The young woman shivered slightly as the fog enclosed around her. Looking over to the man walking beside her, she rose an eyebrow, as if unsure about something. He glanced to her. stopped walking, and sighed heavily.

"What is it now, Maria?" he grumbled.

"You could at least give me a weapon, Jamesy. I've been walking through this town for twenty minutes now and you've just let all those monsters attack me," she said, whining loudly. At the sudden increase of noise, a mannequin monster rushed up, smacked Maria in the head, and then rushed away, laughing gleefully.

James twitched slightly, trying to control his temper and also his sudden amusement at Maria's obvious pain.

"I've told you before, Maria. I don't have any weapons to spare. I'm sorry, but you'll have to keep getting hit."

:Don't have any weapons to spare?!" she shouted, turning on him suddenly. "Damn it, James, you're such a liar!! What's that pistol?!"

"What pistol?" he asked simply.

"The one in your pocket, dumbass!"

He stared back at her for a minute, and then grinned.

"Maybe if I ignore her, she'll just go away," he said gleefully to himself.

"Hey! I heard that, James Sunderland!" she shouted, as he began to walk away. "Hey! You get back here! Right now! You hear me!?"

But as these words were spoken, the same mannequin monster came, running after James, and smacked Maria in the back of her head, knocking her out indefinitely.

--

"I think I finally got away from her," James said, panting in exhaustion as he rushed to hide behind a gas station pump. The name on the sign sported a snail and read SHELL, although the S had faded away. James made a small face at the printing, and then sighed, slumping onto the ground and taking out a health drink, gulping it down. The things were addictive...

Suddenly, there was a shadow over him. James gripped the glass bottle tightly, readying his rifle. As he tilted his head up, he saw...

"Hi! Have you seen my daddy?!"

A young girl, about seven years old, stood above him, grinning like she was the child of Satan, which, James thought, could very likely be true.

"Your daddy?" He blinked. "Not unless he's a fat blonde who likes to throw up and eat pizza."

"No, silly!" She giggled loudly, and James tensed as he heard the nearby monsters echo her laughter. That... was really not helping the whole 'daughter of Satan' theory. "My daddy! ...Oh!" She stopped, looking at him carefully. "Are you my daddy?!"

He blinked, thinking quickly for a moment.

"Uh," he said simply. James had never been a quick thinker.

"Daddy!" The girl, apparently convinced, latched quickly onto his leg.

"Oh, god," he muttered. Well, he thought, if I'm this girl's father, that would make me... Satan? No, no, he smacked his head. Focus, James. That would make... her mother Mary! With a smile, he poked the girl's head.

"Hey, girl. Uhm, where's your mommy? Can you take me to her?" Finally, a lead!

The little girl thought for a moment, and nodded quickly.

"Yeah! I can! She's a little mad right now, though." The young girl unlatched herself and stood, taking James' hand. "Come on, let's go!"

--

Dahlia Gillespie stood over the other church's altar, muttering in an annoyed tone to herself.

"Goddamnit, who keeps leaving all the ceremonial powder in the chalice?" she grumbled. "Alessa!" she screamed, turning. Getting no response, she growled, lowering her head and mumbling. "Where is that girl?!"

Suddenly, there came a knock at the hole in the wall.

"I'm here, mommy!" Cheryl skipped in, holding James' hand and pulling him into the hall. He smacked his head on the entrance as she dragged him, and Dahlia snickered at another human's pain before realizing that she had never seen this intruder before.

"Alessa, who is that?" she pointed at him.

"This? This is daddy!" she squealed, clutching to James' leg again. James made a face, and then looked up at Dahlia, his eyes widening. "Mary?" he gasped.

Dahlia looked around for a minute, then pointed to herself.

"Me?" she squeaked.

"Oh my god, that disease really did a number on you!" James said, laughing nervously. "Uh, I think I'll go find Maria now!" He attempted to shuffle out, which was no small feat with a seven-year-old wrapped around his leg.

"Get back here!" Dahlia pointed to him. "We can use you! How would you like to be a part of a religious cult?!"

"No thanks!" he cried. "The past is best remembered and not relived, Mary!"

"Mary?" She stared at him. "No, no, you see, my name is Dahlia, Dahlia Gilesspie! I would like you to go find... my... my brother, that's it, my brother!" She smiled, desperately trying to be pleasant. "Please? Oh, I haven't seen my dear, dear brother in so long, in... in years! ...And, and now he's lost in the fog!" She broke down into very fake, very labored tears.

James looked around, and then sighed.

"Your brother, huh? What's he look like?"

"Short, black hair, just turned seven last month!" Cheryl recited. "That's what you taught me, remember, daddy?!"

"Uh." James stared.

"No, no, Alessa, not you." Dahlia sighed. "My brother, he's tall, brown hair, brown jacket, jeans. Blue vest, white shirt, likes showing off the upper-half of his chest."

