::The Slain::
Chapter One: The Change
"What the . . . oh no!" were the first words out of Kara Sanders' mouth one cloudy Tuesday morning. A rainstorm must have been approaching, for outside Kara's window was an angrily stirring maelstrom of ominous black clouds. It was almost as black as night, but the glowing green numbers displayed on Kara's digital alarm clock claimed otherwise.
"10:25! Yikes! Why didn't my alarm go off at eight like usual?" Kara wondered aloud. She rolled out of bed, blue eyes bright and wide, short blond hair sticking out at wild angles. She pulled a few random items out of a pile on the floor - a wrinkled green shirt that declared "Girls Rule . . . Boys Drool" in bright blue letters and a pair of denim shorts as small as Midwich Elementary dress codes allowed - and she quickly began to dress.
If Kara hurried, she could be ready to go in ten minutes or less. It took only a few more minutes to get to school if she ran, but it was already so late! She has missed her two favorite classes, science and gym. At this rate she would arrive in the middle of the most dreaded, terrifying, boring class of all - history. Kara briefly considered taking the morning slow, making herself some cinnamon toast for breakfast, finishing up that math assignment she'd abandoned in favor of TV the night before, and arriving at school just in time for lunch. She decided against cutting class, however; whenever Kara came in late, the lady in the office always called Kara's dad at work, and the later it was, the harder it would be to craft a believable story for both Dad and the administrators.
Removing her neon purple pajama pants in favor of her old, frayed shorts, Kara thought, stupid me! I must've forgotten to set the alarm last night. Like Dad always says, I should be more responsible. "Stupid me," she repeated aloud, muttering under her breath. She knew that her dad had to work hard for a living. Dad got up really early every morning and left for the big factory he worked at over in Brahms before the sun was up. He trusted Kara to get up and get herself to school. Some kids would've taken advantage of the freedom and skipped class every day, but Kara knew better. Though it wasn't exactly easy or fun, it was the least Kara could do to go to school and try as hard as possible. A sudden wave of guilt washed over her as she remembered a million tiny things - the incomplete math homework, the C in history on her last report card, the fight she'd gotten into at her basketball team's final game last season. She had failed her dad yet again, her wonderful dad who had to work twice as hard ever since Mom -
No. Kara wouldn't start thinking about Mom again. Today was dark and dreary enough already. Quickly she switched her brain to another channel: the current sock issue.
After fishing one sock out of a heap on the floor, Kara tore the room apart in search of another and finally located it in a most unlikely place - the sock drawer. Noticing the time (10:32) and the seconds slowly inching forward, Kara jammed her feet into her shoes and ran into the kitchen. "Note to self," she whispered, "take care of the greasy dishes piled up in the sink this afternoon before Dad comes home." Then Kara grabbed her backpack and the two dollars of lunch money left for her by the door, and she raced outside.
The first thing Kara noticed when she stepped outside was the immense bank of fog that expanded before her. Kara held her hand out not even two feet in front of her face. To her surprise, she could barely see it! The fog was so think, in fact, that for a moment it seemed impossible to breathe. Kara gasped for air, began to hyperventilate, but managed to calm herself. It's okay, she thought, remembering another foggy day buried deep in her memory. Nothing can hurt me here. She was a little nervous because she couldn't see if a car was coming through all the fog, but she couldn't hear any, and although the crossing guard was now off duty, the neon "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" sign was clearly visible from across the street. There was another worry, something that plagued Kara's memory every time she walked out of the house, especially on dark, foggy days like this one, but she wasn't willing to admit what that was, because if she did she knew she'd become completely hysterical and end up in the loony bin . . . just like before . . .
Confidence close enough to restored, Kara walked on. Unfortunately, she soon noticed something else odd. It was cold, far too cold even for a crisp September morning. She wished her best friend Matt was there with her. Every morning (at least the mornings when she was on time) Kara met him at the corner of Levin and Matheson, which happened to be right in front of her house. Surely he would've let her borrow his jacket. When they were a lot younger, maybe eight or nine, they played Castle every single weekend, Matt as the brave night and Kara as the princess. Kara always wanted to be the knight, but once when Matt agreed to be the princess, he kept burping, and that was unbecoming for a beautiful young heir to the throne. Even now Matt made references to those days, trying to be courageous and gallant. Once he had tried to carry her over a puddle of mud, and before long both of them ended up lying in the puddle and giggling. Today he surely would have noticed Kara shivering and offered his jacket, and for once, Kara wouldn't mind being the princess at all.
