She woke up coughing. Her impulses got the best of her this time, before she'd even opened her eyes she moved her hand down to her pocket and fished out the lighter and with the other hand a cigarette. She pushed it to her lips, which were now dry as a bone and hurt to form into the little shape she needed to breathe in the smoke. She gained the courage to open her eyes. It was daylight again, foggy, but still day. She felt her heart nearly trip over itself in the excitement.
She sat up, coughing roughly as she did, waiting for the wave to hit her. It was weak when it came, she felt distant as she smoked it, like she wasn't really here, just strapped into the matrix or something. She looked toward the door she'd come out of. It had black marks around the edges, and the glass window about the size of an A4 sheet of paper was cracked and covered in soot. She had been sleeping on her bag, and felt a small niggle in her back as she sat. She stretched her legs a little as she did this, trying to wake herself up.
Sarah didn't realize that time was getting away from her that much until she noticed she'd already smoked the cigarette down to the butt. She threw it at the door and looked around for the shotgun. She felt a lot safer with it now, like she didn't need keys anymore. She felt a little crazy doing it, but she was also surprised by her resourcefulness. She picked it up from her side with her right hand. It hurt a little her arm, so she pulled it up to have a look at it.
She spat a little as she gasped; a large, deep cut ran all the way up the inside of her forearm. She thought she must have done something in the fire station, but reconsidered as she saw how deep and clean it was. She felt the pain reach her head now, finding a spot next to all the other pain, but like most two year olds, trying to yell over the top to get the most attention. She rummaged through her backpack looking for the first aid kit.
Inside was the same goodies which she found in the caravan. There was the oxydol, which she poured onto the cut, feeling it burn the surface before foaming a little. She grabbed the bandage and wrapped her arm up tight, feeling her fingers tighten just a little. Had this happened in her sleep? Surely she would have been woken up by this? Was she drugged? Who would do something like that? She finished off the bandage as these thoughts banged around clumsily in her head. The bandage soaked in a little red before the bleeding stopped. She found some large patches in the kit too, and decided to stick them on her legs. She used the rest of the burning solution and stuck all of the patches on her shins. Feeling like a queen for once, she took the remaining contents of the kit, just a few cotton balls and wiped her face, clearing up all the blood and sweat and dirt.
Throwing away the empty tin, she got up, now smelling something which she hadn't before. The smell of fire, or of smoke anyway. She knew from her childhood near here that the town had a lot of trees around it and in it, and hoped that it wasn't a forest fire. She sniffed through her bloody nose for a bit before deciding that it was probably nothing. She noticed now that she was in a small alleyway behind the fire station. It had a concrete and wire fence to one side and a small fence to the other. She could almost see a road at the end.
She collected her things and started to walk to the roadside, and she felt the smell getting stronger. She was curious to know where the smell was coming from, so she started looking around. It was now intense, clouding her head. She couldn't tell if she was walking through fog or smoke, until she found the source. Behind the short fence on her left was a large, shapeless, black mass. This wasn't a monster though, smoke was pouring out of this. It looked like someone had been burning garbage outside of the garage. She saw burnt out drums and cans which she thought might have contained oil or other flammable things.
"That must have been that heat" she thought aloud in a whisper, as she found herself at the fence now, peering in and closely analyzing the various junk. It looked like the contents of a house or something, couches, televisions, various pots and pans, a bathtub. "It doesn't matter" she thought as she moved away from the fence and toward the street again.
She hoped that she was at Nathan Avenue this time, as she was sick of trying to navigate this towns back streets, simple as they were. She slowly moved to the corner looking for a street sign. "Lindsey St" said one, and "Vachss Rd" on the other. She quickly whipped out her map and tried to find Vachss Road on it. At first she thought that it didn't exist, but she looked harder and found it to be halfway along Lindsey street, a sort of bendy road which led up to Nathan Avenue. It looked to her like a shortcut.
She looked along Vachss Road into the fog. It had single story buildings on both sides, one as plain as the other. One was a yellow sort of color and had small windows, the other was simply gray and had a roller door halfway along. She started to shift one foot in front of the other like she'd absent mindedly done before. She felt she was losing her grip a little, understandably, however she was acting a little more out of impulse every time she did something. She walked along the road, not seeing anything unusual or threatening. She felt herself relax, a fraction at a time, until she reached a small, waist height fence to her left.
