Unfinished Draft

Chapter I

Silent Hill didn’t look like a town; it looked like the shadow of a town. Like a memory that was fading into the surrounding wilderness.
The lake was the first sign of the town to appear, its edges creeping close to the side of the main road. The shore lay some distance below, half-obscured by tall, thick trees that rose up from the hillside. The waters looked dark and silvery in the early morning light.  
The sun was just starting to rise over low, grey clouds, chasing away the semi-darkness that had settled over his windows when he’d first started driving. It hadn’t done much to chase away the cold, however. That was still sharp even inside the car, heavy in the air.
It had been a long time since he’d been here. Not since he was a kid.
At least from a distance, nothing much had changed in all those years. The town looked like what he remembered of it, though admittedly his memories of this place were murky sometimes. He’d never had a particular image of it in his mind’s eye. Didn’t give it much thought. Once he’d left, he’d never had any desire to look back.
He’d never thought he would come back to this town. And hadn’t planned to. But then this case came across his desk. You grew up there, kid, the memory of Captain Rayson’s voice echoed, sharp as a bell. You’d know the lay of the land best. Local PD called asking for assistance a couple days back. A girl just went missing and they need all the hands they can get. They don’t have the resources our department does. It’s practically a one-man show out there, and they’ve been struggling to keep up with the caseload. Lots of people tend to go missing in that area.
Jacob glanced at the open folder sitting on his passenger’s seat. On top of the thin collection of papers inside was a photograph of a young, dark-haired girl with troubled eyes. It was an older photo, taken a few years ago.
Mara Hastings, the case file noted below, along with a list of the standard identifying details that were recorded for each missing person’s report.
Age: 17
Sex: Female
Height: 5’3
Weight: 100
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Details: Last seen around 12:30 PM on December 7th at Midwitch High School. Possible runaway.
He looked away, feeling the same cold shiver in his gut he’d gotten when he first looked at the picture. He’d never quite gotten used to seeing photographs of the missing. Some of his colleagues tended to approach their cases in a detached, businesslike way, as if the missing person was just a face on paper and not someone with a life and thoughts and dreams all their own. He couldn’t blame them. He wished he could do that, sometimes. In the end these people were strangers to him. But every case felt personal.
There’s a fine line between passion and obsession, Rayson would often tell him, staring at him like he reminded him of someone he once knew. The older man appreciated his determination, to approach the families of the victims like a loved one instead of a cop, but he tended to see it as a weakness too. I’ve seen guys who get too attached to a case and can’t let it go. It starts to impact their work, their families, everything in their lives. It eats them alive every night. It’s a terrible road to go down. Sometimes people aren’t ever found, even though we do everything we can. Every cop has to know when to walk away.  
That was the toughest part of being a cop. He’d been drawn to this field because he’d wanted to help other people, but sometimes there was nothing he could do to heal the void left in a family with a missing child. Those cases were always the hardest on him, the ones that lingered like scars in the back of his mind.
As he drove into the outskirts of town, the streets were quiet and still, as if the town had yet to come to life with the morning. A haze of sunlight hung over the buildings, giving them a soft, shimmering glow, almost like something out of a dream.  
This town had sometimes felt like that when he was a kid, he thought. As he watched the buildings go by, it felt like he was staring at the placid surface of a deep, dark lake, unable to see what lay beneath. That cold sense of unease felt so familiar, like an echo from old memories. 
He’d seen things he couldn’t explain here. Even after he’d left, it felt like the ghosts of this place had followed him. Over the years he’d gotten good at pushing them down to a place where they wouldn’t bother him. But there were still rough times, nights where they came out in his dreams.

The police station was in the center of town, a small, square building with fading grey walls. He pulled into the lot and stepped out of the car, approaching the entrance. The air outside was damp and heavy, thick with a cold that seemed to run right through him despite the jacket he wore. 
It still lingered after he’d stepped inside the station, entering the reception area. The room looked sleepy and still like the town outside, a beige, dimly-lit space with little else beside a bench and the front desk. 
