The Otherworld calls to you, whispers to you. It wants you to face your fears, and your inner demons. Most of those demons are merely grotesque shadows, designed to scare and confuse you. But they're nothing compared to that One.

You know him. You see him in your nightmares. He takes many forms: a giant masked executioner, wielding a deadly weapon- perhaps a long rusty knife, or a butcher's cleaver, or a grand hammer with a cinderblock for a gavel. Whatever his form is, his motive is always the same: conquer, or be conquered. And while some have faced this monster and defeated it, others weren't so lucky.

Heaven help the poor soul who falls… to the Bogeyman.

.

III: You Bring Out the Worst In Me

.

No one ever had a bad thing to say about Randal King, not even the kids that struggled through his classes. At thirty-seven, he was a tall and slim Caucasian man with light blue eyes and light brown hair that was turning grey on the sides of his face. Strange that he was already greying in his late thirties; perhaps it was genetic. But he showed no signs of weakness, other than his soft, almost timid voice.

Randal was in his 8am Algebra class that fateful morning, sitting at his desk while students began to enter and take their seats. But he wasn't quite ready to lecture them just yet, not until he first skimmed through his personal journal, which he pulled out from a drawer in his desk. He had turned to the seventh page in his book; the first line read, "Monday, August 20, 10:15 am-10:46am," while the very next line read, "Wednesday, September 12, 5:12pm-6:59pm," and the next read, "Wednesday, September 12, 10:43pm-12:02am." The next dates and times were all over the place, between mid-September and early October of that year. At the moment, he seemed to have been studying the list as though he was looking for a pattern in the dates, hours and so on, but he was at a loss. He then started to write down the moon phases next to the hours in a faint hope that the moon may have held the key to a mystery he was trying to solve.

That's when a cold chill fell upon the classroom. The lights on the ceiling flickered for a brief moment, but it seemed that only Randal noticed and glanced upward while his half-asleep students chatted amongst each other. Randal's eyes were fixed on the ceiling; he could smell that familiar scent of damp concrete emulating from there. Quickly, he turned the page of his journal to the next empty space, and quickly jotted down: "Thursday, October 18…" he checked his watch before writing, "7:58am…" Suddenly the room became warm, bright and scent-free again. He sighed and added a period next to the new time in his book.

That's when he heard a young girl screaming in the hallway. Alarmed, he jumped out of his seat and dashed out of his classroom. Young Samantha Wallace was running out of the bathroom in the all, with a trembling finger pointing at the doorway.

"Samantha. What happened, who's in there?" he asked hurriedly.

She opened her mouth but couldn't speak; she was beside herself in horror.

Randal gently pushed her aside to approach the bathroom, and when he opened the door, he was met with a truly gruesome sight: the body of young Kaitlyn Lancaster with her head shoved halfway into the mirror of the sink wall. He couldn't scream, he could only gasp and mutter gravely, "Oh God… Kaitlyn, what have you done?"

.

The Police Station, 3pm.

I had interviewed Samantha Wallace earlier, and the parents of the recently deceased Kait. Now it came time to speak to the one other man who found the body in the bathroom: Randal King. There was no reason for me to suspect him of the girl's murder, but as soon as I saw him enter the station to be interviewed, I felt a tingle down my spine. We glanced each other for a moment, and in that moment I examined him: clean face, icy blue eyes, soft tan hair brushed backward, silver sideburns, and a preppy pine green sweater over a white blouse and black tie, with rich dark brown suit pants. A real modern day Mister Rogers, I thought. This man looked so picture perfect that I couldn't help but imagine that he was hiding something behind his charming looks. Perhaps I had been at this job for too long- or perhaps I've been in this town for too long- but I couldn't shake the dark suspicion I had for this man. I couldn't wait for the interview.

I sat across from him at a table in a room small enough to make a claustrophobic cringe. I held out two school photos of the victim, Kait Lancaster, as if I suspected him of her murder. "Just say for the record what your name is for starters," I said in a dark voice.

The teacher squirmed in his seat nervously. "My name is Randal King, I'm a teacher at Midwich High."

"Tell me what you know about Kait. What was she like? Did she seem depressed to you? Were there signs that she might have been suicidal?"

He swallowed. "Sh-she was very quiet in my class, never raised her hand to answer one of my questions. But she always sat in the far back- I think she was ashamed of her scars."

"Do you know how she got those scars, Mr. King?"

"I've heard she got them from a fire- er, an accident."

"She was in a fire- a church fire, which she started. You know anything about it?"

His eyes darted for a moment. It was a clear sign that he did know of the fire, and wasn't sure how to respond. "It was the old Balkan church on Bloch Street. Wasn't it?"

