La Cazadora, La Soldadera, y La Soñolienta Ciudad

[Proto Man]

“You alive, Reckner?”

The darkness shuddered. Cracks of light infiltrated the night as Abigail felt someone place a hand on her shoulder and give her another gentle tousle. When she opened her eyes, the world stayed a blurred haze for the next several moments.

Silent Hill!

Abigail Reckner, vision still foggy, jolted up off the ground and reached for the sword at her belt. She brushed against the scabbard, but there was no familiar handle for her to grasp.

“You’re okay,” the voice next to her muttered as a hand patted her on the shoulder.

After rubbing her eyes to clear away the residual haze and give her brain a few more moments to process, Abigail glanced to her left to see a young man crouched next to her. Perhaps in his early twenties, his hair was a disheveled heap on his head, and his outfit—baggy clothes and a gold-trimmed red hoodie—were in a state of disrepair. Despite looking like a street urchin, he had a disarming expression on his face, and Abigail certainly didn’t feel as uncomfortable as she should have. In a sense, he almost felt familiar.

“Who are you?” She asked before straining to stand. The Youth leaned forward and helped her make it to her feet before he gave her a shrug of his shoulders.

“Forgot that a while back,” he replied in a matter-of-fact tone that belied more questions than answers.

“You called me by my name.”

He nodded his head. “Yea, I guess I do, huh?” He furrowed his brow for a moment. “I guess I always know the names, though.”

The solider scowled. “You’re aware that doesn’t make sense, right?” She wanted to be angrier, but the kid seemed too familiar, like someone she couldn’t get mad at.

“You’ve seen where we are, right?” He asked with a faint grin. “A town, trapped in demon fog, trapped in a blighted wasteland, trapped in a pocket dimension… It only stops making sense if you stop to appreciate it.”

Abigail scowled as she turned her focus to the environment around them. From what she could tell, it was a shuttered gas station—the wall-sized windows were rickety, half-broken shutters. The missing or broken pieces of metal allowed moonlight to cut into the building. Shelves that may have one housed bags of chips or overpriced candy had been pushed against the windows. “Where are we?”

“Shell Gas,” the young man replied coolly as he walked over to the counter. Leaning over for a moment, he turned around and presented the woman with a chocolate bar. “Have you eaten lately?” He asked as Abigail took the food. When she paused to glimpse at the other side, the unkempt youth chuckled. “It’s not expired… none of this stuff seems to go bad. Except the dairy. Silent Hill ain’t dairy land… don’t do it.”

The soldier nodded her head but kept it to herself that she was taking a glimpse at the ingredients and the nutritional information. The boy in the red hoodie didn’t need to know that she liked to maintain a draconian physical and nutritional regime. Given the extra cardio, she figured that some chocolate wouldn’t hurt.

“I was with someone,” Abigail spoke after eating a bite of the chocolate. The bar was one hundred and fifty percent stale, but that didn’t stop her from taking a second and a third as she waited for a response.

After staring blankly at a broken shutter sheet, the youth scratched the side of his head as he nodded. “Maybe?”

“Maybe?” Abigail scowled. “What do to you mean, maybe?”

The boy shook his head. “I mean maybe, okay?” He added with a little less chill in his voice as he pressed his palm against his head. “Stuff gets cloudy, and I can’t always remember the details. It’s not intentional. Just gets hard to remember. Hard to make sense in the fog.”

“I assume this is metaphorical fog?” Abigail mumbled.

“Both, yea,” the Youth replied with a faint chuckle. “I picked you up… the Super 8?”

Abigail scowled. “Grocery store, I remember a grocery store.”

Her acquaintance nodded. “Yea, ‘Convenience Store 8’, that’s what it’s called.” He nodded as he fished into his pocket for what seemed to be some gum. “Alley. It was dark, though. I plucked you up, and we flew her.”

“Metaphorically, I imagine?” The soldier chuckled.

The Youth shook his head. “Nah, literally. It’s quicker that way,” he turned around, and suddenly, he was gone and there was a crow flapping toward the woman’s head.

With a yelp, Abigail ducked as the big black bird soared over her head. A moment later, she heard a crash and saw the young man lying against a collapsed metal rack.

“Bigger, though,” he muttered as he held out his arms. “I think.”

Abigail scowled as she turned away from the strange yet familiar young man and glimpsed through the broken shutters. With the fog the way it was, she couldn’t see more than ten feet beyond the store front. “How long have you been here?”

“Uhh,” the Youth replied as he stumbled away from the collapsed racks and found his way next to her. “In this building? Or…?”

“Were you born in the Omniverse?” Abigail asked. “Or did you arrive here, Kid with No Name?”

“I think I had a life before this,” he muttered, despite the clear frustration that simmered on his young, dirt-smeared features. “I remember two wolves… and also coffee shops and space stations. But this part of town? This is Old Silent Hill, and I think I’ve been here a few weeks now.” He pointed into the fog. “I got a friend.” He smiled genuinely for the first time in their encounter. “A lady, you’d probably like her a lot. Strong-willed, ass-kicker type, and she was trying to investigate.”

“Investigate what?”

“This place is full of bad juju,” the Youth answered. “She…” He ran a hand through his hair and scowled as he played a game of mental hide and seek for a few brief moments. “She wanted to figure out why. We got stuck here, you see.”

“So you were outside the fog?”

The Youth’s eyes light up. “Yea!” He declared as he smacked his hands together. “That’s right. All those years ago, the four of us…” Then he suddenly trailed off, his eyes alive one moment and glossed over and hazy the next.

“You have two other friends?”

He shook his head and wanted to speak once again, but he was interrupted by the wail of the air raid sirens. The noise seemed to trigger something buried deep beneath the surface, because panic spread across the young man’s features. He shook his head and rushed to the door. His hands scrambled through the pockets of his hoodie for the key. Abigail, wincing at how loud the noise was, glanced outside the compromised shutters and noticed that it was getting dark outside. “Too quick for a sunset,” she muttered.

The door opened with a jingle from the bell hanging just behind it. The Youth tossed a keyring to Abigail.

“Where are you going? It’s nighttime,” the woman asked.

The Youth was wide-eyed. “Hide or run,” he declared. “The sirens bring the dark. You think those shambling monsters were scary? Hide or run. This is the real Silent Hill.” The door clicked shut before Abigail could protest, and then, before she could process what was going on, the sirens died and blackness swallowed the world around her.

When the ephemeral darkness faded, the world around Abigail was not as it should be.