There was a woman at the desk who looked up as he approached. She was young, maybe twenty, with red hair and bright green eyes. “Can I help you?” 
“I’m Detective Crane with Maine PD. Sheriff Fields knows I’m coming. May I speak with her?” 
“She’s not in right now. She got a call an hour ago.” The woman replied. “She should be back soon, though. If you like, you can wait in her office. I’ll let her know you’re here once she gets back.”
“Sure.” He nodded and she moved around the desk, unlocking a small, swinging door to let him pass, and he followed her past the desk and into a short hallway. She stopped at a door halfway down the corridor, unlocking it and stepping aside before he walked into the office. “Thanks.” He continued, pausing after a few steps and turning to nod to her. 
She smiled, closing the door without another word, and he turned back to face the room. There was a warmer feel about this office, a touch of life and personality, that he had not felt in the reception area. A desk sat at the end of the room, half-covered in papers, along with some framed pictures and a few trinkets. 
There was a large whiteboard on the wall beside the desk, and he walked closer to look. A number of photographs had been attached to the board, labeled as either Missing or Deceased. Mara’s photograph was not present; these must have been from previous cases the sheriff had worked, he thought, cases that were still unsolved. There did not seem to be a discernible pattern in the collection of pictures. They were of both boys and girls, young and old. 
There was a brief section of detailed notes written beneath each photograph, identifying the person and the circumstance of their disappearance or death.
Deputy John Marsden, one read, beneath a photo of a smiling, clean-cut man in a uniform. Coroner reports homicide unlikely. Manner of death still suspicious. Wounds on the victim do not seem to match any known animal in the area. 
In the center of the board was a smaller body of notes, written in short, choppy sentences. 
Product’s street name is White Claudia. Named for raw material used to manufacture. 
Plant is peculiar to the region. Only grows in select areas of the woods near Silent Hill. 
Manufactured=local. Manufacturer also dealer?
Relatively new to market. Popular with tourists. Growing local demand. 
Overdose deaths rare. May cause psychotic symptoms.
He frowned. White Claudia…for some reason he felt like he recognized the name. He remembered it from somewhere, but where? His mind felt oddly foggy.
Then the door opened, jerking him out of his thoughts, and he turned away from the board. A young, brown-haired woman entered the office, approaching him and shaking his hand. Her grip was firm, confident.
“Glad you could make it, Detective Crane.” Sheriff Fields said, smiling warmly. Her eyes were bright, but there was a world-weary look about her face, something that betrayed an inner restlessness. “Appreciate you coming down to help us out.” 
“Of course.” Jacob nodded, following her to her desk and sitting in a chair opposite hers. He tried to focus his thoughts on the case in front of him, on the missing girl, but something about what he’d seen on the board was still tugging at him. “What is White Claudia, if you don’t mind me asking?” He continued, looking back at the board on her wall. 
Fields glanced at the board. “A new hallucinogenic drug.” She replied. “It’s been on the rise here recently, especially among tourists. Supposedly it’s much stronger than LSD.”  
He nodded, hoping the information would stir up something in his mind, but it didn’t. “Do you think this drug or the trade itself is connected with Mara’s disappearance?”
“No.” The sheriff shook her head. “The girl wasn’t a user. From what I can tell, she wasn’t involved in that in any way.”  
“Do you think she’s a runaway?” He asked, setting his folder on his lap and opening it, sifting through the papers. “I noticed she didn’t have any relatives mentioned in the reports. Does she have any living family?” 
“No, she doesn’t. Normally I wouldn’t jump straight to the idea she ran away, but it’s very possible, in this case.” Fields said, her face grave, deep in thought. “Mara had a history of psychological disturbances, which worsened significantly after her mother died. She’s been in foster care for the past three years at the Sunrise House, a group home for troubled girls.” 
