The customers inside the hardware store all froze mid-motion.
One by one they drifted to the front doors, staring up at the sky with blank faces.
This sleepy little backwater town hadn't heard an air-raid siren like that in decades.
Soren stood by the entrance, listening to the piercing wail, a nostalgic look flickering across his face.
The sound was so damn familiar it almost made him think he was about to get yanked into the Otherworld again.
While everyone was still trading confused glances, a blood-covered old man came stumbling out of the parking lot, arms flailing, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"There's something in the mist! John's dead! It dragged him right in! Run! For God's sake, run!"
The store manager shoved the door open and hauled the old guy inside. Soren stepped back in with him.
He wanted to see for himself if these mist creatures had changed at all from the original story.
In the movie, most of the smaller ones weren't actually that tough. A regular person with a handgun or even a decent blade could take them down if they kept their head.
"Bullshit! This is all complete bullshit! I'm getting back in my damn car!"
A heavy-set guy shoved through the crowd and stormed toward the exit.
People yelled at him to stop, warning him it was suicide out there, but he didn't even slow down. He barreled straight outside.
The second he cleared the doorway, a thick wall of fog rolled in like a tidal wave, swallowing the entire street in seconds.
One heartbeat the parking lot was visible. The next, nothing but endless white.
A blood-curdling scream tore out of the mist. The fat guy was gone.
Everyone inside recoiled from the windows, faces pale with terror.
Everyone except Soren. He stayed right at the glass door, calmly studying the churning fog outside.
"It's gotta be toxic fumes from the chemical plant!" an older man clutched a shelf, voice shaking. "The storage tanks up in the hills must've blown!"
Nobody answered him. After that scream and the impossible speed of the mist, nobody was buying the "just an accident" line.
"Death has come."
A sharp-faced woman in a wool sweater pushed through the crowd.
She glanced at Soren—still standing untouched by the door—then forced her way forward, staring out at the white wall like she was delivering a sermon.
"This is God's punishment! The Reaper has come to harvest the souls of the wicked!"
Soren shot her a flat look.
If he remembered right, this was the crazy cult lady from the movie—the one who turned fear into her own little power trip.
He'd always hated people like her.
Sure, when people were terrified they reached for anything—God, prayer, whatever—to feel less alone.
But turning other people's suffering into your personal grift? That was a special kind of scum.
The way she was acting reminded him of Christabella back in Silent Hill, the one who purged anyone who didn't fit her twisted worldview.
Put those two in a room and they'd probably swap brainwashing tips.
Hell, maybe he should just toss her into the Otherworld later and let Pyramid Head use her as a new toy.
...
The sky outside kept getting darker.
"Mr. Soren… thank you for warning us earlier," Drayton said, voice thick with lingering fear and gratitude. "If you hadn't said something, my wife might've…"
His wife clutched little Billy tight, looking at Soren with the same thankful eyes.
Billy peeked out from her arms, big curious eyes studying the cool, dangerous-looking big brother.
"You should thank yourselves for actually listening," Soren replied casually.
In the original story, Drayton had been the take-charge guy—led a group out, kept everyone alive until the very end. Then the car ran out of gas. In pure desperation he'd put a bullet in his own son and the others… only to realize right after that the army was right there, tanks rolling in with rescue trucks full of civilians behind them.
Talk about the ultimate gut-punch ending.
"Bullshit! This is all fake!" came a shout from the other side of the store.
Soren turned. A big, strong Black guy was arguing with anyone who'd listen.
"That's Norton, my neighbor," Drayton explained quietly. "Lawyer. Stubborn as hell."
Even though nothing major had hit them yet, the store had already split into little factions.
One group—Norton's "rational" crew—insisted the whole thing was mass hysteria.
Another bunch clustered around the cult lady in the corner, muttering prayers and claiming this was God's wrath.
The rest were fence-sitters, bouncing back and forth between the two.
In the back, Clancy kept his camera rolling, quietly filming everything.
Soren leaned against a shelf, scanning the room.
The small crowd sticking close to him was almost exactly the core group from the movie—Drayton and his family, the hardware store manager, the schoolteacher Amanda, that badass old lady with the shotgun, plus Andrei and Clancy who'd come with him.
"So… what do we do now?" Drayton asked.
Everyone looked at Soren.
From the moment the siren went off, he was the only one who'd stayed completely calm—and he'd warned Drayton before the mist even arrived. They all figured he knew something.
"I'm stepping outside to take a look," Soren said plainly.
"You're out of your mind! You're not actually buying Norton's crap, are you?!" Drayton stared at him in disbelief.
Before he could argue more, a deafening crash exploded at the front of the store.
The entire glass door shattered.
Several huge flying insects burst through the opening—bulging eyes, scorpion-like stingers curling behind them, wings buzzing wildly as they tore around the store.
Screams erupted everywhere.
"Scorpion flies…" Soren recognized them instantly.
Their venom caused rapid swelling that could choke a person out in minutes.
He raised his hand.
A low hum filled the air.
The twin deer blades snapped together into the composite bow. Purple demonic energy flared like fireflies in the dark, lighting up the entire store.
The raw pressure of that power shut every screaming mouth.
Soren drew the string back, demonic power condensing into a glowing arrow.
Twang. Twang.
Two faint streaks of light shot out.
The charging scorpion flies exploded mid-air, bodies and blood vaporized by pure demonic force.
It happened so fast the crowd just stood there, mouths open, brains short-circuiting.
Was that… magic?
"ROAR!!!"
A violent gust slammed into the building.
A massive four-winged pterodactyl creature crawled through the broken window, claws scraping across the shattered glass.