"Damn it!" Shannon exclaimed.
He looked at his watch again and the hands stopped at 9:25 AM. For some reason, his watch had stopped working. His father had left him that watch before he divorced his mother; that was the last he had ever seen of his father before he moved to Los Angeles. He looked at his radio alarm clock and saw the display was blank. "Fuck," he cursed to himself, "the power must have gone out."
Shannon sat up and looked over his surroundings. Although his room looked exactly the same as it did when he went to bed, something seemed odd to him. He looked out the window, but could barely see anything through the fog. Plus, if he didn't know better, he could've sworn that he saw snow falling outside. He got out of his bed and started shivering immediately. It shouldn't be this cold, he thought to himself. After all, today was his graduation from Kubrick High. It was the beginning of freakin' June, for chrissakes!
"Ma!" Shannon called out. He got dressed, putting on a padded leather jacket to keep out the cold. He peered in his mother's bedroom, figuring she might have overslept as well. There was no one inside. "Dave!" he called, this time to his mother's boyfriend, who often spent the night at their house. Although Shannon had no love for Dave, whom he looked upon as someone who stole his mother from his dad, he at least credited him for treating him fairly and not like the typical "red-headed stepchild", which by most accounts he really was (his mother and Dave had not married). At least with them both being gone, he thought that maybe Dave was out with his mother. But still, something did not seem right.
"Fenris! Come here, boy!" Shannon called out to his German shepherd/Alaskan husky mix. Normally, Fenris would've trampled him by now, coating his face with dog slobber. But now even his dog seemed to be missing.
"Hello?!" he called out. No response.
He ran to his mother's room and pulled out her handgun from her dresser drawer. Something was definitely not right. He ran downstairs and searched every room, but found no one, not even a trace or even a sticky note. He saw no sign of struggle, and nothing material seemed to be missing. He looked out the window and saw both his mother's car and Dave's car parked outside. Shannon got another chill up his spine, this time of dread. He picked up the phone, but hearing no dial tone, hung it up. He turned on the TV, thinking maybe something had happened and the town had been evacuated. But there was nothing, not even static. He turned on the radio and even that was dead. He picked up his pocket radio with an external speaker and turned that on. Nothing except a small trace of static. Shannon sighed and said "Well, at least that works somewhat. Maybe it'll clear up later."
Shannon then picked up a flashlight, thinking maybe the power went out all over town. Shannon sighed his profound relief when the flashlight worked. He grabbed the keys to his mother's car and stepped outside. His senses were assaulted by the stench of rotting meat. "Fuck," he cursed, "something must have gone wrong with the paper mill in Brahms."
As he approached the car, a silver 1990 Buick Century, he heard a low growl coming from the backyard. "Fenris....is that you boy?"
The only response was another growl, as well as the static from his pocket radio growing louder. A chill went up his spine as he pulled out the handgun. He peered over the fence and immediately a pinkish dog-like beast lunged for him, growling and snapping. Shannon landed on his back on the hood of the car, cursing. He readied the gun and stood next to the gate, knowing that that THING was waiting for him on the other side. Shannon steadied his nerves and kicked the fence open. Seeing the pink hound running for him, he aimed and opened fire until it was lying on its side. "What in the FUCK are you supposed to be?!" he asked the beast.
Not surprisingly, the still beast gave no response. He knelt by it; its skin seemed almost membranous and translucent, revealing its muscle and sinew. The only things not pink were its eyes, which were dull and black. Shannon noticed as he moved closer to it that the rotting smell grew stronger. He backed away and covered his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to keep the smell out. Shannon's ears pricked up suddenly, when he realized that the radio wasn't emitting any more static. The only sound was his own breathing and his own footfalls on the grass.
Shannon continued stepping backwards until he tripped and fell. He looked and saw grayish fur matted with blood. "Fenris?" he squeaked past the lump in his throat.
He moved to a kneeling position and saw the mangled and decapitated body of his dog. Without thinking, Shannon turned and vomited in the bushes. When he finished and regained his composure, he stood and walked to the shed. He grabbed a shovel and dug a grave for Fenris, weeping openly. After burying him, he walked back to the car. "I swear I'll kill the motherfucker who did this to you," he whispered silently.