“I’d like to head over there first, talk to the other girls.” Jacob said. The girl had a harder life than anyone her age should have, he thought. He knew what it was like to be afraid of your own mind. “They might be able to help.”  
“Sounds good to me.” Fields said, rising from her seat. “I‘ll give you a ride.” 
.
The Sunrise House did not give the impression its name suggested. 
It looked more like a prison than a foster home, a bleak, grey building with iron fences that circled around the entire perimeter. They drove past the entrance gates and into a small courtyard, coming to a stop in front of the doors and stepping out of the car.
Even the courtyard had a strangeness about it, he thought as they walked up to the entrance. The plants were as still as the statues and there was a heavy silence in the air. It felt cold and uninviting. 
Once they’d entered the building, a young man came to greet them in the visitor’s space, pale and thin with dark eyes. “How can I help you?” 
“We’re here to ask some questions about one of the girls who lived here, Mara Hastings.” Fields replied, showing her badge. “If you don’t mind, we’d like to talk to the staff and the other girls about the day she went missing.”
“Of course.” He nodded like he’d been expecting their arrival, turning to open a door that led to a mahogany-colored hallway. “The staff rooms are right through here. Down the hall and to the left, you’ll see the doors.” He continued. “The girls’ rooms are on the second floor. Take a right and go through the kitchen and the recreation area. The stairwell will be right there.” 
“You want to talk to the girls and I’ll talk to the staff?” Fields asked, glancing at him, and he nodded.
“Sure, that’s alright with me.” He replied. Rayson typically preferred to have two cops in the room when interviewing potential witnesses, just to do their due diligence, but she didn’t have the same luxuries of manpower his department had. Rationing resources had probably become second nature to her. “Let’s meet back here.” 
They headed down the hall and split up at the intersection, she heading left and he heading right. He kept the man’s directions in his head, passing the kitchen and recreation area before heading up the stairwell. 
He heard the soft murmurs of conversation as soon as he reached the second floor, coming to a long, dim corridor with several doors. The first one was silent, and he walked past it, heading towards the door furthest down the hall. Most of the voices seemed to be coming from behind that door, though they were too faint for him to make out what was being said. 
As he stopped at the last door, his eyes were drawn to a framed painting at the end of the hall, hanging from the wall above a table with several flickering candles. 
It was of a pale, nude woman sitting on a jagged, rocky outcropping, her face turned up towards the sky, holding a sapling in one hand and a white cloak in the other. A dark serpent coiled along her right arm and wound its way down her body, wrapping around her waist. There was a cloudy haze of light all around the woman, but the skies were dark at the edges of the painting. 
He stared at it for a moment, frowning. It looked strangely out of place there. Given how it was positioned, it looked almost like something of religious significance. The serpent may have been a Christian element, but nothing else about the piece seemed to resemble any other Christian works. At least not to his knowledge. He was hardly an expert in Christianity, or any other religion for that matter. 
There was no artist mentioned on the plaque beneath the painting. Only the title of the piece.   
                        Awakening.
Giving up trying to figure out what the painting meant, he turned away and knocked on the door. The voices fell silent for a moment before the door opened and a girl appeared. She couldn’t have been older than fifteen, blonde with shadowy green eyes. 
“Hi, I’m Detective Crane.” He said. “I’m here to ask a few questions about your friend Mara, if you don’t mind.” 
“She wasn’t really my friend. I didn’t know her.” The blonde said, moving back to let him inside, and he entered the bedroom. There were five other girls there, three sitting together and the other two lying on their beds. They were all staring at him, and immediately he sensed a quiet unease building in the room, though he wasn’t sure why. 
“Did all of you see her the day she disappeared?” He asked, approaching the group of three girls. “We went to school with her that morning, but we didn’t see her after we came back.” One of them said, glancing at the girl lying on the bed at the end of the room. “Kate was the closest to her. She’d probably know the most about her.” 