But of course Matt had gone off to school without her today. Kara wondered if he had waited long for her, maybe even come up to her house and knocked on her door. She hoped he wasn't too worried about her. For a crazy moment, Kara thought she saw Matt among the vague, blurry shifting shapes in the distance, but it was only a trick of the odd weather. Kara began to deeply regret missing the walk to school with Matt. She loved his sense of humor, his passion for sports, even his almost incapacitating fear of the dark. Kids didn't tease him about it anymore because they knew that Kara would break every bone in their bodies if they did (well, maybe that was exaggerating a little, but she did break some guy's nose once). Most days Kara wouldn't get so depressed over missing the daily talk-for-too-long-and-then-dash-into-class-at-the-last-minute session, but she had an odd feeling that she'd never see Matt again . . .
You're just being silly, she told herself. Matt will be right there in history, in the shadowy back corner, making jokes and doodling in his textbook like always. There's nothing to worry about at all.
When Kara turned onto Midwich Street, the sky grew dramatically darker, and a light rain began to fall. Kara missed Matt even more. Suddenly she remembered her team jacket. She stopped walking, reached into her backpack, and pulled out a purple jacket with her team name, the Midwich Cuckoos, scrawled across the back in bright yellow. Until now, she had wondered why she hadn't seen any cars on the street or kids playing outside like usual, but she reasoned that one would have to be very near insane (or possibly late for school) to go outside in this weather. She put on her jacket and resumed her journey, realizing that she was only about a block away from school.
And then she heard the growl.
It was a low guttural sound, a dangerous sound, coming from only a few feet behind her, and Kara knew that it was a warning. Her heart skipped a beat. A dog. No. Not here! Oh, God, please not today! Now her heartbeat grew much faster, impossibly, ridiculously fast. Kara supposed it was dumb, even stupider than Matt's fear of the dark, but dogs really scared her. She still had the scars to show for her last encounter with one. She had heard countless times that if you faced an angry dog you should stand still and avert your eyes, but it was harder than it sounded! Unable to control her instinct, Kara began to run -
Six-year-old Kara walks beside her small brother, Michael, as he carefully rides his brand-new shiny red tricycle over to the Allens' house to show off his trike skills to his role model and Kara's best friend, Matt. It's foggy outside, and it took Kara a while to convince her mother and father that she would be careful and responsible and stay out of trouble. It looked like it might rain, so Kara hurried along, and Michael panted for breath, struggling to keep up, his short, thin, twisted legs pedaling hard.
Then, Kara hears a rustling in the bushes behind her. A huge brown dog emerges from the brush and begins to bark fiercely. She's not scared, but Michael cowers behind her as she walks up to the big smelly animal, says "nice doggy," and tries to stroke its fur.
The dog snarls, then snaps at Kara's hand . . . it catches the tip of her finger and leaves just a small mark, but it's enough to scare Kara away. Then, it lunges forward, ugly yellow teeth chomping and gnashing hungrily. Kara turns, stumbles over Michael's tricycle, and runs, leaving her younger brother behind and not looking back.
In moments the dog catches up and knocks Kara to the ground . . . tears in her eyes, blood in her mouth because she's bitten her tongue, Kara prays that Michael is all right, regrets leaving him only to be attacked moments later, and braces herself for the feel of the dog's sharp teeth tearing through her soft, defenseless flesh . . .
- Kara was running so fast that she actually slammed into the heavy steel doors of Midwich Elementary. The growling and barking ceased as she pushed the doors open and closed herself safely inside. For a moment she worried that the dog would scratch at the door and search for a way inside, but thankfully it left her alone.
Very alone, in fact. It was as dark in the school as it had been outside, but that could be easily explained. The power had gone out. However, nothing Kara could think of explained why no one sat at the reception desk, why no students walked by on their way to the bathroom or the office, why there were no teachers, janitors, or secretaries standing around and chatting, why it was completely silent except for the sound of thunder and rain pounding down on the roof.
And there was certainly no theory that could possibly explain the most striking thing about the room. The darkness wasn't so bad, and Kara didn't mind being alone. However, she was more than a little frightened when she looked down and saw what covered the wooden floor beneath her feet.
A wide, quickly spreading, dark red pool of blood . . .
A/N: This story relies upon the theory that people who slept through the changes in Silent Hill survived, as in Stephen King's The Langoliers (which I do not own . . . in fact, I don't own Silent Hill either). I've also borrowed an idea from the music video for "Warning", by Incubus. The changes take place on a weekday at 10:24 AM, when almost the entire town is awake. An upcoming fic will take a more in-depth look at the themes introduced in "Warning" (which I also do not own). Tell me what you, my readers, want: more violence, less violence, whatever. I will try to update this fic every day, but I'm not making any promises unless I somehow generate a massive following out of nowhere, and we all know that's not going to happen ^^;
Chapter One: The Change
"What the . . . oh no!" were the first words out of Kara Sanders' mouth one cloudy Tuesday morning. A rainstorm must have been approaching, for outside Kara's window was an angrily stirring maelstrom of ominous black clouds. It was almost as black as night, but the glowing green numbers displayed on Kara's digital alarm clock claimed otherwise.
