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Silent Hill: Chastity (Chapter One) |
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If you're a despicably lazy creature, I have a synopsis on the bottom of this page summarizing the main details. I guess it's so you can skip around and only read... what... you... like? I don't know what I was thinking when writing that. Well, anyways, have fun! xD
I'm sorry if I bore you with this chapter, but Silent Hill in itself usually introduces slow beginnings. I'm just trying to follow along with the ambiance, you know?
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The garage door rumbled slightly after being slugged by the ball; Isaiah snatched the globe before it bounced into the street. He moved back to the middle of the concrete. The pavement and him juggled the ball between one another for a minute while he was stuck looking up the basket, squinting through his perspiration, tasting the salt drizzling into his mouth.
Thoughts were coming back again.
Almost as if he were to throw his cognitions away, he caught the ball mid-bounce, forcefully pushed it off his chest and watched the rubber take flight, soon arching above the driveway, heading back down to the net --- but there was no swish. Just a clap and a rattle. The ball tumbled over the rim and rolled onto the lawn.
He was close to reaching that orange sack of air, but he instead dropped himself onto the grass and curled his legs in. He grabbed his head and covered his face with his palms, feeling his head throbbing in his hands.
I can't believe it.
His wet hands fell into his lap. He looked out into the street and witnessed two of the neighbors crossing the front of his lot, one he knew to be a sweet middle-aged woman, the other a stark old man. He watched the woman wave to the gentleman, but only received a short, unaffectionate nod in reply. Isaiah, for as long as he'd been living in the neighborhood, had never seen that man smile, or even toot a whistle. This always bothered him beforehand, but this day was full of exceptions. Today, even waking up wasn't appreciated; he knew that being conscious would only bring him back to “Thursday.” He hated basketball; he was never very good at throwing or aiming things. The only reason he found it inviting that morning was because it was stimulating. The best way to go was to sweat everything off, since he never agreed to drinking.
At first he figured the faint ringing in his head was an illusion, but after the third ring, he recognized it to be the telephone yelling at him from the open window. He softly rose to his feet and ambled into the house.
Isaiah found the phone beeping and buzzing angrily on the kitchen counter. Surely he didn't have to answer the phone either, but nonetheless he checked the I.D. just to be safe.
657-7727 Katherine / Jacob News. Mom.
“Hello?” He said almost inaudibly.
“Hey.” Her usual cheerful tone had plummeted into a dispirited rasp. “What're you doing right now?” Isaiah noted shuffling sounds coming from the other end.
“I'm just --- Charles told me to take the day off today.”
“Seems right. You didn't answer your work phone so I tried the house.” There was a pause, then she continued, “I'll be coming down Wednesday to visit the hospital.” That explained the shuffling.
“I'll see you there.”
Curiously, his comment muted her for a long, uncomfortable time. The sounds of her loading luggage into a suitcase had ceased. She didn't make a peep. He found himself swallowing and breathing loudly. Her silence felt poisonous.
“Hello?” He muttered.
“... Why.”
Isaiah said nothing.
“I --- I just want to know...” She said. He heard a faint squeak in the background, probably his mother taking a seat. “I mean... how did you not know how dangerous Bellat Lake was? All those power lines just laying there ---”
“Mom --- stop it.” He swallowed harshly in an attempt to knock his trembling lip back. “No one expected any of this.”
“... Of course not.” He heard her deep, trembling breath, “oh baby, I'm so sorry. Oh Lord God, what am I saying?” Muffled whimpering fuzzed on the phone.
He gripped the edge of the counter and leaned back with the phone close to his ear, burrowing his chin in his chest and observing the tile under his bare feet. Isaiah was successfully fighting back any stray tears. He had his mother to cry for him.
“Mom ---”
Abruptly, the cacophony of an engine was growling behind him. He looked over his shoulder, catching sight of a small mail car through the windowpane. He glanced at his watch. It was way too early for the mail to be delivered.
His mother was suddenly speaking in his ear again. “Why am I doing this to you?”
“Mom, I'm sorry. Something came up. I have to go.”
Her misery radiated from the phone. “Oh, please meet me at the hospital, okay?” After she sniffed a few times, the shuffling started back up again. “I love you so much, Isaiah. I didn't mean any of that, you know?”
Another long suspension.
“Don't worry about it.” His hand unconsciously strangled the counter's ledge. “I'm sorry too.”
“Bye, baby.”
After a brief response, he hung up. Turning back to the window, Isaiah News just caught the leg of the mailman disappearing into his vehicle. Something must've been dropped off, he figured. He left the kitchen and entered the hallway to face the front door. His hand touched the handle, but nothing more was being done as he listened in on the truck motor trailing away. She'll be down here in two days. His thoughts involuntarily led him off course; he instead slipped down the cramped passageway, took a left turn into the bedroom, and began struggling with his hair band in front of the mirror. After the endeavor, he let his black mane fall onto his shoulders, then harshly massaged his skull, loosening up his scalp and allowing his hair to cool off after enduring a huge load of basketball practice. Soon enough he was grabbing his chin and moving his face side-to-side, scouting for any raw blemishes. He had always possessed a rich suntan many would kill for, although his skin wasn't perfect, with a dimple here and there on his face and whatnot, but with his mother being Hawaiian, this bronze tint certainly wasn't artificial, unlike most.
His 'inspection' came to an end when his wrist device started bleeping. It seemed he left his heart monitor on after his morning jog and was trying to tell him his recording time. After switching the watch off, his eyes fell upon a mattress dressed in warm, newly dried sheets and overstuffed pillows. Oh, how they called to him, spurring him to put aside all of his guilt --- his grief --- his memories. Just purely relax in a mound of nourishing clouds that are compliant in flying their guest off to an eye-deceiving, cozy, subconscious world.