“Thanks.” Jacob nodded, walking over to the girl, who sat up as he came closer. He couldn’t see behind him, but he had a sense the other girls were relieved to no longer have his attention on them. “Hi Kate, I’m Detective Crane. Were you and Mara good friends?” 
“Yeah, we were.” Kate nodded. Her voice was hollow and distant, like grief had settled somewhere deep inside of her. “We came here the same year.” 
“In the days leading up to her disappearance, did you notice anything unusual about her behavior?” He asked, sitting down on the empty bed opposite hers. “Did she ever talk about wanting to run away?” 
“She didn’t run away.” Kate said, a terrible rawness entering her voice now, something that seemed to cast a shadow across her face. Her eyes were full of darkness like the clouds of a storm. “Something happened to her. Someone did something to her.” 
“Do you know who might have done this?” 
She was quiet for a long moment. “No.” She murmured, looking down at the floor, like she was holding something back. “But I know she was taken. Mara told me about the things that had happened to her, about what she’d seen. Everyone thought she was crazy. So did I, at first, but now I don’t think so.” 
“What changed your mind?”  
“Getting to know her.” Kate rose and walked over to the window, staring out into the sunlight. “This probably doesn’t make any sense, but the more time I spend with her, the more I felt…the more I felt like what she was seeing wasn’t just in her head.” She continued, still facing the window. “I was with her when she had one of her episodes, once. Right before she started seeing things, the air in our room got really cold. Maybe it was just my imagination, but when it was happening, it was almost like something was happening that only she could see.”  
“Can you tell me more about the episodes she had?” He asked, rising from the bed. He wasn’t sure what to make of her story so far. “What did she see during these episodes?”
“She said things would change, things would look different. Sometimes she saw things.” Kate replied, turning away from the window and back to face him. Her face was dark, like she was lost in a bad memory. “She said they were monsters. I don’t know what they were, but they really scared her. I’ve never seen anyone get so scared.”
“Did she describe them? Or anything else she saw?” He asked, feeling a cold begin to creep through him, a cold that came from somewhere deep inside. It all sounded so familiar to him. 
“She drew them.” Kate said, walking over to Mara’s bed and reaching underneath the mattress to pull out an open box filed with papers. She handed the box to him and he set it on the bed, picking up the first one. 
It was a picture of a bedroom on fire. Black smoke curled up towards the ceiling from the floor, filling the room with a dark haze, and the door was covered in bright red flames.  
“Whenever she’d have an episode, they would have her to draw what she’d seen. They said it would be therapeutic.” Kate continued, a sharp, angry edge entering her voice. “She didn’t want to most of the time. Seemed like it made her episodes come more often.” 
He was silent, staring at the drawing. The parts of the walls that were not covered in fire had a strange color to them, something that almost resembled rusting metal. The darkness outside the window was pitch black, absent of any traces of moonlight, and there was what looked like a figure in the haze of smoke near the door. It was difficult to make out what it was, but it didn’t look human. It looked fleshy and misshapen. 
“When did she draw this?” He asked after a long moment, looking up at her. 
“Not long after she got here.” Kate said, grimly. “That was from the night her mother died.” 
“Did she say what this was?” He pointed at the figure in the smoke. Just looking at it made his stomach turn. 
“A monster.” She replied. “I remember she told me she thought it caused the fire that night.” 
He nodded, setting the drawing aside and picking up another one from the box. 
This one was of a classroom, though like the bedroom, everything looked different and off somehow. All of the desks were empty and the walls were a pale grey color. The room was dim and full of shadows, with particles in the air that looked like ash or snow. There was no figure in this drawing. 
He set the drawing down. The longer he’d looked at it, the sharper the cold within him had gotten, until he couldn’t ignore it anymore. She saw them too.
Old memories rose up suddenly in the back of his mind. That terrible cold feeling under his skin. The lights turning pale and grey. The heavy, dead silence in the air. The way things would look bleak and dark and different. A contorted, faceless shadow.  
