Monster

CHAPTER 1, THE DREAM

It was cold, tonight. No-one knew why, but it is just so cold. It was the beginning of the summer and it had to be five below outside. It was snowing. I mean, snow, in summer!? Hah! Talk about a change of fortune. Normally the weather is so nice this time of year. But not recently. A lot of things have changed recently. I'm beginning to believe that no-one except me notices. The school is becoming more and more empty by the day. The children are getting sick and some of them.

I know something's wrong as I stand here. I know as I look out of the window that the children playing on the road, the dog in the yard, the birds in the trees, they will all be gone soon, and then, Nowhere. I see it, sometimes. A flash of rusted gratings, rotting bodies, blood, pain and then, just as it starts to make sense, its gone. I went to see that fortune teller, the Gillespie woman. She knows something, I know she does. She just tells me that the angel is coming, and she gave me a piece of paper that makes no sense, covered with symbols and writing, and nothing more. Rumor has it she's crazy anyway. They say her kid died in a fire a few weeks back and ever since then she's been gone.

I lay awake at nights sometimes, partly because I am trying to make sense of what she said, and partly because the visions get more vivid while I sleep. Eventually, however, I fall asleep, and then I am in there world. There is no escape from it. I cannot wake up. The doctor said it was a nightmare, that's all. But in a nightmare, you wake up when the monster gets you. I don't. I can feel it on top of me, pinning me to the cold metal grated floor. Ripping me. Tearing me. I do not die, rather I move away from the scene, a helpless spirit, doomed to watch my human form being devoured by the beasts that haunt my dreams. They roll my flesh between there gums and continue to devour until I am nothing but a brown, rotted corpse on the metal floor. Unseen creatures savoring every drop of my blood that falls between the metal rods. Then, they leave. I will be all alone then. Sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours, until I wake up. I remember everything. No matter how hard I try to forget, I remember. Sometimes I dream I am one of them. This is the easy dream. In this dream, I am a monster myself. I am wearing the nurse uniform I wear to work every day, and it is covered with blood. My blood. I have no face, but I know that the creature is me. I know this because I am not scared. I cannot be scared of monsters if I am one. I'm not scared in this dream. This is my refuge. But then he comes. My executioner. A man. He brings down a weapon into my head with such fury. My blood spills to the floor. I want to yell at him to stop, but I cannot. I have done nothing to him, yet he kills me with such brutality. I sometimes wonder if I will ever meet this man. I will try and ask him what I have done. I don't want him to kill me. I am happy like that. But he does. And then, unlike my other dream, I awaken. Alone and scared. I hate him for doing that. I spend each waking hour knowing that soon, I will have to sleep. And with sleep comes the other place. The nightmare world. I don't know how to stop it, but I want to get away from here. I want to be free from the nightmares. I want to be free from this town, free from Silent Hill. But no one will ever be free of this town. Not me, alone and afraid. Not the children outside, playing in the snow. Not the birds nesting in the trees. Not the old dog sleeping on the lawn. Not the man from my dreams. Especially not him. I'll make sure of it.

The paper makes sense now. The symbols and writing. This is the way. This is the way to punish the man from my dreams. I can feel the cold metal of the knife gliding gracefully through another fingertip. I would normally be scared, but I don't care anymore. The fears I have are gone. I know who the angel is. He is Samael. He is my savior. He will let me become what I am in my dreams. He will make me into what I am afraid of, then there will be no need to be afraid. Then I will stop that man. He has taken my dreams away. I can never forgive him for that. As I slide the crimson tide flowing from my mutilated finger across the brown, stained wall, I see that I have finished the symbol now. As I stand, I look out of my window again. I see things as they should be. The children, they have been changed into what I shall become. They are no longer weak. There fear of pain has left them. This has made them strong. The birds in the trees, they are as they should be now. Larger, reptilian-like in appearance, mouth glistening with yellowed fangs. There is no need for beauty in the real world. They are strong now. The old dog on the lawn is looking at me. I see him as he really is too. Soon, I will be like that. Then the siren will stop.

I have to go now. I have to Dream.

