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KSPAM PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY from PARTY ROCK Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
#126: May 23rd 2010 at 6:18:16 PM

@Ronnie: Don't know much about Hellboy, but the ineptitude of the police force can be easily handwaved. Just say they got new recruits.

Polished Story Concept

Alex Mason hasn't been home in ages. Twelve years, in fact. His childhood spent running, running side by side with his parents. Running, running until he didn't know why. Because twelve years ago, his friend was killed.

His corpse, or rather, what was left of it, was found scattered haphazardly around a small area of forest, like a twisted display of modern art. Shortly thereafter, his family moved, feeling their town was no longer a safe place to raise their kid. They jumped from city to city for the rest of Alex's adolescent wife, never staying in one place for very long. The record was about six months.

Now a sophomore in college, Alex has decided to revisit his home town, to pay his deceased friend the respects he never got to give. Designating his trip to take place during spring break probably wasn't his best idea. Reluctantly, he sets off, with his friends Rachel, Jeff, and Bill in tow.

The first day there, he pays tribute at the graveyard. Everything according to plan. Flowers, setting sun, ad-hoc emotional speech, mysterious figure watching from behind the gravestones. Wait, what? A strange, man sized silhouette with a bag over it's head.

Alex questions back at town, wondering if it was a lost kid or hobo. Upon relegating his tale to the townsfolk, he's met with awkward, seemingly forced silence. The only thing he can get out of any of them is a simple and quizzical title, "The Man In The Sack". After encountering The Man In The Sack again this time peering out from a side alley, Alex begins to suspect his friend's murder was no accident.

I've detailed this a few other times, but just recently did I polish the general concept, including a name and face for my Eldritch Abomination. So, any comments?

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Ninja_Orca Since: May, 2009
#127: May 23rd 2010 at 7:37:22 PM

@ KSPAM- Reminds me of the Slender Man a little, but that's not a point against it.

Characters

Jude Wilkerson- Jude is the main character of this story. He is a young man from Seattle, about 18 or 19 years old. Five years ago, he lost his sister Allie in a ferry accident. He blames himself for her death, since he had left her alone and thinks he could have saved her had he only stayed with her. He has not been able to let this go in all that time. As a result, it has affected him a great deal.

Jean Wilkerson- Jean is Jude’s grandmother. He lives with her due to the death of his parents when both he and Allie were very young. Jean is a no-nonsense kind of woman, who does not put up with anything she perceives as foolish or a waste of time. She has terminal cancer, with only a year left to live.

Allie Wilkerson- Jude’s sister. She and him had a happy childhood together. They always looked out for each other, and were very close. Jude remembers her quite fondly.

Nathan Williams- An artist who helps out Jude and Jean when they are stranded in Port Alberni. He believes Jude and Jean enough to help them out while they are on Vancouver Island.

Owen- A young Disciple of Orca, given the task of helping with the Institute and teaching new Disciples of Orca how to fit in with human society. Looks up to Barringer somewhat, thinking that his view of humanity is mostly correct.

Barringer- A Disciple of Dog. Barringer has no respect for humanity. At best, he sees them as savage brutes who manage to cough up a good deed every so often. As a result, he seeks to find new ways to keep them somewhat restrained, endeavoring to prevent them from hurting Nature. As a result, he has volunteered to help with the Institute, in order to instill a desire to do this in new Disciples.

Katrinka- A Disciple of Otter. She is has also volunteered her services to the Institute, though she does so to repay a favor to another Disciple of Orca. She is Barringer’s superior, and finds his views of humanity somewhat troublesome.

Bottle- One of the most senior Disciples of Orca, Bottle has managed to earn himself a brief respite from his tasks. He is using the opportunity to visit his friend Darius in Antarctica.

Cindy- Bottle’s mate. She has accompanied him to Antarctica. She also has experience with the Institute, having been the one to whom Katrinka owes her favor to.

Darius- Orca’s most trusted child. At the moment, he is in retirement in Antarctica, though if Orca requires his services he will answer the call. With the appropriate amount of good natured grumbling, of course.

Emily- Darius’s mate. She does occasional work for Orca, who allows her to stay with Darius in Antarctica.

Adam- Orca father of Allie. Is an occasional Disciple, in times when Mother Nature relents on the number restriction.

Trudee- Mate of Adam, and Allie’s orca mother.

Summary

The story begins in Port Alberni, British Columbia. Jude and Jean are standing on the sidewalk. Jude is having trouble remembering the past week or two.

Nathan Williams drives up in a pick-up truck. He offers to take Jude and Jean to a Tim Horton’s to get them something to eat. Jean accepts on behalf of Jude.

While they eat, Nathan asks Jean and Jude where they came from.

They tell him that they are from Seattle. Jude explains that he used to have a sister named Allie, who was lost at sea in a ferry accident five years ago.

Jude says that, about three weeks or so ago, he saw Allie in a group of kids from something called the Mc Creary Institute for An Interest in Aquatics. He managed to get a picture of her and show it to Jean. The older woman agreed that it was Allie.

Jude said that he did some investigating and found that Allie left with a group from the Institute for Vancouver Island. He and Jean talked it over and decided to follow after them, in an attempt to track them down.

They managed to find them out in Port Alberni, where Jude is detained by Owen, Barringer, and Katrinka. Jean says that they did something odd to Jude, though she did not quite catch all of it.

Meanwhile, Jude is piecing together his memories of what happened. This is represented by him cleaning up and arranging a mental representation of his room, one that he made in his mind over the past five years as a result of being unable to move on from the accident with his sister. He blames himself for her death, thinking that he could have done something to save her had he been with her when the accident occurred.

Jude manages to get everything straight and remember what happened. He says that he remembers the words ‘Disciple’ and ‘Orca’ thrown around a lot, but he doesn’t quite grasp what they might mean. He does remember that the group’s next destination was Telegraph Cove.

Nathan offers to drive them the rest of the way, saying that though the story seems quite odd he believes them on account of the fact that Jean doesn’t look like the kind of person who would engage in something that seems so foolish without a good reason.

