The Silence Rises

Written by Thomas Dominick Ong

November 19, 1987

            Before I was Silence, I was Artur Rodriguez, the son of Jen and El Torito. My father was a drug lord by night and an officer by day. But, after a deal went wrong with another drug lord, he and mom were captured and tortured to death in front of me, whom no one knew was there. That is what sparked my want for revenge. After years of training in different fighting styles and graduating on the top of my class in criminology, I tracked down the former drug lord then I beat him up; however, just as I was about to land the final blow, the guy’s son starts to call for him, and because of that I let him live. As he leaves, the drug lord shoots me at the back of my head and kills me. I awoke to a strange place where I saw an enormous being that said something about giving me another chance because of the goodness of my heart and revived me. That’s how I got my power to change forms, though I prefer to stay as a faceless man.

November 22, 1987

            After Artur wakes up in a pool of blood, he is dizzy and confused on where he is. He is surrounded by his fellow officers and is being put on a gurney; then he blacks out. Artur awakes again in a hospital building with a painful feeling on the back of his head and hears a doctor say that he is, amazingly, making a full and fast recovery. After a while, he is told to sit up; and that’s when his best friends, Billy Raktr, an African American, and Julie Johnson, a gorgeous and smart blonde, come in and ask Artur what happened in the warehouse he was in. After telling them everything, except the part about the weird vision of some kind of being, he apologizes about leaving without telling them and is discharged from the hospital.

            After he leaves the hospital, he asks his friends to drive him to his small apartment in the suburbs. Upon arriving, he asks his friends to leave saying that he just wants to rest for a while. He goes to the sofa and turns on the T.V., while watching he sees weird glimpses of the gods and feels a sharp pain in his head. Panicked, he walks to the bathroom to get some aspirin and sees himself in the mirror; he sees that he has no face and proceeds to faint. He wakes up to see his face and, though he thought it was foolish, he willed it to be gone, and suddenly a sharp pain surged through his face and it vanished. Just as he was about to change back he hears a knock on his door and suddenly it was broken down and about eight armed men broke through the door and windows. They try to find Artur, while destroying most of the apartment. Too weak to fight, Artur willed himself to become something small, hoping that his power also works on his entire body and not just on his face. After a few seconds, he felt pain throughout his entire body and he turned into a mouse and fled through the front door.

            He transforms back into a man after escaping and calls his friends, Billy and Julie. They arrive a few minutes later and ask Artur for an explanation. He tells them about the armed men in his apartment and then they arm themselves with pistols and bullet proof vests. They walk into the room, which was a mess, and find it empty. They look around for clues; after a while Artur finds a note that says “The clock is ticking” and just as he reads it, Julie finds a bomb by his alarm clock. They run out evacuating mostly everyone but a widower who has one son; his son is devastated that his dad died and that reminds Artur of his mom and dad, so he promises the boy that he will get the person who did this.

            After hours of thinking of what to do, Artur realizes that he still has the note in his pocket and says that they should scan for finger prints and DNA. As soon as the results come in, they trace it to a new drug lord who is unknown; however they are able to trace him down to an underground drug den. They go there with police back-up and bust in. The people who work there start shooting at them, but after a while they are able to knock them out but many police officers are wounded. Julie, Billy, and Artur eventually find the drug lord, who looks fat and round, who reveals himself to be a man named Danny Riquez, the illegitimate son of the former drug lord who got locked up because of Artur. He tells them he wants revenge and proceeds to run towards Artur and punches him in the face. Artur then punches back, but it doesn’t even dent Danny. Danny tells him that there are only 2 percent fats in his body, the other 98 are muscles. He then throws a table to knockout Billy and Julie and because Artur was about to get beaten up, in a last attempt he transforms into a gorilla and fights back. Startled, the drug lord steps back but eventually fights back. However Artur’s transformation is only strong enough to hold off Danny. But Billy awakens and shoots Danny in the arm, crippling it. With his other arm he knocks out Artur then escapes to his van.

            Artur wakes up and helps his best friends, who are still under the table, and explains everything to them. He makes them promise not to tell anyone and that no one must know, so Julie suggests that he take the form of a faceless man.