Recently, I've played and solved a puzzle game from "The Adventure Company" called Dark Fall: The Journal. And, I thought it was so dark and morbid of a game, that even Raven might like it. OO So, I thought I might write this, and put a twist in it! What would happen if Raven were sucked into… Dark Fall? I don't own Teen Titans, or Dark Fall: The Journal. OH! Due to the fact that Dark Fall is a British game, I will tone it to where it takes place in Titan's Tower instead of that 700 year-old hotel, okay? That would make it easier to understand. Okay! Here we go! Part one will be a little longer than the rest, just to see if I can catch anyone's interest, okay? Grab your blankie 'cuz I'm gonna make it scary! Whoooo-! O0 Please enjoy:
RAVEN'S GAME Part I: Game Start"Soul Caliber?" Beast Boy held up the game for Raven to see.
"No." She said, barely glancing from her book.
"Super Racer 5000?"
"No."
"Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals!"
"No!" Raven said, her black aura flaring. The floor shook slightly in her brief relapse of control. Beast Boy shrieked like a little girl and hid behind the couch. Satisfied that she'd scared him away for the moment, she went back to her morbid novel.
BB had been trying for almost twenty minutes to get her to play a video game with him. Cyborg was busy in the garage working on his baby, the T-car. Robin was busy with a Slade lead, and Starfire… well… he didn't wanna ask her because she didn't seem to understand what they were for. Not that she was stupid or anything, just that she preferred watching to playing. Gamestation was no fun with just one person, so he was bored. Video games were the only things that were fun on a rainy autumn day like it was.
Raven glanced up from her book to see him sit at the window-wall of the common room, pressing his face against the glass. "Why'd it have to rain today?" He groaned softly, pressing his forehead to the cool glass. His animal instincts bid him to run, play, swim… do something outside before winter came along and stranded him inside the tower.
Coming to a good stopping place, Raven shut her book and stood to make herself some tea. Beast Boy watched since she was the only thing of interest in the room at the moment. She put up her hand and the cabinet jumped open. Her kettle, tae bags, spoon, mug, and coaster floated out. With a gentle flourish she had the coaster and the mug levitate to the table. Beast Boy watched as the faucet came on by itself, spewing water into the kettle. It steamed with hot water, then went to the stove as Raven grabbed the floating tea bags for herself. Shaking them only slightly to settle them, she made the kettle set itself on the stove.
There was a resounding ding-dong in the common room. Beast Boy was on his feet in an instant! "The mail's here! That's always fun!" He ran towards the double doors that led out of the common room. Raven rolled her eyes, sitting the lid on her kettle and waiting for the stove to heat up. "I bet there's a load of fan mail to me from all my adoring f–!" his voice had faded with distance. He came back a minute later with a hand full of mail. "Let's see…" He thumbed through the envelopes. "Robin… Robin… Cy's PC Monthly… Starfire… ARCHIE COMIC!" The green teen dropped the rest on the counter and ran to his room with his treasure. Raven stared at the doorway where he'd left through, then shrugged. The stove's hot plate was starting to turn orange, so it wouldn't be long now.
What to do while she waited……? Beast Boy had only flicked through half of the mail, maybe there was one addressed to her? Or one that said 'To the Titans?' Raven didn't get much fan mail, but she didn't have anything else to do at the moment, so why not look through and see? "Mmm…" she said neutrally when she saw the bright pink envelope addressed to Starfire. She flipped uncharacteristically through Cyborg's magazine, and then paused. There was a box on the bottom of the stack. Her brow furrowing, Raven pushed the rest of the mail aside. It was small, smaller than a DVD box, and really thin. Whatever was inside might've fit in an envelope, but… it was a cardboard box. Raven looked for an address… or an addressee. There was nothing written on it anywhere. Suspicious but still a little curious, she leaned against part of the counter and pulled at the edges. It wasn't addressed to any specific Titan… so why not open it… Raven's book-fed curiosity got the better of her, and she tore it open. She turned it upside down, expecting a letter…
But she got a CD. Raven blinked, pulling her hood back so she could see better. It was jet black on both sides, and the bottom was mirror-like. Raven saw herself with a look of mild curiosity, and she turned it over again. Spidery, dark words greeted her. Had they been there before? Raven cocked an eyebrow. Of course they'd been there. Her hand had probably just been covering them…. She turned the disk to see what it said. In big, bold silver, gothic letters… DARK FALL greeted her. Raven was helplessly interested by the title alone. Her gothic persona and attitude towards life projected her to see what it was. Checking her tea kettle again, still not shrieking with steam, she spotted Beast Boy's CD player on the counter.
