Day One

::Beep Beep, Beep Beep, Beep Beep,::

"Gwar…" I mumbled, slapping my alarm off. I always hate the incessant beeping of it. Not as much as Midgets alarm, but still.

I groggily slid out of bed, taking a brief moment to look around before shuffling out my bedroom door on a quest to pee. Seconds after stepping out into the hallway, I shuffled back into my room. Peeing would have to wait until after I confirmed what I have just now noticed. Which was that my walls were devoid of every picture of Kay and my other friends, every poster I had ever bought, and every picture Midget had ever drawn for me. Not to mention that my room was for all intents and purposes, neat. And I only had one clock.

Oh yeah, peeing would defiantly wait.

The first thing I did was sigh, deeply. I wasn't in the mood for a Dream, at all. As I ran my hands over the dust-free environment this version of me called home, I began to assess my current situation.

"Fantastic." I mumbled to myself. "Well…How old am I this time?"

I stumbled my way to the bathroom to check my appearance, sub sequentially taking the time to indeed piss. I can only guess that kidney failure is as real in those places as here, and didn't want to take any chances. After "eating a sandwich", (inside joke), I checked the mirror.

"I look, like me! Somewhat." I said.

Somewhat meaning I had zero facial hair. That and my off-blue locks were now their normal brown and cut relatively short. I still had enough hair for an "emo-flip", but only if I put effort into it.

I frowned at my image and shook my head. While I still had two earrings, the skull stud replaced by a silver hoop with a bull symbol on it, my reflection wasn't telling me my current age. I've always looked a little older than I should, and at the moment I looked 22. I was a significant less, chubby, than normal. But that doesn't really matter.

I made my way back to my room and opened the drawer on my desk where I keep my, for a lack of a better word, effects. Rings and shit. This is one way for me to tell who is currently my friend in these dreams, because my everyday outfit is composed of things I have gotten from my friends.

I looked inside. There was the studded bracelet of Beth's, and the spiked one that belonged to Poot. I had Midgets ring, Travis' wallet and Jared's money clip. I also had a small GIR patch that Kate had once pawned off on me. I breathed a sigh of relief. At least I had the same social group. A quick look at my drivers license showed that I was actually younger than my real age. Nineteen. I shook the age difference off and checked the current time and date on my computer. Then I checked it again.

9:05, Thursday, the 25th of January 2007? Wait, that would mean in this world I was born a year later? I shook my head again. At least the date was consistent. I've had worse.

"Oh shit, it's 9? Wait, do I even have college here?" I wondered aloud.

A quick scan of my room showed no backpack. No backpack means no college. Unless it was in my car. A distinct possibility, so I tossed on a pair of boots and made my way out to the back porch, throwing open the storm door and trudging out into:

A warm, sunny day.

I blinked in the sunlight, confused at the weather. It felt like Fall, in the sense that all the trees were still dead. Apparently global warming knows no dimension. Regardless, I continued my adventure to my car only to find that it was just as neat as my room. I began to wonder in the Kate in the real world would be happy about not having to clean this car. Nevertheless, there was no backpack. Or Mook. (Mook is the bear on my dashboard that I talk to sometimes). Interestingly enough, my right fender was not dented. My car was perfect in every aspect. No sign that I was ever in an accident. Which means either I never went on that first date with Beth, which wouldn't explain why I had the bracelet she bought me, OR this worlds Lee had enough common sense to not try and take her to the movies in a snowstorm.

I was starting to loath my alter self.

Now at a loss for what to do next, I went back into my room. It was 9:15, and I was worried I should be somewhere. Though it seemed this worlds Lee would have a calendar somewhere. Or if he had a job, a uniform neatly pressed somewhere. While I looked for these things, I wondered how an organized Lee would have the friends I do now.

"Maybe they're just as neat." I mumbled.

I talk to myself a lot.

I finally uncover the calendar I knew I would have; complete with shit I needed to do during the week. From what I could tell, no I didn't go to college. And that today I had free. Within 5 minutes, I had made a mess in my room and was eating Coco Pebbles and watching Dharma and Greg. It was the only thing I could find at nine in the morning. None of that mattered once my phone rang.

And I don't mean my cell phone vibrated off my desk. I mean an actual phone I had overlooked started ringing. It was an old style touchtone with a cord, with the kind of receiver I actually liked. Alter-Lee had taste.

I began to merely dislike him.

I reached for the receiver and then stopped, deciding to pull a Tyler Durden instead. Meaning I let the phone ring out, then picked up the phone and hit star69. Still crunching my cereal, the other end picked up.

"Hello?"

"Hey." I said, muffled. "You called?"

"You know I hate when you do that. Why don't you ever pick up the phone at first?" The voice said.

Wow, can my subconscious call it, or what? I kinda recognized the voice, but didn't want to ask, deciding to play along instead.

"I never pick up my phone, you know that. What's up?" I asked.

"I got a weird email."

"Fantastic." I said. "I took a piss this morning. I was gonna call you, but it didn't seem as important as getting an email."

I rock the proverbial Casbah when it comes to sarcasm.

"This is serious." The voice said. "It's from D."

Wait, D?

"Jared!" I suddenly shouted into the phone. Which I'm guessing was slightly out of character.

"Yeah… Who did you think it was?"

I thought as fast as I could. "No one. I knew it was you." If this guy was anything like my Jared, he'd forget anything with a simple subject change. "What's this about an email?"

"Huh?" I heard him ask. "Oh, right. It's from D."

Called another one. I'm on a roll.

"It says she's on her sisters laptop and that her brother made her drive the three of them out into the boondocks and now her car broke down." He said with a slight worried tone.

Several things weren't adding up, like Nicole owning a laptop and D having a car. But in a world where I had my life planned out months in advance, (Dentist appointment, March 6th), I was guessing anything was possible.

"Ok. So, go get her." I said bluntly. Ah, a classic Lee, You-just-asked-me-a-stupid-question, answer.

"I can't." A classic Jared answer. Vague with zero explanation.

"Why's that?"

"Because my dad tried to replace my fuel line and almost blew up half my car." He muttered angrily.

A classic Jared excuse. If this was a dream, it was oddly accurate.

I leaned back in my chair, pulling at the cord. "So you need my help, then."

"The town is like, an hour and a half away. I'll pay for your gas." Jared said almost matter-of-factly, like I was about to ask.

I took a glance at my online account. Luckily, I had the same numbers. "That's ok, I can handle a tank or two." I said with a grin. Let's just say Alter-Lee was WAY better with money than me.

Now I was only insulted at the thought of him.

"Really?" Jared asked. "Captain Frugal is paying for his own gas?"

I was more surprised that Jared knew the word 'frugal'. But I wasn't one to let myself slip now.

"What are friends for, right?"

"Right." He said. "See you in a bit then? Peace out." And then he hung up.

Sparing the details of it all, I threw on my effects, a pair of jeans and my Spiderman hoody and was out the door. The drive over to his house was relatively enjoyable, as far as driving goes. It was just the usual 15-minute drive I always take to his house, nothing happened.

When I got there, I wasted no time just walking into the house and making my way to the living room where Jared sat staring at his computer next to Kate, who was flipping through random channels on his TV.

"Hey, Wingus." I said, patting his shoulder as I plopped down next to him on the couch.

He tilted his head at me. "What?"

Damn habits. I shook my head. "Nothing." Subject change again. "You gotta map to this place?"

"Huh?" He asked. "Oh, yeah."

"So what's the place she's at called?" I asked him.

"I don't know, I just have an address." He said with a shrug. "It's 117 Nathan Ave, Paleville."

Nathan Ave? Where the hell had I heard that from before?

"So she's in Paleville?" I asked.

He shrugged again. "She said it's either Paleville, or the town just before that. All she knows is the street and number."

Something wasn't adding up. I knew those names, but couldn't place them for shit.

"What's Kate doing here?"

"She's very bored and was wondering if she could join you two on your adventure." Kate suddenly said, all without actually moving or ceasing her channel flip.

"Um, yes she can?" I offered.

"She's thrilled." Kate muttered.

Fantastic. Alter-Lee had apparently switched personalities with Kate. I was about to have an intense battle of wits when Jared interjected.

"Could we leave, like, now?" He asked.

I sighed, backing down from the opportunity to be sarcastic with Happy-Little-Kate. "Yeah, man." I was slightly annoyed, but understanding. He needed help, and was worried.

I don't like condensing a 90-minute drive into a paragraph. But I don't have a choice, cos I don't think anyone wants to read about various nose-pickings or a Weird Al song that got played one too many times. Three note worthy things did happen, though. The first was when I got a look at the map Jared had. The road was taking us North. So far North we had to border a lake to get to Paleville. The second was that the closer we got to Nathan Ave, the foggier it got. The third was the feeling that I had done this already. Nevertheless, I was still rather chipper when we pulled into the final rest stop.

I had to pee, rather bad, so it was into the restroom for me. A badly weathered one, at that. It looked like a tornado had hit it. Seven times. This didn't stop me from peeing, just stopped me from using a stall. As I started to leave, I caught glimpse of myself in a mirror. Staring at my face, I suddenly felt terribly uneasy. Sick to my stomach.

"Where have I gone this time?" I asked my reflection. "And why does this look so damn…familiar?"

"Lee!" I heard Kate shout from outside.

I abandoned my reflection and went back out into the early afternoon fog. "What?"

"Dude, look." Jared said, shoving something under my nose.

"Gah!" I yelled, swatting away the dark object. "What the hell?!"

"It's Chii!" He yelled, waving the object.

My eyes finally focused on a beat-to-shit Chobits doll in Jared's right hand. It was Chii, alright. D's Chii.

"I found it over there." He said, pointing at a path that lead away from the rest stop, down near the lake. "I think she's down there."

"Plausible." I said, eyeing the path. It was too narrow for my Jeep, which I really didn't like for some reason.

"Less talk, more D finding." Kate said. "I want to leave."

"Yeah, yeah." I said, waving at her.

Jared took off down the path, followed closely by Kate with me ambling down the path somewhere in the back. Normally I don't mind the fog, or being on a strange wooded path. Except, I knew I had already done it before.

"Well." I said.

"Well, what?" Jared asked.

I shook my head. "There's a well nearby."

Jared looked at me funny and kept walking. But after 5 minutes, he almost walked straight into an old stone well in a short pavilion.

"Woah, you called that." Kate muttered.

"Wait do you know where we are?" Jared asked quickly.

"Fells like it." I shrugged.

He nodded. "Cept we've never been here before."

Which we both knew, couldn't be true. If we recognized it, then why couldn't we place the name? It was almost like we both had the same idea, but refused to admit it.

"Graveyard…" Jared mumbled after a few more minutes of walking.

Sure enough, there was a set of wrought iron gates and a large stone wall in front of us leading to a sea of headstones shrouded in the misty fog.

My eyes grew wide. Suddenly, I knew exactly where I was. I could hear Jared mumbling something. I didn't know what, but I knew he had guessed it, too. Nathan Ave, The Rest Stop, and the well and graveyard. The town before Paleville was:

"Hey!" Kate suddenly broke my thoughts. "There's someone in there, in the graveyard."

Peering through the gate, I could see a shadowed figure kneeling at a headstone. There was crying, female crying.

"Angela…" I whispered to myself. "No…god no.."

"Maybe it's D!" Kate exclaimed, reaching for the gate handle.

"No!" I shouted, pulling her away from the entrance. "It's not, trust me."

"What? But…" Kate started, but Jared cut her off.

