Zack felt like he had figured it all out.
He understood it all too well.
First, they lure players in with a bait, making them think they've easily found a fragment and that it won't be too hard to meet the conditions if they just look a little further.
If you think that way, you'll fall right into Boss Lucas's trap.
Is a fragment given to you passively the same as actively searching for it?
So far, no monsters have appeared, yet this is already so terrifying.
The dead-silent environment, combined with the oppressive atmosphere, makes one's heart pound with anxiety.
Then, to search for fragments in every corner of Silent Hill town, isn't that a death wish?
Being as clever as he is, he had seen through it all.
But upon looking at his progress, Zack felt like he was breaking out in a sweat.
It's been almost half an hour since the game started?
Let's tally up what he's done in the game so far.
He seemed to have only triggered a scene with James's inner monologue and background introduction to Silent Hill, and gotten some clues about the town's strangeness and direction from that black-haired woman.
Other than that, it's been pure travel!
But it's mainly because he's been too slow.
Although the game has a running function, Zack himself basically just walks instead of runs.
Because in this deathly silent environment, the sound of his dress shoes and his panting, combined with the faint background music, makes him feel terribly oppressed.
Walking is a bit slower, but it's not unbearable.
He moved forward slowly along the map, and upon reaching a place that looked like an intersection, Zack's footsteps suddenly stopped.
"Holy crap, blood! So much blood!"
There were puddles of blood on the road ahead, already congealed into a dark red, spreading further down the street around the corner.
From the shape of the bloodstains, it looked like something had died and its blood was being dragged away.
Before Zack could overthink it, the roar of a monster he'd heard before echoed in his ears.
Zack looked in the direction of the sound and saw a contorted figure appear and then disappear in the white fog.
He swallowed hard, the fleeting image of the monster still in his mind.
It looked somewhat humanoid, but its gait and posture were completely unlike a human's.
It was incredibly bizarre.
"What on earth is that thing!"
Zack's heart began to pound.
Even though he had been saying things like "I wish a monster would appear."
The feeling is completely different when a monster actually shows up.
"So, am I supposed to follow the bloodstains and the direction the monster disappeared in?"
Combining the map and the blood on the ground, it was clearly a hint.
The normal game progression would definitely be to move in the direction the monster disappeared.
But Zack was feeling incredibly cowardly now. He was like that mythical figure who claimed to love dragons but ran away when he saw one.
He had been saying "Bring on the monsters," but now that a monster had actually appeared, he was terrified.
After hesitating for a long time, Zack slowly ventured forward into the white fog.
The blood on the ground acted like a path marker, guiding Zack through a corner turn.
At this point, he heard a noise.
"Zzzzz"
It sounded like static, similar to electrical current noise. The source of the sound was a construction area. There were barbed wire fences on both sides and a wooden barricade in front, but there was a large hole in it that an adult could fit through. After crawling through the hole, Zack discovered that the source of the noise was a radio. The previous silence had made Zack wish for some sound, for some monsters to appear.
And now, everything he had wished for had come true.
The sound of footsteps and breaking glass echoed. Looking into the shadows somewhere ahead, Zack shivered all over. Behind the white fog, a monster moved slowly towards him in a greatly distorted posture. Externally, the monster was humanoid, but weirdly, it had no facial features, its upper body covered by something resembling rubber material, causing its torso to writhe continuously as it moved.
Furthermore, it had no arms; or rather, its arms were bound within the rubber-like substance. This was the shadowy figure that had disappeared in the fog earlier, and Zack recognized it instantly. Watching the monster appear, the in-game James retreated, until he bumped into the wooden barricade. He casually grabbed a wooden stick with nails on it. The interface then switched to Zack's control.
"I can kill it!" Zack's voice even had a hint of tearful joy.
The monster in front of him moved very slowly, comparable to a zombie in Resident Evil, and it didn't have as much vitality as a zombie. After hitting it twice with the stick, the monster died. This made Zack let out a sigh of relief.
As everyone knows, fear comes from insufficient firepower, and since this monster was so easily killed, Zack suddenly felt like he was back in control. At the same time, the radio next to him stopped emitting static. Instead, a series of sounds that sounded like Mary's voice came through, but it was intermittent and hard to make out.