"Yes. That was four months ago."

He bowed his head slightly. "That poor girl. It must have been traumatizing… Still, I wasn't sure if there was anything I could have done for her- I'm just a teacher, not a counselor."

"I understand. But did she have a counselor? Anyone at all?"

He shook his head. "I don't know…"

He was clearly nervous about something; he was sweating slightly, and I can tell you that the lighting in the room was nowhere near hot enough to cause a heat wave. Holding back my suspicions, I leaned back in my chair and said as calmly as ever, "So basically what you're telling me is, you know absolutely nothing."

"That's what I'm telling you," he confirmed.

I wasn't buying it. Something about this guy rubbed me the wrong way, and I wasn't about to let him leave. I changed the subject: "So tell me, me, Mister King, what do you teach at the school?"

"Algebra I and II, and Biology."

"Ah… Do your students cut up dead animals?"

"You mean dissect them? Yes, once a year I go through that with the juniors and seniors."

"Frogs?"

"Sometimes frogs, other times mice."

"Gross."

"What's gross, Detective? Their innards, or the fact that we cut them open?"

"Both. I remember I had to open a toad in high school; I almost lost my lunch in front of everybody." I wasn't lying; I had a weak stomach back then- of course, that was before I started seeing zombie dogs with sliced-open heads.

"I'm sorry if that offends you, Detective, but it's part of the school's criteria. It won't change unless teachers sign a petition to ban dissections in school."

The demeanor in his voice started to change from timid to confident; I had him in his element now. Perhaps this was my moment to pounce: "Kait was in your biology class, wasn't she?"

"Yes, but she was a sophomore. Sophomores don't dissect animals."

"But did she struggle at all in your classes?"

"No, she was a very good student, she just never spoke up."

Damn. I was losing my case. I thought I had him, and now he was becoming more confident than ever. It was time to pull out all the stops: "What about your other students? Did you notice any hostility from them toward her?"

"Hostility? What do you mean?"

"Did you spot them teasing her, or taunting her in any way?"

His bottom lip quivered. "I… I don't… I'm not sure."

"Mister King. Do you have any reason at all to suspect that this wasn't a suicide? That it was foul play?"

He let out a gasp of horror. "How… How could you say that? About my students! They're all good kids, Detective! No, there is no way any one of them would have done this to Kaitlyn! This is… I have nothing more to say." In his fit of anger, he rose to his feet and prepared to storm off.

I tried to stop him by saying, "This interview isn't over, Mister King."

"It is over!" he snapped back, and stormed out the door. "If you want to speak to me again, Detective, you'll hear from my lawyer."

I followed behind him, but I knew it was hopeless. His statement was recorded, and there was no evidence to back my suspicions of him or that he was hiding anything. But just as he started to put on his dark overcoat, his blouse sleeve was pulled back slightly, and I swear I saw a hint of red on his arm. I would have said something about it, but he was too quick to march out of the police station, a free man.

I made a mental note: keep an eye on that one, and don't forget the red on his arm.

.

5:42pm.

I got home just in time for Howard Blackwood to show up at my door, pushing small letters into the inbox nailed to my front door, while carrying his oversized mailbag over his right arm. Funny, I didn't usually get mail so late in the day.

As I pulled into the driveway, he gave me a friendly wave. "Good afternoon, Ms. Mason."

I got out of the car and smiled back. "Hey, Howard. Get any good news for me today?"

"Sorry Ms. Mason," shrugged the old mailman, "just the monthly bills… Oh, but there is this one big package, here." He reached into his mailbag and pulled out a small wrapped box. "It's got your name on it- no address, but lucky for me I know where you live."

"Hmm," I purred as he handed me the small box. "No return address, either."

"Seems like whoever made it was in a hurry," shrugged the mailman. "Well, I gotta go. So many letters, so little time. Bye, Ms. Mason."

I waved goodbye before entering my house, unable to keep my eyes off of the box.

I lived alone, with only one couch in my living room that sat opposite my television set. There wasn't much else to see in the room, except for the lamps on their small tables, one of which also held a small picture frame with a photo of my father in it. There is rarely a moment that I pass by that picture without looking or glancing at it. Sometimes it helps just to remember what he looked like. ...But now I'm getting off topic; back to the box.

I walked into the dining room and placed the box on the table before taking a pair of scissors from the kitchen to swipe the taping from its hinges. Not sure what to expect, I kept the box as much in tact as I could, almost like someone trying to diffuse a bomb. But when I opened it, I peeked in and saw something twinkle- metal luster. I pulled out from the box a small object made from fused metals into a circle, with a glass frame. Inside the frame was a small red triangle, floating and bobbing left and right; I could only guess that the interior was filled with water to give the triangle buoyance.

