You wake up, head pressed against a cold wood floor. Your surroundings are pitch black. Your...
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Black Rain
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Statistics (28 threadmarks, 8.4k words)
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Update 1
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
You wake up, head pressed against a cold wood floor. Your surroundings are pitch black. Your hands are bound behind you with what seem to be handcuffs. In the back of your throat, you can taste blood. Your head hurts. From somewhere outside, you can hear the sound of rain.
Your name is Sarah Winters, rookie private investigator, and you don't know where you are.
After a moment, you manage to pull yourself upright. The motion makes your headache throb.
You seem to be in a small room, though it's too dark to get a good look at anything, including yourself.
Your name is Sarah Winters, rookie private investigator, and you don't know where you are.
After a moment, you manage to pull yourself upright. The motion makes your headache throb.
You seem to be in a small room, though it's too dark to get a good look at anything, including yourself.
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Update 2
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
You take a moment to breathe, focusing on nearby sensory information that might give you a clue as to where you currently are.
The rain outside is pouring. Judging by the noise, the building you're in currently most likely has a metal roof. You can't hear anything else over the rain.
A cold draft blows against your skin. There must be an open window nearby. The rain is louder to your right, though the darkness makes it difficult to tell exactly which direction it's coming from.
You smell soot. There could be a fireplace nearby. Unfortunately, you also smell blood. You have a sneaking suspicion it belongs to you. And, of course, you can faintly recognize the familiar scent of rain on fresh grass. No other scents catch your attention.
Since you're standing up, it doesn't take very long to make your way over to a nearby wall. You make sure to move shoulder-first so that you don't knock your head into anything. Despite your best efforts, however, your foot snags against something and you find yourself back on the floor.
After shuffling over backwards to grab it with your hands, you realize that the object you tripped on is an electric lantern. Not quite what you were looking for, but at least you'll be able to see.
With a quiet click, the room is filled with pale fluorescent light.
While you want to inspect the room, you prioritize being able to move your hands first.
Unfortunately, it seems that one of your hands is missing.
You could have sworn it was there just a few moments ago, but there it is; a bandaged chunk of flesh sitting at the end of your left wrist. A thin metal rod, presumably attached to the bone in your arm, protrudes where your hand should be. The handcuff tied around your other wrist is attached to a clasp at the end of the rod, holding both of your arms snugly behind your back.
Your headache faintly throbs as you stare at the remains of your wrist. You're remarkably calm, considering the circumstances.
Update 3
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
With the light shining directly on the handcuffs, you begin the slow process of freeing your single remaining hand. After several minutes of struggling, you eventually manage to twist your right wrist far enough to reach the chain that attaches the rod on your left wrist to the handcuffs themselves. With a pinch of your fingers, the lobster clasp on the bar clicks open, and your hand is finally free.
Well, mostly. You still haven't managed to get the handcuff off of your wrist. But at least you can move your arms freely now.
You breathe a sigh of relief and roll your shoulders. They are very, very sore.
Surprisingly, you are still wearing your everyday work clothes. This includes your trusty Detective Trench Coat, a stylish jacket that keeps you warm and dry, and also features eight convenient pockets that you use to store various forms of evidence and other useful trinkets. You also have a fashionable hat that keeps the rain out of your eyes. Of course, all of these clothes would be far more stylish and fashionable if they weren't matted with dried blood.
As expected, your pockets are currently empty, save for a small pocket purse that you always carry with you.
Your purse is also empty. Figures.
Besides your obviously missing hand, your body isn't in rough shape. You have a few bruises here and there, and your headache is really starting to hurt, but you have retained most of your limbs and organs, which is a pretty good sign.
Your surroundings are unfamiliar. The entirety of the room, which appears to be the entirety of the house, consists of a rectangular space roughly the size of your own apartment. While this would normally be a comforting, cozy fact, it instead makes your current situation all the more uncanny.
On a whim, or perhaps some kind of detective's intuition, you decide that the wall with the window faces North.
With this in mind, the North wall is sparse save for the aforementioned window and a bed, which seems to consist entirely of a mattress on a steel frame. It's actually kind of pathetic. There aren't even any sheets.
The West wall is far more interesting. It houses what appears to be a workbench of some kind, featuring a variety of tools and knickknacks. This particular workbench is suited towards a variety of tasks, as though the person using it stopped by Hobby Lobby and purchased everything in the tool aisles simultaneously.
