Lost + Hungry

STAGES

We had done some things. Some, unspeakable. Others we were proud to boast about. But we found ourselves here after our last "unspeakable"... Let's call it a sin, it fits with where it seems we are.

Sirens screeched behind us wildly as we laughed, driving recklessly through the winding Appalachian roads. We were so sure we'd get away.

"There's no way they catch us, Jessie. It's foolproof! This road is gonna lead us to-"

"To a long abandoned town in the mountains, I know. How do you know they won't be waiting for us there?"

"Relax, no one goes there. They're all too scared of it."

"I hope you're right. Anyway, this last job was amazing! The way you handled those rent-a-cops; I'm so turned on thinking about it."

Dani turns to me with a smouldering side smirk, "Save it for when we hole up, I'll make it worth your while."

I can't help but giggle, I'm so weak for it, hair in the wind, ink black and whipping everywhere, those intense green eyes.

Dani kills me.

The siren echoes drift further and further into the trees whose leaves just started turning bright red and orange, like a fire burning.

We're in the clear.

The radio's blasting our getaway playlist, AFI's Hidden Knives fills the inside of the Camaro.

"We're almost there, Jessie. Just along that bend will be a bridge that leads across some gap, then up a hill and we're there."

I nod and look ahead, Dani grips my hand in theirs, the feel of PU leather and skin, cold and warmth, surrounding my left hand.

The radio starts to wig out, static and warbling. Odd, it had switched from Bluetooth to AM. I swear I could hear a voice through the static, but it's faint. Dani is too focused on the road to notice. And for good reason.

"Fuck."

"What is it, Dani?"

"Look… they knew."

The cops were waiting for us ahead, they're at the bridge, two squad cars barricading it, and a bunch of them with guns drawn.

Dani stops the car. And through a megaphone one of them calls, "Come out with your hands up, surrender now and we won't open fire!"

"Tsk, like hell." Dani turns to me, we gaze into each other's eyes, knowingly. I nod slowly and Dani shifts in gear.

"Gun it, babe!"

Dani hits the accelerate, tires squeal and like Christine, the Camaro tears ass straight into the barricade. The cops open fire, "Jessie get down!"

We smash through the squad cars, a few bullet holes in the Camaro, but we're virtually unscathed, and we made it across the bridge and to the mouth of the Hill.

They haven't come after us, no sirens, nothing. We can't even see them behind us. In fact, we can't see much of anything right now because of this fog that suddenly rolled in.

"You think they gave up?"

"I told you, they're scared of this place."

"What is this place anyway?"

Dani points up and ahead at the sign that reads:

NOW ENTERING

SILENT HILL

GRIEF+DENIAL

The car wouldn’t start back up. At first, it whined with every turn of the ignition, Dani mumbling “Come on, baby” over and over. Then, it decided that it was completely dead; no whining, no lights, nothing. It was like it never had a spark to begin with, just a beat up metal shell of what it used to be. Dani gives up on the Camaro, slamming the door and placing a hand on its window. In silence, Dani traipses around it, caressing its body sorrowfully, tenderly inspecting the damages, the bullet wounds that seemingly lead to its demise before stopping at the trunk.

“You’ve seen us through our best times, our worst times, and all the sweetness in between. This really was our last ride, Jessie, she knew.” Dani’s head down, those gleaming greens raised up at me, then back down to the trunk. Dani opens the trunk, “Now, we should get our stuff and go up into the town, yeah?”

I nod. Dani tosses me my satchel and shotty and grabs the .38, inspects it, and tucks it away. The trunk slams shut, “That all you need, Dani? We don’t have a lot of ammo for it.”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. Besides, I got my knife, and this place is abandoned. You worry too much.”

I pause and spit, “Ahuh, well, last time I worried, I was right.”

“Best two out of three.”

It was strange, the atmosphere was almost suffocatingly heavy, yet it felt like an endless emptiness. The sounds of our footsteps were confined to just below us as we’re wandering the streets with our guns drawn, they didn’t echo in any distance whatsoever. It was a total deafening silence, I called out to test if it’s just my imagination, “Hello!”

“Jessie, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Shh, listen.”

We both pause.

“What? I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly! There’s no echo. Don’t you find that strange?”

Dani glares at me, looks around and stops facing me, “Jessie, we’re in a dead town, it’s foggy as Hell, and you’re asking me about an echo? No, Jessie, I don’t find that strange. It’s probably from how damned dense this fog is.”

You can read the confusion on my face, “What the hell, Dani? Why are you snapping at me?” I’ve never felt any contempt from Dani like that before.

Dani’s glare changes to a gaze filled with regret, “I’m so sorry, Jessie. I don’t know what came over me.”

I turn my eyes to the cold pavement, “I-it’s okay.”

“Are we okay? Can I-?”

“...Yeah.”

Dani closes in on me and embraces me, we kiss sweetly, but there’s still a feeling I can’t quite shake. There was a sort of darkness in that kiss, a lack of sincerity.

Maybe I’m just imagining it.

Maybe it’s just… ‘Here’.

We found an old pharmacy, “locked.” I sigh, sucking my teeth, letting go of the door handle. The windows were incredibly dingy, we couldn’t see through them, not distinctly enough anyway. And, of course, no electricity.

