Chapter 3: Driven
Adrian had woken up the next morning, though not because he wanted to. After the frights he had taken last night, he was defeated before the adventure even began. His eyes drooped behind his messy blonde bangs that he couldn't bear to comb; he simply brushed his teeth and pressed his hand on his head to make sure his hair was matted down, before giving himself a thumbs up in the bathroom mirror.
The drive to Maria's house wasn't much of a fun one. He always hated travelling nearly an hour out of his way to get to Maria's house in Westford. Always beat getting bothered by Jehovah's witnesses everyday in his old neighborhood.
He parked his sleek red sports car out of the pale green house he knew all too well and stepped out, lazily slamming the driver door behind him. As he made his way up the front steps he was surprised to find Maria open the door for him on the other side, greeting him with a warm smile and a kind hearted "Hello." Her smile quickly changed to concern though as she looked at the tiresome expression on Adrian's face before giving him a hug and whispering to him worriedly, "You don't seem to have gotten much sleep. I didn't get you too worried last night, did-"
"Do you ever worry me?" Adrian eased Maria off of him as he slowly invited himself inside the open front door, Maria walking behind him meekly.
"Well, if I have I haven't noticed until now.." Adrian let out a yawn and stretched his arms high into the air. "Please," Maria offered, gesturing to the couch next to him, "sit down."
Adrian did just that, making himself further comfortable by kicking his feet up onto the coffee table in front of him. His rather bulky platform boots clacked noisily on the wood underneath them. Maria giggled nervously and pushed her hair from her eyes, her hair just the way Adrian remembered it. Straight and reaching past her shoulders, with natural red color to it. Looked a lot more presentable than Adrian and his crazy blonde hair, that was for sure.
"You want some coffee?" Maria asked, backing away towards the kitchen. Her ex looked like he needed some caffeine.
Adrian shook his head and let out another yawn. "Nah, I'm fine." Maria nodded and disappeared into the kitchen anyway, returning into view a moment later with a coffee mug in her hand which she took a sip from before setting it down on the nightstand at her side and sitting down in a black leather chair and looked over at Adrian who fidgeted in his seat on the couch. He would also flinch when he heard the distinct sound of a baby crying.
He glanced at Maria and narrowed his eyes. "What was that?"
Maria scratched her head nervously, and shrugged. "Baby from next door."
Adrian nodded slowly. "Okay."
"Are you alright?" He compulsively scratched at his head at the question, matting down his hair more in doing so.
"Yeah I'm okay, I just want to go and get this over with."
"Oh.." She sighed and looked around for a moment. And then, with a nod of her head, she stood up and headed back into the kitchen, returning this time with an envelope in her hand and walking over to hand it to Adrian. "Found this after I got off the phone with you."
Adrian's hand reached out to take the envelope and he looked it over with little care. He turned it over and shook it for a moment, allowing a small card to slide out and fall into his lap. He then tossed the envelope aside and picked up the card. Noticing he turned it on it's blank side, he turned it around and looked at the few words that were written neatly in cursive handwriting with blue pen, although the harmless feel to the words on the card ended there.
Cain,
Your future lies here, in the hands of us in Silent Hill. We await to welcome you to paradise.
-Sam
Adrian tilted his head at the card before slowly reaching his hand back out to Maria for her to take the letter. She took it and put it back in it's envelope before she stuffed it out of sight into her pocket. "What do you think?" She asked the question softly, scared of how Adrian would react. He didn't look very happy, that she was sure of. It was just a matter of why that was.
All Adrian mumbled however, were the words "Silent Hill..." before he picked his feet up off their resting place and onto the floor before he hunched over and narrowed his eyes in deep thought.
"You e-" Maria started to speak, but Adrian quickly silenced her by holding his left hand up to her, stopping her in mid sentence. He softly tapped his feet on the floor, as if the clankityclankclank of his boots helped his chain of thought.