"I hear something." He said, mostly to himself, before jogging up a nearby path that led into the woods farther. I charged after him, dragging Kate with me. The closer we got to Jared, the louder a roaring sound grew. It grew until it was all around us, but was sounding a lot less animal and more like…like…

"Is that a chainsaw?" Kate asked.

Sure enough, we were all standing around that was embedded in a thick log, left running. The chain was clearly caught in the wood, and the jam was causing all the noise and a lot of smoke. Jared pushed the stop on the chainsaw, coughing slightly and waving smoke out of his face.

"Who the hell leaves a chainsaw in a log?" Kate asked both of us. "How disrespectful to your too—Oh my god." She stopped talking, covering her mouth with her hands.

Kate had seen what Jared was staring at on the log. What was pooled around where the chainsaw was stuck.

Blood.

"We have to leave, now." Jared said. No, ordered. And he was right.

Suddenly, I wasn't just in a Dream World. I was in trouble. Big trouble. And so were they.

"What about D?" Kate asked.

"There was no D. She was never here." I said.

I pulled Kate's arm, tugging her down the path. "Jared's right. We need to leave, now!" I shouted.

We ran back down the path, even though I knew what would happen. The scenery had changed. We were suddenly pressed up against the now locked gate to the graveyard, with towering pricker bushes on either side of the path. We could see where we had first came in, now on the other side of the graveyard.

"What is this?" Kate asked. "What's going on?!"

"It already started." Jared said.

"Yeah, but we can do things the game can't, Jared. Come on, think! Climb the gate, run like hell!" I yelled. I couldn't be here. Anywhere but that town. And I would get out.

Jared effortlessly climbed the iron gates and thudded to the grass below. Kate sucked in her gut and actually slid through the bars. I, with a running start, leapt at the gate and promptly slid down. My hands wouldn't grip the metal.

"Come on!" Jared shouted.

"I can't!" I shook my head. And I wasn't about to try again. That was pointless.

"Ok, you two run back to the Rest Stop." I said, tossing Jared my keys.

"What? Wait, What is going on?!" Kate asked again.

"No, what about you?" Jared asked me.

I grinned. A fools grin. A grin that says, 'I'm about to die for you.'.

"I go through town. To Nathan Ave, then double back to the Rest Stop." I said.

"No! Not if this is real!" Jared started.

"Stop. Just trust me. I know the map better than you. This is my horror game." I said. "Now go."

"Lee.." Kate started, her voice breaking. She was getting upset, and she didn't even know why.

"Stop it. I'll be fine. Now go!" I yelled again.

This time I didn't wait for them to respond, I just turned and ran. I ran up the path, past the chainsaw, and towards a road. The fog was not ceasing, and I knew why. Because I was in that town. I was having a nightmare version of my Dreams.

I was in Silent Hill.

My feet pounded on the dirt road, echoing in every direction. My one set of feet sounded like hundreds echoing in the mist. I refused to think about it, charging onward. The dirt finally shifted to pavement, and took a steep turn uphill. I slowed to a walk against my will as I began passing abandoned cars. I had started my search for a weapon; still praying in my mind that this wasn't the real monster infested Silent Hill. I came across an abandoned cop cruiser, and in the front seat was a visible 9 mm handgun and a box of bullets. Not to the exact game specifics, but I was not about to bitch. I quickly checked to make sure the magazine was filled, then loaded a bullet and removed the safety.

"I will not need this." I said to myself.

I looked around and a street sign caught my eye. Sanders St. I kinda knew where I was. I turned left and ran down the now level street. I was in the town now, no question. If the fog was no longer an advocate of that, the corpse I passed was. A mans body, lying face down in dried blood.

"This can't be happening!" I yelled.

I continued to run until something forced me to stop. Namely it was a gigantic white wall that had the words, "No", printed on it over and over again in what looked like blood.

"Oh god…" I said to myself. I had begun shaking, and wanted to throw up. I never got the chance.

"SCREEE!"

I whirled around at the sound, and almost peed myself. For staggering towards me through the fog, was what Jared and I had dubbed an Acid Spitter on our first sight of it in the game. Acid Spitters were humanoid, and you could just see what looked like a torso, arms and a face under what can only be described as a straightjacket of its own skin. If you got too close in the game, they did what their name implied. Somehow.

"No…" I took a step back, into the wall. The Acid Spitter staggered forward again.

I raised the gun, but was shaking so hard that I dropped it. Without knowing it, I had begun to silently cry. I hadn't been this scared since I was the only second grader contemplating death and god. I couldn't shoot like this. I wanted to go home, where these things didn't exist. It screeched again, and for a brief second I realized something.

Death meant nothing to me, not here. I would just go home, not matter what. Jared and Kate were at the car by now, if not driving away. So fuck the monster, screw being scared.

A grin swept across my tear-stained face as I clenched my fist. I didn't even pause to throw off a witty one-liner, just charged. I ran full tilt at the monster, fists up, prepared to compensate a weak upper body by punching at a run. This was a mistake, because the thing jerked to the side, momentum sending me stumbling past. It quickly fire off an acid spray, that I wouldn't been seriously hurt by if I hadn't been on my knees.

"So, does that mean we're playing on hard?" I muttered.

It screeched again, almost like an answer.

"Fantastic." I grinned. "How unfortunate for—"

BLAM!

I was startled by the sudden, thunderous noise. What the hell was going on?

BLAM! BLAM!

The sound powered through the alley twice more, and both times the Acid Spitter shuddered. Violently. It was at that time I noticed the blood on the pavement. My blood? No, the Acid Spitters. Wait, it was bleeding?

It sank to its knees, bellowing from its innermost depths.

"Kick it! Finish it off before it blows!"

I really didn't need to be told twice. I remembered what happened when they died sometimes. I brought my leg up, pushing it deep into the soft male-deformed flesh of the Acid Spitter. It groaned, and fell down completely. I jumped to my feet and quickly brought my foot down onto its head. With a terrifying screech and a violent twitch, it stopped moving. It had died, and blood was already starting to pool around it.

Breathing heavily, I turned my gaze away from it to the end of the alley, where the gunshots and voice had come from. Trying to peer through the fog at the figure. Who was it?

"Did you really think I'd leave you?" A familiar voice yelled.

No way.

I ran down the street towards the wall, at there he was. An out of breath Jared, holding a dead still handgun, with Kate clinging to his sides for dear life and sobbing.

"The person in the graveyard." He said. "It was another of those things." He motioned towards the dead monster. "I had to carry her back here, but I couldn't let you go through here alone."

"Why did you carry her?" I asked.

"The monsters are scaring the crap out of her. She won't move, or stop crying." He said, sinking to his knees. "Actually, I'm kinda exhausted right now." He mumbled.

With some effort I pried Kate off his side, only to have her cling to mine. It didn't matter. What did was that we were tired, trapped and confused. We had to rest where we were for now.

It was going to be a long night.

Day Two

I remember we were attacked twice more before morning. I never slept, because that was more of my own nature. Years of drinking the East Coasts general supply of Dr. Pepper has turned my adrenaline into a substance that rivals crack and speed. If I get worked up enough, sleep no longer becomes an option. Jared managed intervals of naps, and Kate finally managed to cry herself asleep. None of us really talked much. I know I didn't because I couldn't think of anything. Jared would ask me if anything was different when he woke up, not much more.

At some point during the night, a halogen bulb in a street lamp that was sticking out of the wall flickered to life and caused us all to jump at first. But it was just on a timer, like a normal city. It sent waves of off white light cascading through the alley, granting us sight.

I had kept my back to the wall most of the night, alternating between sitting and standing. I refused to walk away from it, or take my gaze away from the fog that plagued and blocked my vision. As far as I could tell, it hadn't raised at all during the night. But the current shitty weather was really not my concern.

Jared offered me the gun every time he felt tired, but I wouldn't take it. After the rather pathetic display I had showed myself earlier, I didn't feel up to touching the firearm anymore. So when the second Acid Spitter decided to stagger down the alley, I kicked him awake. This battle was a lot less epic than the first one, consisting of Jared shooting until the clip was empty and the monster had stopped moving. This happened mostly because Jared was still half asleep and couldn't concentrate until the creature let out a screech.

"Go make sure it's dead." He said groggily. He couldn't stand, because Kate was curled up in his lap.

There was only two times I bothered moving. This was one of them. I shuffled forward through the alley towards its unmoving body, which was thankfully closer than the body of the first one. I looked down at the pooling blood and then up at Jared. With all the humor I could muster at the moment, I pulled my leg back and in the true fashion of the games, gave the creature a finishing kick. I heard Jared laugh from where I was, and it made me feel slightly better.

The two of us were at a slight advantage being here, and by slight, I mean barely any. We knew the back story to Silent Hill, and that people who sinned were sent there. That the monsters were a representation of your sins, and that everyone experienced a different Silent Hill. And we weren't positive that these things we knew were facts.

Night seemed to last forever, and it was not because I had nothing to do. I've spent nights staring at my ceiling before that pass in five minutes. This was different.

I checked my watch. 3:45. "Great." I mumbled to myself. Almost morning at least.

I pushed off the wall and stretched. Jared and Kate were still sleeping. In a fit of boredom, I made my way to an abandoned car that was parked on the side of the road about halfway between the second dead Acid Spitter and us. Looking at the car reminded me of my own. I decided then that tomorrow we would make our way back to the Jeep and leave. I knew it wouldn't work that way, that something would happen to halt our exit, but I refused to admit it to myself.

The car was a beat up '97 Oldsmobile that looked gutted. At one point it had been painted a dark blue, but was now covered in rust spots like it was diseased. A leper-mobile. I chuckled to myself at my own bad pun, and hands in my pockets; I put my foot against the side of the car. And that's when I heard it.

Huhh... huhh... huhh..

It sounded like something was gasping for breath, or trying to breath with something in its mouth. I kept as still as I possibly could, looking around slowly for the source of the noise. It was then, that I could see it. A figure hunched over the dead body of the first Acid Spitter. The fog blurred the upper half of its body, but the light cut through the bottom half, revealing a set of jowls in the process of tearing into the carcass. My mind drew a blank as I tried to remember this particular creature.

CLANG!

The sound of metal hitting the pavement rang through the alley. The rust around one of the cars hubcaps had finally given way, sending it crashing onto the ground. With a grunt, the monster whipped its head up to look at me. It was one of those brief moments where the only thought I had was:

Oh, shit...

The monster began walking forward on all fours, and that was when I realized it was one of the dogs. The dogs were, well, dogs. Dogs that looked like they had been in fires. They had no fur, and their skin looked melted to their bodies. The skin was drawn tight over their eyes, but it didn't mean they couldn't see.

I backed up a step, and began to yell for Jared but stopped. Because he wasn't awake. The hubcap fell five minutes ago, and Jared reloaded the gun clip after he had emptied it earlier. He would have had to cock the gun again. The dog was in plain sight and in range of the gun, no question. He would have shot already. I was on my own.

I gritted my teeth as the dog inched closer, now emitting an audible growl. My head swiveled wildly as I searched for something to fight with: a wrench, a pipe, a tire iron in the car. But there wasn't anything, because this wasn't a game. I got lucky with the gun, but my other items would be harder to find.

Ironically, I found myself saying the stereotypical line you hear people in TV and movies say all the time.

"Good dog."

Like it was listening. Or was anything but a bad dog at this point.

Without warning it leaped at me with an impressive kick off the ground. This monster was closing a span of ten feet, rapidly. For some reason my mind slid back to a conversation I once had with Jared about how fast I think in a heated situation. He said he thought that in a fight, I wouldn't think as fast as I normally do which could be several coherent thoughts in a few seconds. Almost in an act of defiance of him, I grabbed the handle of the drivers side door of the Oldsmobile and wrenched it open.