Making sure no one else was present, she popped it open and stuck the CD inside. The machine spun the disk obediently, and she put the headphones up to one of her ears. She waited patiently, but got no sound out of it. She checked the volume, then looked at the digital display. 'NO CD' was all it said. The CD player couldn't read it.
So, it wasn't music. Raven knew that much. She took it out, a little disappointed. Maybe it was a movie? Having not seen a particularly scary movie in a while, she opened the DVD player and turned the TV on. Pushing the tray closed, she watched the little light-up display in the DVD player spin the little cartoon disk that was on the front. After a few moments, a slash appeared across the cartoon DVD disk. Raven frowned. It wasn't music… it wasn't a movie… "Oh no…" Raven muttered. "It's a game." Beast Boy would never let her hear the end of it if he came in and she was playing a video game! Raven took the disk back from the DVD player, looking at it. "Oh well." She muttered, dropping it amongst the stack of video games that Beast Boy had been bribing her with earlier. Raven returned to the counter, waiting for the slow steaming of the kettle to become a shriek so she could make her tea at last.
She drummed her fingers, bored, on the counter. Why did it seem to be taking so long today to make tea? Was the boredom of the rainy day in her too? Of course not. Raven shook her head, but spotted the dark disk, shining right at her, on the stack of games. Raven's mind was starting to get more and more curious. In the land called Nevermore, her emotions clustered in groups. They conspired about what to do about the dark disk, but none of them could reach a verdict.
Finally, Raven gave in to temptation. Putting her hood up she checked yet again to be sure no one was watching her, and approached the Gamestation. Picking up the black disk, she popped the system open and inserted it. Searching with untrained eyes, she finally found the power button. Tracing the chords with her eyes, she found the player one controller, and flipped the power on.
The screen went black, and she heard the disk spinning in the Gamestation. Raven frowned after a few long moments, the controller sitting limply in her hands. Nothing was happening. She deflated with genuine disappointment. The rain was getting way worse outside, beating against the wall-window of the common room. She tilted her head. The only thing that was left was a computer, and that meant going to Cyborg. Oh well. She didn't want to know what was on it that badly. She reached and turned the Gamestation off, popping the receiver open. She reached and took the disk, its sleek black surface beckoning her to solve the mystery. Mystery? What mystery? Why had that word come to mind? Raven shrugged. She heard her tea kettle beginning to whistle, and made to stand.
Lightning split the sky right outside, and thunder shook the tower! Raven was blinded and let out a startled yelp. Her powers slipped and ignited the disk. Raven was shrouded in black, and vanished with a cry into a vortex! When the lightning had gone, and the thunder was done rolling…… Raven was gone. All that remained in her place was the jet-black disk. It sparked with black energy, outlined in white. Then… silently… it picked itself up off the carpet about a half-inch… and began to spin.
The kettle shrieked loudly, having no one to attend to it. Thunder boomed outside again, but no one was around in the common room to hear it.
Beast Boy, who was in the middle of enjoying his comic, heard his stomach growl. "Hungry…" He murmured, dropping his comic face down so he'd know where he stopped. Humming to himself, he came to the kitchen. An unpleasant sound met his ears, forcing his hands to jump to them. "Hey Raven! Your kettle thing is making a lot of noise you know! I think the water is hot enough already!" He looked around, but saw no sign of the dark girl anywhere. He looked around in confusion. "…Raven? She wouldn't just leave… would she?" He tilted his head, turning the stove off and setting the kettle on a different burner so the stove wouldn't scorch the bottom. After a moment of thought, he shrugged. "Maybe she went off to meditate or something. She could've at least turned off the stove… geez…"
After helping himself to a peanut butter, pickle, banana, and jelly sandwich, Beast Boy was gone from the common room again. All was silent… aside from a soft whirring sound coming from a black disk, which had somehow made its way under the couch where no one would see it.
"Uuuhn…." Raven held her head, which ached. She felt as though she'd fallen from a very high place. She was in total darkness, and could sense no one nearby with her powers. "Where am I…?" She stood, gathering her body into the standing position without it parting her cloak. She liked doing that because it gave the illusion she was rising out of the floor. Doing illusions without magic was a pretty good talent, in her opinion. She didn't have to chance her emotions unbalancing if she didn't use her powers. She couldn't see anything… it was too dark, even for her to see.