Jude and Jean talk it over and agree to travel on and continue trying to figure out what is going on.

The three of them travel up to Telegraph Cove and spend a night in a motel.

In the morning, they find that the group from the Institute has split up, with half of them on shore in a museum, and the other half on a whale-watching boat. Nathan and Jean decide to check out the museum, while Jude agrees to go on the boat.

While he is on the boat, Jude sees Owen. The Disciple is quite surprised to see him. Jude finds out at this time that he is immune from further mind-tampering, since the first time Owen did it to him it was a botched job.

Jude tries to interrogate Owen and find out just what is going on with the Institute. The Disciple warns him that he is in way over his head. Jude is far too obsessed with having his sister back to care.

A somewhat spectacular display by a young orca distracts everyone for long enough to Owen to slip away from Jude and get over the side of the boat. Jude sees only an orca swimming away and begins to doubt his sanity.

Not finding his sister among the students onboard, Jude waits until the ship returns to shore. When he arrives, he finds Jean and Nathan and informs them of what happened. They say that Allie was not in the museum.

Later that night, Jude sits in the mental representation of his room and begins to examine the events of late. He wonders if he is losing his mind, or if his sister really did survive somehow.

The next morning, the three wake up to find that the Institute left during the night. What’s more, no one in the town remembers the group being there the day before, saying that they were there a week ago instead, and stayed for three days.

Nathan spots Barringer and Katrinka leaving town, however. The group follows the two all the way down to the Vancouver Island Ferry, managing not to be spotted.

The three confront the two Disciples on the ferry. Jude knocks Barringer overboard at one point.

Katrinka is able to force a way into Jude’s mind and see what he has seen. She realizes his intentions and backs down, offering to tell him exactly what has happened. Jude agrees, and backs down as well.

Katrinka reveals the true purpose of the Disciples to Jude, and also says that the Disciples of Orca saved Allie from the ferry accident five years ago.

Jude asks what the Institute is supposed to be. Katrinka reveals that it is a training program for young Disciples of Orca, to help acclimate them to human society. She reveals that Allie is in the program because she does not remember anything about her human life.

Jude asks where the group went. Katrinka says that they took to the water and are at the present swimming down to Antarctica, a sort of stronghold for Disciples, in an effort to get Jude off of their back.

Jude is somewhat angered at this news. However, Katrinka says that she thinks that Jude is capable enough, and worthy enough, to warrant her assistance. She offers to help him get to Antarctica. She says that he and whoever he takes with him will be on their own when they arrive.

Jude asks Jean and Nathan what they want to do. Nathan says that he can’t go, but wishes Jude the best of luck. Jean says that she isn’t going to let Jude go to Antarctica alone, and that she will keep going with him.

Katrinka gives Jude and Jean flight arrangements to get to Antarctica, by disguising the visit as a fulfillment of a “bucket list” objective by Jean. She also gives Jude the ability to discern who is a Disciple and who is not. And she also warns him about Barringer, saying that he is not very friendly towards humans.

Jude thanks her half-heartedly for her assistance. Katrinka warns him now about himself, saying that he is not looking so good mentally.

The ferry docks. Nathan parts ways with Jude and Jean, and Katrinka heads off to try to see about recovering Barringer. She asks Jude to keep her involvement a secret, and he agrees.

Jude and Jean get to the airport. They fly out to New Zealand first, then make the appropriate arrangements to get to Antarctica.

When they arrive, Jude is somewhat worried to see that Mc Murdo Bay consists of mostly Disciples. He does find out, however, that the group from the Institute has not arrived yet, but will do so within the week.

While hiding out in the small pub on the station two days after arriving, Jude encounters a Disciple of Orca named Dolph Seacord and his mate, Cindy.

The three have a conversation, Jude trying to find out what he can without letting on that he knows what is up.

The next day, Barringer unexpectedly shows up. He manages to catch Jude by surprise and knocks him unconscious.

When Jude awakens, he finds that he has been dumped far from the station, with no idea of what way to travel in order to get back to it.

He blindly starts out along the coast, inadvertently wandering out on the ice.

To his great surprise, he comes across Owen speaking to two orcas. Owen is surprised to see him as well.

Jude learns that the two orcas are Allie’s orca parents. He learns this the hard way when Owen tells them that Jude is trying to get at her, and the mother tries to kill him. Jude flees from her over the ice, but is eventually trapped on a free floating piece.

Owen convinces the two orca parents to leave Jude there on the ice and let the elements kill him, since then they will not be implicated in it. He reveals that he is something of a student to Barringer.

Jude retreats to the mental representation of his room as he slowly begins to freeze to death.

Before the end comes though, he is discovered by Dolph Seacord, who reveals himself to be a Disciple of Orca named Bottle.

Bottle temporarily turns Jude into an orca to save his life. Jude has to spend a few minutes mentally adjusting to it, represented by running around his mental room and trying to keep things in it from falling over.

Eventually he adjusts, and Bottle asks him about why he is there. Jude tells him the full story.

Bottle is somewhat troubled by the way that things have been playing out. He says that he will go to Orca himself to get help.

Bottle calls a pair of former Disciples to help Jude get back to the station. They introduce themselves as Darius and Emily.

The three begin to head back. Darius and Emily try to convince Jude that not all of the things the Disciples do are bad. He has a hard time seeing it that way.

The three come across Owen and the two orcas from earlier. Darius and Emily hide Jude’s true self from the other three. The two orcas introduce themselves as Adam and Trudee. Jude is somewhat surprised to find that they are actually quite nice.

Darius begins to talk to Owen about his recent doings, slowly trying to reveal his connection to Barringer. Owen, not being able to lie about it, reveals it.

When he asks just how it was that Darius knew such a thing, Jude reveals his true self, surprising Owen for a third time.

Trudee wants to hurt Jude for trying to take her adopted daughter from her. However, Jude manages to come to an agreement with her. He will not forcibly take Allie from her, but rather try to help her regain her memory so that he can have his sibling back as well. She and Adam agree to this.

Owen is sent off by Darius to face reprimanding from Orca for treating Jude in such a callous manner, instead of trying to figure out what his purpose was first.

