Schism

Chapter I: Operation Initiation

Location: Fort Freeman, Virginia
Date: 12.01.2006

Knock. Knock. Knock. Colonel Reeves looked up from his desk,

“Yes?” He asked, peering at the young recruit; the man seemed troubled and somewhat apprehensive.

“Sir...we’ve got a situation.” The man replied, Reeves studied the man’s demeanor; just a raw recruit, a Private. His nametag was all spit shine and new, gleaming under the harsh, titanium white lights of his office.

“What kind of situation, son?” he asked.

“You’re presence is requested in the infirmary, I’ll explain along the way.” The young Private said, he sounded urgent. Reeves nodded once and rose lithely from his desk, pushing the chair away and exiting his office with the man; his nametag read Green.

“So son, what’s this all about?” Reeves asked as they began to navigate the brightly lit chromium passageways.

“We were receiving some troops from Fort Minor, up in Michigan. Their transport ran into some mechanical troubles and went down over a place called Silent Hill. An evac was called but due to weather conditions, we could only get to a forest outside the town. The radioman picked up a few very garbled transmissions from the town, but it sounded like there was a firefight in progress many times.” Green sounded edgy as he talked and walked, making his way slowly but surely towards the infirmary; he began speaking again as Reeves digested this information.

“When the evac arrived, we only picked up one survivor; a man named Private Jacob Singer. He was in a very...deranged state. We flew him back here and he’s requested your presence, we figured that he needs a full debriefing; something...happened in Silent Hill.” Green stopped speaking abruptly, his words leaving an ominous ring. Reeves thought for a moment, and wracked his brain to bring up any information he knew on Silent Hill. All he could think of was that it was a ghost town, nothing more. What in the name of God was there to shoot at in Silent Hill? He was pulled out of his thoughts as they arrived at the infirmary. Colonel Reeves entered whilst Private Green went off to do something else.

He took in the state of the man situated on the cold, metal examination table. His face was blank, devoid of emotion. His uniform was torn, ripped, burnt and covered blood; some of which was black. He had a deep open gash across his forehead and another down his right cheek, they were still bleeding. His flesh was pale, ashen almost; his eyes empty of emotion or rational thought. One section of his uniform, namely his entirely right sleeve, looked as if it had been hit with some sort of acidic substance; it was half melted.

“Private Singer. What happened?” Reeves asked quietly, ignoring the two medics tending to the man’s various wounds. Private Jacob Singer slowly turned his gaze towards Reeves, he opened his mouth to speak;

“I think they let me live, so that I could tell you.” Something right then and there told Reeves that it was going to be a long night.

---

Colonel Reeves rubbed his temples vigorously and then reached forward and took a drink from his coffee. It was dark in his office and the only illumination was that from his laptop, which washed across his haggard features. He set down the mug of lukewarm coffee and then took a final look over the report. Finally, he hit the print button and sat back in his swivel chair, listening to the soft, mechanical sounds of the papers being printed out. He’d just spent the past four hours first debriefing Private Singer, and then, following that, calling his superiors with the...disquieting news. His superiors seemed unusually interested in Silent Hill, Reeves had been ready to write it off as some sort of strange hallucination.

But, then again, the military was sometimes known to dabble in...odd activities; namely paranormal investigations. Since Fort Freeman was the nearest military base to Silent Hill, a team of superiors and experts were being flown up. They had arrived not too long ago and demanded a finished, comprehensive report on the town. That was the second thing he’d been doing after debriefing the Private, compiling his report. The printer indicated that it was done, and Reeves grabbed the papers, made sure they were in a neat stack and then attached them all to a clipboard. After that he put his laptop on standby, rose from his chair and then began to head towards the meeting room.

Moments later he was seated in one of the dozen plush leather chairs around a large wooden table in the brightly lit interior of the meeting room. He had handed the clipboard to one General Graves, situated at the front of the desk; he was a tall, lean man with a clean shaven head who looked like he knew exactly what he was doing all the time. Graves scrutinized the report, there wasn’t much there; just a brief history, a satellite image of the town and some general background data.

“Alright people, listen up.” Graves began, and Reeves suddenly got the feeling that he was only there because he was in charge of Fort Freeman; not because anyone actually valued his opinion.

“For years there has been slight evidence to support the fact that something...odd is going on in Silent Hill. But we’ve never been able to actually get any real data. Now, we have the data. A first hand eye witness report from one Private Jacob Singer. Down the years we’ve collected bits and pieces of information on Silent Hill. You are all familiar with Doctor Lynch; head of our Paranormal Research Division, correct?” Graves paused briefly and looked round the table at the other Generals there. They all nodded, Reeves looked over at the man that Graves had indicated. Doctor Lynch reminded him of one of those mad doctors, frighteningly intelligent looking, he seemed as if he could do anything in the name of research.

“Excellent. We believe that we can learn a great deal about biology and weapons research in Silent Hill; especially from the reports that Private Singer gave. There are creatures in Silent Hill, nothing like we’ve seen so far. This might turn into another Carnate Island incident if we’re not careful, but we are going in and we’re going in strong. With this data, we finally have enough of a reason to investigate Silent Hill. From the research so far, we have every indication to believe that the town is alive in some way. A living, thinking, sentient being. We’re not ruling out anything so far and are bringing in a full troop deployment and detachment from our Paranormal Research Division. I will personally be in charge and Doctor Lynch will be joining me. So, get everything in order; I want this ready by six a.m. tomorrow morning.”