Suddenly she was blinded by a bright neon green sign! She staggered in surprise. She was briefly afraid her powers might break something… but there was nothing around for her to break. This fact made her shudder ever so slightly. What kind of black void was she in? She regained her posture, squinting at the sign.
NAME:
The little underscore was blinking. It was hovering at about face-level, word and all. Raven touched it, but she didn't feel anything. It was just light. There was no projector anywhere, either. It was simply hanging in the air. "Uh…… Raven?" she said.
NAME: Raven CONFIRM? Y/N
It copied what she had said, asking if it was right. "Yes." She said, playing along for the moment. "What's going –?" She was plunged into darkness again. The neon letters had vanished, leaving her blind again. Raven knelt, feeling the floor. Was this Mad Mod's place, re-vamped or something? Raven extended her awareness thirty feet into the floor, and found nothing. Literally. Not even dirt. She sighed, starting to worry just a little. If it had been Mad Mod, she would've felt the machines of his illusionary school moving around. …Control Freak, maybe? No… he liked to gloat and be a dramatic idiot before zapping people into the TV… Raven couldn't think of who – A spotlight appeared and Raven whirled, hands blackened to attack!
It was… an end table. It was small and had, of all things, an answering machine on it. "If you're there pick up, Raven!" She knew the voice immiediatly. It was Beast Boy! "It's me, Beast Boy!" There was a pause. Raven wondered how she was supposed to pick up… if there was no phone around. "I needed you to answer……… I know what you're thinkin', though. 'He only calls when there's something wrong.'" Raven knew that was true, but was still suspicious of the message. She slowly approached the answering machine as the message went on. There was no phone to pick up at all, she noticed. "Well, something is wrong, dude. Very wrong. Like Wicked Scary wrong." She knew Beast Boy only used the name of that movie when he was being dead serious. It was like a curse-word to him. She leaned over the answering machine, watching the two turners play the tape. "You gotta come help, Rae! Something's happened… something bad." She could hear his quick, panicked breathing. "You're all we've got left. You see, Cyborg and me were… this is kinda embarrassing… ghost hunting. We thought we heard something in the basement…" The was a pause, and an odd sound in the background. Beast Boy held his breath… tiny whispers went by in the background, and Raven actually heard him whimper. Then, they finally passed… he let out his held breath to continue speaking. Now he was whispering loudly, as though not to attract attention. "That was just the start……. I think whatever we were looking for found us. All of us. Except you. We turned it loose… we didn't mean to! Honest!" Raven squinted, trying to understand. Since when was Beast Boy so serious? "Please help." He whispered earnestly, as though he were about to start crying. Raven wondered what on Earth was so bad… what had happened to the others? What had they turned loose? What the hell was with the answering machine, and why wasn't there a phone with it? "This all started a few days ago, Rae. It was whe…" Beast Boy paused again. The whispering had returned, louder than before. "I can hear it!" He whispered desperately. "I can hear it! It's right outside my door! Whispering my name! …It knows my name, Raven!" There was a short pause. "I've got to open the door and face it…… I've gotta try and fight it before it drives me crazy!" Beast Boy sounded as though he were inches from crying hysterically. "It got the others, Rae. Please… please, help us." Raven felt her eyebrows tilt upward. He sounded so… desperate for her… But, his whispering continued for just a bit longer. "I hope you get here in time Raven. I've… I've gotta go now." The whispering grew louder in the background, and Raven heard Beast Boy's footsteps going away from the phone.
"Don't do it…" Raven heard herself say softly. "Don't……" she heard, on the answering machine, the door of Beast Boy's room opening. There was a short silence, and the familiar whooshing sound of Beast Boy changing shape… suddenly thousands of whispers filled the air! Hundreds of voices saying thousands of different things! There was a grinding sound like…… like the breaking of flesh and bone. Then there was dead silence, and the message had ended. Raven let out a soft sigh of weariness. It had gotten Beast Boy. Whatever IT was…
The end table faded from existence, taking the answering machine with it. Raven was left in total darkness.
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Well, I don't know if anyone besides me has played Dark Fall: The Journal… but I'm giving it my best shot? Does anyone have any input for me? …Yes I KNOW I USE TOO MANY EXCLAMATION POINTS! MANY PEOPLE HAVE TOLD ME THIS! SO, YOU KNOW WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So there! Please review, and have a nice day!