He sat in the car and turned the key in the ignition. Silence. He pumped the gas pedal and tried again. Again, there was no response. "Fucking car," Shannon muttered. "Oh well, I guess I'm hoofing it from here. But where do I go?"
He sat in the car, thinking to himself. He looked around and realized that the entire street was devoid of people. Normally, there would at least be a jogger or someone riding their bikes down Midwich Street. But no one was around. The air felt still, even though the fog whirled about and the snow blew steadily. There weren't any sounds either, not even a single bird chirping. Shannon sighed and decided to head to the elementary school, seeing as it was the closest building to his house. He shuddered (he never liked the place; gave him the creeps as a child) and stepped out of the car.
As Shannon walked, he remembered what had basically brought him to Silent Hill in the first place. If he were to have his way, he would've rather lived with his father in Los Angeles. His father was a very affluent doctor and had accepted a job transfer to move to LA from their hometown, a small suburb outside of Calgary, Alberta. His mother was against it, saying that the city was too dangerous for a child of five years old. Then she had gotten a phone call from Dave, her high school sweetheart back in her old hometown, Silent Hill, Illinois. She had accepted his offer to live in Silent Hill to be with him, and after a bitter custody battle, moved Shannon with her. He was very resentful for many years; resentful towards his mother for leaving his father, resentful to his father for leaving him, and resentful towards this man for stealing his mother. And after a few years of living in Silent Hill, he resented his mother for bringing him there.
At first, he loved Silent Hill. There was an amusement park across town, which Dave took him to regularly in a vain attempt to win him over. Shannon had always been a curious child, and the new surroundings fascinated him. That was until his first day at Midwich Elementary. The children constantly teased him or attacked him...calling him an "outlander" and "interloper". The teachers just stood by idly as it happened. His mother did nothing either, saying that "Shannon needed to become adjusted". She apparently didn't believe him, feeling that he was making stories up so she would go back to his father. It didn't stop until Shannon called his father in Los Angeles. His father believed him, especially after hearing his son sobbing uncontrollably. This forced his mother to investigate into it. After watching Shannon get pummeled mercilessly at the hands of taunting children, she stepped in and demanded that the teachers do something about it.
They did. After a slap on the wrist for each of them, it all resumed. Dave then did something that redeemed himself somewhat to Shannon; he taught him to fight back. And fight back, Shannon did. After breaking several noses and a few ribs, he had gotten a week's worth of detentions. Although Shannon was infuriated that he got a worse punishment for defending himself than his attackers did, he laughed to himself and took it with pride. Especially when the few other kids in detention (who were older) began respecting him, eventually liking him.
One of them was Dan Corris, who eventually became his best friend. He, not unlike Shannon, had moved to Silent Hill a couple years back from Chicago. Dan asked him out of the blue if the school seemed `strange' to him. Shannon admitted that it did, that it felt like a haunted house would feel. Dan simply said that it was because the school was in fact haunted. The entire town was haunted. That was when the detention monitor ordered Dan to be quiet, and told him that if it weren't for his `tall tales' he wouldn't be in detention.
Through his years at Midwich Elementary, Shannon felt the chills up his spine as he walked through the halls. He could've sworn that he had heard sobbing in the empty restrooms. During classes, he'd hear the name "Samael" whispered in his thoughts. Then when he was in fifth grade, the Gillespie girl died in a fire. She was only 7, three years his junior. As Shannon tried remembering her name, the rising amount of static from his radio alerted him, drawing him back into the present. Then he heard wings flapping, growing ever closer. He turned and saw what looked like a man-sized pink pterodactyl heading right towards him, squawking in rage. He pulled out his gun and fired continuously into its barrel-like chest. As it breathed its last breath, the static in his radio died down. Shannon chuckled to himself. He held up his radio and said "Looks like you're not so useless after all."
He looked around and saw no immediate danger. He leaned against a nearby tree and struggled to remember that girl's name. For some unknown reason, it seemed particularly important. He stood up straight and said aloud "Alessa". As he spoke, he felt a small breeze brush his face. He remembered Alessa. She was a quiet, awkward girl; kept mostly to herself. But she always smiled at him. It was whispered in school that Alessa had a crush on Shannon. While not overly pretty, she did seem to have a certain charm, especially when she smiled at Shannon, which always brought her a smile from him in return. But they never spoke, and even as Shannon thought about it now at 17, he wished he could've at least talked with her. Because even though they never exchanged words, Shannon honestly liked her. But it seemed that it was too late. He wondered what she would've been like now, seeing as she would've been 14. Would she have later blossomed? Shannon sighed, and continued walking.
