I.
Pain. That was the first thing that registered on Christine Mitchell's mind. It was like she had been pelted all over her body with jagged, large stones. Her head was throbbing and she could taste blood in her mouth. Besides that, she felt nausea slowly creeping over her.
Christine clenched her eyes shut, feeling some kind of solace in the fact that she could do that at least, since she couldn't feel the rest of her body. Scared of what she would see, Christine opened her eyes a crack. Her eyes took a few moments to adjust, but when they did, she wished she had kept her eyes closed.
Blood. That was the second item to register in her mind. Christine felt pain, but she immediately knew that the blood wasn't hers. The thick red substance was splattered on her side of the vehicle and all over the windshield. It had pooled on the driver's side, right below where she knew Sean was crushed.
Christine blinked, opening her eyes fully, making sure they didn't accidentally wander to the driver's side of the car. Glass, twisted metal, and papers were scattered below her. Even though a fog had settled over her head, she realized that the car was upside down, probably in the middle of the street.
Pain. The feeling racked her again. Not only was every part of her body screaming for attention, but blood was rushing to her head. On top of that, her seatbelt was on the verge of strangling her.
Tears stung her eyes as she tried to pull the seatbelt from around her. Her body felt weak and drained, the seatbelt somehow overpowering her. A small grunt escaped from her lips as she tugged, a tear streaming onto her forehead. It wasn't the time to cry, even though her boyfriend was dead beside her and she was in an overturned car with no way to get out at this point, she knew that she couldn't cry. Not now.
The adrenaline started to flow through Christine's body, as she tugged on the seatbelt, which finally gave. She clumsily tumbled loose, her limbs tangled and awkward in the small space. Reaching for the door handle, she pushed it open and crawled slowly onto the pavement. Christine didn't glance back until she had reached the side of the road.
Settling down, she viewed the overturned car. Christine couldn't remember how many times the car had flipped over, or how long it had skidded. She remembered the hard jolt from the car hitting a tree on Sean's side. Christine struggled to stay awake as her boyfriend choked on his own blood, strange gurgling noises emanating from his mouth. When she reached for him, all she saw was blood and twisted metal and an arm, twitching frantically. Then the darkness over took her.
A cool breeze wisped through the trees, sending a shiver up Christine's spine. She rubbed her arms, thankful she had no major cuts, but realizing that it was getting cold. She brushed a strand of her brown hair out of her eye, still reflecting on the accident. What had made them go off the road in the first place?
Then she remembered. It was the girl that appeared in the road. She was dressed normally enough, with her white vest on and sleeveless orange turtleneck. The skirt was a little short for Christine's taste, but it didn't look like anything had happened. Until she turned around with blood streaming down her mouth and chest. The expression on her face pleaded for help, but Sean had to swerve to miss hitting her.
After that, Christine only recalled the smell of burning rubber, along with the feeling of vertigo as the car tumbled down the street. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as the windshield shattered after the first flip. The deafening noise of metal giving way against concrete seemed to resound over and over again. Christine only remotely heard the tires blow out as the car flipped over for the third or fourth time. By the sixth time, she had vomited reflexively and went into slight shock.
As the memory came back to her, Christine held herself tighter. She suddenly glanced down the street for the girl. Where was she now? Didn't she see that she had caused an accident? Didn't she know that she was responsible for Sean's death?
Anger began to over take Christine as she searched through the darkness for the girl. The pain was subsiding and her head wasn't pounding anymore. She slowly climbed to her feet, making sure there were no broken bones or traumatic injuries. From what she could tell, she was fine with the exception of minor cuts and bruises.
Christine thought about going back to the car, but there was so much blood. There was no way Sean could still be alive. It made no sense to revisit the wreckage and get herself all worked up again.
She suddenly felt insecure and more alone than she ever had in her life. Here she was, on a dark, remote highway with a slim chance of anyone passing by. They hadn't seen another car within the last four hours of driving.
The only thing left was to head in the direction they were going. The sign back several hundred feet had indicated that they were coming upon a town. Christine thought that it was strange that she couldn't even find it on the map they had. Christine, already unsettled before the trip ever started, felt uneasy about that small fact, despite talking with Sean about Silent Hill. It seemed popular enough. Maybe she would be able to get some help there.
