Chapter 2
A Safe Place
Josh woke with a start, a terrified gasp and a cold sweat about him. His heart pounded against his chest. His eyes wide in the dim grayish blue of his room, he looked around, head darting this way and that as he breathed deeply, sitting up with his arms locked at the elbows and hands planted firmly against the sheeted mattress of his bed beneath him.
“Jesus…” he moaned softly, his voice caught in his throat in his grogginess, “What… What the hell was that…?” He brought a hand up over his face, rubbing at his eyes tiredly. It was a recurring nightmare, one that had him certainly spooked and exhausted the very next morning. He was always unwilling to work after experiencing such a horrifying cognitive cinematic projection. Damn it was scary.
Josh turned in his bed, letting his fuzzy legs hang over the side of the bed, the tips of his toes barely touching the light carpet down below. He stared at the curtained window, the light blue glowing slightly above the transparent pane with the slightest hint of future sunrise. It was a calm blue, like that of a robin’s egg.
What time was it? Josh looked over at the glass with half-lidded chocolate eyes.
6:15 AM.
Too early to rise just yet, but Josh didn’t think he could lay his head back down without feeling doubt rise in his chest and the onset of hyperventilation. Josh rest his elbows against his knees and he stared down at the carpet, his eyes slowly wandering over to his arms, gazing lazily at one before his line of vision gently drifted to the other. He concentrated on a barely visible blue vein near the joint of his elbow.
The heat he felt burning his skin was all too real to him. The dream was a recurring one, but when he first started having it, it wasn’t quite as bad as it was just then. He raised his head, eyes on the window again. Perhaps it was best if he just think about it later. After all, it was only a dream.
Standing up, Josh stretched his arms and arched his back, popping his vertebrae back into place with a soft grunt. He grabbed his glasses from the bedside table and slipped them on before he exited his room completely. Walking down the stairs, Josh ran a hand over his face, lightly over his glasses as he heaved a deep sigh.
At the base of the stairs, Josh raised his head slightly, eyes drifting off to his left to the living room. Everything was blue from the early rise of the sun. The sky had not yet given birth to the star yet, so everything was so lazily painted. Things appeared fuzzy to him from the morning blur, even with his glasses, everything seemed to be filmed over by a gentle gray white-noise.
He sighed softly as he sauntered over to the big white couch and sat down. He tilted his head against the back of the couch and closed his eyes. He wasn’t quite ready to be awake yet… and yet whenever he shut his eyelids for longer than five minutes, he felt the threat of the inferno burning his skin.
Josh opened his eyes—though just barely—and stared up at the ceiling above him. The phone began to ring, but the singer ignored it. Or at least he tried to. With a visible cringe, Josh drew a hand over his face, eyes closed tightly though one cracked open and peered over at the black phone.
After ringing enough times—which was only about three to four times—Josh, exasperated, got up and grabbed the receiver, bringing it up and slamming it back down again. A moment of soothing silence passed before the phone started ringing. Upon impulse, Josh leaned down behind the side table and unplugged the phone jack.
Staring at the black plastic as it went silent, Josh rose a hand up to his head, running his fingers through his bed-ruffled curls, “God… I have such a headache…” He moaned painfully as he closed his eyes behind his glasses, letting them slide down the curving slope of his nose.
Leaving the living room, he wandered into the kitchen, where on upon the mahogany dining table to the south sat a small note sitting upon a housing envelope. He looked over at it, though not facing the table. His head was low, eyes half-lidded with intimidation. Ever since he got this thing in the mail, he had been having nightmares, much like the one he just woke up from.
After a tense moment, he walked over to the table and picked up the card. It was old, firm paper yellowed with age and written with pen and ink. He opened it up and read it, the message inside engraved in his mind from reading it hundreds of times before.
Dear Joshua Winslow Groban,
Here staged within our poor little town lays a young one in such agony. She writhes with burns and drips cold with blood. Upon her hospital bed she lays, unable to rest and her pain inconsolable. It is while within our disposition that we ask of you a favor, to come and grace our poor little town with your presence and try to heal our poor young one with the strength and power of your voice and music.
