Silent Hill the enigma: the nightmare begins.

Alex held the crisp note in his dry tough, dry hands. His skin, in some places, had a tendency to split, giving him hangnails and the like. Something about this town, Silent Hill, put him on edge. Could it be because the tiny fractures by his nails were stinging? It wasn’t usual for them to complain so in such a humid environment, but the change in humidity had occurred relatively subtlety, which always did aggravate his little wounds. He walked up to the man behind the convenient store counter of the gas station, the patron looked weathered and pale in a clammy way, despite being a youthful man. Bill, his nametag said. Alex had seen many like this, the family members of the mentally ill. Something weighed on him, perhaps a shame, perhaps a secret.

‘Where would Otis go to?’Alex asked himself. He put the neatly folded paper with exceptional lettering back into his coat pocket, his keys were on the other side, and his wallet weighed in his pants.

Bill watched the middle aged man approach, a visitor to the town. Who would want to visit the town after the past few years, he honestly couldn’t say. It was still a fine tourist attraction for the elderly, though, and police search parties. Maybe this slightly built dark hared man knew somebody in town. His eyes pierced Alex, not with contempt or insight, but with something that unnerved Alex, he tried to read Bill. His dark eyes glared, projecting a countenance similar to someone in need of medical help, but his body, the rest of his air, did not match.

“How may I help you?” Bill broke the silence.

“I’m looking for someone, and I figure this might as well be the place for me to start asking.” As Bill had suspected

“The police station would be the first place,” Bill corrected. “That is if they’re not beein’ preoccupied.”

Alex didn’t catch on to that, instead he forged on, presenting his case. He drew out a picture, the man therein it was heavy set and dressed in a sweater. He had large glasses looking to be from the eighties. “I’m looking for this man. He’s a mental patient,” Alex hated that phrase. It roused stigma in the public, even in himself. It could engender fear of those who did not need to be feared. Alex preferred the term ‘living with a mental illness’ just as you can live with any other illness. But stigma, as it was, proved to be a good tool in getting others to listen. Alex was sure Otis would fist go here, for supplies, things he compulsively viewed as necessities. After being turned away from here, he would ask for directions to the police station.
“He needs my help,” Alex said, fingering the crisp note in his pocket. Why didn’t others care? Why did he have to? What a charade.

Well, I’ll be.” bill said, “I did see that man. He was here today, he left out the back. But I still think you should go to the cops.”

“Oh, I will. I’ll coordinate my efforts with them; they’ll prove to be invaluable. If they get up and do something about something. I’ll need directions.” Alex then looked up from below his brow, turning his head down to put away the picture. Bill responded with a vacant look.

“Map of silent hill, three fifty.” Bill said, gesturing.

“Yeah, thanks.” Alex produced the money. “Are you feeling okay?” Alex asked, curious about the weathered look of the man.

“Just tired.” He replied. Bill had nightmares, lots of folks did.

“Of course,” Alex said, the young man may be hung over, he was around that age.

“I’ll just use your bathroom.” Alex said. Bill cut off his progress to unlock the bathroom door. He figured the middle age man may have been traveling a while to get here.

Bill urinated, washed his hands briefly, toweled off, and turned to leave. The general store was empty, and a thick fog had rolled in outside the store. Alex heard a creaking, and a sucking sound. The door behind him closed shut. As Alex put his hand on the knob he came to a conclusion that the fan or ventilation system must have shut the door behind him. Oddly, the door was locked. It seemed to be jammed shut. Alex gave a shrug to the closed door and empty room.

Alex turned to see the creaking sound coming from the back door. It was metal, and had the look of an emergency exit door to it. But it wasn’t rigged to any alarm. Alex stepped through it into the thick fog. And there he found a note, a neatly folded piece of paper in the alley, it was obviously from Otis. ‘I must pursue into the darkness,’ it read. Otis needed familiar surroundings and a good psychiatrist to snap his mental breakdown. He had obsessive compulsive disorder and a history of mixed anxiety depressive disorder. Alex looked at the map he had and walked off towards where his car would not be, noting the polece station and,turning the map over the hospital.

