an old urban legend for halloween

[toastysocks]

THE KIDNEY THIEF




Did you have a wild night? Did you go to bed on time? Do you just not sleep at all? Are you at home? Are you traveling? Well, none of that matters, because you've just had the unfortunate privilege of groggily coming to in a strange bathtub full of ice!

Oh, and you might have one or two organs missing.

That's it. That's the meme.

Rules:
1: Comment with your character | series | Preferences
2: Write your starter. Yep, tell us where your character is, what's going on, if they have any mysterious wounds that have been stitched up, etc etc. Set the stage for their peril. Blank top levels without a starter will be deleted
3: The responder is your savior! Or maybe they're the crazy sonuvabitch who put you there.
4: Enjoy

Comments

Taako | The Adventure Zone | OTA???

[tacosgay]

[It's cold.

That's the first thing that manages to break through the heavy blanket of black coating Taako's consciousness, and he shudders, the feeling sinking through his flesh and down into his very bones. He's cold, and he's sitting? Laying? He can barely feel his body, and he feels so tired, and--

-- and then he moves, and there's a sharp pain in his side, and he sinks into the ice bath with a yelp, and he's finally awoken enough to own his eyes, to notice where he is.

A bathtub. Full of ice. In a strange bathroom that he doesn't recognize. Each breath sends another sharp stab of pain through him, and he quickly fumbles to pick himself up, to get out of that tub, but his body is so cold and numb and heavy and his limbs don't want to cooperate...]


[PREFS: I'm open to just about anything. Rescuers, culprits who try to steal more from him or kill him, other victims, go for it. Any degree of violence is fine with me.]

[afraidof7]

[[tiny child cross-canon y/n??? i'm thinking she, a tiny gremlin child hiding in the place mid-escape, could find his organs and bring them back (identifying which ones are his are quite another thing) && i'm missing half an idea of how dnd magic works but Possibly, he could manage to get them to fit back into place???

ofc u dont have to if this isnt ur taste & mind that im a bit slow, but the offer stands o7]]

[tacosgay]

[LMFAO I ALSO PLAY THEWEIRDO. Hello again! I would love that scene! Taako would be... confused and a little creeped out, but appreciate the thought, even though he's not a cleric so he couldn't actually fix himself. He's a wizard with no healing spells, whoops.]

[scleramelani]

[Uta stares idly at the man in the tub. This is probably a problem. He himself is not in much better shape, strapped face-down against the toilet's lid, back only just healing from where part of his kakuhou was removed - while he was conscious, no less - and transplanted into this other person's lower back. He's barely recovering from the RC inhibitors they injected into his eye so they could cut him open in the first place, and everything hurts. But Taako's got to have it worse.

Maybe he should just put him out of his misery and eat him... He might not survive anyway, right? The ghoul's remaining kakuhou seems to itch, but no. He fed only the other other day, and he's no binge eater. He's good for a month.

Plus Taako doesn't smell quite human, didn't even when he arrived before the transplant. Appetizing, sure, but he might be able to fight back. So instead of murdering Taako, he whistles to get his attention.]

So, do you remember who brought you here, or...?

[tacosgay]

... n-nope, hh, but... but when I do, ooh...

[It isn't often Taako goes after someone purely out of anger-- not in a violent manner, at any rate-- but as soon as he catches whoever did this to him, they're dead.

Not quite as menacing a thought when one considers that he's presently stripped and bound in a pool of ice that has his entire body shuddering painfully, sucking in sharp breaths between his teeth, the place where they split him down his gut aching terribly.]

W-what's... with the ice bath...?

Genie | Middens | OTA

[parasitus]

So you're awake... good! No, great. Great, great, great...!

[The voice that greets you is musical and chilled, sweet, a razor blade wrapped in cotton candy, and the owner is smiling from the doorway, her mantid-eyed gaze fixed on you. She is slim, angular, her skin the shade and shine of an oil slick, black as pitch and shiny in the light, and she is smiling, and it's a terrifying sight, because it reaches right up to her vivid blue eyes and makes them brighter, and there is no warmth behind it.]