We hope to see you soon.
Dahlia Gillespie
Silent Hill,
1974
It was the date that caught his attention immediately. The numbers that represented the month and day were illegible, and he could only make out the year.
1974… How many years was that ago? Thirty-five or so? Josh wasn’t even born by then. He studied the dried, old ink on the toothy paper. He had studied it hundreds of times before and all possibilities had eluded him. It was baffling and even more so disturbing.
Josh laid the card face down back on the table before turning his back to the clean mahogany surface. It was all so confusing. His head was so wrapped around it he almost felt obsessed. It was an obsession that was leading Josh to change into someone he wasn’t. How painful it was, for Josh to sit there and stare at the card with beautiful almond eyes grown dim and have no answers.
The doorbell rang, causing Josh to jump in his position, the mahogany table behind him scooting lightly against the forcible placement of his weight. Looking through the foyer between the living room and the kitchen, Josh pushed himself up from the table and stalked towards the large front doors of his home.
He unlocked the door slowly, almost as if his movements were being slowed down by an unseen force. He left the chain lock on, however, and opened the door, all the way enough to let the chain be held out at its maximum and allowing Josh to at least see the face of whoever it was that was out there ringing his doorbell at this terrible hour of the morning.
Of course, it was a man he was happy to see, and yet his exhaustion wouldn’t allow him to express it.
“Good morning, Josh,” said David Foster, the older man’s eyes going over Josh and his haphazard appearance. The kid was usually up and dressed by this hour… wasn’t he? Looking back at those inanimate eyes, David put on a small smile, “Are you—“
The producer was met with the door in his face and he froze, blinking. Of course, shortly after the sound of Josh furiously undoing the chain followed and the door was slowly opened again and further in this time, allowing David to come inside if he wished.
David didn’t enter, at least not quite yet, before the frozen expression on his face melted and he breathed out, “…Okay… Um… Josh? Are you… feeling alright at all? You look… Well…” David lowered his head a little, silently noting the younger man’s messy attire of bed hair, tank top and pajama pants, wrinkled and misplaced from a rather un-peaceful sleep.
Josh only stared at him a moment before taking a step back and inviting the elder inside. Once David stepped in, Josh quickly shut the door and locked it completely before he treaded back into the kitchen. Squinting his eyes and tilting his head in confusion, David followed, hesitant at first. He slowly arrived in the kitchen, to see Josh sitting in one of the chairs at the table, his nose pointed to the age-ridden card at the end of the table.
“What’s this? It’s not your birthday yet,” David said, mouth curving into a small teasing smile, though it was short-lived when Josh said in a dull voice, “Read it.”
David looked from Josh’s dark curls to the card and picked it up, turning it over and reading it. “Josh, it’s just an invitation. Are you going to take it?” he said, looking up at him.
Josh shook his head, not looking at David, “…Look at the date.”
David looked back down at the card and stared at the year. “Oh, they’re a few years short of a growing fetus. Are you sure this is for you?”
Josh shrugged and sighed painfully, “I got it in the mail. And it’s addressed to me. How many Joshua-Winslow-Groban’s do you know?”
“Not many,” David said as he sat down next to the young singer and laid the card gently back on the table, “Maybe it’s just a typo? A little far out to be a typo… but it’s still a possibility.” He looked at the worn-out Joshua sitting next to him, who brought up his arms and planted his elbows on the table, holding up his head between his hands.
“I don’t know what to do… Ever since…” Josh’s voice trailed off, not knowing for sure if he should tell David about the nightmares.
“Ever since what?” David asked, his voice firm with that fatherly demand to know what’s going on.
Josh hesitated before continuing, “…Ever since I got it, I’ve been having… …these dreams… Nightmares… and I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate on anything. I feel like… like I’m going crazy.”
David stayed silent for a moment, looking down at the floor before back up at the singer, “Have you seen anyone? Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist…”
Josh jumped at that idea, “But I’m not crazy!”
David replied gently, “I didn’t say you were, but you can talk to a therapist or psychiatrist and they’ll understand what you’re saying and help offer a solution. I’m going to be honest, I’ve seen hobos that looked nicer than you do right now. If you need to stop writing or recording or whatever, then just stop. If you need a break, then take a break.”
