Chapter 1: The Daily Grind

I have a crappy job.

Literally. I work at a sewage treatment plant.

Insert lame fecal joke here.

You know how I got this job? My juvie parole officer hooked me up with it after they let me out. What was it I did to warrant being placed in a juvenile detention facility- you ask? Oh, you know, same ol', same ol'. A couple of C-Felonies involving Ginsu knives.

And for legal reasons- that's all I can tell you.

Oh, by the way- it gets even better! I'm a woman. The only woman. Lucy Gomez, chief of waste management. Har-de-har-har.

…Okay, you can stop laughing now!

Surprisingly though, the only thing particularly gross about the job is the stink that wafts in through this water-logged chamber behind the 'Office'.

A voice broke into my mental whine. "Hey, Lucy!" Bob shouted cheerfully.

Bob's the security guard. Not really sure what he was guarding, but he was cool. Fifty years old, a wife, three kids- and a grandbaby on the way too. Nicest old bugger you could ever hope to meet.

"Hey, Bob!" I replied with equal merriment. The old fella always put me in a real shiny-happy kinda mood. "How's Penny?" I inquired.

He laughed. "Oh, she's still in denial. Totally refuses to admit that she's tickled at the idea of being somebody's granny."

I grinned, patting him on the shoulder. "Ah well, she'll come around eventually."

He smiled. "You go give those boys down there hell, kiddo. Have a fine day!"

I strolled to the stairwell, calling over my shoulder, "See ya at lunch, Bob! You're buyin'!"

His whoops of laughter followed me all the way to the Office, and I chuckled softly. Ah Bob, this job would blow without you!

As I opened the door, the smell hit me like a gentle slap to the face. But, before I got two feet in I was greeted with a pair of male voices shouting, "Surprise!"

"What the fuck!" I yelped, startled.

Those same male voices started to laugh hysterically. I hated when the two of them pulled shit like this. Just because I'm the only woman doesn't give them the right to-

Then I got to my desk.

There was a mountain of cheese Doritoes and Reese's peanut-butter cups sitting there, and four twelve packs of cherry coke- all my favorite junk food.

I blinked, "Alright, you two- what's going on?"

Jaime and Jose suddenly sandwiched me between the two of them in a group hug that had me gasping for air.

"Happy Twenty-First birthday!" chirped Jaime.

I glowered at them. "My birthday was three months ago."

"Hence the surprise." Replied Jose, grinning from ear-to-ear.

I smirked, and then, much to my chagrin, I giggled. "You fuckers."

The two of them just gave me wide, innocent eyes. I laughed.

My two coworkers just smiled devilishly at me.

Jaime Olivera and Jose Reed were the only two other schmucks who got stuck with this nasty-ass job. Jose was twenty-four, gangly, and had eyes that were so naturally wide he looked like an overgrown child. Those eyes also made him as cute as a bug's ear. He was also as stuck with this job as I was. He told me that he had wanted to be a writer, but it didn't pan out- he had shown me the rejection letters to prove it.

And then there was Jaime. Jaime was- I kid you not- six-foot-fucking-ten. He also weighed about two hundred and seventy-five pounds. Surprisingly though, he didn't look fat. He was built like the kind of man that Vince McMahon would take one look at and weep with joy. But, he was exactly sixty years old, so the pro athlete thing wasn't looking that promising. The scary thing was that he actually enjoyed working here. He reveled in having only minimal human contact.

Plus, he was a freak about conspiracy theories and urban legends.

"Oh Luce- you in there?" Prodded Jaime.

I broke out of my fog. "Huh?"

"Don't worry, you didn't miss much." Grumbled Jose.

"Oh hush, you fetus!" growled Jaime. "Why do I get stuck with babysitting duty?" he muttered, glancing heavenward.

Jose just rolled his eyes. I ignored that, and put a hand on Jaime's arm. "Jaime, I'm sorry I wasn't paying attention, I was just caught off guard by this touching gesture." I said gently, motioning to the Junk Food Mountain. And the Academy Award goes to…

He repeated what he had been saying before. "I'm telling you two, there are alligators in the sewers." He insisted.

See, I told you so. Urban legends!

I smiled serenely at him. "Sure, Jaime. And, where did this come from?"

He held up a newspaper. "A viable source." He sniffed.

I took the paper from his hands. It was the Silent Hill Tribune. A local city newspaper? Printing urban legends? That was odd.

I studied it further.

The front page read;

NUMBER OF MISSING REACHES ALL-TIME HIGH: 186 NOW GONE

It went on to postulate that perhaps a plague was slowly destroying the quiet community.

I read further:

No one knows what is being done with the missing of this community. There are no signs of struggle, no signs of violence, it is as though the once serene mountain town is slowly disappearing from existence.

In other words: they didn't have a fucking clue.

I had visited Silent Hill on a vacation once when I was a kid. I had enjoyed it immensely. To think that something was up there doing something to the people-

I shook off the thought.

"Fuck." I muttered darkly. I gave Jaime his paper back. "Let's just get to work."

:AUTHOR'S NOTES: And so it begins! This is the story of the person who wrote the note before you have to kill the Underground Pass Monster with the hair dryer in SH3.

You all might be thinking what I was thinking- that the author of that note sounded like a guy- well, that's what I thought too. But, dammit, I felt like writing a girl heroine into the mix, and since I had already had an idea for the story of this poor loser- I figured, 'What the hell?'

Also, any and all discrepancies are mine. I couldn't find anything about whether or not this level was actually a sewer- that was the impression I got when I played the game. Plus, the juvie stuff- if it's wrong- is my boo-boo. I added that solely as an explanation for the knife skills. R&R PEEPS!