Drenched, A Heavy Rain Fanfic
Prolougue:
The first time I came across Heavy Rain was when Mum bought it for Tim's birthday. I never played video games, so when the festive blue and silver wrapping paper was torn back and the dull grey plastic box was revealed, it meant nothing to me. I passed it off as just another game full of blood, guts and a ridiculous amount of over the top violence, the usual kind of rubbish my big brother lapped up. If I'd actually paid any attention to it, it would have come in very handy later on, but as it was, I simply couldn't care less. So I just kissed Tim on the cheek, wished him happy Birthday, and left him to it. That seemed to be that.
But of course it wasn't.
Nothing happened until a few weeks later. I'd completely forgotten about Heavy Rain; all I knew is that my brother had been locked in his bedroom twenty four/ seven playing it, re-emerging every few hours for a bathroom break or to sneak a packet of chocolate digestives up. I'd been busy, and, as I said before, I never played video games. In those few short weeks since Tim's birthday a lot had been going on – School had started up again after the summer holiday; the first time for my little sister Gabby (Her real name was Gabrielle, but everyone had called her Gabby since she was a baby), and we'd been working on getting her settled in. It wasn't too hard – she'd always been a pretty social kid and adapted well, but there had been a few hiccups along the way. Nothing serious, the usual stumbling blocks, but it was enough to keep my mother's eyebrows lodged together in a worried crease across her forehead for a while. As much as she told us that it was a relief to have all three of us out the house and in school at last, I think really she missed something about having someone relaying on her so heavily.
And then there was my own school work – exam preparation was heaped on top of me by my teachers, there was learning to settle back into the old routine, and then reunion celebrations with my friends... Like I said, busy.
So it wasn't until around the start of October that I even looked at it again. It was a Monday, and Mum was working late that night, so I'd offered to pick Gabby up from school for her. We'd had a pleasant walk back through the dying sunlight, the night only just beginning to claw it back over the horizon, running through every pile of leaves we'd found along the way and sending up swirls of red and orange and gold until, cheeks pink and stinging with autumn chill, we collapsed giggling through the front door of our little terraced house. Tim had gotten home before us, and I was surprised to find him downstairs rather than tucked away in his bedroom. He grinned at us both over his mug of hot chocolate, waving the Heavy Rain box triumphantly above his head.
"Finished it."
"Really?" I asked, sending Gabby off to the kitchen for a snack. "It's only taken you, what, like, a month?" Tim and I weren't exactly close, but he always liked to show off whenever he'd finished a game. It always took him a while, too, as he never considered it "finished" unless he'd done multiple playthroughs to get all the trophies. Still, it had taken a long while, even for him.
His brow furrowed. "It takes time, this one. It's different."
"Why? A hundred new ways blow people up?"
Tim rolled his blue-grey eyes, an exasperated sigh escaping his lips. "Sometimes, Hannah, you can be so obtuse. Not all games are about murder and mayhem, you know."
"You could've fooled me." I muttered. I heard the T.V. blare on, flashes of conversation mingling with the crackle of a crisp packet as Gabby flicked through the channels.
"It's like a movie," He continued. "Only you have control over what happens. It's good, you should try it."
"Thanks, but no thanks," I said, shrugging of my coat and shoes, already half way to the living room to watch The Adventures of Floppy Bunny with my little sister. "You know how I feel about video games."
He laughed. "That's only because you suck at them."
I scowled at him from the doorframe. "Do not!"
"Of course not. I'll see you later then. I'm going to get ready – I'm heading over to Josh's tonight. He has the new Grand Theft Auto. Don't tell Mum, I may be back late and she'll go mental if she thinks I'm not taking full advantage of my beauty sleep on a school night."
A couple of hours later, when he'd gone and I was just getting Gabby ready for bed, my eyes were drawn to the gray box on the table were he'd left it. I have no idea why, and the feeling crept over me quite suddenly as soon as the house became dark and quiet, but it just seemed to be begging to be picked up and examined. I ignored the unsettling feeling as I made sure my sister brushed her teeth and went to the toilet, as I helped her into bed, as I read her a bedtime story, as called Mum to let her know that everything was fine and we all missed her. I ignored it as I sat and watched telly, the volume turned down low as to not to wake a snoring Gabby. I had never paid any attention to video games before, but as the boredom of being alone in an empty house began to dull my mind the idea became more and more appealing. And Tim had said I could have a go.
