User blog:Dorkpool/Creepypasta Riffs: Rap Rat

When I first heard the name of this story, my first thought was, "Rats and white people can't rap." (Please, not a word about Eminem.) My second thought was, "What the hell kind of name is 'Rap Rat'?" Well, whatever it is, it exists, and has been recommended to me as something to Riff. And since I can't think of anything else to Riff right now, I decided to take a look at it. So, let's make up some dumb anagram and Riff this bitch.

(Note: This story has a picture with it. Like most every Riff I've done, I won't post the picture. I will say that it looks like crude CGI.)

The Terror Begins ''I love how this story thinks it has terror in it. That's so cute.''

Ever heard of "Nightmare?" No. Unless you're talking about the A7X song. Like a lot of other games in the 90's, it came with a VHS ''Wait, games in the 90s came with a VHS tape? The 90s were weird.'' which you timed with your play. The character on the video would give you instructions on what to do “Now, I want you to sacrifice your family to Cthulu.” while you played the game in real-time. Being a scardy-cat, I would say “pussy”, but this is guy is a scardy-cay, not a scaredy-cat. I refused to play it when my mom bought it for us. ''Wait, us? Who’s us?'' My brother was disappointed about not being able to play Nightmare, but my mom had a solution. “She dropped my brother off at an orphanage.” She brought out "Rap Rat". Rap Rat was voiced by Vanilla Ice. It was a cheap, dingy little thing catered to kids my age; you went around the board, collected cheese, and the first player to reach the end would win. “The second player to reach the end would be pelted with rotten fruit.” It seemed simple enough, and since it reminded us of "Mouse Trap" (which we didn't have Wait, if you didn’t have it, then why did it remind you of it?), there were no objections. Phoenix Wright is losing his touch. We popped the movie into the VHS and set up the board. The first part of the video was just a simple explanation of the rules as well as instructions on how the game worked. “The second part contained subliminal messages designed to make us servants of Rap Rat.”

Then, Rap Rat came onto the TV. “He tried sounding ‘hip’ and ‘with it’, which was painful to watch.” He was... not what any of us had been expecting. “For one thing, we had been expecting a mouse.” My smaller brother, who was only three at the time, immediately left the room crying. That’s exactly what I did after watching “Teen Titans GO!” The rat did not even resemble a rat. “It actually resembled a cat.” The ears were far too big. It had a mouth lined with two teeth, and the inside of the mouth looked almost swollen. The most striking part about the thing, though, was the eyes. Just once, I’d a like a Creepypasta story where the scariest feature of a character/creature’s face is something other than their eyes. They were large, glassy, and fish-like. I asked, then bothered, then begged my mom to turn it off. “Unfortunately, my mom was too busy messing around on her PDA to do anything.” Rap Rat suddenly shouted loudly, screaming and wailing, saying "WAIT YOUR TURN" in a demonic, low-pitched voice that was not at all like his normal obnoxious, nasal voice. ''Wait, how do you know about his normal voice? He never said anything before. I’m confused.'' In the background, we could hear the narrator saying "He's Rap Rat, and he's the boss" over and over again in an overly serious tone. ''I have to give props to that narrator. I don’t think anyone could say that without breaking out in laughter.''

The video was... indescribable. Which is exactly why you’ll describe it. Images crossed the screen in quick succession, overcut with Rap Rat's expressionless eyes. The images were some of the things I was afraid of at the time. “Catholic priests, for example.” A person looking over a balcony, a hornet slowly stinging someone's eye, an extreme EXTREEEEME! close-up of a tarantula, a pit full of writhing cobras, and a bloodied syringe filled with green fluid. We immediately turned the video off, and I ran out of the room screaming, slamming my door. It took my mom twenty minutes to convince me that the video was gone, that I would never, ever see it again. ''There’s still quite a bit of this story left. I doubt that’s the last you’ll see of this fellow.'' I had nightmares all week about Rap Rat.

That wasn't the last time I saw Rap Rat. “He attended my barmitzmah.” While my girlfriend and I were preparing to move in together, I was cleaning out the closet of my room and found Rap Rat again, with the same VHS and the same board game inside. ''Ok, I’m confused. Are he and his girlfriend moving into his parents’ house? Or did he take the VHS with him? If so, then why? Also, why didn’t his mom destroy the thing? Wait, let me guess: she did, but it came back because plot and the supernatural.'' It was almost perfectly intact, save for a thick layer of cobwebs and dust bunnies on top of it. This was strange...didn't my mother get rid of it? Didn’t I just ask that same question? And what was the game doing in my room? Plot? I let out a bit of a gasp when I found it, and my girlfriend came into the room, asking what was the matter: “We’re out of toilet paper.” Breathing harshly, I said, "Rap Rat." She laughed a bit, asking if it was a joke. ''That’s a strange joke, if you ask me. Also, why is that the reaction people have when stuff like this happens? Why not just go with it?'' I shook my head, explaining that it wasn't. She didn't believe me—nobody did—and I decided that the only way to prove it to her was to show her the video. ''Yes, that’s it, play the video that scared the life out of you. Seriously, why not just say that it’s a joke, and get rid of the tape?''

