Azazeal849's blogs and comments

[Azazeal849]

Author's note: Sheesh, 2012 me was kind of preachy

A NOVEL PERSPECTIVE (12/09/2012)

Maybe it's just me, but I've always considered RPs as stories first, and games second. Even if it's a story with multiple authors and protagonists, I love copying the IC posts to Word for posterity, editing them into a coherent narrative, and reading through them later. This has, I admit, coloured the way I like to see RPs written. This blog is partly a discussion of some observations I've made after reading through many different RPs on this site, and partly a framework for what might become my "GM rules" when inspiration to start a new story next strikes me. Hopefully, looking back on it will help me figure out which "rules" are genuinely useful tips and which are products of my own personal OCD.

Tense: This one is fairly likely to fall into the OCD camp, but I always find it best when posts are written in the 3rd person past tense, like in most stories. In other words, written as "he did this", rather than "I did this", or "he does this". I understand that present-tense writing has its roots in real-life roleplaying games, which all the writing we do here is ultimately based on, but it looks weird in the context of a story. It's especially jarring to me when some posts in a thread are written this way and others aren't. Likewise, first-person writing has its place in storytelling, but only when a story has a single clear protagonist, rather than multiple protagonists as is usually the case in any RP featuring more than one writer.

Quoting: This goes hand in hand with the above, as far as reader immersion goes. When writing, it's often useful to include snippets of other people's posts to help place the action and make clear its context. However, to me, quote boxes in the IC damage the flow for the reader. I much prefer some other way of indicating another writer's text, such as italics or bold, although I feel simply copying the text in a different colour usually works best. A different colour for each writer is a personal favourite of mine, especially if it is consistent throughout the thread since it becomes easy to tell at a glance who wrote what.

Relevance: In the search to make a decent length post, it's tempting to pad the writing out with filler. The most common versions of this that I've seen are routines and descriptions of clothing. Now I'm not saying that these things can't be useful - routines in real life are a great time for introspecting, and interspacing a simple morning shower routine with a character's thoughts can be a great way to deepen their personality or explore how they are feeling about recent developments. Likewise, how a character dresses can often tell us something about them; whether they are outgoing, conservative, fond of a particular scene - or even to set up these expectations about the character so that they can be subverted later on.

However, this relevance to the story has to be maintained. I recall particularly one RP I was in where almost the entire first page of the IC consisted of nothing but the players describing, in agonising detail, their characters getting dressed and ready for school. And aside from telling me something about the writers' personal taste in clothing, it was completely irrelevant to the story. When making an IC post, always ask yourself how what you are writing is advancing either the plot, or the character that you are following.

Goldfish Syndrome: This is an interesting one, which I think stems from the difference in time between real life writing, and time progression within a RP. Several days or even weeks might pass before a given player posts again, and it's all too easy to forget what has gone before in this time. This links back yet again to me seeing RPs as novels and liking to re-read them afterwards, because it's upon re-reading that these things become apparent. Focussing your new post around how a character reacts to the latest plot development is all well and good, but sometimes what has gone before can (and logically should) colour the character's reaction. In the most unfortunate cases, it can look like characters are having schizophrenic mood swings, or have simply forgotten something that happened to them less than an hour ago. Remember to read back through previous posts (both yours and others) to have the right context in your mind when you go to write your next IC post.

Human Needs: Also worth mentioning is the opposite end of the spectrum; those times when a long period has passed in-universe, usually as a product of GM-driven time skips. Sometimes this can throw up problems of its own. This is a highly situational example, but in one of the RPs that I am currently involved in, there is a plot point of most of the characters refusing to eat (because some of the food is drugged...it makes sense in context). However, when the GM time-skipped the story forward by 8 hours or so, and the characters still refused to eat, very few players addressed how going for an extended period without food might affect their character's mood and physical fitness.

Now, in stories with dragons and starships and everything else the fertile imaginations of RPA's writers can come up with, it's easy to forget about the more mundane things. But characters, at least human ones, still need things like food and sleep. In many cases this is not important (no-one wants to read about characters taking regular toilet breaks, for example) but when it is both relevant and shown it can be a good way of making the characters seem both more realistic and easier to empathise with.

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Comments:

Lamb - 09-12-2012 07:36 PM
If you're going to siphon thoughts directly out of my brain, warn me next time! I really agree with all of this--to me most RPs are hardly games. It's the writing, the character interaction, and the sense of unity you feel when working on a creative project with others. This is probably why I could never get into dice games and the like. Writing a story is fun, but not knowing parts of the story (the parts that others will write) makes it exciting. And I do think it's very odd when the tense or the perspective is inconsistent. One person is writing first person present, everyone else is writing third person past...it's weird. Anyway, you've definitely convinced me that any RP you post in the future will be well worth looking into.

Azazeal849 - 09-12-2012 07:47 PM
Thanks for reading, Lamb I've got two RPs on the go right now, one here and one on Warseer, so it might be a while before I have the time and inspiration to start another!

