Silent Hill: Devil's Pacifism

Prologue
As he sat in front of the town's sign at the outskirts of that foggy, silent town, all he could hear was the muffled sighs of the car's engine, coupled with the voice of the love of his life's husband, playing over and over.

"Thor. I need you to meet me in Silent Hill; it's important. It's about my wife. I can't afford to pay you for the plane ticket right now, but I hope you will understand and come here anyway."

Thor glanced down at the dash of his Ford Taurus, taking note of the glowing yellow-orange light, indicating a near-complete lack of fuel. Mocking him. Beckoning him to enter the city limits and find a gas station, as he dreaded the idea of having to walk in a town he was not tremendously familiar with. With a soft yet elongated sigh, he set his right foot down upon the brake pedal and pulled at the gear shift of his automatic, switching into drive and proceeding into the city limits.

It was not very long at all before his car began to sputter and cough as if it were inflicted with a minor case of influenza, and came to a drifting halt. He groaned loudly and threw his head back in frustration against the head cushion, causing it to bounce and making his brain hurt slightly from it ricocheting against his skull. He pulled the shift back into park and begrudgingly turned the power off for his battery, figuring there was no reason to run the car's radio any longer; besides, it hadn't worked since he entered Silent Hill and he figured the fog was affecting its signal somehow. I could have sworn there was more fuel in the car than this, he thought to himself as he unbuckled and stepped out all in one graceful movement. The door creaked open, echoing louder through the silence of the fog and leading Thor to wince—he hoped he hadn't disturbed anyone out there. He hated to disturb people. As he placed his thumb upon the lock button for his automatic locks something caused him to stop. Something about the situation was unsettling, and a hard pit in his stomach told him that he had better lock all the doors manually, a thing that he personally hated people for doing in his vehicle. However, he could not shake the anxiety about the loud tone his car would make when the locks were set automatically, and so he did it. He brushed off the anxious feeling with the excuse that it was just him being his usual self and that he was just over-worrying about waking somebody up with the horn alert—the creaking door had been bad enough. With the three of his passenger doors locked, he proceeded to do the same with his driver's side door and shut it quietly, causing it to click but leaving a small gap, indicating that it was not fully closed. Thor then sat gently against the door and shoved his buttocks into it, ending it with a tiny click; the door was closed.

Glancing around he realized just how difficult the fog was to see through and he muttered a curse to himself under his breath.

"Great. Just great. How the Hell am I going to find him now?", he complained out loud.

Again he sighed. He knew there was a good chance that finding "the husband" could take him all night... or... was it day? Brows suddenly furrowed and Thor became caught in his own brain, eyes darting back and forth as he tried to remember what time of day it was. He didn't believe in wearing watches because his body seemed to drain their batteries and his cell phone had died 100 miles back thanks to him having forgotten its charger back in Alaska. He had chosen to drive all the way down here instead of flying and because of this, his days and nights had been running into one another as he lost track of time; but then again, this happened often even when he laid at home doing nothing. Eventually, he had no choice but to give in; he had no clue what time it was, or even what day of the week.

Reaching into his pockets seemed to take precedence in his brain and he set his keys in the ratty pockets, mended many times over, causing them to be riddled with stitches like some poor survivor to a horrible accident. The first thing he noticed was that his keys were the only important thing in his pockets and that he had forgotten his map of the town in the car. Swinging his body half-heartedly, he instantly gave up on getting back into the vehicle, due in whole to his laziness. He figured he couldn't be far from the hotel—or wherever—the man he sought was staying, and he secretly hoped he could lose another 30 pounds and arrive at a sexy 150. Even so, something tugged at his cerebral cortex; he knew he was in for a long night... or day. Whatever.

Chapter 1
Jeezus, how long have I been walking?, he wondered almost aloud to himself. To him it felt as if he had been walking for almost a year, yet he knew it couldn't have been any more than 5, 10, maybe even 15 minutes. Right? Of course he was right. One thing Thor knew for a fact was that he was never, ever wrong. Incorrect, maybe. But never wrong.

