Chapter 848: A Deathly Silence
Leather shoes stepped on the pavement, producing faint footsteps.
The sound itself wasn't frightening, but in this environment, where everything was deathly still, it stood out as especially jarring.
Old P took a deep breath and walked forward slowly.
He tried running, but running made louder noises, and the more he ran, the heavier the protagonist's breathing became. The combination of running footsteps and gasping breaths made Old P's heart pound even more anxiously.
So, it was better to walk slowly.
Fortunately, the protagonist's walking speed wasn't too slow, still within an acceptable range.
It had to be said, *Silent Hill* had mastered the art of atmosphere.
There were no overly disgusting scenes, no swarms of nauseating monsters, and for now, no pitch-black darkness.
Just an abandoned town, thick fog, a bit of background music, and the sound effects of breathing and footsteps.
It didn't scare Old P into quitting the game immediately, but a faint sense of dread lingered in his heart, impossible to shake off.
A car was parked ahead, looking relatively new, with its door open—a stark contrast to the other wrecked vehicles by the roadside.
The protagonist must have driven this car to Silent Hill. After arriving, he had gone to the abandoned public restroom to look in the mirror and clear his head.
Old P walked up to the car, picked up a map of Silent Hill from the seat, and casually closed the door.
He really wanted to try opening the car door and driving away, leaving this godforsaken place, but obviously, that wasn't possible.
"The map is placed here instead of being given directly to the player? If a player walks right past this car without noticing it, wouldn't that be..."
Old P felt his hair stand on end. This was a trap so malicious it couldn't get any worse...
If some players charged in without grabbing the map, how miserable would they be in a horror game like this, with its heavy fog?
Unimaginable...
Old P calmed himself down, unfolded the map, and took a look.
This was a map of Silent Hill town, but Old P was still on the outskirts, nowhere near the town itself, so the map was useless for now.
There was only one path ahead: downhill.
Old P had no other choice. He steeled himself and stepped into the dense fog...
...
The fog grew thicker.
Old P kept walking downhill along a mountain path, but the lower he went, the lower the visibility became.
On the trail, Old P could barely see two or three meters around him; beyond that, everything was a blur.
Tall trees were faintly visible, but aside from the rustling sound of wind through their leaves, they served no purpose.
The wind, the rustling trees, and his own footsteps.
A deathly silence.
Old P felt his heart race.
He wondered, why did such a quiet atmosphere—no beastly growls, no monster roars—still feel so terrifying and dangerous?
Soon, he realized.
It was because it was too quiet here. No sounds of life.
No chirping insects, no birdsong, no sign of any living creature.
Only the boundless fog, only the sound of wind through the trees.
He... seemed to be the only living thing here...
Every few steps forward, Old P had to stop and steady his nerves.
At first, he worried that something might suddenly burst out of the thick fog.
But he was overthinking it. At least on the mountain path leading into Silent Hill, he encountered no monsters, nothing suspicious.
The only slightly odd thing was a well, but after Old P cautiously approached it, nothing happened.
No monster crawled out of the well.
Old P deliberately walked over and leaned down to look. The well was pitch black inside, probably abandoned for a long time.
Further ahead, he finally saw two iron gate doors.
Old P tried pushing the rusted iron gates with both hands, feeling a clear tactile response.
"Creaaaaak..."
The iron gates let out a grating, teeth-clenching screech as the hinges ground stiffly, barely opening a small gap.
He couldn't push them any further. Old P turned sideways and squeezed through the opening.
"This... is a cemetery?"
In the thick fog ahead, tombstones stood clustered, faintly visible. The ground beneath Old P's feet was no longer a mountain path but soil covered in fallen leaves. His footsteps were muffled and oppressive.
Suddenly, a figure appeared ahead.
From the silhouette, it was a woman.
She moved from one tombstone to another, as if searching for something.
Finally, she stopped in front of one tombstone, her back to the protagonist, crouching there motionless.
The protagonist walked toward her, but when he spoke, he startled the woman, and her scream also startled Old P.
Fortunately, she was a normal person.
The protagonist exchanged a few words with her and asked for directions to Silent Hill. However, the woman with long black hair told him not to go—the place was very strange. But the protagonist said he didn't care, because he was looking for someone very important to him: his wife.
He found the exit in the cemetery and continued onward.
Another long stretch of road. Still thick fog. Still a deathly silence.
Old P felt his nerves stretched to the breaking point. He kept thinking that, by the usual logic of horror games, a monster should pop out any second now. But it didn't. Not a single one.
Not even a collectible item. Just walking forward, walking forward...
Finally, passing through an abandoned farm, Old P saw a road.
It seemed he had finally reached Silent Hill.
Road signs, barbed wire, barricades... Old P kept walking along the road, deeper and deeper. He didn't know how long he walked before he finally arrived in the town.
Crossing the wide central avenue of Silent Hill, Old P confirmed he had entered the town. Ahead of him was a long-abandoned flower market, also covered in stains, looking weathered and worn.
Old P tried pushing the door. It wouldn't open.
Beside it was an abandoned workbench cluttered with various items. Among a watering can and an assortment of small trowels, there was a small first-aid kit.
"Huh? This can be picked up!" Old P tried interacting with the workbench. The protagonist reached out, grabbed the small first-aid kit, and put it away.
Just then, Old P heard a low, guttural roar in the distance!
"What the hell?!"
Old P instinctively looked toward the sound, but the fog was too thick. He couldn't see anything.
He calmed himself down. It seemed a monster was finally about to appear—why else would a first-aid kit be placed here in advance?
"Celente's scheme... The map at the start, the first-aid kit now—no hints at all, and deliberately blended into the environment... In this thick fog, if a player isn't paying attention, they'd miss it completely..."
Old P felt a chill of fear. This game was truly filled with deep malice!
He instinctively checked the time. He thought he had been running around in the game for half an hour, but in reality, only ten minutes had passed...