Silent Hill: Artificial Human

Part One

Chapter One: He Isn't Here Again?

The pool of complete darkness which took refuge of my entire body seemed to finally be sinking away, letting me free. But in its absence took place another type of darkness, this one more frightening than the former. It covered my entire being and trapped me inside of its cold and icy body, never again letting me witness or experience the joy that is the light. The darkness has consumed the world and brought happiness down on its knees, begging it for forgiveness for something it didn't do, like an innocent man persecuted and sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit, or one he couldn't dare visualize let alone act upon.

But this can not be reality can it? A strange darkness which gives an unreal and irrational sense of cold and hopelessness. But it much be very real. This can't be a dream, it has no pleasures which a dream contains, and it lacks the odd sense of familiarity which accompanies a nightmare. What is it then?

I struggled to move, if not for the piercing and utterly unbearable pain I might have been able to. My eyes, they must be closed, that would explain this illusory darkness. No, they are open I confirmed after thrusting my hands to my face in futile attempt to throw back the ever creeping darkness. A bright pulsing flash of light split through the back of my eyes somewhere in my mind. Following it was an unbelievable rush of pain, like a whip was cracked at the back of my brain, searing through like a hot knife through flesh.

Little by the little the blackness started to fade away, leaving little slithers of gray which marked the inhuman silhouettes of my fingers before my open eyes. But this new field of vision extended no more than a few inches I noticed as I slowly moved my hand back, watching my fingers fade away in the darkness until eventually being consumed by it. Just another victim of the darkness. No this is it, I can't stay here any longer. I don't feel safe. I've always felt that way, with darkness comes pain, fear, and uncertainty. Things I hate to even vision that could possible exist.

I hesitantly dragged my aching body up. It was like glass, unable to move but in one direction, and when it's forced to move outside its plane of comfort it shatters in pain. My bones shattered and cracked as I stood up and left small but intense occasional bursts of pain in my body. From somewhere on the back of my neck I felt an icy trickle begin to descend from the back of my head down my back and onto wherever it is that I'm laying. Someplace hard and terrifically unbearable. I struggled up to my feet and leaned against the wall on my shoulder. It gave away after another blow of pain, I fell to my knees, cracking them on the hard concrete. Slowly, gaining more and more confidence, I stood up again. This time, being conscious of my busted shoulder I groped the wall with my hand. What I felt there, much like the darkness, was unworldly. The walls have a fur like quality, much like the shiny coat of a husky. The feeling was extremely small and almost nonexistent. Upon closer feeling, I discovered they can't be much more that a centimeter long. I rubbed my hand in downward motion across the wall. A warm, syrup thick liquid was squirting, in barely noticeable amounts, through tiny cracks in the wall. There were cool damp spots in places and in others the wall was near crumbling, one part I found with my hand I was able to pull copious amounts of wet and molded plaster off. It fell to the floor with a barely audible thud. I walked forward, slowly, using the wall as a guide. Suddenly an onset of the most horrid smell penetrated my nostrils leaving me choking for air. I've never smelt anything like it before, the most putrid thing you can think of, like rotting corpses left over from a battle in the scorching heat of the sun, scavengers and flies picking at their green, lifeless bodies, a painful confused expression on their faces, asking why God decided so abruptly to take their lives away. Why would they even be given life just to experience a cruel, painful, and needless death, left to be the dinner for viscous birds and insects, who feed off of others suffering just for their own gain.

As I walked on, I began to notice the floor was getting more, how can I put this, almost softy and squishy, like a pillow or something. It got to the point where it's consistence nearly rivaled that of a thick mud and eventually quicksand. As I slowly started to fall into the floor I struggled to leap to the side but the tremendous pain which emanated from all parts of my body caused to flinch and grab my sides, uttering a loud moan of pain which echoed throughout the building a couple of times. I could feel my feet slowly begin to vanish underneath the slimy darkness, my legs following. It slowly climbed up my body, consuming my chest, my shoulder, my neck. An instant later, I was standing in the same spot I previously was, but the hellish floor returned to its normal state. I stomped my foot on it three times to assure its hardness and continued on. A few feet from where I started I ran right into a large wooden object protruding from the wall. Just about a foot and a half left it curved and continued on straight where it once again started left and straight again. I felt over the top of the object. It felt normal, cold wood. Inside the first box was a chair. An old, cracked, and moldy one.

After examining everything else in my direct surroundings it was then that I discovered where I was, when it dawned on me. A courtroom, this is a courtroom. Relieved by knowing that I was in an earthly place I moved around more freely and the terrible pains in my body seemed to calm down as the icy feeling of assurance spread throughout my body. A few moments later the nagging question, which has been so frequently tapping at my conscious only to find utter indifference finally gained the results it was looking for as it entered my mind and destroyed any possible hopeful thoughts I had but moments ago. And just as quick as it came it left like a wave finally reaching its destination on the sandy shores in from of some exotic resort only to be pulled back again against its will into the ocean, never truly witnessing what life must be like on the other side.

How did I get here? Why must I ask myself this, surely I'm sane enough to be aware of what's been happening to me. Yet how can I be sane if I am in a seemingly otherworldly courthouse which rests in a state of complete darkness. Why can't I remember? Come to think of it I can't remember anything, my name, how I got here, memories, why my body feels like an oven, or ….. I can't remember who I am, what I've gone through, how I lived my life.

The door, I have to get out of here, this place is the barrier blocking my mind from being free, it's the one thing that keeps me in this psychotic sickness. I have to leave, this place feels unsafe, I know it sounds like a bunch of crap but it's true. This place makes me shiver and twitch with an awful sense of foreboding that something bas is going to and will happen.