After exploring and finding nothing else, Zack took the radio and continued onward. As he passed through the fog and reached an intersection, the radio began to emit static again. At the same time, the previous monster reappeared in the white fog, and there was more than one. In the previously dead-silent town, so many monsters had appeared.
"This... the water temperature seems to be... gradually getting hotter."
Zack's toes tensed slightly as he looked at the monsters surrounding him. However, Zack also keenly noticed a characteristic: the radio on his body would emit static whenever he encountered a monster. This made Zack both panicked and curious. Because generally speaking, horror games are supposed to suddenly startle players, right? But this radio directly warns the player, telling them monsters are nearby and to be mentally prepared?
But Zack soon realized that even with mental preparation, it was useless. Especially after obtaining this warning radio, the feeling of fear not only didn't lessen but intensified. It wasn't a scare, but rather an oppression, a feeling of constant suspicion. Before this, walking in the deathly silent world, with endless white fog ahead and only the sounds of the protagonist's breathing and footsteps, Zack's fear was of a monster suddenly appearing and startling him.
But now, even though he had the radio, which would emit static whenever a monster appeared, warning him to be prepared, the feeling of suspicion remained. Zack always felt like there might be a scenario where the radio stayed silent, and then a ghost would jump out and scare him. Initially, Zack didn't feel it, but after playing for a while, that indescribable oppressive feeling made Zack's heart pound rapidly.
Carefully exploring Silent Hill town, Zack found an apartment key on a corpse in a corner. With a sense of oppression and fear, he wandered the streets for a long time before finally finding the entrance to an apartment building.
However, after entering the apartment, Zack immediately understood that the saying "women are fickle" was not accurate because men are also fickle. Previously, facing the creepy fog in Silent Hill town, he thought it was too oppressive and that a dark environment like in Outlast would be more bearable. But when he arrived at the apartment, it was indeed a dark environment! After rummaging around in the lobby for a while, he found a map that helped him vaguely determine his location. On the second floor, in room 205, he found a flashlight.
What made Zack panic was that when he found the flashlight, the radio on him also started emitting static. Then, on the ground, a creature put together from two legs, one at the top and one at the bottom, wobbled to its feet. Under the flashlight's beam, the connected area looked bloody, but the rest of the parts were like a mannequin's legs. Although like the previous monster, it died after a few blows, its extremely bizarre appearance made Zack's scalp tingle.
"But thankfully, I don't have to look for batteries like in Outlast. A nuclear flashlight is worth owning!"
After confirming that the flashlight didn't require batteries, Zack felt a little relieved. With the flashlight, Zack continued exploring the various rooms. He also discovered that the mannequin-like monster was particularly sensitive to light; as soon as the flashlight shone on it, it would reanimate. In other rooms of the apartment, Zack found a handgun, and in one room, he saw a dead man by a TV and a strange floor-standing grandfather clock.
Upon reaching the third floor, the path ahead was blocked by an iron grate, and there was a shining key on the floor. Without much thought, Zack controlled the character to lie down and reach through the grate to pick up the key.
But the next moment, a little girl suddenly rushed out from the room and kicked the key away. She ran deeper into the apartment, glancing back at James with an innocent smile and a mischievous expression: "Heh heh..."
"Gulp."
Watching the little girl disappear into the darkness, Zack swallowed. If it were another game and he encountered a bratty kid, he would definitely curse them out, as game brats are too annoying.
The bratty kid in New God of War was Kratos's own child, so we won't mention that. To this day, he still remembers the few bratty kids who stole money when he first arrived in Saint Denis in Red Dead Redemption. But the key point is that this is Silent Hill! Although she looked like a mischievous little girl, given the corpse in the second-floor room, the mannequin monsters, and the dark setting, could a bratty kid appearing here be a normal person!
The dark scene, the still dead-silent environment, the bizarre monsters, and the little girl.
Even though it was just a game, Zack could almost hear his own heartbeat. In that moment, he really wanted to turn off the game, pull open the curtains, and look at the sun outside. But thinking of Ben's surprised expression on his birthday when he received the CD KEY, Zack felt a renewed drive to keep playing.
(End of Chapter)
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