Chapter 3: Omen
Whenever her parents had decided Rose was acting normal enough for a decent stretch of time, they would treat her to a weekend at Lakeside Amusement Park. In reality, they just gave her money and shooed her along so that they may be left to their own devices. On the last few trips, Rose actually managed to drag Vincent along so she wouldn't be alone. She would often lure him there by promising him things which few teen boys could resist, let alone the boy who has loved her since she cried over his toy fire-truck that she had broken, as though it were the end of the world. Her parents even gave them their own room to share at the Lakeview Hotel, either too trusting or too unconcerned to worry about hormones.
She began to remember the long days spent with him around the amusement park, then to the outlying towns and local shops. Paleville had some nice little Mom&Pop shops, but nothing terribly interesting to the adolescent eye. But if they walked for half a day, they could get to a small town filled with things to occupy young, fleeting minds.
Silent Hill was once an ideal place for teenagers.
The stringent conservative majority had tried to rid Silent Hill of the evils of the modern world, consequently making them more appealing to rebellious youth and quick-witted merchants alike. Bookshops carried books on the occult and witchcraft, which a lot of teens ate up. Music shops had all the music grandparents lobbied viciously to have banned. And, for the legal teen, one or two 'special interest' shops would pop up occasionally, selling escape and fantasies for as long as they could before 'The Man' would shut them down. Innumerable things of interest kept their days full and busy.
Then her family just stopped going, as if Silent Hill wasn't only a non-option, but in fact became a taboo topic of discussion. Her parents would quickly change the subject if she tried to pull for another weekend trip. And all she did get from them was overheard during eavesdropping on the rare occasions they discussed the town. What little she got was something about the town 'changing hands', and more ominous speech.
Vincent only expressed dismay about the trips stopping before he was old enough to go to Heaven's Night, the local 'gentleman's parlor'.
Rosaline had enough time to chuckle once before what looked mostly like a deer bounded in front of her car. The reflection of her headlights in the animals eyes nearly blinded her. She shut her eyes and swerved the steering wheel. It was no use. She hit the animal on the forward side of it's body. Then everything slowed down.
It was like seeing everything through a fine sheet of silk, or cigarette smoke in a bar. She could hear the animals neck break in several places, over the sound of both metal and flesh compacting. She looked over to the animals face, and saw that it locked eyes with her. With the neck broken and the impact still happening, albeit disturbingly slow, the face of the beast drew closer to hers. The closer it got, the more she could see it was not a deer. Its skin stretched, peeled, and ripped as the face seemed to fight to get closer to her. She saw the creature's eyes were like large, pale, yellowish marbles set into eye sockets too big to keep them in, yet there they stayed. Then she began to see that, as the distance closed, the face was changing. Where was once a muzzle, what seemed like both seconds and hours ago, was now a nose formed by two short, thin strips barely over the rest of the head's shape. It's mouth stretched from ear-hole to ear-hole, looking as though the jaw was held by a small, delicate hinge. Inside the beasts gaping maw were rows of hundreds of small, serrated teeth. The skin, where it wasn't tearing, had thin white hairs spread over a pinkish gray membrane, giving it a sort of sheen in the moonlight.
The head of the creature, now barely attached to the rest of it's body, punched through the windshield as though it were little more than an annoyance. The shattered glass sliced at the beast's features, making a translucent black fluid creep forth from the wounds. The smell reminded her of waste, vomit, and... blood. It was the strongest of the odors, but it seemed wrong somehow. It had a strong metallic tinge to it.
When the face was close enough for her to see, lit only by moonlight, that the eyes were smooth, nearly featureless spheres, everything stopped. She wondered if it was the stoppage of time or naked fear that kept her from moving away from the maw, which now seemed to be grinning. The smile resembled that of a wolf's to a cornered rabbit. And before she could imagine the maw closing over her head, it stopped next to her ear, then spoke. It's voice was clear, yet reminiscent of a gale through the branches of a barren forest, each wisp of wind it's own voice.
"Leben Höhle."
She had no time to ponder these words, because as soon as they left the creatures lips, the collision resumed in full force. A flying sliver of glass cut deep into Rose's left cheek, and a piece of shrapnel dug deep into her left hand. Her car jostled to a stop, and the creature was nowhere to be seen. Rose thought to try and get her bearings, but instead chose to drop her head on the steering wheel and ignore her instincts, which told her to try and stay alert. Rosaline embraced the cool warmth of the darkness creeping into her vision.