Chapter 156: The Ghost Domain Network
Was it even possible to completely erase every last bit of evil lurking in the eerie town of Silent Hill?
Sharon, whose eyes were clear and untainted, looked directly at Jon without blinking. She was in a unique state of awareness, understanding the terrors of Silent Hill more than anyone else at that moment. But once she woke up, she would lose all memory of this place and return to being the innocent little girl she usually was.
Yet, there stood Jon, making such bold and seemingly outrageous claims. His words were so convincing that Sharon couldn't help but feel a desire to believe that he could actually do it—that he had the power and the boldness to wipe out all the evil.
"Sharon... Sharon..."
A distant voice called out, tinged with urgency. It belonged to a middle-aged woman. As the voice grew louder, the world around them started to become fuzzy and indistinct, as if the very fabric of the space they were in was beginning to fade away.
Sharon looked over her shoulder, then locked eyes with Jon again. "My mother is calling for me, I need to wake up now!"
Right after Sharon spoke, the space around them seemed to crack and break apart, and the oppressive darkness started to lift. Suddenly, the environment changed, and both Jon and Sharon were transported back to the subway they had been in before.
But something was different—they weren't in the same train car as before. They had somehow moved to the one next to it and were now standing in the connecting corridor.
In that instant, Sharon's eyes snapped open as if she had been startled awake from a deep sleep. She looked around in a state of confusion, not understanding how she got there. Then her gaze fell on Jon, and her eyes were filled with a mix of bewilderment and a faint recognition.
It was as if she had seen him somewhere before!
But Sharon couldn't remember anything from her dream, not even the name "Silent Hill," and she certainly didn't remember Jon.
"Sharon~!"
The voice was Sharon's mother, Rose, who sounded worried as she called out. She hurried into the train car. Sharon turned and ran into her mother's waiting arms.
"Mommy!"
Rose embraced her daughter, offering words of comfort. "It's all right now, Sharon, we're almost there."
Sharon wiped her eyes and looked up at Rose with a question. "Mommy, why are we going to the doctor?"
Rose answered her gently, "It's nothing to worry about, just a routine check-up."
Watching the tender moment between Sharon and her mother, Jon felt a wave of emotion. Sharon wasn't Rose's biological child; she had been adopted from an orphanage. Nevertheless, the love between them was as deep and genuine as any between a natural mother and her child. It was this very bond that would later drive Rose to brave the nightmarish realm of Silent Hill, a place riddled with unspeakable terrors and malevolence, in search of Sharon.
Rose briefly noticed Jon, but she was focused on taking Sharon back to their original train car.
"Mrs. Da Silva!" Jon called out abruptly.
Rose halted, turning to face Jon with a puzzled expression. "Yes? Do I know you? How can I assist you?"
Before Rose could say more, Jon delivered his urgent message, "Someone asked me to tell you: Don't go to Silent Hill."
The subway screeched to a halt just as Jon finished his warning. Rose opened her mouth to reply, but the doors of the subway car swung open, and Jon stepped out, not once glancing back.
"Wait, please wait!" Rose's voice echoed after him. He had mentioned Silent Hill, the very place that haunted her daughter's sleepwalking nightmares. He must know something crucial.
Jon, however, continued on his way, exiting the subway station. He understood that any further conversation with Rose would be pointless at this moment.
For one thing, Rose's love for Sharon was fierce. Sharon's sleepwalking episodes were growing more dangerous, with close calls that had nearly ended in tragedy, like the time she almost leapt from a cliff. If not for Rose's timely intervention, Sharon might not have survived.
Moreover, even though Rose sensed something was amiss with Sharon's behavior, she wouldn't accept the truth about Silent Hill if Jon told her it was a cursed place of great evil. And if she did believe it, it would only strengthen her resolve to go there in search of her daughter.
So, Jon had decided to take matters into his own hands, as he had suggested to Sharon earlier. He would venture into Silent Hill himself and confront whatever lay hidden there.
Sharon, hand in hand with her mother, stood frozen for a moment, watching Jon walk away. There was a flicker of recognition in her eyes, but it faded as Rose tugged her gently, and they moved on.
After leaving the subway, Jon purchased a ticket to return to his office. There, he informed his colleague Nancy of his intention to travel to Silent Hill.
"Silent Hill?" Nancy's brow creased with concern as she heard the name. "Are you saying that the dark energy I sensed on the subway is linked to Silent Hill?"
"Do you know of it?" Jon inquired, noting Nancy's alarmed reaction.
Nancy nodded vigorously, tapping away at her laptop before swiveling the screen to face Jon.
"Absolutely. After my own brush with the supernatural as a child, I've kept tabs on paranormal occurrences. I stumbled upon this information online some time ago, but it slipped my mind until you mentioned it just now!"
Jon's eyes scanned the laptop screen, taking in the details of the American Ghost Domain Network's webpage dedicated to Silent Hill. The site painted a grim picture of the town, describing it as a place tainted by an eternal subterranean fire.
Nancy elaborated, "This site lists a bunch of supposedly haunted locations. After I left Elm Street, I looked into many of them, thinking there might be something to it. But they all turned out to be nothing—just stories. So, I wrote this site off as just another fake and never bothered with it again... until today, that is."
Jon nodded, his interest piqued by the website's content. "Nancy, can you send me the link to this site?"
"You want to keep checking it? It's not that simple; it's part of the dark web," Nancy cautioned.
"The dark web?" Jon echoed, surprised. He hadn't anticipated that a site like this would be tucked away in the darker corners of the internet.
"Yeah, some of the stuff on there is pretty graphic," Nancy explained as she clicked through pages filled with gruesome images—decapitated heads, bodies hanging lifelessly, some in a state of undress, mutilated in unspeakable ways.
Jon felt a wave of revulsion. His own history was violent, but his methods were clean, either incinerating bodies or using his supernatural abilities to deal with souls. This level of gore was something else entirely, the kind of content that belonged on the dark web.
Despite the horrific images, Nancy seemed unfazed, which Jon found remarkable. It could have been her past experiences or perhaps she had become desensitized over time. She had, after all, frequented this site before.
Taking a moment to steady himself, Jon spoke up, "I've never navigated the dark web. Could you show me how to access it?"
His interest in the website was clear. It wasn't just about Silent Hill; there might be other locations listed that warranted attention. Nancy had already done her due diligence, but as an ordinary person, she might have overlooked something that Jon, with his unique perspective and abilities, could detect.
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