The Imposter - 09-12-2012 10:31 PM
I've gotta say that I'm pretty lined up in my brain to your rp theology here. Nice thoughts brah.

[Azazeal849]

LESS IS MORE IN A CHARACTER SHEET (13/09/2012)

This originally began as part of my previous blog of general RP-related musings (with the vague goal of creating my own set of GM rules), but went off on so many tangents that I felt a separate entry was required to do it justice. I'm going to try and talk about my thoughts on the matter of characters in more depth, and particularly their starting point - character sheets.

Firstly, the most fundamental aspect of a character sheet: the character's name. I'd like to propose a simple litmus test - find a friend, and say aloud to them "Hi, I'm <character name here>" and see if either of you cringes. Perhaps I have a lower tolerance than most, but dramatic and flowery character names are everywhere on RPA, and many don't sound quite as cool out loud as they do written down.

This is, of course, situational. Miss Kaitlyn Morrigan Cross won't raise her friends' eyebrows in a kingdom of dragons and demons, and Mr Gideon Mathias Steel will be right at home in the far future. But when you're in RPs that are ostensibly set in the 'real world', either now or in the not-too-distant past or future, it starts to sound strange. Especially when these are the kind of RPs that I personally seem to spend the most time writing in.

I'm not trying to stifle creativity. Everyone likes to give their characters interesting and distinctive names, and, admittedly, a character called Joe Bloggs is unlikely to impress anybody. However, giving your character the kind of name that Branjelina would pick out looks kind of weird in a modern setting. Just to pluck an example out of the air, how much would you hate your parents if they had decided to call you 'Valkyrie'? Imagine having to introduce yourself as that to people. Make a lasting impression in people's minds through your character's personality and behaviour, not through their name alone. Even Joe Bloggs quickly becomes more exciting when he steps up to the plate and starts taking down zombies with a cricket bat.

I've noticed that some GMs like to leave out the 'personality' field in their character sheets, and while I usually wouldn't go that far myself, I can see why they do so. As my friend SandQueen once noted, what is on the CS and what is written in the IC can turn out wildly different. I believe this stems from 'writing what you know'. In essence (and I'm as guilty of this as anybody), people's first response when trying to put together an IC post is to put themselves in the characters shoes, and imagine how they themselves would deal with the given situation.

Speaking from experience, it is often difficult when writing to make the jump from 'how would I react?' to 'how would this character react?' and worst of all it's easy to relapse at any time. For this reason, having a shorter personality section in your CS becomes an asset. Just a few key personality traits on the CS that you can refer back to will help keep you on track, and having just a few of these most important traits to stay faithful to makes it easier to avoid slipping into out-of-character actions. Don't worry that having a short personality section will give you a flat and boring character either - you can fill out minor details with your own personality without compromising the core of who your character was originally supposed to be.

Conversely, if you're writing a long list of traits on the CS, chances are that after the first three or four you're actually describing yourself. This is fine, as I think it's difficult to imagine a character that doesn't draw from the writer in at least some small way, but I'm going to assume that you know yourself pretty well, and so you won't need to refer back to your CS to keep your IC writing 'in character'!

The 'less is more' maxim can apply to character biographies just as easily as personalities. While a long, detailed history is a thing to be commended when writing a character, the hard truth is that many players will have trouble summoning the will to read it all, and much of the background will end up being irrelevant to the story anyway. The exception is, of course, when you are building a character's history across a series of linked stories, where it can be useful to summarise the previous RP(s) for any newcomers. Recurring characters almost mandate an extended bio, but even so try and keep the summary focused on the most important details to make things easier to remember for both yourself and the reader.

Even for brand new characters with no previous RP pedigree, I think it's perfectly acceptable to give the character a minimalist biography that includes only things that will become relevant to the RP, and it's also perfectly acceptable to restate these points in your writing. Indeed, this can be a guide - if you don't think there's any point in mentioning a specific bit of your character's bio in the IC, then it probably had no bearing on their personality or the story to begin with. Also, revealing a character's backstory over time in the IC is fun; you can create plot points out of their history, and you have a greater chance of the other players remembering the important details if you make them part of the story text.

Just as you can restate a character's biography in the IC, don't be afraid to describe their appearance as well. In quite a lot of RPs I've written for, I've described a character's appearance in my first post. This is partially as a reminder to myself and the other players, and partially (harking back to the theme of my last blog of 'RPs reading as novels') because this is what you would do when introducing a character in a book. If nothing else, the other players will thank you for not having to go back and find your CS when they want their character to describe yours in their next IC post.

In fact, perhaps the best way to go about it is to assume that the readers of the IC will not see your character sheet at all! A character sheet is a reference for you, the GM, and possibly the other players - it is not a substitute for in-story description and character development. Obviously a GM will have to check the characters coming into the story to make sure they conform to his or her personal vision, and I am not suggesting that you info-dump the readers with your first IC post. But half the joy of any novel is being introduced to the main characters, getting to know them, and beginning to care about where they are going. Why deny the readers and yourself this pleasure just because the novel bears the title of "roleplay"?