“That’s never stopped us before. We break the glass, my love.”

“Yeah, but what if we stir something up with the noise? I have a bad feeling about this.”

“Jessie, you’re the one that said there’s no echo.” Dani shrugs smugly.

“I--Yeah but that’s out here. What about in there?”

“Just break the glass, Jess.”

I scoff and ready my shotgun, I hesitate, my eyes searching for another push. Dani nods impatiently and I sigh, shaking my head, “alright…” the butt of my shotty strikes against the glass; it doesn’t give. I look over at Dani, who just shrugs and motions me to try again.

Another strike. Still nothing.

One more, it cracks, “last one.”

Have you ever played a horror game with 3D sound on a headset or soundbar or whatever? You know how you hear things in one direction but not another? The glass broke, and it was loud, but only in front of us, inside the pharmacy. Behind us, it was that same silence as before, absolutely nothing. We turn to each other, unnerved.

“Best three out of five.”

It was fully stocked. Although, most of everything expired a decade ago. It was like everyone just disappeared right after a shipment came in; creepy. We’re just rummaging through things, looking for anything useful that isn’t long dead, when something thumps in the back of the pharmacy.

“What was that?” I spring up.

“There’s a door back there, I’ll check it out.”

Dani cautiously steps toward the door, pleather gloves tight around the black grip of the dark grey revolver, bare finger tracing the trigger guard. A stifled moan permeates out through the room behind the door making every hair on my body stand on end.

“What the f--” Dani whispered, inching closer.

A percussive slam echoes from the door. “Fuck, Dani, be careful.”

“I got it.” Dani said, reaching for the banging door.

The door swings open, slapping Dani’s gun away. The moaning intensifies, but it’s darker than anything I’ve ever experienced so I can’t see anything. Dani’s paralyzed, eyes fixed on the darkness. “No, no. No, this isn’t--you’re not here. What are you?”

“Dani? Dani, what’s wrong? Dani!”

“Jessie, you don’t see him, it? No, fuck, how!?”

“Dani, I can’t see anything! What is going on?” I get up and rush toward Dani, picking up the revolver on the way, “Dani, come on. Dani--!” I look over into the darkness and…

Our first. The reason for it all. But he looks mangled and moist, bloody, skinless, except for the face. That face, it’s dead.

“Oh, god. Oh, God, Adam.”

Adam, or whatever it is comes toward us, shambling and shuffling. I grab Dani and walk backwards, slowly, “Adam, you can’t be here, you’re not. Why are you wearing his face! Why are you wearing his face! WHY ARE YOU WEARING HIS FUCKING FACE!” Furiously, the loud cracking of Dani’s revolver fills the pharmacy in three. Three rounds, Adam’s gone… again.

“You okay? Dani?”

Dani doesn't respond, seeing Adam’s face again must’ve been shaking. “I’ve got you, babe.” I whisper, holding Dani tightly.

“It was a mistake. I didn’t mean to, you know? I was so young, angry. I knew it was wrong, but I didn’t want to... I didn’t mean to, it was his fault.

“It was my fault. I’m so sorry, Adam.” Dani sobs.

10 YEARS AGO

“You ready, Dani?” Adam spat, sitting in the driver’s seat of the Camaro. We were going on our first job all together. There was this rich piece of shit in town that was leeching off the community and we were going in to steal a whole bunch of, like, valuable things. Teach him a lesson. We had our gear, masks, my lucky satchel, and the fucking guts to stick it to the boujee fucks that looked down on us and our families.

It was about 3AM, we got to the front gates and scoped out the area. The fence was high, spiked, and black iron. We looked for weaknesses in the fence and found one loose bar. Adam kicked it til it fell; no alarm, no dogs.

We made it in, strangely, still no alarms. But there were things we didn’t notice; surveillance cameras. We were made, though unaware til it was too late. We ransacked the place. I filled my satchel with silverware and faberge eggs, or whatever the fuck; anything vaguely valuable I could get my hands on. Dani had brought spray paint and was tagging up huge family portraits and one of a kind paintings. I lost Adam.

Adam always had a bit of a… Violent streak. He always seemed a little bloodthirsty. When he ‘saved’ Dani, he just kept going on the bodies. After a while and a bloody mess all over the ground, he just stood there, watching the blood continue to pour out and smiling.

He smiled that same smile…

I had heard he had a personal issue with the owners of this mansion, I remembered, and a chill went down my spine as I heard a stifled scream and a loud thump come from upstairs. A few seconds later, hurried footsteps came crashing down the stairs.

“We gotta go.” He said coldly. There was still a smile painted on his face, I could see it even from where I was.

“What happened?” I asked.

Dani stashed her cans, “Yeah Adam what the fuck?”

“They had cameras, I saw in their bedroom. Monitors.” He hid his hands.

“Why were you in the bedroom?”

“They weren’t supposed to be here.” He said, almost satisfied.

“They’re here!?” Dani probed.

He made for the door, I stood frozen.

“Adam!?” Dani continued, “What happened?”

“Let’s go, the cops will be here soon.”