James stared at her. There was a long silence.

"If you haven't seen him in years, how do you know what he's weari--" James began.

"Just shut up and find him!" Dahlia screamed.

--

Harry Mason quietly sat on the sides of the concrete drawbridge, throwing pieces of bread into the bloody water to the mutant zombie fish. Every once in a while one would jump so high that Harry would have to detract his feet to keep them from being bitten off, but it was a pastime he enjoyed just the same.

He sighed, dropping the last piece of moldy bread into the water. A huge, rotting fish with one eye melting from its socket gnashed its way into the sky, grabbing the bread and Harry's shoe in one bite. Harry screamed loudly, jumping so high that he fell backwards, back hitting the pavement. He stared up at the sky, grinning stupidly, before noticing that there was a man lurking above him.

"Oh." He blinked. "Hi."

James stared down at Harry, unsure what to say.

"Your sister is looking for you," he said, finally.

"My sister?" Harry rolled over, standing quickly. "I don't have a sister. I'm an only child. Nice to meet you, though. I'm Harry Mason. I came here on vacation."

"I'm James Sunderland. I'm here to look for my wife. You see, she died three years ago, but I got this letter from her saying that she as here in our special place, so I came to find her. However, I got kind of sidetracked when I met this girl named Maria, because she looked and sounded so much like Mary, my wife. So I followed Maria around for a little, until we came to a hospital. We went in there because we were looking for this little girl named Laura, some brat that stepped on my hand when I was trying to reach this key in the apartment building. Anyway, I kept moving and Maria eventually died in the hospital because Pyramid Head skewered her. He's this big guy with a cone on his head, and an attitude problem. Anyway, I got all sad and there was lengthy piano music playing and self-monolouges and such, and then I realized that I was looking for Mary, and that I didn't even like Maria because she was a dirty annoying girl. So I kept going until I made my way to the Historical Society and then to the Toluca Prison. I went through that, and then I went to the Labyrinth and met Maria again, and I was all confused because I thought she had died, and there was a CG cinema and everything, and then I had to go unlock the door she was behind and when I got there she was dead again, so I got all sad again, and then I killed some guy named Eddie because he's a jerk, and I got out of the labyrinth and rowed a boat over to the Lakeview Hotel, and Laura was there, and I thought Mary was there but really she wasn't, Maria was, and I had to fight two Pyramid Heads and then I had to kill Maria, and I talked to Mary and she said I had to let go of all my guilt, so I did." He grinned, then started breathing heavily, having said that all in one breath.

Harry stared.

"Uhm." He blinked. "Listen, have you seen my daughter?"

"Daughter? No, but I have seen your niece."

"I don't have a niece," Harry said, rather annoyed now.

"Yeah, you do. She's a young girl. short, black hair. She kind of looks like she just turned seven... last month." James tilted his head, curiously. "Now, where have I heard that line before..."

Harry grabbed James' shoulders tightly. "You saw Cheryl?!" he cried.

"Well..." James began, but Harry was too excited to let him finish.

"And you just let her go?!" he screamed, slamming his fist over James' cheek. The man tumbed into the pavement, grunting as he fell. Harry blinked, staring at his bloody fist. "Whoa," he muttered. "And I became a writer? With a left hook like that?"

--

Mary twitched slightly as she stared at the cards in her hand. Glancing over them to the grotesque figure louging in the shadows, she sighed fully.

"I give up. I told you, I don't know how to play this game, and you're not a very good teacher," she said briskly.

The shadowed figure leaned in and smacked Mary upside the head with a gory glove. He made wild gestures towards her cards and then smacked his oddly-shaped head-like structure into the wall in frustration. Mary angrily swept all the cards off the table and both figures stood, Mary shouting and the monster howling loudly after her. The door to the room suddenly opened and a man peaked his head in, raising an eyebrow. Mary quickly stopped beating her fists against the monster's pyramid-head structure and backed away. The man shook his head, lifting a hand to push his glasses up his nose where they had slipped down.

"I've told you two a hundred times to stop fighting." He walked into the room. "How am I supposed to get any reading done when you two are shouting all the time?"

Mary looked down, embarrassed.

"That goes for you, too, Pyramid Head," the man scolded. The creature let out a sort of pathetic whine and the man shook his head.

"No, no. No excuses. Now, get to work. You've got some valves to turn."

Pyramid Head lifted his hands, pulling off his mask to reveal a monster's head.

"Aww, boss... do I have to?" he whined.

"I told you to, then you have to, Pyramid Head. Or should I say... Valtiel." The man grinned, swinging the door open as Valtiel dragged himself out, grumbling the whole way down the hall.

Mary sighed.

"I still think you're too hard on him, Vincent," she said.

--

End of Chapter One

Stay tuned for Chapter 2!