"What is this? …Some kind of compass?" I wondered aloud.

There were hand-painted black lines in the frame, each pointing outward from all sides like the minutes and hours of a clock. This could have been a compass, except there wasn't any sign of a magnet being used, because the red triangle- the arrow- was bobbing in all directions. Who makes a compass like this?

Then I turned the object around to observe the back, and saw a very familiar image: scratched into the fine rusty metal were two circles, one inside the other, and in the center of the smaller one was a pyramid with squiggly lines running through it. There were squiggly lines running between the circles like smaller symbols, but they were so mismatched and simplistic that they'd be hard to decipher. I've seen this symbol once before and I've sworn I'd never forget it: The Seal of Metatron.

A chill ran down my spine as it hit me just who sent this package. "Valtiel…?"

.

A few days went by, and life for Randal seemed to be back on track, only now he had a permanent frown on his face. He was clearly still distraught from the sudden loss of one of his favorite students, but true to form he kept his feelings to a minimum.

He couldn't take his eyes off of that one page with its last entry: "Thursday, October 18, 7:58am." He remembered vividly the moment when he felt that familiar chill in the air, the kind of chill that can only come from the dead of winter, and that disgusting smell of damp stone coming from the ceiling. There was no sign of water dripping from there, so it had to be a sign from that other realm. He also remembered that it was the minute in which Kaitlyn died. Surely, this was no coincidence. She was the one It called to.

Unable to cope with this revelation, he closed his journal, out it in his suitcase and stood up from his table to announce, "Everyone, listen up. I'm suddenly taken ill, so we'll be ending this session early today."

There were no arguments from the already bored to death students; some even cheered softly as they jumped from their seats. There was no celebrating in Randal's mind; what he was sensing could no longer be ignored. He had to get out of there, he just had to.

.

Randal King lived alone, in a small house in the rural area just outside Central Silent Hill. His home had nothing much to speak of, just the usual furniture and electric appliances. Except there was no television, and the only telephone he had was an old-fashioned one with a wheel-turn dial. He seemed to be living in the 1930s, or something, and that's the kind of reaction one would have at just the first glance of this house. But there was so much more to it than that…

In his bedroom, he threw off his suit jacket onto his bed and even discarded his sweater and necktie until he had nothing left but his blouse and suit pants. Then from his closet, he pulled out the one garment that very few people would ever dare own: a red robe, the kind you might find being worn by a choir member in church. Only this robe also had a monk-like hood to it; dressing in the robe, he threw the hood over his face. He then grabbed a small satchel on his dresser and took off.

With satchel over his arm, he descended into his basement where his most secret of books lined up in shelves along the walls. There were even hand-painted drawings of old relics on the wall, symbols that could have been traced back to Ancient Egypt or even Babylon. But there was only one book that he needed, one he pulled from a desk near the center of the room: his prayer book. He flipped through the pages until he came to the one that instructed a ritual that involved finger-painting the floor in red. When he did this, his index finger made two circles, one smaller than the other, and a triangle in the very center with squiggly lines running through it. When he completed the Seal of Metatron, he knew to stand directly in its center, and with book in hand, he had to call out the following words:

"In the name of Mighty Samael, Mother and Father, Creator and Destroyer, I pray that thee open the Gates of Darkness and allow me entry. Great Valtiel, protect me. Great Judge, have mercy on me. I come to you willingly, body and soul. Mighty Samael, Mother and Father…"

There was a small rumble in the ground, which stopped him in mid-chant. The walls cracked, including the book shelves like they were made of paper. Everything withered away except for the seal and the man trapped inside it, giving way to a void of darkness.

When he inhaled, he became overwhelmed by that disgusting scent of dampness, as though a torrent had passed by and drowned the entire room. He winced in disgust, but he knew now that he was there, in the Other Realm. Though technically he was still in his basement and house, only now nothing looked quite the same; the walls were stripped bare, and there was very little light. He was wise to have been carrying a satchel with him, for inside was a flashlight. He pulled it out and flicked it on, and observed the grimy mold on the walls. None of this was real, he reminded himself. He then followed the light to the stairs and onto the first phase of his investigation.

.

It took a little while for the compass' arrow to finally settle on a point, and when it did I jumped into my car and decided to follow its direction. With the compass in my passenger's seat, my eyes switched from the road ahead to the pointing arrow every now and again to see if I was following it correctly. I was halfway into the midtown area when a sudden wall of smoke came toward my path. I knew this cloud of dust all too well.