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News peered out ahead of the dock; the area was overwhelmingly difficult to see in with such a heavy cloud of mist encircling him, a gray encumbrance that sucked out all of the color from its surroundings. Yet, a tall shadow near the lake's center was still perceivable.
He took a few steps forward until his feet met the limp wood of the wharf. As if he could've willed it himself, the fog slowly scattered away from the body of water. The tall silhouette was a colossal pile of pines all laid upon one another in a horizontal formation, characterized by water-bloated wood stalks and flakes of bark forming a ring around the bodies. Who did that?
A new silhouette rose from the water faster than a bonfire. Isaiah strained to look closer. He reached the edge of the platform, but his new position didn't grant him anything more than a teaser of the humanoid figure.
A tender young voice from an uncertain source gave tongue to a short, “hello?” Was it from the shadow on the lake?
“Hello?” Isaiah replied.
“... Hello?”
The fog began to zip up again, making the shadowy form look even more confusing, but Isaiah had a gut feeling that he wasn't supposed to move or push forward, no matter how badly he wanted to comprehend the apparition. The nettlesome thing was that whatever was out there wouldn't move. For a minute on end, standing on the water was all it performed. Isaiah was close to looking away, wanting to observe something else, but ---
Snap. Just like that, as if the figure read his mind. Its eyes were inches away from his. The eyes whirled with blood. The eyes fed on his mind. The eyes skinned away his soul. The eyes jailed screaming demons. The eyes glistened with lights from hell. The eyes swallowed him whole. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes. The eyes.
The eyes.
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Veep! Veep! Veep! His heart monitor was going crazy. Forgot to take it off again. Such an abrupt wake-up call had his mind running around in circles trying to collect where he was, what day it was, the time, whether or not he was still dreaming, and many other no-brainer details. He rubbed his eye sockets, then rolled over to see the clock. 2:36pm.
“Jeez...” News garbled out as he tipped himself right-side-up on the mattress, “that was scary.” He spoke, attempting to mask how appalled he truly was by that dream , discrediting it as a typical nightmare, but he knew better. There was no one in the room to lie to except himself.
Holy God, that really was frightening. His legs refused to pick him up until he had some time to recover. Raising his hand, he noticed his digits were trembling, as was his spine, making his head shudder a little. How did I get the inspiration to dream up something like that?
His stomach got the best of him in no time. It was an hour past lunch, and playing basketball whittled his fuel gage down to 'empty'. Isaiah left his room and journeyed to the kitchen, during which “Thursday” jumped back into his thoughts again.
I can't believe it.
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The Coke fuzzed a little over his hand. After shaking the bubbles off, he snatched the last banana from the top of the fridge. Noodles seemed like an ideal cuisine, so he took a measuring cup and placed it under the sink nozzle, afterwards rushing cold water into the dishware. In a short time, the dream and his dreadful reaction to it seemed laughable, and was almost completely forgotten. That was until his eyes got stuck on the reflection of the stainless steel. Shown was a gray --- almost white cloudy environment, contaminating what was once a community of various pastel colors. Overcast? Isaiah's eyes flicked up to the source of the pale light. Gazing out the window, he found that the neighborhood was engulfed in a random invasion of haze that was eerily familiar.
Now he was frozen with his hands clutching the sink bowl and watching the murky scenery prowling outside. His jaw was mildly agape, but his eyes were wide and entranced as he wondered how his nightmare could've followed him out into the real world, or how he predicted this body of mist.
He thought of going outside, at least out to the sidewalk, but an awkward feeling tugged at his judgment. A feeling of paranoia --- like he was being pursued.
Calm down, alright? What're you crazy? I'll just go get the mail, then come back. Not a big deal.
He rushed to slip on a tank-top, a pair of rough jeans, and his running boots, just to look at least a little decent in case a neighbor decided to talk to him. After grabbing a hair band from the bathroom, he sauntered out the front door and commenced a sluggish jog down the walkway. Strange. News whipped his head around a couple of times. There wasn't a soul in sight. There wasn't even a stray bird, or a song from one for that matter. There was no reverberation of car motors. Not even the sound of a breeze met his ears.
He reached the mailbox with the intention of opening the lid, but something dry and dusty had fallen into his sight. It scratched at his eye like soap. Rapid blinking made short work of the particle, but as soon as he could see again, he scarcely noticed that his eyelashes were turning gray, so with a finger he swept his lashes and brought it down to eye-level, lightly rubbing the dull-colored specks to get a sense of their downy texture. Debris falling from the sky can only mean one thing.
With a tremendous amount of concern swelling in his breast, Isaiah departed from the mailbox and sprinted down the deserted street with a mind full of questions. Why was everything so coincidental? What was soiling the standard world he once knew? Why was everything suddenly bent on provoking him?
Thinking back on “Thursday”, he began to understand why.
It wasn't long before he realized how endless the road seemed to be, and how quickly his concern was turning into apprehension.
Somehow, even without sensing any 'people', he still felt like he was being watched.
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+SYNOPSIS+
Isaiah News seems to be plagued by something relating to last “Thursday”, and his mother is more than distressed about the nature of his involvement on that day. After having a heart-stopping dream picturing a foggy lake and a few other eerie symbols, he wakes up to find the same fog hovering outside his home. Curiosity gets the best of him, so he submerges into the mist to discover what's happening to his neighborhood, or himself for that matter.
Tune in next time time to see if Isaiah will manage to retrieve his mail without changing the subject! Oh, the drama!
 Dicemor · Sun Feb 10, 2008 @ 07:25pm · 1 Comments |
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