Wow, it's been a while since I updated….and this chapter's been written for over a year now. Wow, that's sad. I'm willing to bet that no one reading this now read it in any previous forms, so I won't bother noting any changes I've made.

Explination- In their respective games, Isaac and Felix never speak. This is not counting Isaacs' proclamation of '!' and Felix's 'Why?' and his lines at the end (as both of which are accounted for in his portion). I took it upon myself to create a mini-series as to why.

Silencing the Screams- Part I of II

Isaac

"Isaac, Wake up!"

I mumbled into my pillow something incoherent, similar enough to 'five more minutes'. I think I did, at least. I don't remember much of that night.

"Please, dear, wake up!"

Wouldn't she ever stop? I wanted to sleep right now...

"The Mt. Aleph Boulder! It's going to fall!"

That got me up.

"Wha...?" I recall groggily responding to the urgent alarm.

"Come on, Isaac, we have to go now!" Mom pulled on the sheets I'd gotten tangled in to get me out of bed, and I took the time to register that it was still really dark out. Strange. Mom turned to walk out of the room and I, sleepy as I was, fell into step behind her.

Using her ever-present motherly sixth sense, she turned around and gave me one of those 'Now look what you've done!' glares mothers so famous for.

"Isaac! You've forgotten something!" I blinked. What could I have missed that I would need at night in the cold and rain...?

"It's pouring outside! You need your tunic!"

...oh, right.

Mom used her 'Catch' psynergy to go grab my tunic off the wall. It was then that I realized something was really wrong here.

Mom rarely used her psynergy, preferring to do her chores by manual labor. If she would rather use catch then take a few seconds to walk across the room, we were definitely in trouble.

With these thoughts passing through my mind, I followed mom silently across my room. After all, (by my fathers' indisputable logic) if no one wants to hear it, you'd better not be caught saying it. And what could I possibly say at a time like this?

I vaguely remember nodding my head, though I don't know what mom had asked me. Or if anything had been asked. Perhaps I was going through a temporary lapse of sanity. I've forgotten so much of that night already.

We came down the stairs, almost tripping on the table in the kitchen as the wind blew our candle out. Dad ushered us outside, but I couldn't hear what he was saying in all the noise of the storm. I felt a vague note of some emotion bordering being upset. I put it off as nothing.

As we left the house, the noise only grew louder. I could see my parents were forced to yell to get their words across, but I could only make out a few individual syllables, and none of them made any sense when I put them together. When mom asked me if I could get to the plaza on my own, I just nodded. She ran off with dad, I guess to help evacuate or something.

As I began my southward trek down to the plaza, a boulder fell onto my path. I panicked upon realizing I couldn't move it. After regaining some of my sanity lost from lack of sleep, boulders and the storm, I ran north to take the roundabout rout.

I could barely see through all the rain falling.

That frightened me.

The only reason I knew which way to go was that I'd taken the rout hundreds of times before. But it still seemed almost unfamiliar tonight.

Soon I came upon Garret. The dolt was trying to save his stuff. To this day, I don't know what valuables he kept in that chest, I'm just glad he didn't try to lug them around Weyward. After a minor bit of convincing, he followed me, abandoning his chest to the downpour or rain and rocks.

We continued on for a bit, and had just crossed the northern bridge when a deafening noise reached our ears. The two of us turned around, instinctively bracing for an attack.

That surprised me.

I'd never been attacked by a monster or anything.

And neither had Garret.

So where did that instinct come from?

But that didn't matter right then.

What mattered was the source of the noise.

The boulder had fallen.

We stood, shell-struck as the priests' assistants and a few of the villagers held it at bay with their dwindling psynergy. One of them was calling to us, but again I could not hear. It was rather easy to tell he was telling us to keep going, though.

But looking up at them, watching the fluorescent psynergy rings slowly get smaller, and less frequent as the light surrounding their users dimmed in the storm, the danger became real.

If we didn't run, we were going to die.

So, without my normal methodical thinking beforehand, I ran.

I was stopped by another boulder, I think, because I took another round-about way of getting to where I needed to be.

Garret was following behind me, and only managed to catch up once I had stopped. But I hadn't stopped because I had reached the plaza.

I had found a dead man.

I didn't know him well, but he was a friend of my parents. Everyone in Vale was a friend of everyone's parents.

And he was dead.

His chest slashed open; I just couldn't bring my eyes to tear away from the lifeless form. And it was even more real.

People could die.

People had died.

And we had to run,

Or we'd be among them...

So we ran. Or, at least, we tried to.

We were attacked on the way.

This surprised me, too.

I had never seen a monster, never fought one, never killed one, but when I faced that monster, I somehow knew what to do.