I ran down the rows of chairs, towards what I thought would be the exit. Nothing happened though, as I ran the longer the aisle seemed to get, and the darker too. The faint shadows of what was once my hands vanished and an extreme sense of icy coldness seemed to appear out of nowhere. I could feel the cold but it mustn't really be there because my body made to reaction to indicate that it was there or that it was affecting it. My heart rate heightened and I could feel and hear my heart beating. I felt the blood in my pulsing throughout my body as it traveled towards its destination. Everything began to spin and once again the floor took up its unnatural state of softness, until it reached the state of quicksand as it did before. Don't worry, I told myself. Like before it would return back to its hard cold state.

The farther and faster I ran the longer the aisle got. My movements were slowed by the ever disappearing floor. Like I was running in water up to the lower part of my chest. From somewhere behind my I could hear loud inhuman footsteps on the floor. The floor, what floor? But the noise didn't lie, I may be in this watery hell but someone, or something else definitely isn't. I began to swim as the sound got a louder, and a gurgling growl followed by a dragging noise like leaves blowing across the street in mid fall, crinkling against the pavement. It was coming close and I was swimming harder than ever, slimy fingers of seaweed grabbing at my legs, trying to bring me down, to drown me. The darkness began to evaporate little by little, allowing me to see the tiny ripples of icy water in front of me and faint shadows of what lie ahead, nothing. But those footsteps continued their loud obnoxious beating on concrete. I stopped and treaded water, thrashing away the eager seaweed from my feet. I turned around three hundred sixty degrees, confirming that I was surrounded by water, a tiny speck of man in the never ending abyss. The sound continued thought, and with no identifiable source, it began to get me angry.

Something from somewhere in front of me was peacefully floating along the water. I could hear it get closer, and I prepared my self, fists up, for whatever it was, struggling to stay above the water for a moment. A large, wooden thing hit me right in the mouth knocking out one of my teeth, immersing blood into the water like cream in your coffee on a cold winter day. It was apparently a raft of some sort. Without hesitation, and mainly due to that noise from somewhere behind me getting louder, I threw myself on it. To my surprise I was able to get on with supreme ease and it floated surprisingly swiftly with the newly developed current. The noise became fainter and fainter until it was just background noise. I tried to position myself more in the center of the raft but with great difficulty due, still, to the undying darkness. But instead of finding a nice comfortable, not to mention, dry spot, I found a mushy object soaked with that same syrup thick liquid which was subtlety spraying out of the walls of the courthouse building. I felt around and in my hand, moments later, lay a mushy, sticky clump of what appeared to be string. I brought it up to my face and shoved it under my nose to try to identify it. All I picked up was the faint smell of blood and a familiar oily scent, which I've smelled thousands of time previously. I rubbed my hand up and down the object, it was covered it some kind of cloth, sticky just like the clump of whatever it was. I felt around more until my fingers rested on a smooth, yet unusually wet, skin like structure. After a few moments of attempted understanding, it dawned on me. This is skin! This is damn person! Dead obviously but still, holy hell! I slid backwards in fear and fell of the raft back into the water. The water was unusually still and made no noise or movement as I exploded into it. I fell down into the darkness unaware of how deep I would fall.

Unexpectedly, I hit bottom, a very hard bottom mind you. Concrete again. Some different building though, it smelled like flowers. I feel fine, fresh and reenergized. But there it is again, the nerve ripping sound, but this time not in the distance, right behind me. I ran forward in the darkness, not even conscious of what it may be that I run into. I ran, my footsteps failing in comparison to the loud bangs of the ones behind me. I ran, still not reaching anything, and then. A loud crack echoed throughout my ears as I smashed my skull into a hard wall, breaking all the bones in my face. I fell down to the floor, blood pouring out of my mouth, nose, eyes. For a brief instance, before once again I dove down into the unending pool of darkness I witnessed the creature standing above me letting a warm liquid fall onto my face. Dark shadows and green eyes with small yellowish pupils, a heavy steam sprouting from its nostrils onto my pain ridden face. I dove in.

"Where is he mom, we're going to be late again!" A young girl whimpered to her mother as she tugged on her blue skirt which descended to he knees. The two are standing on a comfortable porch just outside of a beautiful country home. Dusk had won the battle with the setting sun and taken over the night sky. Specks of stars littered the sky and a faint, barely bright shadow indicated the position of the blue moon. A car drove by, the little girl looked up with great anticipation, but as the car passed, dropped her head back down on her chest looking annoyed.

"Now don't worry honey, I'm sure he'll be here soon. After all he promised you didn't he. He wouldn't miss out on your big night." The girl's mother said in that unique comforting and assuring tone that only woman possess. The girl smiled momentarily and then returned to her depressed position. She's dressed in a costume of what appears to be a fairytale princess. It's the little girl's first school play and between the overweight feelings of nervousness and annoyance with her brother, small tears began to slide down her pale cheek. A dark rain cloud floated through the sky blocking out the stars and leaving the world in darkness. A car passed by, the girl following the taillights with a sad frown. Her brother let her down.

Miles down the road, just at the outskirts of town, a man lay bloody, bruised, and beaten in a ditch just off the side of the road. The loud songs of the crickets and the engines from the passing cars overran his moans and occasional cries for help. He has dark brown, curly hair which loosely and freely fell down to just above his shoulders. His eyes, a shade of dark blue, a physical anomaly, were covered in blood, dried and new. His face, while utterly perfect, not showing any signs of a single blemish was badly beaten and bruised. A tremendous amount of blood was resting upon it. He struggled to raise his hand up in a last ditch effort to get some notice, awareness of his dire predicament, but when he finally managed to lift it up it fell back down into the dirt. A swirl of darkness covered him up, like a blanket.