I drove down the main road of Brahms, heading towards Shepherd's Glen, my hometown. My mind raced as I was about to come up to the route of Silent Hill. I haven't been there in 2 years, and I began to have second thoughts. Maybe cutting thru Silent Hill would take me to Shepherd's Glen, as long as I do not stop. I'm okay, and stopping in that town is a one-way ticket to hell. I just decided to drive right thru, going 90. I drove thru, not stopping. The town looked okay, nothing unusually.. I began to rev on the gas, and I heard the engine begin to take a turn for the worse.. The GAS! The needle pointed to E. "Shit! Not this again!" I shouted, as I hit the brakes. The car slid into another parked car, and sent my vehicle spinning, into the middle of the street and me thrown into the passengers seat. I must've blacked out, because I didn't wake up til a few hours later.

Alex marched along the vacant alley to the parking lot in the fog, his footsteps making a hollow echoing despite his soft loafer shoes. It was too quiet. Where was the traffic? The Fog couldn’t have haulted it. Alex’s opinion changed when he rounded the general store, he couldn’t even see his car from here. It had to be less than two hundred feet away. Where did this fog come from so suddenly? There was a lake right over there, but, still. Alex approached his car, but he still didn’t see it. He looked around, he was in the center of the parking lot, and surveyed the whole thing, its small size spiting the fog.

“What?” Alex said. “What?” he spitted frantically. “What!?” He shouted with despair there was no answer. His breathing quickened, his car was gone. “I’ve been in Silent Hill three minutes,“ he complained loudly. There was nobody to answer him. A window pane split behind him, a fracture spanning its surface, infinitesimal shards erupted from it. It was not a creeping cracking sound, it was a pop, like a light bulb expiring. He spun in a start, to see his own disheveled expression reflected back. The noise reminded him how quiet the area would have seemed if he had not been there. He studied the crack from afar, then went off towards the police station, As he vacated, leaving the glass behind a trickling red substance stirred, appearing from nowhere and bleeding down the glass surface .

Alex was already going to the police station, he ran his car through his mind, it wasn’t particularly hard, and far from unpleasant. Alex had no wife, no children. 98 Bentley Turbo RT, sheerwood green, no wonder somebody had stolen it, Alex almost chuckled to himself. License plate: GAL 756. No. Same figures different orders.

I awoke to me lying in the passenger seat, cramped. I looked behind me, and seen the same layout, I have seen in Silent Hill before. The fog. I slowly opened the passenger door and climbed out. I viewed the dents that my car now had. "Aww, man." I said, as I began to walk along the streets. Silent Hill, isn't a great place to be. Your mind tends to play tricks on you. Or if it's your nightmare coming true.

Jacko let his hand hang out of the window as he drove down the road, the motor of his blue 1998 Jeep Wrangler humming under the music of the radio. An unlit cigarette hung loosely between his lips, a half-empty pack of Marlboro Reds sitting in the cup holder next to his seat. He took the wheel with his hand that had been outside the window, his arm bent and his elbow still outside, while his other hand grabbed a black Zippo lighter and opened it, holding it beneath his cigarette. The man took a deep drag as the flame licked at the tobacco, the smoke quickly filling his lungs.

Exhaling and placing the lighter back onto the passenger seat, Jacko squinted at the road ahead. “What in the hell is that…?” he murmured. A thick fog blanketed the road about a quarter of a mile ahead of him. Turning the headlights of his car on, he gave a distasteful grimace; fog was a hell of a mess to drive through, especially in a piece of crap like his car. He was about to change the radio station when a loud noise jerked his attention to the road and his car swerved.

Turning the wheel frantically, he slammed on the brakes and gave a grunt as the car swerved off of the road. It came to a stop just before hitting a tree, the closeness making Jacko’s heart pound even harder in his chest. His hand reached out shakily and gripped the handle of the car door, opening it. He stepped out and moved away from the car, studying it as he sucked in some more smoke from his cigarette. “Aw, hell. Not again.”

The back left tire had blown out, pieces of torn rubber leaving a short trail to the road. Another tire had done the same thing two days before, and that now left him with no spare. Growling in frustration, Jacko kicked the side of his car, his combat boot scraping some of the blue paint off. “Son of a bitch!”