"10:25! Yikes! Why didn't my alarm go off at eight like usual?" Kara wondered aloud. She rolled out of bed, blue eyes bright and wide, short blond hair sticking out at wild angles. She pulled a few random items out of a pile on the floor - a wrinkled green shirt that declared "Girls Rule . . . Boys Drool" in bright blue letters and a pair of denim shorts as small as Midwich Elementary dress codes allowed - and she quickly began to dress.
If Kara hurried, she could be ready to go in ten minutes or less. It took only a few more minutes to get to school if she ran, but it was already so late! She has missed her two favorite classes, science and gym. At this rate she would arrive in the middle of the most dreaded, terrifying, boring class of all - history. Kara briefly considered taking the morning slow, making herself some cinnamon toast for breakfast, finishing up that math assignment she'd abandoned in favor of TV the night before, and arriving at school just in time for lunch. She decided against cutting class, however; whenever Kara came in late, the lady in the office always called Kara's dad at work, and the later it was, the harder it would be to craft a believable story for both Dad and the administrators.
Removing her neon purple pajama pants in favor of her old, frayed shorts, Kara thought, stupid me! I must've forgotten to set the alarm last night. Like Dad always says, I should be more responsible. "Stupid me," she repeated aloud, muttering under her breath. She knew that her dad had to work hard for a living. Dad got up really early every morning and left for the big factory he worked at over in Brahms before the sun was up. He trusted Kara to get up and get herself to school. Some kids would've taken advantage of the freedom and skipped class every day, but Kara knew better. Though it wasn't exactly easy or fun, it was the least Kara could do to go to school and try as hard as possible. A sudden wave of guilt washed over her as she remembered a million tiny things - the incomplete math homework, the C in history on her last report card, the fight she'd gotten into at her basketball team's final game last season. She had failed her dad yet again, her wonderful dad who had to work twice as hard ever since Mom -
No. Kara wouldn't start thinking about Mom again. Today was dark and dreary enough already. Quickly she switched her brain to another channel: the current sock issue.
After fishing one sock out of a heap on the floor, Kara tore the room apart in search of another and finally located it in a most unlikely place - the sock drawer. Noticing the time (10:32) and the seconds slowly inching forward, Kara jammed her feet into her shoes and ran into the kitchen. "Note to self," she whispered, "take care of the greasy dishes piled up in the sink this afternoon before Dad comes home." Then Kara grabbed her backpack and the two dollars of lunch money left for her by the door, and she raced outside.
The first thing Kara noticed when she stepped outside was the immense bank of fog that expanded before her. Kara held her hand out not even two feet in front of her face. To her surprise, she could barely see it! The fog was so think, in fact, that for a moment it seemed impossible to breathe. Kara gasped for air, began to hyperventilate, but managed to calm herself. It's okay, she thought, remembering another foggy day buried deep in her memory. Nothing can hurt me here. She was a little nervous because she couldn't see if a car was coming through all the fog, but she couldn't hear any, and although the crossing guard was now off duty, the neon "WALK" and "DON'T WALK" sign was clearly visible from across the street. There was another worry, something that plagued Kara's memory every time she walked out of the house, especially on dark, foggy days like this one, but she wasn't willing to admit what that was, because if she did she knew she'd become completely hysterical and end up in the loony bin . . . just like before . . .
Confidence close enough to restored, Kara walked on. Unfortunately, she soon noticed something else odd. It was cold, far too cold even for a crisp September morning. She wished her best friend Matt was there with her. Every morning (at least the mornings when she was on time) Kara met him at the corner of Levin and Matheson, which happened to be right in front of her house. Surely he would've let her borrow his jacket. When they were a lot younger, maybe eight or nine, they played Castle every single weekend, Matt as the brave night and Kara as the princess. Kara always wanted to be the knight, but once when Matt agreed to be the princess, he kept burping, and that was unbecoming for a beautiful young heir to the throne. Even now Matt made references to those days, trying to be courageous and gallant. Once he had tried to carry her over a puddle of mud, and before long both of them ended up lying in the puddle and giggling. Today he surely would have noticed Kara shivering and offered his jacket, and for once, Kara wouldn't mind being the princess at all.
