Author's note: I do not own Silent Hill, the locations, the creatures, or the characters. All are registered trademarks and stuff of Konami. The only things that I own are the characters I have created, this story and all the stuff in my room.

Julia Garland had just finished packing when her cell phone rang for the hundredth time. She didn't even need to look at the caller ID to know that it was her mother. The old woman had been so persistent since they'd last spoken about Julia's trip. She pushed the bangs of her dirty blonde hair out of her forehead and pulled on a pair of jeans. The phone just kept ringing. She sighed and pulled on her favorite hooded sweatshirt. It was a black, long sleeved, zip up garment. On the back was a big picture of a super deformed anime girl with a katana in her hand. Underneath was some lettering that spelled out "Live by the sword, Die by the sword". It was a sweatshirt that had come to be her favorite in recent years.

Putting on her converse shoes and tying them, she tried in vain to ignore the insistent ring tone. Julia sighed as she grabbed her keys, wallet and her still ringing phone. With her suit case in hand she walked out of her apartment, shutting and locking the door behind her as the last conversation with her mother echoed in her head.

"Mom I'm going to Silent Hill and that's final!"

"No you're not. I forbid it"

"Forbid it? Jesus Christ Mom, I'm not seven years old any more. I can make my own decisions now and I don't need you to tell me where I can and can't go."

"This is about your Aunt Lisa, isn't it? I told you years ago to just let her be. She never wanted anything to do with you. So why are you interested in her all of a sudden?"

"Come on mom. I may have been young but I wasn't stupid. Aunt Lisa loved me. Just because you and her didn't get along doesn't mean that the two of us weren't able to. What are you so afraid of anyway? What are you trying to protect me from?"

"You're Aunt abandoned…"

"No, no she didn't mom. I remember what you used to say. That she just stopped calling, stopped staying in touch. That she forgot all about her family? That wasn't the truth was it? Don't you think that it's a bit suspect that she 'just stopped calling'? Aunt Lisa never abandoned us all those years ago mom. She disappeared. There's a big difference there. So I want to know where she is, what happened to her and when I find her, I'm going to bring her home.

There was a long silence

"So I'm going to Silent Hill. End of discussion"

As she had hung up the phone she had heard her mother screaming at her. "No! Don't go!" But Julia didn't care. She was going to get to the bottom of this. She wasn't going to be kept in the dark about what had happened to her beloved aunt eighteen years ago. In the short time that she'd known her, Julia had fallen in love with her Aunt. It was a bond that only close family members could share. Lisa had taught her young niece so much and had been a joy to be around. She wasn't about to let all those memories go to waste without knowing what had become of her.

Walking through the small parking lot towards her jeep as quickly as she could, Julia unlocked her door and put her suit case in the passenger side. She didn't want to be here to face the wrath of her mother. Why wouldn't she just let her look her aunt up? What harm could there be in that? With a simple flick of the keys, the jeep roared to life and Julia sped off into the late afternoon.

"I'm coming Aunt Lisa" she said to herself.

She had a long, two day drive ahead of her.

III

It had been hours since nightfall as Ryan Simota drove his 96 Buick through the dark. On either side of the road rested miles and miles of forests. The high beams of the car made every three feet of road brighten, cutting a path that he would be able to see. Inside the cab, the man drove with one hand on the wheel and another propping up his head.

"Gonna need to get some sleep soon" he said with a yawn.

As he drove the cab was kept comfortably heated by the vent system. Perhaps it was that very heat that was lulling him to close his eyes. The smooth jazz that cooed out of the radio, probably didn't help either. It only accentuated the feelings of drowsiness. Ryan jerked his head up as his eyes started to droop.

"Nuts to this" he said, grabbing his MP3 player and hooking it up to the cassette jack.

Within minutes System of a Down's Psycho, belted out of the speakers and woke him up.

"Much better" Ryan smiled as he stepped back on the gas.

It would be nice to finally get a vacation. Life as a male nurse was as tiresome as it sounded. Running from here to there, checking in on patients, filling out prescriptions for the doctors to sign and mounds of paper work. Not to mention the agonizing task of taking care of the terminally sick patients. The screaming and pain that they experienced only added to his stress. But not all the patients were bad. Some were easy enough to look after, like the children or the elderly who would only be in the hospital for a few days. They were heaven compared to the agony that he faced from time to time, helping in the ER and dealing with the few cancer and AIDS patients that had taken up residence in the hospital.

But, as tough as the work was, he loved it. Helping people was like its own high. There was nothing better. But even his coworkers could see that he was getting burned out. And with a little persuasion they urged him to take a breather.

"Listen man, I know you don't want to hear it, but you need to sit back and relax. You're gonna kill yourself faster than Old man Gillespie in room 302"

"I know, I know. But these people…"

"Yeah, yeah. These people need you. And me for that matter. World needs nurses. But what the world doesn't need are guys in their mid 20's stressed out and hopped up on Oxycontin"

"I never"

"I know, look, all I'm saying is that a burned out nurse isn't any good to this hospital. You haven't taken a break in like, what? Four years? Come on, you need to ask for some time off. You deserve it anyway."

"I don't know Sam"

"Look, after those two kids and three elderly folk died on your shifts, you've been kinda out of it."

