The exciting sounds of rides and other attractions filled the dense, fog covered air. Not even these sounds could mask the twisted look and smell of its surroundings. The twisted and rusted Amusement Park was the last place anyone should be or wanted to be, Detective Douglas Cartland included. His scruff, salt and pepper beard accented the expression on his face. He stood there, a hand resting in his overcoat, staring down the last person he wanted to see that night. The sweat rolled down from his gray hair as the smell of rotted flesh and blood invaded his nostrils. A woman whom he had been working for, stood before him with a stoic, cold expression.
"I hired you to find the girl and you performed serviceably.", she said, questioning Douglas' reason for meeting with her, "What is it now?" "You lied to me about Heather, lady.", he replied with a disgusted voice, "I don't like being used." "Lie? What lie?", she replied in a puzzled tone. "That Heather was kidnapped from you." "But it's true. She was originally one of us.", a scowled expression covered her face, "That man, Harry Mason, stole her and kept her hidden from us." "Yeah, but she says she was happy." "She was brainwashed by him, deceived. Because her true self had not yet awoken. She carries God within her. But when Alessa, mother of God truly awakens…" "Yeah, what's gonna happen?", Douglas questioned her. "She will usher in the Eternal Paradise.", she told him in a blissful voice. "What kind of place is that?" "A place with no pain. No hunger, no sickness, no old age.", she preached out to Douglas, "There will be no greed or war and all will live by God's grace alone." "No this, no that, no nothin'. A paradise for castrated sheep maybe. Sounds pretty boring." "I pity you. You still don't understand." Douglas slowly starts to raise a gun out of his overcoat. He pointed the barrel straight at her. "You're going to kill me? Is it really so easy for you?", she said, questioning his motives. "I've done it before.", he replied dismissively. "Then I truly do pity you."
With that, Douglas pulled the trigger. To his disbelief though, the bullet never connected with her and seemed to disappear before even reaching her. She made a quick, sharp motion with her hand. Douglas, still confused by what just happened, suddenly felt a sharp, shattering pain in his right leg and fell to the ground in agony.
"What the hell did you do to me!", he screamed out at her in pain.
"I simply passed my judgment on you, Mr. Cartland.", she replied, pointing a finger at him.
Either he couldn't think straight, or perhaps it was because he vision was blurry from the pain of a broken leg, but he could have sworn that he saw that same finger being pointed at him before. He processed it as she turned to walk away. As his memories became clearer, he started to remember why her finger was so important.
"I remember you now!", he exclaimed.
"What are you blabbering about now Douglas?"
"I can't believe that I didn't till now, but I remember having that nasty finger of yours being pointed at me before."
"You must be mistaking me for someone else.", she replied as she walked away.
"You're a horrible liar." He said, practically talking to himself.
The memories of that event filled his head. It started off on a gloomy, rainy day just like his and Heather's trip down to the twisted town of Silent Hill. He was sent out to investigate the disappearance of a young man named Robert. He had reportedly disappeared along with his parents after going to the town for a vacation. Silent Hill police had found the bodies of the parents a month after then, buried next to the Wish House Orphanage where it was reported that Robert was originally raised until he was adopted. He couldn't even comprehend what was going to happen in those few short days. He had only heard about the town and hadn't ever visited there. He once considered taking his son to the Amusement Park there, but that never happened due to financial issues.
He seemed completely oblivious of the fog that continued to thicken as he approached his destination. The dank, wet mass seemed to be consuming the town. Douglas pulled up into a motel parking lot and his eyes immediately shifted towards the blockade of police tape in front of a single room. Not only that, but the fact that the door to that room was left slightly open, as if someone was or is there or for some other reason that was questionable considering that it was blocked off. The manager sat comfortably in his office, not even taking notice of Douglas.
"Hello.", Douglas knocked on the manager's window.
"We're all booked." replied the manager, leaning back in his chair with a baseball cap covering most of his face.
Douglas puzzling looked back to the vacant parking lot and the near full set of keys hanging in the manager's office. "My name is Douglas Cartland.", he introduced himself, "I'm a detective."
"Oh, a detective?", the manager tried to act surprised, "How can I help you?"
"It should go without saying, but I'm investigating a murder that occurred here."
"Sorry, don't know a thing about it."
"Aren't you the manager?"
"Yup, but I wasn't here when it happened.", he replied quickly, "I was sick then and had a friend of mine take over then."
"Where can I find him?"
"Doesn't live in town anymore and I haven't talked to him since it happened.", he paused for a quick stretch and yawn, "I can let you check out the room if you want. You can't miss it."
"Thank you.", with that Douglas turned and walked off.
The manager lifted his cap off his face and watched as Douglas walked towards the room. He reached for a phone receiver and starts dialing.