CHAPTER 2, THE JOURNEY

In the dark , fathomless depths of the night, a shining beacon was moving down an abandoned back road through mountainous forests casting eerie shadows on the twisted barks of multitudes of tree's as it advanced. The light was coming off of the headlights of a car. Inside the car, as was always the case with moving vehicles of this sort, there was a person. A man. As he fought to stay awake, he took advantage of the long straight ahead of him to look at the screwed up map he had thrown on the seat next to him. He grasped his hand around the plastic cup in the holder folded out of the glove compartment and took a sip of the cold coffee, before throwing the cup out of the car window. It hit the road and bounced harshly a few times, spilling its contents on the roadside before coming to rest in a ditch full of rainwater. It wasn't raining at the minute though, It was snowing. Strange, its only July, but hell, stranger things have happened. The man traced a long harshly scrawled red line drawn on the map until he hit his supposed destination, prodding it triumphantly with his finger before tossing the map back to its original resting place. As his eyes slowly raised back to the road, a black shadow spun past the headlights and into the trees, faster than any feasible creature should. The man reactively swerved the car, screeching the brakes down. The sound of the tires grinding across the grit-covered road disturbed the whole of the surrounding forest, and birds of all shapes and sizes flocked to the sky like a foreboding black cloud before dispersing into race-determined groups. Deep in the background noise, a wolf could be heard signaling to the other members of the pack, and a concerto of howls proceeded to ring through the silence. The man sat, grasping the wheel of his old American estate wagon, foot still pressed firmly on the brake, sweat beads forming on his forehead. He had not blinked in the 4 seconds that had passed since the shadow had caused the aforementioned events, nor had he moved. He reached under the dashboard of his car and pulled a knob. A click could be heard and the trunk of the car swung partially open. He grasped his hand around the handle of the door, and opened it, as quietly as he could. He walked around his car in the dark, dimly lit forest, moving purely by the illumination caused by his car headlights. All that could be heard was the man's heart, his heavy breathing and his footsteps in the gravely road. He opened the trunk, and fumbled around in the dark for a few seconds before finding what he was looking for. He knew it by the feel of cold metal against his fingers, and picked up the crowbar in his trunk. He raised it like some kind of finely sharpened sword, and stepped off the road, one foot only in the woods to make him feel secure.

"ANYONE THERE?!?" he shouted, answered only by another flock of birds and some louder, closer howls.

Suddenly, behind him, he heard a childlike laughter erupt from the silent dark. He spun round to be met with nothing other than his car door swaying partially shut. He once again raised the crowbar above his head and stepped towards the car. Suddenly, he felt something grab at his toes and pull him to the ground with force. As he hit, he screamed, and scurried away from the spot on his stomach, pulled himself to his feet, raised his weapon and turned into.

Nothing. He looked to the ground and saw a rock on the floor, obviously the cause of his tripping. Another bout of laughter could be heard, this time along with the crunching of leaves as some.thing ran away through the forest. He wasn't waiting around to find out what it was. He ran back to the car, threw the crowbar to the ground and wrenched the door of the car open. He stepped inside and grabbed the door, slamming it shut and turned the car.

His fingers met air instead of the metallic steel of his car key. He looked up to see his sun-guard pulled down, instead of being closed and holding his spare keys. He looked on the floor around the wheel, under the pedals, under the seat, but they were nowhere. As he looked up, he saw a small child, no older than 5 or 6 stood in the headlights of his car, smiling at him and waving his car keys playfully, fully visible except for the top of his face, which was obscured by the limited light of the headlights. He fumbled in the glove compartment and produced a small flashlight usually used for fixing his car. Not much, but considering the circumstances. He opened the door and held his hand out to the laughing child.

"look kid, they're not yours. Give em back and it'll all be ok"

This seemed to have no effect on the child

"Are you out here on your own kid? Its dangerous out here, look give me the keys and we can both go back to town together and then call your parents up and it'll all be fine"

The laughing stopped, and this remark seemed to provoke a response.

"No you won't! you just want to hurt me. you're just like the others"

"look kid, just give me the keys. If you don't want to come back with me that's fine, you can camp out tonight or something, I dunno, but just give me my keys!"