The South wall consists of a door, a coat rack, and a few unopened boxes with strange labels on them. One reads "Sarah," another has "Safety," and the third is marked "Emergency."
The East wall has a very small kitchenette, with a fridge, several cabinets, and a gas stovetop. You're not particularly hungry, though that may be due to the vague nausea that permeates your entire intestinal region.
All in all, not a great way to start the day.
You were...
What exactly were you doing?
You distinctly remember doing some investigative work at a diner. It was a small-time gig. Somebody stole money from a cash register, you know the drill.
Most of the time investigating a diner doesn't lead to getting kidnapped and taken into a creepy shed, right?
...right?
Your thoughts are cut off momentarily by a noise outside the house. Something between a growl and a snarl, you think.
All at once, there's a throbbing pain in your left hand. Well, it's more of a stump at this point. Regardless, it hurts. Whatever painkillers you were hyped up on over the past several minutes are starting to wear off.
You just have to avoid panicking, and everything is going to be okay.
You pick up the electric lantern with your right hand.
It's time to do some sleuthing.
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Format Update
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
Hello everyone,
This update is taking a bit longer than expected. There are going to be a few minor adjustments to the format of Black Rain, but most of them are on my end. Don't panic if things look a little bit different, particularly in the "status screen" department.
Thanks for your patience!
-MariBari
This update is taking a bit longer than expected. There are going to be a few minor adjustments to the format of Black Rain, but most of them are on my end. Don't panic if things look a little bit different, particularly in the "status screen" department.
Thanks for your patience!
-MariBari
Update 4
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
Reacting to the sense of danger, you snap into a familiar stance, buried deep in your muscle memory after years of top secret military training. Pulling an X-Acto knife from the workbench and a larger kitchen knife from the kitchenette, you flick your wrists into place. Your execution is perfect. With your legendary stealth skills, you can...
Wait, shit. You forgot that you were missing your hand.
Still, you found a couple of weapons, and released some tension. Your nerves are pretty frayed right now.
You would pocket the knives, but they would just ruin your wonderful trench coat. You could always carry one in your right hand, but then you wouldn't have any hands left to carry the lantern around, which is kind of important considering how dark it is outside. You don't trust yourself to carry a lantern and a knife with one hand; you'd probably just end up hurting yourself.
Kitchen Knife acquired
X-Acto Knife acquired
The door, as expected, is locked from the outside. Whoever kidnapped you clearly didn't want you to leave, considering how big the padlock is. It's a solid wooden door with no windows. The hinges look fairly sturdy, too.
You open the box labeled "Sarah," using the X-Acto Knife to cut the packing tape.
Inside are three jars.
The first contains what appears to be blood, although there are several small chunks of meat swimming throughout the liquid.
The second contains a mutilated human hand suspended in formaldehyde.
You almost drop the jar, but your hand shakes as you place it back in the box. It takes quite a bit of effort to stop yourself from vomiting. But a detective is a detective, and you're not going to pass on an important clue just because you're squeamish.
Carefully, delicately, you lift the jar from the box and take a closer look at it.
For lack of a better detectively description, the hand is positively fucked up. The middle finger has been entirely removed, leaving a bloody gash that digs all the way into the hand's palm.
Turning the jar around, you notice orange nail polish on the nails of the dismembered hand.
Your eyes drift towards your own right hand, and you're taken back to a few days ago when your best friend said that orange nail polish would go well with your complexion.
This time, you don't stop yourself from vomiting.
The kitchen sink is a lot filthier now.
You reach for the third jar in the same way most people would reach to rip off a band aid, wrapping your hand firmly around the top before yanking it out of the box all at once.
The third jar contains a human eye.
Immediately, you reach up to your face. There is in fact a bandage positioned directly over your right eye.
You don't even scream. You simply set the jar down and collapse onto the floor, your legs unable to hold your weight any longer.
You think that you're going to wait a while before opening anything else. You're not sure how much more of this you can handle before you have a full mental breakdown.
Eye Jar acquired
Gore Jar acquired
Hand Jar acquired
A good idea. The steel-framed bed doesn't seem like it'll hold many surprises, so you make your way over to the North wall and lift up the mattress.
Thankfully, the bed isn't hiding any more of your body parts. Instead, it's hiding a single D battery, which you promptly shove into one of your pockets for safekeeping.
The mattress itself isn't in bad shape. You don't notice any mold or bugs, and it smells surprisingly clean. You wouldn't mind sleeping on it.