She took one last look at the car, tears welling up in her eyes as she saw the splattered blood all over the front of the car.
"Sean," she whispered. Christine composed herself and began to head down the road toward Silent Hill.
II.
Trey Harrison didn't like crowds. His parents tried to avoid crowds as much as possible and had somehow passed the same sentiments down to their son. He wasn't as uncomfortable as his parents seemed to be in crowds, but this crowd wasn't the ordinary Saturday mall goers.
He was watching the ceremony surreptitiously with both disgust and curiosity. Many people were gathered in the town square, most of which Trey had never seen before. However, they all were united there for one purpose, something strange and abstract that Trey wanted to have no part of.
The crowd stood naked, hands thrown toward the sky, chanting something incomprehensible to him with wild expressions on their face. The crowd consisted of mostly adults, but Trey swore that he recognized some of the people there as students at the school.
Even though it was early evening, a heavy fog had settled over the city and the night was darker than usual. Trey wasn't the one to jump to conclusions, but something told him that the strange ceremony had something to do with the weather.
He reflected back to the point when he agreed with Joel to come with him to the festival. It seemed like any other festival with booths, activities, and families roaming everywhere. Earlier in the evening, something had happened. Trey wasn't sure what it was, but it was like everything had changed at once. He had somehow lost track of Joel and the rest of his friends, and his unfamiliarity with the town didn't help.
Somehow, he had stumbled upon this disturbing, but enthralling scene of people with their hands in the air, possibly calling out to some higher deity.
As he watched, Trey suddenly couldn't believe his eyes. The townspeople were morphing and contorting into something horrible right before his eyes.
"What is going on?" he said as he stood from his hiding place. He began to back away from the mass of screams. It seemed like they were more like screams of pleasure than the expected pain.
Within seconds, the crowd had turned into something that was definitely not human. Some of them had taken odd shapes, their limbs distorted, faces non-existent, and some of them had merged into other grotesque amalgamations.
Trey backed up some more, making sure not to bring attention to himself. He slipped away into an alleyway then broke out into a full sprint. Thinking the street was dangerous, Trey ducked into a place with Neely's Bar in sizable letters above the door.
The place was much darker than Trey would have thought, despite the evening orange sky. The bar looked as though no one had set foot in it in years. Newspapers and trash were strewn across the floor and on the bar. The windows were covered with various newspapers too, blocking out any kind of sun or streetlight from entering. The thing that disturbed Trey the most was the smeared writing that was on the newspaper. It looked as though there was something written there, but it had been haphazardly wiped away.
Trey dared to venture deeper into the bar, not really looking for something, but feeling that something was drawing him in.
He treaded lightly over the floor, the image of the morphed crowd still vivid in his mind.
III.
Stacy tried not to breathe. She felt the sweat forming down her back and under her arms, making her feel like fidgeting, but she didn't dare move a muscle. Her vision was obscured by her hiding place, and every so often, the attacker would disappear from her sight, only to reappear carrying another body.
A wave of nausea washed over her, but she didn't succumb to it. She couldn't if she didn't want to end up like her friends. Everything had happened so fast, she could barely make out what had actually happened.
Stacy Aspen was one of the most attractive girls at the school. In turn, it was no coincidence that she was invited to every party, every get together, and every hang out session that the other students had. The guys invited her just to try to get at her, while the girls hoped that she would attract those same guys and they could take advantage of them. Stacy was only a pawn in both of their games, and was fully aware of it. Still, she loved the attention and popularity, so she pretended as if she didn't know.
Her roommate, Becky, fussed at her all the time about it. Stacy simply brushed the girl off, calling her naïve and also inferring that she was jealous.
Tonight had been typical of any other night. Todd Hartford had invited her over to just "hang out" with him and his friends. The simple talking had turned into a card game, and then beer appeared in the room somehow. Stacy knew it was another attempt to seduce her, so she didn't drink much. Simply giggling a lot and being more flirtatious than usual gave the façade that she had just as much as them to drink.
