CHAPTER ONE: Cecilia: Checking In

[Laraqua]

There's isn't so much of a pipe out of Katie though at least the water hasn't spread any further. This isn't like her. She may be surly, but she's also highly curious and a bit hyperactive. The ten minutes tick by with absolute regularity but in the end she's still staring at the toilet door.

[Kadael]

With a resigned sigh, Cecilia slips her feet out of her shoes and grabs the top of the door. She's a relatively tall woman, but she won't be able to see over the cubicle without some climbing.

The lower hinge of the door is the best foothold she can get, and she gingerly puts one stockinged foot on it...

...but she can't get any stability. The damn thing is too small.

Well. At least there's no one around to see this.

[Laraqua]

The door rattles somewhat under her weight but there's no response from Katie. In fact, this whole place is eerily silent. There's no sounds of any traffic passing the Observation Deck nor birdsong nor anything like that. The country really is far more quiet than the city. If only it weren't so cold.

[Kadael]

Cecilia backs up against the sinks, brushes some stray hairs out of her eyes, and runs at the door.

She jumps too late - her fingers miss the top of the cubicle, and she smacks into the door, falling into the puddle of water.

For a second, there's no pain, only confusion.

But it's just a second.

[Laraqua]

Katie doesn't respond. Even hearing her mother body slam the toilet door doesn't manage to stir her, but it does cause the toilet door to slam inward off its hinges and crack against the wall, revealing a child-sized mannequin wearing Katie's clothes slumped over the toilet seat. Black electrical tape has been cut to form Xs over her eyes and there's some type of plush rabbit toy sitting on her lap, clasped in the mannequin's hands.

[Kadael]

Was Here Am Gone Now

The graffiti flashes in front of Cecilia's eyes as the door swings. She looks up, and over, and

it's

not

Katie

Her mouth is dry. Her eyes are wide. She scrambles to her feet, touches the mannequin's face, traces the electrical tape. There's no one here. There never was.

Katie was here. She's gone now.

Cecilia is on autopilot as she slides into her shoes, flips her phone open, and runs out of the restroom. Her eyes are fixed on the screen. She prays her call will get through as she dials 911.

[Laraqua]

There's no bars. No reception. No one can hear here. The cellphone won't reach anyone. She'd have to aim for a payphone, maybe. Or go to the police station directly. Or maybe search around the area for Katie. She was outside the restrooms. She would've seen a car pull away, surely. She wasn't that distracted by the pompous client's call, was she?

[Kadael]

She snaps her phone closed and shoves it into her purse, eyes darting around for some sign of where she could have gone - where someone could have taken her...

Katie's really gone this time. And it's her fault.

Blood pounds in her ears. She's shaky. Numb. Not breathing quite right.

Her eyes fall on the hiking trail. She crouches down, looking for fresh footprints. Nothing.

The only thing to do now is drive. And she does, pulling out of the parking lot with a screech and leaving that sick mockery of her child behind.

To Silent Hill.

[Laraqua]

The dark tunnel encloses around her like a funeral shroud as she speeds through its dark and winding confines as it whips back and forth on its way to the town itself. Finally, it lets out onto Nathan Avenue. The fog presses in oppressively around her, dropping the rest of the town into a murky gloom. There's no other cars or people in sight although she can vaguely make out the lake to her right and the buildings to her left. The Ridgeview Medical Clinic and South Silent Hill Fire Station both come into view. The former faces onto Lindsey Street (the signs reveal that it's just around the corner) while the Fire Station is on Nathan Street overlooking the lake.

[Kadael]

Cecilia slows as she comes into the fog. She needs to find the police, that's all she knows. And maybe the fire department could tell her something.

She parks next to the building; if it's not a space to park, she doesn't notice. Out of the car and into the fire station she goes, her footsteps loud on the cold ground.

[Laraqua]

The South Silent Hill Fire Station looks like its been long abandoned. The paint is peeling off in large flakes and the windows themselves are boarded up from the outside with thick black nails protruding from the wood. The steel shutters over the garage have been firmly pulled down to rest on the concrete as well. The glass front door, however, is unbarred though Cecilia can see nothing through the condensation-filled glass. It looks dark in there as though the lights were out. It might be unlocked, however. She's pretty sure she can see movement through the gloomy darkness but it doesn't seem right. Its a smallish figure and it walks with a strange motion like it's kicking out its legs. Maybe it's just a trick of the light, but just as she focused on the shape, it's darted out of view. Hmm, maybe it was something mechanical? It certainly didn't move with any human grace.

[Kadael]

Cecilia turns away from the door. What's wrong with this place? The longer she's outside, the colder it seems to get. No wind. No rain. Just so much fog, hanging thick in every direction.

It didn't look like this on the brochure. There were people, smiling people, and the lake was bright blue. It looks dead and dark now.