I borrowed my neighbour's VHS and played the video for her. However, the images had changed. “This time, I saw Danny DeVito posing in a swimsuit.” I saw a clown, it's nose bursting and spraying blood onto the screen. Yeah, that’s from the unreleased sequel to “It.” I saw a woman alone in a dark room. “Damn it, where’s the light?” I saw a man being forced to pick up white-hot metal and hold it in his outstretched hand, turning his hand to a leathery mess. The scratching I heard as a child continued, picking up louder and louder. Then, Rap Rat showed up and began twisting and convulsing, it's arms thrusting this way and that. The costume wasn't a costume anymore—the felt was real fur. ''Wait, what? In picture from the video that’s part of the story, the image is clearly CGI. It’s crude and early CGI, but it’s still CGI. When did Rap Rat ever wear a costume?''

Its face wasn't plastic, but instead a bristle of thorns with teeth. The eyes turned inwards and suddenly popped out again: Rap Rat's huge fish eyes were inside out How…?, staring right at me, watching my every move, my every expression. Always watches, inside out eyes. It grinned widely and gestured at my girlfriend and I with a single, outstretched, inhuman hand. ''Well, of course the hand is inhuman. It’s the hand of some weird rat creature.'' I could hear the faintest scratching at my front door. The TV went blank and showed static. Slender Man, stop trolling people. The scratching got louder. It wasn't scratching anymore, but thumping: the thumping of tiny feet on wood. I don’t really associate “thumping” with “tiny feet” My girlfriend embraced me in fear, and my senses Spider-sense? kicked in. Before anything else could happen, I stopped the video, ejected it and unplugged the VHS. Why didn’t you do that before? The scratching stopped. When I looked out the living room window, nothing was there.

The police showed up soon after, warning us that a neighbour had seen a figure outside of our door and had called in concern “for his VCR.”. My girlfriend and I simply couldn't explain what had happened, and had to tell the police officer that it was us. “Yes, officer, we appeared outside our door while we were inside.” I was furious that a children's game was terrifying me. Yes, fury is a logical emotion to be feeling after this. I went to pick up the tape, but the VHS burned my hand. Ohhh, burn. It felt like I had touched a bunsen burner on the highest setting. ''I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re actually done that before. You don't strike me as a bright guy.'' We had to get the oven mitts from the kitchen in order to take it out, and even then it was scorching hot. I brought it outside, tossed it down on the sidewalk, and crushed it with my winter boots. Why not just run it over with a car?

My girlfriend and I had nightmares every night. “They involved a Satanic Sonic.” We would both wake up in the middle of the night, and describe eerily similar images that we saw in our sleep. “You saw the Bat-nipples in your dream too?” The scratching would always be there at night, when lights were off and the room was pitch-black (save for the moonlight coming in through the window). Why do creepy things have to happen at night? Now, though, the scratching would happen every time I went near the front door, and every time we said Rap Rat's name. Then don’t say the name, moron. It sounded as if something very small was dragging something across the ground outside of the door... pacing... waiting. I would simply wait, with the covers pulled up to my neck, until I succumbed to exhaustion.

At this point, I was determined to sue the company for damages. ''I will admit, that’s a unique way to go about this, and the first time I’ve seen something like this done in a Creepypasta. That being said, what damages can you sue for and prove happened? I don’t think any property was damaged, and I’m not sure that your story would be believed.'' The first thing I did was call my mother and ask where she got "Rap Rat". She had no idea. Well, that was helpful. I found a merchant who sold versions of "Rap Rat" and asked how I could get in touch with the company. He sent me this e-mail. “Use smoke signals.”

"I don't know about the game, but I know it was created by the same people who created Nightmare. The company is called "A Couple of Cowboys". Try them." ''A Couple of Cowboys? Was this company run by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal?''

I did a bit more research, and discovered that the company became defunct in 1994... only two years after the company created Rap Rat. Apparently Rap Rat hates cowboys. I discovered why they did soon after. “They invested all of their money in dot com stocks.”

How Rap Rat Came to Be Well, when a mommy rat and a daddy rat love each other very much…

In 1992, the year of the game's development, A Couple of Cowboys had commissioned a manufacturing company in Haiti to create the doll portrayed in the game. ''Wait, so it’s a doll in the game? I’m confused. I thought you said it was some guy in a costume.'' The company who created the puppet ran a sweatshop, where they forced women and children to produce the various components of the puppet, including the felt and plastic of the doll. And that’s how the Tails doll was created.