The room had apparently been left untouched by anyone since the police checked it. Not even the dust had been touched. Even the bloody, torn bed linens had been left as they were. The lack of any blood trail, except for a slight one, had Douglas questioning how someone of Robert's age could have moved two adult bodies out without being seen and without leaving a trail and without somebody seeing the bodies before he could drag them out without smearing blood on the way out. He couldn't come up with a decent answer to these questions. He began inspecting the room. He sifted through the blood stained linens. The dark, hardened blood had matted them together, making it rather hard to do so. After some struggling and force, he was able to pull them apart and examine the bed at detail. The only thing that stuck out was some loose change, a waded up receipt, and something that really caught his eye. Under the pillow on the left side was a cutting knife that was still clean. "How did the police miss something like this?", Douglas thought to himself. He knew that something was amiss now, but what was it. He just knew that there was no way that the room had been checked before he got here. As he paced about, trying to piece this mess together, he noticed an odd vanity style mirror sitting against the desk. The reflection in the mirror appeared twisted and distorted. A hand print was painted in the middle with blood. He sat on the cleaner of the two beds and stared intently at the mirror, his focus on the odd blood stain. Reality seemed to be twisted in there the more he stared at it, feeling like being in a state of vertigo, even the real world felt like it was falling apart. As much as he wanted to look away from the distorted visage peering back him, he couldn't deviate his eyes from it. His mind felt like it was being torn in two and like he was being invaded be a dark, sinister force just beyond the mirror. This feeling made him feel sick. The sounds of sirens tore through his frail mentality and sent a sharp, dense pain through his head. While he sat there grasping his head in pain, a young boy stood inside the mirror staring back at Douglas.
Outside, small snow like flakes started fell silently from the dark sky on to the silent, fog coated town. The sounds of sirens still invaded Douglas' mind as blue and red lights flooded the air. Down on both knees, Douglas sat there covered in blood and tears running down is face. The pain of that memory was unbearable, and the thought of it caused panic even in his harden resolve. He clenched body in his arms like a mother cradling an infant. Even was all of the noise and distractions, he just held the young boy in his arms and nothing else mattered to him at that moment. The sounds and lights faded away in to darkness, everything faded in to darkness.
Douglas jerks himself up from his dream in a cold sweet. He was back in that musty hotel room, but not everything was how it was when he passed out. The room seemed much dirtier than before and looked more like the room in the mirror. Douglas looked back towards the mirror to see if things could get worse, but the mirror reflected the room as it was designed to though something was amiss this time. The single hand print had vanished as had everything else that had to do with the strange room. Frantically he searched through the room, and to no avail, he found nothing wrong with it at all. He quickly exited and peered back at the room number. To his surprise it was still the same room and even blockade of police tape had disappeared. He looked down over the railing and still saw his car, but the manager's car was already gone. "This has to be a dream still.", he thought to himself, but as much as he tried to wake up, it never happened. He trekked back down to his car and looked it over to make sure everything was still in its place and it was. One thing was off though, the car wouldn't start. He tried everything to start it up and nothing.
"It figures that it had to crap out on me.", he said, swiftly kicking the car, "Now I'm stuck in the middle of this town without this piece of crap, this has been one hell of a day."
He stood there in the thick, cold air contemplating his next move. His attention began to focus on the fact that he was the only one, the only one that seemed to exist right there. Silence at that point was his only friend, and the fog that surrounded him was the body of that makeshift entity. He peered up at the falling snow, his mind wandering. "Snow this time of year? Was I really out that long? What exactly is going on in this town?", the thoughts poured out like water from a faucet. The silence around him broke, as the sound of something grinding against the pavement grew closer. Douglas squinted and looked through the fog to see a human like figure lurking towards him, dragging something along with it. Whatever that object was, it seemed to very large from the noise it was making grinding against the ground. A look of relief started covering Douglas' face as he advanced. That was until he got a better look at it and its companion, a very large and heavy knife. Before the knew it, the being started to lift up the large tool. The strain of such a task didn't even seem humanly possible considering the small arms that the creature was planning on doing it with. The near tearing of sinew and snapping of bones was the only noise that Douglas heard at the second, staring up at the bizarre pyramid shaped mask that covered its face. In that intense moment of fear, the creature swung down the knife towards Douglas, whom managed to dodge it after coming back to his senses. The force of the object colliding with the pavement knocked Douglas down. He pulled out his gun and fired a few rounds into the creature's arm, but not a sound or movement came from the creature as it prepared to pick up the knife once again. The intense force of picking it up caused the bullets to dislodge from the arm along with a painful amount of blood that came with them. Half way through it lifting the knife, a sound of sirens started again, just like in the hotel room. The creature swiftly abandoned what it was doing and seemed to move towards the sound. As it did, the sirens went from a near silence to an ear shattering squeal. The sound sent Douglas back into a prone state, and that lead to him passing out once again.
