DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE SILENT HILL FRANCHISE OR AND RESEMBLING FACTORS.

Part 1:

THE APARTMENT

-1-

BOOOOM! In a split instance, the small two door car ferociously collided with one of the gas pumps like a moth to a bright light. The impact of the explosion hit the other three surrounding pumps at such astonishing force and speed, soon allowing the whole small corner store to be engulfed by the huge, unforgiving flames. The sound of thunder roared across the town of Dryfalls, shaking the foundations of every home, business office, and supermarket as if the ground were to crack and explode from the noise itself. Sounds of glass shattering, civilians screaming, and car's alarms could be heard throughout miles of the inner city. The smoke filled the small town's dark sky, tearing through any unfilled space where there was fresh air as if the clear moonlight was a disease. My name is Dylan Strikes, I'm 24, and my life up to now has so far been very appealing and peaceful, just the way I like it. I moved to the small town of Dryfalls to get away from the busy, lustful city and find a peaceful location to call my home and sanctuary. I have a full time job working at a burger joint paying minimum wage, with no girlfriend, only at cat in my small, one bedroom apartment. I had a fallout with my family, so there's been little to no contact with them for the past two years and despite it all, I'm content and I couldn't ask for anything more in my small precious life.

After the shock passed through my body and I regained my inner conscious of what just happened, I quickly ran from my kitchen window to the front door, and threw it open so forcefully that number 6 from the apartment 206 sign fell to the floor. As I reared to apartment 205, inhabited by John Brooks (my friend and neighbor of two years), I griped the gold painted door handle and rushed into the door frame of his apartment, sending the walls rattling and vibrating, knocking down family pictures and paintings. The living room of Johns apartment 205 was dimly lit, all the lights were off, with the exception of the television which was providing the only source of light. Despite the dull atmosphere and the lack of human presence in the room, I still couldn't help but feel a surge of tension rush throughout my body while the chaos could be heard through the windows from outside.

"John!" I called out at the top of my lungs, "John!? Are you here man?".

There was no reply. Nothing but the disturbance from outside filled the room. I made my way out of the living room towards the kitchen hoping that John's face would appear as I rounded the corner. John had a very tasteful sense of art when it came to house decor. The kitchen walls were painted shiny bright red, the color an apple would be freshly picked from the tree, with white trimming all around the door hinges and cabinets. One huge, massive brown rug hugged the bright marble tiles on the kitchen floor, giving you a lushes warm feeling if you were to come into the kitchen for a late night snack. There was a slight cold breeze I felt brush against my body as I crossed the threshold that seemed to be coming from the freezer door that was slightly opened. At the bottom of the fridge was a small puddle of water, most likely caused from the defrosting contents of the freezer. As I began to close the freezer door I felt a soft "thump" as something inside fell against the door causing ice shavings to fall on my bare feet. I don't know whether it was the icy tingling of my feet or the scene I saw next inside the freezer, but every thought I had seemed to free itself, leaving my mind empty and barren. The freezer, was empty.

I turned my head around to see the maple treated cabinets on the wall above the sink where John usually kept his late night junk snacks, those too had been striped completely clean, along with the pantry next to the stove. Nothing but bare space and broken crumbs remained, along side the dead bug in the corner. With the gas station up in flames and the town under a stage of crisis, my once blank mind now was starting to suffocate with millions of questions, such as why john would have all of the food missing from the apartment or what could be the cause of this small town to be under a state of emergency. The more I stood in the kitchen dumbfounded trying to put the pieces together just to find a sense of security, the more I grew confused and angry. I felt small, cold beads of sweat roll off my forehead down to my cheeks. Realizing that the lack of food was the least of my worries and that John was still nowhere to be found, I paced down the hall glimpsing first into the bathroom, where wet, drenched towels had been thrown across the floor and a couple of goldfish lay next to a shattered aquarium. "Must have been from the trembles of the explosion" I thought to myself.

Turning swiftly around and continuing down the hall, I carefully made my way to John's bedroom where the door was cracked open just the slightest bit. As I reach the door, I noticed a small but delicate glare on the door knob catch the corner of my eye. Looking down to the door knob, I reached out to put a finger on it, touching the mysterious liquid. Pulling my hand back I examined the substance realizing that it had a slightly high iron smell and was a deep red color. There was no mistake about it, I knew this was blood on the door before me, but to figure out why it was there was only sending my thoughts deeper and deeper in the black hole where my brain once resided. I felt even more sweat drip from my head now, almost as if my being was to just simply melt away. My body temperature was slowly increasing and my body began to shake ferociously. I knew it was only a matter of time before fear closed its grips on me, sending me to the dark depths of this nightmare. Every part of my body told me not to open the door, screamed at me to turn back now before I uncovered something more I didn't want to, but I knew I couldn't, and that I wouldn't know matter how much I wanted to.