Ha. Me: One, Jared: Zero.

If I had paid attention instead of thinking I would have seen that the window on the door was down. Which was where the dog was headed like a hellish missile. With a loud crunch, the dog got caught in the window by his drop rate. The crunch came from the door almost falling off because of its weight.

What do you mean I lost my point due to a technicality? I stopped it!

I turned and ran down the alley as it began kicking furiously until the door did fall off. Once its legs were touching the ground, it managed to scamper free and take off after me. I remember jumping onto the top of a dumpster before it managed to bite me and the momentum of its miss sent it tumbling towards the end of the alley. For two seconds I thought I had screwed my friends until it jumped back up and began to walk back to me.

I scrambled as high as I could on the lid. I was not built to outrun a dog. I couldn't run, period. Not because of my weight so much, it was just really awkward for some reason. The dog began to circle the dumpster, still growling.

"Fantastic. I'm going to be the loser who gets killed by a regular creature." I muttered to myself. "Big fat guy dies first. Whoot!" I said with a nervous laugh.

"You're not that fat, but you're defiantly heavier than say, your friends over there."

I paused and looked around. A sardonic voice with a slightly British accent.

"Mook?" I asked aloud.

The monster barked in response.

"I'm not talking to you!" I yelled. Yeah, I was getting into an argument with the thing that wanted to eat me.

"You've got a kick that you claim can break car locks, and you can't stop a dog?"

I didn't have time for voices. "That's not a car! Besides, my kick is not strong enough to hurt that."

"If you put your weight into it, it would be."

I'm in serious danger, and my personal voice is making a fat joke? I really didn't have time for this. Besides, the dog was beginning to lose interest with a prey it couldn't reach, and was starting to sniff around for something easier.

My eyes shifted to my friends, who were asleep about 30 feet away. Not them. Anything but the—and in the middle of that thought, I figured out what Mook meant.

I opened the dumpster and grabbed a bottle off a bag of garbage. Bending over gave the dog a second wind, and it took a shot at biting my arm. I jumped back and the lid slammed down on its head. Dazed for a second, it shook its head and growled at me again.

"No no, I'm too difficult to reach, remember?"

Luckily, I'm patient. It took about ten minutes for the monster to begin looking for something within its reach. When its meaty little head swiveled towards the Acid Spitters, I swung my arm back and threw the bottle as hard as I could towards the opposite side of the alley. With a crash the dogs attention was now on the bottle, and as anti-climactic as it was, I slid off the dumpster and jumped squarely on the back of its neck.

Hey, they can't all be epic battles.

With a sickening pop and a crack, the beast stopped moving. There was no pool of blood, but it was clearly dead. True to my own sarcastic and sometimes sadistic tendencies, I walked all the way to the hubcap and, out of breath and sore, dragged it back to Jared sleeping figure and repeatedly began dropping it against the pavement until he woke up with such a start he knocked Kate out of his lap and she woke up.

"You sleep too soundly." I mumbled, sliding to a sitting position next to them. I wouldn't say anything else until daybreak.

Kate didn't sleep or talk the rest of the night. Or cry. Perhaps she was done? No, this was the same girl who freaked one time I made the joke that all of our families had vanished. Her life was at stake, shouldn't she be more upset?

"She's not the same. Similar, maybe, but these two are as good as strangers to you."

Those words that rang in my head stayed there.

Day finally broke with a resonating and foggy, 'Who gives a rats ass?'. We staggered to our feet and steadily began to leave the alley. There really wasn't anything rather interesting about it, until about three-fourths of the way out. We came in contact with something we had forgotten was here.

A dead body.

It was different this time, because it wasn't a monster. It was some guy in a blue jacket face down on the pavement with his arms outstretched towards a white house on the opposite side of the road. We stared between the man and the house. It was strange, because the house didn't particularly stand out. The man looked like he had been running towards it when something, probably expected if he was running, had caused him to lose his head. Literally.

"Who runs to an unmarked house?" Mook asked softly in my head.

I turned around, looking behind the man. There wasn't anything over there that stood out either, except a mailbox that had its flag up. You know, the little red flag for outgoing mail? Tentatively I walked to it and pulled the worn metal door open. Inside was a folded up piece of paper, what looked like a folding knife and a lighter. I touched my left pocket out of habit. I could feel my cell phone, but not my lighter. I pulled the little silver object out and twirled it. It had the same feel and look as mine. Silently, I slid it into my pocket and pulled out the paper and unfolded it. It was a map of Silent Hill. Something that momentarily surprised me was the fact that some things were circled and crossed out. Like, Blue Creek Apartments was crossed out, but the St Stella Church was circled. This was because everybody experienced their own Silent Hill, and had to visit certain places. The church didn't pertain to us, so I folded the map back up and put it in the mailbox. I stared at the knife for a minute before hesitantly taking it and sliding it into my pocket as I turned, shutting the mailbox at the same time. I've always been proud of my slight of hand. But I was just playing. I had no reason to hide it.

"What was in it?" Jared asked. He and Kate, who was determinately staring off at a tree in the opposite direction of the body, had stayed next to the man.

"A map I couldn't read." I shrugged, continuing up the street.

I guess I did.

It took another hour and forty-five minutes to trek our way right down Lindsey street, right again onto the Vachss service road, and a final right onto Nathan Ave to finally bring us to the rest stop. Considering the distance and the fact that I tend to amble, it wasn't too bad. Our scenery was stained by more dead bodies and the occasional cryptic, "Turn Back" or "You're going to die" that was written in red on buildings we passed. We did pass a few monsters, getting attacked only twice by dogs that were too close for us to just sneak past. Things were looking rather grim in that sense. A 9 mm doesn't hold a lot of bullets, and Jared had reloaded three times. I thought. I should have paid more attention, but I did know he was running out of bullets. At this point in the game the main character would have found a melee weapon first, usually in the form of a pipe or an unusually hefty piece of wood. Sadly, there really wasn't anything like that in reach.

To my surprise, we finally reached the Jeep. It was still sitting, untouched in the parking lot of the rest stop. For some reason, I had expected it to not be there. We walked around to the passenger side and I unlocked it, pulling the front seat forward and helping Kate in. It was then up close did I notice her face was wet. She had been silently crying? The entire time?

"We're going home, Kid." I said. I had meant it to be uplifting, but it came out half assed.

Jared slid into the car without a word. I made my way around the car to my side, when something through the fog briefly held my attention. It was the outline of an SUV in the fog. Was someone else here? I shook it off and climbed inside. Then, something else happened that nearly scared the piss out of all of us.

With a deep, unexpected and almost animal roar, the car started.

Breathing a sigh of relief, I threw it in reverse and dropped the E-Brake, backing up and starting to drive towards the tunnel we had first come through to get to Silent Hill when I slammed on the brakes.

"You've got to be kidding me." Jared whispered.

"This, it's like an illusion, right?" Kate asked.

Right in front of us was the answer to why the car was still in the parking lot. Why it started, even. The tunnel was blocked. No, it wasn't blocked, but filled. To anyone who ever had toy cars, we could all remember cramming a shit load into some sort of container because out mom told us to pick them up. It was like that. Someone had taken, hundreds of tankers and tractor-trailers and had literally crammed them all in the tunnel.

I slammed it into reverse, and spun my Jeep around in as much a 180 I could manage.

"What the hell are you doing?!" Jared yelled.

"Leaving." I said calmly as I slid the stick into drive, and drove onto Nathan Ave.

"We can't! We're trapped here, where the hell are you going?"

"I'm going straight on Nathan Ave. I'm going to skim the outskirts of Silent Hill until we reach the other side."

"What if that doesn't work, Lee?" Kate's voice softly rose up from behind us.

"It has to."

"That's not an answer, man!" Jared yelled again.

"No shit! But we're doing something no Silent Hill person ever has!" I snapped in protest.

"What?!"

"Driving away." I muttered, pushing the pedal to the floor. "They can't hurt us in here! It's the ultimate weapon. They try and kill us, we run them over."

"Man, you better be right." He said, shaking his head.

I was acting like a child, like I did every time someone tried to defy me. I was being a stubborn fool, but dammit I refused to be wrong. I couldn't be wrong, there was just no way. We had to be able to drive out. We were flying past everything we had already walked by. Monsters were turning away from us. Finally, things were beginning to look fine instead of horrible.

"Your car is squealing."

We just had to be able to leave. I wouldn't get trapped in this town!

"Dude, your car."

What?

"What?" I echoed my thoughts.

"Your car is squealing." Jared repeated.

"I don't hear it."

"Listen!" He said.

Like I had a choice. It wasn't like I could ignore his request. So I listened. And drove. And then, listened some more. Eventually I began to hear a sharp piercing squeal. It was soft to me, and I had heard it somewhere before.

"The hell…" I muttered. "The tires? Or the axel?"

"I have no idea." Jared said, rolling his window down.

"Lee…" Kate said suddenly.

"In a minute." I muttered. What the hell was that sound?

"Lee, I think you need to see this." She said. Her voice sounded worried, almost panicked.

"Jared, see what she wants." I mumbled.

A few seconds passed and suddenly Jared grabbed my arm.

"Dude, either speed up or turn off this road." He said.

"What?!" I shouted.

"Behind us!" Kate screamed.

Suddenly the Jeep rocked forward from the force of something hitting the back end, and there was a mix of cursing, grunting and more screaming from the three of us. I decided that maybe, I should look in the rearview mirror.

It's funny how fine has a habit of blowing up in your face.

Racing behind us, charging through the fog was a monster we had never seen before. And subsequently is the reason I will never bitch about the Silent Hill characters just getting in a car and driving away.

They were the size of SUVs, looked like them too. They were covered in flesh, stretched tight over a car like frame. Inside the vehicle, there was what looked like an Acid Spitter fused with the front seat. Behind that was a horrible pulsing red object, much like a giant heart. And every time the wheels completed a rotation, they emitted a horrible squealing noise. Almost like it was constantly in pain. I stared in horror at the three Hell Cars chasing us. And I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream in a fit of frustration and pain. Was this really happening? Could it? Was this hell really fit for every possible escape? What the fuck, man?! What did I do, WE do to deserve this?!

Suddenly Kate leaned forward, screaming and pointing in front of me. "Look out!"

My eyes readjusted on the road in front of me just in time to see the two Demon Dogs disappear under my front end. The resulting bump forced my car to a hard left and almost flipped my tiny Jeep. By wrenching the wheel, I managed somehow to right the car.

"That's one way to kill them." Jared said with a nervous laugh.

"Kill them?" I asked. "Kill THEM!" I yelled, pointing at the Hell Car pulling up on our right.

"How?!"

"I want you to inject these with a poison that will spread, slowly but surely causing its whole species to eventually die out over time." By god, even in a panic situation I still had it. "Shoot them!"

He cocked the gun, sliding the window down. "How bout I start with the tires?"

I thought for two seconds. "NO!" I pulled his shoulder back, knocking him down into the seat.

"What?!"

"The wheels have to be a thick bone under the flesh. It won't deflate like a tire! Thin rubber, big ass wheel well!" I shouted.

"How would you know?" Kate's voice echoed from the back.

"I don't, it just seems to make the most sense! How else would the weight be held up?" I had to yell over the squealing. It was unbearable.

"He's got a point." Jared agreed.

Sweet. Now we're even.

"The driver, then?" He asked, almost smugly. After turning back to the window, he jumped. The Hell car was now even with the Jeep. It took two seconds to recover, but he pulled up his gun and fired point blank at the Acid Spitter.

