Silent Hill 4: Oh Mother.

Chapter Five: There's no waking up now

It was the stench of decay that woke her up. Kris slowly sat up, her world spun around her as her eyes tried to focus in the dark. The first thing that she did was cover her face from the rotted smell. "Ugh, What is that?" Recollection of what had happened before she fainted passed through her mind. The doll, her room, that…thing. She gasped as she looked around in search of the monster. It wasn't anywhere in sight. Thank god.

The paranoia and fear increased when she realized she wasn't in her apartment. It looked more like the ground floor of her apartment building only, red coated everything. Rust crusted the walls and flaked off. It smelt horrible. This place couldn't possibly be her apartment building.

A small lamp glowed from atop of a small table next to the mail boxes. Kris gradually got to her feet, even with the refusal from her wobbling legs. She tried to make her way over to the lamp's dull light but tripped over something large and wet. She fell back to the floor with a loud thud. She groaned as she turned over on her back to see what it was that her foot had caught against.

The rotted dead dog in front of her made her make a strange hitched intake of breath. It's eyes were sunken in to the point she wasn't even sure it really had any eyes and the little white maggots that crawled across it's destroyed features made her want to gag. The fly's that buzzed about it's body certainly didn't help either. Unfortunately, she had nothing else in her stomach to throw up. It's face had indents that told her that something had smashed it several times with a blunt object. Just a few feet behind it were several more dogs strewed about the ground, all soaked in puddles of their own blood.

A rattling sound stole away her attention from the disturbing scene. She looked up over her shoulder at the mail boxes. All at once they flew open. It made Kris jump out of her skin. She flinched back ready to leave but then noticed the rattling hadn't stopped. One box was still closed and begged to be opened.

As soon as she got closer, she realized it was her own mail box, 301, that shook violently. Even if it seemed like a horrible idea, she reached out and pulled the small door open with ease. Was it strange that the box wasn't locked?

It was nothing she expected, instead, a small charm sat inside. She reached in and pulled the necklace out to stare at the strange silver charm that dangled freely in the air. Who had put that in there? It didn't make much sense.

After studying the small trinket for a long moment, a howl behind her reminded her of her situation. She closed her finger around it and squeezed tightly enough that she felt a small vibration. She was surprised at first but the tried to knock it off as her nerves getting the better of her. There was no way the little charm was able to vibrate.

Anyhow, back to the matter at hand. She had to get back to her room or at least find something other then dead dogs, preferably a living person…

She passed by the rotted dogs, carefully stepped over the pools of blood, and headed for the stairs that led up to the rest of the apartments. The disgusting smell had apparently stuck to her clothes because as she escalated higher up the stairs, it lingered in the air around her.

She had been watching her feet as she climbed up the stairs. A sound ahead of her caused her to stop. She looked up at the top of the second floor to see a figure of a child. It was the boy from before.

"Hey!" She called and began to rush up the stairs. She cursed under her breath when he turned and began to sprint up the stairs also. Did she scare him?

"Wait! I won't hurt you!" She called in between panting breaths. She watched as he disappeared behind the door that led to the hall her apartment was located.

She had to take a small break first before going on. She had ran up three flights of stairs after this amazingly fast little boy. She turned towards the door and before she could touch the handle she heard a ear piercing scream.

"Was that…Eileen?" She burst through the double doors and rushed around the corner to get to her friends apartment door. She pounded on the door with her balled fist. "Eileen! Eileen, are you okay?" She screamed in hopes of hearing the voice on the other side, unhurt.

"Kris? Is that you?" Kris let out a sigh of relief. At least Eileen was alive.

"Yeah, are you okay?" She pushed her ear to the door so she could hear her friends muffled voice better.

"Yes, I think so. I can't get my door open though! I think I'm stuck and my key is missing." Kris's face contorted into confusion and worriment. How was Eileen suppose to get out? And how was the door locked from the outside, trapping her in?

"I'll go look for Frank. He might be able to get your door open." She called to the other side and she heard Eileen grunt a okay. She sounded scared. "Don't worry, I'll be right back."

"….Be careful." Eileen mumbled, her hand rested on her side of the door as she listened to Kris's feet fade away.


Kris made her way back down the stairs and ran straight to Frank's apartment. She found the door left open and a pile of chains lay in front of the open doorway. She raised an eyebrow and walked inside.

"Frank, You here? Sorry for barging in like this but your front door is ope-" She stopped at the strange sight of cage like bars were protecting the kitchen from being entered. "Frank?" Her eyes led away from the bars and over to a small rack where she figured Frank normally kept his key ring. Well, it wasn't there. She frowned and stared blankly at the wall. What would she do now? She couldn't get Eileen's door open without the keys. She sighed and turned back to the door. Where was Frank? Where was anybody?

Kris stopped. The boy, Walter, was back. He stood in the door way staring at something. Kris glanced in the direction his eyes were glued in and saw a red box. She didn't really want to snoop any further into Frank's things but the box seemed to draw her in. She bit on her lip as she got closer to it. Her hands seemed to move on their own as they reached out for the box. The strong odor that emitted from it stopped her. "Oh god." She hissed and pushed herself away from it. She looked back to Walter to see he was still standing there. He didn't try to run as she approached him. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. We talked before, remember? I'm Kris."

She noticed he flinched as she crouched down to his height. "Hey, are you okay? Your shivering." She placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. It was obvious she made him nervous. He kept glancing into her eyes and then away to the floor. "…You don't live in this building, do you?"

The boy bit his finger nails as he slowly shook his head 'no'.

"Where do you live?"

He mumbled something she wasn't able to hear. "Huh?"

"Wish House Orphanage." He finally answered loud enough for her to understand.

That was nowhere near here. She had heard of this 'Wish House'. It was in a old news article she read a while back. It apparently was in Silent Hill. Her mind ached at the thought of that place…Wait, did he say orphanage? So that meant that this boy was an orphan?

Walter gave her a worried look, his big green eyes boring into her own. "Are you still looking for your mom, Walter?" Walter's eyes again averted elsewhere as he nodded.

"It's not safe for a child to run around here alone. You can come with me." She opened her arms and he rushed towards her like he had been waiting for her to do that the whole time. She lifted him up and balanced him on her hip.

"Stick with me for a while until we can find your mom, okay?" The smallest of smiles appeared on the child's face as he nodded in agreement. She had to admit, even though this was only their second meeting, the boy was growing on her.

She turned and walked out of the Super's home, making sure to close the door behind her.


Author's Notes:

Yeah, I know it's a weird place to stop but I just wanted to get another chapter up before people forgot about this story. Sorry for taking so long with these and if the chapter's seem boring. I'm sort of going through a writer's block. -Kyrsea