04-03-2015, 12:50 PM
Inside the motel, Shang crept through the poorly lit hallway, flanked by his tarkatan warriors. As they made their way down the hallway, his eyes remained locked on the wall to his right. Eighty percent window, the wall was a glaring threat if anyone wanted to get at him. On the other side of the grime-stained glass, the fog was thick enough to prevent the sorcerer from seeing anything, but even so, he didn’t want to leave himself open in case something came crashing through.
When they were halfway through the area, all four of them heard the sound of something dense scraping against wood near the far side of the corridor. The tartaka swept around their master and startled to snarl as their arm blades popped into position. With his poor sight, Shang had difficulty seeing the creature until it was within five yards. From first glance, he could tell that it had once been a human, but at some point, someone had torn off its arms and most of its head. As compensation, what remained of its torso seemed to be wrapped in another layer of flesh that pulsed and stretched, seemingly to be on the verge of tearing apart as the creature writhed and convulsed.
The center tarkata went to take a step forward but was stopped by one of Shang’s now gaunt, skeletal hands. “Let me,” the sorcerer muttered as he gripped the pipe in both hands and stepped out in front of his monstrous slaves. With a grin, the decrepit warrior waited for the twitching subhuman beast to draw within a yard before he swung the heavy metal pipe with every ounce of strength he could muster from his atrophied muscles and weary bones. A gurgling noise resounded from the creature as it fell sideways, leaving itself open for a second thunderous blow that shattered the stump of a neck jutting up from its body. After the second strike, the monster crumpled and stopped moving as blood began to pool out from underneath it.
Dropping the pipe, Shang gently lowered himself next to the dead beast and set his shriveled hands upon what had once been its chest. It wasn’t a person, but from its appearance, it had to have been at some point. If that was true, surely it had to have something close enough to a soul lurking beneath its warped, twisted form.
The process took longer than it should have—or did it just feel that way given his current condition? Either way, a flash of rainbow-colored light danced momentarily along the creature’s chest before fading to reveal the translucent green cloud that Shang so coveted. The corpse shuddered as the prize within vanished into the sorcerer’s chest. For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the hallway.
Then a great agony consumed Shang. A great, blinding agony that made him grind his teeth to swallow a scream and clench his eyes and fists to will his way through the attack. It felt as if he’d just consumed pure fire, and for a brief moment, he feared he would black out and slip into the abyss. As his strength seemed on the verge of failing, the burning suddenly subsided, and after a few moments longer, Shang slowly opened his eyes. A look down revealed that the corpse had become a bubbling heap of flesh, and a glance at his hands showed that he’d recovered a little.
“Damn it,” he groaned as he rose to his feet. He felt much improved compared to how he’d been a few minutes ago, but he’d need to find something more substantial if he wanted to shake off the lethargy of feeling the age that he appeared. “I need something real.” He muttered as the tarkata formed their crescent formation behind him. Although he no longer needed it to maintain his balance and keep himself upright, Shang held onto the metal pipe. At this point, he’d grown somewhat attached to the now dented and bloodstained piece of steel. With both hands griped to the weapon, Shang traversed the remainder of the hallway and exited out through the pair of metal doors at the other end.
On the other side the door, the ‘fresh’ air of Silent Hill wafted over the sorcerer, reminding him that he was still far from safety. Leaving the motel behind him, Shang led his retinue through what remained of the empty parking lot and to the adjacent street, which remained bare. As he turned to head north toward the hospital, he noticed the glint in the corner of his eye right before the gun’s rapport shattered the silence.
Throwing his body forward, Shang clenched his jaw as the pavement erupted upward, ravaged by a high-caliber bullet. Behind him, the tarkatan warriors unsheathed their arm blades and started toward at the building from which the gun had fired. “No!” The sorcerer barked as he regained his balance and gestured up the street. “Let’s move.” Although it was clear they sought blood, the tarkata sheathed their weapons and sprinted to follow their leader, who was jogging up the street as fast as he could in an effort to get out of the gunman’s line-of-sight. As he cleared the next intersection, he heard a second gunshot, but like the first, it missed the quartet by a few feet, and after another block, the sorcerer paused to catch his breath. If the shooter wanted to follow them, he or she would have to move to a fresh vantage point on an adjacent street.
Once he caught his breath, Shang checked the nearby street marker and pulled out his map. If he had any luck, Alchemilla Hospital would be just another two blocks north of their current position. After folding the paper back up, the sorcerer secured it and started up the empty street. He managed to make it a block before he caught movement in a nearby alley. It was flash of unnatural red atop of blurred, vaguely human shape, and once it was out of sight, he heard what he could only describe as a titillating giggle.
