Yeah I'm not gonna narrate in the first person anymore. I tried this chapter like three times with Claire narrating and I couldn't get the same sense and mood that I managed with normal third person narrative. But hey, I did warn that this was a raw WIP that could chop and change to any degree at any moment ;)
Telaka
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Claire made it out of the wooded trail and into Silent Hill almost entirely by accident.
Her mind had dragged her into a distraction of reminiscent woes, and whilst drifting in these mental matters she had suddenly found she wasn't on the same straight, downward south facing course the map had been telling her to follow. So it was in looking frantically for any sort of familiar landmark that she had coincidently tripped over a half-buried log and felt her balance betray her as she was dragged to the ground, rolling down a dug out scoop in the land, bouncing painfully over her limbs and torso until finally she grinded to a halt on hard, flat concrete.
For a long moment she simply lay on her stomach with her cheek rested on the ground, pinned partly by the stars dancing around the circumference of her vision and partly by humiliation. Then a slow reality dawned on the young Redfield and she forced herself up with a bounce. She had made it onto a road. Though faint and broken, Claire spotted the universal white lines that separated all roads' two halves through the persistent fog.
For a moment she was held, enigmatically, by their simple pattern, as she unconsciously made a check of her person to assure she still had her rucksack and gun, and in her shoulder pouch her knife.
Then she began to spot movement up ahead. She focused slowly on the close horizon, and just a moment later Claire found herself face to face with Hell.
It withered out of the density of the fog like a drowning figure surfacing from water, a mark of coal black against the milky air. Tall and tortured, it made heavy, slapping footsteps as it staggered towards her and then, when it clapped its sightless face on Claire, it screamed, piercing the unnatural silence with an altogether more abominable noise.
For just a second, stuck in a limbo of utter shock, Claire simply watched the—creature emerge towards her, without warning, as if it had come fresh from the pits of her very worst nightmare. It (she barely distinguished it as some sort of mutated human form) was armless and faceless, as if it had been bound with rags and then judging by its sickly sheen, painted in tar or oil. When it screamed the lower half of its bald, oval head stretched and morphed down towards its chest, as if it had once had a gaping mouth, and it was yelling for it to be returned to it. Its feet turned inwards, toes webbed, its jaunt staggered and badly balanced.
Though it had no eyes it seemed to pierce Claire with an invisible stare, and she gathered a sense from it that it wanted to project all its vengeful desires onto her.
There was another scream and this time Claire joined in, creating a harmony of anger, confusion and unadulterated terror.
She carried on screaming as she groped for her gun, her fingers suddenly feeling like rubber, her thumbs completely numb. But she willed herself into action, just like she'd had to in Racoon City, and she was finally rewarded for her strain with the feeling of cold metal against her palm.
Claire whipped the barrel of the simple 9mm round and fired without thought – for she knew thinking led to hesitation, and that had been one of the hardest lessons she'd learnt in Racoon.
She hit the creature's chest and it staggered backwards, tipping its head to the white sky and gurgling as if it were choking.
Good, mortal, and weak… her instincts reasoned.
Encouraged she hit it again and this time it timbered forward, landing with a sickening crack on its chin. Its whole body withered and twitched and finally it came to a stony stillness.
Claire's ears were ringing. Before she could realise it, her legs were running too.
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She ran until she felt fit to burst, her chest afire and her lungs aching. She stumbled over her own toes and barely managed to remain vertical so she gripped her knees with her trembling fingers and heaved in air, partly to catch her breath and partly to catch some sanity.
Now instead of trees she was surrounded by buildings, at the cusp of a long street that looking like once upon a time it would have bustled on a weekend. She caught the street name on a four story shop/apartment block – Sanders Street. Pulling the map from her rucksack Claire corresponded with it and found the information matched up; she had just finished running from Wiltse Road, where she had taken the scenic, woodland route instead of the road itself, and had landed on one of the main arteries of Silent Hill. To either side of her cutting through Sanders was Lindsey Street, and parallel to the road she was on now was Katz Street.
She absorbed the names and at the same time ignored how useless it all was when she hardly knew where to start. Her stomach growled. She felt sick but she was also hungry. A strange mixture of desires was giving her cramp. She wanted to leave this town now because nothing she had encountered so far equalled up to a rosy experience. Yet she was bound by her need to investigate Umbrella and more desperately to find Chris. The only thing she had been assured of now was that there was a strong possibility, almost a definite one, that Umbrella had been or was here, what with the faceless, limbless monsters running rampant along the roadside. Who knew what sins against humanity they had caused to create that one…
Claire checked the map again, trying desperately to push the encounter to the back of her mind, out of her mind if at all possible. According to the reddy-brown ink there was a 'Happy Burger' at the far end of the street she was on. It sounded both comical and ironic. She might have smiled in better times.
Folding the paper away Claire pushed on, now understanding that if she were lucky at all, there would be no residents to Silent Hill; at best she would be entirely alone.