I have a most troublesome need, I'm afraid, and while it must be most inconvenient for you, I simply must see to it.

[She walks over to the side of the bathroom, her motions reptilian, and she leans down, looming over you.]

Don't worry. I'll make it quick.


[Genie has taken something from you, or intends to. She's a complete sociopath and is omnicidal, and feeds on blood; but we could certainly have her needing organs as well, for whatever reason. She's capable of any number of graphic and terrible acts; just let me know if you do want or want to avoid anything in particular.]

[shy_flier]

[ Florina sucks in a breath - the moment she's conscious at all, she's fully awake, what with the cold water around her. It's not as though she's not used to the cold; her homeland is cool in the summer and absolutely frigid in the winter. Falling into cold water is often death there, though, and she's not supposed to be in even a cold bathtub right now, so her immediate reaction is panic.

But she's bound as well... and at the mercy of...

Of some kind of creature. ]

...make... w-what... q-quick?

[ Deep breaths, her attempt at quelling her panic ruined by shivering. ]

[ooc: ...take any number of whatever organs out lmao. ]

[parasitus]

[Genie simply smiles at her, and she leans down over her for a moment, doing two separate things that will likely alarm her victim very much:

First, she pulls the plug from the tub, releasing the water so that Florina will be left, in a few seconds' time, sitting directly on bare ice.

Second, she fetches a knife from beside the tub, and she begins to split Florina's clothing open, pushing it aside to bare her chest and stomach to her.]

The procedure. I'll need to take a few things from you, you see, and it will be quite invasive and damaging, I'm afraid.

Dr. White | HHN Singapore | OTA

[plagueofdeception]

[So you woke up strapped to an operating table in a strange laboratory.]

[It might seem like your average, run of the mill mad science lab... Until you notice most of the assistants flitting about every now and then are dressed like plague doctors... Very, very unsettling plague doctors.]

[Soon enough, an unmasked scientist wearing mostly white comes to tend to you... But, why is he holding a bowl and a jar of leeches?! Either way, he seems surprised to see you up.]

What the- I thought that sedative woulda lasted longer? [He sets the jar of leeches on the table next to your arm.] Whatever, I can work with this- How are you feeling, then...?

[He doesn't even give you a chance to properly respond.] Sorry to bother you, but I have to do something. You didn't look too well back there, and it is my job to rid you lot of disease. Don't worry, the treatment shouldn't take too long if you cooperate... Heh, heh, heh.

[The scientist smirks, knowing full well how unbelievable his claims sound. But what could the "patient" possibly do now that they're in his clutches?]

((OOC: Dr. White is a mad "doctor" who will test all sorts of treatments to allegedly find a cure for the black plague. Not that your character might actually have the plague in this scenario. I'd rather not go into too much detail about the gore, but we can do bloodletting or other medieval quackery if you're so inclined. This includes some of the sillier options. Let me know what you're comfortable with!))

Ramsay Bolton / Game of Thrones

[veneries]

[The room is small, the single lightbulb reveals the brick walls are dirty and covered in unpleasant stains. There are two doors, both closed, and a wooden chair- on which Ramsay sits playing on his phone.

When kidney-less person in the bathtub starts to come to he looks up, grinning.] With us at last! That's good. How're you feeling?

[ooc: he can either taunt your character a little then leave or go for some more torture, or something in the middle. let me know! also, PM if you want to do something in the GoT setting instead.]

Let me know if the cross canon is too weird.

[thepeoplesprince]

[Noctis blinks several times as he comes to, not entirely sure that he’s really awake. Everything is so blurry. And cold. After a few seconds it all starts to come into focus. Dark, dingy walls, lit by a single light dirty bulb. He shudders and tries to sit up, gasping when the motion results in a sharp pain in his abdomen. There’s a rattle and a quiet splash when he drops back, almost like… ice water? ]

What... Where am I?

[veneries]

[His eyebrows rise as though he's unimpressed with the response.] In a bathtub. Duh.

