Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Silent Hill characters or places etc, copyrighted to Konami.

A/N: Another story, and hopefully I'll keep updating it. I'm still thinking for 'Not All It Seems' but for now I'm doing this one. It's based Pre-SH3 and is AU but still has bits and pieces of Silent Hill in there somewhere. Anyways, hope you enjoy (:

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The Mind Is A Scary Place

Chapter One

Heather munched on her cereal as quickly as she could. If she didn't hurry her ass up, she'd be late for school. Swallowing the last bit of her cornflakes Heather drank the rest of her orange juice and hurried over to the sink to put her bowl and glass in.

She hurled her bag over her shoulder and kissed her father, Harry Mason, on the cheek. Harry just came out of his bedroom, clad in an off-white shirt with the collar undone and tan slacks on, reading some bill that he got from the pigeon hole earlier.

"Bye, Dad." Heather called over her shoulder.

"... Bye." Harry replied to the door, as Heather had already left.

Harry sank down into his armchair and sighed. He really had to cut Heather's time down on the internet.

--

The bell had just gone by the time Heather arrived at St. Jacob's High School. All the students were making their way into the building so Heather joined them in their race to get to their own lockers. She shoved and pushed past ignorant students who didn't budge when she asked them to but finally got to her dull orange locker.

"Heather!" called a voice. Heather turned around to see where the voice was coming from. Did she just hear her name? The blonde shrugged and carried on getting her books for today's lessons out.

"Heather! I just called you, silly." smiled Layla.

"Oh, I thought someone was calling me." Heather smiled back. She was glad to see her friend. Not that school made her nervous but she enjoyed company... sometimes.

"Ugh! We have chemistry today. Did you do your homework?" Layla asked, sounding a little bit worried.

"Yeah, it wasn't too hard. Have you?"

Heather thought there was no point in asking Layla whether she'd done her homework or not, she hardly ever did it.

"...No. Shit, Mr Kewoski is going to kill me!" the raven headed girl exclaimed.

"Well, duh," joked Heather. Mr Kewoski was their miserable chemistry teacher. He was gray and balding, a little on the chubby side and the most boring person Heather had ever come across. "And besides, we haven't got chemistry until last so you can always do it at lunchtime..."

Layla give Heather a wicked grin. "Do you think I could copy yours?"

Heather laughed, her friend could be a minx when she wanted to be but she loved her all the same.

"I knew you were going to ask that. Yeah, but make sure you do a few mistakes or else he'll notice. Remember last time?"

"Ew, yeah!" shrieked Layla.

"Come on, let's get to tutor."

The two walked to their first tutor session for registration. Most of the students in Heather's class were already seated. Girls snogging their boyfriends, the skaters throwing paper at eachother and groups sitting together for their morning gossip before the tutor came in.

Layla had turned around to talk to Heather as the blonde girl scribbled some doodles on her notebook. She wasn't really listening to Layla talk about the latest fit celebrity hunk, she was too busy drawing on her paper, flowers here and there with random symbols next to them. Heather frowned.

What the hell did I just draw?

Heather snapped out of her thoughts and heard Layla shut up on Brad Pitt and turned their attention, including the rest of the class, on their tutor. Miss Hartford.

"Good morning, class." Miss Hartford smiled brightly.

"Morning, Miss." The class replied incline. All had bored tones in their voices.

Miss Hartford sat at her desk getting her laptop out ready for registration. Heather tapped her pen on the table, chewing on her lip as she stared straight a head of her. Layla was too busy texting on her cell phone under the desk to talk so Heather was occupied with staring at the World Map... not that she was taking in anything, until a figure got in the way of her line of vision. Heather scowled and looked up.

Miss Hartford had got up from her desk with a smile and greeted the Jerk-who-got-in-the-way-of-the-World-Map. She was speaking quietly to the boy so Heather ducked her head but kept her eyes on the two people in front, looking down every few seconds to make it look like she wasn't staring. Layla was and probably with googly eyes too.

"Right class I want your attention. We have a new student today and I want you all to make him welcome. Would you like to say hello, love?" informed Miss Hartford.

Valente smiled politely at the class, bright blue eyes boring into each one of them but without making it obvious. "Hi, my name is Valente Quentis. I just recently moved here from France."

The class stared back at him. Some with bored looks, mostly the girls who were either chewing gum or twindling their hair, others with curiousity. The boys in the class looked at Valente as if he were a threat yet they still held their pride. He could see out the corner of his eye a girl staring up at him dreamily. Fantastic.

"Now I want everyone to make Valente welcome. Please just take a seat behind Jaime." Motioned Miss Hartford with her hand. Valente made his way slowly over to his seat, Heather's eyes following all the while.

She stared at him curiously but also with hesistation. Cyan blue eyes met with Heather's own hazel green. Heather looked away immediately, red slightly settling in her cheeks, she looked in the corner of her eyes and saw the boy, Valente, had looked away but was smirking.