"Oh no… Not now…!"

I was forced to park the car on the side of the street as the wall of murky fog took me in… I paused, grasping my arms as a wintry chill hit my face. I seized the compass in one hand, my revolver in the other, and carefully got out of the car and started to walk aimlessly in the fog. It wasn't long until I heard eerie howling sounds in the distance, and though my vision was almost completely blinded by the mist, I could hear paws charging toward me.

"Relax, Cheryl… They're just shadows… Just sha-YAGH!" I squealed as I dodged a four-legged beast jumping toward me. I couldn't tell if it was one of those Split-Heads, but it was definitely shaped like a canine.

"Dogs… Why are there always dogs here?"

Aside from the compass, the only other thing I had on me to light my way was a small flashlight that I had pinned to my jacket. Not that it really mattered, because even with a beam of light ahead of me there was hardly anything to see except smoke. But the compass was still pointing forward, and I had no choice but to follow it.

God, how I hated this Otherworld. I must have been in it for over an hour, dodging screaming shadows and charging beasts while following a makeshift compass and fighting my way through mist that could suffocate you. I often wonder if Dad ever had to go through something like this? But finally, after what felt like forever, the compass' arrow shifted right and it led me straight to a small house in the middle of nowhere.

Carefully I opened the door, and realized that it was unlocked; the compass must have brought me here for a reason. I entered the house, and everything seemed normal for once. I could no longer see fog, but instead a well-kept living room with no blood on the walls or rusty old metal sheets. The only thing strange about the place was that there was no television. "Huh. Did I walk into an Amish house?"

I wasn't out of the Otherworld yet; I could still smell rust and wet dirt in the air. I turned in every direction so that m flashlight could catch any signs of monsters, but it seemed I was all alone. But then as I turned to my far left, I spotted a suitcase on the couch by the windows. I approached it and looked inside and found a small grey-covered book. It looked like a journal. I read the first page: "Randal King/ 555-2514," it read. The teacher I spoke to earlier; that info alone gave me enough motivation to open the book.

I was surprised to see that there were no actual entries in the book, except for dates and times. They all seemed random and without purpose, and I almost put the book down before I stopped at one page near the center and read one line: "April 15th, 6:48pm-8:15pm." …Funny, that date seemed familiar. I read on: "May 18th, 4:45pm… May 19th, 3:30pm… May 30th, 2:21pm… June 21st, 3:50pm." Wait, I remembered that date; that's when I found that one guy screaming for help. He was being chased by his own monsters in the street, not realizing that he was shooting at innocent bystanders.

I read another entry: "July 10, 6:12am." Yes, the nurse in the hospital who was crying, saying she saw her past patients coming back to life and attacking her. Both cases involved people being pulled into the Otherworld. As I skimmed through more pages, I could see that they were all times and dates when I was aware that the Otherworld had opened up. And that's when it hit me: King was there when all of these cases took place. He had to have been there! …But how, I wondered?

I looked down at the compass and saw that it was still pointing forward, and so I followed it through the dining room, into the kitchen, and toward a closed door that was probably concealing the basement. I reached for the knob, and saw that it was unlocked. And so, I entered.

God, the smell of that basement was horrible! It smelled like someone turned on a hose, drenched the place and left it to rot. I had to cover my mouth and nose with a handkerchief I kept in my jacket pocket. My flashlight skimmed across the walls, and saw nothing too out of the ordinary, aside from the rust and mold. But my compass was now pointing straight downward. When I looked down on the floor, I couldn't believe my eyes. In fact, I let out a gasp in reaction to it, the red-painted Seal of Metatron. The compass' arrow was pointing directly at it, and I now knew what it meant.

I grit my teeth in refueled anger. "Son of a bitch..."

.

Randal had left his house long before I arrived, still wearing his red hooded robe and carrying his satchel and flashlight through the eerie mist. He too seemed lost, but was far less afraid than even I would be, because he had been in this world more frequently. In fact, he passed by many grotesque, fleshy creatures along his path without even flinching, mostly because he was equipped with a special pair of binoculars blessed by dark magic; peering through them, he could see which creatures were friendly, and which were not. Most of them as it turned out were just lost and confused souls, trying to find their own way through the fog.

"I have to remember where the school was," he told himself as he pressed on.

.

Suddenly, the compass's arrow twitched and pointed South, showing that it no longer had an interest in the Seal of Metatron. Curiously I followed its direction out of the house. Waiting for me outside was a tall fleshy figure with its face almost completely covered in bandages like a mummy in one of those old movies. It howled and swiped at me with elongated fingers, but I was quick to dodge it. Did he summon this thing against me, I wondered?

