Chapter 1: Entering Hell

"I don't like this."

"What's wrong, Marc?"

"Don't you feel it?"

"Feel what? What are you talking about?"

"This gotdang fog! It ain't natural."

Marc and Steve had originally thought this would be a routine task. Simply find the interruption in the line and replace the length of electrical cable. What they didn't think to find was a neatly cut wire. Never mind that finding a cut wire was almost unheard of, what really bothered Marc was finding it just inside of the Silent Hill city limits. The sudden sound of something similar to an air raid siren giving Marc a migraine didn't help matters much either.

Marc had heard enough stories about Silent Hill to know that he would do well to leave as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the eerie fog that appeared soon after they pulled off the road was going to make their job difficult. Normally fog wouldn't make a difference, but this was no normal fog. As opposed to normal slow rolling fog, this seemed to just appear within a blink of the eye. It was also so thick as to obscure anything more than a foot away and a flashlight, no matter how powerful, wasn't likely to help.

"Let's just get this done and get the hell outta here" grumbled Marc.

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The room slowly came into focus as Carla opened her sleep filled eyes.

Ringing? What is… Oh yeah, the phone. Crap!

Carla glanced at the clock radio sitting on the nightstand before answering the phone, thinking whoever was calling this early better have a damn good reason.

"What do you want?"

"Hello, Carla. Rise and shine, you have a busy day ahead of you."

"Huh? Who is this"

Click

Hanging up the phone with sigh, Carla mentally kicked herself for not springing and buying a phone with Caller ID built-in.

Carla Kinkirk, age 27, has lived in Silent Hill for the past 9 years in Blue Creek Apartments. She found a Silent Hill tourist brochure one day and decided that it was as good a place as any start her life over and perhaps even hide from her nightmares. She's currently working at Neely's Bar and has today day off. A rare occurrence, and one that made the previous phone call all the more strange, since she was just planning to sit around her apartment all day watching TV.

She got out of bed and went into the bathroom to comb her hair and brush her teeth, mumbling about "stupid crank calls" along the way. One step in the door and all thoughts of the mysterious call abruptly vanished as she saw the grotesque appearance of her bathroom. The toilet and bathtub were slowly overflowing with a thick reddish black liquid and had already made a mess of most of the floor. The sink on the other hand was erupting with what looked almost exactly like blood, and in defiance of gravity and small trickle was crawling up from the sink to the mirror above to form into a somewhat ominous warning.

You should leave. Now!

She caught the doorframe to keep from collapsing and fought down the urge to bend over and wretch after fully taking in the gory scene in her bathroom. Her first thought was that this all had to be some sick joke, that someone had broken in during the night and vandalized her apartment. "But why would someone write that on the mirror? Wouldn't something more along the lines of, We're watching you or You will die, be more appropriate?" she puzzled for a moment before deciding it didn't matter all that much.

Her second train of thought was much more useful, call the cops! But upon picking up the phone and dialing 911 she realized that she wasn't hearing anything from the phone. "What the hell! It was just working a minute ago." Determined to get help one way or the others, she hurriedly pulled on a pair of sneakers and a jacket and ran out of her apartment to get one of her neighbors.

After trying unsuccessfully to rouse the occupants of the first three apartments she tried, she finally found an one with noises coming from inside. "Hmm, 205. I haven't met whoever lives here yet, since they just moved in last week. I hope to God they can help me." However on the first knock the front door swung open and she immediately wished she had skipped this one.

The walls of the first room, the living room apparently, judging from the furniture, were not the regular wallpapered walls like Carla was used to seeing in the building. These were a mixture of reds and pinks and seemed to be alive somehow, pulsating even. Huge veinlike ribbons coursed through the walls pumping what looked like black goo up from the floor and past the ceiling into whatever lies above. The floors was some kind of metal mesh, like a fence or something similar. There was TV, that only showed black and white and even that not so good, on a stand that looked about ready to break apart next to the wall on the left side of the room. It was turned on, but the sound was turned off. On the wall opposite the door were three windows, symmetrically spaced out and all opened. On the right wall closest to the door was a hallway leading farther into the apartment. Past that was a old beat up couch that looked like it was made in the '50s. Seated on the couch was her neighbor, or what was left of him at least. The source of the sound was also immediately apparent. Her neighbor, a young looking, heavyset, blonde man was being chewed on by what at first glance appeared to be either a large dog or a small zebra.

Her scream at seeing the remains of her neighbor caught the beasts attention and it turned towards her, finally letting her get a good look at it. The beast had the body of a large dog, possibly a rottweiler, but seemed to be devoid of any fur and was colored white with large black vertical stripes all along it's body. The head is actually on upside down, so the mouth is on top with the eyes on the bottom, and the tail is long and thin with a stinger on the end.

After seeing that monstrosity eating her neighbor, Carla abandoned all thoughts of getting help and instead just bolted down the hallway and then the stairs, trying to put as much distance between her and that "thing" as she could.

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"Now see, Marc? That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No, I guess it wasn't," Marc accepted sullenly. "Let's just leave now, OK? I wanna get home and take a nap if I can. I didn't get any sleep last night. Damn nightmares again."

"You should really see a shrink about them, ya know?" Steve replied as he got into the drivers seat and was going to start the truck.

"The fuck? The keys are gone!"

"Whadda ya mean, they're gone? You probably just dropped. Now quit fooling around and find em," Marc almost screamed at his friend, not really needing anymore frustration at the moment.

Steve leaned out of the truck and looked down for the keys. He didn't see them, but what he did see were a set of small barefooted footprints heading from the truck, across the road, and towards the woods on the other side.

"Hey, I found some footprints over here. They look like they're heading into the woods over there, and I bet whoever's they are took the keys. I'll go get em and back in a minute, so wait here, k?" Steve said as he got out of the truck and followed the prints off into the fog.

"Steve? Dude, don't leave me here alone, you idiot!"

Marc started to chase after Steve, but only got a few steps before he heard the most horrible screams he'd heard in his life. Being a bit more cautious he crept into the woods on the far side of the road and followed the now two sets of footprints.

Peering around a tree trunk and what he thought would be his friend gave him the shock of his life. Instead of his friend he found a large black and white striped dog chewing on what remained of his friends arm. Slumping down behind the tree, all Marc could get out was a whispered,

"Oh, shit. It IS true."

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A/N: Well this is my first attempt at a fanfic of any kind, so I'd appreciate ideas to make it better, pointing out my mistakes, or just general comments. Point is, just talk to me, people!