The two former Disciples finish escorting Jude to the station. Emily warns Jude about his mental state as Katrinka did before, saying that he is looking more and more despondent in his soul. He does not give this much notice.

Now human again, Jude manages to sneak into the station. He finds that Barringer has locked it down, endeavoring to keep Jean there until she lets him wipe her mind. She is proving more mentally strong than he anticipated.

Jude manages to free his grandmother, who is pleased to see that he is still alive. She reveals where the group from the Institute is, and the two set off to that place.

When they arrive, they find Cindy watching over the group. She is not allied with Barringer, however, and calls Allie over to them.

Jude is distraught to learn that his sister does not remember who he is at all. The mental representation of his room becomes messy, as though a great wind swept through it. He does not bother trying to rearrange it.

Jude arms himself with what melee weapons he can find and heads through the station to find Barringer. He is nearly blind with rage and grief, and brutally assaults anyone who tries to stop him.

He manages to get to Barringer, who reveals that he is trying to teach new Disciples so that they will agree with his views on humanity, and forget any humanity they may once have had.

Fortuitously, Orca himself speaks out, having heard this. He assures Barringer that he will train no more new Disciples. However, he cannot do anything else to the Disciple, since Barringer is not his. This is not good enough for Jude, who engages Barringer in single combat.

Fueled by his grief and a blind desire for vengeance, Jude wins in the fight against Barringer, smashing his skull in with a crowbar.

After getting talked down by Orca, Jude asks if anything can be done to help his sister regain her memory.

Orca attempts to do his best to restore Allie’s memory. However, he is unsuccessful. The mental blocks are too reinforced.

Jude nearly commits suicide in grief. However, Emily talks to him and manages to convince him that she and Darius can help him move past his guilt and hate if he were to give up his humanity and become an orca.

Jude asks if he may stay with his grandmother until she passes on and use that time to think about the offer. She agrees to this, and Jude and Jean are sent home.

Concepts

Guardians- Animal spirits that preside over a certain order (biological order) of animals. They possess many unique abilities, such as shapeshifting, psychic powers, and even limited manipulation of the space-time continuum.

Disciples- Animals or transformed humans that have been chosen by their respective Guardians to move among humanity and act on their behalf. Have some shapeshifting and psychic capabilities, though nothing so advanced as that of a Guardian.

Acolyte- Human helpers of Disciples and Guardians. Have no powers of their own, but may be eligible for Discipleship.

And, for further reference, all kinds of animals in this setting are sentient and intelligent to a degree.

Also, if anyone has seen some similar sort of setting before, know that this isn't my setting, but that I have gained permission to utilize it in stories. And I sincerely apologize for the sheer length of this. I tried to shove it into folders, but that didn't work. I just didn't know any way I could get all that I know about the story/setting up here.

I'm kind of looking to see if this plotline is any good, and if it isn't quite up to snuff yet, what remains to be done.

edited 23rd May '10 7:40:16 PM by Ninja_Orca

MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#128: May 23rd 2010 at 7:46:19 PM

New writing

“I suppose you all are asking what the meaning of this is and why you have been pulled away from your duties…”

“What’s gotten into you?...”

“Oh...nothing…We have work to do…”

“Everyone get the hell off now! Go! Go! Go!...”

“Everyone get to the ditch behind us!...MOVE IT NOW! GET THE FUCK INTO THE DITCH AND GET DOWN! GET THE FUCK DOWN!...”

“Enemy fast movers! Take cover…Whiskey Six you still there?!?...”

“Cappy’s down! I repeat! Captain Hawthorne is down! Everyone keep your eyes open!...Overwatch! Overwatch! This is Whiskey Five! Whiskey Six is down! I repeat Whiskey Six is down! We got a shitload of enemy contacts advancing from the east and northeast on our position! Request immediate assistance from any unit you can muster…We need it right now! Now goddammit now!...”

“On three we make a run for it… One!... Two!... Three!... Get to the tower! Go!...Tower! Fall back to the tower!...”

“Colonel where the hell are you?!?!?... ‘Stand by we’re almost there!...Stand by!’...”

“…I repeat our position has been held! We’re oscar mike to Rio Azúl…”

“Who’s in charge here?... ‘I am sir! Corporal Allen! 305th Republican Guard! Who the hell are you?...’ Sergeant Mathias Watkins Whiskey outfit, Centauri Rapid Response Task Force…”

” Pvt. Huerta, stay here for a minute, we’re going to buy you some time... Now!...”

“Sir? What is it?...’I think we’re being watched here. It’s no longer safe…’ Are you su-…’ Sniper! Get inside! Get inside!...’”

“I see you know when to show proper respect for your enemies. I apologize for thinking you might be some kind of coward. I am Soras, and I accept your challenge……I see I have underestimated you, young Terran… Well done… well done…”

“Sam!”

“It hurts! It hurts so much Mat!...’Look at me Sam! It’s not that bad you hear me? I just need to get you to a medic!...’ It hurts so much! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die Mat!...’Listen to me, you are not going to die. I will get you out of here!...’ I-I… don’t… want...”

“SAM!”

Everything went to a blurred white as Mat catapulted awake from the nightmare. Breathing heavily as his vision cleared and still mentally drained from the events of the last few days he could only look over to his asleep sister in the hospital bed to his left.

“So it wasn’t just a bad dream…” He muttered to himself as he realized what had happened. He reached for the gold locket Sam had in the city still under his hospital shirt. “This is my promise to you Sam. I will be better. I will get stronger so that you may never be harmed by anyone else again. I will become the strongest and toughest I can be. Both of the mind and of the sword…”

The italicised portion is part of a Catapult Nightmare type sequence and I was wondering. When showing such a sequence in literary format, do dialogue only presentations of one work?