I saw my hand reach up to the handle once again, except this time I gripped it even more tightly and slowly opened the door. Little did I know, the door would be the last piece of reality that I could grasp for what laid behind the door was so mind numbing, I felt as though god himself had laid his hand on my chest and taken my soul away from me. John sat there on the bed with a knife in his hand, where the once white and black comforter was now soaked with blood. The ceiling fan had streaks of blood across the blades and what looked like stomach intestines hung from them. The walls were soaked with big splotches of deep red across the four of them and a dead body laid in the corner of the room by the far wall. If the sight wasn't enough for the weak hearted to handle, then the smell would surely have topped it all off. It went through my nose and spread out through my body like a toxin, slowly making its way to my stomach causing me to turn back into the hallway for a minute and be sick.

"I always new you were such a weak person Dylan", John said. "I mean come on, you cant even handle a little blood? What about all those video games your always playing? Your pathetic and it makes me laugh".

I wiped my lips clean and raised my head up to turn around towards John. "What in the hell is he talking about?" I thought to myself. "And what is with this sinister tone coming from him?". I was a point far beyond confused, almost in a traumatic frozen state. My eyes shifted towards the severed body in the corner again and as I began to open my mouth and reply, more vomit stirred from deep in my stomach and made its way out onto the blood stained floor once again.

"Jesus Christ Dylan, your going to ruin the carpets! Hahaha." John's laugh seemed to strike fear in me. "The time for our realm to collide with the Other World is near and all you seem capable of is getting sick like a little girl." John stood up off the bed and white knuckle gripped the knife even tighter. As he slowly made his way towards me, a small, leather journal fell from the back pocket of his pants onto the floor.

"Get up. Get the fuck up off the floor now!" john roared. "You and everyone else in this city must die for the ritual to complete itself."

He raced over to me and I felt his fist clench my shoulder as I struggled to get on my own two feet. His fingers sent shivers down my back, not from fear, but from the sheer shock of their touch. They were cold, freezing almost. Once stable on my own, the freezing feeling soon creeped up my neck as Johns fingers wrapped themselves around my throat. I knew this was not any form of sick joke, my headache form the confusion was now replaced with pain, and all I could think about was breathing.

"What are you doing John?" I managed to squeeze out. "What do you mean?" I stared into his eyes. They were the wide open, so wide I could almost see my reflection in them. John's once blue eyes were now black, hatred visibly clear in them.

"What do I want?" John snickered at me in a taunting way. I felt the release of tension from around my neck as I dropped to the floor. John walked a couple feet away from me, paused for what seemed like a few minutes staring blankly at the dead body in the corner and then turned back to face me. "You seen Dylan, there are some of us in this small town that understand the Other World. Another place, well, another realm if you will".

My mind was trying so hard to comprehend everything that was going on but the pounding of my head was blurring my vision. The red from the four walls of the small bedroom began spinning in a constant circle around me, creating nothing but a red tornado with John and I inside.

" The other world is infested with creatures of all kinds, some with physical bodies and some are only lost souls without bodies lurking around looking for a vessel to implant themselves in, preferably human vessels." John continued on. "Once every two hundred years, a gate can be opened by human believers in our realm to allow these creatures to inhabit and kill all surrounding living things. The lost creature souls infest the dead corpses, mutate, and then find and kill more living things to keep the process continuing."

I was staring to lose conscious at this point, feeling as though this was all just a dream, that I would wake up in my bed next to my cat sweating from this horrible nightmare.

"The ritual has been started Dylan, and the screams you hear outside, the cars swerving into gas stations to avoid things in the road, and the gunshots slicing the silence in the air, are all done by these creatures." John started to walk slowly towards me as I sat on my knees with my head buried in my hands. " Those of us who believed and made this all happen shall be granted eternal power by the god of the Other World once they inhabit this realm and everything living in it." John was now standing over me, looking down upon me with the knife raised high above my head. I fell from my knees to the floor, sprawled on my back looking up at his angry, dark face with those beady black eyes filled with hatred. I felt my left hand touch something. As I looked over to see it was the journal, I heard John scream.

"Now die damnit!"

I saw it all happen at once and then everything went black; John came down with the knife straight for the center of my chest, the tip dripping blood onto my shirt. Time felt as though it didn't exist and I stared back at John for what felt like minutes. My left hand squeezed Johns journal and I flung it towards the knife, praying that it would deflect it and give me enough time to run. There was a small vibration as the blade pierced the book and I saw the look on Johns face. Hatred and anger no longer filled his eyes, but was now replaced by fear and pain. A bright light filled the room as the journal I held in my hands began to illuminate. John let go of the knife and took a few steps back, let out a heart wrenching scream, and his whole entire body burst into ashes.