Prick. Heather's mind screamed.

Miss Hartford called everyone out on the register, Valente included, then started discussing about his time table with him quietly. All the while, Layla was watching them like a love sick puppy.

"You're sad!" laughed Heather quietly.

"What?!" Layla jumped out of her daze with bright cherry red cheeks.

Heather shook her head, chuckling still. "Nevermind."

The bell rang and all the students headed out the classroom for their first lesson. Heather and Layla walked side by side to their class of geography.

Valente's tall structure helped him spot a blonde head and a raven head next to eachother walking to their destination. Also his destination. Following, Valente smiled to himself which recieved some funny looks from the other students standing around in the corridor. He was glad he came to St. Jacob's.

--

It was only seventeen minutes into the last lesson and Heather was already trying not to fall asleep but couldn't help it when her eyes lazily closed by themselves as Mr Kewoski talked about acids and alkalis mixing. Heather's head lulled in her hand slightly and she went into a slumber.

Rust and blood peeled from the walls all around her. Heather walked further into the darkness of the corridor. Or was it a corridor? Where the hell was she? She only had her eyes to see where she was going and the darkness was so pitch black it was hard for her eyes to adjust to how dark it was.

Breathing as quietly as she could, Heather only heard her own footsteps echo in the room, place, nowhere. She had her hands to her chest, she was scared. Where was she? And why was she here? She walked slowly along the wall not daring to reach her arms out just incase something was there, waiting to take her arm and eat her alive or something mordbiddly as disgusting.

A loud squeak could be heard and Heather immediately stopped, sweat making its way down her forehead slowly. What was that? It sounded like rusty hinges of a door opening.

Squeeeeak. Sqeeeeak. Squeeeeak.

If Heather were a cat, her hackles would of rose and she would of sprinted off to safety, away from this irritating yet very intimidating sound.

The squeaking carried on but never got louder, as if it were in one place. Heather held her breath and decided to step ever. so. slowly towards the sound and with each step she took the squeaking became louder.

Heather stopped and squinted her eyes to see if she could see where the squeaking was coming from. A valve.

But why was a valve moving? Heather felt herself clam up as she saw a dark hand moving the valve around, and around, and around repeatingly but not noticing her. Her gaze followed up the arm of whoever, or whatever, was turning the valve. Deathly pale skin with lean but well built muscles rippled as this thing carried on turning the rusted metal. Heather's mouth gaped but no sound come out, she wanted to scream at the monstrousity before her but didn't want this thing to see her.

A twitching head turned to look at her, but it had noeyes. The turning of the valve stopped and the thing climbed off the wall slowly, it stood six feet or so tall to what Heather could tell and started walking towards her. Those pale, strong arms reached out for her and Heather couldn't help but let out the scream she so desperately held in.

Heather felt a nudge in her side and she furrowed her brows. Another nudge and she bolted up right in her seat. She felt sweat trickle down from her forehead and wide eyes stared at the chubby face of Mr Kewoski.

"Miss Mason! Do you think it is appropriate to be sleeping in my lesson?!" spat Mr Kewoski, his chubby face becoming increasingly purple.

"Erh..." Heather looked around, the entire class were looking at her. The popular kids making snide remarks and laughing under their breaths. Her eyes darted to Layla's own, her eyebrows were raised on her forehead and her mouth was slightly a gap.

"Well?!" Heather jumped along with the rest of the class as Mr Kewoski's voice boomed.

"Um, no Sir. Sorry." Heather felt her cheeks burn.

"Good. Now, I want you all to go to page 97 in the textbooks and answer questions..."

Sometimes Mr Kewoski was like a time bomb waiting to go off. He was fine and boring the one minute, then the next he was like a rabid dog. Heather sighed and Layla ducked her head to the side and smirked.

"What were you dreaming about?"

"What? Oh, nothing..." said Heather, breathlessly. Layla chuckled and started turning to page 97 in the textbook.

Heather's eyes slowly turned to the boy with jet black hair and cyan eyes. He smiled a lop sided grin then looked back down at his book.

Heather stared intently at Valente's side until Layla asked Heather what one of the questions meant. As she turned, she saw out the corner of her eyes that Valente was looking straight back at her.

--

"How was school?" Harry asked as he scribbled something on his paper.

"Crap, how was work?" joked Heather.

Harry was about to open his mouth then closed it and smiled. "Cheeky."

Heather threw down her bag and grabbed a can of soda from the fridge. She walked towards her bedroom and as she closed the door, she heard her father say "You need to cut down on the internet!"

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A/N: Well there's chapter one (: hope you guys liked it. Reviews would be nice too. Let me know what you think! Next chapter will be up soon... hopefully.

P.S. Sorry for the sucky, sucky names... I don't even know if Valente and Quentis are French I'm crap at them. And I'm from England so I'm not really sure how the American high school system is set up. Sorry :/