I knew he killed them, I could feel it. But we couldn’t stay any longer.

We were outside in the courtyard when sirens rolled up and a gunshot broke through them. Adam cried out, “Shit!” He was hit. It was only in the leg, but it was bad. I tried to help but Dani kept going.

“Dani, where are you going?”

“To find an exit! There’s gotta be another way out! Come on!”

“Adam’s hit!”

“It’s cool, Jessie, I’m alright, let’s go.”

We follow Dani up to the other end of the courtyard where there’s a shed by the fence. We jop over, Adam struggles but makes it eventually. There’s always bears in the woods here, and that means an old rich bastard would have--.

Adam lets out a bloody scream, “Fuck!!” He caught his leg in a bear trap, the same leg.

I try to pull it open but Dani just keeps going, like they’re glad he’s in this situation. Barely visible and just ahead, Dani turns around, stopping, noticing I’m still behind with Adam.

“Jessie, we have to leave him, we gotta go!”

“No, you can’t leave me, this was my plan to begin with, you fucking bitch, you can’t leave me!” Adam was desperate.

I was speechless, I didn’t know what to do, I barely knew Adam, he was Dani’s cousin.

“Dani, you piece of shit, you owe me! Remember where you’d be without me, what you’d be!”

“What is he talking about Dani? What--”

“Fuck you, Adam! I didn’t ask for that, I didn’t ask for any of it!”

“Dani! Dani, don’t you fucking dare!”

We could hear the cops getting closer, see the flashlights through the trees.

“How was I supposed to know this was here? Fucking bear trap? What kind of asshole--Dammit, Dani, just fucking pull me out!”

“I can’t! I won’t. You deserved this.”

I run towards and grab Dani, “What is going on? Dani?”

“This piece of shit… He… He...”

“Dani, don’t you fucking-- DANI!”

“I’ll tell you later… we gotta go.”

The cops were almost on top of us, “But Adam?”

Dani coldly takes the other gun out and tosses it at Adam, “Here, good luck. Jessie let’s go.”

I’d never seen Dani like this, the look in those green eyes, they weren’t the same. There was a silence for a moment, a chilling, striking silence that I felt in my heart as it dropped. As we ran to the Camaro with this awful silence, it all came back with men shouting in the distance, then three gunshots.

One, two…

Then the third.

We knew.

NOW

“He’d kill us if he saw us, you know?” Dani says wiping tears and snorting, eyes low. “He wouldn’t think twice, for what we did.”

“From what you told me, he deserved what he got. Though it was pretty shitty of us.” I pick up Dani’s chin, “But you know, things happen.”

“I should have seen that trap. Then he’d be alive. In jail, because we were going to frame him for the whole thing, but he’d be alive, and it wouldn’t be our fault.”

“Dani, it’s not your fault, it’s not mine. He got what was coming to him. All those years he hurt you and made you believe it was a good thing. He was a manipulative, sick bastard.”

“Yeah, but he was family.”

GRIEF+ANGER

I couldn’t help but let out a heavy breath. That wasn’t an excuse. Dani’s past is dark, twisted, and full of unforgivable bullshit. Betrayal seemed to be the way that that family showed any kind of ‘affection’. Like, “Oh, the knife in your back means I love you!” They’d lie through their plastic grin. And the worst of it is that Dani finds that to be normal, as if family is meant to hurt you. Explains why I’m met with such bewilderment when I try to be loving, sweet, understanding, and selfless. Still, after all these years, all we’ve been through together, you’d think a jackass would adapt.

Old habits die hard.

A shadow speeds by the broken pharmacy door with the sounds of shuffling feet. “Dani. Dani! Someone’s around. Just outside. I’m going to check it out.” Dani’s still in shock, silent. I cock my boomstick and walk toward the door, through the abandoned aisles. The air is stale, still, and the stench of the remains of that monster with Adam’s face permeates throughout. It smells like rotten death mixed with a noxious sweetness like old liquor and day old cigarette butts.

Like Adam did when…

I peek through the door; left, then right, then--

“You mustn’t be here! You must hide, it comes.”

“Holy shitfuck who? What? Who are you? What’s coming?”

“Who I am is of no consequence, othersider. And what’s coming is a great darkness, evil… DEATH.”

“Othersider?”

“Quickly! Make haste, summon your partner. I know where to go, a safe haven.”

I search this small, decrepit looking, disheveled woman’s weathered eyes a moment, “Alright, we do need a place to lay low. Dani! Come on! I found some help!”

Silence.

“DANI!”

“We must leave before--”

A piercing emergency siren erupts through the deafening silence.

The woman gasps out of fright, “We must outrun the darkness. Come!”

“Fuck, Dani, let’s go!”

The siren must’ve broken Dani’s daze, “I’m here. Lead the way, old lady.”

Our silent frantic steps begin to echo louder and louder in the short pauses between the siren’s screams that pierce even this fog. Behind us the fog lifts as if being sucked up into a vacuum, leaving a stark darkness illuminated dimly by flickering, broken street lamps and dilapidated store signs. The pavement is blacker than any night I’ve experienced but with a sleek shine as if it had just rained; like a black mirror. The faces of the storefronts we pass in what has to be the downtown area peel away bit by bit into the air, disintegrating like a fire’s causing this destruction.