"That wasn't my…"

"And no one's blaming you man. They were dying anyway. It's just a shame that they all had to go when you were taking care of em. Besides, we all have to take that journey sooner or later"

"I guess"

"So, any ideas of where you might take a break? Cancun, Aspen, New York?"

"Naw. If I'm gonna do this then I need a nice quiet place. Just a little get away. somewhere nice and peaceful, were I can wake up and watch the sun rise over the water. Like somewhere near a lake or something"

"Dude! Then do I have the perfect place for you. Me and the Stephanie went up there a few months back. Had this fantastic time. Improved our sex lives too"

"Really? What place is this?"

And just like that, Ryan was off to Silent Hill. From what George had told him it was a nice little tourist area situated near a big lake near the North East coast. Some people liked to compare it to Mackinaw in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Nice, peaceful, great nightlife but not too loud or chaotic. A really quiet scenic place. And that's where the road had taken him. It had been about a two day drive, but he had a whole week to spend there. He knew what he really wanted was to relax, but Ryan was also hoping to meet a nice women along the way.

Working in the field that he did didn't really provide him with a lot of chances to meet nice women. Most of the time he just got hit on by the elderly patients. Ryan shook off the memories and drove, making several sharp turns on the country road. He was dressed in a pair of black jeans and an equally black long sleeved shirt. Covering the shirt was his lucky green scrub shirt. Whenever he traveled, he had to have it. It was then that Ryan started to notice something strange. There were no telephone poles anywhere.

"Huh, weird" he said to himself then stopped. "Great now I'm talking to myself again" he groaned.

It was a nasty habit that he'd developed since he was a kid. But it helped him organize his thoughts. As the System of a Down song ended and Korn's Somebody Someone started to play, he passed a sign that read "Silent Hill: 4 miles". Great, he'd be there within several minutes. The road started to get harder to see. That's when he noticed that a heavy fog was starting to set in.

"Shit" he said, clicking off the high beams. They'd do more harm than good in this weather.

He squinted through the murky soup in order to maintain a view of the road before he let his eyes slip to the side to follow the paint markings. The fog started to thicken even more and visibility slipped to a near minimum.

"Must be close to the lake. That would explain this heavy fog but, Jesus, this is thick." He thought as he tried to see through the fog.

He checked his watch and it read 10:13 P.M . Hopefully he could still get to a hotel before everything closed up for the night. Then he remembered about the active night life that George had mentioned.

"I'll be fine" he thought to himself. "Everyone will probably be at a pub trying to catch a game or something"

He smiled as he listened to the music:

I need somebody

Somebody

Someone

I need somebody

Somebody

Someoooooooooooooooooneechrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrsssssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhh

"What the hell?" he said, startled at the sudden explosion of sound.

The MP3 player had totally spazzed. Static blasted from the radio's speakers. Ryan reached for it to shut it off, but the screen and readout were all screwed up. He had just put fresh batteries this morning. Taking his eyes off the road, he tried to fiddle with it, but it wouldn't shut up or get back on track.

"Piece of shit" he said, taking his eyes off the road and pushing the buttons. The white noise was starting to get to him.

Through the fog, something ran out in front of the car.

"Oh, Fu…" was all he was able to get out as he swerved to avoid the thing in the middle of the road. He moved his hands in fast succession over the steering wheel, trying in vain to steady the car after missing the figure. It almost looked like a person. The fog was unnaturally thick and he couldn't see where he was going. Before he knew it, the car had slammed into the side of a cliff with a deafening crunch and flipped itself. The engine road as it was exposed to the air. Flying upside down in the air, the car landed on its roof. The impact crushed the metal some and shattered the glass of all the windows. The seatbelt pulled at him, threatening to break his ribs as it kept him firmly in place. Ryan yelled as glass shards flew into his face and the vehicle skidded across the pavement, running smack dab into something. The force of the collision jarred him out of his seat, causing him to hit his head on the steering wheel, hard.

Ryan tried to gather his senses, but the wreck had given him a nasty, throbbing headache and a case of vertigo to boot. He couldn't be sure but it was possible that he was bleeding from some cuts on his head. He tried to open his seat belt but the thing wouldn't budge.

"Saves lives my ass" he thought.

He tried to call out but his voice was weak. The blow to his head was a bit worse than he initially thought. He knew this dance. It was only a matter of time before he slipped into unconsciousness.

"Hey! Can anyone hear me! I need help. SOMEBODY. HELP!"

He listened but there was no answer. But there was something else that he was hearing. It was a sound to his left, like footsteps, only they sounded off. Like someone was walking but they were walking through mud or some other such texture. Ryan strained his neck to the left and tried to understand what he was seeing.

"Not possible"

A thing was walking towards him. It had the basic form of a man and had legs, but that's where the comparison ended. It didn't look like it was wearing any clothes, so its skin was completely visible. The molted tan-green flesh pulsated and rippled up the things body. Thick, gaping scars traveled across its trunk to one a huge fleshy hole in the center. But what really stood out was the thing's head and arms, or lack thereof. There were no arms on the thing and its head was nothing more than a thick nub of flesh, it twitched rapidly. The thought reminded him of a crack addict he had to treat one time. It was several feet away and made horrible gurgling noises, like choking and trying to hack something up at the same time. As it got closer, Ryan's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out. Still strapped into his car seat.

If only he'd been right side up he would have seen what he'd collided with. In front of the car was a large sign that read: Welcome to Silent Hill. Enjoy your stay.