A resort town in cheery America is a major holiday destination that sits upon the shores of the beautiful Lake Toluca. It's a fun and fantastic location with plenty to see and do whether as one of our many wonderful tourists or as brand new residents. Catch a film or theatrical production at Artaud Theatre then retire to Annie's Bar for drinks with friends. Check out the Lakeside Amusement Park and see the historical Lighthouse that is still in operation certain days of the year. Spend a romantic evening on the Observation Deck or an evening at Pete's Bowl-o-Rama. Or take a stroll through Rosewater Park.
There's lots to see and do and that's not even mentioning White Claudia, The Order, skinned dogs, alien geometries that occasionally warp the town, nor the psychologically-induced misery and torments that spring fully formed into existence while walking the merry streets.
Welcome!
He awakens, groggy and head spinning, still too dazed to do much more than raise his head and glance about the decayed and deteriorated room. He's lying on a couch and there's a woman with damp brown hair and a business suit who paces across the room, back and forth, back and forth, clutching a pole in her other hand. If he reaches for his gun, he finds he doesn't have it. Its sitting on the counter in the kitchenette alongside the rest of his weapons.
"What were you thinking?" she demands, rounding on him but still a good half dozen paces away. "You were going to kill yourself? Here? What will that change? How will that fix anything?"
She snickers.
"Perhaps you like your vacation enough that you want to stay. Is that it?" She glances at his I.D. reading his name off it.
I stare dazed for a moment, "I don't care about fixing anything." I slowly piece together this who this woman must be. "I'll kill you you bitch!" I yell pulling myself off and diving for my gun.
She stumbles back in shock as he grabs hold off his gun. As his fingers wrap around the gun, she's pulling open the door and rushing out into the hallway. He draws a bead on her as she goes and has a chance to shoot her in the back. With the kitchen counter in between them, there's no way he can stop her from getting out of the door other than plugging her in the back with a heavy gun's bullet.
The knife and tazer are there, so quickly holstering his gun to hold them in his hands, he rushes to the door. The door is stuck and with the knife in his hand he has to scrabble at the handle for a few moments to twist it and then he must shoulder the door three times to slam it open to reveal an empty corridor in a state of mild disrepair. Grimy windows line one wall while the other has two doors and a landing to the left of him and a third door to the right. Apartment doors judging by the numbers on them. 21, 22, 23, 24. He was in Apartment 23. Apartment 24 has boards nailed into position over it.
There is no sign of the woman. Simply a photograph that lies on the floor, face down so that he can't see what the picture is. 02/01/2011 is written on the back. That was two years ago. Perhaps the woman had dropped this picture.
The air is musty and dry. The world beyond the foggy windows seems to be nearing twilight. There's a sound of floorboards creaking overhead though in a repetitive fashion that suggests that it isn't a person but perhaps something more artificial than that.
I could use this opportunity to kill myself but I really don't want to slit my wrists. I pick up the photo and yell. "Is anyone there? Anyone, where am I?"
A family. A happy family. The woman he had attempted to kill and who has now left him alone stands to the right of this happy family, gazing sweetly at someone who was most probably her daughter. Perhaps she'd had answers. Perhaps not. She'd kept him from killing himself, presuming it had been her hand on that pole, and with a single threat and an attempt to kill her he'd chased off potential answers. When only silence met his cries and the sensation that now he might truly be alone slams down on his shoulders, his shouted questions seemed almost ironic. If there were anyone out there, anyone listening, would they survive long enough to answer his questions?
I shouldn't have chased that girl off, she had to have been crazy but she still might answer a few of my questions. "WAIT, COME BACK I WON'T HURT YOU, I'M SORRY I'M JUST SO FUCKING CONFUSED!" I scream as I jog down one of the hallways, hoping I had chosen the right one.
There's only one hallway although there is a landing that leads up and down the stairs. He runs up the steps just far enough to peer through the bannisters and sees an empty corridor with a slowly rocking chair. Perhaps she upset the rocking chair as she fled there? It would be typical for an American woman to try to flee further up. There is a scent of marijuana to the air up there as well. Perhaps someone still lives here? Alternatively, it might have nothing to do with her or anyone alive and perhaps he should head downstairs to the front door and see if she's out on the street.
Cole runs out into the foyer and slams open the wooden door with its grimy patch of window glass. It opens easily, admitting him into a small archway with a series of buzzers to the right. The street in front of him is filled with fog but there's no sign of the woman out here. In this fog, she could be a few dozen feet away and he'd never find her. There might be some clue as to her identity or motive in that apartment. It might even be her apartment. Alternatively, he could set out down the streets of Silent Hill and hope to make his way out. He is feeling a bit woozy. Has he been drugged? Perhaps it was a hallucinogen that caused those terrible visions earlier.
