Welcome
Steve Dalloway's head throbbed in a strong, pulsing motion that darkened his eyesight to a blur and overpowered his body, forcing down on him with an unbearable load of pressure. The images that had once been his apartment blended in his brain as a pulpy mass, swirling like a rotating slushie machine. The pain made screaming inevitable, but when this desperate wreck of a man opened his mouth to call out, only silence followed, his vocal cords shying from their responsibilities. He couldn't so much as squeak a noise as his breathing slowed and slowed with the pulsing in his skull and the muddy crimson that soaked his vision mercilessly. He stumbled over his own being, even with the simple shape of the hallway, slamming into the wall at his side once or twice. His eyes caught glimpses of carpet, then living room wall, and over again. His breath quickened as something unknown clogged his neck. It stuck thickly, like molasses, and filled his mouth from floor to uvula with the taste of metal. I'm going to die, he told himself, and there was not the slightest hint of doubt, or of hope, in his thoughts. I'm going to die. A piercing ring jolted his ears as he tripped over his own foot once more. Desperately, he reached out to feel the walls, to visualize them with his weak fingertips, reassuring himself that he was home, in his room, as he limped and staggered along, blundering like a sloppy drunk, but everything felt alien. It was as if he were in the same place, at the same time, but in some dark alternate universe. The excruciating sensation pumping through him didn't allow his thoughts to ponder it for more than rationed seconds at one time. After resisting it for so long, and the fight in him was dwindling, shrinking away, he finally found the voice to scream, scream for something he knew he'd never find or be gifted, but it wasn't exactly a scream; it was more of a strained gargle through the goop that still materialized in his throat. He fell to the floor, not collected enough to crash, not hollow enough to clunk, but dead enough to thud, knees impacting hard, slamming with a muffled pound against the softness of the carpet. The blackness, slowly, supernaturally, swallowed him up and shut his life down like a laptop.
The restarting sensation repeated itself, returning momentarily with the awareness of reality as Steve awoke on his mattress, blankets bunched around his heated feet. He groaned, and somehow the fact that he could now release a sound startled him. When he rubbed at his forehead, the coat of cold sweat was evident against his skin. His hand dragged wavy hair up his head, and whatever sections had not been spared from wetness matted to the shape of his skull. A singular instance, he fetched his prescription bottle from the nightstand and popped the cap loose. It reached the point where, if he had moved another inch, a handful of pills would have spilled into his palm, but he resisted the lapse, convincing himself he didn't need it. Quietly, hands calming their vibrations, he returned the plastic cylinder to its spot and clicked the lid shut.
Still weary, he stumbled to the bathroom, and the hallucinations of his dream followed, refusing to let go, yet he could only remember bits and pieces. The absence of memory didn't relieve him, though; it haunted him, a horrifying image in the back of his mind, unsettling emotions and clips that he couldn't quite fit into place. He remembered struggling, an intense sense of pain, and some sort of overwhelming darkness, but nothing else. Despite the fact that nightmares were as routine as sleep for him, they always managed to linger.
Steve glanced up at the small bathroom mirror as he leaned against the sink, drowsiness still evident. He had to catch his slipping elbow and keep his eyes from drifting shut. Still disappointing as it was expected, he had to lean to see his face in the reflecting glass, because he had always been a bit too tall, even in adolescence. He sighed when he noticed he had fallen asleep in his clothes. His jeans, a couple sizes larger than they should have been, were only held on by the protrusions of his pelvis. With a quick sweep of the hand, he straightened the mess of dirty blonde that sat greasily atop his head. It matched the field of stubble running from cheek to cheek. Thin scars criss-crossed his forearms, going all the way back to his childhood freak-outs, in which he would claw at himself to get rid of the hallucinations. They were ugly, but familiar, something he had gotten used to, and they had grown so old the power to disgust him vanished from their existance. The bags under his dark brown eyes were becoming more and more noticeable due to his recent lack of sleep, but there was nothing he could do to change that. The nightmares were worse now, if that were possbile. The sight of himself shouted the word loser. Then again, it didn't exactly shout; it groaned. Apathy towards himself came as easy as it would towards others. There was no love in his relationship with his own reflection.
Steve might have been dirty, but he wasn't stupid. He couldn't deny how estranged he had become from the outside world, and he knew his little mental world only brough him the secret feeling of unshared misery. But Agoraphobia atop social awkwardness atop medical problems kept him from even the simplest of conversation. None of this was his fault, of course, but if you asked, he would tell you that was fact in one greasy heartbeat.
He captured a fistful of filthy motel water and slapped it against his face before turning the sink off and making his way to the living room. A twinge of dj vu hit him as his eyes watched the hallway, and removing it from his mind was a battle.
From the yellowed kitchen fridge, he grabbed a water bottle and carried it over to the couch, where he collapsed without hesitation and dug in the cushions for the TV remote. He clicked the power on, but only sharp, bitter static responded.