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She dropped her rucksack onto a steel, ash covered table with a dead thud. The interior to Happy Burger did not promise much. Most of the furniture was rusty or broken, the walls peeling and damp. The worktop counter where Claire envisioned many a happy, processed beef burgers to have passed over was grimy and smeared with brown marks.
She left her rucksack and wandered around the small, square lot, checking dusty corners and menus, memos on the cash registers and even graffiti on the undersides of upturned tables. Clues. She needed to find something, anything, because now that she was here in Silent Hill she was running on almost empty.
But there seemed to be nothing. One table told her that 'James Luvs Heather' in messy black marker. Another post-it note informed her that 'Laura Eats Wurms.' Claire crinkled her nose. It was just like everyone had decided to abandon shop one day ten years ago and never came back.
In effect of that, there was also no food. Claire sat defeated for the time being at the table with her rucksack. She dug in with her hand and pulled out the remainder of her sandwich. Unenthusiastically she ate and as she ate she opened up the little collection of memos she had found in the desert and began to read. One newspaper cut-out caught her attention first. It was a small article, likely a filler for a middle page, and yet its title said it all.
Unrest Over Silent Hill
Today the clairvoyants, mediums and cultists of West Coat America spoke out together in alarming force. Usually a secretive and quiet segment of our society, these 'unique' minds gathered in their separate thousands alongside relevant 'paranormal hotspots' in the hope of urging the government to once and for all decimate the town of Silent Hill. It has been claimed as a whole by the groups that the town has recently upset many frequencies and channels that connect our's and the Afterlife's worlds. Of course sceptics dismissed this unified and rarely raised voice, explaining that though the coal fires of Silent Hill have of late caused a handful of dangerous explosions, no one officially occupies the town anymore and so this is of no immediate concern to anyone, certainly not to those in the Afterlife. However protests continue for as long as the government continues to dismiss the allegations.
This event comes off the back of the recent tragedy of Racoon City, which was indeed entirely decimated under circumstances which remain strongly debated in public opinion. For one, this reporter believes it is safe to assume at least that the government will not be issuing any more destruction orders under any light advice.
Sandra Commons
Journalist
Claire found the last chunk of her sandwich impossible to swallow and so she spat it back out into its wrapper whilst still locked onto the article.
They had spent about a week in the desert before they had found the book. And where they had found it looked like a place that had not been touched in years. The book itself had been blanketed in dust and grime and still it smelled of old damp. Yet it contained recent articles upon the official report on Racoon City.
Claire pushed the memos away with her hand and turned to face the floor. She felt cramp in her stomach again and a swell in her throat. She wasn't smart enough for this sort of stuff, not when she was riding solo. At least in Racoon she had had Leon across the radio at points and Sherry as an encouragement at her side. Here she had nothing but her miserable, half-insane self and no promise that she would find even a clue as to where Chris might be. The book was only confusing and quite creepy. Not that the entire town didn't make her skin crawl every time a piece of ash landed on her nose or she caught the smell of burning damp wood.
So there were coal fires burning under her feet somewhere… Disturbing though that was, at least it was a fact, she had learnt something.
And the town's been cleaned out because of it. Theoretically no one should be living here. Perfect for Umbrella to come and set up a little camp of their own, carry out some experiments that no corner of humanity would ever allow.
Claire sat up again. A small part of her felt better for trying to figure some things out. It wasn't entirely likely that she had wasted her time and risked her life coming here. She simply had to look. Perhaps in the Woodside Apartment block, or the Brookhaven hospital. Somewhere likely to have records or signs of recent human activity.
She let out a sigh and relaxed her shoulders. What she needed was something like a list of Umbrella's hotspots, or bee's-knees names. So that was what she would look for. Now that she had an objective she could carry on.
She made to stand up when she saw the tall, half-human dark figure standing behind the service counter. Her blood ran cold and her heart quite literally stopped as she was forced back onto the chair.
He made no sound or movement, not even a gesture of breathing. He was staring right at her, only clothed from the waist down in a bloody apron, his skin across his muscle-bound arms pallid and welted. A giant sword was held loosely in his right hand, rusted and smeared in dark red. He, like the monster on the road, had no face. Instead he had a head of long, heavy metal, pyramid in shape and awkward on his neck.
As she felt herself confronted, Claire realised she could not breath. She clutched at her chest then pounded at it with her fist but no air would come in or out. Torn between the horror before her and the terror of the pain in her lungs, her sight began to waver and distort. Everything spun like it was going through a washer. The thing behind the counter still did not move yet the whole of Happy Burger seemed to grow huge and pulsing. She slid off the chair, onto her knees gasping and feeling the colour drain from her face then wash in again in blues and purples. Her lips went numb, her stomach flipped and then she felt a flash of pain as the side of her head struck the black and white tiled floor. She clawed at dust weakly, fighting the battle to stay aware. Oddly, from under the counter she caught the sight of a pair of webbed feet, standing solidly, motionless. Next to the right foot a point of dull silver glimmered. It was the last thing she noticed before everything went grey, then pitch black.