Flicking the butt of the cigarette onto the ground, the man went to the other side of the car and reached inside the glove compartment, pulling out a map. He studied it, his blue eyes following the yellow path the highlighter had made along the roads he was to follow. Essentially, he was in the middle of nowhere, the town he had just left being nearly thirty miles behind him. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.

No service.

He moved his eyes back to the map, moving it closer to his face when he spotted a small dot. The fog was rolling in fast, making it all the harder for him to read the map. The dot was about a mile ahead of where he assumed he was, making the nearest town to him. He had never even been to this part of the country before, and now to be roaming around a foggy road with no natural idea as to where he really was?

Jacko reached back into the car and grabbed his cigarettes and the lighter, along with a flashlight and his pocket knife. He packed everything into the pockets of his jeans, lighting up another Marlboro and sticking it into his mouth.

“Well, with any luck, this Silent Hill will have an auto garage.”

I walked along the street, looking into the empty stores. Pulling out my Pocket Knife, I did not hesitate to walk into it, drawn in front of me. As well as the darkness of the store. Debris filled the room, empty desks, and thrown chairs. As I stepped behind the counter, I sat down, and checked out my shin. It was bleeding from the crash, and I had to keep pressure on it. Searching thru the cabinets, I threw everything to the side til I found gauze. I wrapped my shin, and quickly tightened it. Tieing it around my leg. As I finished, I stood up and exited the store. The fog seemed to thicken up, making my chances of exploring alot more harder.

Alex trekked across a bridge. The cold mist played against his nostrils and made his sweat cold. The humidity was playing tricks on his sweat glands. He dripped in moisture, his finger length, black hair was weighted down with natural oil from his car trip, and the cold made it crisp. The bridge inevitably came to an end. Alex couldn’t put his finger on it, but something about this town was very wrong. It seemed like it was starting to get colder, he half expected to find frost on his head or jacket. The cracks around his finger nails sang an evident nuisance.

Alex reached the other end of the bridge inevitably, the sun must have hid behind a cloud, not that the sun was in clear view with all this fog, because now it was a bit darker. As he progressed a sound took the town, and Alex, by surprise. There was a panting, a distant groaning snuffling, and Alex froze. Was that a dog? Then there were footsteps. Alex could hear footsteps through the fog! Not cars, not a population, footsteps. He was sure the officers at the police station could tell him where everyone was, as well as help him find his car and conduct his search. He ran there in a canter. He approached the duel doors and pulled, The thing lethargically, and reluctantly pulled open. It was mostly glass, but it felt like it could have been cast iron in need of lubrication. Alex struggled against the ominous dusty interior of the station in a tug of war with the door, then he slid in. The void interior emitted a slight warmth and a deep shaking sound of nothingness, or more accurately a lack of sound. Alex was blanketed in an almost audible silence. If Alex had thought it was quiet outside, he was wrong. The door shut behind. “Silent Hill,” Alex said, “aptly named.”

The station was stale and smelt of mildew. It was dim and dank, unusually dim. Alex walked over to a window and put his hand up to it. The pane was coated in dust, and he cleared it with a finger, letting the sun in at a small spot. “Uck.”

He Turned to the vacant room. Dust was coated everywhere and chairs were scattered, Alex sensed motion behind him in the window which he cleared of dust and turned abruptly. Peripherally he saw it, was there something outside? The Polece station was evidently abandoned. “Where is everyone?” He asked the station the question he wished to ask it’s officers. The paint peeled around the room, and the floorboards creeked as Alex walked. He wished he hadn’t passed up the sound of those footsteps.

“What was that?” Alex turned to a dark room, maybe a closet. It sounded like there was a whispering inside, and Alex grew timidly reluctant to be inside the creepy station. “I’ve got to get out of here,” Alex shook his head, and turned to the door. There was no help here. Unbeknownst to Alex the dust had returned to the window.

The mist began to thicken up, and I began to discover that the temperature had dropped a dozen. "Geez, it's so cold!" I muttered, as I rubbed my hands together creating friction. Noises began to fill the streets, and soon I began to make my way past the Police Station. Loud bangs were heard, inside the station. "What the hell is that?" I said, as I made my way slowly up the steps.