Jacob, his mother’s voice as things suddenly became bright and normal again. Jacob, can you hear me�"
“Do you mind if I take these with me?” He asked, jerking himself out of his thoughts. His head was starting to pound.
“No.” Kate shook her head. “If it’ll help you find her, take it.” 
“Thank you. Don’t worry, we’re going to find her.” He said with a sureness he didn’t feel, tucking the box under his arm and heading for the door.
Once he reached it, he glanced behind him. The rest of the girls had already gone back to their conversations, though this time they seemed forced. 
Kate was standing by the window again, watching him. For a moment, her face had a clouded, uneasy look. 
Then it disappeared and she turned back towards the window.
.
“I didn’t get anything useful.” Fields sighed once they’d driven past the iron gates, shaking her head. “They made damn sure of that.” 
“You think they’re involved?” Jacob asked, trying to keep his voice steady. The cold feeling and the ache in his head had stayed with him the whole walk to the car. 
“I don’t know. But I know they’re hiding something.” Fields replied. “This isn’t the first time I’ve had to visit this place. There’s been whispers and rumors for a long time.” 
He wasn’t surprised to hear that. None of the girls seemed at ease there. He’d felt their nervousness the second he’d stepped in the room, saw the wary way they’d stared at him. 
“What kind of rumors?” 
“That girls have been hurt there. There’s some pretty strange and sick stories about what goes on there, too. I don’t have any idea if any of them are real, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were.” Fields replied, pausing for a moment, her face turning cynical. “When I became a cop, I thought I was going to stop s**t like this. Then I found myself neck-deep in a sewer. Whatever’s going on in this town, it’s been going on for a very long time, and it’s too entrenched here to get rid of. Only thing I can do is keep trying.” 
“I know, believe me. I grew up here.” He replied, and she looked over at him, surprised. “I never liked this place when I was a kid. Left the first chance I got.” He continued. “Why did you stay?”  
“Guess I didn’t want to give up on this place.” Fields said solemnly, staring out at the quiet, still buildings as they drove. The streets looked peaceful. Almost like a mirage, he thought. “Call me overoptimistic, but I believe things can always get better. Someone just needs to fight for it. I guess I’m that someone.” 
“I wish I could believe that.”
“Even I have trouble believing it, sometimes.” Fields smiled without humor. “Did you get anything helpful from the girls?”  
“One of them was close friends with Mara. She mentioned Mara drew pictures of what she saw during her psychotic episodes.” He gestured to the box in the back seat, choosing his words carefully. “She didn’t think Mara was mentally ill. She seemed to think it was something else.”
“Something else?” Fields frowned. “Like what?”
“She doesn’t know.” He answered. “But she thinks what Mara was seeing wasn’t in her head. During one of Mara’s episodes, she said she felt the air in the room get cold.”
“Did she see anything else? Anything that Mara did?”
“No, nothing.”
“Then it seems like it would have to be in her head.” Fields objected. “It must be terrifying to watch someone going through what Mara was. I’m sure fear and adrenaline can play tricks on your mind. Maybe that girl thought she felt something in the heat of the moment.”
He did not respond. He wanted to tell her what he really believed and what he’d seen, but he kept silent. She wouldn’t believe him. He hardly believed it himself. There had always been that inkling of doubt inside of him, the thought that it had all been in his head.  
Were the things that happened to them real?Or were they both unwell?
A silence settled between them until they reached a tall, pale building that looked like it had been there for many years. The parking lot was almost empty and most of the windows were dark and shuttered. 
He vaguely recognized the building. The school he’d gone to was not far down the street from here.
Midwich High School, a sign above the entrance doors read in large, grey letters. 
“One of my deputies talked to Mara’s teachers the day she disappeared.” Fields said as they got out of the car and approached the doors. The building was quiet. “They said she didn’t show up to her 1:00 PM class. She was last seen at the class before lunch, which gets out around 12:30. Whatever happened to her, it happened during that window.”
“Did any of her classmates see her any time during that window?” He asked, unsure of what exactly they were supposed to be looking for here. 