As I continued on my path, my suspicions of King began to grow. I had an unsettling feeling that he was the one behind this new Otherworld. Perhaps he even had a part in Kait's death. With all of these and other suspicions growing in my head, I started to care less and less about the shadows lurking in the fog. I just had to keep following m compass as its arrow veered left and right, focused on something that was on the move.

When the compass' arrow finally began to stop squirming, its direction stopped at the front of Midwich High, the location of the recent suicide. I gulped and readied my gun as I forced myself toward unknown danger.

.

Randal started to breathe heavier as he took note of the school's interior; the hallway where there should have been lockers and doors to classrooms was instead replaced by long jetting pipes with steam spouting from ventilations. This looked more like an extended boiler room than a school. And indeed, it was so hot in there that he began to sweat. He wiped his brow momentarily when he heard something creaking. A door, perhaps?

He dared to call out, "Kaitlyn? …Kaitlyn, are you there? It's me, Mister King. I'm here to help you…" But no answer. He had to press on, while his pulse started to quicken.

.

While there was still mist snaking the floor, I could see my way through the school's hallway. It seemed harmless enough; there were still lockers and classroom doors, and the occasional trashcan. But which door to open, I wondered? I started to examine each door as I passed them by; the first two were locked, the third was just a bathroom with the same familiar rust and grime. I had no interest in empty rooms, so I went on to the next door. This one was unlocked, and I entered.

Inside the first classroom, there were no desks for students or even a teacher, and where there should have been a blackboard seemed like a giant void instead. When I gazed into it, I saw a tall figure with a white mask with no mouth, just black eyes and the rest of it covered by a long black veil. I shot my gun at it, and it shattered into pieces. As it turns out, it was just a mirror all along… But wait. "Was that… my reflection?"

.

He heard a noise coming from the path behind him. He jumped and pulled out his binoculars. No sign of life; whatever it was, it must have been coming from far down in the hall. But he had already crossed this way. Did he miss something? He decided to backtrack to make sure no stone was unturned.

.

The walls were starting to fade from white to red, as if blood was starting to pour from the ceiling. Deep down I was hoping- almost praying- that my friend Valtiel was nearby. If my guess was correct, and he did indeed send me this compass, then he must have been somewhere and watching my back. I wanted to look around for him, but was almost afraid to; I was already spooked once by a mirror. I kept walking down that seemingly endless hall when I started to notice a network of steam pipes snaking across the walls- the landscape was shifting, a first for me.

Then I heard them: paw steps. Somewhere up ahead, slowly coming closer. The arrow in my compass was pointing straight ahead. Something was here, something bad. I held my gun close to me, expecting the worst.

.

He had no weapon, at least not in hand. But he was aware that he was not alone; something was creeping up behind him, something big and possibly bad. He reached into his satchel, replacing his binoculars with a small cutting knife, the kind one keeps in the kitchen. Even if this was Kaitlyn approaching, he couldn't take any chances.

Then at last, just when the suspense was getting to him, a figure appeared out of the dark: a very tall figure, womanly shaped but veiled in a long black robe, the top half of its face covered by a metallic dome, while the bottom half had a mouth with lips stretched all the way to its ears, as though something had sliced them like that. When its mouth opened, it gave out a snake-like hiss with rows and rows of tiny needle-like fangs. In its right claw was a chain with a flanged mace on its end.

"Oh God," he muttered, his hands trembling. "Justice… Justice, have mercy on me."

.

"What the hell are you?" I asked the creature that stood before me.

It was a giant wolf-like beast- yes, it was definitely a wolf and not a dog- but it was hairless with burning red skin. It had two faces fused together, with overlapping jaws and three eyes. It didn't say anything in reply, just gave out a low gurgle. I had to choice but to fire my gun.

.

Justice threw out her mace, and he dodged it.

.

He dodged m bullet, despite his massive size. How could that be? I fired again.

.

She threw out her mace again, and it scraped the wall behind him. Randal threw himself to the floor, unsure of what to do. Could he find the courage to stab this creature, or was this his fate?

.

The two-faced red wolf threw itself onto the ground; perhaps it was just testing me. I hesitated, but was still aiming my gun at it. Why wasn't it attacking? …Was it afraid?

.

Oh, yes. He was very much afraid. Desperately, he reached into his satchel for another item, but his adversary wouldn't give him a chance.

.

I saw its head(s) rearing back and I muttered, "Oh no, you don't." I came at it with my gun blazing.

.

She came at him with mace swinging. There was no other option for him, it was time to face the Bogeyman.

It was time to face… me.

.

TBC