D Battery acquired
For reference, the window isn't very large and is fairly high up on the wall. The sill comes up to about your shoulder height. You quickly realize that the shack is partially underground.
Directly in front of you is some poorly-maintained grass. You can see the rain pouring onto it. Several meters ahead of you, you can glimpse the beginning of a tree trunk. Beyond that is impenetrable darkness, too far away for your lantern to give you a hand.
Remembering the snarl you heard earlier, you decide to close the window. Unfortunately, it seems that it won't be that easy; a hole has been drilled through the wall and the wooden frame of the window, and a padlock has been threaded through. The reason for doing so baffles you. Why would somebody lock the window open?
Regardless, you don't see any signs of the source of the noise outside at the moment. You really, really want to believe that you're currently safe.
You haven't heard that sound since it happened the first time. All you can hear is the rain.
Considering how on-edge you are right now, you wouldn't be surprised if it was something unrelated. A car revving on a highway, a tree falling over... just about anything could make a weird snarling sound with how much the rain drowns out the context.
You quietly sit yourself down on the bed, as far away as possible from the "Sarah" box.
You want to go home.
Update 5
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
You're trying. The bed is helping somewhat.
You breathe in the scent of the rain. Rain has always calmed you down a bit. You think that if the rain hadn't been there this whole time you would have had an actual panic attack by now.
The sink is full of vomit, making it a bit of a lost cause in terms of washing your face off. You'd need to wash the vomit out first, and you're not exactly in the right state of mind for that right now.
There is, however, a perfectly acceptable source of water within reach.
Checking for any visible threats with the lantern, you reach your hand out over the grass and scoop up a bit of rainwater. You hesitate to bring it up to your face. There is something wrong with the rainwater. You can't put your finger on it.
You shake your hand off and head back to the kitchen, snagging a coffee mug from the cabinets. In hindsight, you probably could have just gathered the rainwater using this method in the first place, but oh well.
Ignoring the vomit, you pour a second mug of water from the sink.
Sure enough, something is wrong with the rainwater. You thought it was just the lighting at first.
The liquid is pure black. Midnight black.
You make sure to wash your right hand thoroughly. Something is very, very wrong. You can't quite tell if you're dreaming or not, but just to be safe you're going to assume that you're not.
Rainwater acquired.
The fridge and stove are, as far as you can tell, perfectly normal. Electricity is powering the refrigerator through a normal wall outlet, and there's even a gas pipe for the stove. Nothing funky going on.
Surprisingly, there's quite a bit of food inside the fridge. Wrapped sandwiches and tupperware leftovers. Bottles of water. It's also another helpful source of light, since your lantern doesn't always cover the entire room at once.
There's something about looking at a stocked fridge in a well-lit room that puts you slightly at ease.
No? You're a college student with a part-time job as an assistant detective, not an action hero. You've never even touched a gun. Besides, you're pretty sure that the police can do more sleuthing than you can. At least in terms of sheer manpower.
If you had your phone, maybe that would be a comfort.
You're not planning on waiting that long. If your kidnapper has any kind of forward thinking skills, which they clearly do because they left you a box filled with your own body parts, they would have planned well in advance to either cut you off from your support or make things quick.
Considering your missing cell phone, you're going to guess it's the former option.
Most likely, you're in a remote location that wouldn't have much cell service to begin with. Somewhere out in the middle of the country, probably an abandoned farm of some kind. There are locks on the doors and windows, so clearly they cared about you escaping. With luck, that means that something outside the house you're in right now can help you get out of this situation for good.
So no, you're not going to think about how long it would take for the police to track you down. Because you're going to bust out of this place.
You just... need to figure out how.
Shouldn't take too long.
Update 6
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
You are a detective. You are confident that you haven't missed anything important while inspecting the room from a distance.
The knife has far too wide a blade to fit comfortably into the keyhole. Even if it did, you have no lock-picking knowledge to speak of. You're a detective, not a thief.
Unfortunately, the window is too small. You wouldn't be able to get your torso through.
The workbench, and its many drawers, contains a variety of tools.
In the order you found them; a small precision hammer, some nails, a screwdriver, a handsaw, a roll of duct tape, and a pair of scissors are the tools that stand out to you. Many of the other tools in the drawers are unfamiliar, broken, or just otherwise don't seem that useful for the current situation.
You decide to avoid ramming the various tools into your pockets, leaving them in the workbench for the time being. You also place the X-Acto Knife with the rest of the tools, as to not lose track of it.