I know if you were reading the entire 87 pages typed up the above would be pulling multiple Call Backs to the scenes in question and their descriptions so I am aware that the sequence may make little if any sense to the outside viewer.

edited 23rd May '10 7:51:30 PM by MajorTom

Ninja_Orca Since: May, 2009
#129: May 23rd 2010 at 7:49:13 PM

@Major Tom- It can be done, but you would have to have the character voices nailed down really good if it's more than just two people. Personally, keep it at three or four people if you're just going to do dialogue only, and give us some clues through their dialogue about who they are.

KSPAM PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY from PARTY ROCK Since: Oct, 2009 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
#130: May 23rd 2010 at 8:16:09 PM

@Ninja Orca: It's in the same vein as IT and Slendy, So Yeah.

I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Noaqiyeum we must dissent (it/they) from across the gulf of space (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
we must dissent (it/they)
#131: May 24th 2010 at 11:29:04 AM

I didn't think I'd forgotten about this thread for that long...

Reintroduction: I'm Noaqiyeum/Dataphile, whichever is easier to pronounce; I like smart characters, kudzu plots, and ergodic fiction, because true art makes things difficult for the reader, or course.

New Writing
Current project: Psychological horror time travel thingy, which I'm making up as I go along so as not to bog myself down in the backstory.

Her father is out when she gets home. The house is silent and all the lights are off, though there's still enough sun outside that the windows are lit. Jenn walk past the hallway and the parlor to the kitchen, with the feeling that every room she enters was vacated in a hurry only a short time before. Maybe something to do with how tidy everything seems to be in the corners but not the middle of the rooms. A handful of books on the table, a pen on the floor. Dust dancing in the sunbeams. She glances at the clock and then the calendar. Dad has a city council meeting at four thirty, which he must have left for only a few minutes before she got home. It's too late for her to drive down and see Mom - visiting hours would end almost as soon as she got there. She sets her backpack on one of the seats and plugs her cell phone into the wall to recharge, then pokes around the fridge before she decides she's not hungry enough to make anything and picks her pack up again.

A few steps, out of the kitchen and two doors down the hallway, take her to her room. The floor creaks slightly as she steps through the doorway. She tosses aside her backpack to the floor beside her computer desk, crosses the room, and sits heavily on her bed and stares out the partially-open doorway. She doesn't want to think about the problem with Elliot, it seems to keep turning into a bigger and bigger mess every time she does, and if Elliot is right they're at a point where all they can do is wait for Other Elliot to make the next move anyway. She's sworn not to think about Angela's problem, even though some part of her brain that's either smarter than the rest of her or just more prone to picking up colorful strings and trying to tie them together into a proper nest is confident that the two issues fit together somehow. She just plain can't think about math right now, if she tried she'd probably never get back to this point she's about to leave off any second. All the crows take to the air when they get startled, and even if they come back to earth what then? Crows can't do math. There's another thought to add to the whirling, wheeling, and, if she's going to be honest with herself she'll have to admit it, slightly scared flock.

Screw this. She spins to one side and sprawls backwards, making her mattress make sproingy straining noises as her feet and head fall into place. Closing her eyes as tightly as she can drives all the other stray thoughts out of the space in her head that like to give itself airs by taking the name of "brain", until she finally relaxes. There. No more madness. No more mystery duplicates, no more lunatics running around her school, no more infuriatingly stubborn best friends who want to take everything inside and never clean the cage. She can find her limits. She can do math.

She groans and sits up and slides off the bed in a single clumsy movement, drops into the chair at her desk, and pulls her books out of her backpack.

Dust continues to dance in the sunbeams from her window, but she pays them no heed.


Something somewhere is changing. Black. Black. Blink. Black. Blink again, still black either way. She thinks she's lying on her back and sits up, then realizes that wasn't such a great idea when the blood rushes out of her head and makes it spin. Disorienting. Dizzy. Can't see anything. She blinks again, which seems to help very slightly, but instead of black as pitch everything is now black as a large room with the lights off and a window open to a night with only a quarter moon, and blurry like a small mountain of very very dark fuzzy cotton balls doing a silent square dance around her at just under Mach 2. She fumbles about with her hands and manages to find the edge of whatever it is she's sitting on, which makes stretching noises and feels like fabric.

Bed. Dark. Must be night. When did she go to sleep? She doesn't remember much at all after sometime part of the way through her history reading, but she knows when she falls asleep in the middle of that her light stays on and she stays at her desk. Dad might have turned the light off when he got home, but he wouldn't have dragged her over to her bed as well. She must have just been extremely tired when she got ready for bed. Hopefully everything for tomorrow was done first.

What woke her up?

Her coordination has returned to the extent that she can reach up and rub the back of her neck without stabbing out her eye. She shuffles across the room to where the light switch should be, only hurting her feet twice, and fumbles around the wall until the blunt stabbing sensation in her palm tells her that she's found it.

Flicking it up and down accomplishes much the same effect as blinking. Must be a power outage, which explains why only the moon is shining outside. Dad would probably have the electric company's collective head. She just stands there, almost perfectly still except for her breathing, still with her hand on the wall.

If the lights are off, she needs to go check the fuse, which in turn requires that she find a source of light. Tricky. There are a couple of flashlights around in the closets somewhere, but she doesn't remember exactly where and doesn't trust herself to find them without breaking things, which may be things hanging in the closet or things she's slightly more attached to, like her kneecaps. That leaves the matches, which should be in the kitchen. And if she's very careful and moves slowly and cautiously and makes sure to get her bearings first, she might just get all the way there without further injury.

If she concentrates she can hear everything. The rustle as her clothes shift over each other when she breathes, the creak in the floor under her as her weight subtly shifts closer to one foot. When she exhales the air goes all the way to the walls, and when she inhales it all comes back again. Her exact location in the room is sure. In the hallway outside is nothing. If she's very quiet she can hear Dad breathing slowly, rollingly, a floor above her, making her still-outstretched arm tremble when she smiles. Everything's all right. She just needs to go check the power. All she has to do is go find the matches.

She turns around and walks into the door.

After recovering and reclaiming the fine attuning of her inner ear, she creaks the door open and quietly thuds down the hall, bashing obliquely into the opposite wall after failing to turn far enough to the right. The kitchen has no windows that open toward the moon, leaving her with no recourse but to find the right drawer by trial and error and occasional self-mutilation of her shins.