'Who are you, Sam?'
clankityclankclankclankclankclankityclank...
'What is so important about Silent Hill? C'mon, I know I should know.. Just gimme something to jog my memory..'
..clankclankclankityclankclankclank...
'Tying yourself to me
Stitch up my emptiness 'cause you're the death of me
So precious, loving the thrill'
"What was that?" Maria referred to Adrian slight whisper of the lyric that he had just subconsciously recited. Adrian looked at her in question for a moment before he registered the same amount of confusion in Maria's eyes, and quickly stood up, shaking his head quickly.
"It's nothing," he replied softly and headed quickly for the front door, "I think I should just go."
Maria walked after him slightly. She didn't necessarily want him to leave so early, but she didn't have the courage to say so. All she could find the strength to say was-
"Wait.."
Fortunately for her, it was just barely loud enough to get Adrian to turn around and look back questioningly at Maria who frowned before she slowly moved forward and hugged Adrian again. "Please be careful, okay?"
Adrian gently returned the hug and pulled something out of his pocket and held it in front of Maria when he pulled away from her. "I gave this to Cain around his last birthday." Giving her a half smile, he put the rosary over her head and around her neck. "I think he'd feel better if you held onto it for him." Smiling, Maria patted Adrian on the head and looked into his eyes. A certain sparkle shone from her eyes, a kind that Adrian hadn't seen from her in quite some time.
"You can be a nice boy sometimes," she said.
Adrian shrugged and cracked another half smile. "I have my moments."
And with that he turned back around and was out the door before Maria could mutter so much as a goodbye, or ask why Adrian was in the hospital. She didn't want to bother Adrian anymore, anyway; she felt as if she had done enough.
'I'm born
I'm alive
I breathe
In a moment or two I realize
That the sphere upon which I reside
Is asleep on its feet
Should I go back to sleep?'
'Vitamin' by Incubus had blasted out of the speakers of Adrian's very souped up sound system as he made his way down endless winding roads, and thus closing the gap between him and his objective.
'We orbit the sun
I grow up
My open eyes see
A zombified, somnambulist society
Leaving us as vitamins
For the hibernating human animal
Do you see what I mean?'
Slowly, as the song continued on, things began to change. So slow that Adrian could barely notice until he could eventually see nothing in front of him. Nothing but fog and maybe a car length of the road in front of him if he was lucky.
"What in the..."
'You stare at me like I'm a vitamin
On the surface you hate, but you know you need me
I'll come dressed as any pill you deem fit
Whatever helps you swallow the truth
All the more easily...'
He stared out into the thickness of the fog that had taken over the road. He looked around and slowly moved his car to the right to hopefully pull it onto the shoulder of the road, that was until a jarring honking of a horn behind him got him to swerve back out onto the road.
"Shit on me!" He yelled as he could see something out of the corner of his eye passing by him on the shoulder. A motorcycle. A police motorcycle to boot. And on it was a figure that he couldn't see very well, although he could note the standard police outfit and tinted helmet on. And then, he could notice the officer's left hand leave the handle it was holding onto and motion to him to pull over.
"Aww Jesus, not this early in the mornin', man."
He slowed the car down and the motor cycle pulled ahead and slowed to a stop before the officer climbed off and off came the helmet. Matted down blonde hair covered the officer's eyes as she tucked the helmet under her right arm and approached Adrian as he stepped out of his car and approached the woman.
"Wanna turn off the radio?" The woman referred to the blaring music inside Adrian's car, with a stern look on her face.
He quickly turned and snapped the volume knob before giving off a sheepish grin and mumbling a "sorry" under his breath.
"So what are you doing heading out here? You know this road isn't for use?"
Adrian shrugged and looked around before shaking his head slightly. "No idea.. Tough to see any signs with this fog anyways."
The officer nodded in reply. "Yeah..."
"So what's your name, officer?" Adrian asked, causing the woman to raise her badge to him.
