Welcome
"What is going on?!" Vicki screamed into the empty streets. The red headed woman stood in the middle of the road of the seemingly abandoned town. She had been blindly walking through these streets for a few hours now. She had to find Timmy but that was proving difficult, she couldn't see three feet in front of her with all this fog. They had been on a road trip, an anniversary of sorts, when they had been in a car wreck. The fog appeared out of nowhere and she hadn't seen the curve in the road until it was too late. They had careened off the road only to tumble down an embankment. Vicki woke up hours later to a cold wind against her face, she looked over to see if Timmy was alright only to find the passenger seat empty with the door swung wide open. She kicked and bashed against her door in an attempt to open it, but it was pinned against a tree. No way was she getting out that way. She crawled out through the passenger side only to fall out and land on her side. She cried out in pain before slowly climbing to her feet, her ribs hurt badly. She looked down at her beat up car, god, how had we survived this? It was wrapped partially around the tree. The cold air bit at her face, Timmy was out in this and she needed to know if he was okay. She stumbled around to her trunk to pull out a backpack with light medical supplies, her trusty bowie knife, an emergency radio, and an LED flashlight. Huh, the partner radio is missing, Timmy must have the other; she turned it on to the frequency they always used. "Timmy, are you there? Please tell me you're okay. Copy." She waited for a few moments, the wait was killing her. She pulled her black cap down, there was no response but she would leave it on on this frequency in case he was able to contact her. Vicki adjust her gloves and shivered. This cold is already getting to me, I'd better find Timmy soon. It was cold, so she appreciated any article of clothing that could shut out it out. The car being at an angle meant Vicki had to stumble around it before she could climb up the embankment. Her leg grazed against her bumper which was now just a jagged piece of sharp metal, it sliced right through her black denim jeans and partially through her thigh. "Sonofa-," Vicki cried out in pain and aggravation. She was being stupid, she had a limited amount of supplies and that was an injury she could have avoided. She opted to use an article of clothing rather than use precious resources. Vicki tore off a piece of her scarf and wrapped it tightly around her wound before she set off again to climb back up onto the road.
Once she had managed to clamber up, she stayed off to the side, not wanting to be struck down by an idiot going too fast down the empty curving road. Strange. It had been over fifteen minutes but not a single car had passed her. Vicki also noticed that she hadn't seen any wildlife, not even the sounds of birds. Utter silence, she drew her coat tighter around her body, this wasn't normal. She looked further down the road, she thought she could make out a structure in the distance. As she neared it, the red head found it to be an old faded town sign. The words stretched across in an elegant font with faded yellow paint. It certainly seemed to clash against the faded forest green of the rest of the sign. The two lamp lights above illuminated the words enough for her to read from a distance, "Welcome to Silent Hill. Enjoy your stay." What a strange name for a town. Timmy must have gone this way looking for help. She made her way down the off-ramp towards her new lead.
Vicki checked her watch, it was a little past 2. That was two or three hours ago now. She hadn't seen a single person since she'd gotten here. She was nervous and she hated that, she only got nervous when there was something to really be worried about. She tried to shake the feeling away, Timmy had to be alright, he just had to. She would have bumped into him by now, there was no trail of blood, so he wasn't injured, which also meant that he was able to walk normally since she hadn't caught up with him yet. Besides, this wasn't a big city, this was a sleepy little town. She was fiddling with her pony tail as she tried to rationalize away her fears. She made her way down what appeared to be the shopping district. Occasionally calling out his name in hopes of a reply, she was met only with her echo. Her echo dying out slowly in this otherwise silent place. She made note of her landmarks to keep from getting lost, there was a hardware store, a little bar, what appeared to be a local butcher shop, a café, a book store, and even a pizzeria. Got to admit, this isn't really a bad set up, I wish Dimmsdale was like this. She looked up at the dilapidated sign of the pizzeria, it appeared to be a Chuck-E-Cheese's knock off, "Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, eh?" She pondered over what possible nightmares children had to have endured there. Strangely, Timmy still enjoyed places like this, much to her chagrin. He's definitely still a kid at heart, pizza and arcade games apparently also served as the key to that heart. She chuckled, what a terrible place for their first date, but she found herself having fun regardless because she was with him. No, she shook away the thought, get back on track. You shouldn't be daydreaming about him, you should be looking for him.
