@mymindsasunder It wasn’t often that Mercy saw her mother anymore, so when the woman called and asked for her to come visit, she definitely listened. And any excuse to drive her glorious baby, her ’69 Chevy Nova, absolutely anywhere, was a good enough excuse to her. A gift from her father, the thing screamed power and sex, and those were two things Mercy was very fond of. Along with drugs, and that was usually why her mother called. She grew plenty of things on her enormous plot of land out in the middle of nowhere and had Mercy’s help getting rid of it for the cash. Medical bills weren’t cheap, and she refused to judge. There were plenty of things Mercy had done that she wasn’t proud of. …Plenty of things. But those were thoughts for another time. If she’d ever actually get to taking responsibility for her actions, though, remained to be seen. For now, she drove. She was tired and hungry, and she’d been driving for a while now, but those motivations weren’t enough to get her to pull off the highway and onto the nearest exit for a brief stop. No need for gas yet, and she was making good time, so why bother? She’d ignore her body for a while longer (like she always did, to be perfectly frank) and keep going for a while yet, unless something otherworldly in its importance made her pull over. Like that would ever happen, right…? A sigh escaped her as she continued down the road, though something was nagging at her the longer she pressed on. The drive seemed longer, the scenery different. There was no goddamn way she’d taken a different turn, either, she knew it. She’d driven the highway enough times to know the way, and it was damn near automatic each time Mercy started driving. Turn here, follow the highway out to State Road 154 and turn right, follow that until you hit Route 31, turn left, follow that out past town, turn right to Mama’s house on the right. It took maybe an hour and a half, tops, if you were driving the speed limit, and, let’s be honest here, that was something Mercy didn’t do. So why the hell did it feel like she’d been driving for hours now down that same damn road she’d become so familiar with? The weather had seemed to change, too. It had been rainy, yes, so the skies were overcast and grey, and sure she expected a bit of fog with the strange weather changes the area had been having, but absolutely nothing like this. It was damn near impossible to see five feet in front of her car, and she wondered how long it’d been getting worse before she finally noticed it. Mercy supposed it didn’t matter, and downshifted as necessary; no need to drive like a maniac in conditions like this, after all. If she hadn’t of slowed down, it was likely she would have died. Something moved in front of her car, one of those “but-it-wasn’t-there-a-second-ago” moments, if you will. Mercy couldn’t tell what it was in that short expanse of time, everything such a blur as it was, but she sure wasn’t going to test her car’s durability and slam straight into it. She swerved and the car’s wheels screamed in protest as the engine growled and grumbled. Her beautiful Nova whipped around and Mercy tried her hardest to correct its course, but obviously to no avail. The car hit the nearby embankment, but she’d been going far too fast for it to have stopped her. She went forward, forward, forward and found herself becoming closely acquainted with a very lovely tree. Everything was painful, then everything was black, though she wasn’t sure for how long. When Mercy opened her eyes again the pain had doubled in its intensity, and it made her wish that reality had been kind enough to keep the awful sensation to itself. She reached over to the passenger’s seat to find a prescription bottle, slowly opened it, and dry swallowed three of the pills she’d collected from the container. It was overkill to anyone not used to medicine, and hardly noticeable to a veteran like herself. She just hoped it’d be enough to dull some of that hideous ache she was feeling all over her body. Ugh. After a moment Mercy finally collected herself and got out of the car. The damage… was awful.
She wanted to take a moment to cry, to mourn the gorgeous piece of machinery that her father had passed on to her, but she figured she didn’t have much time to do it. Right now, she had to make sure whatever it was that ran out in front of her was all right. Couldn’t have that on her conscience. So with that, the woman found her phone and her pills, and hobbled into the road once more to find… Nothing. Did she… imagine seeing anything at all? “Hello?” She limped along the road, probably bleeding, she didn’t bother to check, trying to find someone, anyone that might have been the cause of her wreck. Maybe she’d punch him in his fucking face. That’d show him. Or her. But the road was bare. She pressed on, now with the intent to look for help, for a tow truck, and for food. She passed a sign along the way, one that read “Welcome to Silent Hill,” and it made her wonder who decided to name a place such an uninviting, unsettling thing, but if there were people there who could help, she supposed she wouldn’t question it. “Is anyone here?” She continued to call out to whomever might have been there, squinting as if it would help her peer through fog and see better than she could. It seemed unnaturally quiet and still, and she didn’t like it. Towns were supposed to be busy, weren’t they?