"No!"

"Give me the damn keys you little shit!"

"SEE?! You just want to hurt me too! They all just want to hurt me!"

The child dropped to his knees and began to weep. The leaves crunched under the weight of the tiny body and small pitter patter noises accompanied the falling tears rolling through the child's hands. The man approached him cautiously and reached his hand out to comfort the child. Then, faster than lightning, a sweeping arc of black swept the child into the darkness obscured to vision by the limited headlights, leaving nothing but the mans car keys. The man himself fell backwards onto the floor, tears rolling down his face. He'd never cried before, but fear, true fear, does strange things to people. All that could be heard now was the piercing crying of the child in the night. Even the wolves had silenced to listen to the deranged crescendo. He crawled towards the keys until he could just about reach them if he stretched his arm out all the way, and grabbed them. He ran. He ran as fast as he could to his car, opened the door, jammed the keys in the hole and started the engine. As he accelerated, he slammed the door shut, and as he did so, the crying outside stopped. Now, silence. Nothing could be heard. Not even the heart of the man. Nothing but true, unnerving, discomforting silence. The engines of the car squealed in mechanical pain as the accelerator was pressed down to the floor, and the car sped off into the night and out of the forest. The man continued on his journey.

Unaware that he had just been on a journey himself.

without leaving the comfort of his own head.

CHAPTER 3, THE ARRIVAL

Oblivious to the importance of the events that had just unfolded right in front of him, the nameless man continued his journey to the back street, quiet, peaceful town of Silent Hill. His face was wet with a mixture of tears and sweat, and the leather cover on the steering wheel compressed under his unforgiving grip. Again subconsciously thankful for the long straight ahead of him, he removed one of his hands from the wheel, leaving a sweat-marked grasping print behind as a reminder of his fears. He again grabbed the map beside him and quickly retracted his hand to the mental safety of his personal space, like a child jumping into bed, avoiding the space between the bed and the floor, within which the untold horrors of the innocent mind find refuge. Again he followed the rough red line across the map, before looking back up at the road, hoping to see a sign or landmark any time soon, as a hint as to his location. As he concentrated on the road, he heard a tiny, discreet tapping sound, mixing in with the background noise of the engine of the car. He looked down to see large, red drips covering the bottom of his map, looking down just in time to see another one join in the fray. He pressed his hand against his face, and brought it away stained with a scarlet hue, dripping between his fingers and onto his bleached, worn jeans.

"shit", whispered the man, seemingly afraid of alerting anything else to his presence, even though the car was providing ample noise anyway.

A nose bleed. He often got them when he was nervous or scared, and was in a way expecting this one. Yet however expected it was, as always it wasn't welcome. There was no time to deal with it now, however, so it was left to drip, as more important matters where attended to. He kept his eyes on the road, determined not to stop till he reached his destination. It would all be safe when he reached Silent Hill. Maybe then he could finally get it done. Get. get.

'What?' He thought to himself, 'Why am I coming here again?'

Again, his heart skipped a beat and he felt as though he aged another 10 years. As he stared into the relentless, never-ending blackness of night, it seemed to swallow up any memory he had of why he had gotten into his car that morning with that map. And for that sake, who drew the line on it? He didn't even own a blue biro, let alone the expensive looking deep red used to draw the line.

'maybe when I get there', he thought, 'then I'll know. Yeah, then I'll know why I came, and everything's be okay'.

As he drove, he noticed the black, withered husks beside the road that had formed the seemingly endless forest were dissipating into black void. Strangely enough, he preferred the sea of nothingness that now surrounded him to the dead forest he had left behind. Things can't hide behind nothing, and nothing doesn't cast inhuman shadows. He felt safer now, and he noticed that his grip upon the steering wheel was released, the foam slowly springing back into shape as his knuckles regained there coloring. His foot eased off of the accelerator, and he regained a legal speed, or thereabouts.