"Figures," he murmured to no one, a lazy slur.
The radio wouldn't work either, and he knew that already. Shortly after sending the 19-inch into a black silence, he fell, and there was no better explanation than a fall, into peacefully uninterrupted sleep, a half-emptied water bottle resting on his chest. The two hours he napped were near-silent, haunted only by blankness. There were no nightmares, and there was no rush in the lull of his secluded Wednesday morning.
The rap of insistent knocking eventually woke him, causing the heap that was Steve Dalloway to shoot up on the couch in a hurried jerk that tugged at his back muscles and sent the plastic container from stomach to the rectangular shadow beneath the coffee table.
No time to fully revive himself, he bolted up and rushed to answer the sound. He hoped it was her.
When he opened the door, he saw that it was. No, Steve wasn't some douchebag lovestruck by the girl next door. Marian was five, and she managed to brighten every aspect of his life, sometimes in tiny ways, and sometimes climactically. She even forced a smile to his face, and she was adorable enough to do so while holding hands with her stump of grandfather, the pissy old motel manager.
"Mr. Dalloway, I stopped by to tell you-"
"Hi, Steve!" Marian called out with a combination of infinite joy and careless disregard for the overseer that brought a pleased grin to Steve's face.
He crouched to meet her level as well as he could, a difficult effort at six-foot-one, and greeted her brightly. Still, it was strenuous to overshadow how crappy every part of him was currently feeling. "Hey, doll."
The elderly man coughed, a noise that hinted towards frustration at Steve's lack of attention. Taking note of this, he stood back to normal.
"Steve, you haven't payed your rent."
Of course, he damn well knew this, and he damn well knew the only thing keeping his ass from the cold embrace of the sidewalk was Marian's adoration of him.
"I-I know, Mr. Baits," he tried to say, but stammered, and sighed a muted sigh when he realized that. "I've just been-"
"I don't want to hear it, Steve," Baits cut him off, sternly, and raised a halting hand. "You have a week."
And just like that, he left, without allowing him to get another word in. The door was slammed in his face, but Steve could still hear Marian's youthful giggles down the corrider. Softly, he let a lighthearted scoff escape his lips.
When he returned to the couch, fumbling the water bottle along his feet for the purpose of pure amusement, the reception had come back, and it came like a shimmering light in the darkness.
"Ye-he-hes!" he chuckled triumphantly, beginning his long search from channel to channel.
.~.
The following night offered peace, or at least an absence of memory if the nightmares had come. Steve didn't dream, didn't stir, didn't toss, didn't turn. He just slept, a sleep with which came steady breathing and the heavenly gift of silene, and he couldn't have been more thankful for the rare serenity. He awoke earlier than he usually had, around a quarter to nine, and for the first time in a while, he actually felt happy. Ignoring the fact that this feeling was, and still would be, uncommon was necessary. After musing the morning over, sitting on the edge of the bed with a hidden smile, he was convinced that he felt good enough to leave home.
Even those words were earth-shattering. Leave. Home.
That morning, he brushed his teeth (thoroughly, for once), tamed his hair, spritzed on some cologne in place of a desperately needed shower, and even hummed a Nirvana song to himself as he made himself presentable, as close to the line between clean and dirty as he could possibly be. To put it in layman's terms, he felt pretty damned great.
A grey-green tee and dark jeans slipped on, he snatched his brown jacket from the back of the couch, backup pills already stored. He prayed, though, that he wouldn't freak out; he wanted his day to be a good one. Maybe things would finally be okay, he hoped as his apartment and the depression that came with it dwindled to nothing more than a particle behind him. He paced down the hall, feet two confident friends. He whistled.
.~.
The air of the park blew crisp, gentle gusts against Steve's face, tossing his hair ever so slightly. He shut his eyes and took a deep breath, took it all in with a smile, hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. For the briefest, faintest moment, the pill bottle brushed his fingers and made him jump. He removed his hands in less than a second, and told himself, convinced himself, that he couldn't acknowledge that now.
Today, the crowds of people passing by didn't bother him, the sharp laughter of children who tossed a frisbee in the distance didn't bother him, and the golden retriever barking away at cars didn't bother him. Steve smiled, and let himself feel at peace. These seconds were tranquil, undisturbed, and for once, he realized, he didn't loathe his own godforsaken life.
A police car whipped past. It's sirens blared. To anybody else, anybody in the whole damn city, it would have only been a noise, but to Steve, it was a stirring hell. He didn't know why; perhaps it was just the slightest sting in the back of his memory, but it set him off like a box of fireworks. His breathing turned hectic, stop-and-go, and his heart pumped much too fast for his body, for any human body.
Not now, he pleaded, mentally, as the cool pricks of sweat formed on his forehead, Just not now.
