Michael Kaufmann

Dr. Michael Kaufmann is a minor villain in the video game Silent Hill. He was the director of Alchemilla Hospital in the northeatern town of Silent Hill. He was an associate of Dahlia Gillespie, the leader of the local cult. He was involved in trafficking a hallucinogen named PTV made from "White Claudia," a local plant, in order to fund the cult. How much Kaufmann knew about the cult's involvement is unknown. After Dahlia severely burned her daughter Alessa in a successful attempt to impregnate her with the cult's god, Alessa split her soul in half, rendering the birth of the god nearly impossible. Dahlia cast a spell that kept Alessa alive but prevented her wounds from healing, keeping her in intense pain. This intense pain would draw the other half back to Silent Hill, but this took seven years to occur. Meanwhile, Kaufmann hid Alessa in a secret room in the hospital's subbasement, where she was attended to by a 16 year old trainee nurse named Lisa Garland (with whom he was having an affair), who was disturbed by the uncontrollable manifestations of Alessa's power and by her inability to heal. Kaufmann gave her aPTV to help her cope, but also to keep her where she was, and she became addicted. Also, Alessa's subconscious was still active and in order to escape from Dahlia, created two alternate worlds, which were basically physical manifestations of Alessa's torment, both of which resembled Silent Hill. Both worlds were populated by monsters that were manifestations of Alessa's fears, imagination, etc. Kaufmann,and others involved in the immolation, were sucked into these worlds for Alessa's revenge purposes. They were all unaware of how they got there. Kaufmann was situated in the misty world, an almost normal, fogbound Silent Hill. Lisa, on the other hand, had been killed by Kaufmann shortly prior to this event when she became uncontrollable. Alessa loved her for her care, and kept her reanimated and alive in the Otherworld version of the hospital, without her traumatic memories. Harry Mason, who had picked up the infant which the other half of Alessa's soul had manifested as, named it Cheryl, had raised her himself when his wife died. When she was seven years old, they went on vacation to Silent Hill, Cheryl having been drawn there by Alessa's pain. They were involved in a car accident just outside of Silent Hill, in which Harry was knocked out. When he woke up, he was in the misty world and Cheryl had disappeared. Dahlia began to use him to help her trap the other half of the soul for her, but he didn't know what he was doing. Kaufmann briefly encountered him in Alchemilla Hospital, as did Lisa, although she encountered Harry more often. Kaufmann was later saved by Harry Mason from being killed by as monster in Annie's Bar. This, and a related sidequest, is one of the requirements to achieve a "good" ending to the game. Dahlia eventually managed to trap Alessa with Harry's assistance and brought both halves of the soul together in order for them to fuse and give birth to the god. The two halves succeeded in fusing, but just before the god could be born, Kaufmann entered. Blaming the presence of the otherworld and misty world on Dahlia, he wounded her with a pistol, then flung a vial of aglaophitis, a substance that forced parisitic monsters out of their victims. This backfired when it caused the god to prematurely emerge from Alessa's back in a demonic form. Kaufmann was knocked out, and Harry fought and killed the god. Alessa, as a sign of gratitude for helping to end her pain, split her soul once more into a baby girl, which she gave to Harry, and opened a portal for him to escape from before she died. Kaufmann awoke and attempted to escape as well, but was held back and presumably killed by Lisa, who had begun to decay and remember her death when Alessa's power was caged by Dahlia.