sermocinare: (Ozy arrogant bastard)
[personal profile] sermocinare
Fandoms: Watchmen/Silent Hill
Title: Nachtmahr (1/6)
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, horror
Characters/Pairings: Adrian
Disclaimer: Watchmen belongs to Mr. Moore and Mr. Gibbons. The Silent Hill franchise is property of Konami.
Summary: After receiving part of Rorschach's journal, Adrian starts dreaming of the same place every night until he finally gives in and follows the call of his dreams to a town called Silent Hill.
Author's note: Later chapters will include Dan, Laurie, Eddie, Jon, Rorschach... or maybe not, since the people and things you see in Silent Hill tend to be somewhat ambiguous in their reality. This fic will also include, in no particular order: gore, monsters, mindfuck, violence, rape, angst and insanity. Oh, and Pyramid Head. For chapter-specific warnings please consult the header of each chapter.


Adrian pulled the car over, letting it roll out on the gravely shoulder on the side of the road. Five years. It had been five years, almost to the day, since he had pushed the button. Five years of peace and prosperity for all of humanity, and he was finally giving himself tentative permission to believe in the utopia he had created. Five years of working behind the scenes, of managing rebuilding programs, charities, initiatives. Adrian rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily, then turned his gaze on the road again. The sun was beginning to set, and a fog was rolling in from the lake, wrapping the area where the town should be in a dull white shroud.

He didn't have time for this. Adrian shot a glance at the slim, leather-bound volume lying on the seat next to him. It had arrived by mail some two months ago, a journal filled with jumbled chicken-scratch writing that was half code, half paranoid mess. Rorschach's journal. Or at least that was what it purported to be. Adrian wasn't quite sure he believed it. What he was sure of, though, was the fact that the last few pages of the journal were missing. Everything that mentioned his scheme, any hint of it had been torn out. Along with the journal had come a note, written in the same almost unintelligible handwriting. It had simply said: "Everyone must pay a price".

Of course, the first thing that had come to Adrian's mind was extortion. Someone was trying to blackmail him into paying a hefty sum of money for the rest, the important parts, of the so-called journal of the former vigilante Rorschach. Adrian had waited for a second letter to arrive, but there had been none. Just as he was about to forget the whole thing, to put it off as some sick joke, possibly by one of his former masked associates, the dreams had started.

Every night since then, he had been dreaming of the same town. He was sure he had never been there before, but still the dreams were filled with such vivid detail as if he had been standing right in the middle of it. He had felt the cold asphalt underneath his shoes, heard the creaking of a door swinging on rusty hinges, felt the fog creep underneath his clothes like the fingers of a deathly lover. He had wandered the town every night, meeting no one. Sometimes, he had thought he had seen a shadow, but most nights, he had been alone. And then, without fail, the sirens had started, and Adrian had woken up in his bed, gasping, his body covered by a sheen of cold sweat, unable to remember anything that had come after the blaring wail.

Careful research had led him to this place. It had once been a prosperous mining town, but had since been deserted, its inhabitants having moved on to more prosperous cities, or simply died. Thick clouds were gathering on the horizon, and Adrian shivered slightly, pulling his jacket tighter around his shoulders. It was beginning to get quite cold. There might even be snow. After all, he was high up in the mountains.

Starting the engine of his car, Adrian got back on the road, flicking on the headlights in hopes of penetrating the thickening fog. Ten minutes later, their beam glanced over a sign that was posted at the side of the road, just at the foot of the bridge he had crossed.

"Welcome to Silent Hill"

Once inside, the fog seemed to be less dense than it had looked from where he had stood on the road just minutes before. Still, it was somewhat difficult to see his surroundings. The light was fading away, turning color into shades of gray, and more than half the lights at the side of the road weren’t working any more. Not that this surprised Adrian in the least. After all, the town had been uninhabited for at least ten years now. It was actually more surprising that Silent Hill still seemed to be connected to the electricity grid. Adrian peered out the windshield at the buildings that lined the road more and more frequently now. He had already passed something that seemed to have once been a hotel, but years of neglect had turned what had doubtlessly once been an upper class seaside resort into a dark ruin, nothing but crumbling façade and black, gaping windows.

Adrian was going slowly, trying to see, to pick up something, anything, that would tell him why he was here in the first place. A shadow the size of a large dog moved at the very edge of the pools of light the headlights of his car were throwing into the deepening twilight. Apparently, nature had begun to take back what had once been hers. Adrian couldn’t help but feel a bit silly. Here he was, creeping through an abandoned town in the middle of nowhere at close to nightfall, and all because of a dream. He prided himself of his rational mind, his ability to see things without being distracted and fooled by appearances, expectancies or emotion, but this little outing was far from rational. A book filled with what was mostly just paranoia, dreams, and he had taken off to this place to… do what? Adrian wasn’t sure. All he was sure of was that the dreams had stopped after he had made his decision to pay Silent Hill a visit. Irrational or not, there was no denying that those were indeed interesting coincidences, maybe even more than that.