The radio suddenly roared to life, making the white noise almost deafening. He could see winged shadows swarming at him from a distance. A low growl and a rustle came from a pair of nearby bushes. Shannon suddenly burst into a run, almost slamming into the front door of the school. Safely inside, he slumped onto a bench to catch his breath.
He started to rise, when he saw the sky suddenly darken through the windows, leaving everything blanketed in black. He fumbled for his flashlight and turned it on. It didn't do much, but at least it gave him enough illumination to see where he was going, and to hopefully see anything coming for him. He walked into the main hall, and as creepy as the school seemed to him as a child, it seemed almost suffocating now. Shannon wanted badly to dismiss it on the fact that it was almost totally dark inside, but he knew that it went much deeper than that. He walked up to the door to the adjoining hall but found it to be locked. He ran to the other door at the other end of the hall, but it was also locked. He remembered that there was another hallway that was accessible from the courtyard in the center of the school. Trying the door to the courtyard, he saw that it was unlocked. He stepped back outside, and with the static, heard shuffling footsteps in the distance. These sounded
different from the hounds, but the static made him cautious. He stepped slowly out in the courtyard, and saw three small human-like shapes coming toward him. As they approached, they appeared to be children, except hairless and naked, wielding sharp knives. Shannon ran towards the other end of the schoolyard, barely escaping their grasp and their swinging knives.
He reentered the school and was greeted by two more. Without thinking, he pulled out his gun and emptied it into them. One of them still seemed to be moving, so Shannon crushed its skull under his boot. When Shannon saw what he had done, he slumped to the floor, crying. "What have I done?" he whispered. He always felt that no matter how bad a child was, no child deserved to die. He knew that he was defending himself, but it didn't stop the tears.
He crawled up to one of them, and gasped in horror at what he saw. While its body looked somewhat like a child, its face, or lack thereof, was where the similarity ended. It looked hideous and corrupt, almost demonic. Shannon got up and dusted himself off. Despite himself, Shannon erupted into laughter. It wasn't of the maniacal sort, like that of a man on the edge of sanity. It was more like that of someone who finally got a very funny joke. Shannon sighed and said, "It was almost like my childhood all over again!" Shannon laughed again, then stopped when he realized his gun was empty. "Fuck, where am I gonna find ammo in a fucking elementary school?!"
Shannon stepped into the detention hall. The room was completely bare of furniture. He then saw the glint of metal reflecting his flashlight beam. He walked up to it and laughed aloud again, for on the floor were two boxes of bullets. As he bent down to pick them up, his radio blared back to life. He turned and aimed his gun, but saw nothing. Then he saw the shadow, aimed and fired. The shadow kept moving, sometimes stumbling and falling. "Huh, a ghost," Shannon said. He walked up to it and it disappeared, the static fading as its form dissipated.
He then felt a sudden twinge in his bladder. "Oh my god," he said and laughed. He walked down the hall and entered the next hall. The radio blared to life again, and he saw the childlike shapes approaching him. He ran down to the other end of the hall and quickly entered the boys' room.
After relieving himself, he walked up to the sink and turned on the faucet, but nothing came out. He looked in the mirror and saw his face mired in mud, with newly forming lines on his cheeks. "Shannon my boy," he said to his reflection, running his fingers through his long red hair, "this thing is making you look older than you are."
He stepped out in the hallway and saw nothing about, and heard nothing but the static from his radio. He crept cautiously and heard a moan behind him. He turned suddenly and saw nothing. But he realized his error too late when he felt something slash the back of his upper thigh. Screaming in pain and rage, he turned around and shot his attacker point blank in the head. He remembered where the nurse's office was, and limped to it. He saw that there was one first aid kit left, and cleaned and bandaged his wound.
He sat on the bed, and suddenly his constant rush of adrenaline had finally run out. He walked up to the door and locked it tight, then collapsed on the bed in a heap, unconsciousness taking over.