Tools acquired.
You're not particularly hungry nor thirsty, though you do shove a sandwich and a bottle of water into your trench coat in case you need something to munch on later.
Snacks acquired.
The lantern is a fairly standard camping model that runs on D Batteries. According to the label on the bottom of the lantern, it's certified waterproof.
Honestly, you want to stop looking at the lantern. The neon fluorescent light is going to give you a headache.
Working up a bit of courage, you open the box labeled "safety."
Inside, there's a two-pack of D batteries and a spare lantern of the same make and model as your current one, as well as what appears to be a bottle of medicine and a note:
Sure enough, the bottle appears to contain pills. If the label can be trusted, you have fifty of them in this bottle.
The "emergency" box, interestingly, contains a slightly smaller wooden box. It has a small padlock on the front, and the label "Emergencies Only" on the top. You place the pills and batteries in your pockets, and place the lockbox on the workbench.
Pills (x50) acquired.
Emergency Lockbox acquired.
You now have 3 D Batteries.
Update 7
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
You're not exactly sure how you would go about finding hidden text. You don't have any lemon juice, or source of heat, or a blacklight. Regardless, you decide to keep the note in your purse for safekeeping.
The handwriting on the note doesn't look entirely unlike yours, but that doesn't particularly mean much in this instance. What, you kidnapped yourself? Regardless of how drunk you could have been, that's just unlikely.
The similarity in handwriting is a little disturbing, though.
You really hope that you didn't kidnap yourself.
The hinges on the door are, in fact, fastened with regular screws. You use your screwdriver to begin unscrewing the hinges from the wall.
It takes quite a while, considering how long the screws are, but you eventually manage to free the door (and yourself) from the concrete prison. The lock can't do much to stop you anymore.
In front of the door are a series of stairs leading briefly upwards, and a small metal grate at the bottom of the stairs to stop the rainwater from flooding the house. Past the stairs is more darkness.
The breeze from outside is lukewarm, almost uncomfortably cold but not quite. The outside world smells like grass and rainwater.
You should probably prepare before heading out. Just to be sure.
Update 8
MariBari
Lackadaisical Content Creator
- Location
- Wisconsin
As you have mentioned, you are already wearing your trusty trench coat and stylish hat. Both are somewhat waterproof. You have no particular need for more protection, though an umbrella would be the safest option. Unfortunately, you can't see any obvious umbrellas lying around.
Not possible. The kitchen knife is far too large and sharp to stick in your pocket. You would need to hold it in your hand, which would mean not being able to carry your lantern. And between the two, that one seems a bit more important. The X-Acto knife, while considerably smaller, would still cut up your precious trench coat.
And before you ask, no, you're not going to try to grasp multiple sharp objects at once. You'd prefer to keep your remaining hand intact if at all possible.
You feel that doing so would be very dangerous, but you understand the necessity of playing along with whatever twisted situation is happening here.
Verbiage aside, you take a single pill.
Neat.
...
...You might have to wait a bit for that to start taking effect.
You are getting very confused! Should you open the box or not?
You hand wavers as you slowly lower the handsaw down towards the lockbox. You imagine the box exploding and killing you instantly. You also imagine the box being full of flowers and a politely worded note from your mom explaining everything that's going on in a very reassuring manner.
By the time you stop thinking about it, you have already sawed open the box. Whoops.
Inside is a single prosthetic hand and a ring of keys.
One of the keys perfectly fits into the handcuff that is still tied to your wrist. Another fits into the door. The third fits into the padlock on the window.
In hindsight, you probably should have opened this box right away.
The prosthetic hand comfortably fits onto where your left hand once was, clicking into place on the rod. It is made of wood, and smells faintly of strawberries. While you can't move it naturally, you can maneuver the stiff fingers with your other hand, allowing you to hold things. Nice!
You sigh as a garbled string of text comes through the conveyance system. As stated in every status report, commands can only be ten words long. Otherwise they overflow into gobbledygook.
Your right eyelid twitches.
Conveyance system? What...
Your vision is getting blurry.
Your headache is getting worse.
You don't have enough time! You need to... You need to...
Your headache is getting worse.
The bandage over your right eye itches. You desperately want to take it off. You picture all of the fluid in your body pouring out of your empty eye socket. Something is wrong.
Your headache is getting worse.
Your headache is getting worse.
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Update 8?