The first drawer contains normal silverware, and the second knives, neither of which are helpful save that they give her an indication of where in the kitchen she is. She tiptoes over a few feet and tries again. This one is a cupboard, which she carefully closes again before anything has the chance to slide out, and moves slightly further to the left. This drawer contains spices, as does the one underneath it, and they both close a little too loudly.

The next column over should be the right one. She hovers over the top drawer for a moment, breathing a little more heavily, before she pulls it open and searches inside. Corkscrew, can opener, a number of other utensils of questionable pointiness, no matches. She slides it shut and tries the one beneath it. Still no matches. She frowns invisibly, not knowing whether to keep checking the drawers or to go try her luck in the closets.

It's only a moment.

From the darkness behind her, something grabs her right hand and fills it with something before letting go.

She freezes. Light won't come, breath won't come, the sounds of the house have abandoned her, even her legs can't feel anything, she can't even scream. Every muscle in her body tightens until she realizes she's crushing whatever it is in her hand.

The matchbox.

She pulls it open hurriedly, sending little wooden sticks falling all over the floor, barely holding onto both pieces as she grabs a match and scrapes it across the outside of the cover. That's the top, can't use the top, need the side, side's not working, side's not working -

Light.

The match goes out before she's able to overcome her momentary blindness, and she grabs another. This one lights more readily, but when she holds it up - the room is empty.

Trembling or shivering, she turns slowly around. Still nothing. Nothing on the left, nothing to the right, nothing in the whole room except a terrified girl surrounded by scattered matches. The shadows of culinary appliances move as she turns. Slowly, the flame slides down to her fingertips, causing her to drop both it and the two halves of the matchbox. Once again the night surrounds and blinds her, and all she can do is try to keep breathing, but now it's not a closed darkness, now it's open, now she doesn't want to get out but someone has gotten in...

She darts back to the knife drawer, slipping on the matches, and yanks it open and pulls out something long and serrated with both hands, brandishing it wherever she turns. Now she runs into nothing. She backs into the drawer to close it and runs into the counter, taking her left hand from her weapon to steady herself against the edge. Her lungs slow to a more normal speed without losing volume.

She can't know how long it is that she stands there, but eventually she wills herself to turn and walk back to her room. She runs into nothing. Until she finally falls asleep, she only remembers sitting upright in her bed, wrapped in a blanket, and gripping a knife.

edited 24th May '10 11:30:04 AM by Noaqiyeum

ERROR: The current state of the world is unacceptable. Save anyway? YES/NO
Rahheemme Rahheemme Since: Feb, 2010
Rahheemme
#132: May 26th 2010 at 3:17:53 PM

New Story

This is absolutely my magnum opus and my personally favorite story. It's taken me a while, but it's the first thing I've ever written to come out exactly as I wanted it to and I love it like a baby.

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2811020/1/

It's called 'Tales of the Waffle House' and I'd love for you all to read and possibly critique the first five chapters for me.

RRRAAGHGHAFBAALAAAL!
Ronnie Respect the Red Right Hand from Surrounded by Idiots Since: Jan, 2001
Respect the Red Right Hand
#133: May 26th 2010 at 3:49:34 PM

@KSPAM: That would work, if Freddy hadn't been around Springwood multiple times, over a decade at the least, and the main character's father, the most senior officer, personally involved in defeating the bastard once. Granted, Wes did play pretty fast and loose in New Nightmare as to what of which sequels were really canon. I may probably will take advantage of that.

edited 26th May '10 6:50:16 PM by Ronnie

Pacific Oh Yeah? from da beach house Since: Jan, 2001
Oh Yeah?
#134: Jun 3rd 2010 at 5:42:37 AM

Hey, I've never posted anything I've written here before, since I mostly do video games, but I thought I should probably post because I was wondering if this plot I had worked or not. Sorry if I'm doing this wrong.

I've been working on a game for a few weeks. It's sort of a Mind Screw plot, but I don't think I'm pulling it off very well.

I started with a girl who wakes up in a forest and built a plot around that. As you progress through the game, you find there are two other girls lost in other parts of the game world (which is referred to as a school campus), who you can also play as. Each one is named after a different character from a famous children's novel (Alice from Alice In Wonderland, Dorothy from The Wizard Of Oz and Wendy from Peter Pan- Who are also the same names used in Alan Moore's Lost Girls) As each one progresses, you learn that they're all musicians from a terrible college band on a drug trip. On the trip they hallucinate famous musicians in different roles in each of the stories they're parodying, such as Lady Gaga being the Queen of hearts. You also learn that the band split up before the story started, due to creative differences, and is the reason they ended up drunk in the first place. Presumably they were going to get back together before the game ended.

That's the main story, but the problem I had was that my intention was to start with waking up in a forest with little to no context and gradually introducing the music aspect via a deliberate Plot Tumor. I called the game "Drunk Schoolgirl Adventure" because I thought it was pretty funny, and summed it up to a degree, but later I felt like I'd lost the idea under an immature joke. I tested it out with the title, but a lot of the subtlety I wanted didn't work, as with a "wacky" title, people weren't surprised as the "wacky" ideas were slowly introduced. It also wasn't very clear that the game took place in a drug trip, so the random nature of some of the elements seemed like there was no context behind them. Since the plot took a while to be explained, some people gave up before the significant bits even started.

Does this plot sound any good? I'm definitley going to change the title as well, I just have no idea what to change it to without revealing too much about what happens.

edited 20th Jun '10 2:50:11 AM by Pacific

krrackknut Not here, look elsewhere from The empty Aether. Since: Jan, 2001
Not here, look elsewhere
#135: Jun 3rd 2010 at 5:58:30 AM

Why don't you use an idiosyncratic title?

An useless name, a forsaken connection.
Pacific Oh Yeah? from da beach house Since: Jan, 2001
Oh Yeah?
#136: Jun 3rd 2010 at 6:11:01 AM

I thought about that, as well. But I don't have any ideas. If it has nothing to do with the game, people wouldn't really know what to expect at all.

