Silent Hill: Seasons

Chapter 6: Repentance

Damien pulled the map from his pocket and quickly began scanning over it in search of the church that was on the television. After locating it he began heading back to the entrance of the mall, passing by several different stores, some of them causing the radio to emit sounds of static, but Damien ignored them all and kept running through the mall. Down the escalator and back to the entrance of the mall, Damien exited.

Upon exiting the mall Damien expected time to have passed at a drastic rate again, but it hadn't this time, it still felt like a summer day. Damien began jogging down the road passing building after building and car after ash covered car.

He noticed that the closer he got to the church the temperature slowly seemed to be dropping and the color of the leaves slowly turned from green to red and orange. It was like the seasons were changing right before his eyes.

Damien came to a large dirt field and in the middle of the field was the old decrepit looking church from the television, surrounded by the trees ablaze with the colors of fall. The crowd of people still standing there waiting for Natalie to burn at the stake.

"Aw Damien." came Debbie's voice. "Now that you're here we can begin." At this two crowd members began escorting Natalie to the stake they had prepared.

"Stop, stop!" Damien yelled as he pushed his way through the crowd trying to get to Natalie.

The crowd began pushing Damien around like he was in the center of a mosh pit at a concert, some of them yelling, "Sinner! Burn the witch!"

Damien had had enough, he was there to save his fiancé and that's exactly what he planned to do. He lifted the pistol and pointed it into the sky firing a single shot. "Get back, get back all of you!" The crowd started backing away from him as he slowly pushed towards Natalie.

Dark clouds slowly started to fill the already hazy and ash filled sky, as they did the air raid siren started blaring. "It's coming." could be heard whispered amongst the crowd as they all seemed to fill with fear. The clouds opened up and began dropping water from the sky, but the water was a black inky color most likely because of the ash in the air, however, the crowd took it as an omen that death was coming and began to panic.

Damien took this opportunity to reach Natalie and untie the ropes binding her hands together.

As the air raid siren continued to blare the church began to change, not the typical change that happened, instead the church went from old and decrepit looking to looking like it was just built, except the windows were boarded up. Barbed wire began slithering out between the boards on the windows and wrapping all around the church, one window after another letting out more and more barbed wire. The trees surrounding the church were ablaze, not with the colors of fall, but actually ablaze, flames roaring high.

Damien looked around, this was nothing like all the other times the air raid siren had come, although most things he had seen in Silent Hill had been very disturbing, so why shouldn't this be. He could feel Natalie squeezing his arm tightly.

"Damien come on, let's go!" she said to him.

Damien shook his head in agreement and they began running from the church. As they reached the edge of the dirt field they could hear the people in the crowd start screaming, "It's him!" Damien turned to see that Pyramid head was back, he was swinging his gigantic sword slicing through the people in the crowds. The people were running in every direction trying to escape, some were trying to get into the church but it appeared the door was locked and they were just getting cut on the barbed wire. There were pieces of body parts all around Pyramid head as he continued swing his sword.

Damien squeezed Natalie's hand and continued running passing building after decayed and rusted building. Damien was leading them back to the hotel, to their truck. After running for a few minutes the air raid siren sounded again and all the buildings began returning back to their original look, no longer rundown and rusted. There were no sounds of static and no shadow creatures on the way back, it was the most peaceful time Damien had had since the first air raid siren had gone off.

Upon finally reaching the hotel Damien and Natalie got straight into the truck and didn't bother getting their things from the hotel room. Damien threw the truck in reverse and backed out of the parking spot. He threw it in drive and took off; he couldn't get out of Silent Hill fast enough. It began snowing again and as they passed the residential neighborhoods they could see the glow of Christmas lights hanging on houses. Damien just kept driving, not even trying to question the change of time, the change of seasons. As they drove Damien explained to Natalie everything he had been through trying to find her and she explained to him that she didn't remember anything before the church. They had made it, the edge of Silent Hill, passing the Welcome To Silent Hill sign they were safe now.