He looked at his watch again and the hands stopped at 9:25 AM. For some reason, his watch had stopped working. His father had left him that watch before he divorced his mother; that was the last he had ever seen of his father before he moved to Los Angeles. He looked at his radio alarm clock and saw the display was blank. "Fuck," he cursed to himself, "the power must have gone out."
Shannon sat up and looked over his surroundings. Although his room looked exactly the same as it did when he went to bed, something seemed odd to him. He looked out the window, but could barely see anything through the fog. Plus, if he didn't know better, he could've sworn that he saw snow falling outside. He got out of his bed and started shivering immediately. It shouldn't be this cold, he thought to himself. After all, today was his graduation from Kubrick High. It was the beginning of freakin' June, for chrissakes!
"Ma!" Shannon called out. He got dressed, putting on a padded leather jacket to keep out the cold. He peered in his mother's bedroom, figuring she might have overslept as well. There was no one inside. "Dave!" he called, this time to his mother's boyfriend, who often spent the night at their house. Although Shannon had no love for Dave, whom he looked upon as someone who stole his mother from his dad, he at least credited him for treating him fairly and not like the typical "red-headed stepchild", which by most accounts he really was (his mother and Dave had not married). At least with them both being gone, he thought that maybe Dave was out with his mother. But still, something did not seem right.
"Fenris! Come here, boy!" Shannon called out to his German shepherd/Alaskan husky mix. Normally, Fenris would've trampled him by now, coating his face with dog slobber. But now even his dog seemed to be missing.
"Hello?!" he called out. No response.
He ran to his mother's room and pulled out her handgun from her dresser drawer. Something was definitely not right. He ran downstairs and searched every room, but found no one, not even a trace or even a sticky note. He saw no sign of struggle, and nothing material seemed to be missing. He looked out the window and saw both his mother's car and Dave's car parked outside. Shannon got another chill up his spine, this time of dread. He picked up the phone, but hearing no dial tone, hung it up. He turned on the TV, thinking maybe something had happened and the town had been evacuated. But there was nothing, not even static. He turned on the radio and even that was dead. He picked up his pocket radio with an external speaker and turned that on. Nothing except a small trace of static. Shannon sighed and said "Well, at least that works somewhat. Maybe it'll clear up later."
Shannon then picked up a flashlight, thinking maybe the power went out all over town. Shannon sighed his profound relief when the flashlight worked. He grabbed the keys to his mother's car and stepped outside. His senses were assaulted by the stench of rotting meat. "Fuck," he cursed, "something must have gone wrong with the paper mill in Brahms."
As he approached the car, a silver 1990 Buick Century, he heard a low growl coming from the backyard. "Fenris....is that you boy?"
The only response was another growl, as well as the static from his pocket radio growing louder. A chill went up his spine as he pulled out the handgun. He peered over the fence and immediately a pinkish dog-like beast lunged for him, growling and snapping. Shannon landed on his back on the hood of the car, cursing. He readied the gun and stood next to the gate, knowing that that THING was waiting for him on the other side. Shannon steadied his nerves and kicked the fence open. Seeing the pink hound running for him, he aimed and opened fire until it was lying on its side. "What in the FUCK are you supposed to be?!" he asked the beast.
Not surprisingly, the still beast gave no response. He knelt by it; its skin seemed almost membranous and translucent, revealing its muscle and sinew. The only things not pink were its eyes, which were dull and black. Shannon noticed as he moved closer to it that the rotting smell grew stronger. He backed away and covered his mouth and nose in a futile attempt to keep the smell out. Shannon's ears pricked up suddenly, when he realized that the radio wasn't emitting any more static. The only sound was his own breathing and his own footfalls on the grass.
Shannon continued stepping backwards until he tripped and fell. He looked and saw grayish fur matted with blood. "Fenris?" he squeaked past the lump in his throat.
He moved to a kneeling position and saw the mangled and decapitated body of his dog. Without thinking, Shannon turned and vomited in the bushes. When he finished and regained his composure, he stood and walked to the shed. He grabbed a shovel and dug a grave for Fenris, weeping openly. After burying him, he walked back to the car. "I swear I'll kill the motherfucker who did this to you," he whispered silently.