“No.” Fields shook her head. “Other than the girls at the group home, she didn’t have any friends that I’m aware of. She’d been through much more than the average teenager, poor girl. Must have been hard to relate to the other kids.”
“You think we can find something if we take a look around?” He guessed, and she nodded. 
“Exactly.” She said, pushing open the entrance doors, and they walked into the lobby. It was empty and still. “No one disappears without leaving anything behind.” 
They made their way through the lobby and entered the main hall. It extended in both directions for some distance before curving forward and disappearing out of their line of sight.
“I’ll check out the second floor.” Fields said, handing him a radio before starting off down the left passage. “Holler if you find anything.”  
“Got it.” He nodded, taking the right. 
At first the search was slow and uneventful. There was nothing out of place in any of the rooms. Everything looked surprisingly clean and in order considering this school had been around so long.
He’d gotten halfway through the first floor when he came upon the classroom from Mara’s drawing. It took him a moment to recognize it at first; it wasn’t until he was inside and standing in the back of the room that the recollection stirred in his mind. 
The room itself looked nothing like the drawing. As far as he could tell, it wasn’t any different from any of the other classrooms he’d seen so far. Everything looked normal and benign. Aside from a wooden crucifix on the wall above the blackboard and a few photos of the school’s faculty, there wasn’t much in the way of decorations.
He stood still for a moment and watched the room, waiting to see if that cold feeling stirred within him again, but he felt nothing. Perhaps the room had nothing to do with it. Perhaps her episode just happened to come when she was here. 
Jacob quickly gave up trying to sense something, heading past the back row of desks and toward the door, before stopping at the desk at the corner. Something was written on the wood. The letters were faded, like they’d been mostly erased, and he bent down to get a closer look.
FREAK
LIAR
GO BACK TO THE NUTHOUSE
This must have been Mara’s desk, he thought, shaking his head. Kids could be just as cruel as adults, sometimes. Poor girl. Maybe she did run away. Couldn’t blame her.
He left the empty classroom and continued down the hall. He searched the second half of the first floor, finding nothing else of importance, before finding himself at the door to the stairwell. Fields had not radioed him once yet; her search must have been going the same as his. 
He waited by the door for a moment before deciding to head into the stairwell. No telling when she’d be back, he thought, glancing up at the flight of stairs that stretched upward from the main landing. The stairwell was colder than the rest of the school, with dim, muted light. He might as well check out whatever else he could think of while he waited. 
There was another set of stairs on the other side of the landing, descending to another floor, and he headed down until he reached a smaller space with a single padlocked door.  
Electrical Room, a rusting grey sign on the door read. The door itself looked as old and rickety as the sign, with thin wood and faded blue paint. Authorized personnel only. 
One hit with the butt of his pistol was enough to break the old lock, and he pushed the door open and headed inside. 
It had probably been a long time since anyone had come down here; damp, musty air hit him as soon as he walked in. The lights above were dim, flickering intermittently, and the plaster on the walls was cracked and spotted with cobwebs.  
He slowly made his way through what felt like a maze of narrow corridors between old machines and thick pipes that came down from the ceiling, pulling out his flashlight and using it to sweep the ground around him as he moved. Even with the flashlight it was difficult to see his surroundings clearly. The flickering lights above seemed to cast shadows everywhere.   
Before long he came to the end of the room, where several boilers were sitting against the wall. 
He’d only take a few steps toward the boilers when he noticed something shiny on the ground, approaching it and bending down to pick it up. 
It was a silver-colored necklace of a rose, smudged with dust and dirt. Mara’s? He frowned, turning the necklace over in his hand, but there was no writing or engraving on the necklace that identified its owner.  
He rose to his feet, pulling out his radio and putting it to his ear.
“Fields, I think I may have found something.” He said. But there was no answer. Only static. “Fields?” He called again, feeling a shiver of unease. The air around him suddenly felt cold. “Fields, can you hear me?” 