As he drove through the nothingness along the long, straight road, his mind was as empty as the scenery surrounding him. Usually, the human mind is defaulted to thinking about trivial things, family, TV, sex etc. But now, there was nothing. All he focused on was reaching Silent Hill. As he drove, his headlights reflected off of a large tin square supported by a huge beam suspended on the side of the road. A few crows perched on top of it took the noise as an undue cue to take flight, flapping there wings noisily as they gained an airborne status, shedding plucked feathers as they rose. The black feathers floated gently to the ground, and brushed the front of the huge metallic sign. The shining steel lettering on the front of the sign could just about be read in the grim moonlight:

Welcome to Silent Hill, Pop. 0 Have a nice stay.

Next to the word population, the word 'Living' was scrawled in red graffiti.

And so, He Arrived.

CHAPTER 4, THE TOWN

As he drove towards the town, he felt a sudden pang of security in the pit of his stomach. He wasn't quite there yet, and still had about another fifteen minutes of Nothingness to endure before the safety of the town cradled him. All was silent again. The only noise outside was the low hum of his engine in the dense night. No tree's adorned the roadside now, and only a baron emptyness of Nothing stared back at him in those few moments he caught to glimpse out of the drivers window. Taking advantage again of the long straight roads, he took his eyes off of the relentless stretch ahead and stared into his wing mirror. All he saw behind him was the open road. No shadows, no reflections, no life. He stared at the pointed peak of the road's reflection as it cut off into the distance, and felt as if the darkness wasn't merely covering up the world behind him, rather it was destroying everything he knew. Everyone he knew. Inside, he felt as if he was never going to see the civilisation he knew ever again.

He took his eyes off of the black reflection in the dusty mirror, and fixated them once more on the road. In that instant, he felt completely alone. All the times before this when he'd been driving, he hadn't thought of it. But after looking into that mirror and seeing the world he knew annihalated by the darkness, he felt truely alone. The need for company overwhelmed him, and he took a hand off of the brown leather steering wheel, and reached over to the old radio in the dashboard of the car. He fumbled around aimlessly for a few seconds, before his fingers met with the cold plastic grip of the on/off switch. He turned it harshly to the left, almost breaking the end off, and the radio gently hummed into life. A chilling sensation ran down his spine as the car was filled with unnerving white noise. He hated white noise. That place between stations where Nothing resided. The harsh undertones. The deranged concerto it endlessly sang. He swiftly moved his hand over to the tuner and turned it slowly, longing for the sound of another voice apart from the one in his head. He turned and turned, seemingly to no avail. He thought he heard a break in the hypnotic noise and reversed his twisting, but his ears met with nothing but variations on the noise he heard before. All of a sudden..

The noise..

Stopped.

He stopped twisting the knob on the front of the green-lit hatch, and apart from the hand on the wheel, remained completely stationary. He listened, hoping to hear a voice. Any voice. He heard nothing, but still moved his hand away from the radio and back onto the wheel. He clinged on to a vain hope that the station was merely on a break, and soon enough the light jesting and themed music would fill his car. At least there was no white noise. He never knew why he hated white noise so much, but whenever he heard it, his head filled with imagery. Disturbing imagery. Bodies everywhere, the hallways ahead filled with the dead and dying. But they were not dead. The dead dont get up. The dead dont walk. The dead don't want him. The creatures in his head do. He never see's more than this, and it only lasts for a second at the most, as he has always had a natural reaction to avert his ears and stop the noise at the source. Must be a memory from early life. If only he could remember...

Ah hell, What good would it do him now? He was alone in the world. No one was with him. There was nothing behind him, only Silent Hill in front of him. His sanctuary. His place of refuge. The whole town was dark, but he could see it. The pale moonlight reflecting generously off of the windows like a lighthouse in the middle of a dark sea of fields and desert surrounding the backwater town. Memories wouldn't get him anywhere right now. He didn't need to know why he was going there, or what he would do when he got there. All he needed to know was that he was going to Silent Hill.

Silent Hill.

The name of the town resounded inside his head for a few seconds, seeming to bounce off of every wall inside his brain, getting louder with each return it made to his conciousness. He closed his eyes and twitched his head, almost trying to shake the words out of his head and into the black of the night, where he would never have to think them again. The town appeared to be his safe haven, so why did the mere name of it induce so much fear into him? So many questions to be answered... the time he had to answer them in was another story entirely.