She took a quick look at her surroundings, standing alone in this empty town made her uncomfortable. God, this place is creepy. No, creepy isn't the right word, no this place was downright disturbing. It was as if everyone just up and left all at once and didn't bother to take anything with them. Diners had plates of rotting food set at tables for customers who weren't there. Cars were stopped in the middle of the road, few as they were, with the keys still in the ignition. Neon signs flickered dimly that the empty shops were indeed open, she wondered as to what mysterious forced powered them. Vicki had walked four or so blocks when she came across a neighborhood, here she found something that disturbed her the most. Down the road on the left, in front of the second to last house was an empty school bus with its door wide open as if it was waiting for some mysterious passenger to board. This neighborhood was lined with small homes with picket fences, it almost felt like this place was staged. It felt as if it were a movie set that was abandoned and left to rot as soon as they had finished filming. It was as if everyone in this town had vanished into thin air. Vicki looked at her watch, she was running out of time, it would be dark in another two hours. Okay, I need to think, where would Timmy go? He's a smart guy, much to his credit, so that meant he would go about this logically. He must have woken up before me after the crash. Our phones weren't getting any reception this high up in the mountains and since we were surrounded by miles and miles of forest, he would look for a town or some way to get a hold of someone to help us. Following the road, he would come upon the city limits sign and venture in. Upon finding no one, he would look for medical supplies in this abandoned town. So a best bet to find medical supplies would be in a hospital. So now she needed to find a hospital, this town has to have one, right? She really wished that she had some form of map, wait, she had passed a bus stop earlier. There was usually a map of the town at bus stops, pointing out places of interest to tourist and the like, it would definitely give her a good idea of her surroundings were. She headed back and smiled brightly to herself, she loved being right, there was a map on the wall next to the bus stop bench with an awning over it.
Almost too conveniently, Vicki found a small folded up map of Silent Hill set neatly on the bench. It was being held down against the blowing wind by a 9mm clip. "What the hell?" Vicki examined the pistol ammo before pocketing it. Never know when I might need it. She opened up the map. The sooner I find Timmy, the sooner we can get the hell out of this damn place. She was right once again, a small town like this only had one medical facility, well two but one was an asylum so that didn't count. She set her eyes on the Brookhaven Hospital. Knowing Timmy that would be the first place he'd go to, I'll find him there. Luckily it wasn't that far either, only about three or four blocks over from where she was, she would just have to go through that neighborhood with the school bus again. Vicki tucked the map into her back pocket and made her way towards the hospital. She stopped when she felt a raindrop land on her cheek, she groaned in annoyance, Not now, please don't make this worse than it already is… She touched at it and was shocked to find it was a dirty grey almost black color, she looked up at the grey clouds above her as a light drizzle swept over Silent Hill. The raindrops were a murky gray, almost black. She brought it to her nose, "It almost smells like ashes… but that can't be right" Vicki suddenly recoiled in pain as she felt as if her head was about to split open, her ears were ringing. She shook her head and the noise grew louder, it wasn't a constant buzzing sound but it rose and fell. She realized the noise wasn't in her head and looked up above to see it was a coming from a siren on the corner of the building in front of the bus stop. She had seen these loudspeaker systems on most of the buildings as she walked through the town but had no idea what purpose they served. Now the blaring noise grew louder and louder. Something was happening, the siren was almost deafening now as the sky was growing dark. The drizzle of inky black rain broke out into a full downpour completely blacking out the sky as the siren abruptly went silent. She felt as if she was in a cave. If she hadn't just checked her watch a little bit ago to see that it was near four-o'-clock, she would have figured it to be well past midnight with how dark it was now. There was no way this was natural.
Rifling through her pack, she fumbled in the darkness looking for her flashlight. She knew it was in there somewhere… Paydirt! She pulled out the small flashlight and flicked the switch only to have nothing happen. "No, no, no, no, no! Work, damn it!" she pleaded smacking it a few times hoping that it would spring to life, how the hell am I supposed to find Timmy if I can't see in this darkness? As if her prayers had been answered, a beam of light flickered faintly before going steady. It cut through the darkness as Vicki breathed a sigh of relief, she hadn't check the batteries on this thing in a long time but she was thankful it still worked. The light was nowhere as bright as it should be but she was still able to see about fifteen to twenty feet in front of her. I had thought this place was creepy and disturbing before, now it was terrifying. All she could hear was the occasional crackling of static on her radio and sound of rain pelting the ground around her. Her clothes were already soaked, she needed to get to the hospital as quickly as possible. She would be at risk of catching hypothermia if she stayed out in this rain. She ran through the streets counting the blocks out as she passed them but a thought nagged at the back of her mind. What purpose did the siren serve? It was a warning obviously, it had started blaring as soon as it started to rain, but then the sky also blacked out. Had it been a coincidence that all three things happened at once? She knew better than to ask stupid questions like that. Unlikely as it is, they were indeed related, I just don't know how. A siren meant that someone had to be operating it though. So at least that meant that there were people living here still. Vicki turned down the road with the school bus but stopped dead in her tracks, nearly falling off the edge of the road. The road was just gone, an empty chasm in its place. This made no sense, not fifteen minutes ago this road had been here, and now it was an empty void. If she hadn't stopped running, she would have surely plummeted to her death. Vicki shined her light down into the darkness in an attempt to try and grasp how deep it was, she couldn't see to the bottom. She flashed the light to the left and right to see if there was a way around it, no such luck. Not just the road was gone but so were the buildings and sidewalks. The whole street had sunk into nothingness. Vicki would have to find another route. She pulled out the map, it looked as if there was a back alley a street over where she could cut across to reach the hospital.