No, the cars didn't have windows.

But nothing happened anyways. The car didn't shudder, made no sound, and didn't falter. In fact, it sped up. Rather quickly, easily pulling a car length in front of me and moving directly in front of the Jeep. Without warning, it suddenly stopped moving, forcing me to veer sharply right and slam on the brakes. The end result was a 180 power slide into an iron gate, promptly stopping my car.

"Where are we?" I asked groggily.

"Rosewater Park." Kate said after a second, pointing to a sign.

Fuck. We weren't even halfway down Nathan Ave.

But that wasn't our biggest problem. The three cars were now positioned in a semi circle around the car, a soft squeal still evident over the roar of my engine.

"Try to shoot the heart, thing." I offered.

"Where's that?" He asked.

"Behind the driver. Way in the back."

He made a move to lean out the window and take aim when a cracking sound stopped us all. The hood of the center Hell Car had split horizontally, like a giant mouth. Except, it wasn't a mouth. Housed under the hood was not an engine, or a tongue, but half a person. It looked like a Wall Crawler from SH4. It was the same flesh and vein substance as the rest of the car, connected by the hip to the car. It reached towards us and gave off a screech almost as terrible as the squealing tires.

It was funny how fine had stopped blowing up in my face, and was now being repeatedly shot.

"I'm…I'm gonna try shooting, that." Jared muttered slowly as the open Hell Car rolled forward slightly.

"No, get out." I said without taking my eyes off it. "We'll go into the park, they're too small to follow."

Jared stared at me in disbelief. "You want to run?"

I shot him a similar look. "You'd rather fight them with a dwindling supply of bullets?"

His door clicked open rather quickly. "The park, you said?"

He slid out of the car, ripping his seat forward and pulling Kate out with one arm. He lifted her and set her on the other side of the seriously dented gate I had hit, beginning to climb over himself. He looked back at me, waiting. I caught a glimpse of the Hell Cars, still easing towards my car as I went to shut the Jeep off. And then I noticed something odd. The cars weren't going after them. They were outside the Jeep, still easy prey, but none of them seemed to even notice. And that's when I realized something.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Jared screamed as I pushed the seat back down, grabbed the passenger door and slammed it shut.

I didn't say anything, turning the wheel fully to the left. I took a deep breath, cracked my knuckles, and slammed the pedal to the floor. MY tires squealed as I peeled out, speeding away from the Park. As I drove, I glanced in my rearview, confirming my suspicion. They had all peeled out after me. They were only interested in other moving cars!

"Yes!" I cheered in victory, pumping my fist skyward.

Wait a minute.

"SHIT!"

My jeep rocked again as one of the slammed my bumped. The one still had its hood raised, and I tried my best not to look at its horrible face. Without noticing I had driven across Nathan Ave and down another street, and was currently shooting past the:

"Blue Creek Apartments?!!" I screamed to myself.

I sharply turned left after the first block. I almost ran over what looked like a human girl as I turned left again, now making a B-line for Nathan Ave. Jared's window was still down, so I could hear the Hell Cars crashing into things and running over everything else. One, in an effort to try and cut me off at the turn accidentally crashed through the front of a flower shop. Hey, one down.

I pulled back onto Nathan Ave, trying to look away as I drove past a bewildered Kate and Jared who was… taking aim at me? Was he that desperate to stop me? That jackass! I was trying to help THEM! Regardless, I banked another hard left and drove quickly up Nathan Ave. I tried to ignore the shot that rang out even as I drove. I plowed onward through the fog, occasionally looking behind me. Wait a second; weren't two Hell Cars chasing me? Why was there only one now?

Getting lost in my thoughts almost caused me to kill myself. Something I'm apparently good at. I managed to slam on my brakes and skid the car off to the right as I came to the end of the road. And I mean end of the road, because the pavement and everything was gone. Replaced by a huge gaping hole that had been crudely cut into nothingness. I sat cursing and partially admiring the chasm when a sharp squealing sound caught my attention. Apparently the Hell Cars couldn't see through the fog any better than I could, because at full speed, the last car shot straight over the edge and into oblivion. I had slumped back into my seat in exasperation. But I still had one thing on my side, not that it helped much. That was the knowledge that the monsters apparently were no more aware of sudden changes to the town that we were.

My peace was short lived as four more cars slowly rolled through the fog towards me. With a sadistic grin to try and trick myself into being brave, I wrenched the wheel to the left and pressed the pedal down again. Kicking up gravel and speeding into the fog, another chase was started. Without warning my radio crackled to life, and the sound of the song Bleed by Puddle of Mudd began to fill my car. Nervous laughter echoed out of my lungs at the slight irony.

"Groovy." I said with a grin. I could drive to this.

I slammed on my brakes and pulled hard to the right, waiting five seconds before slamming on the gas again. This let three cars shoot past, and I weaved in and out of the last two to go back down the road with the apartments. The last two cars somehow made the turn. In an attempt to fight back, I was going to try to make them crash. But before I could, the other three skidded around the end of the block and started speeding towards my. In a panic, I pulled to the right. So did they.

I was not in the mood for chicken.

At the last second, I turned right again and drove up on the sidewalk. There was a loud yelp and a scraping sound followed by a crash. The yelp was my fault because I ran over another dog. The crash was from two of the cars nicking each other and one of them upturning. I jerked back onto the road and begged my car to speed up as the remaining four righted and began to come after my again. In the midst of trying to figure out how to get back to my friends, I saw him.

Not him at first, but the red glow that surrounded his body. He stood in the middle of the road, surrounded by a small army of Acid Spitters and a few dogs, and the ground beneath him looked like it was a flowing shadow. I can't fully explain the wash of cold that hit me from seeing the terrifying form of him. Suddenly, everything else took a backseat to that particular monster. Time slowed down, my heartbeat became more apparent, and even the radio shut off just as quickly as it had started. Because he couldn't be beaten, could not be stopped. What stood before me, pointing at my car, was the Juggernaut of Silent Hill. He was an unstoppable punisher for those who have committed the gravest of sins. Pyramid Head.

I gripped the wheel tighter and gritted my teeth, and aimed the front end of my car at him. I wanted to bash 80 miles an hour of heavy metal into him. I wanted to crush him. I wanted to beat him, without dying myself. Common sense gripped me and I shook my head, hitting the brakes and banking left so hard I got my car up on two wheels. I fell back down hard and drove down a different street, the name eluded me then too, and I didn't care. In my rearview I could see two of the cars continue speeding towards the monsters, and two actually followed me. I could hear the screeching as the first two tried to stop, followed by a loud crash. I laughed and turned around to see if anything blew up. It may not have been my car, but something still hit them. I settled back into my seat, grinning and drove on.

"FUCK!"

And straight off the edge of another bottomed out section of pavement. Fantastic, I was going to die because I wasn't watching where I was going. To be fair, it was foggy out. And Jared didn't say, "Drive safe." I always almost get in an accident if he doesn't say that before I drive.

Mind you, this was not what was going through my head at the time. I was busy cursing myself, and worrying that I was going to die even though I knew in the back of my mind meant I would wake up from my nightmare. My car was in the midst of a nose-dive when I saw the top of the tunnel below me. No, it was in front of me? For thirty seconds I had been careening over the edge of a bottomless ravine that had appeared in the middle of nowhere. Now I was shooting out of a different one that had materialized in the Rest Stop parking lot. Gravity restored as my car hit the pavement and bounced wildly, tossing me like a rag-doll in the front seat. I let go of the wheel to untangle the seat belt from around my neck. I looked up at the numerous tractor-trailers in the blocked tunnel rapidly closing in.

I was going to crash.

I wrenched my seat belt off and kicked my door open without pausing to think and threw my body out the door. The process of hitting the pavement and rolling to a stop was not a smooth one. It felt like someone swatted me with an oversized rock flyswatter, sending me twisting and flailing wildly through the air, then batting at me with increasingly softer blows as I tumbled. As soft as a big piece of rock can be. At some point during my fall my car had crashed into the stuffed tunnel and has exploded in what I can only guess was a gigantic fireball that had overtaken the rest of the vehicles in flames. My only solace was in knowing the two remaining Hell Cars had crashed along with my car.

I stood on shaky legs that collapsed and sent my back to the ground where I promptly emptied my stomach contents on the pavement. The force had brought tears to my eyes, and I soon began crying again. On my hands and knees near a pool of vomit and a raging inferno of burning cars, I cried and screamed in the futility of it all. Like a child who didn't want to admit that Santa Claus wasn't real or that at some point everyone had to die. I wasn't exactly Mr. Perfect, but I didn't deserve this. At what point had we gone from our biggest problems being some kid at school to fighting for our lives? Eight months ago I had a crappy girlfriend, now I was fighting to survive. This was crap.

I finally stood, still shaking, and turned towards the fire. With clenched fists I choked back my tears and let loose a silent scream that no one could hear. With heavy breaths and a glare I turned away from the fire, away from what was left of my car and began walking down the only accessible road. Since part of Nathan Ave was now missing, I started walking down the path we had first ventured down.

"My situation is not crap." I muttered to myself. "The way I'm acting is. I'm not four, and I'm not afraid. I'll play this game, and get out of here."

"Good show."

"Shut up, Mook." I said defiantly.

As I walked I felt less nervous, and it seemed like the fog was a little easier to see through. I made my way up to the well we had passed yesterday, this time pausing to peer inside. In Silent Hill 2, James Sunderland came upon this well and found the first save point of the game inside. I wasn't looking to document my progress, but for something to assist me. I smiled as I reached inside, pulling out a sledgehammer. Well, it was a hammer on one end. The other side held what looked like a very sharp, but wide wedge. An ax blade, almost. I needed both hands to use it, but felt comfortable holding it. I slung my weapon on my shoulder and defiantly walked the short distance to the now locked gate of the cemetery. With a grin, quick swing of the hammer and a loud clang the chain broke and the gate swung open. I stalked inside, making my way to the other gate. Not in fear of the monsters I could see amongst the headstones, but because I had better things to do. Like get back to my friends.

A shed off to my left caught my attention when a loud crash was heard from inside. I lifted my hammer and took a step towards it. I could see a shape moving inside, but more erratically than one of the Acid Spitters. The figure was darting around inside the shed, quickly, and making a lot of noise. It suddenly darted towards the door and pushed it open with a loud bang. But instead of a monster, a girl holding a wooden box came tumbling out and landed face first in the dirt. She was covered in dirt, wearing a pink flowered dress and a denim coat. Black boots scraped in the dirt as she struggled to stand. She brushed curly black hair out of her face, revealing a pair of glasses over small blue eyes. She scrambled to shove fallen items into her box, many of which I didn't get a good look at. I thought I saw her shove a digital clock in there when she finally looked up and I could see her face clearly.

"Beth?" I said aloud.

She looked like Beth, (my ex), but a smaller, younger version. I was contemplating the significance when I heard a click. Everyone knows that click, because it never fails to scare the crap out of everyone. The click from a gun cocking. I looked back down at the barrel of a shotgun that I had missed being leveled at me.

"What?" She asked, panting.

My incredible thought process led me to an extremely suave thing to say.

I pointed at the gun and looked at her. "Hey…"

Genius.

"What did you call me?" She asked again.

"I think the more important question is, 'Did I get it right?'" I said with a nervous chuckle.

She grunted and dropped the gun, deciding I wasn't worth the waste of a bullet. She went about reclaiming what was left of her items and stood, awkwardly holding an overflowing box and a shotgun. Mumbling to herself, she turned and started walking towards the gate I had just crashed.