Furiosa / Mad Max: Fury Road

[seventhousand]

You wake up in a shallow metal tub, in a dimly lit room that seems to be walled with rocks and soil rather than the smooth sides of a man-made structure. In point of fact, this is a man-altered structure, but some of the natural 'charm' has been left intact. There are voices around you, but without sitting up and trying to leave the icy water, you're unlikely to see the speakers at first. And quite apart from the fact that you're bound up, sitting up might be inadvisable. The particular surgeon who has begun his work on you is not very delicate.

After a moment, though, a lean feminine figure comes into view, peering down at you with a look of blended shock and disgust. "This is what you wanted more coolant for?? Did you go feral? What the fuck kind of project is this, Organic?"

A man joins her, and both of them are a little grungy looking, but he's far filthier. He seems to have a facial lesion or two, and his hair is long and unkempt. He seems awfully pleased with himself, though. "They used to do it in the old world, you know, Imperator. Replace damaged organs with new ones. Might give some of our best boys a whole new lease on life, eh?"

"And your plan is to have half-dead corpses sitting around your shop in ice. For the spare parts."

He shrugs. "Keeps 'em from rotting. Probably die of shock before too long, but I can still use 'em."

The Imperator looks from him to you and back. Her expression is blank and grim now, shock gone but replaced by steel. "It's a waste of water and coolant. You're done here. Take this one out and wrap 'em up. If they live, I'll deal with them from there."

Okay, that's ominous and may or may not be a rescue, per se...but at least you get out of the ice water, assuming she wins the verbal argument that seems about to ensue here.



[Sort of a rescuer here! Prefs: Your call what's been taken from your character and whether they can live without it. If not, she'll try to make you comfortable or at least shorten the term of your suffering. If you try to escape, she will shoot you, so unless you want a real short thread, recommend against that. Pretty open otherwise.
For those who are familiar with her canon, I'm assuming this is occurring while Immortan Joe is still alive.]

[tacosgay]

[Would you be up for a crosscanon thing with a bit of a more ridiculous canon? It'll be handled seriously, but he's... well, not the most serious character.]

Yass!

[seventhousand]

[Wait, but this is clearly the best crossover ever and must happen! I've only heard parts of TAZ so far, but I know enough about the character that I understand your warning and am eager to plunge ahead anyway.]

[9601]

There's a kind of hellish familiarity to all this, the light smearing across his vision, the unrelenting chill that goes right through his metal bones. The OM's taken what can be spared for now--blood for the War Boys, a healthy kidney, a bit of liver--and left a map of haphazard stitching behind. It didn't have to be pretty, not for a job half done, right?

He drifts a little in the cold, likely as not on the edge of euphoric hypothermia. Funny, really, as all he can recall of the world outside this blurred, grungy cavern is stark, boiling heat, a desert stretching a thousand miles. All his skills, all his gifts, and he'd been easy prey for lack of water.

Voices interfere with his recollection, an argument brewing at the edge of awareness. Logan's starting to piece things together, and he's not liking what he hears.

[seventhousand]

If the Organic Mechanic were half the surgeon he purported to be, he would probably have noticed a few physical anomalies in this patient's body. Metal in the bones would be a big surprise, for one, and one of great interest. But it's probably very lucky for Logan that the Citadel's self-appointed physician is more or less just a hack with a little knowledge and some clever tricks.

"What are you gonna do with 'im?" He asks the Imperator with amusement coloring his voice. "You looking for a top-up? Little healthy blood? Or maybe you like--"

"Shut it." Her response is quiet, but deadly for all that, and the prosthetic metal fingers on her left click dangerously. "I know how your brain works, and I know how to break what you carry it in."

There's a moment of quiet as if he's trying to decide whether to push his luck, but whatever the power struggle between them, she seems to have won.

"Hairy little smeg's heavier than he looks," he warns her, sullen, but making a dismissive gesture. "But if you think you can carry him, he's all yours."

She makes a soft growling sound, irritated, but lets him walk away and yanks a couple blankets off the nearest shelf, then a pair of boltcutters from a box along the wall. She thunks lightly at the side of the tub with the latter. "You awake there, Spare-Parts? I'm about to cut you loose. Turn on me, and I'll make you sorry. Understand?"

