"Shane..." Josh said hesitantly.

"I'm not lost!" Shane spat back.

"Shane…?" I asked.

"I'm not fricken lost!" He insisted.

"Shane, you missed your turn…" said Lily.

After spewing out some colorful words, Shane turned our big white truck around and made the turn. The four of us were on our way to Silent Hill; the, apparently, deserted ghost town that Shane had been rambling about the night before. Josh had wanted to come too; as it turned out, he liked stuff like this.

I ran my hand through my hair a few times before asking, "Lily, will you pull my hair up please?"

I felt her hands brush through my hair before pulling it up high on my head.

"You know," she said, "You have such pretty white hair. You should dye it different colors!"

I rolled my eyes. Lily, and even Shane, had tried numerous times to get me to dye my hair. They said it would be fun because I was albino, but I liked my hair white. It was my personal way of saying, 'fuck you, nature!'

Josh and Lily were singing along with the radio as Shane was looking for his next turn.

"Sissy," he asked me, "what's the street name I turn onto?"

"Uh," I checked my map, "Nathan Avenue."

The truck made a very sudden, sharp, turn.

"Jesus Christ, Shane!" Josh screamed, "Frickin aggressive driver…."

The car soon slowed down and came to a stop. I looked out my window to see a fence.

"Looks like we have to go on foot." Shane commented.

We grabbed our stuff out of the bed of the truck. I slung my guitar on my back, my lucky acoustic, and grabbed my satchel; which currently held two peanut butter sandwiches, my wallet, a bottle of Coke, and my pocket knife that my dad gave me before he left for the army.

I looked back at everyone else; Josh put on a beanie to cover his light brown hair, Lily pulled her "lucky" pink tutu over her black jeans, and Shane grabbed a flashlight and a gun. Wait, what?

"Shane?" I asked nervously, "Why and where did you get a gun?"

"Huh? Oh, I thought it might come in handy if we ran into something…." He trailed off. Ran into something?

"Do you have gun training?" I asked.

"…no." he said remorsefully.

"Then I hold the gun." Dad had given me gun training before he went off to war, just in case.

Shane reluctantly handed me the gun. I checked the clip, turned the safety on, and tucked it into the back of my pants.

"Well then," Josh asked, "Shall we?"

And with that, we proceeded into Silent Hill.


"So…coming up on our left should be some kind of old church." Josh reported as he looked up from the map.

We had been walking for a few hours; nothing really exciting happened. The highlight of my day so far was when a cockroach ran by; Josh screamed like a little girl and jumped into Shane's arms. Shane responded with a girly scream of his own and running down the street, whilst still carrying Josh. God, I love my friends.

We made it to the church; it was in surprisingly good shape. We walked up to the doors and pushed; they opened. We walked in and looked around. It was a well kept little church; it looked like the ghost town had forgotten about it, and let it remain how it was before everyone disappeared.

"What's with…" Josh's words were cut off by a loud siren.

Lily covered her ears and screamed over the siren, "Did we trip an alarm?"

Something moved out of the corner of my eye. I looked up to see a person. He was wearing dirty, ripped clothes and had dirt and guck on his face. His eyes were wide with fear as he looked at us. As the siren droned on, more people gathered into the church; they all looked like the man; dirty and depressing. As the church filled up, we four moved to the back. We didn't need to draw attention to ourselves. Besides, this town was supposed to be deserted.

The church was soon full of dirty, scared looking, people. They didn't seem to notice us, until Shane sneezed. I turned to shoot him a death glare. He managed to look sheepish enough to get out of getting hit. I turned back the crowd of people; they were currently staring at us.

"Uh…hello there?" I tried to break the awkward; it didn't work.

"WITCHES!" one of the dirty people screamed.

They all started coming at us, trying to grab us; trying to kill us? Then, a loud shot was heard. Everyone stopped coming at us and ducked. I looked behind me to see Josh with his arm extended in the air. He was holding the gun. Lily was laughing then.

"I'm not a witch, I'm not a witch!" She mumbled under her breath. We all giggled at the reference.

"This is a place of holiness!" shouted a feminine voice. Out stepped a woman, much cleaner than the rest of them, in a blue dress.

One of the people in the crowd ran up to her and fell on her knees. "Chistabella," she said, her voice sounded as if she was in tears, "there are witches in our home!"

The lady in blue, Christabella, looked at us and smiled. "These are not witches," she said calmly, "they are lost souls who came for redemption and salvation. And it is our duty, bestowed upon us by the elders of our elders, to spread the faith of our people to all who are willing o welcome it into their lives!"

"How many shots is left in that gun?" Shane whispered to Josh whilst Christabella was having her little moment.

"Probably around seven, why?" Josh whispered back.

"Shoot me now. Please?"

"Now I ask of you," Christabella continued, "who is the leader of your small group?" She waited a moment before coming up to me and saying, "So it is you?"

I looked behind me to see everyone had taken a step back so Christabella would assume I stepped forward. Thanks, guys. Love you too.

"Um, yes ma'am." I said hesitantly.

"Then I will ask you to come with me." She started to lead me away. "Anthony, will you welcome our new friends with a mass?"

"Yes ma'am." A voice spoke out.

Christabella lead me down a long hallway that brought us to a door. She opened it and we went inside. It was a small room, resembling a bedroom. It had a king sized bed, a dresser, a mirror (cracked), and the wallpaper had pink and black flowers on it.

"Now," she started, "how did you and your group get here?"

Lie, a voice inside my head told me. It was strange; it wasn't the voice I usually heard when I thought to myself. But I'll be damned if I listen to voices that aren't mine.

"Well, we came to this town because we heard it was deserted, but it clearly is not. We were wandering until we came to this church. We came inside, out of curiosity, and then the siren went off." I told her the truth. Take that, voice.

"I see. Tell me, dear, do you know what that siren means?" I shook my head. "It means that the darkness is coming. If you are ever outside, and you hear that siren, you come straight back here. Understand?"

"Yes ma'am." I responded.

She proceeded to give me the lay down of all the rules that this little community had. I thought it was pointless because we were just going to go home later, but it this lady wanted to hear herself talk, then why spoil her fun?

We meet back up with the rest of the community as they said a prayer. I looked at Shane and Lily who, like me, weren't religious and were at a total loss for what they should be doing. Josh, on the other hand, who is apparently good at everything, had his hands folded and his head down. God damn it, Josh.

I saw Shane lean over to Josh and whisper something in his ear. It must have been bad because Josh turned bright red. I glared at Shane; he made a face at me. This was going to be a long day.