When the lights suddenly went out, the laughing and talking suddenly stopped. Todd immediately laughed it off, saying the college probably forgot to pay its light bill. Everyone laughed, but Stacy could hear the suppressed alarm.
Brad, one of Todd's friends, said that he would check it out. Stacy objected, but Brad immediately made a joke regarding some horror movie and tried to scare her before leaving the room.
It wasn't like her to get so worked up over a simple thing as the lights being out, but something was different. She felt nervous and edgy, which was an unusual feeling for her. Stacy prided herself on her composed nature, even in the most of stressful situations.
When Brad's voice rang out in a horrible scream, Stacy was frozen in place. His scream was pain-filled and agonizing. She immediately knew he wasn't joking. It was like she knew that something had caused the lights to go out, and now it was after them.
Nick and Todd both stood, as crossed the room to the door, but it burst inward, Brad's body flying through the air, landing on Ryan who had stayed back, probably just as scared as Stacy.
She didn't know whether it was instinct or an unplanned reaction, but she immediately dropped to the floor and slid under the bed. It wasn't the best of hiding places, but for now it would have to do.
Almost immediately, she heard the sound of something heavy dragging across the floor then Todd screamed out. His voice stopped abruptly and the sound of a body falling to the floor seemed to resound throughout the room.
Stacy stopped breathing. Ryan screamed, probably at the sight of Brad's body coupled with whatever had happened to Todd. The other three voices mixed in with his. Things were thrown and smashed against some mortal threat.
Stacy couldn't move. Her body had gone numb when she made out the heavy blood stained boots in the dim light. They clomped past the bed toward the other people in the room.
The screams made Stacy a little more comfortable. They told her that the others were fighting, but when silence fell over the room, she knew that they had lost the battle.
The boots walked by the bed again and stopped. Had the attacker found her? Stacy felt like her bladder was going to burst and sweat ran down her face.
Ryan's body fell to the floor, his blue eyes peering right into Stacy's, pleading for her help with dimming focus.
She moved slightly and covered her mouth. Stacy had actually liked Ryan. He was funny and never tried to really hit on her. Now, he sat dead only a foot in front of her. A boot suddenly crashed down, crushing his head like a pumpkin. Blood and other bits of human meatiness landed on her face, slowly running down her cheek and forehead.
Her eyes were wide with shock, and her breath was caught in her throat.
Now, she waited in paralyzed fear as the attacker dragged the bodies out of the room. She was sure that the attacker had taken all the bodies out of the room, but she still waited for what seemed like hours before finally moving a muscle.
She quietly and cautiously scooted from under the bed and stood slowly, surveying the room for any other threats. The first thing that caught her eye was the noticeable blood splattered over the bed, desk, and table. She held herself as her legs began to buckle. Stacy thought she was going to faint, but shook her head and blinked hard to keep from falling.
It was then that she noticed a folded note on the bed. Blood was splattered on it, but otherwise, it was neatly folded in the center of the bed.
Going against all the alarms going off in her head, she reached for the note and snatched it off the bed, presuming there was some kind of trap attached to it.
Satisfied that she was safe, she opened the note slowly, glancing around the room again for any sign of someone else being there. When her eyes finally returned to the note, all of the blood drained from her face.
YOU'RE NEXT.
Paralyzed, she let the note slip from her hands, as she heard the closet behind her creak open.
Notes:
Silent Hill belongs to Konami. All other characters are fictional.
I want to thank everyone for the awesome reviews for the first chapter. I've been busy with school, but I also was trying to take some time to get together a worthy second chapter.
Justin Valentine: I hope this chapter continues the trend of the first
Zero: I hope the dorm wasn't too scary when you got back
Rodarian: I appreciate the suggestions. I definitely will do my best to keep the intensity up. I will have some of the familiar locales of Silent Hill in the story as well as some new ones. As for Michael's sin, at this point it appears that he is just a victim of circumstance. His story will come to light during some of the future chapters.
Hello Captain: Glad that you like it. It seems that you've written a lot of stories, which are really good, so a compliment from you is quite flattering
Wrath: Anything I can do to please...
Random1377: Hopefully, this chapter answers your question
Ryko Sill: Here's the continuation...let me know what you think!