The siren continues, growing louder I can barely hear my own thoughts. The old woman yells indistinctly, pointing at a building in the distance, a police station and just down the street from it there’s a cathedral. Looking at it sent chills down my spine, with its stained glass depicting violent scenes of “Holy murder”, a weird looking cross at the very top of its spire, and surrounded by twisted black iron and gravestones.

The siren stops and darkness surrounds us.

“It’s too late, we must hide in the precinct for the time being. We’ll never make it to the church.” The old lady states.

“Good…” I mutter.

“Hide from what?” Dani probes, “What’s coming?”

The loudest clang of heavy, sharp metal rang through the air followed by a metal-on-brick dragging.

“From that! Quick, in here!” The old lady swings the precinct doors open and motions us in.

“What the fuck made that noise? Spill it old lady, what’s going on?” Dani’s rage is rising, I can feel it. There’s something about this town that’s…

“Do not mistake, nowhere is truly safe, but walls make good barriers, and aid in avoiding danger.”

“What danger!?” Dani continues.

“Many. One. The cursed beings that stayed streetbound far too long. Spectres of the Devil. Agents of the Fallen One. Children of the Witch!”

“Lady, you're not making any sense!”

“Dani, keep your voice down!”

“I will not! I demand answers! What the fuck is this place, you old fuck!?”

Dani is seething, a fire lit and burning out of control. The old woman’s eyes glaze with held back tears. She turns away from us and paces toward a broken bench, sitting silently a while. Dani’s eyes fixed on her.

“Our sins had come to roost. I was naive then, listened to my mother, my older sister. My daughter had always been different, you know. The black sheep, the odd duck. The only child with hair like the blackest obsidian, and one eye like peridot, the other like the sea. Her skin was the fairest white without a blemish; porcelain. To me, she was an angel. She was so beautiful. Her smile was my heart and her laugh filled my soul. I loved her,

But my sister hated her, I see now it was jealousy. My child was alive and beautiful, and hers was born dead. They were born the same day you see, so my sister convinced my mother and all the other members of our church that my Alessa was a devilspawn. A baby witch. That she stole the life of her unfortunate cousin for her own. The proof was in her eyes. No child has two color eyes! She must have two souls, she said. Her own and that of my sister’s daughter.

Her life was trial after trial. The other children hit her, called her witch among other things, threw things at her. They vandalized her desk. My mother was cold to her when she only wanted the love of a grandmother. My sister… She conspired. For a time, she had me convinced. For a time, I too, hated my daughter.” She began to sob, “So I… So I did what I was told.”

She paused.

“Alessa suffered.

And now, we all suffer.”

There was a long, muted silence. Neither of us knew what to say, this heartbroken mother, her sorrow and regret--not just written, carved on her face. What she went through, what her daughter went through, it's in the air, the atmosphere. You can feel your inhalations tinged with pain and anger. With grief so deep there's no sign of a bottom.

We were somber, Dani was angry, still. But now, Dani's anger had a direction. I sat with the old woman, held her hand.

"It wasn't your fault. You were fooled."

"I was a fool. But thank you for your kindness. It will not be forgotten."

Dani scoffed and stormed off, "I'm going to check out the rest of this floor. There's gotta be something useful."

Before I could respond, Dani was gone.

I went after Dani, but I found myself in a corridor I hadn’t recognized at all. It didn’t seem like it was even part of the building before. I looked back and it also seemed to have changed, I didn’t see behind me where I came from. I called out for the old lady but only heard my echo calling back to me.

I was alone.

The floor creaked with every step and the air felt thick and almost as if it was screaming a barely audible scream, like a distant tea kettle going off. I kept going forward, though the corridor seemed endless. The walls were littered with pictures and plaques noting the past achievements of the police station’s alums and articles detailing both heroic efforts and harrowing tragedies. One in particular stopped me dead in my tracks. I took the article from the wall and looked it over walking:

LOCAL GIRL KILLED IN CULT-RELATED RITUAL MURDER

ALESSA GILLESPIE, 11, DAUGHTER OF DAHLIA GILLESPIE AND NIECE

OF CHRISTABELLA, THE HIGH PRIESTESS OF THE ORDER, BURNED TO

DEATH LAST NIGHT IN A RITUAL GONE WRONG. IT IS SAID SHE WAS A

“WITCH” THAT NEEDED TO BE “CLEANSED OF SIN” BY THE ORDER.

MANY OF THE CULT’S FOLLOWERS BURNED TO DEATH ALONG WITH

YOUNG ALESSA, SOME WALKED AWAY WITH SERIOUS INJURIES. HER

MOTHER, DAHLIA COULD NOT BE REACHED TO MAKE A STATEMENT AND IS SAID TO BE SO GRIEF STRICKEN SHE HAD TO BE HOSPITALIZED. CHRISTABELLA, THE ONE WHO ORCHESTRATED THE RITUAL, HAS SEEMINGLY DISAPPEARED FROM SILENT HILL.

MORE ON THIS AS THE STORY DEVELOPS….