EDIT: I'm juggling with "Introspective drug trip", it sounds very clinical, but that almost works in its favour.

edited 3rd Jun '10 9:53:28 AM by Pacific

Mammalsauce Since: Mar, 2010
#137: Jun 7th 2010 at 8:55:03 PM

sup bros

I have some writing I want given a serious critique without the use of the words 'shit' or 'faggot', is this the right forum to post it in?

Also, if I want to sell it to publishers once I finish it (fat chance, I know), will posting it here somehow void my intellectual property rights?

krrackknut Not here, look elsewhere from The empty Aether. Since: Jan, 2001
Not here, look elsewhere
#138: Jun 7th 2010 at 9:08:22 PM

Fine, go ahead. I'll see what I can say about it politely.

And I'm not going to steal it. I don't think any of us will.

An useless name, a forsaken connection.
Mammalsauce Since: Mar, 2010
#139: Jun 7th 2010 at 9:11:34 PM

I'm not worried about anyone stealing it, I just don't want it to become public domain somehow. I've heard that companies have to defend their intellectual property or it becomes PD, and that's why they always send C&Ds to fan works. I'll clean up the horrific spelling errors and racial slurs and post it shortly.

MajorTom Since: Dec, 2009
#140: Jun 7th 2010 at 9:15:32 PM

^ Please tell me the "racism" is Fantastic or set as a historical piece. Or you know what, I'm just gonna keep an open mind and see what you have to offer first.

mattTehDestroyah Since: Dec, 1969
#141: Jun 7th 2010 at 10:06:26 PM

Hi, I'm Matt and a great lover of science-fiction. I really enjoy a mystery or a story that forces a few extra neurons to work or at least one that pulls the heart into the action. I kind of have a few stories up in the air with no resolution. Most of the plot sits in my head on a pedestal waiting to be written. I don't know if I have the skills needed to pull off what is in my head and this usually results in a very slow writing pace. I'm looking for a bit of critique on the first couple of chapters on my slowly coming together book capsule and here are the words.

Capsule

Chapter 1 – Time

He knew nothing but black. Our observer did not know whether he had suffered blindness or darkness. Out of fear, he reached out feeling his hand painfully crumpling against a barrier.

Fear began to take hold. He lashed out like a wild animal bruising his hands and arms. His heart outpaced that of a humming bird’s as his throat dried and sweat flowed freely. Screams like that of a death Nell issued forth from his lungs with force enough to pierce the odd supposed cocoon that was now his prison.

A bright light, sudden and painful lit up the world. The eyes of our solo spectator drank in the detail. There were tubes on a gray metal table. The walls were green with odd splatters on them. Windows set at regular intervals were of a clinical variety. The floors were checkered the same odd splatters on them, but most importantly he had seen a button on the wall of his prison.

He reached out a trembling and careful hand toward the button. Something in the deep recesses of his mind told him that it meant something. That little red circle was important. He pressed the button.

An odd click was heard, but nothing else happened. He collapsed and began to moan in anguish, he would die hear knowing nothing. In anger, he slammed a fist into the clear wall. It moved.

Fear and anger turned to excitement. He pushed against the glass. The door moved. It pivoted on its predetermined arc. Careful and calloused feet left the cold sterile metal for the cold sterile floor tile. With his fear abated, the man noticed the chill in the air.

Another flash brightened the antiseptic room. This time his eyes took full advantage in searching the room. He saw five other shells just like the one from which he had just emerged. These were empty and covered with dust as was the entire room. Every color in the room had been tinged with a bit of gray. He saw that his feet were making tracks along with the print his hand had made on the glass. In the renewed darkness, the mind of our protagonist swam. His thoughts fell upon everything he had seen searching for the familiarity of memory until after what seemed like an eternity his consciousness fell upon the concept of lightning.

The flashes of light had been lightning, but something seemed odd about them. For the life of him, he could not figure out what it was. The fear began to well in him as he thought about lightning. Lightning is dangerous he thought as if it was a strange and new concept. This was different, but he knew not why. It was the lack of knowledge that scared him far more than the lightning itself. It could kill you.

He began to hear a strange rhythmic pounding. It was in his ears and throughout his entire body. Something is coming, he thought. That was strange, because this was the first concrete thought he could remember.

The pounding grew louder and faster. He found himself staring in the direction he knew the windows to be.

The darkness violently ceased once again. Our observer glimpsed upon a monolithic object in the distance. It began to move. “How could something that big move,” thought our silent protagonist. He wanted to run, but was transfixed. He saw a gray door at the edge of his sights border.

The light stopped and with the spell broken, he bolted for the door. On the way, he nearly tripped over something. However, this was lost on his blind panic. He wrenched the door open, opening it hard enough for it to chip the hard concrete wall.

The only sensations he had a smell with a quality of sickness, of diseased infection, along with the pounding that hammered away at his head. It kept getting louder and faster. He was beginning to drown in it.

His steps grew slower as his mind swooned in the roar going on in his head. Then without warning, all became nothingness.

Chapter 2 – “We have now”

Strange visions filled his mind. The scenes that danced on the edge of memory appeared before him now. He strained to see more, but this proved to be an impossibility.

He saw a woman sitting on a raised bed. She was looking at him. Their eyes locked and all other things lost meaning. They walked toward one another and embraced in his minds eye. Before he could kiss her, a voice filled with fear and anger interrupted,” We have no time!”

He awoke laying over a white bed similar to the one in his dream, but he saw more detail now that it was light. His sideways face lay against the opaque cover of the gurneys green mattress. So much color gave the man no small amount of sensory overload. The blue line running across the beige wall garnered the attention of this individual. What did it mean? The concept of it danced on the periphery of his mind. He gave up on this task to focus his attention on the texture of the wall with its craggy surface and random spots of irregularity. He could not remember ever seeing such a thing. Which was odd to him for some reason.

The body of our subject lifted from its temporary resting place taking the head with it in a slow and drowsy way. The eyes moved to the right and the head snapped with it to see the odd dark red splatter on the ground. The jaw dropped and the drooped eyelids snapped open in about the same way the head did. Blood, he thought. He countered this with,'What is blood?'