He really felt lucky that his pigeon-toed feet didn't keep scraping the ground as they usually would have and a tiny welling of normalcy filled his otherwise particularly empty-feeling soul. Something about this fog really had begun to bring out a feeling from deep down inside him that he usually would have attempted to avoid by doing something stupid—the feeling of helplessness. His eyes slowly scanned the giant gray blanket that surrounded him, enveloped him, trying to understand what it was that it seemed to want from him. That was a feeling he couldn't shake, that the fog somehow desired something from him. He knew it was a stupid thought, of course, but it kept nagging, tugging at his cerebral cortex every so often, bringing his eyes back up to the sky and around him. He looked straight up, again trying to discern what time of day it was by attempting to discern whether the sun was out—he knew both Sol and Luna should look enlarged, assuming he could see them. Yet he could not make out anything and so he strained his eyes and craned his neck around slowly in his vain attempt to get a grip on reality and offer him even the tiniest fraction of security and assurance in his current yet certainly not dire situation.

Suddenly Thor felt his toes strike their front edge on the pavement and he stumbled ever so slightly. Great, he thought; there went my normalcy thanks to my stupid pigeon-toes.

It was then that he saw it. An inhumanely shaped shadow of something indiscernible arced through the fog in front of him; it was so hard to see through it, however, Thor could do little but assume that it was close. Quite close. Presumably it had passed in front of some light in the relatively near distance, but what could have made the shadow, he couldn't for the life of him be certain of. It was so abstract that it could be nearly anything organic—a person, a deer, Hell, even a bear; it was this last possibility that kept him from speaking up to try and grab the being's attention. He really didn't like the thought of being eviscerated. The concept of dismemberment chilled him to his core. For reasons he could not fully explain himself, he somehow got into the belief system that when one dies—if they go to Heaven, assuming it existed of course, that they MIGHT go there in the exact same manner as they had died and Thor didn't want to spend eternity collecting his large intestine.

His brain ignited with overthought and he felt the very smallest inkling of panic, which he tried his best to force into submission. He glanced behind him—his car was nowhere to be seen, but that was what he expected anyhow given the ridiculously low visibility he had already taken note of. He then looked around, trying to get some sense of his bearings and noticed the absolutely minuscule outline of a street sign and so he made certain to pick up his feet and moved towards it to check it out. Besides, it had been stupid of him to walk in the middle of the street anyhow. The sign read itself as being the intersection of a "Rendell Street" and "Carroll Street". Well, it was good to know that he hadn't accidentally wandered off course and gotten lost, at least. For this reason, he chose to stick to Rendell for the time being. It was the road he came in on and since he lazily left his map behind, he decided it was best not to accidentally get lost due to being stricken with a severe case of wanderlust.

It took him all of several moments to remember that he had completely forgotten about the shadow he had seen earlier. Slowly, cautiously, Thor moved in what he assumed was its direction. However, he would discover that there was nothing to be found—even the supposedly existing light was gone. Perhaps he should have called out to it. He sighed heavily, taking note that because of his fear, he remained lost and while he was alone like he preferred, at this moment he could do with some form of company. Something about this town felt strangely eerie to him.

Chapter 2
Despite how rural of a town Silent Hill really was, Thor found himself surprised at just how quiet the city streets were. He assumed he had been in the town at least a good 20 minutes and so far, he hadn't seen or heard a single car or anything else that would discern human existence — minus, of course, that silhouette he had seen earlier, which he put off as not being countable due to having not even discovered whether it had actually been human or not. Again, Thor kicked himself for having not spoken up. 5 minutes is all it had been since he gave up on locating the being responsible for the dark flickers across the gray, almost dust-like haze that enveloped everything as if it was attempting to digest the entire town whole. But those 5 minutes felt far longer to him in this fog — if he didn't know better, he would have assumed it had been all of 3 years. Something about the atmosphere was causing his head to feel like static, like what happens whenever he stood up too fast. It wasn't quite a headache of any sort but it was definitely more than a little disorienting. He began to attribute his eerie feelings to the idea that the town seemed as if it was just up and abandoned. Perhaps it had been. He definitely hoped this wasn't the case, however. There could be nothing worse than getting hopelessly lost in some abandoned town in the middle of nowhere.