"Cybil Bennett, I'm a police officer from Brahms, the next town over." She held her helmet with her left hand as her right one reached out to shake Adrian's hand, which it did in a warm greeting. "And you would be..."
Adrian laughed softly. He needed some reason to get his mind off thinking angry thoughts. "You dunno who I am?"
"Can't say that I do.. Are you a celebrity or something?"
"Heh." Adrian scratched his head. "Well, sorda. Not yet really. Adrian's the name."
"Nice to meet you, Adrian."
"Same to you."
Cybil let go of her grip on Adrian's hand and turned to point down the road. "Well if you're wondering why I pulled you over, don't worry you haven't done anything wrong. Nothing I know of anyway. But I thought I would warn you to be careful on this road and the town you're heading to. Very dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
"Yeah... it's kinda hard to explain, but there's been a lot of strange things going on there. I was there quite awhile back, and I just come here every now and then to tell people to be careful if they absolutely have to go here."
"Oh.. I see."
Cybil turned back to Adrian and put a hand on her hips. "Speaking of which, what are you here for?"
"Ah..." Adrian sighed. He didn't reveal personal information to anyone, police or not. "I'd rather not say, just need to pick up my brother."
"And you believe he's here?"
"Yeah.."
"Why would that be?"
"...Look, I'd rather not talk about this, he's probably waiting for me right now."
Cybil nodded and took a step back towards her motorcycle. "Alright. But if you don't mind, I'd like it if I escorted you there, the road's pretty bad even if you took the fog away."
Adrian gave her a smug smile and reached for the handle to his driver door. "Sure, that'd be great. Thanks, miss."
"It's alright, just call me Cybil.. I'm not one of those stereotypical officers from 'Cops' or anything."
Adrian chuckled and nodded as he opened the door next to him. "Alright then... Cybil."
He climbed into his car and Cybil headed back to her motorcycle and got on, putting her helmet back on and slowly pulling off the shoulder and back onto the road and Adrian doing the same.
Adrian stayed a close distance behind Cybil; he had to or he'd have lost her in the fog. Cybil's motorcycle drifted left into a turn. Adrian's car did the same. Cybil then moved into the opposite lane onto the far left.
'What the hell is she doing?'
He looked out at her through his window as he rolled it down. "Are you insane?!"
Cybil didn't seem to hear, however, she seemed much more concentrated on the road. Adrian continued to look out at her with concern, hoping nothing went wrong with her in the lane for oncoming traffic. In this fog, he almost expected the Devil to pop out. And in a way, it did.
'Chick's got a death wish driving in the opposite lane in fog like this.'
BAM!
Out went Adrian's right front tire as it smashed itself up in the nasty pothole it had hit.
"Shit!" His car swerved at Cybil who noticed the pop of Adrian's tire and sped up to get out of the way of the car careening towards her. Adrian barely managed to regain control of the car as he swerved it back out to the right, then left, and finally steadying it out. But by the time he did, Cybil was well out of sight.
"Dammit," he mumbled nervously as he kept a hawk's eye on the road. His hands tightly gripped onto the steering wheel in front of him. His foot slowly pressing on the gas to speed up and hopefully catch Cybil. He then reached over to the CD player and turned it back on to the song he was listening to before. Softly, voice tinged with fear, he began humming along. And then, he glanced out to the left to see if he was catching up to Cybil, but in the blink of an eye he had seen it. Cybil's motorcycle completely wrecked. And no Cybil in sight. "Ooookay," he mumbled as a bead of sweat began to form on his forehead. He quickly wiped it away with one hand while his other hand remained glued to the wheel.
'And I wonder, will you digest me?'
BAM!
Another pothole, and out went Adrian's left front tire. He swerved again, but this time the front tires were too banged up to support the car at the speed it was going. The car drifted sideways before flipping over once. Twice. And for a moment, all Adrian could see was total darkness.
