My head was hurting. I felt an excruciating pain in the back, right above the nape of my neck. I woke up with several coughs and I felt something dribbling from the corner of my mouth. As I opened my eyes my vision was still smeared but it slowly came into focus the more I blinked back into the world. I could smell the fumes escaping from inside the car, swirling up my nostril. My head hurt real badly, but I don't think it's because of the accident.
The windshield was completely shattered, glass was strewn everywhere. I looked at my body and noticed that I was hit. But at least I was still alive. Then I looked over to my right and saw that the girl was hanging from her seat belt. I then realised that my car was flipped over. Blood was trickling from her body and her chest wasn't moving. Is she dead? Well, if she was, I can't help her now.
I then released myself from my own seat belt and fell onto the ceiling of my car. My body was feeling numbed and my muscles were contracting; but I still managed to crawl through the broken window. I pulled my body out of my car and dragged myself up the trench—it was a pretty deep trench, too.
When I finally got out of the trench I stood up on both legs, wobbled a little, but was fine. I wiped the blood off of my face and stared down at the car where the dead girl was still trapped. I couldn't save her.
It's too late, the nurse said, walking out of a room.
What do you mean, Mother asked her.
It's too late. She's not going to pull through, her system is too weak, the child, she paused, I'm sorry, there's nothing more that we can do. It's not your fault. Then she looked down at me, I could see her eyes welling up with tears. She said to me, I'm sorry, Aidan.
I turned away from her and started walking down the street. According to the sign posted on the wooden pole I was still two miles away from Silent Hill. I could walk that. Four years of track and field in high school had prepared me well enough for this. And so I walked, alone in the darkening day.
The air was growing cold, real cold. I could already see the puff of my breath escaping from my nostrils and mouth. And then suddenly, as I was walking down the street, I heard a loud explosion from where my car had crashed. I didn't turn back, but the flames were so bright that I saw my shadow grow long before me and the red light grew warm. I never found out her name. I know her—I know I do—but I don't remember her name. She's dead now, and it's not my fault. Her name doesn't matter anymore.
It took me ten full minutes to get away from the red light and the smell of burning oil and metal and flesh. And then I was consumed by darkness again.
I walked further and further, five minutes passing by when I finally saw another sign that read "Silent Hill ½ miles". There were now tall telephone poles that towered over me, and attached to them were fluorescent lamps that stuck out from the poles, hanging from chains attached at the end of their supports.
A few minutes passed by now. I finally reached the town, I knew this when I saw its sign: WELCOME TO SILENT HILL, it read.
I reached a rest stop, which was positioned on the top of the Observation Deck. There was a lone restroom building here. I walked over to the grate and looked out into the distance. It was dark out there, but I knew that this was the outskirts of Silent Hill.
Out in the distance I could see several buildings that were lit up, but that was all. Everything else was drowned in black. There were steps that led down into the forest, but I wouldn't take that path ever, especially now when it's so dark out.
I looked at my watch. Six-thirty. I need to find a ride back home. But first I needed to finish some business. So I walked over to the restroom and walked in. I found that the walls and floor and ceiling were completely covered in filth and graffiti. The mirrors of the two sinks were cracked and thick with dust and the sinks were rusted out. Shit lingered around the open stalls and the smell of piss was overwhelming. I turned back and walked from the restroom, sick to my stomach from what I witnessed. But I still have to go. I walked back over to the grates, unzipped my pants and started pissing there. I don't care if anyone sees me. It's dark anyway.
After I finished my business, shaking off the few drops, I zipped myself back up and walked over to the underpass.
Here we go, Father said, as we drove nearer to the underpass. It was dark outside, so this made things even more exciting for me. Father knew that I really liked driving through the tunnel when it was dark because it was even darker going through the tunnel. It always made me think about
I paused for a second. It's always darker inside. What if I get mugged or something? I had to choose from my options: Go through the pitch-black tunnel to get to town, which was the shorter way, or to go through the forest?
I chose the tunnel.
We went through the tunnel. We could barely see ten feet in front of us, which left very little time to react, especially at the speed at which Father was driving. He always drove fast. We drove through the tunnel for a long time. Jeez, I forgot how long this tunnel goes. I felt the car pull to right as we slightly turned to the left—the tunnel swerved here and there, which made the ride even more exciting. I was laughing in jubilation as gravity hit me and pulled my body to the right, and that's when we hit it.