“I don’t need a break,” Josh said, a sliver of denial coating his voice, raspy from sleep, “I need to know why I got this invitation and why it’s dated back farther than I’ve been alive. And why I’m having these nightmares.”
“Maybe you’re just scared of what the invitation could really be,” David suggested lightly, “Because of that typo, you could be just thinking up the worst case scenarios and playing them back when you sleep.”
Josh didn’t speak for a while, instead he took off his glasses and set them gently on the table, the arms still out at their respective angles. “…These dreams… They’re not anything that anyone can even imagine… It’s like… Dante’s Inferno times like… three hundred.”
David adjusted in his seat, “Well, what exactly do you see in these dreams of yours?”
“…Hell,” Josh said quietly, “…I don’t even know how to explain it… It’s just… awful… Nothing that I’ve ever seen before… It’s so dark… and then there’s fire… And I’m burning—my skin is burning off my bones.”
David tilted his head a little, “…So… you’re in darkness and you’re on fire?”
“Yes,” Josh said, his voice quivering with frustration and exhaustion.
“Oh Josh…” David said, leaning in close and raising a hand to place on the singer’s back. David was taken aback, however, by how tense the boy was, “…You really need to see someone about this. This can’t be good for you. At least get a massage or something, you’re like… a rock.”
“Maybe…” Josh said in a light whisper, heaving a heavy sigh afterwards.
“Just remember, it’s only a dream…” David said as soothingly as he could. The kid was truly a mess. It was very rare that Josh was ever just merely out of bed. When he was, it was either him just running a little late or he was being playfully lazy and playing with Sweeney just before going out on a morning run.
This wasn’t the same Josh he knew that stood so strongly behind the recording glass, smiling and eager to start working. No, this Josh… was completely different. Obsessive, tired, angry, confused… Obsessive most of all. David never knew Josh to obsess about anything, except for when he was in his youngest years, excited about how well his duet with Celine Dion went. The boy talked about it nonstop. With a happy smile and a glowing face. Ah, David missed that little boy sometimes.
From what David saw, Josh was destroying himself over something so small. It was an invitation that had a very late date. The card was old, yes, but… it could be a very old town with little resources to spare.
He gave Josh a gentle pat on the back, “Maybe you should go to wherever this invitation entails. That will help probably a lot more than a psychiatrist.”
Josh looked up at David with tired eyes before looking at the card, “Where does it say it is?” He reached over with a slender arm and grabbed the card, looking at the bottom, “…It says ‘Silent Hill.’”
“Never heard of it. Sounds like one of those old little villages that are stuck 50 or so years behind the rest of the country,” David said as he looked at the card.
“…Maybe I should go…” Josh said quietly, “No idea where it is though.”
“Look it up on the web?” David suggested with a small shrug.
“Yeah…” Josh said with a soft sigh, going quiet and laying the card down on the table. After a few moments of silence between the two, Josh looked up at the older man and quietly asked, “…Did you try to call me earlier?”
David looked at Josh and shook his head slowly, “Nope… wasn’t me.”
Josh looked back down at the old card and said softly, “Okay…”
David smiled gently before he stood up, “Well, I’m going to head out, then. I just wanted to see how you were doing. Just… either go see someone or go to this… Silent Hill place. It’s probably nothing, Josh. Don’t get so worked up over it.”
Josh nodded, glancing briefly up at the older man, “Okay. I’ll see you later?”
“Yeah,” he said as he pushed the chair in against the table, “Whatever you decide to do, give me a call okay? I’ll let everyone know.”
“Okay… Thank you,” Josh said, forcing a smile as he looked back up at David, “I’ll call you.”
“See ya, Josh. Take good care of yourself,” David said as he proceeded to see himself out.
When the sound of the door being unlocked, opened and closed after a few steps, Josh laid his head down on the table and he let out a long, painful moan. What could this mean? Maybe the only thing he could do was go over to this… Silent Hill.
He felt ill just thinking about it. Maybe David was right. It was probably nothing.
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