I could have been drugged, yeah that has to be it. But how much was real? I know the job was real, robbing that priest was probably real, I really think that Katie and the police were too though. OK, maybe I ate or inhaled in the woods after running from the priests house, it just started to take effect when I was going through the police station, and it really got bad when I got into the school. But that would mean the shooter was real, and so how did whats her name club me and get me from the school all the way over here? Ah fuck it, if things really are all normal I should be able to find someone in this apartment building. I go back to they apartment I woke up in, knocking on every door on the way and periodically yelling for help.
None of the doors open until he reaches 33, whereupon the door to Apartment 31 (which reeked the most of marijuana smoke) creaks open, and a shaven headed Asian man peers out at him, followed by a waft of marijuana smoke.
"You the pizza delivery guy?" he asks. His eyes are red-rimmed and sleepy with that dazed kind of look of a stoner. Despite Coles' ragged appearance and the weapons in his hands, he doesn't seem all of that fazed. "We've been waiting awhile for that pizza man."
Great, this guy is gonna be a ton of help. I walk back and poke my head into his room, pushing him aside if I have too. Without answering his question I speak. "Do you know where all your neighbors are?"
OOC- Cole put the knife back in his trench coats inner pocket and the tazer is in the outer one with his hand.
"Hey, you don't have any pizza," said the man as he heads towards him. Its not hard to shove his way into the room. The apartment is much like the one he had awoken in downstairs although this one smelled strongly of marijuana and there were a few bongs and several empty pizza boxes lying about the coffee table. "Hey, we've been waiting for ages. No fair."
When Cole speaks to him he takes a moment before responding. "Uh, I dunno. I try not to trouble the neighbours and they don't trouble us. It's all good here, y'know?"
The man wasn't the only person in the apartment, however, there was also a young woman sitting on the couch whose eyes stay on Cole as she tries to hide the drugs beneath a pizza box.
"Are you looking for someone in particular?" she asks. "A lot of people who come this way are looking for someone."
The man stares out into the hall for a long moment before pulling the door closed. "Its foggy outside."
"Again? That's..." The woman looks down at her hands. "Oh. That's why the pizza hasn't come."
OOC- I'm assuming from the smell at least one of the bongs is lit.
Upon seeing the lit bong my eyes light up a bit. Oh my god finally a vice. "What do you mean by that, who else has come this way?" Cole says as he casually knocks over the girls crappy attempt to hide her drugs, picks up the bong, and takes a deep inhale.
While she could cover the pipes, there wasn't much she could do about the bong without pouring the water everywhere. Cole grabs up the bong and wraps his mouth around the glass, grabbing one of the lighters and lighting up the packed dope. The water bubbles as he inhales the smoke and holds it in his lungs. The world immediately seems a little calmer though one never could tell when dope's calming effects would twist to anxiety. Still, for now it seemed to be working. After a few dozen seconds he exhales.
While he holds his breath, the man speaks: "Huh? No, man, the fog. What's that got to do with other people?" He gives Cole a blank look then. He's probably so high right now his short term memory has fried. He's probably forgotten what he just said even now.
"I dunno, people drop by occasionally," says the woman. "The old cat lady from across the road came throwing stones at the windows a few weeks ago but that was a few weeks ago. We just wait and things just work themselves out."
"Meanwhile, we listen to the radio," said the man. "Who're you, anyway? You don't look like a tourist."
Show,bongs and pipes don't really carry a glow to them unless people are drawing air through them by inhaling. They don't stay alight, either, and a smoker will hold a lighter to it to keep it burning. I believe they had chemicals to cigarettes to keep them from going out as well as I believe tobacco alone is much the same. Also, like cigarette smoke, much of the smell of marijuana smoke comes from exhalations rather than burning it and so it lingers for quite awhile after you stop smoking it. Just as apartments can reek of cigarettes, so can they reek of dope.
"Yeah I'm a tourist, I'm trying to get out of the city but something seems hell bent on keeping me here." I turn on the tv and look for a phone, intending to call the police station and ask what the word on that city evacuation was. If I can't find it I ask the girl where it is.
OOC-Cole still has the book he came here to steal right? Also sorry about the previous post, misunderstanding like that happen when a rule following nerd plays a criminal I guess.