In mere moments, his heaving escalated, so loud now that it turned heads, heads that were reluctant to help rather than avoid him. The better word, now, would not have been breath, but hyperventilation: Noisy, heavy, frequently rhythmic, and enough to turn a panic attack into a scene for the whole park to observe. Suddenly, Steve understood what was happening to him in its entirety. He was panicking, and shit, he was panicking hard. In the short time before he would inevitably pass out, he fumbled a shaking hand in his jacket for his medication, grabbing at clumps of leather before he finally touched the surface of the bottle. But there was no time to pull the container from its place. Steve fell to his knees, still scavenging for breaths with the weakest fight, and the most miniscule amount of air that remained in his lungs. What came next was expected by very few on the sidewalk that afternoon. Steve Dalloway flopped onto the cement, hands cold, chest still, eyes clenched, and body paralyzed. All that defined him were the soft, persevering breaths that managed to find their way in and out again, without awareness to guide them. They, too, would leave him, in time.
.~.
Hours later, however many had passed in blackness, Steve came to on the asphalt. He was lying in the same position, in the same spot, and it didn't take him so much as a minute to realize not a soul had tried to help him. He sucked in his first conscious breath. It shook. The air now held a murky, somewhat deadly consistency, its cool whisp long gone, as it would soon fade from Steve's memory. From the beginning of a second to its end, his head pulsed with a thick heartbeat, and a an unintelligable whisper brushed by his ear. He quickly forgot it.
After sitting up, the next instinctive action was locating his pills. He searched his jacket with one hand and blew a relieved sigh at the touch of plastic. He stood to his feet; they hurt.
"Ow, damn," he whispered as he touched the side of his head, responding to another rapid twitch of pain. The feeling subsited after a short, agonizing moment. "I got to get home," he informed himself, adding it on in a mumble, when he noticed the darkness around him. How long had it been? he wondered. He couldn't shake the stir in the deepest pits of his stomach. The word that came to mind was wrong.
Briefly, he studied his surroundings, but he didn't see trees or cars or people, or anything he had expected to see, just misty clouds and heavy auburn.
"What the hell?" he asked, softly, knowing he would have to answer it himself as he paced along the street, or at least what looked to be the street; the lack of sights and sounds made it difficult to tell what or where anything was, presently.
After what felt like a good two miles of darkness and blind wandering, a large percentage of the fog had lifted, disappeared into the atmosphere. The sudden cold pummeled Steve like a ton of bricks. He shivered. His fingers clung to his jacket as if life depended on it. Again, he heard the whispers, and although it was still snappy and uninterpretable, it was longer this time. His breath sucked itself in, rather forced its whole back up through Steve's windpipe, its own entity.
Don't panic. Everything is fine. Don't panic.
But there was no more time for mental comfort when a low groan defined by sudden, uneven spikes switched Steve's attentions. The sound was alien. It was evil.
Steve's head clicked down towards the road to look at... something. It slunk along the ground on footless legs, taped together and rendered useless; they were splattered in blood. Its eyes were gaping pits of black, and when its mouth opened, as well as it could, strands of skin held it together like gum on the bottom of a shoe.
"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit!" he blurted, causing him to stumble back and fall. Nothing else mattered but distancing himself. He continued to scoot backwards with his feet, even when knocked down. Shock wasn't an emotion, it was him, and everything that shaped him in the moment.
It reached a hand, bony and pink with bloodied skin, towards him. Claws attempted to grab him, but only graced his shirt.
Steve tumbled flat on his back, his elbows cracking hard on the cement. He didn't respond to the pain. It was outweighed by a mix of adrenaline and fear.
The creature leapt for him, close enough to hover above his cold-blooded body, hands trapping him at the sides. Its throat threatened him with a high-pitched trill.
Steve couldn't breathe. He couldn't make a move. He could only freeze. He could only stare with wide eyes.
When its razor-sharp incisors dove in for the kill, Steve mustered his strength again. He kicked the monster off and away from him, giving a grunt out of effort. It let out a screech to make ears bleed as it fell on its side and skidded across asphalt. When it looked back, even though it had no eyes, Steve felt as if it could see right through him and beyond. The thought chilled his pounding chest.
"Oh, no you don't!" Steve shouted, and shoved his work boot into the thing's scrawny back.
It screamed, a scream so far from human, and died. Maybe it wasn't the first time, either.
Steve needed a minute to catch his breath, or he would inevitable freak out again. The reality that he hadn't panicked yet was so insignificant when compared to his situation. Steve was confused. He was worried. He was scared. The latter was most prominent.
Somehow he still had the will left to continue down the street, and shortly later, his eyes caught sight of a billboard. Only four words were painted on that billboard. They were weathered. They were grey. They were a mystery.
But none of that kept them from stopping his heart.
WELCOME TO SILENT HILL