Being faster than Garret, I got the first swipe at it. It was unprepared for resistance, so I cut it straight down the middle. It bled.

It was real.

I was frozen, even for a few seconds after Garret attacked the vermin and felled it. But for some reason, it didn't lie down and die.

It just...

...faded away...

I was scared. They were not real. Not really. They didn't bleed to death. It didn't really die. If they didn't really die, the weren't really scared. But I was.

It scared me.

I was scared.

So I ran.

I continued running, aware but unresponsive towards the dull ache in my muscles.

If we didn't run, we would die.

The boulder is falling.

People can die.

People are dying.

The monsters are real.

The monsters aren't like us.

I was scared.

I ran.

I stopped when the first sound I had heard since my mother woke me reached my ears.

"FELIX! NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

It was Jenna.

Her shrill voice cut through the air, fueled by fear and desperation. Garret caught up to me, but neither of us could see. We hadn't been able to the whole time.

The gods must have decided to play some cruel joke on us, for the rain lightened.

Just a bit.

Just enough for us to see.

Felix had fallen into the river, and no one could reach him.

My friend could die.

Mom came up to us, asking for our help. Before she had finished her thought, I was off to the plaza to help Jenna. To save Felix.

Garret was still behind me, yelling something again. But I still couldn't hear. I wondered if it was just me.

I reached the plaza. Everyone there seemed confused and scared. Like I did.

This fact didn't reassure me in the least.

But they were also talking.

They could hear each other.

The storm blocked them out from my world.

Why?

I didn't have time to ponder that question, as I had come upon Garrets' grandfather and Jenna. They talked, I couldn't hear. A man came down from the town's psynergy crystal. Though I still couldn't hear them, I understood the message.

Take him, and go help Felix.

We all ran.

We got to the bridge, and I realized that, along with Jenna's parent's trying to reach Felix, my father was there.

That scared me, too.

The rest of them began running down the stairs, but I stayed for a second.

I didn't want to go down them.

But I didn't know why.

Jenna was down there, Felix was down there, mom was down there, Garret was down there, and Dad was down there.

That last one scared me most.

All I knew was that, as soon as I went down those stairs, something bad would happen. But I went down anyway.

Then I remembered.

The boulder was falling.

A crashing sound that rose above the storm reached my ears. Correction: The boulder had fallen.

It appeared over the top of the waterfall. That's it. It just appeared. And it fell down the waterfall.

And just before it his the dock,

I screamed.

I screamed in fear

I screamed in pain

I screamed in sorrow

I screamed

Knowing somehow

That no matter how much I kept screaming, I would be screaming forever.

I blinked.

Then they were gone.

I

Was

Scared.

Scared that one of my closest friends was dead.

Scared that Jenna would grow up without her family.

Scared that I'd never be able to hear again after this.

Scared that I'd never stop being scared.

Scared that I'd never see dad.

I was scared.

So I ran.

I heard voices.

I stopped.

They scared me.

Like death

Like the boulder

Like the deafness

Like the night

Garret called to me.

That's funny.

I can hear him now.

The voices appear over me, and I looked up.

They were monsters.

They had to be, with their ears like that, that coloring, and those weapons.

Sharp weapons.

A flash in my mind, and I could see my machete, coated in thick vermin blood.

Weapons that could cut.

A flash entered my mind, the dead man with his chest all slashed up.

They jumped down from above us.

A flash entered my mind, the boulder hovering for a fraction of a second before plummeting.

They landed, and they glared. A different, more saddened glare than the one I had encountered earlier...

Another flash, the vermin ready to kill.

I was scared.

I attacked.

With that instinct I didn't know I had.

I cut his arm, he was surprised.

Like I had been so many times...

Another flash, and the smaller boulder had just crashed in front of me, barely missing my nose.

And he bleed.

Like the monster did.

Flash, and the blue creature was now sporting a fine red line that seemed to be swelling...

Like the man did.

Flash, and the man was staring upwards, his lifeless eyes seeming to beg for someone to pull him out from the mud puddle in which he lay. The mud puddle now sporting thick red tendrils of the mans' blood...

Like I did.

Like I did a second later, when she caught me we the blunt end of her scythe, the keen edge just nicking my shoulder and drawing blood.

The two strangers looked at each other, and held a hurried conversation that I could not hear.

A flash, my parents yelling to one another among the roaring storm.

I fell into darkness.

A final flash as I screamed in pain.

The darkness of the night when mom woke me up.

The Next Day

Garret and I woke up today, and everyone has been concerned.

Why were we unconscious? Did we see the boulder fall? Had there been any sign of the four on the dock?

I didn't answer. I couldn't.

Last night, when words were needed most, I could do nothing but scream.

I can never stop those screams.

All I can do is silence them.