SILENT HILL F Novelization : Chapter 1 [常世の獄 or lit. Eternal Hell] [ENGLISH TRANSLATION]
[PROLOGUE] [1-1] [1-2] [1-3] [1-4 (You are Here)]
The town quickly faded under the haze.
The sight of the streets around her was completely swallowed by the raging torrent of fog that swept in from nowhere at all, the fog that nipped at her heels. The colors faded around her, the shapes of things became vague and indiscernible, as if her very surroundings were also trying to flee this monster.
Even her friend, Shu, felt hazy as he ran in front of her, like he might disappear into the fog, too. And Rinko, who should be in front of Shu, was entirely beyond Hinako's sights.
Maybe the entire town will disappear. The terrifying thought took root in her head. Her heart beat erratically, her breathing was unsteady, and her feet weren't moving the way she wanted them to. The way she needed them to.
Her heart sounded like a roaring ocean in her ears. Everything was being eaten away by the fog. The road in front of her, the wooden fences and banisters, the telephone poles - everything. From the corner of her eyes, she could see those plants blooming. It was as if Ebisugaoka was dying, and something was tearing out is innards and revealing them to the world.
Behind her, she heard a roar.
Hinako didn't look back, but she knew what was behind her.
It was closer than she thought.
The monster, capped with white fog and decorated with blood red flowers, had yet to fully manifest itself in this world. Its figure often flecked away beneath the fog and each time it did, it reformed elsewhere. But all the while, its strangely long arms remained useful.
It appeared with a clearer shape, reaching out straight for Hinako. Poison tipped claws grasped towards her, catching only air each time.
Hinako returned her eyes forward. Huh?
Shu was gone. She strained her eyes through the fog, but he was gone. There was no sign of him. Not even the faintest trace.
A horrible thought crossed her mind, but she shook it off. No, that's not it. He must've slipped into an alley while I wasn't looking.
Feeling hurried, Hinako tripped over her own feet. She fell into a pluming grove of red flowers that had just bloomed, crimson and plum colored petals casting up into the air and dying her vision red. Hinako immediately got to her feet, but the monster had already moved in front of her. Hinako spun and moved to run backwards, but the monster was there, too. How? Was it in two places at once?
Were there more of them, all over town?
There was no time to despair. Hinako looked around frantically, spotting first a mark carved into the wall, then a gap leading into an alley, led by stone steps heading down. Without even thinking, she moved. She'd never been this way before, and with so many roads in this town leading to dead ends, a part of her worried. But there was nowhere else to go.
Hinako headed down the narrow alley, a stone wall to the right and wooden fencing to her left. Her hearing tickled, making out the sound of something wet.
Red, slimy tendrils sprouted out from the cracks between the stone in the wall beside her. One thrust out, linking itself around Hinako's arm. She shook one off but another grabbed her, tangling around her. Each one, she tore away and kept on moving forward, taking the alley's path all the way until it led her to a slightly wider road - one that led to a dead end.
Her breathing hitched with shock but she'd half expected this. It was too early to give up. She spotted a wooden ladder leaning up against a nearby wall. Without even thinking, Hinako started to climb up before the ground beneath her was entirely consumed by red. She made her way up to the roof, hoping to catch her breath even if just for a moment, but the corruption was already following her. She shoved the ladder down with her hand and moved across the tin roof, steadying herself against the rust and dirt caking it.
She moved over two rooftops, letting herself jump down onto a road one block south of the street where the monster was. The corruption hadn't reached here yet, no sign of those plants or flowers.
At the mouth of the street was a single red ivy, wriggling like the tongue of a snake, but it couldn't move much. The houses were tightly built, inadvertently acting as strongholds against the invasion of these strange plants.
More importantly, it seemed she'd lost the monster.
Hinako slumped, collapsing to the ground. Her heart felt like it was mixing in her chest, beating from outside of her chest back to the inside, her lungs aching from her heavy breathing. Her throat was burning so much, she couldn't even swallow.
Hinako had been tired after gym class or her club activities, but this was an entirely different kind of exhaustion.
Running for your life with no end in sight was another kind of terror.
What was happening? Was this a nightmare?
"Shu. Rinko..."
Did they manage to get away? Were they hiding somewhere?
Knowing Shu, he might've gone for help but the police station was really far from here. And the nearest town was across the bridge. But even if he managed all that, what were a couple of police officers supposed to do about this? Against all these strange monsters and plants, what could anyone do?
And where was everyone? After all this, why were there no screams from anywhere at all? Out of all this chaos, why were Hinako and the others the only ones who were fleeing in terror? Did the other townsfolk see what was going on and decide to hide themselves away in their homes? Did they too see the monster?
"...Ah!"
Hinako lurched to her feet.
She needed to get back to Chizuryua.
Even though it was all so sudden and confusing, she ran away. Away from Sakuko. She left her all alone in a place like that. She must be so scared. Maybe she was anxious and crying.
I need to go back and help her...
"Wait for me, Sakuko."