"Hey, do you need help?" I rolled my eyes. "Beth?"

"Stop it!" She screeched and whirled around, aiming at me with one hand. "Shut up!"

I knew she couldn't possibly aim correctly like that, or recover from the shot quickly, but I wasn't about to chance it. Besides, who gets pissed at hearing their name?

"Woah. Just, relax." I raised my hands in defense.

"Emily.." She muttered, pausing to raise her gun hand up to push her glasses up.

I took a step forward. "Who's Emily?"

"ME!" She screamed, waving the gun again.

I didn't say anything. I took a few steps back and silently stared as she began mumbling about demons and finally started walking away. I watched as she stumbled off into the fog, pitying the girl slightly. She had lost her mind to the town. And why? What did she do?

"It's not fair." I thought as I wandered into the shed where she had come from. "Who decided it was alright to punish people for their past sins? And why did we have to deal with such horrors?"

Various gardening tools surrounded me, including a pickaxe and what looked like a rusty jackhammer. "They don't deal with crap like this in the Anime I watch." I brushed potting soil off the far shelf that was left from several smashed pots. My head whipped around at the sound of a roar in the distance, followed by a scream. "Edward Elric didn't have these kind of monsters. Neither does Ichigo. Hell, even the Heartless from Kingdom Hearts weren't this bad. So why do we have to do this?" I pulled the studded and spiked bracelet off my left hand, as well as the heavy studded ring. In their place, I pulled on a black gardeners glove that was on the table in front of me and put my shit back on over it. I looked around until my eyes fell on a long and partially rusted chain hanging from the ceiling. "But then again, who's to say what those monsters look like in real life? Those are cartoons with bright colors and sugar-coated animation." I had pulled the chain around my waist, making a small loop in it that I slid the pickaxe handle in. Out of instinct and a love of shiny things, I put in my pocket a short key that had "ELV1" carved in it that I had found hidden in the potting soil. I lifted a pair of heavy work boots onto the table and carefully inspected them. After finding nothing wrong with them, I kicked off my sneakers and slid my feet in them. The only reason being that boots always added to my kick.

I caught glimpse of myself in a dirty mirror as I stood fully and sighed. I was dirty, and showed signs of fatigue and wear. I also looked like I was headed off to some ass-backwards war, and in a way I was. That's when I realized that it wasn't different. I was the same as every Video Game character, every cartoon I'd ever seen. The only difference was you never watched the characters deal with the situation of monsters or demons. They just immediately adapt. That's why it seemed so scary, and alien. But the truth of it was, that my monsters weren't any different from Hollows, Heartless, or the hoards of creatures from any Final Fantasy game. They needed to be stopped, or at least moved out of my way. Because I wasn't going to die here. I was not going to succumb to the hell of Silent Hill.

And I certainly wasn't going to cry anymore.

My final thoughts were interrupted by a sudden gust of wind slamming the shed door shut which was followed by a somewhat distorted roar, like a tape skipping, from outside. I moved to the window to see a huge figure outlined in the fog that was making its way towards the shed. It looked familiar, but I broke my gaze and turned away. I didn't need to try the handle to know the door was stuck now. I began to raise the hammer to smash the knob, but stopped. After thinking for a few seconds, a grin crept across my face.

This would be the point in the movie where the camera pans to outside the shed, looking up at the door from the ground but off to the right and out of the way. There would be a slight pause, and the door would come flying off its hinges with a great splintery CRASH as it thudded into the dirt.

It's always fun to kick things.

"Awesome." I grinned, lowering my foot and stepping out of the tiny building.

I turned my attention back to the creature walking towards me. It was a little bit bigger than me, and looked like something from Resident Evil 4 that I had seen Jared fight. It was humanoid, and covered in straps. Its head looked like a big swollen pimple, and it had two long bloody blades sticking out from each hand. I knew I had seen them in a SH game, but couldn't remember their names.

I grinned. Just another monster.

At first it came right at me, but then twitched and stumbled in a different direction. It moved to the far side of the shed, twitched, but didn't move. Why wasn't it? Suddenly the image of a girl charging at one with a shotgun ,only to have it whirl around at the last moment and stab her with its claws flashed through my mind.

"Three!" I gasped.

The girl was Heather, the main character from Silent Hill Three. The reason the image ran through my mind, was because I had made the mistake of charging at it in the game. But what the hell were they called?

"Hey!" I yelled, groaning and snapping my fingers. "Wolverine!"

Not its name, but its head swiveled towards me all the same. It raised its claws and charged at me again. All I did was grin and pick up my hammer. It was just another monster.

I turned the ax blade toward the monster and started to run myself. I remember screaming, my hands clenching the handle, feet pounding against the dirt and my hair:

Being blown softly in the breeze as I climbed the dirt service road that led back to Sanders street. I honestly can't remember that fight. It's a blur of a twitching mass, clanging metal, and a guttural roar mixed with my own pained grunts. I walked away from that fight with several cuts down my left arm, and a bruise above my right eye. I know I won, but other than that I can't remember.

I was tired, and beginning to feel some serious hunger pangs. My throat had long since run dry and began stinging. I had been making it a point to inspect everything I came across. Such as cars, other small buildings, the random torn up bag. By the time my feet hit pavement, I had collected five boxes of bullets and two first aid kits. I guess I wasn't too surprised that I found those items, it being the town it was. Leaving the alley, I passes the bodies of the first monsters we fought and the torn up corpse of the man in the middle of the road. What was left of it.

On my way up Lindsey street, I glanced at my watch. 4:45? Where the hell had the time gone? It was probably from my slow walking. I continued my way up until I hit Nathan Ave, and I could just see the outline of a car through the fog on the far side of the road. As I got closer, the fog parted and I could see it was a Hell Car. I took a defensive stance and readied myself when I saw it was on its side and looked like it had melted into the very pavement. I could see the crashed gates of Rosewater Park just beyond the massive unmoving dead body. But when had that happened?

Suddenly Mook's voice rank out in my skull. "He wasn't trying to stop you, he shot to help you."

"Oh yeah." I mumbled to myself. Unfortunately, I had traveled all that way for nothing. Jared and Kate were no longer where I had left them. It was then I heard a shot ring out, as if to answer me. Problem was, I suck at following one noise in these games. It's easier with Surround Sound.

I walked back across the street towards a 7/11, where I thought the sound came from. I pushed the large glass doors open slowly, ready to fight when I heard voices.

"I told you. Now it's just broken, but still in the way."

"Well I didn't know!"

I lowered my weapon and walked into the store. Most of the lights were out, and the place was trashed. I walked near the back where I heard the voices, and found Jared and Kate standing around a door.

"I just don't see how shooting the lock was supposed to open it." Jared said.

"It's a bullet!" Kate replied, throwing her hands in the air.

"And that's a Master Lock. They're notoriously durable. Especially the old ones, like this one."

She sighed, tapping her foot rapidly. "What do I do now?"

"I'm gonna go back to the funnel idea."

"Oh, it's a bathroom." I suddenly cut in, causing them both to jump about three feet away from me. "She has to pee."

"Hey there, Rambo." Jared smirked, regaining his composure quickly to make fun of my new attire. "Nice of you to join us."

I grinned and walked to the door, swinging my hammer as hard as I could at the metal the lock was hooked to. With a bang, the metal broke and the door swung open. I flicked on the light and looked around, knowing that Silent Hill bathrooms could be some of the worst rooms to go in. It was empty; spare a single toilet and a sink.

"Nice. Where'd you get it?" He pointed at my weapon.

"The well we passed." I said as Kate disappeared into the bathroom.

"The well? That was…wait, why were you down there? Where's the Jeep?" He asked, leaning against the wall.

I thought briefly of the twisted, melted mass I used to drive. "A safe place." I said, beginning to empty my pockets of the boxes I had found. As I handed him the bullets and watched him reload, I let him in on my morning adventure. For some reason, I left the knife, lighter and key in my pockets. And I never mentioned Pyramid Head. Partly because I didn't want to admit that, thing was out there. And because I was partially afraid he'd go hunting it down. Jared had a strange obsession with Pyramid Head, ever since we saw him in the movie. I didn't want to see him get hurt trying to see him in real life. And I knew he would go looking, because Jared was braver than I was. I wanted to go home, he was probably having fun.

I thought about that while we waited for Kate to come out. And I hated him for it at that moment. Why couldn't I have been calm and collected? Why did I have to cry, like a child? I was supposed to be strong. I thought I was, anyways.

"I'm sorry." His voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Huh?"

"I shoulda had you wait. Kate's gonna want to know what happened with the Jeep. Now you gotta repeat yourself."

Kate's muffled voice sounded from behind the door. "No I heard him!"

I laughed a little. "It's late in the afternoon. What now?"

Jared shrugged as the door opened and Kate walked out. "I dunno."

"I don't want to go outside." Kate mumbled.

"I'm tired anyways." I said. I stood and walked down to the drink aisle and pressed my hand against the door. Cold. "We can stay here. Clear out some of the floor and make a fire or something." My hand gripped a Dr. Pepper and pulled it out, drinking deep from the bottle. I coughed, gasping as my throat cleared. "At least there's food and stuff here."

"Aren't like, the monsters supposed to symbolize stuff to whoever's experiencing Silent Hill?" Jared asked as he pulled out the same soda for himself.

"Yeah, they represent different fears or something."

"Could random people be symbols too?" He asked.

I froze, watching Kate pull a bottle of something out to drink. I can't remember what. Jared was talking about the girl I had met in the cemetery.

I paused, shaking my head. "They're just people. She just had that face, Jared. Like Amy Lee, or Kayla Gibson." I turned away, placing my boot on an upturned shelf unit. "Dark hair, small eyes. It's common."

"Hey, it's your Silent Hill." He said with a shrug.

"What's that mean? That it's his. Are you blaming Lee for us being here?" Kate suddenly piped up.

"What?" Jared asked. "No. Everyone experiences a different Silent Hill."

"But, we're here together."

"That's not what he means." I said, dropping my empty bottle. "Silent Hill is a place where sinners get punished, and everyone gets punished differently. Like I've sinned differently than Jared, so I'll get different monsters."

She tilted her head at me.

"It just means I'll see things you won't, and you'll see things that I won't." I said. "I can't think of a good example…Gah. Well, like the fog for instance!" I exclaimed, pointing at the window. "Some people won't see the fog like we do."

There was a long pause from both of them. A pause that tells you something is wrong. It was broken by Jared's throat clearing.

"It's…uh. It's not foggy outside."

I stared blankly for a moment. Then shook it off.

"Well, there you go. I see fog, you two don't."

Kate shuffled a few steps toward the windows of the shop. "So you see fog, where I see…." She trailed off.

"See what?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I'm hot, that's all."

We sat around for a while; randomly eating junk food and keeping silent as we could when we thought monsters were near. We did little things, taking turns in the bathroom and finally checking our phones. No service. Around the counter we came across a thick black radio that we turned on, which immediately emanated static. This freaked Jared and I out, because radios making static in Silent Hill meant monsters were near. After 15 minutes, we found it was just on the wrong station. There were no monsters for a few blocks. We could only get crappy talk radio, so we shut it off and tossed it.

The last interesting thing of the night came when we were moving the shelf units away from the fire we made from two shelf units, my hammer smashing them and lighters up at the counter. We uncovered a dead Acid Spitter that was lying on the ground. We thought it was, until it quite suddenly and rapidly skittered away on its stomach. I jumped, and Kate screamed. Jared emptied a clip into it. For a moment, I thought he was acting fast again.