So, she's no angel of mercy, but she's definitely better than the other guy, right?

Steve Rogers / MCU

[shieldborne]

Cold. He remembers this. The plane going down, the hull cracking in the ice, the water starting to rush in. Even his body couldn't stand up to arctic water. He could feel himself shutting down, knew there was no way they'd ever find him in time, wished he'd died on impact. He remembers taking the shield and lying down, resigned, and trying to close his eyes. Except he couldn't, because the water was coming in and lapping against his legs and it was so cold...

They found him with his eyes wide open under the ice. He's seen pictures.

His eyes are wide open now, too, but what he sees is different from his momentary flashback. It's a sterile room, white and black and metal, brightly lit. He's cuffed at the ankles and wrists, collared at the throat to keep him still, and he finds when he pulls at the chains, there's no give. They must be designed for his superior strength. Also, there's a burst of shattering pain when he tries. Discomfort has never stopped him before, but this is also unnerving.

He's afraid, and that makes him reckless. It might be wiser to play dead, wait it out, see who shows up and gauge the situation better. Instead, he yells through chattering teeth: "Who are you? Show yourself!" ...under the perfectly reasonable assumption that whoever has him has some very nefarious intentions.

Feels like they've already carried some intentions out, in fact, judging from the full-body pain he's experiencing. Unless that's just the ice-cold.


[I'm assuming he's missing a kidney, maybe a piece of liver and some spinal fluid. I mean, who wouldn't want a few tissue samples from a super-soldier, possibly for the purpose of retro-engineering the serum? Prefer no death here, but I'm open to other possibilities. Be Hydra--or some other villain who's captured him for experimentation or just plain torture--or be a rescuer. Feel free to ask or PM with questions.]

Winging this a bit. Let me know if you need some info on her

[oncekind]

Hydra has done a lot to ruin her life. She lost her life (just barely sewn back together by her husband) and her daughter, lost her morality. She feels no sympathy for this soldier, but she's brought him here because Hydra wants him, had their hands on him, had already tried to remove parts of him - a move reminiscence of what Reinhart has done to her. No doubt they would have opened him up and placed his insides in jars if she hadn't stepped in.

She steps out from behind the door, fussing with her braided hair, making herself look nervous and small.

"It's just me. It's all right. I just haven't figured out how to get you out of this yet."

In her murder spree of the guards here, she's had more than enough opportunity to demand that someone free Steve. She decides against it though. It makes him far easier to manipulate this way, physically at least.

((I am delighted!))

[shieldborne]

Maybe it's the flashbacks, or maybe the raw cold surrounding him fucking up his memory, but when she speaks, he cranes his neck and...he feels like he knows her, should remember her, but he's confused. Everything hurts to a degree he's lost familiarity with; when he was a boy, pain was normal, but after the serum he mostly only noticed when he was shot or thrown several feet with force that would break a normal man's bones.

"Who," he begins, and cranes his neck to push himself further out of the water. That makes everything hurt worse, but the air temperature is so much greater than the ice bath it almost feels like it burns his skin. He gulps air, then tries again, "Who are you?"

The tone of his voice is gentler than the previous yelling. Actually, he sounds almost apologetic now, because she looks decidedly innocuous and even afraid, and the way she speaks implies she's been trying to help him. "I forgot," he explains. "It's so damn cold...can you at least get some ice off me?"


((I haven't seen much of AoS, but I read up some and I like this very much. I'm defaulting to after-TWS for his timeline here, does that work for you?))

[knowhereman]

As if providing a response to the Captain's gritted question, a small click echoes throughout the room. The click heralds a terrible mechanic screaming, which gives way to ringing, to static, and, then, to a knowing baritone.

"--know now that in the early years of the twentieth century this world was being watched closely by intelligences greater than man's..."