The blare of sirens continued into his sleep. He sat in the rear of an ambulance this time, instead of the hard pavement. Hues of red and blue reflected off of his blood soaked attire. He couldn't understand why he was remembering such a horrific experience, especially after having to deal with that monstrosity that nearly leveled his head off his shoulders. Was this all a reminder of the sins he had committed on that night? He didn't want to think about it anymore, but he couldn't seem to escape this twisted reality laid out before him as much as he tried. His bloody hands were a reminder of why he became a detective in the first place. Before that, he was worthless and couldn't even support his family and had to even watch his own son die before he would change that. The sounds around him slowly started to fade. His nightmarish reality started to become more twisted and started to peel away. He sat alone on the now metallic roadway. He didn't even notice it though, with his face buried deep in his palms as scurried below him griping the grating. They paid him no heed as they moved about and seemed to circle around him like vultures circling a corpse. Suddenly they broke from their pattern and disappeared into the abyss, jerking Douglas back to reality.
Douglas jerked himself up. A feverish sweet covered his face. He found himself to be sitting on a pew in the middle of an old fashioned church. The visions of the hellish nightmare he woke up from still stirred in his mind. He sat back and contemplated the events that had occurred since his arrival. As he sat there, a hand quickly tapped him on the shoulder. Douglas pulled back in that instant and aimed his gun its source. A younger man wearing a dress suit stood at the end of pews. Even with the barrel of a gun pointing towards him, he smiled gently at Douglas.
"I'm glad to see you up.", he said still smiling, "You can put the gun away Mr. Cartland, I mean you no harm."
"Who, who are you?", Douglas asked, still shaken.
"My name is Vincent. I work at this church.", Vincent paused for a moment to sit down on the pew, "I found on my way here. You were just lying there in that parking lot and I had brought you here. You had one nasty lump on your head."
"Thanks. I'm sorry that I pulled my gun on you. I've been under a lot of stress since I got here."
"On vacation all by yourself?"
"No. I came here to investigate the disappearance of the boy that killed his parents at the motel I was at", Douglas repositioned himself back on the pew, "I haven't had much luck though. The manager wasn't much help and no one seems to be around. What is going on in this town? I figured it would be packed since it is a tourist attraction."
"I can't answer that question. I was wondering the same thing as well. This town seems to be buried in darkness, and that snow.", Vincent's smile disappeared, "Some people in this town worship a god different from what is usually revered. We have a dark past here and this isn't the first time strange things have happened. What about that child you are looking for? Do you know anything about him?"
"All I really know is that he was originally raised at the Wish House down here."
"I know where that is. It's a bit out of the way, but I can take you there", he replied with his smile back, "Go on out to my car and I will be out in a bit."
"Thank you again Vincent.", Douglas said as he rose off the pew and headed towards the door.
Vincent watched and waited for Douglas to leave then proceeded to the back end of the church. On of the back doors opened and woman walked in. She had a very distasteful look on her face as she approached Vincent.
"What are you doing taking him there Vincent?", she yelled at him, "Are you trying to mess my plans like like my father?"
"You should start trusting me more Claudia.", he replied smugly, "I'm nothing like him and perhaps you shouldn't be judging my motives just yet."
"Then what exactly is your motives Vincent?"
"Not sure just yet", that reply mad Claudia even more aggressive looking than normal, "but I can promise one thing, I still support your plans. I just also support my own as well."
"Confusing as ever I see, Vincent. What exactly are your plans that will help me out.", she said, trying to keep calm.
"What ever works out.", he quickly replied as he started to turn away, "I should get going before the detective wonders where I am."
"Don't screw this up for me Vincent."
The only reply he gave her was a wave on his way out. Douglas was sitting on the steps in a trance that seemed to break as Vincent approached him, as though he knew inside himself not to trust him. Vincent moved ahead, signaling Douglas to follow him. Vincent's car seemed to mirror the town itself, in a old but still functional fashion. "This town?", Douglas murmured to himself, "This town feels empty." He looked around at the empty streets that should be filled as they passed them. The emptiness was almost horrifying as it was disturbing. "An empty resort town during the summer?", he thought to himself, "There has to be something wrong. And that thing that attacked me... Does it have anything to do with it." He looked over to gauge Vincent's reaction to the emptiness and saw nothing but a smile. "What the hell could he be smiling about? Nobody but me, him, and the manager of that motel are here and he seems to enjoy that fact almost."
"You seem happy about something Vincent.", Douglas suddenly blurted out, "I would be worried about how empty the town is, considering your position."
"I have no idea what you are talking about.", he replied with breaking his smile, "There are people all around us detective. You must have really hit your head hard."
"That's not the problem here and I know you are lying. Where is everyone Vincent? Why is this town as empty as it is? Not even the citizens are out of their house, if they are here that is."
"You shouldn't be snooping in our business detective. This town as to many skeletons in its closet and you sure the Hell can't find out about all of them."
"I can help you out. Just take to where we are going and I'll see what I can do to help."
"You just don't get it do you? We don't need your help. We are on the way to bringing everlasting paradise to this world and some things had to be done in order to do that.", he paused as they came upon an old orphanage, "You have entered a world that you should have stayed out of.", with that, Vincent reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cloth. Violently he shoved it into Douglas' face until he passed out.