There was nothing in there, it looked like it was someones little backyard, as cramped as it was. There was a wooden table to one side and a small, beaten up dog house to the other. There was even a barbecue. She suddenly felt alone, on edge and frightened. She hadn't seen anyone, not a fugitive hiding out, a misguided youth squatting in the houses. She felt that the fog was the only thing that could give her a little peace. She let it wrap around her, like a security blanket, she felt like a child not allowed to watch the news because it could be disturbing.
She kept walking, realizing that she'd long ago walked past the small courtyard. She was now walking on road which didn't have anything on either side, it was fairly loose gravel. A barbed wire fence was on her left, strung up between thin pieces of rotted wood. The other side was just the back of buildings, clearly the road had started curving around, taking Sarah for the ride.
She soon found herself at the opening of a small tunnel, simply running underneath Nathan Avenue. A sign was on the inside of it, so she moved up to it to see if she could get onto the main road this way. It had two arrows, one pointing on through the tunnel, stating that she could follow that direction to get to Toluca Lake. The other said that she was, although she already knew, under Nathan Avenue.
She felt frustration creeping in to the pain center of her brain, as if the rest had been flooded and this was the only place feelings could go to be heard. She thought she might as well have a look at the lake, for old times sake. She continued down the trail, which eventually turned to loose gravel and then dirt, getting narrower all the time, turning from a possible road to a very cramped walkway. She could see that beyond the edge of the trees was a fence. This fence was different, it looked nasty, some sort of insane patchwork of chain wire, chicken wire and barbed wire, all weaved in together. She had thought about simply walking through the trees and eventually she should get out of the fog, and hopefully the town. While the fog was preferred, it was no freedom. It crept through her skin and lungs, grabbing and twisting and hooking her into this world. She felt more alone now, as she come out to a small clearing type area, which she hoped opened out onto the lake.
The fog thinned a little here, which surprised her, again proving that the fog was better than no fog in this town, it protected her from the truth, from seeing too far ahead. The soil got softer and thicker, eventually turning into nothing but a muddy bog. She moved through it, used to this sort of thing, and simply glad that it was burning her skin or something.
She saw through the now dissipating fog that the lake was a shadow of it's former beauty. It had no water in it, though small white flowers still grew along the bank. She got as close as she dared to the sudden drop off that signaled the start of the lake. It was empty, filled instead with a disgusting slop, muddy and smelly, it reminded her of a pig pen, extending as far as her eye could see. She now stood among the ankle height flowers, their root systems lending a little stability to the otherwise formless ground.
Her brain ground to a halt. Instead of feeling outrage at what she saw, instead of wondering why or how the lake could possibly be drained, she felt a wave of sadness for something lost. She felt a little fluffy rabbit of a memory being slaughtered thoroughly at this, her childhood raped. She wanted to get out of the town now, even if she had to build a giant slingshot and shoot herself out of the madness of Silent Hill, she was determined to get out.
She didn't realize, but she'd dropped her shotgun to her left, on the flowers, when she'd seen the unfathomable sight. She collected herself and bent down to pick it up, feeling the air behind her expand as if to push her into the gaping abyss. She noticed a white something underneath the gun, like a book. She picked it up and felt something heavy drop out. She quickly put her foot out onto it, fearing it would fall down the bank and be lost.
It was a golden handled knife, no bigger than the largest chopping knife at home in her kitchen or the knife which she'd had before, and had mysteriously gone missing somewhere. It looked very important, with many round symbols carved into the blade and handle. She opened her backpack and dropped it in, before turning her attention to the book again. It was opened to a page, written in an old form of English. She thought it was like Shakespeare a little bit, then again not really. It read:
"Speak. I am the Crimson One. The lies and the mist are not they but I. You all know that I am One. Yes, and the One is I. Believers hearken to me! Twenty score men and seven thousand beasts. Heed my words and speaketh them to all, that they shall ever be obeyed even under the light of the proud and merciless sun. I shall bring down bitter vengeance upon thee and thou shalt suffer my eternal wrath. The beauty of the withering flower and the last struggles of the dying man, they are my blessings. Thou shalt ever call upon me and all that is me in the place that is silent."
She couldn't read anymore. It just sounded like some religious nonsense. She flipped to the cover of the book which read, "The book of Crimson Ceremony." She flicked through it, seeing if anything caught her eye before she left it there on the bank. Most of it was just text, but there were a few images, usually of people being burned at the stake or being stabbed with spears. She did notice one thing though which made her stomach sink a little:
"St. Jennifer, killed by the Christians near Toluca Lake. Her remains were thrown into the lake, and are still there now, judging those who dare to cross."