It flew onto the hood of our car, so Father made a quick turn to the right, then shifted into reverse and drove fast, knocking it off of the car. My heart was racing with the car, my heart won. It felt like it leapt out of my chest and sped away. Father started yelling and wheezing. I couldn't understand him because he kept on spitting between words and slurred everything. I couldn't quite see him either because it was so dark. I started to cry.
But then Dad hit me and told me to stop because I was making him even more nervous, and then he screamed at me. It was at that point that I had wished the tunnel wasn't so long. We finally reached the end. It wasn't my fault.
It wasn't so dark in the tunnel anymore; they must've installed these light fixtures after I left. But they weren't helping much. They were dim, making it very difficult to see in front of me still.
When I reached what I thought to be the middle of the tunnel, I found that it was being barricaded by an iron gate, rusted to the core. On it was a warning sign cautioning people of construction and to take another route, and then there was an arrow that pointed to the right. I followed it and found that indeed another route was crafted here, so I took it.
But before I could even walk five feet I found myself before another barricade, this time metallic, but there was a door on the side and it was left hanging open. What was with these barricades?
I went through the door and found that I was now walking through a much narrower path, constructed completely in wood. It was brighter in here; I could see everything around me now. I suddenly ran into a staircase. I peered down it and it looked like it went down a long way. I had to take it though because it was the only way to get to town.
The wooden steps creaked beneath my feet as I crept down them. There were no railings for me to hold on to, but that didn't mind me too much. The fluorescent lamps hung so low that they almost made contact with my head every time I passed under one. And for some reason, the further down I walked the louder the buzzing of the lights got. It was growing incessantly and began to bug me.
I began hearing something else too. I could hear tiny voices swimming up from the darkness that still lingered below. I could also hear footsteps on the wood, reverberating off the narrow walls of the pathway. I couldn't make out anything they were saying though. Who is it, I wonder?
I finally reached the landing of the stairs, I checked my watch again but it still ready six-thirty. But it can't be broken. How? I tapped it a few times on the face, but to no avail.
The voices were stronger down here, which immediately recaptured my attention. But I could still not make out what they were saying, but they sound like little kids.
What are you singing, Aidan, Mommy would ask me after I came home from school.
It's a song they taught us today, I said.
A song, huh? Sounds like a hymn. What a nice tune. Sing it from the beginning for me, Aidan.
They were singing.
There was a door in front of me, wooden, of course. I opened it and walked onto the dirt path. I was seven and with Mommy and Daddy. Dennis was at his girlfriend Ashley's house. We were strolling through the forest as we always did on Sunday afternoons. I would hold on to Mommy's hand and sing my hymns to her because she loved it; she told me she loved it. Father walked beside us with his hands in his pockets, only to come out when he took a puff of his cigarette. Mommy hated it whenever he smoked. She hates the smell of the cigarettes. But I enjoyed it for some reason. It made me feel all grown up. When Dad lit a new one, according to Mommy it was his eighth one today, Mommy smacked it out of his hands, yelling at him and said that it made them feel sick. And then suddenly Mom flew back at me and nearly knocked me down and then
I walked onto the path and found that I was in the forest, the one place where I didn't want to be. I looked back at where I came from and it looked like a broken down cabin, though an extremely small one. This path of course led to the cemetery where everyone went after they died. It was either this one or that other one. But that other one was only for the criminals that deserved it.
I passed by an ancient-looking well and a bench and then knew that I was very close to the cemetery. The voices finally faded as I neared the cemetery, but now I could hear sobbing coming from the cemetery. I opened the gate, which creaked as I did so and ever so loudly, and went through. A sudden blanket of fog was laid down upon the cemetery, and as I was walking through it I could hear the crunching of leaves beneath my feet and the sobbing of a woman somewhere nearby. I went to it for some reason I don't know why. But I did. And what I found behind a gravestone was not a very pleasant sight.
There was a woman down on her knees balling her eyes out over the corpse of a badly wounded man, or what was left of him.