He knew that he needed to follow this fluid. Upon inspecting this strange thing, he found it to be wet. You might find this to be insignificant, but it meant that whatever left it was still around. The mind of our protagonist puzzled upon the possibilities. What could have left this dark red blood. He knew for a fact though he knew not why, that something had left this trail.

He followed the redness to what his mind had recognized as the place of his most recent genesis. Even more sights assaulted his unprepared senses. This room was oddly blue colored. The meaning of this odd choice danced upon the outer recesses of his cerebrum. More mysteries his beleaguered mind could not comprehend. Drowsy yet wakeful eyes glimpsed upon the former prison of last evening. This little green pill shaped room bore the name “Lazarus” upon it in a red script. The test tubes on the table had long since given up any liquid to the heat of the sun. Everything had a tinge of gray upon it. He touched the table with the tip of the finger and slid it down the surface. He found it odd that this seemed to be the perfect reaction to this situation, but knew not why. The gray on the table had become a part of the digit. He felt no fear towards this self-described strange change. Though a puzzling portion of the psyche wondered why he could walk at all.

This fragmented moment of introspection was broken by the sight of an object on the wall. It was a mirror. A stubble covered face returned his gaze. The short brown spikes of hair on the moderate chin provoked no interest in the observer. He found more interest in the striking blue eyes returning the gaze exactly with the shallow lines surrounding it. The lines led to a somewhat cherubim nose which led to the sunk corners of heavily lined lips. The smock around the man's shoulders provided no name tag of any type.

He thought the smock strange without reasoning. His appearance was decidedly unhelpful and an increasingly bored mind left it for the trail of blood. The sponge in his head picked up on the odd strangeness of unlabeled test tubes before it returned to the primary focus. The blood wasn't thick and it was dry, but the trail was wide. He followed it with special attention. It needed to be followed but not touched. The doors on each side passed with regularity as he pursued the object at blood's end. Something had to be at the end. The blue line continued as well. After about twenty-five doors and two turns in the trail it picked up a yellow line of the same width under it.

After a few nondescript signs and doors, his ears picked up from the sensory deprivation of his eyes. Strange phrases on blue plates adorned the walls. Our protagonist found these phrases as incomprehensible as the letters on last night's prison. Every few doors, an odd silver box with a basin on top sat between them. The utter continuity of the doors played with his mind. He didn't know if he was actually moving. “Maybe I'm trapped in a recursion of space. Maybe all things end at the next silver basin and I'm just passing the same ones over again”he thought with an odd musing. The gray cover on the floor became a silent passenger on his feet until it could no longer take hold. The sensation was nothing next to the detailed hall and deathly silence.

The nonexistence of sound in total weighed on a fragile jigsaw mind. Pieces and bits wove a few scant threads of what could have been a tapestry. A central figure sat in the center of the threads of id. A woman's face and full lips moving toward his own. The dream of before felt more solid than the ground beneath. His blank mind moved towards this image to study the lines of a once known face searching for a once known life to connect. The mind felt more sorrow with each failed attempt at reconciliation.

The end corners of the hall grew nearer with each passing step but this held little interest in the mind of our only link to humanity in this barren place. His mind wandered shallowly as a diver searching for a reef, eyes losing interest and ears hearing none. The hall stood opposite a long window that betrayed a courtyard but not the outside. Other windows linking the building together could be seen on the other side.

It came as a shock when the man smacked loudly and with a lot of pain against the window. A starved mind devoured what the eyes now saw. How can one describe the feeling of the first sight of bright green grass to a full grown and empty mind? He was enraptured by the sheer detail in each blade. The woman's face and the pain in his face shortly forgotten. Each minute vein stood plainly on each blade. A world in every piece of vegetation. The living greenery deeply contrasted the oddly dead yet strangely welcoming strange stone behind his back and underfoot. Each square foot on the ground below was a universe unto itself. Bugs our protagonist could find barely at the edge of memory. A hungry brain wanted to know the names and classifications of them. A part new all of this but could not reach it.

A colony of creatures wondered around a mound of dirt amidst the grass. They each carried a piece of grass into the mound. His vision caught a long creature. It was green in color and had spikes on it's back. He followed it until its tiny spiked legs touched a new surface of bark. He watched it work it's way up the tree in a slow laborious process marveling at the way its feet clung to each piece of rough bark. The creatures interaction with the tree was so minute he could not tell how it clung, but its labor was a miracle. It's slow climb had brought it to a branch. It worked its way down the slender twig to another more slender extension. It found a leaf which it now munched happily upon. This eating seemed important to the man at the window but he knew not why. His eyes stayed upon the worm until a loud noise pulled his attentions to things of greater importance. His focus widened as the noise coincided with the creation of fist prints. The window on the other side was being covered with bright red stains of blood. More surface being covered with each bang. An even wider focus showed him the snarling inhuman face that the blood hadn't yet covered.

Our protagonist jumped backwards with the next hit, the instant frozen as he stared at the creature before him. The melted skin oozing its next bit of red fluid out. It's hands were like claws. Something about it scared him deep inside. It's feet seemed like a mix of talons and human feet. He felt last evenings pounding. He felt it throughout his body.

The creature reacted, turning the sold stains into torrenting lines of a darker crimson. The bangs were replaced with a set of high pitched scratches that hurt his ears and provided a new wave of fear and the pounding grew heavier. He felt like a bomb on its way to explosion. An angry shrill roaring cry broke his trance.

He bolted to the right against reason. The eyes in his head tracking the figure across the courtyard. It sprinted in a savage way along side him. Another angry cry forced his legs to move faster. This hall was much shorter. He saw the end and looked desperately for a place to elude the beast.

A wall of blocks ended the windows. The passage teed into another hall. Doors lined the wall and he searched desperately for an open one. A glimpse to the left showed his antagonist in full relief. The pounding in his ears was near the roaring stage. An open door appeared before him.