I gave it another half hour before I finally succumbed to the temptation.
I grabbed the box from the dining room table and tiptoed up the stairs, the carpet muffling my footsteps. As at loath to go in there as I was, Tim's room was the only one in the house with a Playstation 3 in it. It took me a few moments to unjam the door and wade through the knee deep junk that had been blocking it, but eventually I reached the far corner of the room were the console sat beneath the blind dark forehead of television screen. As I punched the button and waited for it to boot up, my eyes flickered down to the blurb.
How Far Will You Go To Save Someone You Love?
The Playstation began to hum, hungry for the disk, whilst the television screen flashed into life.
Your Smallest Decisions Can Change Everything...
I plucked the disk from the box, feeding it to the drive. It span round and round, whirring.
Who Will Live? Who Will Die? How This Story Unfolds Is Entirely Up To You.
It finished loading. I tapped the X button, and Heavy Rain began.
I was hooked immediately. I played for hours that night, until Tim came home and kicked me out of his room, our brief argument interrupted by Mum's return home. Both of us had to sneak quietly back into our beds in case she heard us. I lay awake listening to her padding tiredly about downstairs, my thoughts full of Heavy Rain.
The next night, Tuesday, I hurried home and commandeered the Playstation again. Another few hours of straight playing and I had reached the Blue Lagoon as Madison Paige. That's when it started happening.
Things were fine at first. I mean, I felt absorbed in it, but that was just the mark of a good storyline, nothing sinister. But once or twice, when I pulled my eyes away from the screen and looked around, it wasn't Tim's messy bedroom I saw but the strobe lighting and the crowded dance floor of the club. I could honestly feel the heat of the dancers, smell the alcohol on their breath, hear the pumping music. It had to squeeze my eyelids together tightly and shake my head to clear the vision, feeling dizzy and disorientated as the dull, poster covered cream walls and the worn beige carpet surrounded me once more.
After this happened a couple of times, I figured I'd been playing way to long and made a move to switch of the console. But as soon as I put the controller down on the floor, my spine juddered violently and the club scene washed over me again. It only lasted a few seconds, but I was starting to get scared by now. I staggered up and lurched towards the screen, arm extended, franticly trying to hit the "off" button. Half way there I shuddered again, a different scene this time, a grubby motel room, then quick fade into a midnight apartment flooded with artificial light from the streets outside. I heard myself cry out, the Playstation in front of me coming back into focus, just two feet or so away. I can make it. I had no idea what was happening, only that it would be better when I tuned it off, it would be okay when I turned it off. I had to turn it off! One foot in front of the other. Come on!
Right, left. A rainy crime scene, mud up to my ankles. Right, left. A run down reception area, a man with a newspaper sitting in a booth beside me. Right, left. A park, kids playing, the gray clouds threatening rain. So close...
As my finger finally connected with the switch, a shock of electricity coursed through me and my own agonised howl was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
When I woke up, I definitely was not in Tim's bedroom anymore.
But the room I was in was painfully familiar, and I felt sheer terror constrict my breathing.
Shit.
I grasped the corners of the table I sat at hard to stop myself keeling over, panic causing my breaths to come sharp and shallow in my chest. This had to be a dream. This had to be a dream, although the rough surface of the tabletop scraping against my fingers and the thudding of my heart against my ribs argued otherwise. Behind me, the rain pounded the window panes relentlessly as the little and totally familiar room seemed to spin. I felt sick, and my thoughts were tangled together in an indecipherable mess. One thing, though, however impossible, however much I wanted to shut it out, was blatantly clear.
This was Ethan Mars's kitchen.
I was in Heavy Rain.
Authors Note: Errrr... Yeah. So. My first fic. I really hope you guys like this. I know that it's waaaaaaaay too long for a prolougue, so if you made it this far, well done, but if I continue with this I will try and cut the chapters down and blither on less. It's "hot off the press" as it were, and most likely full of errors and reads jerkily. I'd apreaciate any and all constructive critisisms, so please reveiw. Thanks for reading :D