Click, click, click…

What the hell?

Click, click, click…

I turned around. He was still pulling the trigger. My eyes crawled up to view his face, lit up in the glow of the flames. He was terror stricken, just about frozen with fear. The same kid who saved my ass, and took a seriously well aimed shot at a moving Hell Car, had completely lost it when this monster crawled.

"You…alright?" I asked softly.

He drew in a hard sniff, pulled his glasses away from his face and wiped his eyes. "Y-yeah. I wasn't…expecting it." He cleared his throat, and with shaking hands, reloaded his clip. "Caught me off guard, that's all."

It took a few seconds for him to regain his composure. He would keep his distance from the monster until I walked to the bloody corpse and drove the edge of the pickaxe into it and pinned it to the floor. The rest of the night was uneventful. Jared eventually passed out long after Kate, who was in a ball between us. I had periods of fitful naps, but I couldn't sleep really. I kept thinking about how he wasn't any stronger than I was. That, and every so often, I would hear a sound. It was far off, but it still echoed through the night air. A dragging sound, like a large piece of metal scraping along the ground.

Like a big sword being pulled around.

Day Three

I watched, as the fog grew lighter. It was morning, but the fog wasn't clearing. I'm not sure why I thought it would. I was sitting on the front counter now, absentmindedly playing with an empty soda bottle. I half grinned, thinking of back to when I was a kid, when I used to play with the weirdest things. Like empty bottles, pretending they were big robot arms. I was one of those kids who took everything apart and played with individual pieces, because the toy never moved as much as I wanted it to.

"I'm defiantly not a kid anymore." I said with a small scoff, and dropped the bottle with a hollow clatter.

The sound of a snort caught my attention. I tilted my head to the left and out the front door, where I could just make out the image of a larger than normal dog growling at the convenience store, seemingly staring right at me. I didn't move, or make a sound for almost five minutes. I simply stared, until it took a daring step forward and increased its growl.

"Shut up." I said, leaning behind the counter and lifting up my hammer from its resting place. But when I had turned back, it was gone.

"You're certainly calm."

I tilted my head back to see Jared coming out of the bathroom, rubbing his eyes.

"What?"

"I don't know. It just doesn't seem like you'd be sitting so relaxed in front of an open door." He muttered, leaning against the counter near me.

I shrugged. "Just valiantly keeping watch. Hell, I'm not sleeping. Someone has to protect you two."

"You came up here to check the register, didn't you?" He asked, staring outside.

"Bone dry." I said with a sigh.

He chuckled. "Safe?"

I shook my head. "Not like we can do anything with money anyways."

We laughed half heartedly at sat around for a few minutes until I caught him staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

He shook his head, like he was coming out of a daze. "Sorry. You seem different, that's all."

That's right, because I didn't belong with them. Had my act dropped drastically? I could only hope he didn't know this Lee any better than my Jared really knew me.

"People tend to change slightly in serious situations." I said.

"Yeah." He nodded.

"Besides," I smirked "It's not like I dropped the humor. Still as funny as ever, even in life or death!" I grinned and slid off the counter, striking a cheesy pose.

He didn't say anything for a moment, just stared at me. "That's what I mean, though."

Huh?

"You're sarcastic, cracking jokes, and putting yourself before us." He crossed his arms. "A week ago you were all business, and conceited as hell. It's almost like you're not the same guy."

My face fell, but I didn't move. Crap. I couldn't even pretend to be what was essentially me.

I was about to say something when a short yawn behind me made me stand up.

"What are you guys talking about?" Kate asked sleepily.

"Nothing." I shook my head.

She mumbled and stumbled into the bathroom. Jared shrugged.

"Then again, she seems like she's tweaked more than usual. And I've never freaked out like that and I've played a ton of horror games." He stuffed his hands in his pockets and started to walk past me. "Maybe I'm just jealous cos you seem to have it together, and I can't pee with the door shut because I'm not too fond of being alone right now." He said with a small grin.

I breathed a sigh of relief and grinned. I give the best imitation of myself. But again, it still shook me slightly that he might see through it. It was bad enough that we were where we were; I didn't want to add the fact that I wasn't who they remembered to it.

After we had woken up and eaten something, we began getting ready to leave. I collected the pickaxe and put it back into the chain, Jared pocketed the spare bullets and helped Kate find small things like food to carry and two extra First Aid kits. We found the usual rack of toys and shit that's in every store like this, and spent twenty minutes turning five bandanas into one big bag with the help of safety pins. Thank god for 7/11's. We filled it with nothing smaller than the spaces between the pins, like the four First Aid kits, food like bags of chips and some candy, and a few bottles of water. Since we each had a spare pocket, we all grabbed an extra drink and placed them there. I grabbed another Dr. Pepper and Jared got so excited that he found MDX in the back of the cooler that he spent another ten minutes searching the store until he found a fanny pack for the kits and candy, just so he could stuff the bag with extra bottles. Kate and I just shrugged and evened it out by dropping two more bottles water in there, and I put another Dr. Pepper in my back pocket. The bag had about eight bottles in it, and we had room for a couple more bags of chips. These weren't including the three bottles of MDX Jared had somehow stored on his person, all while laughing maniacally. When he finally stopped, we asked him why he had taken so many. I mean, I have an addiction to Dr. Pepper, but even I can stop.

"Because I like it." He said. "And tonight, you won't be awake by yourself." Jared said to me.

Well that was nice and all, but I had planned to try and rest when it got dark. But I didn't say that. I just thanked him and took a small bottle of NoDoze from the medicine shelf when he wasn't looking, putting it in the pocket that housed the knife, lighter and key they didn't know about. Kate had apparently put other things from medicine shelf in the fanny pack, but I didn't see and can't remember what she said. She had clicked the pack around her waist, and grabbed the bag off the ground before Jared had a chance to lift it. I guess it was a little heavy, but she didn't seem to care.

"You have the weapons, not me." She said with a smile. "So I'll get this stuff. I can—"

"Do it." I cut her off. "She won't break in half from lugging around some bottles." I said to Jared with a shrug.

"Yeah, but…" He started.

"You wanna trade?" I said with a smirk. "Go on, give her the gun, you take the shit."

He didn't say anything, just kind of glared and turned away. Still, it wasn't right. Not because I believe in chivalry and don't think she can carry it. Fuck that. It was because of what she said before that, about not having a weapon. I put my hand on the cold steel of the pickaxe and watched the start to walk to the front of the store. I shook my head, and switched the hammer for the pickaxe. It was heavier, and pulled down the chain But I just cinched it up some and continued after them.

The sky outside had considerably darkened, and as we started walking down the street I thought it was only me. Right up until Jared asked how I well I could see in the dark and the fog.

"Not great. It just looks like it's going to rain." I said.

"It is." Kate said.

We both turned back, and there she was, hunched slightly and squinting at us. But that wasn't the strange part. She was wet. Not soaked, but noticeably damp.

I checked the pockets of my hood to make sure they were empty before taking it off and draping it over her.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Jared asked.

"I was about to. Neither of you noticed." She said, pointing at us as we stared in confusion.

We were wet, too. Not my shirt, because it had been under my coat. But everything from my sneakers to the shaft of the pickaxe was wet, Jared as well. When I looked back up I could see the drops falling through the fog, and a confused Kate staring back at me.

Dammit. "We've got to get inside." I said with a sigh, and started walking towards the sidewalk.

"NO!" Jared shouted.

I froze, looking back at him. "Why?"

"Just…Um." He shook his head. "Nothing! Let's at least continue down a few blocks. It's not that bad."

He looked at Kate and she shrugged, agreeing. I rolled my eyes and sighed, turning briefly back to the sidewalk. There wasn't anything but a bench in front of me. There wasn't anything on it, and I was fairly positive there were no monsters around. I looked back to where he was in the middle of the road, and he waved me at me to come over to them. I looked back at the bench before turning away finally. "What did you see?" I thought to myself.

We kept walking, occasionally coming across an Acid Spitter stumbling through the rain. We discovered they could be easily taken care of with two shots and a blow to the head from the pickaxe. And if Jared aimed it right, he could make their heads pop open, spraying blood and acid everywhere, with one shot. We tried not to do that, because they tended to make a sick gurgling noise when they fell. Once one of them skittered out from under a car, causing Kate to scream in surprise. Jared didn't shoot, instead took the pickaxe out of my hand and jogged forward, shoving the point into its head twice with a grunt. With a scowl on his face that was dripping with water, he handed my weapon back and we stalked on.

We didn't make it too far up Nathan Ave when we came across where the road bottomed out. I could tell it wasn't in the same place, because the road we started walking down to the left didn't have the apartments on it.

It seemed to get darker as we walked down the block. I started to hear the distant scraping again, but when it seemed like the others didn't notice I kept my mouth shut. Kate had paused, staring at a car by the side of the road. When I put my hand on her shoulder she jumped and muttered something that sounded like, "It won't go away with rain." We continued to the four way at the end of the block, walking in the middle of the road behind Jared until he was suddenly bathed in a dark red light. Shielding our eyes from the light and rain, we could see a stoplight that was stuck on red hanging above us.

I was staring at the light when I heard Jared cock the gun. Tilting my head down, I saw the twitching figure of a Scraper (the creature from the graveyard), blades almost touching the ground, stumbling towards us.

"I wonder if we yield to him." I muttered as I switched my weapons again.

"Blunt force?" Jared asked, gun ready.

I didn't say anything, and flipped the blade end down.

"Oh, well never mind." He grinned.

Before we could start to fight, we heard an unmistakable growling behind us, followed by a gurgle and Kate making a whimpering sound.

"A dog and a Spitter. Fantastic." Jared said, turning around. "Which first?"

I looked back, and at the Scraper that was advancing. There was no first, and I knew what I was going to do. I readied myself, and turned back to them for a second.

"Aim at the dog now." I said.

"What?" He asked.

I whistled as best as I could, getting the dogs attention. "Just aim, and don't miss."

He stared at me for a second, moving his gun toward the dog. Perfect. I turned back to the Scraper and ran forward all of a sudden. My feet pounding on the pavement didn't muffle the sound of Jared cursing and shooting. I had hoped the dog would charge after me, but forgot what happens when you run at unmoving Scrapers. It whipped its left blade up and clipped the side of my head, sending me skidding over the pavement and onto my backside.

"Lee!" I heard Kate scream.

I felt something take hold of my neck and lift me off the ground. Opening my eyes, I saw the leathery, folded head of the Scraper staring at me. My legs dangled in midair, and I kicked wildly but felt nothing connect. It raised its other arm, fist closed, blade out. I pulled at its fingers closed around my throat. As the free hand moved upward I turned my gaze back to its head, where under the folds of tight skin, I could just make out the toothiest grin I'd ever seen.

BLAM!

The creature groaned and its grip weakened. I took my chance and brought my legs up, kicking it square in the chest and freeing myself as it stumbled backwards. Gasping for breath, I could see Jared turning back to face the dog which was getting up again.

Coughing, I stood and pulled out the pickaxe and threw it towards them. It skidded along the ground, clanking and getting the attention of the dog.

"Kate! Grab the—" I started, but was cut off when the Scraper hit me with the backside of its arm and sent my flying farther away from them.

Somehow, I managed to jump to my feet, grab my hammer and wail on my monster. I caught it in the chest and in the head, then swung the axe end down hard, cutting its chest wide open. It gurgled and growled, the wound spraying blood over me. I wiped it out of my eyes in time to watch it stagger and sink to its knees, then fall on its face. I gave it the customary hard kick and started running back to my friends, stopping when I saw they weren't fighting anymore. Jared had the pickaxe and was standing still in the center of the road, between Kate and the dead monsters.