Nothing. All he could hear over the radio was a terrible, piercing static. Even after he tried turning it off, it didn’t stop, getting louder and louder. “Fields, are you there?”He repeated, raising his voice to try to be heard over the static. What the hell’s going on with this thing�"
A sharp, banging sound echoed from the boiler, and he looked up, startled. There was a crack in the side of the boiler that wasn’t there before, hissing out white steam, and he took a few steps back.
A cold feeling was creeping under his skin, the same feeling he remembered as a child, and all of that old fear came rushing back through him like ice water. It was happening again.
His flashlight began to flicker before suddenly dying out, and a dark, red-tinted haze filled the room in its absence. In the blink of an eye it seemed like everything had changed; the walls were grey and covered in mildew and the hum from the boilers had fallen silent. 
A symbol had appeared on the wall in front of him, a blood-red circle with strange markings inside. Something deep inside of him recognized it. It filled him with a fear he hadn’t felt in a long time. But when he tried to connect it to a memory, his head started pounding and it was like he was trying to find something in a deep fog.  
The banging sound came again. The crack in the boiler widened. Something was pushing through. He could barely make out its silhouette through the mist of steam; a dark, fleshy thing that almost looked human. 
He wanted to run. The instinct was ringing in his mind like an alarm bell. But he couldn’t move. It was like some force was holding him rooted to the spot, a cold, oppressive presence that felt strangely familiar. 
The thing wriggled through the opening and fell to the ground before slowly rising to stand upright and emerge from the steam.
It did not have a face. There were two wide, empty gashes where its eyes should have been and its mouth looked like it had been stitched shut. Its skin was a charcoal-black color and it moved in a contorted, jerking manner, like a broken marionette. 
Its head turned toward him, like it could somehow see him without eyes, and it started moving towards him. It had long, sharp fingers that looked like needles, and panic rushed through his veins like ice as he fought desperately to exert control of his body, to break the cold, suffocating pressure that held him still.   
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t�"
Then just as suddenly as it had come, the heaviness was gone and he could move again. He reached for his gun, drawing it and aiming for the creature’s torso before opening fire.
He was not quick enough. The thing was already lunging at him by the time he’d gotten off the first shot, narrowly grazing its shoulder as it crashed into him and knocked him to the ground. Its fingers sank deep into his chest and he screamed, screaming until his breath ran out. The pain was overwhelming, paralyzing, burning his lungs like fire.  
He was dying. He could feel his body getting weaker. The pain getting sharper. His vision grew murky�"
Then everything went black. 
. 
A child sat in a silent, white room.
He’d been sitting here for a long time, staring at the empty chair in front of him, when the door behind him opened and a woman entered the room. 
She was dressed in white, her clothes colored a similar shade to the walls of the room. She looked around his mother’s age, with dark hair. 
“It’s nice to meet you, Jacob.” The woman said, sitting down in the chair in front of him. Her eyes were piercing, like sharp ice. “My name is Dr. Marshall. I’m here to help you.” 
He nodded but didn’t say anything. 
“Do you know why you’re here, Jacob?” Dr. Marshall asked, and he was quiet for a moment.
“To get better?” He replied, a trace of uncertainty entering his voice.   
“No, that’s not why.” Dr. Marshall shook her head. “The truth is, there’s nothing wrong with you. I hope you know that.” She smiled, but for some reason unease was staring to stir in his stomach. He didn’t like her. Something about the way she was looking at him felt wrong.“You see things the other children can’t, don’t you?”
“They’re not real.” He said, but even as he said it, he felt the doubt creeping in. They’d always felt real. 
“Did your mother tell you that?” Dr. Marshall asked, smiling again, like they were sharing a hidden secret. “She’s wrong. You’re a very special boy, Jacob. You’ve been given a beautiful gift.” 
“None of what I see is beautiful.” He said, voice shaky. He didn’t want to be special. He wanted to be normal, like the other kids. He wanted to go home. “They’re monsters.” 