Vicki sneezed grumbled under her breath. Damn, looks like I already caught a cold. Today didn't seem to be letting up, what else was this crazy place going to put her through? She sighed as she neared the alley, at least the rain had eased off. Now it was a steady rain instead of a torrential downpour. The alley was riddled with trash and debris. "Why is a fence here?" A padlocked chain link fence stood tall in front of her blocking her path. She let her forehead thump against the wet metal, a tear streaming down her cheek. I need to save him, but I'm being met with obstacle after obstacle at every turn. It was whittling her down, bit by bit. She looked down to see a part of the link fence was loose at the corner. A smile spread across her face, she leaned down and tugged at it, pulling it back enough for her to crawl through. Rather than risk getting stuck, she slid her pack off her shoulders and threw it through the opening. She couldn't really see the other side, she rolled the flashlight along the ground so that it rested on the other side of the fence illuminating down the alley. She turned to look behind her, she could have sworn she heard something but it was difficult to hear anything over the rain and the static of the radio. Has the static always been that bad? It had grown louder but she was afraid to turn it off, fearing that Timmy would be unable to contact her. She attempted to make the opening wider but heard a loud crack of splintering wood. She figured she was better off not testing her luck as she started to crawl through. She was being too brash, she was rushing when she shouldn't have been. Her bandage got caught on a loose nail and tore off but not before the nail dug into her wound and snagged on her skin. She lost her balance and slid forward and wound up tearing out a piece of her flesh. Vicki stifled a scream as she exited the other side of the fence. She struggled to her feet, only to accidentally kick the flashlight in the process causing it to go out as it slapped against the adjacent concrete wall. "Shit." Vicki limped over to her pack. She would definitely be needing stitches for that one, she could feel it. Vicki struggled to put the pack around her shoulders before leaning against the wall for support. Resting for a moment, she panted in pain. I need to find Timmy. He's so close, I just know it; all I have to do is reach the hospital and then things would be fine. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, she looked down at her thigh to find blood gushing from her leg, "How could this get any worse?"
Her radio crackled to life, a roaring static taking her off guard. Down the alley, from a pile of trash bags, what appeared to be a man rose to his feet. Vicki was desperate at this point, "Please, my husband and I were in a crash outside of town and we got separated. We could really use your help, I think he might have gone to the hospital. I hurt my leg, is there any way you could help-" She trailed off, something wasn't right, she felt as if she was in danger. He was standing awkwardly, almost as if he was intoxicated. Vicki leaned down to pick up the flashlight off the floor. It didn't seem like the man had noticed her but he seemed to be twitching in tandem with the static of her radio. Maybe he's some kind of drug addict, definitely not what I want to be dealing with right now. She smacked the flashlight and it jumped to life. She shined the light at him only to freeze in horror. It wasn't a man at all… Its bones cracked and its head shook wildly as it seemed to have finally noticed her. As it shambled towards her, the static from her radio distorted and grew louder. Vicki was frozen in place, nowhere to run, terrified out of her mind by what stood before her…
AN: Thank you for taking the time to read this, I really do appreciate it. Reviews are welcome. Now before anyone jumps to any conclusions, let me make it clear, Mended Bonds is not on hiatus or anything like that, it will actually be updated by tonight at 6pm. I've never written a horror story before, so this was actually a lot of fun. I've written scary short stories before but always struggled with making them longer. This isn't going to be a one shot, it's going to be a full blow story with heavy influence from Silent Hill along with other horror games. I hope you all enjoy this tale as it will also serve as practice for my pacing to help better my stories down the line. Again, thank you for your time. It's rated M for a reason, disturbing content, a considerable amount of violence, and mild swearing throughout.
