is as much of my daughter as possible.

But we have had problems yes, Cheryl always had a fear of Wheelchairs and hospitals, she would always kick and scream her lungs out when she needed those shots that are required by law. And anyone who was crippled she would cry and run away, even crutches, and fire, she always hated fire and stayed out of the kitchen a lot just to avoid the stove, we would try to get her in for a checkup and she would hide and stay in all day if she had to but she would not go, in all she has only had about 3 checkups in her life cause she is to afraid of anything to do with hospitals.

And so with this down slope shit that has overtaken our lives and even taken my wife's life entirely, we needed a vacation. So I decided since it was Cheryl's first vacation I was going to let her choose where we went

"Can we go to Silent Hill daddy?"

This took me by surprise. Silent Hill was not a very well known place, it was known enough to have a tourist district but how could she have known about it? We never talked about it, not avoiding the subject it just never came up.

"Cheryl… Why do you want to go to Silent Hill?" I asked wondering how she found of its existence

"Mommy told me that's where I was found."

Found?

Cheryl was only 7 she did not know how children were conceived. So far my wife and me had used to Stork theory. But why the word found

"When did mommy tell you this Cheryl?"

"Yesterday she told me that's where you and Amy found me."

Amy

Amy was my wife's name… this confused me, who did she think was her mommy if not her?

"Cheryl, Amy is your mommy."

"No she's not, she said she was but she was not"

Cheryl took her mom's death very well when it happened; she was at the time and wondered if she didn't understand death. But she had a hamster this year that had been crushed by a skateboarder when she took it outside to play and the neighbor ran it over without noticing, it was hard for Cheryl to stop crying but she didn't have that kind of reaction to Amy's death Cheryl just said "okay, I hope she is doing well" and left it I didn't think she understood, but maybe she didn't really care.

"Cheryl if she wasn't your mommy then who is?"

"I don't remember but I talked to her yesterday, daddy I'm tired can I go to sleep"

This was at around 9 o'clock, her usual bedtime, I took her to her room and tucked her in and wondered about that talk for the next few weeks up until the day we left for the Town of Silent Hill.

It was late in July when we left, it was a 8 hour drive from Wilmington to Silent Hill and night had fallen it was near mountains to it was one of those highways were on the left, you got a steep rock wall and on the right you have a slope giving a great view of the town beneath. I was drowsy so I just wanted to make it to the hotel before I fell asleep at the wheel. I looked over at Cheryl she had fallen asleep and her coloring book was falling from her tiny hands, my attention was diverted away form her as the sound of police sirens hit my ears. I looked at my speedometer I was going 86 in a 60 zone "shit" and I began to slow and I could see a police bike in the mirror and as I moved over to the right curb it darted past me on my left, the driver gave me a wave as she past. "Lucky I guess" so I moved the red jeep into drive again, and went on for about 10 minuets before I saw the bike on the side of the road with the rock wall feature, it had fallen I didn't slow but scanned the area for the driver… she was nowhere. "She might be in trouble" I tilted the wheel a little to the right to pull over and turned my head to the road and every muscle in my body moved at once

"Fucking move!"

A woman was standing in front not noticing the ton of metal heading toward her at 85 fucking miles per hour. I turned the wheel to the right in panic to goof the road and stop. This was a mistake and as soon as I saw the view of the town lights I remembered I had just drove off of a ledge, the car lurched forward due to the lack of earth beneath is and I could hear a small scream next to me

"Cheryl!"

This was my last thought as the headlights gave me a view of the ground hurdling up at the jeep angrily, and I felt contact as my head hit the steering wheel, my vision blurred and I could only hear and feel the car moving forward on the slope then it got quiet as I lost conciseness.