“Jesus fuck…” I whispered to myself, my hand on my mouth. I look up from the paper and I’m met with double doors that look weirdly like a school’s doors.

“Okay, what is this shit..?”

Dani’s scream pierces through the thick, low screeching atmosphere.

“Dani?!”

Again, this time it sounds like it’s coming from beyond those doors.

“Fuck, Dani, I’m coming!” I burst through the doors to a blinding white light followed by an elementary school hallway filled with disturbing drawings.

“The fuck, were these really drawn by children? With how demented this town seems, it tracks.”

The air is thicker here, heavier, but no tea kettle. It’s hot here, almost unbearably. I take off my black jean jacket and throw it aside, nothing useful in there anyway. I feel like an idiot though, running around in a tank top like all those horror movie bimbos and himbos. I kept my shotgun strapped to my back, and the shells for it on my belt, so even though I’m one of those horror movie tropes, at least I’m fucking ready for anything.

I don’t hear Dani anymore. Did I imagine that? I wonder where they are…

GRIEF+DEALING

MEANWHILE…

“Jessie! Fuck, Jessie where the fuck are you!?” I’m running like crazy all over this hospital, hearing Jessie calling for me everywhere I go. It’s like Jessie’s always around the corner, but when I turn the corner, nothing. It’s frustrating as all hell, and I don’t even know how I got here! One moment I’m in the police station, the next I walk through a door and I’m here.

“Dani!” Jessie’s voice is coming from the stairwell now. My instincts are screaming at me but I can’t shake the feeling that if I don’t find Jessie, something bad is going to happen. I can’t abandon Jess like Adam.

“Dani, down here! I need you!”

“I’m coming, stay somewhere safe!” I sprint through the door and down the stairs. There are so many stairs. They keep getting deeper, darker. I look at the labels for which floors I’m passing: B1, B2, B6, B14…

B66. I’m getting fucking tired.

“Jessie, what the fuck is this? Where are you?”

“Keep coming down! Dani! I need you!”

I’m deep underground now, everything looks rusted and cracked and--fuck--

THE SIREN STARTS BLARING AGAIN

Everything is peeling and getting darker until--

--Fire lights everything up around me.

It’s like everything around me is on fire, except the bare rusted catwalk ahead of me. I look behind me and find a large, rusted iron door without a handle, closed shut. Something wants me here. Something wants me to see whatever is in this special kind of Hell.

“Dani.”

No, that’s Adam’s voice. “You’re not here, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, you fucking killed me, you ungrateful cunt.”

I clutch my head, “It wasn’t my fault.”

“You killed me. You let me die. Twice now.”

His voice is echoing all around me, and all inside my head. He’s in my head. I can’t let him in my head… Not again.

“Shut up, you fucking manipulative piece of shit!”

“You ungrateful bitch, I saved you and you let me die.”

“You didn’t save me, you hoarded me all to yourself, you prick!”

“You were mine. You were supposed to be mine! You owed me your life!”

“I didn’t owe you jack shit! People don’t do that to the people they claim to love, goddammit!”

I collapse to the burning hot iron floor, holding the railings, trying to keep myself from breaking down, “Dani, it's all in your head, okay? What would Jessie say; keep a level head? Right?”

The catwalk trembles like heavy footsteps are treading on it, “Oh, Jessie not here to help you keep it together? You were always a weak, crazy bitch.”

“Shut up, shut up!”

They get closer, “You always needed someone to complete you, you were so easy.”

“You don’t control me anymore, leave me alone!”

Closer still, and hotter on my skin, “That’s why I took you away from your parents, you know. I didn’t do it to save you. I did it because they broke you so that I could mold you into my little--”

“Shut the fuck up, Adam you talk too much!” I stand up, brandishing my six-gun and blast the Adam-monster away. All six shots, he went down after two, but I couldn’t stop pulling the trigger on that thing’s limp body.

“No blood, no mess. But still so satisfying to kill that monster myself.”

The siren goes off again, everything reconstitutes itself around me. I take a look at my surroundings, I seem to be in some underground corridor, like a tunnel that leads to some secret place.

“Where in Hell does this lead?”

ELSEWHERE, DURING THE SHIFT…

It’s dark here now, save for some fucked up flickering ceiling lamps hanging all dilapidated. Every so often, I hear children’s laughter coming from a distant classroom, so obviously, I’m gonna go investigate. It could lead me back to the police station, or to Dani.

“Hello? Are there any kids here? I hear someone laughing. I’m hoping it’s kids” I look around, shifty eyed, holding my shotgun, “and not some demon babies.”

The laughter grows louder, closer.

“It’s fucking demon babies, isn’t it. Please, fuck don’t let it be demon babies.”

I make it to the classroom it’s coming from and swing open the door. There are some kids laughing and picking on some dark haired girl, “Alessa?”

“Witch, witch, you’re an ugly witch!”

“Stupid ugly witch, your mom did it with the devil!”

“Yeah, your ugly witch mom made a ugly witch baby!”

“The devil’s your dad, my mom said so!”

Yeah, no, not on my watch. I cock my shotgun, “Alright you little shits, leave her alone!”

Their heads turned 180 degrees and their eyes went all bloodshot and huge, Alessa disappeared and the kids turned into blackened, burnt things.

