Penumbra (video game series)

"Uh, I'm sorry. Sometimes my emotions are like a disobedient pet, uncontrollable and often rolling in shit. Better safe than sorry they always say, but I think we are both sorrier than we are safe. A tunnel lies between a nearby watery cave and the place where-things-are-kept, take the second right from the closed door and you will find what you seek."

"Now you should find yourself in the watery cave of conversations past, with a tunnel above you from times ahead. In this tunnel, for both our sakes, be careful, not curios. I have already spoken to you about the CAT, and repeating myself is not only out of the question but out of the window and climbing down the guttering. There a spiders in the tunnel who like to suck on the humaney fluids, so do not disturb the walls, they are as fragile as the china vase in the hooves of the bull."

"How does my brain flesh know your fluids are leaking? Because Red tricked you! Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha! The spidery tunnel was far from a necessary evil, more so it served as well deserved punishment! You thought that my mind had been lost to the ravages of time, but poetic justice has struck with a sonnet, and an eight-legged baptism of fire! With justice now served cold I hope that we can be good friends. Now reclaim the key and go-go juice, and find a way to the mining monster!"

"You seek to find the truth behind all of this mystery, and think it will set you free! But truth is relative, and relatives can not be trusted to bring good gifts! What you seek lies in the shafts beyond this collapsing of the sky and if you look closely so do I."

"A century of days has passed since I saw this area last. The diseased ones sought to kill poor Red, but I took them on a wild poultry chase, they ended dead. They came from out the big metal door but after all my years I knew the caves more. Hide and seek turned to seek and hide, and I buried them here beneath the solid rock sky."

"With my remaining ear to the ground I hear your trembling tootsies padding towards their final destination. Things come to those that wait, whether they want them or not, and soon I think your wait will be over. The great metal door in reality is calling you, just as the Reaper beckons me forward. I look forward to finally greeting you, I only hope I need not greet the Reaper-man first."

"Alas, my friends lye somewhere near you now. A friend in need is a friend indeed, but a friend that's dead is a poor conversationalist. May they rest in pieces, ruptured, decomposing, pieces."

"We are now such good and lasting friends. I have gifted you with my love, perhaps you could gift me with something. After all, the laws of politeness would be shattered if you would appear at my party without a gift. Poor Red is so hungry he could eat both the horse and the young rippling stable hand, sadly pony flesh is so hard to come by in these part, and man meat is just so bland. If your eyes happen upon a scurrying rodent, would you deliver the crunchy feast by way of a final meal?"

"Um, while you hunt for those delicate melt in your mouth mousey morsels, there are places you should not go, for fear of death. The Reaper lives here, just like you and I, and just like you and I he must ingest the living flesh of those less fortunate than him. There is a small place that I do not want you to visit, even on your holidays, because it is dark and evil place that I have been, when the darkness has overwhelmed my small decaying mind. Some bad things flowed from my mind and through my pen, and the brilliant blue ink itself seemed to turn into blood under my grasp."

"And by the way, should you turn peckish, rat is at its finest sautéed with a little engine oil!"

"On your travels for the tools with which you will fashion my rescue, you may discover the place of my last meal. Be careful, the shiny solid floor of water is not as solid as it seems. Poor Red was almost swallowed whole! The two fools he met who plummeted into my domain have long since departed, though not I expect from whence they came. I ate ravenously of biped meat that day, but Red promises feasting only began when the men became pungent, when the stench of life had gone, and only the sweet aroma of decay remained."

"Good evening, you... you actually came. There is much that should leave my throat box now, but words elude me. You came, you are so pretty, but I have been bad. The underworld already beckons me, so I suppose one further misdemeanour will change little. It is false pretension and not guiding light with which I have led you here. I can not give you the answers you want. You may wish to find what it is you seek, but that is a fiction. You can not know what it is you sought through the vast leaden doorway, or else you would see anything else in the world. No, the key, it stays in here with me, so the life that has led me, horrible as it may be, is better still than the life that waits for you hungry behind those doors. As replacements go, you shall be most admirably abnormal."

"But, you must wonder why this metal burning chamber is talking to you in a voice you knew only as Red, for it is I, your companion residing within. You see, I am waiting for this day so many years, they wont let me die. They, parts of my head, are not my own, and I cannot take my life, it is against the rules. Please, the pain has gone on for so long. All I wanted was a friend, but now the time for chitchat and marshmallows by the fire has ended, and I hope that soon so shall my life. I have knocked on the deaths door for so long, please, let him invite me in for tea."

"May 2001 - I wasn't sure how long I'd been out, but my head still hurt - either it hadn't been long, or they had hit me really hard. I didn't have a clue what was going on and, all of a sudden, I really didn't care. I was getting out."

"The sewers seemed like the only route out, but it wasn't out I wanted anymore. My father had found something, and I needed to know what - without that, everything would have been for nothing."

"Infected. I'd skipped a beat when I heard that word in association with me. Still, it seemed like just one more reason to find my father. Hearing a friendly voice hadn't hurt either - but by that point, I was pretty certain she'd turn out to be crazy."

"Savaged, infected, terrified... and now I was hearing voices. Yep, just about everyone down here turns out to be crazy, even me. Regardless, I needed to find my way through and into the library."

"I'd picked up some baggage on the way, but finally I was close to my goal. I was sure answers lay behind that door. They were answers I should have set out to find when I received my father's letter in 2000. Why did I wait a whole year before coming here?"

"I barely even thought about my father's death - I guess I wasn't expecting to find him any other way. I was determined to complete his work, find an answer to the infection then contact the 'hive'."

"A Cure! I had my doubts by then, but I didn't have much choice. I resolved to find Amabel, and put things right."