“Monsters? They look like monsters to you?” She replied, shaking her head, and he was taken aback. Had she seen them, too? “They come to us as what our mind sees them as. Do you know what I see when I look at them? Angels, guiding us as we enter into Paradise.” 
He was quiet, unsure of what to say. He didn’t know what he saw. But he knew it wasn’t good. Whenever he’d have one of his episodes, it would always feel wrong and cold and terrifying.
“Come with me. I’d like to show you something.” She rose from the chair and reached over to take his hand. Her fingers were cold. He wanted to pull away, but her grip was firm, and he got up and followed her to the door.
She opened it and led him into a long, white hallway. The corridor was bright; a pale, shimmering haze of light came through the barred windows and from the fixtures high above. But there was no warmth in the brightness. It felt cold and sharp on his skin.
She led him down the hall and to one of the doors, opening it and leading him into a small, windowless room. The room was nearly empty, save for a surgical chair in the middle. Two men were standing on either side of the chair. There was a large window of glass on the wall, reflecting a murky image of the room.
“Don’t worry.” Dr. Marshall said as he stopped in the doorway. She didn’t let go of his hand. “They’re only here to help you.”
“How?” Cold fear was winding its way up his spine now. 
“They’re going to give you something that will enhance your gift.” Dr. Marshall explained as the men began to move towards them, and panic started to rise through his lungs like smoke. “It will let you reach deeper through the veil, into the world of the angels.” 
“No, I don’t want to do that.” He shook his head, trying to back away and rip his hand free, but she was stronger. “Let me go! I don’t belong here, I want to go home!”  
“You are home, dear.” Dr. Marshall smiled, her eyes cold and empty. “Your mother gave you to us�"she didn’t want you.” 
“No, that’s not true!” He cried, struggling against the two men as they grabbed each of his arms and pulled him towards the chair, forcing him down into it and restraining his arms and legs.

“Hold him still, please.” Dr. Marshall’s smooth voice came from beside him as he fought against the restraints. The light was burning down from above him now, washing everything else away. She looked like a shadow in the white. 
Then the memory shattered, falling back into a dark fog�"
Jacob woke with a start, his heart pounding, a figure hovering above him. 
For a moment, he was completely disoriented, his mind heavy and full of fog. Jacob. A voice called from above him. Fields. Jacob, are you okay?
“Yeah.” He sat up, breathing hard. He was back in the electrical room. Everything looked normal again; the boiler was intact and the symbol was no longer on the wall. It all felt so jarring, like he was losing his mind. “Yeah, I�"I’m alright.” 
“What happened?”
“I found something.” He looked around, everything coming back to him in a rush. The necklace. The cold. The monster. 

“I radioed you.” He continued, feeling like he was a child again, trying to tell his mother what he’d experienced. “You didn’t answer. And then…”
“You radioed me?” Fields was frowning now, but her eyes were still soft, still concerned. “I never got any messages from you.” 
“I tried to radio you.” He insisted. “All I got was static.”
“That’s what I got when I tried to radio you. These usually work fine.” She said, confusion growing on her face. “I’ve been looking all over this place for you.” Her eyes fell on something beside him, and he followed her gaze. The silver necklace was still there, sitting on the ground. “Is that what you found?”
“Yeah.” He said, and she picked it up, staring at it. “Is it Mara’s?” 
“It’s possible.” Fields nodded, turning over in her hand. “I’m pretty sure she wore a necklace, though I’ll have to double check if this one matches.”
He rose to his feet and looked down at his chest. His clothes looked fine and there was no sign of injury, even though the pain was still vivid in his mind. It was like it had all been a bad dream. 
“Are you sure you’re okay?” He looked up to see Fields staring at him. “You look really shaken up.”  
“I saw something.” 
“I think what Mara was seeing was real.” 
“They found a body.”
His mind went to the worst. “Mara’s?”
“No.” She shook her head, voice grave. “