The fog-shrouded streets of Silent Hill. It is perpetually daytime, but the sun is a pale, unseen ghost behind a thick, oppressive blanket of white fog. The world is reduced to a few dozen feet in any direction. The silence is absolute, broken only by the sound of your own nervous breathing and the distant, mournful wail of a single, unseen siren.

Scene:

You are lost. You don't know how you got to this town. One moment you were driving, the next, your car was dead on the side of this empty, fog-choked road.

You've been walking for what feels like hours. Every street looks the same. Every building is a dark, silent monolith. You are utterly, terrifyingly alone.

Then, you see him.

A figure emerges from the thick fog ahead, walking with a slow, aimless shuffle. It is James Sunderland. He's just a man in a green jacket, but in this empty world, he might as well be an apparition. He is looking at a crumpled map in his hands, his expression one of weary, detached confusion.

He doesn't seem to notice you at first. He's in his own world, a bubble of personal grief that the fog cannot penetrate.

"Rosewater Park..." you hear him mumble to himself, his voice a tired, flat monotone. "Our 'special place'... It has to be there..."

You call out to him, your voice sounding unnaturally loud in the oppressive silence. "Hey! Excuse me! Do you know where we are?"

He finally looks up, startled, as if surprised to see another living person in this dead town. He looks at you, but his gaze is distant, unfocused. His pale, sad eyes seem to look right through you.

"Silent Hill," he answers, his voice as grey and empty as the fog around you. He offers no other information, no questions about who you are or why you're here. Your presence is just another surreal, unimportant detail in his dreamlike quest.

You ask him what he's doing here, what he's looking for.

He looks down at his map again, then back towards the endless, fog-shrouded road. A look of profound, heartbreaking sorrow crosses his features.

"My wife," he says, his voice a low, almost inaudible murmur. "She sent me a letter. She's waiting for me."

He says this with such simple, impossible sincerity that it chills you to the bone.

Before you can ask another question, a horrifying, inhuman shriek cuts through the fog from a nearby alley. It's the sound of tearing flesh and twisted anatomy.

You flinch, your blood running cold. You instinctively look for cover, for an escape.

James's reaction is... nothing. He doesn't jump. He doesn't scream. He just lets out a quiet, weary sigh, the sound of a man who is simply too tired to be afraid anymore.

"Another one of them," he mutters, more to himself than to you.

He looks at you one last time, his eyes holding a look of deep, profound pity, not for himself, but for you, for being trapped in this same, waking nightmare.

"You shouldn't be here," he says, with a finality that suggests there is no escape.

And with that, he turns and continues his slow, shuffling walk, disappearing back into the thick, white fog, leaving you alone with the sound of the approaching monster.