But of course Matt had gone off to school without her today. Kara wondered if he had waited long for her, maybe even come up to her house and knocked on her door. She hoped he wasn't too worried about her. For a crazy moment, Kara thought she saw Matt among the vague, blurry shifting shapes in the distance, but it was only a trick of the odd weather. Kara began to deeply regret missing the walk to school with Matt. She loved his sense of humor, his passion for sports, even his almost incapacitating fear of the dark. Kids didn't tease him about it anymore because they knew that Kara would break every bone in their bodies if they did (well, maybe that was exaggerating a little, but she did break some guy's nose once). Most days Kara wouldn't get so depressed over missing the daily talk-for-too-long-and-then-dash-into-class-at-the-last-minute session, but she had an odd feeling that she'd never see Matt again . . .
You're just being silly, she told herself. Matt will be right there in history, in the shadowy back corner, making jokes and doodling in his textbook like always. There's nothing to worry about at all.
When Kara turned onto Midwich Street, the sky grew dramatically darker, and a light rain began to fall. Kara missed Matt even more. Suddenly she remembered her team jacket. She stopped walking, reached into her backpack, and pulled out a purple jacket with her team name, the Midwich Cuckoos, scrawled across the back in bright yellow. Until now, she had wondered why she hadn't seen any cars on the street or kids playing outside like usual, but she reasoned that one would have to be very near insane (or possibly late for school) to go outside in this weather. She put on her jacket and resumed her journey, realizing that she was only about a block away from school.
And then she heard the growl.
It was a low guttural sound, a dangerous sound, coming from only a few feet behind her, and Kara knew that it was a warning. Her heart skipped a beat. A dog. No. Not here! Oh, God, please not today! Now her heartbeat grew much faster, impossibly, ridiculously fast. Kara supposed it was dumb, even stupider than Matt's fear of the dark, but dogs really scared her. She still had the scars to show for her last encounter with one. She had heard countless times that if you faced an angry dog you should stand still and avert your eyes, but it was harder than it sounded! Unable to control her instinct, Kara began to run -
Six-year-old Kara walks beside her small brother, Michael, as he carefully rides his brand-new shiny red tricycle over to the Allens' house to show off his trike skills to his role model and Kara's best friend, Matt. It's foggy outside, and it took Kara a while to convince her mother and father that she would be careful and responsible and stay out of trouble. It looked like it might rain, so Kara hurried along, and Michael panted for breath, struggling to keep up, his short, thin, twisted legs pedaling hard.
Then, Kara hears a rustling in the bushes behind her. A huge brown dog emerges from the brush and begins to bark fiercely. She's not scared, but Michael cowers behind her as she walks up to the big smelly animal, says "nice doggy," and tries to stroke its fur.
The dog snarls, then snaps at Kara's hand . . . it catches the tip of her finger and leaves just a small mark, but it's enough to scare Kara away. Then, it lunges forward, ugly yellow teeth chomping and gnashing hungrily. Kara turns, stumbles over Michael's tricycle, and runs, leaving her younger brother behind and not looking back.
In moments the dog catches up and knocks Kara to the ground . . . tears in her eyes, blood in her mouth because she's bitten her tongue, Kara prays that Michael is all right, regrets leaving him only to be attacked moments later, and braces herself for the feel of the dog's sharp teeth tearing through her soft, defenseless flesh . . .
- Kara was running so fast that she actually slammed into the heavy steel doors of Midwich Elementary. The growling and barking ceased as she pushed the doors open and closed herself safely inside. For a moment she worried that the dog would scratch at the door and search for a way inside, but thankfully it left her alone.
Very alone, in fact. It was as dark in the school as it had been outside, but that could be easily explained. The power had gone out. However, nothing Kara could think of explained why no one sat at the reception desk, why no students walked by on their way to the bathroom or the office, why there were no teachers, janitors, or secretaries standing around and chatting, why it was completely silent except for the sound of thunder and rain pounding down on the roof.
And there was certainly no theory that could possibly explain the most striking thing about the room. The darkness wasn't so bad, and Kara didn't mind being alone. However, she was more than a little frightened when she looked down and saw what covered the wooden floor beneath her feet.
A wide, quickly spreading, dark red pool of blood . . .
A/N: This story relies upon the theory that people who slept through the changes in Silent Hill survived, as in Stephen King's The Langoliers (which I do not own . . . in fact, I don't own Silent Hill either). I've also borrowed an idea from the music video for "Warning", by Incubus. The changes take place on a weekday at 10:24 AM, when almost the entire town is awake. An upcoming fic will take a more in-depth look at the themes introduced in "Warning" (which I also do not own). Tell me what you, my readers, want: more violence, less violence, whatever. I will try to update this fic every day, but I'm not making any promises unless I somehow generate a massive following out of nowhere, and we all know that's not going to happen ^^;