Suddenly I was hit with a wash of disgust from the blood and the quick thought of catching HIV from a Silent Hill monster, and I sank to all fours in the middle of the intersection and threw up until I fell over.

At least I didn't cry.

I groaned and slowly got onto my knees, and looked up to see Jared walking towards me. I shook my head and pointed behind him, at Kate. The Spitter had stood, and was right behind her. Why didn't they see that?

I tried to talk, but threw up again.

"Dude, is something wrong with your hand?" He asked.

"Turn around!" I thought wildly. "Scream, Kate! Something! God…DAMMIT!"

I did the only thing I could think of. I punched my stomach as hard as I could and sprayed vomit at Jared, and then pointed wildly behind him. By the grace of god, he understood, turned around, took aim and shot twice. I relaxed on the ground, until I heard a pop sound, and Kate screaming. I didn't have to look up to know he had shot it in the head, and acid had sprayed onto Kate.

It seemed like I lied on the pavement forever, with my world spinning, and no strength to stand. My focus came and went, and twice I thought I saw the familiar red glowing outline of Pyramid Head down the street. And then it happened. I heard an echoing siren. The air-raid type siren that signaled the transition to Nightmare Silent Hill, where the monsters were worse and the streets were paved with blood. Everything was fading again; buildings were catching fire and freezing over at the same time. Metal was groaning and twisting, and windows began to bleed. The sky became dark, my fog lifted slightly, and a man began walking towards me.

He seemed to materialize from nowhere, and I couldn't see him, just his shadow. Average build, wearing an overcoat and what looked like a hat. He was clearly smoking, and I could hear his heels clicking on the pavement as he got closer. I struggled, but couldn't move.

"Mr. Fox." A deep voice issued from the man. "I have some issues to discuss with you."

Was Deep Throat interrogating me? I struggled to say that, but I couldn't do anything. My whole body felt like it was on fire.

"No sarcasm? Of course not." He shrugged, putting his cigarette out on the ground. "Now's not the time, but you'll stop by my office sometime, won't you? Not like you have a choice."

He walked up to me, into the glow of the streetlight. Try as I might, I couldn't look up at his face. He leaned over, and I felt my back pocket move.

"My card." He said. "Do try and wash up first, boy. We'll have special guests."

And in a flash, it was all gone. Everything was, as normal as it could be. My fog was back, it was lighter out, and rain was splashing my face. The buildings and roads were fine, and I was flat on my back with Kate and Jared hovering over me.

"I honestly can't tell where his blood begins and the monsters ends. Hand me the gauze." She said.

"Yeah." Jared answered. "Is he still bugging out? His pupils just seriously dilated. Is that a good thing?"

"It might mean he snapped out and is adjusting to the light. Or that he's having a seizure, I don't know, I'm not a doctor!"

She had bandages on her forehead, and Jared had Band-Aids up and down his left arm. We all had gotten hurt.

"There." She said, leaning back. "I covered his head wound and cleaned the scrapes on his arms."

"Should we bandage them?" Jared asked.

"It'll use up the second kit if we did."

"Then don't." I said. "I usually don't cover my cuts."

They both jumped at my voice. "Are you alright?" Kate asked.

"I feel like I can't move. Weak. Like my head's in half." I swallowed hard. "I'm fine."

"Bullshit." She said. She pulled out a small bottle of Advil and my soda. "You're taking pain relievers."

"I need like, six."

She looked at me funny.

"No, seriously. I'm bigger than most people. I honestly take six for a headache." I said. She began to argue and I cut her off. "You can't OD on shit like that. Please?"

She gave me eight and I swallowed them all at once. It took a few minutes, but I finally sat up and eventually stood. Questions were asked by all, and answers given. Jared's arm was hurt because the dog would not die, and got close enough to bite him. Kate's forehead was from the acid. She had been covered by my hood, which had basically melted, but still got it on her head. I had a fairly nasty gash on the side of my head, a cut up left arm, a scraped up right arm, and a handprint bruise on my neck. I asked about the siren, but they had only left me alone for five minutes, and hadn't seen anything I had.

I sighed and took a drink, taking the pickaxe back. Kate apologized, and said she had tried to use it. I nodded and slid it into the chain. Neither one would let me leave until I ate a snack bag of Doritos from the bag. It was so I could, replace what I lost. Luckily, I hadn't been lying in my own vomit, but some had gotten on Jared when I was trying to get him to turn. He understood.

After a while we just, moved on. There was noting more to do. The rain was not washing away the interesting smells we all now held. Kate, like burnt flesh. I reeked of blood, and Jared, of puke. We walked in silence until we came to a dead end and another place we all recognized. A place, we never expected to see.

We stared, Jared and I mouths agape at the entrance to the Subway. Why here, of all places? Why now, of all times? There was no way we wanted to enter those hellish halls. To be in that nightmarish place made the bile begin to rise in my throat. But we needed shelter, and we needed to go inside somewhere, but that dank pit? God, please no. Anything but, but THAT.

"You know what would make it kinda better?" I muttered, tearing my eyes away from the white and yellow letters of the sign to look at Jared.

"What?" He asked.

"A dead Daniella in the freezer." I laughed.

He started laughing harder than me, and we both almost fell down in the middle of the road, in front of a Subway sandwich shop.

"Can we go inside?" Kate asked over our laughter.

"Yeah!" Jared wheezed, coughing. "It'll be like going to work!"

I was running out of breath, and it was stupid to make fun of, but it was lightening the mood considerably. "Dude! Dude…you gotta make the cookies, though. I suck at them."

"Only if you put the front together!"

Our laughter echoed through the dark street for quite a while. Eventually, we came to our senses and got to our feet, sighing greatly. Kate was glaring at us, tapping her foot. We just grinned and led her inside. It was dark, and much wider than my old Subway. Even bigger than Jared's old store. We flicked on the lights by the door, and a sick fluorescent light washed over the room and made us wish we had left it off. Because there really was dead people. They were dressed in work uniforms, and scattered about the store. One poor girl had been hung from a fan fixture. The cashier had that oversized bread knife sticking out of his back, as he lay slumped over the register. Another boy was knelt over a mop bucket, his head submerged in black stagnant water. A fourth person was stuffed in the bread oven. Burnt beyond recognition. And the last was another girl, her headless torso lying in front of the counter, limbs splayed in a suggestive position. Silently I made a comment about her prominent breasts being the reason we could tell her gender.

Kate gasped and turned away from it, Jared stared in awe. And I, made my way towards the back of the store. My hammer lowered, I passed the bodies and walked towards the back of the store.

"Dude?" Jared called.

"I want to see if there's a place where there are no dead."

I walked behind the counter, and stepped into the large back area, flicking on the light switch. It was another large area, with nothing out of place. Except a large black scorch mark in the shape of a human silhouette on the far wall. I ignored it and slowly made my way to the freezer. Jared and Kate entered the back room as my hand was on the handle.

"You just know it'll be filled with more people." Jared said, causing Kate to whimper softly.

"I don't know what's in it." I said.

"Why open it at all?" Kate asked.

"Because." Was all I said. I honestly didn't know my fixation with the freezer. But as I pulled on it, a loud clanging made us all jump.

"H-hello?" A voice echoed from the ceiling. "Is someone there?"

"What the—" I started to say.

"Please! I'm stuck in the vents!" It was a male voice, but it sounded quiet and far away. "There's a panel out front, but I can't get it from here!"

"Jared…" I looked at him.

"Yeah, I got it." He said, walking back out front.

Kate looked up at me. "What do you seriously think will be in there?"

"Hopefully not Danny." I said with a grin, and ripped the door open.

"Kate, come help me with this!" Jared yelled from the front. "And stop mumbling, dude! You're freaking me out!"

Apparently whoever was stuck, was mumbling.

Regardless, the freezer was filled with normal Subway shit. Just a bunch of boxes of vegetables and meat. Ordinary shit. Except for the shotgun lying against a box of lettuce. I lifted the double-barreled gun and the ammunition scattered around it, loading it. I was excited, because I had found my own long-range weapon. There was a loud crash and shouting from the front, but I ignored it. I was focused more on myself. I saw a quick image of my bandaged, blood-spattered self in the stainless steel of the countertop. I sighed and turned my back to it, looking at the far wall. The outline reminded me of the man from earlier, and I reached my hand into my back pocket. My fingers griped a thin rectangle, and I pulled out the card. All it was was a black hat symbol and the letters L F M S printed on a plain white card. Under the letters it said, Specializing in your fears since 1987. It was cheesy, so I shrugged and dropped the card.

I suddenly snapped back into reality at the sound of shooting from the front area. I grabbed my hammer and ran to the doorway, looking out at a new monster. It looked like an Acid Spitter that was badly burnt, three times its normal size, and had full use of its arms. It was slowly crawling out of the wall, near a smashed vent grate. It didn't take a genius to realize the voice calling for help was a ruse to lure people near this, thing. In no time it was free of its prison, and slowly making its way toward Jared and Kate who were back away from it, pausing to shoot and throw random objects at it. I stared, ignoring a low growling sound coming from it, watching Jared empty a clip into the creature, only to have it not falter once. Kate was tossing anything she could get her hands on at it, to less an effect.

It was then I realized the growling sound, wasn't just a sound. It was talking. Not in complete sentences, but it was still muttering. I reached back and grabbed the shotgun, sneaking out front.

"The clock struck midnight, children, when the rapping came upon my door." It growled, gesturing wildly before swinging its great arm down and knocking the hanging girl around like a piñata.

"You should have seen him, lying alone in helpless silence in the night." It continued. "You who are rich and whose troubles are few, may come around to see my point of view. What price the Crown of a King on his throne, when you're chained in the dark all alone."

"Chained in the dark…" I thought. "The Cask of Amontillado?" Was it quoting Poe?

"Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry!" It paused long enough to swing its arms upward before continuing to advance on my friends.

"That wasn't Poe that time. It's not making sense." I thought to myself as I followed it by creeping around the counter.

"What a piece of work is man? How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals!" The growl continued. "Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."

"What the hell do you want?!" Jared roared over its gibberish, firing another shot off.

The creature stumbled. It was starting to weaken. "That it should come to this! True is it that we have seen better days, but today shall the winter of your discontent."

"I think it wants to kill us!" Jared yelled.

"What? Why?! What the hell did we do?!" Kate screamed. "Make it stop! Make it go away! LEE! HELP US!"

The monster stopped, leaning down slightly, and knocking Kate on her ass with one swing of its arm. "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." It growled.

This was defiantly a bad time to mention; I kinda saw that line coming.

It raised its arm, its fingertips lengthening into horrible claws. I slid over the counter, dropping the hammer and running towards its back.

"Ask not for whom the bell tolls, children…" The monster growled, poised to swipe its claw down on them.

I slammed the pump on the shotgun down, cocking it loudly and pulling it up to aim, catching the attention of the creature. And as it looked over its shoulder, still about to attack, I yelled back at it.

"It tolls for Lee!" I shouted, squeezing the trigger.

There was a thunderous boom throughout the store, and the deep growl turned into a high screech. The monster reeled, and I shot again. Now it had a large hole in the side of its head, and with a crash, tumbled off to the left of them where it remained on the floor, unmoving.

I can't fully remember what happened directly after it fell. In fact, most of my memory of the Subway incident is shoddy at best. I remember Jared and I argued about the use of the shotgun, finally deciding it was a waste to carry with us, and that we might never find enough ammo for it. We left it on the front counter with the dead cashier, along with the remaining shells. Perhaps some other unfortunate soul would find a use for it.