There was a sign in front of the building to his left. Underneath the glittering moisture of the fog, its face was dirty, the copper lettering covered with green rust.

“Silent Hill Historical Society”

Adrian stalled the car, taking a look at the building. The windows weren’t nailed shut, like he had seen at some other buildings he had passed, and neither was the door. Well, if he wanted to find out what he was doing here, maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to find out a bit more about this town. Killing the engine, Adrian then opened the glove compartment to get out a heavy flashlight, flicking it on and off to see if the batteries were still working. They were.

Stepping out of the car, Adrian inhaled the cool, damp air. He could smell the lake, and a faint aroma of fire. Lifting his hand to his shoulder, Adrian let the narrow beam of the flashlight flit over the front of the building. Its wooden paneling was beginning to rot visibly, and the path leading to the front door was almost completely overgrown with wilting, brown weeds.

The sound of his footsteps on the gravel was muted by the fog, but still, in the almost unnatural silence of this place, it was so loud that Adrian caught himself trying to place his feet more carefully to avoid detection. He shook his head, chuckling under his breath. Who was he trying to hide from? There was no one left in this town but him. It seemed that this place was already getting to him, with its rotting buildings and impenetrable fog, like something straight from a cheap horror movie.

“Maybe a cat will jump out at me now,” he muttered to himself, reaching for the handle of the door. Adrian was faintly surprised at finding the door unlocked. He would have expected most of the doors to be barred or at least locked. It was a strange thing to do, if you thought about it for a moment. Locking your house when you never expect to come back to it, and when everything that holds any value to you has already been removed. But humans were creatures of habit, and habit dictated that if you went out, you locked the door behind you.

The Historical Society had obviously once been someone's home before being converted into a semi-public space. The door opened on something that, by its size and layout, could have been a living room. Only now, there was nothing lively about it. Two tables stood there, covered in dust and surrounded by old-fashioned wooden chairs. The wallpaper had begun to peel off the walls in places, sagging downwards and baring glimpses of the stone walls underneath. There was a staircase leading upwards, and two doors, one of them with the word "archive" set on it in copper lettering.

The door to the archive was locked. Adrian turned the handle again, rattling the door in frustration. Leaving the front door unlocked but locking this one, it made no sense. He could, of course, simply break through the door - neither frame nor door looked sturdy enough to withstand a well-aimed kick - but even though no one lived here any more, Adrian shied away from such an act of unprovoked vandalism.

Trying the other door, and finding it locked as well, he then made his way upstairs, the stairs moaning and creaking under his feet as if in protest. The one room that made up the upper floor had probably once been a reading room. There were empty bookshelves on the walls, and two armchairs stood in the middle of the room, looking strangely forlorn in the rapidly darkening gloom. Between them was a small coffee table, and on its grimy surface, the beam of Adrian's flashlight picked out the shape of a book. Curious, Adrian moved closer, looking at the book's cover.

"Silent Hill from Past to Present"

Sitting down in one of the chairs, which sagged a bit underneath his weight, Adrian picked up the book and flipped through it. It seemed to be just what it had said on the cover, a short overview over the history of Silent Hill. The text was accompanied at first by woodcuts, then by photographs showing the town and its inhabitants. One of the photographs, which Adrian dated to about the turn of the century judging by the way the people in it were dressed, caught his eye in particular. The accompanying text identified the sombre and somewhat menacing-looking group as members of "The Order", a cult that had apparently been accused of a number of heinous crimes, including the sacrifice of children, all in the name of awakening an ancient deity to bring forth an age of peace and prosperity for its followers. And, Adrian thought with a smirk, probably also bring forth an age of death and damnation for anyone not following whatever teachings it were that the Order was preaching. Doomsday cults had always had a certain appeal, especially for those at odds with the rest of society. The lost and lonely, and those who thought of themselves as visionaries.

Other than the odd photograph and tidbit of information about the strange and colorful history of the town, there wasn't much of interest in the book. It certainly didn't answer any of Adrian's questions, the main of which still was why he was here in the first place. Why he had dreamed of this town for weeks. Putting the book back on the coffee table, Adrian rose with a small sigh. He should probably venture deeper into the town itself. If someone was waiting for him, or had left something behind for him to find, it would most likely be in a prominent place. Right at the city's center. City hall, maybe, or any other easily recognizable building. Somewhere a slightly confused person who had no idea what they were doing here would turn to first.

