Chapter One
Amanda Carroll stared out of her car's windshield in amazement. Snow, She thought, in the middle of May! Of course, that wasn't unheard of in the small resort town of Silent Hill, in fact, the year before had seen snow as early as September, but still…Amanda couldn't believe her eyes. It's too warm, She thought again, the thermometer at home said seventy degrees. Indeed, it was far too warm for snow, and yet…the light dusting that covered the deep green lawns seemed to say it wasn't. It was almost peaceful though, and so quiet.
"Where is everyone?" Amanda said aloud. She hadn't seen anyone all morning, no cars, no people, no nothing, and she had begun to get worried. It hadn't even struck her as odd that morning when she left her parent's small home. Both her parent's worked the late shift, her mother worked as a cleaning lady at a hotel by the lake, and her father worked on a construction site fifty miles north of town. Neither of them would be home until later that morning, so she had not expected to come into contact with other people until she got breakfast at the diner on her way to school. When she pulled into the parking lot of the small eating establishment, she found yet another perplexing mystery.
The diner, which should be packed with hungry customers at that time of morning, was totally devoid of life. She got out of her car slowly, and walked to the large front windows of the building, which normally would be brightly lit and alive with activity, but were now dark and empty. She pressed her hands against the glass in an attempt to see inside, and recoiled in pain. The glass was as cold as ice, no; it was colder than ice, so cold that it burned her warm hands. "What in the hell is going on around here?" She said in frustration as she walked back to her car, rubbing the red marks on her palms where she had touched the ice-cold glass.
She noticed something as she slammed her car door though, in the brief time between her looking in the windows, and when she got back into her car, a thick fog had crept across the town, blanketing it in a milky mist. "This just keeps getting better and better," she muttered darkly, "maybe next my car won't crank, and I'll have to walk to school." She then turned the ignition, with a slight amount of apprehension, and the car started loudly. She sighed in relief as she backed out of the small parking lot and continued on her way to school.
Midwich High, the Victorian sister building to Midwich Elementary, was built across from the only public park in Silent Hill, and she loved nothing else than to take her lunch out into the park and eat under the sun. But today the school, and park, had changed drastically. The park, which had always been an inviting area, with smooth birch trees, their silver bark like smooth stone, the well kept grass like a carpet of soft green, the little lake like a pupil situated directly in the middle of the green iris that was the park. Now though, the park was gray, the ever-thickening fog clutching to the ground like some greedy apparition. The trees too, seemed to have changed, no longer the silver spires she remembered so fondly, now they were withered claws, reaching outward like the hands or an elderly crone, searching for something unseen, waiting to snatch it up and devour it. And the quiet, the deafening quiet, it was too much, and it was making Amanda extremely nervous.
She sat in her car for a moment, realizing suddenly that it was the only car in the parking lot, that the parking lot, which should be teeming with students making their way to class, was now as empty as the rest of the town. She slowly stepped out of the car, watching the milky fog around her for any sign of life, and finding none at all. She jogged to the door of the school, not wanting to be alone in the fog for very long, she pulled at the heavy wooden doors, and slipped in quickly, slamming the door behind her. She immediately regretted shutting the door, as she was suddenly aware of eyes watching here somewhere in the darkened hall before her, but she couldn't see anything. She could feel it though, and her entire being screamed at her to flee. Her body would not respond though, and she was forced to watch helplessly as the darkness before her burst into life, and an abomination slowly stepped into the waning light.
Her mind didn't accept what she saw before her, it wouldn't accept it, she couldn't even see it, and all she saw was the shape, a large lump of flesh that moved gracefully toward her with surprising speed. It was large, maybe nine feet tall, and well proportioned, except for it's left arm, which was a mass of twisted flesh and broken bone, it's eyes shone like two yellow lights in the darkness, and it moved silently except for the occasional wheezing breath. In three massive steps it had nearly reached her, and with two more, it would be upon her in two more. She didn't give it a chance though, because she clawed the doors open and bolted back to her car.
The sound of wood being shattered gave her speed, and she was back to the car in seconds. She twisted the ignition switch so hard it hurt her hand, and slammed the car into reverse, squealing the tires as she spun the wheel, spinning the car in a 180-degree arc, before slamming on the gas and squealing out of the parking lot. Back on the road, her thought turned to options, what she would do next, obviously something was very wrong in town, and she had no way of knowing if it had spread beyond the city limits. She could go find her dad, or her mom, or she could get the hell out of town, and all of those seemed like viable options at the moment. Damn fog is so thick I can't even see the road, She thought, and indeed, she couldn't see the road, or the sudden dark shape that seemed to coalesce out of it until it was too late, and as she slammed on the brakes to avoid it she realized that it was moving toward the car, and she gasped as it became visible in the sea of gray. The monster from the school stood before her, and before she had time to react it brought it's massive, deformed arm down on the from of the car with enough force to impale the front end of the car completely.
She was badly jarred by the attack, and hit her head hard on the steering wheel, and as she slipped into the inky blackness of unconsciousness she thought she saw the monster smile, it's twisted lips parting, showing it's severely twisted teeth, which then parted, and moved in time with a strange rasping sound, which then formed words, she was barely able to understand them, but it sounded as though they said, "welcome to Hell."
She wholeheartedly believed them.