“Aw, shit, it’s demon kids!”

They scatter like spiders and come at me from all angles, so I run out the door to funnel them so they’re easy pickin’s. But the little shits crawl from all sides of the door, so I just run down the hallway, around a corner through and over broken and disconnected lockers into the nearest bathroom. I lost them.

Something starts creaking and thumping in the distance, the stall at the end swings open and brown water starts spilling out covering the cracked tile with sludge.

“The fuck?” I turn swiftly, bracing myself.

Hands appear out of the stall, gripping the side, followed by some rather disturbing moaning. And then more hands, and more moaning, and a face without a jaw, tongue flapping between a large pair of sagging wrinkled breasts, it’s crawling on all fours, but the feet are hands!

“Oh, what in the horrific hentai Hell?”

Jessie, you’re such a stereotype, who says these things?

The licking hand monster crawls toward me, breasts swinging with the tongue undulating and moving around in a circular motion before lunging at me. I dodge and cock again, but the shells jam up, I turn to the door and tackle through it, dodging another tongue lash and slamming the door on it. The monster let out a loud, orgasmic sounding moan behind me.

I just kept running through this run down hell-school until I hit a stairwell and started down. I could still hear skittering behind me and demented laughter.

“Fucking demon kids…”

The siren sounded again, the walls shifted from water damaged brown to a dusty beige. The lockers rearranged and unrusted, and whatever gaping holes there were filled themselves. Everything went back to ‘normal’. Whatever that meant in a place like this.

Even the kids seemed to disappear.

GRIEF + SORROW

I fell. It was a rough, fucked up fall and parts of me cracked and fractured. I couldn’t help but think of the last fall I had. The last time, I lost a part of me that I didn’t think I could ever get back.

Adam.

He was my kryptonite, and I don’t mean it like he was my weakness, no. I mean like Red Kryptonite. Dangerous, mind altering, turning me into a different person, an angry person. I was wildfire with him, destroying anything he set me on, hurting anyone because he said they’d hurt me first, like my parents did. All the while, he was hurting me without me realizing at first. Little ‘favors’ here and there, taking pictures, touching, massaging. Then it escalated. He said I owed him that I was just paying him back for saving my life, for taking me away from my parents, and for letting me keep what we scored.

I fell so fucking hard for his bullshit and I lost so much of myself. And here, now, he keeps haunting me, like a fucking phantom paining me, actually hunting me here. He’s my dirty secret, my sin. And I know it isn’t like I actually did anything wrong, you know, other than all those felonies and misdemeanors, it’s that I feel like I did something wrong--everything wrong.

So I’m alone in this tunnel, cold, feeling a deep emptiness inside me, gnawing at me, clawing my skull. I miss Jessie, and I have no sense of how long we’ve been apart.

I need to find Jessie.

This tunnel feels so endless, and it’s that weird ass ultra-quiet from the outside, where it’s like wearing noise canceling earbuds. I can’t hear my footsteps, at all, which is fucky seeing as the ground here is moist.

“Jessie!” I cry out, “JESSIE!!!”

I’m desperate, my heart is racing and I stop to catch my breath, keep from hyperventilating.

“Fuck, I’m alone. I’m actually alone! I’m trapped in an endless tunnel where everything is grey and I’m alone! I’m freaking out. Dani, get your shit together, you’re okay, everything is fine. Jessie’s here somewhere, can’t be far. No, fuck. FUCK!” I slap myself and mush my face, then run my fingers up through my hair,

“Jessie’s gone too. Jessie’s gone and I’m alone again and--fuck-shit-goddamn-FUCK!” I scream, “I’m gonna die here. Adam was right, I’m useless by myself. I can’t survive alone…”

I fell, I broke down. I couldn’t hear my screaming through the deafening silence, but my throat was on fire and my eyes felt like tiny daggers had cut through them and down my cheeks. I couldn’t keep my hands from wiping, pressing, rubbing my eyes, my face. I was sobbing and screaming, calling for Jessie. I scrape down my face and grip my arms tightly, rocking back and forth, “Why!?”

Why me, Adam? Why did you choose me? Was I that easy a target? I guess all those years of torment and pain softened me up for you, like a fucking mound of clay to shape into whatever you wanted. You made me believe my parents were worse, but at least they were up front with the way they hurt me. You, you were sneaky.

You killed them. The whole time you were killing them, you smiled, you laughed. You were the evil one, Adam. It was you. You’re the sinner and the sin. And you used me as an excuse, as a punching bag, as a… You used me. You killed them, you said it was for me, but it was for you. You broke me.

Jessie. Jessie helped me pick up the pieces. Jessie gave me the glue. Jessie was the glue. You were always jealous of Jess, of us. Sometimes I think you killed those rich folks to get us caught and separated. If you couldn’t have me, no one could.

Drops of water ripple the flooded tunnel floor. Are those my tears?

It’s intensely cold now, but I’m not shivering. The cold is more like an entity than a sensory feeling.

The silence breeds a kind of low hum, not really like something you immediately hear, but more of a presence. It doesn’t seem to change but it becomes more and more present and something about it makes me uneasy enough to break out of this melancholy.