It was accompanied by a picture of a woman, standing in a white robe, waist high in water. She had a knife and a halo. The hand written text appeared to be added some years later. Sarah shut the book, feeling as if knowing more would cause her brain to explode. She dropped the book, allowing it to drop down the bank into the lake. She picked up the shotgun with her left hand and turned around, ready to try and escape again. She marched her torn up legs and dirt coated body through the mud once more and back into the thick trees, her way only marked by a worn patch down the center.
She walked for what seemed like an eternity. She got a lot of thinking done in this time. Was the bandaged woman the ghost of St. Jennifer? She found the little hat to be more than a little similar to a cardinals hat, although it was colored differently. She found one of the few pleasant surprises in her recent memory as she approached the underpass again. There was a set of brick and cement stairs leading up toward the main road. Surely she shouldn't have thought that there wouldn't be any access from down by the road. She felt foolish as she readied herself to get up the stairs. She found them harder than she normally had, maybe dehydration and starvation had taken it's toll. She hadn't really notice the feeling in her stomach for some food, but the lack of water seemed to make her brain dry out, a lot like an old sponge. She made her way up the dozen or so stairs and found herself on a fairly wide, two lane road.
There were guard rails on each side, though barely visible through the fog. She felt like she must be on some sort of mountain, low clouds crossing the road like enormous inflatable cows. She made her way along the road, feeling lightheaded and even swinging her shotgun by her side. She found the time to check her glass eye, which had been off at an odd angle, probably since she woke up under the fence at the gun store. She didn't like thinking about the gun store. She'd got a fair haul from there, but it nearly cost her life. She had no idea how she'd managed to control her body and just get through the hole in the wall. How was that man here? Was everyone here a basket case? Could they see the creatures?
She didn't trouble herself with these thoughts, instead concentrating on what she would do once she got home. First she would see what the date was, and then she'd buy a watch with the date on it. Maybe go and get the gun registered. Go for a long drive somewhere sunny. Go and get a tan. She noticed her skin was extremely white, especially considering the amount of dirt she'd gone through. There were spots where the dirt was more like a scab, protecting the skin below it, but most of her body was somewhat clean.
She walked slowly and quietly along the left side of the road, not too far from the guard rail. She could see the trees bobbing down, until eventually the road was almost completely above them. She hadn't noticed the incline, but it must have been steep if she had managed to get higher than some of the trees. She kept walking, not daring to look up at the sky, but looking up slightly nonetheless. She was starting to think about food, her mothers roast vegetables and drinking a chocolate milkshake. She normally wouldn't, but she figured she'd probably spend a while in hospital once she got picked up anyway.
She stopped dead. It was like seeing the lake again. There was a large split in the road, much like before, as if she was at the edge of the world. There was nothing beyond this clean cut fissure, nothing beneath it, nothing through the fog that she could see. Sarah sat on the edge, like she had with the bridge, her legs over the side. She wouldn't get over this break in the road so easily this time though. She felt as if she could just fall in and see what was at the bottom. She felt uneasy, the fronts of her legs tingling, in anticipation of some sort of tragedy. She lay on her side, her legs curled up underneath her, as if she were in bed.
She felt something crawl down her face. It tickled, it was a tear. The stress had finally gotten to her and she felt around with her bandaged arm for the last cigarette. Her greasy hair swayed in the slight breeze, her heart finally feeling the weight of the trip and struggling a little. She fumbled around for the lighter and took a quick look at it before going to light the smoke. She stuffed it between her lips, her scar now completely concealed by her hair. She lit the end and breathed in. It did no good this time, she just wanted to roll off the cliff. This had been her only way out. She just let the smoke blow out, feeling a burn in her throat. Ash just fell off the end without prompting, whirling down into the chasm.
This smoke took it's time, lasting longer than the previous. It gave her time to think, time she didn't want or need. It would be so convenient to just drop off this cliff. Maybe this whole thing was a game show, like in that movie the Truman Show. Maybe the only way out was to die. Maybe she could walk across the missing section like it was there. She let the questions go unanswered and just kept asking, getting more outrageous, more demented. Eventually the cigarette was down to the butt, leaving Sarah unsatisfied.