He began to hear the scratching feet as he threw himself inside and slammed the door behind. He found himself in a very small room. Things we know as mops, buckets and brooms among other things crowded him. He couldn't see them or name them if he could. All he knew was that the spot was crowded. He pushed himself through the items in this tiny shelter.

The sound of flesh impacting against wood brought his attention back to the door. A line of light at the bottom gave the only visual stimuli. His barrier to the creature without shook with each blow. The roar in his head grew louder with each raspy smack against wood. A cry of indescribable fury brought his terror to it's apex. He was drowning in the flood of blood in his veins with too little oxygen. He couldn't have known this. His vision garnered a black border around it. The line of light in his sight shrank as his breathing slowed and as it disappeared he lost his feet and collapsed against the row of mops and buckets. An empty mind turned inward.

edited 7th Jun '10 10:09:20 PM by mattTehDestroyah

DarkSoldier from Delta, BC, Canada Since: May, 2018 Relationship Status: What is this thing you call love?
#142: Jun 8th 2010 at 12:24:45 AM

@Mammalsauce: Your work won't become public domain unless you explicitly state in the text that you release it.

Anyway, here's a concept I worked out a while ago thanks to the Story Generator on this site. There's nothing but a one-page concept right now and I don't know how to go about making something out of it.

My Blog | My Steam profile
Mammalsauce Since: Mar, 2010
#143: Jun 8th 2010 at 12:35:12 AM

Cool. There are no racial slurs, I was just joking. I've saved it as a text file, download it here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/8yzd4l

I also hereby do NOT release this as public domain and wish it to only be seen for critical purposes only.

Coolzar Since: Jul, 2009
#144: Jun 13th 2010 at 10:13:52 PM

Introduction

Hello I'm coolzar, some of my favorite tropes are Badass Trenchcoat, Crazy Awesome, Post-Modern Magik, and Deadpan Snarker. Favorite Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, and Urban Fantasy Favorite Authors: Terry Pratchett, Jim Butcher, Neil Gaiman I really like thinking up of ideas and would like to get published someday, I have a tougher time translating those ideas into words, and don't have much practice outside of school, and even that I think is clunky.

Another problem I have is names, since I rarely assigning them to works in my head, and when I do I usually forget them. Also, I'll usually put alot of thought into a setting but not so much into a plot to put into it, so I want to work on that to.

edited 13th Jun '10 10:27:19 PM by Coolzar

"Wow. Sarcasm. That's original." -Dr. Horrible
Wackd Since: May, 2009
#145: Jun 15th 2010 at 8:04:12 AM

Hello, I'm Wack'd, I enjoy almost any fiction so long as it's funny, and I don't write in one genre nearly enough for me to use any tropes frequently (except Killed Off for Real.)

What I'm working on:

  • Already Been Chewed News. Check it out.
  • Secure the Area, a comic book series about an Area 51-esque place with a mysterious past. Focuses around new recruit, field agent Alexander, and his newly reassigned partner and Area's former scientific adviser Jamie. Mostly stand-alone issues, with a Myth Arc developing involving Ancient Astronauts and Clock Roaches. Most of the supporting cast are characters from my childhood efforts, resulting in a good deal of DevelopmentGags, such as one character not being able to shoot glowing blue ropes from his eyes, "because that'd just be stupid"; another alien race is loaded with millenniums of history consisting solely of every Retcon of the race's history I ever wrote. Plays with standard science-fiction tropes.
  • The Mapmaker's Ultimatum—I had abandoned this Alternate History novel for a time, but am considering finishing it. It focuses on Eoin Gobetheway, a mapmaker, who is forced to take the King's daughter Katharine with him on his latest excursion. Eoin is a Crazy-Prepared survivalist and a bit of a Jerkass, while Katharine is an over-confident, under-skilled Action Girl who finds Eoin condescending and annoying. Eoin and Katharine think each other to be insufferable, egotistic jerks, though repeated peril forges a Straight Will And Grace relationship between the two as they deal with their respective character flaws. Trying to avoid team-building, with most recurring characters dropping in and out. My favorite at the moment is Reuel, who keeps trying to force a Myth Arc involving a prophecy but no one really pays attention.

edited 15th Jun '10 8:06:38 AM by Wackd

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.
Tarsen Since: Dec, 2009
#146: Jun 15th 2010 at 10:28:41 PM

recently started focusing on punk punk and decided i want to do a clockpunk story but i dont know how...

any tips?

SleepyPillow Writer from Being a mary sue in RL Since: Jun, 2010
#147: Jun 16th 2010 at 12:25:01 AM

I'm doing a clockpunk story too! although it's low key. What period is yours set in?

Never Trust A Mouse.
Tarsen Since: Dec, 2009
#148: Jun 17th 2010 at 3:25:15 AM

dunno. ive just settled on the idea of doing a clockpunk story, and like i said, i have little knowledge on how to do clockpunk. so far no story, no characters and no time period, only that the setting is clockpunk

i find it easier to come up with the rest when i know the setting well enough. in this case i dont

EponymousKid Since: Jan, 2001
#149: Jun 18th 2010 at 5:33:25 PM

Okay, Eponymous Kid, 20 years old, extremely obsessed with virtually all forms of media, especially comics and anime.

Working on several projects that I'm having a lot of trouble getting off the ground, all of which I want to eventually turn into actual published novels/comics. My favorite trope is probably Captain Ersatz, not so much in the act of using it so much as the act of witnessing it; I love seeing something that's at once familiar but different.

Details on my stories to come.

tilitzd Since: Jun, 2010
#150: Jun 19th 2010 at 7:07:48 PM

I'm Devin, and I don't really have a preferred genre of fiction, although I don't generally indulge in fantasy. I usually like works that are at the middle of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, I think they reflect life most accurately, and I'm an admitted fan of the Deadpan Snarker.

I'm about 50 pages into a screenplay at the moment, it's hard to explain in a few words, but it's reminiscent of things like Jacob's Ladder and Silent Hill 2, and has a modest amount of Mind Screw.

I'll be sure to look over everyone's work in the days to come.

edited 19th Jun '10 7:08:29 PM by tilitzd


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