On that thought, the radio buzzed into life. Yet, instead of the refreshing sound of civilization, he was greeted with the harsh white noise he tried so hard to avoid. He wanted to shut the radio off, but he couldnt move his hands from the steering wheel. It was as if his entire body was made of stone. He sat, a harmless statuette of a real person, trapped within the confines of his own mind. Unable to stop the noise, the creatures in his head emerged from the back of his mind. He saw them so vividly... so many of them. Crawling.. running.. on the brown, blood stained walls.. the rotted wooden ceiling.. the metal grated floor.. Creatures with no Face's, creatures with blank smooth orbs where there eyes and mouths should be. Some had merely a hole in the front of there heads, the edges adorned with yellowed, rotton, broken teeth. Some of them carried crude, rusted knives. Some of them were carrying long, metal poles, scraping them off of the floor with a screech not unlike that of the radio as they walked. Every one of them made a hideous gutteral sound, even the ones with no discernable mouths or orifice's neccessary to make such a sound. It sounded like someone harshly scratching a record while smashing glass both at the same time. He stood, helpless, as the tide of his own imagination flowed over him. Unable to move, unable to scream, unable even to close his eyes and deny himself of the exsistance of the approaching death. He could merely wait for them to kill him.

At that precise moment, he heard a loud screech above him. He looked up, and saw nothing but black in the pits of his mind. At least he was able to move his gaze away from the hideous abominations that ambled closer. Then he realized that the sound was louder than those made by the creatures in his head. It sounded more... real...

He swerved the steering wheel of the car in shock as eight browned, weathered talons ripped effortlessly through the roof of his car. He heard a loud thud, as though something was trying to keep its grip on his car. On it's prey. He continued to swerve the car from left to right, ducking as low as he could, paying no attention to the road ahead, merely to the surreal claws above him. He heard another screech that cut through his ears. He almost felt like checking to see if a small tide of blood was flowing out of his broken ears. The talons seemed to contract around the metal roof, ripping it aside as though it was merely tough cardboard. He peered up in terror out of the hole in the roof, and as his gaze met the abomination above, the white noise on the radio became so loud it was almost unbearable. The creature on his car looked like some kind of bird man. It was hunched over, a large lump in its back containing the bones and nerves of its wings. It's skinny body was covered in defined bones, ribs poking out of the upper torso. Its fa.... its head, merely a beak. Not a normal beak. This one looked more as if it was made of flesh than bone. Muscles and veins protrouded from the stretched construct on the top of its neck. It had no arms to speak of, merely the wings on its back. These were a lighter colour than the rest of its body, yet were stil adorned in sickening black veins. It had no eyes, yet it seemed to look at him through the torn hole. Angling its head down, breathing heavily.

He swerved the car one last time, and the sound of the tires screeching as the car slid sideways down the road filled the night. After a few feet, the traction of the road kicked in. The car was flipped over and over, like some kind of toy. He closed his eyes and waited for the agonizing pain that was almost pre-destined to claim his body in the seconds to come. He clutched the wheel and felt the seatbelt crushing his ribs as he was jerked around like a helpless puppet in some kind of sick show. He felt a snap as he was jerked forwards again, and a sickening pain shot through the left side of his body. The car finally rolled to a stop. He waited. Almost waiting for Death to appear to him, take him away. It felt as though his time was up. The adrenaline levels in his body served to numb the pain. He lay in a crumpled heap, on the roof of his upturned car for a few seconds, before realizing that his time had not yet come. He tried to get up and the pain shot through his shoulder again. He grabbed it with his hand, and was met with a jagged object, wet, covered in some warm liquid. He flipped on the map reading light, and it flickered gently. He turned to look at what he touched. As he turned, a spray of crimson liquid hit the shattered window of his car and trickled between the gaps of the broken glass. He went white as his eyes reached there destination.