She gets into the car and drives more slowly, hoping to find a part of town that isn't deserted. From what Ash said, Annie's Bar should be open and, at the very least, have one living person. Not that she knows where it is, so she keeps driving along Nathan Avenue - ha - for answers.

[Laraqua]

Cecilia passes a church, a savings bank, Rosewater Park, and continues on along Nathan Avenue as it seems to stretch on forever. For a moment, it seems possible that maybe people moved out of this section of town but then she notices the cars parked here and there along the side of the road. So people are here (unless they abandoned their cars) but all of the buildings are closed up tight. The church seems not to be boarded up but its front door is hanging loose on one hinge and there's no light coming from within its gloomy depths so she continues. She passes a gas station and just beyond that Pete's Bowl-o-Rama (which is covered in police ticker tape) and keeps on going. Nathan Avenue moves past the residential area into a section that seems to be mostly farmland. It crosses a creek and then a river and then turns right onto another main road called West Sandford Street. She almost passes it when she realises that Lakeview Hotel is on West Sandford Street. She could either turn east towards that road (which seems to follow the curve of the lake) or west along Nathan Avenue which seems to head out through more farmland toward the hills beyond.

[Kadael]

East it is. There must be someone in the hotel - she booked a room not that long ago - as well as a telephone. Besides, she'll need to take some time to write up a description of Katie for the police.

The image of the waxy mannequin in her daughter's clothes is burned behind her eyes. She didn't want to come to Silent Hill. She should have listened. She should have...

...it doesn't matter.

[Laraqua]

As she drives along, she gets closer to a building in the distance that must be the rebuilt Lakeview Hotel. But the entire rear section of the hotel is blocked off with thick metal sheets bolted onto scaffolding that disappears into the fog at least three or four storeys above her. In fact, further on ahead you can just make out more scaffolding rising off to the left of you. She could try to search around the building to find an entrance, but there was no way a business could operate with such an ugly eye sore sitting at the rear of it. She can pull up to investigate it further or continue down Nathan Avenue. Surely if you follow it as it hugs the lake, you'll come across some form of open businesses. It can't all be closed, surely.

[Kadael]

Cecilia stares at the scaffolding in disbelief. She's seen pictures of the Lakeview Hotel after its refurbishing, and they were nothing like this. Is all of this some kind of twisted lie?

It's tempting to just leave. This is a bad place, full of lonely shadows and silence. But she can't go without Katie. She'd never forgive her negligence - I let this happen.

The hotel has nothing for her. Cecilia keeps going down West Sanford Street, looking around for any place that might be a bar. Maybe this Ash woman can tell her something about this... ghost town.

Unless Ash is a lie, too. But that doesn't make sense. Does it? She isn't sure.

[Laraqua]

Cecilia passes some kind of garage and then crosses a bridge onto Sandford Street. There's some kind of Inn but its sign is too faded. Still, she goes forward a little further only to find a yawning pit of broken asphalt as the road plummets away before her into a mess of twisted asphalt and concrete. There's no sign of the road or the sidewalk nor anything beyond that gaping chasm that falls away into foggy darkness. That certainly wasn't on the brochures nor on the Internet. There was a left turn off about a dozen feet back the way she came that she hasn't explored. Or she can head back the way she came. Or, well, she could always hop out of her car and explore that Inn. It's not much of a good pick considering that everything is covered with boards bolted to the windows and doors but she might be able to prise one loose.

[Kadael]

It's hardly the time for it, but Cecilia almost laughs. There's a hole in the middle of the road. Just sitting there. No construction equipment laid out to fix it. It's absurd.

Is there even anything alive in this godforsaken place? If it's been abandoned for as long as it seems, there would be plants growing, and surely some insects. It wouldn't be so quiet and gray.

She holds the wheel tighter than she should and turns around, heading for that unexplored street.

[Laraqua]

Cecilia does a U-Turn and then turns right down Bachman Road past the inn and continues on past some sort of foggy courtyard or some such gap between the buildings. She can see something coming up directly ahead and to the right. A building that is thankfully unshuttered and with a door that isn't barricaded though she can't make out any details about it. Directly beyond it is another giant crater in the road that seems to continue off to the left and the right into the distance. This might make some sense of the hills where maybe an avalanche created large cliffs in the middle of the road but this is down by the lake. Surely it should at least have filled with water. To the right is Craig Street but there appears to be another damage crater further along there as well. The buildings on either side of the road before the crater don't appear to be affected, however.

[Kadael]

Cecilia slows to a stop and peers through the fog, trying to find some place to park near the most inviting building she's seen all day. There seems to be a place to pull over onto the roadside.

Even if it's just a trick of the fog, she can probably just stop here. There are no cars that she can see, but that's not saying much.

At any rate, she wants to get a look at this building.