Trap. Shang’s legs moved forward, carrying him toward the barely-lit alleyway. You’re aware that this is a trap. He held up a hand to order the tarkata to hold their positions as he neared the cramped passageway. Idiot. Passing between the two cramped apartment buildings, Shang glanced down to see if he couldn’t spot whoever had lured him here. When he saw nothing, he took a few additional steps toward the blackness at the other end of the alley. As he passed under a rusted fire escape, he failed to see the shape slip down over the elevated platform and land gracefully behind him. In fact, for someone trained over the course of a few centuries, he failed to detect anything until the slender hands slipped around his waist and he felt the hot breath on his ear.
“Hello there, stranger.”
With an almost childish yelp, Shang wrenched away from the hands loosely hugging his waist and turned to confront the woman. Even in the obscured light of the alley, he already knew that he’d seen her once before, albeit with less clothes. The red hair and purple eyes were unmistakable, even though the first time he’d laid his own eyes on them, he’d been staring through a keyhole. “You.” He muttered, a mixture of confusion and uneasiness washing over him as he glanced up and around for any indication of her angry, growling companion. Even though he saw nothing, he kept the pipe gripped firmly in his hands.
“We’re alone,” the woman cooed as she stepped forward and placed a soft hand upon the sorcerer’s cheek. “And I know it’s you, even if you turned back your biological clock,” she added with a wink as she continued to edge forward.
“I have no idea who you are or what you are talking about,” Shang retorted, although he made no immediate effort to step away or gently move her back. The longer he stared into those eyes, the more his resolve faded. His interactions with most women had been farce or his attempt to ensure he stuck to social conventions, but the millennium-old sorcerer found himself putty beneath the touch and gaze of this sensual creature that stood before him.
“Don’t try to fool me,” she whispered as she stepped up and placed her lips near his ear. Shang heard the pipe clang loudly on the ground but couldn’t remember letting it go. “No one can fool me.” As if to prove a point, she put a soft kiss against the man’s ear before pulling away to stare him in the eye. “I know you liked what you saw,” she continued as one of her hands snaked lower on the sorcerer’s body. “Don’t deny it. It’s been so long since we’ve had company… I’ve grown so tired of the same old piece of meat.” When her hand closed around something it shouldn’t have, that served as enough of a shock to jolt Shang from his stupor.
With an abrupt grunt, the sorcerer pulled himself away from the woman, his eyes hardening as he tried to shake the haze from his mind. “Who and what are you?” He demanded as he glanced down at his weapon.
“Who I am?” She asked, tilting her head before responding with a shrug of her shoulders. “I was probably someone,” she replied with a wink as she ran her hands down the sides of her skin-hugging bodysuit.
“What does that mean?” The sorcerer asked as he watched her reached up and start to play with the zipper just below her neckline. His mind was a little clearer now than it had been when she had ‘ambushed’ him… he knew what game she was playing as she teased pulling down the zipper.
“I’m just me.” She cooed. “You don’t understand how much I crave an escape from all this… from all them. Even when we’re apart, I still can’t have peace. It’s as if we stop existing when we get too far apart from one another.” For the first time, the woman blinked, and her expression showed a flash of sadness before reverting back. Her polished, painted fingers slipped the zipper down to the middle of her chest, revealing quite clearly that there was nothing beneath the suit. “Now why don’t you help me feel a little more alive,” she whispered as she started toward the sorcerer.
It was then that Shang knew he had to make a decision whether or not to run, hit her, or succumb to some baser instincts.
Fortunately for him, he was saved by the wail of the air raid siren, which created an instant and horrifying change in the woman.
“Fuck you!” She screamed, her words directed up at the air rather than the man in front of her. “You did this on purpose!” The redhead began to glance around like a frantic rabbit, as if she half-expected the gradually decaying walls around them to give way to a horde of monsters. “Fuck you.” She rasped to the sky as she dashed at Shang. He reacted too slowly to prevent her from wrapped her arms around the small of his back and crushing her lips against his. He felt her tongue slipped into his mouth and a soft moan escape her mouth before her nails tightened against him.
She suddenly broke away from him, and for the first time, he saw horror in her violet eyes. Then, without any real indication, she crumbled into pink dust as the siren’s warbling shriek faded away, leaving Shang in an alley transformed from its previous version. The walls and the street around him had aged, revealing cracks, fissures, and the signs of long neglect, while the dumpster next to him had rusted almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Outside of the alley, the streets were now bathed in a pale red light, a rather menacing change from the blend of yellow and white streetlights. Somewhere back behind him, in the darkness of the alley, he heard a low moan.
