I hear my footsteps echo endlessly into the darkness around me, I hear the many horrid things creep up behind me. Their childish giggles and her repugnant moans; I hear them all come closer. I'm forcing my lungs to suck in air, now, I can barely run anymore and the door to freedom seems to be running away from me with equal glee. Curiously, I turn my head to the darkness behind me to see if I can see them, I can't, but I feel their breath on my face. My face quickly turns back to slam into a door that felt more like a stone wall, but I can't stop now, not now, freedom and life are so close now.
"Our voices will not be denied, Mr. Trent" again I hear it gurgle and spurt poison and guts into the air in the form of a voice. I blink slowly and, suddenly, I see them all over me, surrounding me as I lay on my back, helpless. "We are not to be denied, Mr. Trent", children. Their faces mangled and burnt beyond recognition, most of them grinned as the voice boomed from beyond; the rest contorted their lips into inhumane forms. "Silent Hill, Mr. Drake, Silent Hill" the booming voice slowly dissipated into the beyond and my attention focused solely on the disfigured children.
Their mutilated faces mixed with their disturbingly cherubic grins made my heart beats insanely fast. They smile widely now, their rotted and yellow teeth growing closer to me as they leaned down towards me as I stood totally immobile. I opened my mouth as wide as I possibly could and yelled out into the abyss, the oblivion that enfolded me; I heard nothing, not even my very voice. Just the wet sounds of their small hands breaking into my skin and playing with my insides.
I finally hear my own yell the second I wake up from my horrendous nightmare. A wall of sweat beads covers my back and the bed behind me seems to resemble an ocean, I feel a stinging burn as I sit up in the darkness of my bedroom and dig my face into my sweaty palms. They still haven't stopped coming. The damned souls of Silent Hill, I haven't been able to get a good night's sleep in almost a month. A scratching pain diverts my attention from my thoughts and I sighed deeply, thanking anything worth thanking for that the needle didn't break in all my shaking and turning. I can't help but wince as I pull the needle through my dry skin and toss into the nearly toppling trash can. Heroin, it's only made everything worse.
To add another unexpected flair of disturbance to my already altered night, the phone's ring breaks through the eerie silence. I turn on my lights with the touch of a remote control and pick up my phone, its slim design feeling comfortable to my hand almost instantly.
"Hello?" I hear myself talk, but I can barely feel my lips moving; the headache grows more violent as I muttered coherent words.
"Daniel Trent?" a nerdy and nasal voice queried from the other line as papers shuffled in the background.
"Speaking. Who is this?" I answered back as politely as I possibly could as I scratched my right eye with little enthusiasm.
"This is Detective Monroe, I'm speaking for Harrison Jarry, he asked me to send you some documents" the shuffling of papers was substituted with the slow beeping of what I anxiously guessed to be a fax machine; this was the best news in awhile.
"Thank you very much. Please tell Detective Jarry I'll call him back as soon as I can" I hung up just as my fax machine started to whir and work its mechanical magic. I forced myself up from my soaked bed and made my way towards my office; turning every single light in my apartment on as I walked.
And there it was, the information I had been waiting for the better part of a month for. Names, places and a nice, long, detailed history of everything that had to do with the calm town of Silent Hill, and a bunch of police records to go along with it; my enthusiasm shrunk as I looked at the list of names. Almost all of them either had the word "deceased" or the word "missing" tagged in red beside them. All except for three names: Eileen Gavin, Henry Townshend and Heather Mason. Giving the window a quick stare to see the warm glare of the sunrise, I put the paper down and hurry towards my bedroom. Today was going to be and important day.
To Be Continued……