He had begun to find himself getting bored of the absolute silence when a sudden bang startled him almost off of his feet. Before he could fully recover from the sound's rude interruption, it was followed by several more — they were the unmistakable sound of gunshots. Thor couldn't help but think of the volley of bullets flying blindly through the fog and hitting Heaven only knows what. Who was crazy enough to brandish a firearm in this ridiculous weather? And wasn't it illegal to do so? Sure, the laws Thor was used to were not those of the state of Maine, but he seriously doubted that that rule was any different here than it was in his home state. He began to ponder about what could have been the cause of the ruckus while attempting to mentally pinpoint the location. The gunshots sounded distant but not too terribly so, leaving him to consider that they must have rung out from somewhere down on Carroll Street, or there arounds (it didn't help that Carroll Street was really the only other street he knew of at the time, however). It was then that he came to the conclusion that the shadow he had seen earlier must have been a bear, and this gun wielder must have seen it and was protecting himself or various other citizens from its potential threat. Given the number of gunshots fired he just bet that the carrier was ill-equipped to bring down such a large beast and instead of killing it outright, he likely had simply pissed it off. But the gunfire had ceased by this point — had the shooter brought the ursid creature down or had the creature reached him and was masticating his flesh? Thor had had relatives who, many years prior, had been killed and partially eaten by a bear. Of the three out there that afternoon, only one returned alive. As much as Thor wanted to make sure this gun owner was alright, he knew how dangerous it would be to try and find out. He felt himself to be uncomfortably relieved to have chosen to stick to Rendell.

Before long, he had reached another street corner. He came to the conclusion that it would be anything but stupid to keep track of what streets he was on and had been on earlier, in the very least case so that he could find his way back to his vehicle once he located some fuel for it. Making his way to the street sign he glanced up at it from below; the fog was so bad that he had to squint a little to make out the words printed onto the green sheets of what he assumed was aluminum hanging out above the stop sign.

"Munson." Thor spoke aloud though almost under his breath. "What a weird name for a street."

He glanced across the street, but knew already he wouldn't be able to see the other side. He decided that looking both ways at this point would be entirely pointless, and so he instead listened for upwards of a full minute before attempting to cross. Although he heard the teeth-grating sound of rusted metal-on-metal making its obnoxious noise at strangely regular intervals despite a complete lack of any sort of wind, there was no other sounds that he could discern. Eventually he shrugged and decided it was about as safe to cross the street as it was going to get. He made sure to move quickly towards the other side, but expecting to continue down Rendell Street, he was taken completely by surprise when he found a wall in front of him, and he tried to stop abruptly; unfortunately for him it was right at the curb that he tried to stop himself, and he found his toe catching the edge of that 1ft drop off. Before he knew it he found himself in a face-to-face meet-and-greet with the sidewalk.

He groaned. He hadn't been hurt bad but he could feel gravel digging through his slacks into his knees and the dirt he felt tickling at the corners of his lips all but completely disgusted him. What he was really disgruntled about wasn't the fact that he tripped, although that did irk him some, but more because he was now considerably dirty, and dirt and Thor did not really get along all that well. As usual when he took a spill, he laid there for a good 20 seconds before finally getting up the desire to actually lift himself off of the cement walkway. He could taste the dust ever-so-slightly on his tongue, having sucked it in when he hit. He had tasted dirt and dust this way before, but this tasted somehow different. He couldn't place his finger on it, but if he had to guess he would have described it as more akin to what he would naturally assume soot would taste and feel like. The taste and texture both grossed him out, and he found himself spitting six, then seven times in a vain attempt to get the invasive intrusion out and away. He absentmindedly wiped his mouth clean of the spit left over on his chin and lip, only to realize that his coat had been dirtied, as well. Thor let out a second, louder groan.

He suddenly stopped about a second later. He had been quick to realize that during his groaning procedure, the metal-on-metal grinding sound had come to a complete halt. Hairs all over his body stood on end and he listened intently. Small sounds of shuffling could be heard but were quickly interrupted by a sudden metal-on-metal sound again, this time sounding like a screeching jerk, as if the metal was being bent in the opposing direction from whence it had been before. Each jerking screech ended quickly and was followed by another shuffling sound. Thor's heart pounded, nearly ripping itself out of his chest entirely to play a form of morbid hopscotch. The screeching seemed to be getting closer. Slowly closer, but still closer. He began to mutter to himself under his breath that it was all in his head but as the sound continued to pick up in relative decibel level, he found his legs turn to jelly, only to then harden in an instant. Before he knew what was happening he realized he was making a break for it in the opposite direction. His cells had apparently decided that they weren't going to stick around to find out what this metal thing was. In the end, Thor was relieved that his cellular colony had taken the matter into its own hands — or more specifically, into its feet.

Chapter 3

 * Currently being written