One day, a young Haitian girl got her arm caught in the industrial sewing machine. The spring-loader, unable to handle the weight on the machine, came loose and struck the child's neck, killing her instantly. A few days after the funeral, the mother of the child came to the factory, demanding to see the owner, who denied that he had anything to do with it. The 1% in a nutshell. In a fit of rage, the mother said that the "blood from the innocent" would seep into every crevice of the doll, every component with which it was created and all who touched it would die. And thus the My Little Pony toyline was born. She claimed to have summoned a "fear demon" and screamed, at the top of her lungs, "APARAT WILL CURSE YOU!" ''Yep, that sounds totally sane. Rather than try reasoning, you just yell some gibberish about a fear demon. This is why people don’t take you seriously.''

The owner simply laughed and told his corporate bosses about Aparat. Yep, because the grief of a mother who lost her child is funny. They spread the joke from person to person, and the game was renamed "Rap Rat", a loose anagram of Aparat. ''That’s a douchey thing to do. Also, haven't you read "Hooked"? Anagrams aren't scary.'' Each recitation of the name Aparat brought with it a greater and greater curse. Only two years after "Rap Rat" was created, the company was shut down and the owners hired by Mattel. Well, can’t say they didn’t deserve it.

There were stories of the workers begging for days off, skipping work for weeks and weeks, finding the puppet in strange places. “Well, I’m going to go to the bathroom, and- HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!” Sooner were the stories of suicides. If the word “hyper-realistic” is a part of those stories, I shall be angry. Grim, violent suicides in which the workers would stab their hands and burn themselves to death, Wait, if they’re stabbing themselves, why burn themselves to death.  writing "I AM FEAR" on the nearest surface in blood.

Nobody knows where the Rap Rat doll went after the original creators disappeared. ;;I do. The doll went to manage its offshore bank accounts.'' Some say that the last things the victims saw before going insane were large, sunken, fish-like eyes. “Others say that the victims saw Peter Parker strutting down a sidewalk.”

Words of Warning

1. NEVER, EVER say "Aparat" out loud. Is that a challenge? Saying a demon's name out-loud is an invitation to them, a calling. ''“So if you’re going to do this, make sure your house is nice and clean. If you’re inviting a demon, you don’t want the demon to think you’re messy.”'' If you have already done this, it cannot be undone. In other words, you’re screwed.

2. Do not try to speak to or contact Aparat. Aparat doesn’t seem like much of a conversationalist anyway.

3. Avoid being awake between 3:30am and 4am, when Rap Rat is the most likely to try to scare you. Insomniacs, keep a gun near you.

The Audio

The VHS is back. In black? I thought I stomped on it, smashed it to kingdom come, but it's back. I found it in my sock drawer yesterday. That’s a strange place for a tape to appear. This time, I was ready. “I was ready to make love to the tape.” A whole bunch of people have been contacting me, trying to get the tape or some sort of video from the board game. “These people are morons.” My answer to you is that it's just too dangerous. IT’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE, TAKE THIS! If I did that, it could very well drive you insane. ''I’ve read “Sonic.exe”, “Jeff the Killer”, “White the Killer”, “Squidward’s Suicide”, “Dead Bart”, and so many other crappy stories, and I’m sane. Well, I’m not sane per se, but I’m not extremely crazy. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need some scissors. 61!'' Scare you to death. The video, and the game, and Rap Rat itself has some sort of strange power. The power of love? Rap Rat follows me everywhere I go. Get a restraining order then. I see little shadows in the corner, or hear sounds coming down the hallway when I'm the only one home. “Obviously, I’m hallucinating.” If Rap Rat is there, it will let you know, but it will never let you see it...until it's too late, of course. But of course.

A lot of people have been watching the "normal" video from the "normal" board game. “Others have been watching “normal” porn for “normal” people.” That's the thing...Rap Rat can be normal. That’s more than I can say for myself. It will trick you into thinking it's just a puppet, and then stalk you day and night. ''Fine, if I’m going to be stalked and watched by some demon puppet, then I’ll make it regret doing so. It’ll be seeing a full moon tonight…''

This story is not very good. The premise is weird, the way Rap Rat came into being is both mean and stupid, and it wasn't done very well. Plus the author had no idea what in the hell the Rap Rat on the VHS was. Was it a CGI animation? A guy in a suit? A puppet? That was never made clear, since the author said it was the last two, and completely ignored the picture from the story. There's also the fact that the story is extremely cliché and pretty uninteresting. There's not many good things I can about it outside of it having pretty good grammar.

What do you guys think? Was the story good? Was the Riff good? Do you wish Aparat would stalk and kill me? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.