As Mr. Welles continues his introduction, three women enter the Captain's line of vision. All of the women wear pigtails, surgical masks, gloves, and identical white dresses. (Perhaps it's a trick of the light, but their coloration appears, well, incredibly florid.) The first carries something, for lack of a better descriptor, resembling an ice-chest. The second gingerly supports a tray, adorned with silvery shapes that would be unrecognizable to most. The third simply clasps her hands together. They speak eagerly, pointing to the Captain and looking a little past him as well.

"--as humans busied themselves about their various concerns, they were scrutinized and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinize the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water..."

There is a sound of clapping. The clapping only stops when the women line themselves up, step back three paces, and speak together. Their voices are practiced and melodious, with soft T's and R's, but their language is unlike any from Earth. They carry a mirthless melody. When they have completed their little song, the third unclasps her hands, bows, and, then, gestures to her right.

"--serene in the assurance of their dominion over this small spinning fragment of driftwood, which by chance or design man has inherited out of the dark mystery of Space and Time..."

A fourth figure in black enters in front of the girls, holding his hands together like an image of a saint or a church-goer. Most of the man's face is hidden by a surgical mask, save for white hair and dark eyes that narrowed with severity. He looks away from the Captain.

"Girls, this man is Captain America," his voice cautions, so coldly and slowly. "Americans, if you recall, only speak one language. Do you remember how to perform the introduction in American?" The girls remain in their places, but they turn their heads in different directions.

"--of the twentieth century came the great disillusionmen--"

The man breaks out of his tranquil posturing, insisting something sharply (in a language that could not possibly be understood on Terra) and pointing. Only one breaks out of formation, heading in the direction that the man pointed, while the other two remain where they are and look back at the man. Once the man has finished his admonishments, he turns away from his assistants and looks to the Captain. "Hello Captain. I am called Taneleer Tivan. We really weren't expecting you to be up just yet."

The Mercury Theatre's broadcast can no longer be heard. Soon enough, the third assistant reunites with her doppelgangers. And, then, this odd enclave of light and shadow stare at the captain as, so like a theatre troupe, they bow in unison.

Agent 47 | Hitman

[tobiasrieper]

[Losing organs was part of the plan.

The Agency had accepted on a contract hit on an organ trafficker, famous for their international reach and constant elusion of authorities. They were careful to the point of obsession. Agent 47 was no stranger to infiltrating high security, but he had never had to stage his own operation to get close to a target.

It's dark, dingy, somewhere in a basement. The target was supposed to be visiting, somewhere. 47 lifts himself out of the ice bath and feels his abdomen sting. One kidney and a gall bladder. He vaguely remembered some back alley surgeon mention. He'll have to find them at some point, get the Agency to put them back.

Ignoring the burning in his gut, the assassin pulled himself out of the ice bath and stands up.

He's pretty naked.]

[bladeisme]

[What was most likely not part of the plan is the sound of something big going going on upstairs - yelling, some screaming, even a few gunshots.

There's even a thunk as someone's flung against the door to the basement, almost busting the door off it's hinges but not quite.

Investigate y/n?]

Sans | Undertale

[trombones]

[he doesn't have any organs.

he's also pretty content?? like, he's just chilling. and slurping on a mysterious, brightly-colored drink.

so what was the plan here.]

Kylo Ren - Star Wars (modern AU or whatever)

[forcefullyawkward]

With a rainbow of pills, bad decisions and a few good old-fashioned alcohol blackouts, it was only a matter of time before Kylo woke up some place truly frightening.

As he stumbled out of the decrepit house and into an abandoned alley, fear turned to panic. The looming hangover paled in comparison to the sharp pain of a recent surgical procedure he never consented to having. He reached a trembling hand around to a long incision down his back. Blood oozed from the hastily stitched wound and Kylo emptied his stomach behind a dumpster.

He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he got there or how long he'd been gone. He didn't remember who he left the club with or what they might have wanted with a black market kidney. The only thing he did know was that it was gone, much like his wallet, most of his clothing and anything of value he might have had on him.

"Hello? Any one?" he whimpered desperately. His head spun from blood loss and withdrawal, and he stumbled over his own gangly limbs. "Somebody... please, help me..."