Unlike the noise that had drawn him here in the first place, there was no humanity in the sounds he now heard.
Damn it.
When they were halfway through the area, all four of them heard the sound of something dense scraping against wood near the far side of the corridor. The tartaka swept around their master and startled to snarl as their arm blades popped into position. With his poor sight, Shang had difficulty seeing the creature until it was within five yards. From first glance, he could tell that it had once been a human, but at some point, someone had torn off its arms and most of its head. As compensation, what remained of its torso seemed to be wrapped in another layer of flesh that pulsed and stretched, seemingly to be on the verge of tearing apart as the creature writhed and convulsed.
The center tarkata went to take a step forward but was stopped by one of Shang’s now gaunt, skeletal hands. “Let me,” the sorcerer muttered as he gripped the pipe in both hands and stepped out in front of his monstrous slaves. With a grin, the decrepit warrior waited for the twitching subhuman beast to draw within a yard before he swung the heavy metal pipe with every ounce of strength he could muster from his atrophied muscles and weary bones. A gurgling noise resounded from the creature as it fell sideways, leaving itself open for a second thunderous blow that shattered the stump of a neck jutting up from its body. After the second strike, the monster crumpled and stopped moving as blood began to pool out from underneath it.
Dropping the pipe, Shang gently lowered himself next to the dead beast and set his shriveled hands upon what had once been its chest. It wasn’t a person, but from its appearance, it had to have been at some point. If that was true, surely it had to have something close enough to a soul lurking beneath its warped, twisted form.
The process took longer than it should have—or did it just feel that way given his current condition? Either way, a flash of rainbow-colored light danced momentarily along the creature’s chest before fading to reveal the translucent green cloud that Shang so coveted. The corpse shuddered as the prize within vanished into the sorcerer’s chest. For a moment, there was nothing but silence in the hallway.
Then a great agony consumed Shang. A great, blinding agony that made him grind his teeth to swallow a scream and clench his eyes and fists to will his way through the attack. It felt as if he’d just consumed pure fire, and for a brief moment, he feared he would black out and slip into the abyss. As his strength seemed on the verge of failing, the burning suddenly subsided, and after a few moments longer, Shang slowly opened his eyes. A look down revealed that the corpse had become a bubbling heap of flesh, and a glance at his hands showed that he’d recovered a little.
“Damn it,” he groaned as he rose to his feet. He felt much improved compared to how he’d been a few minutes ago, but he’d need to find something more substantial if he wanted to shake off the lethargy of feeling the age that he appeared. “I need something real.” He muttered as the tarkata formed their crescent formation behind him. Although he no longer needed it to maintain his balance and keep himself upright, Shang held onto the metal pipe. At this point, he’d grown somewhat attached to the now dented and bloodstained piece of steel. With both hands griped to the weapon, Shang traversed the remainder of the hallway and exited out through the pair of metal doors at the other end.
On the other side the door, the ‘fresh’ air of Silent Hill wafted over the sorcerer, reminding him that he was still far from safety. Leaving the motel behind him, Shang led his retinue through what remained of the empty parking lot and to the adjacent street, which remained bare. As he turned to head north toward the hospital, he noticed the glint in the corner of his eye right before the gun’s rapport shattered the silence.
Throwing his body forward, Shang clenched his jaw as the pavement erupted upward, ravaged by a high-caliber bullet. Behind him, the tarkatan warriors unsheathed their arm blades and started toward at the building from which the gun had fired. “No!” The sorcerer barked as he regained his balance and gestured up the street. “Let’s move.” Although it was clear they sought blood, the tarkata sheathed their weapons and sprinted to follow their leader, who was jogging up the street as fast as he could in an effort to get out of the gunman’s line-of-sight. As he cleared the next intersection, he heard a second gunshot, but like the first, it missed the quartet by a few feet, and after another block, the sorcerer paused to catch his breath. If the shooter wanted to follow them, he or she would have to move to a fresh vantage point on an adjacent street.
Once he caught his breath, Shang checked the nearby street marker and pulled out his map. If he had any luck, Alchemilla Hospital would be just another two blocks north of their current position. After folding the paper back up, the sorcerer secured it and started up the empty street. He managed to make it a block before he caught movement in a nearby alley. It was flash of unnatural red atop of blurred, vaguely human shape, and once it was out of sight, he heard what he could only describe as a titillating giggle.