As we moved to leave, we all got struck with a nauseating dizziness and had to rest briefly. It sucked, because we wanted so badly to leave. There was nothing there for us in there, and the gruesome bodies weren't helping. The feeling went away in all of us suddenly, and we charged outside. And almost screamed.

Directly in front of us, was an upturned Hell Car. Next-door was a trashed 7/11. Rosewater Park was across the street. The realization hit us all very hard. We had traveled for almost half the day, and essentially gotten nowhere. Silent Hill had put us back at square one.

Dammit.

Jared cursed loudly and violently threw a half empty bottle of MDX at the dead Hell Car. Kate said nothing, and I walked mindlessly towards the park. I couldn't think, and couldn't sit still anymore. I dragged my hammer on the ground behind me as I stumbled across the street. I wasn't sure what to do, or say, or even feel. A day had just been in complete vain. It was a waste of time, energy, and we had almost gotten killed. I felt cold, but pissed off. What made me even angrier, was knowing there was no one to be pissed at. There was no one to blame, but it still wasn't my fault either. I gripped the hammer, and swung the blunt end into the already dented gate of the Park. At first, I wasn't even aware I had crossed the street, much less attacking the twisted metal gate. I was almost panting as the gate crumpled inward and fell to the ground. Still almost running off autopilot, I walked inside alone.

I wasn't stupid, but I was acting like it right now. In horror games, or movies, there's a reason people die. It's because their emotions get the better of them, be it by getting scared or even the rare pissed off. Scare factors work because they force your body to exhaust adrenaline. When you get scared, you release that drug to calm you down but to also add energy. Problem is, a lot of people can't think or function when this happens and they make mistakes. Fatal ones. People who use scare factors count on this. It's worse if you get pissed off. People who get scared and emotional are a small percentage more likely to save themselves at the last second by doing something drastic. People who get mad don't think at all. They just attack. I'm one of those people.

If you've ever played a horror game, you know to just relax and remember that you really can't get hurt or die if you can keep your wits and figure out what to do. You don't go looking for a monster because you're upset that you wasted some time. Like I did.

Except I couldn't find anything in Rosewater Park, at first. As I walked around the brick-walled maze, my weapon on my shoulder, I couldn't find a thing. It was one of those rare moments where you know what you're doing, but you don't know why. I wanted to sneak up on some random Acid Spitter, or crush some wayward Dog. Hell, I'd fight three Scrapers if I could just find them. But the fog was increasing now, and I couldn't see as well. I was surprised, because it had been lifting ever so slowly all day. Finally, near the south end of the park I came across a dead end, and was surrounded by large brick walls. On the wall in front of me, I could make out the words "You Don't Belong Here" scrawled in what I could only guess was blood. I placed my hand on the words, and heard a distorted scream come from the other side. Like a CD skipping. I grabbed a nearby iron bench and pushed it over to the wall with writing on it and climbed on it. Without pausing to look over the wall, I climbed the top and fell to the concrete below.

"Ugh." I groaned after screwing up my landing and falling on my ass.

I stood, shook myself out of habit and looked around. I had fallen into a Zoo-type area it seemed, but couldn't fully see anything. Twisted remains of animals faded in and out of my vision. I wasn't going blind, but their forms were fading almost like they were ghosts. I shifted uncomfortably as I walked slowly past cages, because it seemed like it was really hot in this part of the part. Suddenly in a cage to my right, a small screaming monkey materialized and grabbed onto the bars. Except, the bottom half of its jaw had been torn away, and the screaming was coming from a second face on its tail. I backed away from the cage and it vanished.

"What the hell…" I muttered, shuffling away from the now empty cage.

I had found a problem, but didn't want anything to do with it anymore.

I half jogged until I came across a set of three broken cages, all in a row. The bars weren't broken, but the looked melted off. Suddenly I felt hot again, and another animal materialized behind the remains of the third cages bars. It looked like a bear version of the dogs, except it had what looked like the top half of one of its cubs protruding from its chest. Wide-eyed, I gripped my hammer and took a step away from it as it gurgled and growled at me.

"LEE!"

"What?" I said, stupidly turning away from the monster.

It took the chance to smack my in the side with one of its forearms, sending me flying up the stone path and rolling along the ground. I struggled to stand as it took a step out of its cage. But as it did, my fog set in and I felt cool again, and the bear disappeared. What the hell?

"Dude! Get the hell out of there!" I heard Jared yell.

I looked around franticly, and finally saw his and Kate's faces looking at me from over the brick wall to my left.

"Aint gotta tell me twice!" I ran towards the wall only to get sideswiped by a blurry version of the fucked up monkey from earlier. It vanished before I hit the ground, every muscle in my body screaming to get up and run.

Before I could, I heard a loud scream followed by a loud thud beside me. Kate had fallen over the wall.

"It knocked me...down." She groaned.

"What? Are you ok?"

"Yeah." She nodded. "And that did, when it hit the wall." She pointed a yard or so down the brick wall at the bear monster that was still fading in and out.

"I can't really see where it is, though." I said with a grunt, jumping to my feet.

"You can't?" She asked nervously.

My neck popped I twisted my head towards her so fast. "You CAN!?"

"Of course." I thought to myself as the blurry image of the monster reformed in front of me and knocked me down again. "She should have her own monsters, too."

"Lee!" She yelled.

Chest burning, I stumbled to my feet and gripping my hammer. "Where is it?" I groaned.

There wasn't an answer, but I heard a distinct growling sound from behind me. I whipped around with my hammer to nothing, franticly searching the area for a sign of the creature.

"Kate!" I yelled. "You have to tell me where it is!"

She paused, and I could see the look of terror on her face. She bit her lip and then covered her face with her hands. "Uh…L-left!" She finally stammered.

I tightened my grip and swung hard to my left, but my hammer just clanked onto concrete. Before I could stand I felt something collide against my head and knock me down again.

"I meant my left! Dammit!" She screamed.

This wasn't going to work. I pulled the pickaxe out of the chain and slid it along the ground at her, then jumped to my feet and went to her side. She picked the weapon up slowly and stared at me shaking her head slowly.

"You have to help me, hun. I can't see them, and me receiving directions isn't working. You swing, and I'll follow."

"I c-can't…"She shook her head.

"You have to! I need your help, Kate. Please. You have to swing at least once so I can find it, that's—GAH!"

I was cut off by sudden hard pressure on my neck, shoving my back against the wall. The bear blinked in and out of my vision as it dragged me up the wall to its level. I was choking to death, and could hardly even kick my legs at it. This wasn't like when the Scraper had me, it was worse. I held my hand out to Kate pleadingly to do something, but she just stared at me, frozen with fear. I was going to die because she couldn't think rationally anymore.

Somehow, briefly, I managed to grab onto her arm because she was still nearby. My vision cleared, and the fog vanished. The sky grew dark from the black smoke that was rising from the flames that covered nearly everything. Benches were burning, grass and tress were on fire, and even the concrete smoldered in places. The bear was now as clear as day, as well as several other monstrous animals around us that seemed to just be watching me die. Watching, screeching, and howling. Staring at me with greedy, empty eyes that just couldn't wait for me to breathe my last.

BLAM!

The animals stopped making noise, and turned their attention on Jared, who was pointing his gun towards them. Even the bears grip loosened slightly. After a few seconds, he fired again, this time closer to Kate and I. The bear let go and stumbled away, pausing after backing up a few feet. I fell to the ground and lost my grip on Kate and with a flash, my surroundings returned to the fog and half blurred out images of the animals. Coughing and gagging, I staggered to my feet and damn near threw Kate up into Jared's stretched out arms. After she was back over and he reached out, I used a nearby bench as leverage, jumping up and running up the side of the wall while using Jared's help to pull me up and over. I tumbled to the ground and found why I think Jared pulled us back over, which was probably for help. A pack of dogs had surrounded the point he had been standing at, growling viciously and waiting for their chance.

"Oh, you just won't let me take a break!" I groaned as I got to my feet and readied the blade end of my hammer.

I was sick of this shit. I raised my weapon, readied myself with Jared, and…

Was sitting with my feet up on a desk in the manager's room in the back of the 7-11. Parts of my memory had faded again. I remembered fighting the dogs, someone screaming, and one of the dogs taking after the sound. Turns out some guy had yelled and caught its attention. A guy in a white and red windbreaker with somewhat spiky black hair was running for his life, but we still had dogs of our own to fight. So before we could do anything to help him, he was attacked by the dog and dragged into the shadows between two buildings. When we finally got away from the park and out into the street where he had been, all that remained was a bloodstain and a small silver Tracfone.

Because Jared and Kate had item collected on their way while they followed me, Jared said he had enough bullets to man the front of the store while I rested some in the back after we had decided it was best to just go back inside the convenience store. So I had spent the past hour in a large leather chair, calmly drinking one of my last sodas and absentmindedly eating Doritos again. I had half tried using the computer next to me, but most websites were blocked and I had a bad Internet connection anyways. The phone next to the computer was broken, and the rest of the room held no secrets, let alone anything useful. The place wasn't even wrecked. No blood stains or bodies anywhere. Night had started to fall outside, and I knew Jared and Kate had started a new fire out front.

My neck and head was sore, but I was fine outside of a few minor cuts and bruises. I shrugged off Kate's attempt to bandage them. I hadn't spoken to her since we left the Park, and hardly looked at her. Part of me felt bad, because I shouldn't blame her. I guess I wasn't mad, just disappointed. I needed help and… Whatever.

I was playing with the Tracfone the guy had dropped, getting nothing but a 'Searching… Please Wait" screen no matter how long I waited or what buttons I pushed. I had started hitting random buttons when I heard a light tapping at the door.

"What?" I called out, dropping the phone.

The door softly creaked open and Kate shuffled inside. "I just wanted to see how you were feeling."

"I'm fine." I said with a shrug.

She nodded and set a big blue flashlight on the table. "Jared thought we should each have one. They all have batteries and work fine…" She trailed off.

"Thanks." I leaned forward and picked it up, twirling the bulky object in my hands.

She turned away and started to leave, but stopped when she got to the door. "I'm sorry." She finally mumbled.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because, I froze. Because I'm a wuss."

I shook my head. "It's fine. It wasn't really fair of me to rely on someone else. I can take care of myself. I shouldn't ask you to fight if you're too scared."

She didn't say anything, just opened the door again and walked out.

I sighed and dropped the flashlight on the table. Shortly after she left, I began to get a headache that rapidly increased in pain until I fell out of the chair, clutching my head and screaming. For a few moments I blacked out, and when I opened them I found Jared and Kate standing over me. Except, we were in a different room.

This room was terribly bloodstained, and looked like the walls had patches of skin over them. The desk was now badly beaten up, what was left of it, and the floor itself was gone. A thick metal grate had replaced it, and we could just make out a large fan turning slowly beneath us. It sounded like a factory was all around us, clanging loudly almost in rhythm.

"We need to get out of here." Jared said.

"Why bother?" I groaned, standing slowly. "This is, the Nightmare world, right?"

"I would think so." He said.

"Then there's no point. It'll fade eventually."

"What good will it do to stay here?" Kate said, still surprisingly holding the pickaxe.

I pointed at the door. "Because that's the only way in here. Outside this room, we're monster food. But in here—"

"We can get them first if they try to come in." Jared finished.

"Exactly." I said. "You still got your MDX?"

Jared nodded and held up two bottles.

"You'll need them." I said. "It's gonna be a long night."