His shirt was ripped across his left shoulder. It was covered with blood. In the middle of the red flowing tide, covered with viscera and dirt, was a white, snapped bone poking out of his shoulder. It was his collar bone. He screamed. Unlike before, there was no concerto of forest animals to join him, but the pain prevented him from realising this. He tried his hardest not to pass out from the sickening pain, and curled over forwards. Occasionally, a dark red spray of blood would cross his vision, and he would have to stop for a few seconds to regain himself before carrying on. When he was finally the right way up, he crawled out of the car window. He could feel the snapped bone rubbing against the gaping hole in his shoulder, and tried his hardest to ignore the pain. He got a few cuts in his hand, and had to stop multiple times to pull the broken glass shards from his palms with his teeth. His left arm was all but unusable. When he placed his first foot on the ground outside, he expected to be met with a gravely crunch. Unfortunately, he was disappointed.

As his foot protruded out, he felt a fleshy squelch as it hit solid ground. He clambered away from the car, biting his lip till it bled to take his mind off of the pain. He turned, and looked at what he had stepped on. It appears his attacker had not been as lucky as him. The creature lay under his car, motionless. A trail of blood fanned out from its broken beak-like head. Ribs stuck out of its brown chest, yellow sticks standing out in the rusty looking field of the creatures torso. The tumbling car had ripped the creature almost in two. He took one step towards it, and the second his foot hit the gravelled road, the creature turned to stare at him. He froze. It stretched out and stabbed its claw-tipped wings into the road, and he could see it straining to pull itself out from under the car. The upper body of the creature spilled forwards, in a hideous, bone-crunching lurch. Sickeningly, the lower torso of the thing still resided under the car. He could hear organs ripping, veins snapping loudly, bones tearing apart. The creature finally ripped itself free of the trap its lower body was presenting it with, and ambled slowly towards him, undaunted by the huge amount of pain this should be causing it. He was still completely motionless, watching the gruesome spectacle in front of him. All at once, his body regained control, and he turned away from the creature. The pain in his arm was numbed by true fear. The white noise in the radio filled the night air, and he ran.

He ran from the creature.

He ran from the noise.

He ran towards the only thing he had left.

The Town.

CHAPTER 5, THE ENCOUNTER

After what seemed to him like another lifetime spent running from the blood- soaked atrocities he'd left behind him, the numbness in his body seemed to die down. He could feel the bone of his snapped shoulder rubbing harshly against the flesh it jaggedly pointed out off, grating chunks of skin to tatters as he moved. His stomach was on fire, and he could feel the bile from his lungs creeping slowly up his airways. He stopped instantly, and leaned against a signpost. Unknowingly, he leaned with the arm of his snapped shoulder, and as soon as he moved it up, he quickly retracted it as he felt the stabbing, burning pain shoot through his entire body. He leaned with his other hand, and hastily lurched forwards. The bile from his throat crept up into his mouth and he spat it out on the floor. It was quickly followed with a stream of unintentional vomit as he saw the pool of blood that had collected collection of blood and vomit on the floor at his feet.

He wondered if he'd ever felt as bad as he did now. Looking at the situation he was in, he doubted it. Here he was, in the middle of Nowhere. His car had broken down. His shoulder was most indefinitely broken, and he was probably going to bleed to death out of the deep gash. If he concentrated on it, he could see the muscles inside his upper chest contracting and retracting as he breathed, but then the inevitable spray of blood followed from the torn veins, and he had to turn away in disgust. A string of bile clung defiantly onto his lower lip, refusing to take the fall into the pool below.

No, he answered, in his head. Even there, he was trying to be as silent as he could, avoiding the detection of the unseen terror he felt he was surrounded by, even though he was still being overwhelmed by the solidarity of this dead town. Never before had this feeling of inevitability consumed his soul with such force. He tried to think of a time when his life occurrences might have even come close to this, in a vain hope that inside, this might pale the feeling somehow. Yet, right now, his mind was completely blanked. No memories. No thoughts. Just black. As black as the night he was surrounded by. As black as the metal of. of a gun.