His face was completely torn off, revealing the muscles and tendons and bones beneath. The eyeballs were taken out of their sockets and hung from their muscles. His chest was ripped open, revealing his insides, or what would have been inside him if they were not missing. I could see from where I was standing that the inside of his body was empty, it looked as if everything was completely ripped out from him and thrown somewhere, but there was no other trace of blood except for the pool of blood around him and on the crying woman. Also, his legs and one of his arms were missing and the fingers on the remaining hand were twisted in odd sorts. But that, amongst everything else, was not what disturbed me. On his skinless face there was a smile. Even without lips I could tell he was smiling and his gaze, with his eyes hanging out, was looking at me.
When the woman looked up and found that I was here, she leapt from her spot immediately and let out a scream of horror. I advanced toward her, trying to calm her down but she only moved away from both the body and me. I reached my arm and was trying to speak to her but she only screamed more and eventually ran away.
Suddenly I realised that I was inches away from the corpse and couldn't help but peer down into its open cavity again. And that's when I saw something shining. It looked like a key of some sort. It was where the heart was supposed to be. The peculiar part was that it wasn't covered in blood or anything. It looked new and was still shining. Having curiosity strike me I bent over and reached into the cavity of the man and with my index finger and thumb I retrieved the key.
I brought it to eye level and was examining it like I would a manuscript: with absolute precision. The grooves were completely different to those of a normal house key or car key. At one end of the key there was what looked like a small penny attached to it, only it wasn't a penny. There were carvings on the end of it, too. And on the other end of the penny, the base, there were a red jewel at the centre of an insignia—a familiar insignia.
That's not how you draw it, said the girl sitting next to me in class. This is how you draw it correctly, she said, redrawing the shapes of the insignia with her red pen.
I put down my pencil and looked away from her. No one really liked her anymore since the announcement. Now she acts like she knows everything, which is stupid because no one knows everything. When Tommy told her that she cried and ran away from school. They found her thirty minutes later playing on the swing set in the playground. The next day Tommy was found dead in his room, apparently by suicide. He was only seven years old. He left a note to his parents saying that he hated them and that they were bad parents because they didn't teach him any manners. It was signed 'Thomas Siegfried King'.
That girl didn't show up to school the next day, either. Her mom wrote the school, telling the principal that she had fallen ill and was hospitalised. She was weird.
I was walking away from the cemetery, exiting from the northwest gate and got onto the path that led directly to Silent Hill. Hopefully I could find someone with a car to drive me back.
My mind traced back to that dead guy's body. I wonder what could've happened to him exactly? Why did he have to die? Who killed him? All of these things ran through my head. I couldn't keep my mind off it.
Body
Blood
Blood
Blood
Corpse
Corpse
Blood
Blood everywhere
She died
Blood blood blood everywhere blood
I woke up to the sound of a crash coming from down the hall. I looked over to my alarm clock and saw that it was two o'clock in the morning. From my room I could hear Mother crying out loud. She was wailing so loud, I couldn't bear to hear it, so I went out of my room to see what was bothering her this time. The hallway was long and creaky. On either side of the walls there were portraits of family from ages past and present. I passed by my brother Dennis' room and the guest room. Mother's room was at the end. Her door was left ajar. An orange glow of light shone through the opening. Her cries blasted through this tiny crevice and shot into my ears. I walked slower to her room. The creaks of the floor were drowned in her emotion. My ears were ringing. I reached the door and placed my hand on it and pushed it slightly open. Her door creaked, too. Mother didn't stop crying though. I don't think she heard it.
I walked through the door and saw Mother huddled in the far right corner of the room. The entire room was cast in an orange glow, emitting from the candles that were lit everywhere. The bed sheets of Mother's bed were stripped from the mattress. I took several steps into the room now.
I walked closer to Mother; I could now see that there were legs that didn't belong to her sticking out from in front of her. There I also found her bed sheets. They were soaked in something dark. I reached out my hand to put it on Mother's shoulder but she suddenly turned her head toward me and I saw blood streaming from her face. She was crying. Her tears streamed from her eyes. Her lips were crusted with dried blood. And then she let out a scream so loud the world around me turned white. My body wobbled to and fro and then it fell slowly to the floor. My eyes were still open and I saw blood everywhere and the body from where it was coming from.
Wiltse Road.
I was walking down a road that was called Wiltse Road. It's a narrow path, just barely enough room for two cars to pass by in opposite directions.
I finally reached town. I walked onto Sanders Street and there before me stood the old flower shop.
"Welcome to Silent Hill" read another sign posted next to the flower shop.
Silent Hill…