He sat in the car and turned the key in the ignition. Silence. He pumped the gas pedal and tried again. Again, there was no response. "Fucking car," Shannon muttered. "Oh well, I guess I'm hoofing it from here. But where do I go?"
He sat in the car, thinking to himself. He looked around and realized that the entire street was devoid of people. Normally, there would at least be a jogger or someone riding their bikes down Midwich Street. But no one was around. The air felt still, even though the fog whirled about and the snow blew steadily. There weren't any sounds either, not even a single bird chirping. Shannon sighed and decided to head to the elementary school, seeing as it was the closest building to his house. He shuddered (he never liked the place; gave him the creeps as a child) and stepped out of the car.
As Shannon walked, he remembered what had basically brought him to Silent Hill in the first place. If he were to have his way, he would've rather lived with his father in Los Angeles. His father was a very affluent doctor and had accepted a job transfer to move to LA from their hometown, a small suburb outside of Calgary, Alberta. His mother was against it, saying that the city was too dangerous for a child of five years old. Then she had gotten a phone call from Dave, her high school sweetheart back in her old hometown, Silent Hill, Illinois. She had accepted his offer to live in Silent Hill to be with him, and after a bitter custody battle, moved Shannon with her. He was very resentful for many years; resentful towards his mother for leaving his father, resentful to his father for leaving him, and resentful towards this man for stealing his mother. And after a few years of living in Silent Hill, he resented his mother for bringing him there.
At first, he loved Silent Hill. There was an amusement park across town, which Dave took him to regularly in a vain attempt to win him over. Shannon had always been a curious child, and the new surroundings fascinated him. That was until his first day at Midwich Elementary. The children constantly teased him or attacked him...calling him an "outlander" and "interloper". The teachers just stood by idly as it happened. His mother did nothing either, saying that "Shannon needed to become adjusted". She apparently didn't believe him, feeling that he was making stories up so she would go back to his father. It didn't stop until Shannon called his father in Los Angeles. His father believed him, especially after hearing his son sobbing uncontrollably. This forced his mother to investigate into it. After watching Shannon get pummeled mercilessly at the hands of taunting children, she stepped in and demanded that the teachers do something about it.
They did. After a slap on the wrist for each of them, it all resumed. Dave then did something that redeemed himself somewhat to Shannon; he taught him to fight back. And fight back, Shannon did. After breaking several noses and a few ribs, he had gotten a week's worth of detentions. Although Shannon was infuriated that he got a worse punishment for defending himself than his attackers did, he laughed to himself and took it with pride. Especially when the few other kids in detention (who were older) began respecting him, eventually liking him.
One of them was Dan Corris, who eventually became his best friend. He, not unlike Shannon, had moved to Silent Hill a couple years back from Chicago. Dan asked him out of the blue if the school seemed `strange' to him. Shannon admitted that it did, that it felt like a haunted house would feel. Dan simply said that it was because the school was in fact haunted. The entire town was haunted. That was when the detention monitor ordered Dan to be quiet, and told him that if it weren't for his `tall tales' he wouldn't be in detention.
Through his years at Midwich Elementary, Shannon felt the chills up his spine as he walked through the halls. He could've sworn that he had heard sobbing in the empty restrooms. During classes, he'd hear the name "Samael" whispered in his thoughts. Then when he was in fifth grade, the Gillespie girl died in a fire. She was only 7, three years his junior. As Shannon tried remembering her name, the rising amount of static from his radio alerted him, drawing him back into the present. Then he heard wings flapping, growing ever closer. He turned and saw what looked like a man-sized pink pterodactyl heading right towards him, squawking in rage. He pulled out his gun and fired continuously into its barrel-like chest. As it breathed its last breath, the static in his radio died down. Shannon chuckled to himself. He held up his radio and said "Looks like you're not so useless after all."
He looked around and saw no immediate danger. He leaned against a nearby tree and struggled to remember that girl's name. For some unknown reason, it seemed particularly important. He stood up straight and said aloud "Alessa". As he spoke, he felt a small breeze brush his face. He remembered Alessa. She was a quiet, awkward girl; kept mostly to herself. But she always smiled at him. It was whispered in school that Alessa had a crush on Shannon. While not overly pretty, she did seem to have a certain charm, especially when she smiled at Shannon, which always brought her a smile from him in return. But they never spoke, and even as Shannon thought about it now at 17, he wished he could've at least talked with her. Because even though they never exchanged words, Shannon honestly liked her. But it seemed that it was too late. He wondered what she would've been like now, seeing as she would've been 14. Would she have later blossomed? Shannon sighed, and continued walking.