I need to get out of this tunnel. I need to find Jessie. I’ve cried enough, hurt enough. Jessie would say, “Get your sad ass up, bitch. That shit fucking happened, what happens now… Well that’s up to you.” It’s true. It’s up to me.

It’s like breaking a curse, dispelling some dark entity or some shit that’s tied to a house built over a massacre site. I’m that house, my past is that site.

That fucking site… Can I really let it go?

The hum persists.

MIDWICH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

“Thank… Fuck…” I say between breaths, “That siren… Saved my ass.”

I’m doubled over and panting. I should be sweating, though, I don’t feel hot, I was literally running like a maniac and I’m not sweating or hot. It’s odd, I just noticed how strange my body feels; tingly, light.

Cold.

I shook my head and kept walking, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched and led somewhere. I went back up the stairs and followed a feeling down the hall.

I ended up back in the room where those demon kids attacked me and I walked over to the desk Alessa, or at least I assume it was her, was sitting. There were words scratched on the top: WITCH! WHORE!! DEVIL!

B

“These kids were brutal, and I guess the teacher added these ‘corrections’.” I flip the desk-top open, the inside has a strange symbol etched onto it. Three circles inside a sealed circle with some strange looking characters all around it, symbols on the top, bottom, left, and right; I can’t describe them really, a fork looking thing, hook looking thing, and one that looks like scales, they’re beyond strange, the top one looks like an eye though. And in between the three circles are more strange symbols, the middle one kind of looks like a cat with emo hair.

“This really was a cult. Shit.”

“JESSIE!” I hear Dani crying out for me, that heartbreaking cry that happens during a breakdown.

“Oh, no, Dani!” My eyes widen and I rush out of that room, following the sounds of sobbing down endless corridors and down infinite flights of stairs; I’m not getting tired this time.

And still, that feeling of eyes glued to me from somewhere, from everywhere.

“Help me!!!”

The walls begin to… I mean, The walls look the same but different as I pass them. Are they shifting? The school setting slowly strips away as I move forward, at least, it looks that way. The walls are deeper, more charred looking brick; cracked and devoid of any semblance of this being a school. I feel like I’m moving deep underground, both in directionality and presence. Dani’s voice develops a dull echo. It sounds like an empty concert hall, but like also one of those really old TVs with one speaker; add in the static--it’s there. I look back to figure out if I’m hallucinating; The school’s haunted setting is back up the hall. It is changing. My feet start back up where I came from, but the lockers and strewn desks and papers with fucked up drawings don’t get any closer. They stay in the distance no matter how much I walk in that direction.

“What..?”

--JESSIE!!

Turning swiftly around, I start down but stop to look back again; my head feels fuzzy--fizzy? I feel heavy and light. Shaking it off I darted off toward Dani’s voice.

GRIEF+ACCEPTANCE

There is a calmer stillness now. It’s so very cold here, but my body isn’t shivering or reacting at all. I don’t feel cold, I just know it’s there and my breath; where is my breath?

This tunnel is neverending, I see that now. The more I try to escape, the longer it gets. It’s just like how things have been, heh. I delved so deep into my own tunnel, my darkness, in an attempt to escape the pain, escape what happened. Shit, look how I got here; escaping from the cops after a bank job gone wrong. I think I wanted it to go wrong. I think I wanted to be chased, stopped, arrested, maybe even killed.

I gasp and grip my arms tightly. I killed those people, I killed Adam. I did that. But I didn’t want to, there was always a part of me that just wanted to stop, to be seen and found and loved. Really loved, not that shit Adam offered. I needed someone like Jessie, who’s never even pulled the trigger. Not even against the Adam-faced Monster. That was me, I grabbed the revolver from Jessie’s hand and shot him three times.

Fuck

All my life, I’ve been here; cold and wet in a neverending dark tunnel where both the past and the future are obscured. There’s no light at the end, only the darkness that I wrought myself.

The static, the hum grows more and more intense in my head. Up ahead I hear a creaking and an echoing slam of a door followed by dull footsteps in the water.

“Je-Jessie?”

“Dani!”

The footsteps hasten.

“D A N I I I . . .” That horrid, tormenting voice again.

“Dani!” Jessie calls out, “Get up!”

“Get. Up.” A little girl’s voice enters through the static.

“D A N I . . . YOU F i N A l L Y S E E W H A T Y o U a R E . . .”

I stand up and grab my revolver, wiping my tears. I contemplate my next move, eyes fixed on the gun, thinking back to everything that led me here. I can hear Adam and Jessie calling to me, and all I can think is

It starts and ends with me.

A gunshot echoes through the tunnel.

“That won’t work here.” the little girl’s voice says, cutting through the stark silence after the gunshot.

I open my eyes to see Adam, Jessie, and a little girl all staring at me. Adam looks just like the last time I saw him, Jessie too. The little girl looks like--

“You can’t kill what’s already dead silly.” she says with a mischievous grin.

“Dead?”

“Yeah,” says Adam, “Remember?” His eyes start bleeding, and bullet wounds begin appearing on him; his leg snaps where he was caught by the trap.

Jessie looks down at the little girl, “I don’t think Dani understands, Alessa.”