What? What made this simile enter his head right now? Maybe if he had a gun, he'd feel protected. Then again, the creatures in this hell probably weren't even really alive, so the chances of killing them with a gun were minimal. Yet still, his mind was filled with the images of guns. Not just guns, but more a Gun itself. A berretta 0.9 CB hand gun. The specs raced through his head as he thought of it. 12 round clip. Pull back load.Fires 9mm parrabellum rounds. Just the type the cops used. But why at a time like this was his mind filled with images of the firearm? In this situation, a god damned M16 was a more preferable option, not this pea shooter everyone's dad kept in the special drawer in the office. Yet the memories were so vivid.

On that thought, he wondered how long he'd stood here. In this state, he was nothing more than fodder for the hellish spawns residing in the town. He turned his head away from the reddish-brown stain at his feet and opened his eyes, when he was sure it was out of his line of sight. He looked, and shielded his eyes from a blinding white light in his face. The sight shocked him, and seemed angelic to the man, yet strangely demonic at the same time. As his eyes slowly adjusted to this phenomenal occurrence of the last eternity of his lifetime, he saw his destination sprawled out in front of him.

The deserted town stood defiant, a monument in this deserted sprawl of nothingness. A tribute to the lives that once lived here. Yet now, it stood dormant. A withered husk compared to what should be there. I mean, all of the regular town things where there, shops, houses, streetlights shining like warning beacons in the darkness that exists in this seething void of nothing. At this time of night, the lack of people shouldn't be as disturbing. It was black as ever, probably way past midnight, and in any normal backstreet town would be deserted. Yet there was something about the lack of people in this town. This town wasn't deserted, it was dead. He stood on the outskirts, looking in at the town. It's eerie deadness scared him, yet the civil clothing covering the beast he knew the town to be seemed surreally inviting to him. He took a step forwards and felt a soft dig in his leg as his jeans contracted around it. He stopped and looked down at the object. His car keys.

He took them from his pocket and looked at them in his hand, the streetlight above his head casting a soft glow on the golden stick in his palm. The lions head on the top of the key seemed to more emanate the light than to reflect it, and he stood for a second with it in his gaze. As he concentrated on it, He felt his grasp tightening on them as he stared. He closed his eyes and clenched a defiant fist as memories of his car flooded his mind. Why did he come here? Why did he get into that car earlier today? This could all have been avoided if he'd just stayed home in. wherever the hell he lived. He didn't care for that right about now. His car was totalled. There was no point holding on to these. Even if he got out alive, the stench of the demonic entity would never truly be removed from the automobile. The stains of its blood never really washed off. His blood too, would never leave the wreck. He opened his eyes and found hit hand white from strain, a small trickle of blood flowing from the centre of his locked fingers and down on to the ground below. As he looked down, his blood seeped into the ground like paper. The floor at his feet seemed to devour his blood as it flowed from his open wounds. He looked for a pool from the still-spurting gash on his shoulder, but to no avail. In fact, there was nothing around him at all. No blood, no Vomit, no water, even. As he stared at the ground, wondering why this was happening, he noticed a thick, swirling fog starting to emanate around his feet. It wasn't normal fog. It's properties more resembled smoke. It curled in wisps around his feet but strangely never went more than knee-high. As soon as a swirl hit that height, it immediately returned to its original level, as though an invisible glass wall blocked its ascension. The fog slowly became more and more ominous around him, and he looked back at the blood dripping from his hand. He opened his white fingers and looked at the deep slashes caused by the points of the key, blood seeping from them with each beat of his heart. He turned his head to the side, as if expecting more than what he got. He turned to face the nothing behind him, and raised his arm. He promptly lowered it, and opened his mouth, then looked around to see if anyone was stood nearby. Then, he started to whisper to himself.

"It's been a while, it really has. But it's starting to make sense now. I'm here for a reason, I really am. As to what that reason is, I'm sure I'll either never know, or I'll die finding out. Either way, you're worth shit to me now"

On that syllable, he flung the keys as far as he could in the distance in front of him, and watched them sail into the darkness. He waited for the almost satisfying clank as the hit the ground, but it never came. He heard nothing at all. As if the keys were swallowed up by the darkness. Either that, or his presumption that this town really was all he had left had more truth in it than he cared to think about.

And so, he set off.

Into the unknown

Into Nowhere.

Into the Encounter.