Descending the staircase, Adrian threw a last look at the locked door of the archive. If he didn't find anything in the town square or wherever, he could still come back.

The fog was still thick outside as Adrian stepped up to his car. The last tendrils of sunlight that had been fighting their way over the horizon as he had entered the building were now gone, leaving him alone in the foggy darkness that was only occasionally broken by pale pools of artificial light up ahead.

Just as Adrian was reaching for the door of the car, he heard a soft shuffling noise approaching, almost like footsteps. It was coming from somewhere behind, moving up the street unhurried and slowly, accompanied by something that sounded like wheezing breaths. Could it be that there was someone else beside himself in this town?

Turning around, Adrian shone the beam of the flashlight in the direction from which the noise was coming. There was definitely something, no, someone, moving through the fog.

“Hello?” No answer. Adrian called out again: “Excuse me? I seem to...”

What he saw, the shape that peeled itself out of the thick shroud of the fog, made his throat close up, his words shriveling to a croak in his chest. A nightmare made flesh, doubtlessly animated by the hellfire contained within its ribs. It looked as if it were struggling against bonds made of its own flesh and skin, its movements cramped and jerky, its gaping mouth uttering a raspy, breathless scream. And it was coming right at him.

Long forgotten instincts kicking in, Adrian cast about for anything that he could use as a weapon against this horror, wishing that he had, for once, brought a gun. But there was nothing, not even a stone he could have thrown at the monster. Nothing but his car.

Jumping into the driver's seat, Adrian revved the engine into life, stomping down on the accelerator the second he had yanked the shift into reverse. Tires screeching, the car shot backwards, hitting the thing right in the middle of its grotesque body. There was a bump as one of the front tires rolled over it, but Adrian didn't stop to look. Heart racing and teeth clenched tight, he turned the car around and sped down the street towards the bridge, back where he had come from. Whatever the business with the journal or his dreams was, he didn't care any more. The only thing he wanted now was to get out of here.

Remembrance shot through him like lightning, illuminating something that had lain in the dark up until this moment. He had seen that thing before, in his dreams. Not one, but many, surrounding him, moving ever closer, pressing in until he could see nothing but their mutilated bodies, smell nothing but their burnt flesh. It was a being made from nightmares, only he wasn't dreaming any more. He was wide awake.

His thoughts still occupied by the horror he had just seen, Adrian almost missed the street suddenly turning into a dark pit ahead of him, the headlights of his car illuminating nothing but fog and air. Stepping on the breaks as hard as he could, Adrian turned the wheel to the right, causing the car to spin around, tires screaming on the damp asphalt. For a moment, the rear end of the car dipped down, and Adrian's heart stopped. The engine sputtered and stopped, and the car went very still.

Moving carefully, deliberately, Adrian let his hand grope for the flashlight that had rolled underneath his seat, then slowly climbed out of the car. His hands were shaking slightly, making the beam of the flashlight dance over the abyss that had almost swallowed him.

The road which should have led him over the bridge and out of here came to an abrupt, jagged stop. The bridge was gone. Collapsed, fallen, vanished. The only road out of Silent Hill was gone. He was trapped.


Chapter 2

re: Silent Hill

Date: 2010-10-04 03:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hohaiyee.livejournal.com
Geez Ozy, his chest is already on fire, did ya really have to run him over?

Re: Silent Hill

Date: 2010-10-05 07:36 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sermocinare.livejournal.com
Public service. That patient could have set the whole town on fire!

Date: 2010-10-04 09:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anactoria.livejournal.com
Eek! This is awesome and I love it *flail*. Also, I don't remember all that much about Silent Hill, so I could be wrong, but:

A shadow the size of a large dog moved at the very edge of the pools of light the headlights of his car were throwing into the deepening twilight. Apparently, nature had begun to take back what had once been hers.

Vengeful ghost!Bubu y/n? XD

Date: 2010-10-05 07:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sermocinare.livejournal.com
Thanks! Flailing is always good :). Especially since this is my first venture into the horror genre. Well, ok, second if you count The Doomsday Book, but this is more traditional, classic horror. Which is strange, seeing how much I love horror and zombies.

As for vengeful ghost!Bubu y/n... that would be telling ;).

Date: 2010-10-10 10:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] clodia-metelli.livejournal.com
Ooooh! I haven't played Silent Hill myself, but I know the pertinent outlines, and this looks really interesting! Lovely descriptions of the fleshy monstrosity there.

Date: 2010-10-10 04:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sermocinare.livejournal.com
Thank you! I'm a huge fan of SH's creature design, because they're just so outlandish and weird. Which, of course, makes them a bit hard to describe without sounding silly. Trying to do so has given me an even greater appreciation for my favourite horror authors ;).

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