Alessa smiles big, “So enlighten our dear Dani.”

Jessie starts slowly toward me, extending their arms and caresses my face, “The car crash? Remember what caused it?”

I think back; we were being shot at by the cops and we rammed through them. I lost control of the car and then we woke up here.

“Except we didn’t wake up, Dani.”

Out of the darkness, a song starts playing, as if through our car’s radio: Demolition Lovers by My Chemical Romance.

Why did it seem like Jessie knew what I was thinking? Everything shifted and we’re brought to the crash site.

“Look,” Jessie smiles at me and turns their gaze to the crash, “There you are.”

I look and see my body, I’m riddled with bullets doubled over the steering wheel and next to me--

“Where’s your body, Jessie?”

Jessie grabs my face and smiles.

“Where’s your body, Jessie!?”

Adam starts laughing, mocking, “Where’s your body, Jessie?”

Jessie and Alessa giggle. I drop to my knees and scream, “JESSIE!!”

“I was never there.”

I break down, slamming my fists against the cold concrete in this foggy, oppressive hell.

“Really makes you think, doesn’t it? What really happened that night?” Adam starts, “It was just you and me, if you’re thinking maybe Jessie got caught, too.”

“But..”

“Think about it, how did you end up with all of the loot? The blood on your hands, my blood.”

“I don’t--”

“You tried to grab me at first, but when you saw the cops were closing in on us, you left me to die there. You threw the gun at me and ran.”

The events come flooding my mind again, and everything that’s happened after that with Jessie.

Jessie never pulled the trigger.

“That’s right, because every job you took, you took alone. You told everyone you had someone so they’d let you take the jobs, but it was just you. That’s why every one of them ended up in a bloodbath. You wanted it that way.” Jessie crouched and rubbed my head.

“But if you’re not real, how are you here?” I reached out to Jessie.

Alessa takes Jessie’s place, kneeling before me and picking my head up, “That’s where I come in. You met my mother, didn’t you? I’m sure she told you all about me and this town.” She stands up and skips cheerfully back and forth, “Grief, regrets… Guilt. They’re powerful emotions. Especially here. You see, anyone trapped here that’s been Marked with Sin, can manifest their emotions into shapes, people, things. Your guilt created Adam, here. Your regrets, your other side, as you called it--you know, the one that wanted to get caught, never wanted to do those things--created Jessie.” Alessa giggled.

I clasp my hands over my face, for the first time ever here, I sense clarity. The fog is lifted and the cold is gone. I don’t hear that hum anymore either.

“So,” Alessa continues, “I wonder what your breaking point was. The thing that ate at you and drove you to do all of those beautiful things and called you to me, to Silent Hill.”

I stand up and walk past Jessie, then Adam, and face Alessa, “Adam killed my parents. I watched. I wanted him to, but it was the blood, the carnage of it all. His laughter. It split me in two. Jessie became my best friend, the one that avoided violence, but was brave enough to stand up. Then there’s this me; scared, reaction driven, violent.”

Alessa turned her gaze to Adam, “So it was him?”

“It was him. After marking me with violence, he continued to… Well, you know.” Alessa nodded as I continued, “so when I saw an opportunity--”

“I see. He won’t haunt you anymore.”

“No, he won’t. Because I don’t regret it anymore.”

The town shifts to the church, enveloped in fog and filled with the damned. It sits ominously at the top of a tall hill, a cemetery and what looks like 200 steps leading to it. Above the cathedral, over the stained glass with that symbol Jessie saw in the school, is a giant cross symbol; each arm of the cross crossed as well, the center is a circle and the base is like an upside down ‘U’.

“What are we doing here?” I ask Alessa.

“Everytime someone like you wanders into my town, I test them.” she says pointing up at the church.

“Test? What kind of test?”

“You say you don’t regret what you became. Prove it to me.”

I look up at the church, dozens of faces look back at us in fear and you can hear faint cries saying, “The Demon!”

“Prove it to you by doing another job?”

“Bingo.” she smiles.

I nod, “And what’s my cut?”

Alessa teleports in front of me at eye level, “If you kill them, instead of joining them, you can do whatever you want in Silent Hill,” She floats down and walks away from me, “you’ll benefit from my ‘curse’, and you get to watch as I torment Adam’s soul forever.” Alessa turns to me and smiles big, “‘Kay?”

I nod in agreement and pause for a bit before starting up the stairs.

“Hey, Dani?” she calls out, I turn and she continues, “Have fun! Oh, and leave Christabella to me…” I nod again and turn back around, continuing up the steps.

Alessa waves and shouts, “Bye!”

I walk in through the doors of the church…

GRIEF+RECONCILIATION

“Christabella…” Alessa calls out sing-song-y.

I turn on the car radio and Teardrops by Bring Me The Horizon starts up.

Teardrops

We hurt ourselves for fun

Force-feed our fear until our hearts go numb

Addicted to a lonely kind of love

What I wanna know

Is how we got this stressed out, paranoid

Everything is going dark

Nothing makes me sadder than my head

A smile comes across my face, as well as Alessa’s.

Story By: D.V.A. Lopez

Based on:

Silent Hill

A Konami Property