Trap. Shang’s legs moved forward, carrying him toward the barely-lit alleyway. You’re aware that this is a trap. He held up a hand to order the tarkata to hold their positions as he neared the cramped passageway. Idiot. Passing between the two cramped apartment buildings, Shang glanced down to see if he couldn’t spot whoever had lured him here. When he saw nothing, he took a few additional steps toward the blackness at the other end of the alley. As he passed under a rusted fire escape, he failed to see the shape slip down over the elevated platform and land gracefully behind him. In fact, for someone trained over the course of a few centuries, he failed to detect anything until the slender hands slipped around his waist and he felt the hot breath on his ear.
“Hello there, stranger.”
With an almost childish yelp, Shang wrenched away from the hands loosely hugging his waist and turned to confront the woman. Even in the obscured light of the alley, he already knew that he’d seen her once before, albeit with less clothes. The red hair and purple eyes were unmistakable, even though the first time he’d laid his own eyes on them, he’d been staring through a keyhole. “You.” He muttered, a mixture of confusion and uneasiness washing over him as he glanced up and around for any indication of her angry, growling companion. Even though he saw nothing, he kept the pipe gripped firmly in his hands.
“We’re alone,” the woman cooed as she stepped forward and placed a soft hand upon the sorcerer’s cheek. “And I know it’s you, even if you turned back your biological clock,” she added with a wink as she continued to edge forward.
“I have no idea who you are or what you are talking about,” Shang retorted, although he made no immediate effort to step away or gently move her back. The longer he stared into those eyes, the more his resolve faded. His interactions with most women had been farce or his attempt to ensure he stuck to social conventions, but the millennium-old sorcerer found himself putty beneath the touch and gaze of this sensual creature that stood before him.
“Don’t try to fool me,” she whispered as she stepped up and placed her lips near his ear. Shang heard the pipe clang loudly on the ground but couldn’t remember letting it go. “No one can fool me.” As if to prove a point, she put a soft kiss against the man’s ear before pulling away to stare him in the eye. “I know you liked what you saw,” she continued as one of her hands snaked lower on the sorcerer’s body. “Don’t deny it. It’s been so long since we’ve had company… I’ve grown so tired of the same old piece of meat.” When her hand closed around something it shouldn’t have, that served as enough of a shock to jolt Shang from his stupor.
With an abrupt grunt, the sorcerer pulled himself away from the woman, his eyes hardening as he tried to shake the haze from his mind. “Who and what are you?” He demanded as he glanced down at his weapon.
“Who I am?” She asked, tilting her head before responding with a shrug of her shoulders. “I was probably someone,” she replied with a wink as she ran her hands down the sides of her skin-hugging bodysuit.
“What does that mean?” The sorcerer asked as he watched her reached up and start to play with the zipper just below her neckline. His mind was a little clearer now than it had been when she had ‘ambushed’ him… he knew what game she was playing as she teased pulling down the zipper.
“I’m just me.” She cooed. “You don’t understand how much I crave an escape from all this… from all them. Even when we’re apart, I still can’t have peace. It’s as if we stop existing when we get too far apart from one another.” For the first time, the woman blinked, and her expression showed a flash of sadness before reverting back. Her polished, painted fingers slipped the zipper down to the middle of her chest, revealing quite clearly that there was nothing beneath the suit. “Now why don’t you help me feel a little more alive,” she whispered as she started toward the sorcerer.
It was then that Shang knew he had to make a decision whether or not to run, hit her, or succumb to some baser instincts.
Fortunately for him, he was saved by the wail of the air raid siren, which created an instant and horrifying change in the woman.
“Fuck you!” She screamed, her words directed up at the air rather than the man in front of her. “You did this on purpose!” The redhead began to glance around like a frantic rabbit, as if she half-expected the gradually decaying walls around them to give way to a horde of monsters. “Fuck you.” She rasped to the sky as she dashed at Shang. He reacted too slowly to prevent her from wrapped her arms around the small of his back and crushing her lips against his. He felt her tongue slipped into his mouth and a soft moan escape her mouth before her nails tightened against him.
She suddenly broke away from him, and for the first time, he saw horror in her violet eyes. Then, without any real indication, she crumbled into pink dust as the siren’s warbling shriek faded away, leaving Shang in an alley transformed from its previous version. The walls and the street around him had aged, revealing cracks, fissures, and the signs of long neglect, while the dumpster next to him had rusted almost to the point of being unrecognizable. Outside of the alley, the streets were now bathed in a pale red light, a rather menacing change from the blend of yellow and white streetlights. Somewhere back behind him, in the darkness of the alley, he heard a low moan.
Unlike the noise that had drawn him here in the first place, there was no humanity in the sounds he now heard.
Damn it.
![[Image: Shang.jpg]](http://www.omniverse-rpg.com/images/Shang.jpg)