The radio suddenly roared to life, making the white noise almost deafening. He could see winged shadows swarming at him from a distance. A low growl and a rustle came from a pair of nearby bushes. Shannon suddenly burst into a run, almost slamming into the front door of the school. Safely inside, he slumped onto a bench to catch his breath.
He started to rise, when he saw the sky suddenly darken through the windows, leaving everything blanketed in black. He fumbled for his flashlight and turned it on. It didn't do much, but at least it gave him enough illumination to see where he was going, and to hopefully see anything coming for him. He walked into the main hall, and as creepy as the school seemed to him as a child, it seemed almost suffocating now. Shannon wanted badly to dismiss it on the fact that it was almost totally dark inside, but he knew that it went much deeper than that. He walked up to the door to the adjoining hall but found it to be locked. He ran to the other door at the other end of the hall, but it was also locked. He remembered that there was another hallway that was accessible from the courtyard in the center of the school. Trying the door to the courtyard, he saw that it was unlocked. He stepped back outside, and with the static, heard shuffling footsteps in the distance. These sounded
different from the hounds, but the static made him cautious. He stepped slowly out in the courtyard, and saw three small human-like shapes coming toward him. As they approached, they appeared to be children, except hairless and naked, wielding sharp knives. Shannon ran towards the other end of the schoolyard, barely escaping their grasp and their swinging knives.
He reentered the school and was greeted by two more. Without thinking, he pulled out his gun and emptied it into them. One of them still seemed to be moving, so Shannon crushed its skull under his boot. When Shannon saw what he had done, he slumped to the floor, crying. "What have I done?" he whispered. He always felt that no matter how bad a child was, no child deserved to die. He knew that he was defending himself, but it didn't stop the tears.
He crawled up to one of them, and gasped in horror at what he saw. While its body looked somewhat like a child, its face, or lack thereof, was where the similarity ended. It looked hideous and corrupt, almost demonic. Shannon got up and dusted himself off. Despite himself, Shannon erupted into laughter. It wasn't of the maniacal sort, like that of a man on the edge of sanity. It was more like that of someone who finally got a very funny joke. Shannon sighed and said, "It was almost like my childhood all over again!" Shannon laughed again, then stopped when he realized his gun was empty. "Fuck, where am I gonna find ammo in a fucking elementary school?!"
Shannon stepped into the detention hall. The room was completely bare of furniture. He then saw the glint of metal reflecting his flashlight beam. He walked up to it and laughed aloud again, for on the floor were two boxes of bullets. As he bent down to pick them up, his radio blared back to life. He turned and aimed his gun, but saw nothing. Then he saw the shadow, aimed and fired. The shadow kept moving, sometimes stumbling and falling. "Huh, a ghost," Shannon said. He walked up to it and it disappeared, the static fading as its form dissipated.
He then felt a sudden twinge in his bladder. "Oh my god," he said and laughed. He walked down the hall and entered the next hall. The radio blared to life again, and he saw the childlike shapes approaching him. He ran down to the other end of the hall and quickly entered the boys' room.
After relieving himself, he walked up to the sink and turned on the faucet, but nothing came out. He looked in the mirror and saw his face mired in mud, with newly forming lines on his cheeks. "Shannon my boy," he said to his reflection, running his fingers through his long red hair, "this thing is making you look older than you are."
He stepped out in the hallway and saw nothing about, and heard nothing but the static from his radio. He crept cautiously and heard a moan behind him. He turned suddenly and saw nothing. But he realized his error too late when he felt something slash the back of his upper thigh. Screaming in pain and rage, he turned around and shot his attacker point blank in the head. He remembered where the nurse's office was, and limped to it. He saw that there was one first aid kit left, and cleaned and bandaged his wound.
He sat on the bed, and suddenly his constant rush of adrenaline had finally run out. He walked up to the door and locked it tight, then collapsed on the bed in a heap, unconsciousness taking over.