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Comments:

Leon G - 10-07-2012 04:18 AM
"Just to pluck an example out of the air, how much would you hate your parents if they had decided to call you 'Valkyrie'?"

Hurrhurr, I was like "Oh no he didnt!" When I saw this. I already greatly dislike my name, which no else I know has, nor does anyone that my parents know have. It's like they said, "Hey let's throw darts at the alphabet and make a name for our daughter!" Anyways, I know what you mean bro. People tend to name their chars crazy shiz like "Ashleigh-Jennifer Thaliana Amerberst Hanna-Maria" or some other ridiculously long names. I hate when I'm in RP and I don't even know how to say a certain char's name ._.

On to the persona/bio CS thing you pointed out, yeah I agree 100%. I usually try to make a character that would work well for a RP. For example, I see a RP about XYZ and I say oh! I have the Perfect character for this RP! Imma make him a Type A persona guy, blah blah blah. Then the RP rolls around, is NOTHING what I think it was gonna be and suddenly my char's a Type Q. And as much as I love loners, it's kinda really hard to do so in an RP, for obvious reasons.

I am so guilty of not reading other people's character sheets I'm always like: Name, Age, Picture/Appearance, glance at personality, Done. Heh heh...

Azazeal849 - 11-08-2012 01:14 PM
Haha Thanks for dropping by, Leoni.

dakkagor - 11-09-2012 01:14 PM
Alot of good ideas about the theory of playing here. Describing the character in that first post is key, it can really help cement with yourself and the other players how your character is meant to work.

Forum games in many ways have more ways for characters to develop than tabletop games because writing a big chunky paragraph helps flesh out the character much more than standard tabletop antics. Watching Kally evolve in Sandqueens games remains my 'Ur' example, because what she went through at the end of the Pembroke case turned the character on her head, and then what happened during a Wash of Black left her completely different again. Watching that character change, often for the worse, and how those changes mesh with other evolutions (Marc, for instance) was a fascinating process.

Which is interesting when you consider that in other ways, there are less ways for a character to evolve in a forum game. You don't exp to spend, or chances to buy new equipment. Often the character is much more static in terms of capability, apart from often loosing capability in terms of injury or equipment lost.

[Azazeal849]

ROMEO AND JULIET (04/10/2012)

It has occurred to me that a surprising number of characters who get together in RPs follow the same pattern.

Now relationships are an integral part of many roleplays, and players will often discuss in advance the pairing up of various lucky characters in the OOC thread. However, though many writers strive to be 'realistic' by waiting several posts and many real-life weeks before the characters make a pass at each other, they often fail to account for the fact that in-story they are still talking about mere days, if not hours. Of course this can happen in real life (especially if alcohol is involved), but when it does, it's usually based on sexual attraction because, simply, the people have not had time to get to know each other's personalities.

You could argue that the fact that many RP characters are young, passionate teenagers with an inexperienced grasp of love does lend some credibility to a fast hook-up (as does the fact that most PCs are, by and large, stunningly beautiful). But to be honest, I think it's more likely because we as players have ready access to a character's life story - their hopes, their dreams and their pet peeves - through their character sheets. Characters may well be compatible, but within the story they won't have access to the Personality sections of each others' character sheets (well, not unless there's some truly insane meta-plot going on). As such, they are unlikely to realise that they are so compatible as quickly as the players who are writing them. Not to disparage 'love at first sight' as a legitimate plot device, but I very rarely see the one-night stand in an RP, or the flash-in-the-pan romance where characters soon decide that they don't actually have that much in common. Even the one-night stand that grows over time into something deeper is surprisingly rare. If we're talking about a genuine long-term relationship, which most RP writers seem to prefer, I'd like to see them come about more realistically, i.e at a slower pace. To my (biased) mind, a story is always better when characters don't rush into things like Romeo and Juliet. As you probably know, things didn't work out so well for them.

All this having been said, the only thing that makes a RP good or bad at the end of the day is whether it is fun to write. As such, the options above become a difficult thing to balance; playing things "realistically" may mean forcing the writers to wait an agonisingly long time in real life before their characters can get together, or to write a relationship that they have less emotional investment in because they know in advance that it is going to fail. For some people, that's not fun, or at least not as much fun. I'd be interested to hear the thoughts of other GMs and players on the subject.

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Comments:

Falcon Red - 10-04-2012 10:59 PM
This is one of the reasons I try to minimize, if not then negate the bio and personality aspects of a character sheet, personally. I mean, it's a good reference for yourself, and shows the GM that you have a legit idea, and aren't about to just be like "I've got my sword of power and will slay the 98 horde goblins attacking the car of doom" when its a story about a man and woman who meet at a coffee shop everyday haha.

I do agree, though, in the realism. I enjoy realism in an RP, makes it more of a real escape in my head. However, a lot of writers, and me now and again, like the fact of how things tend to work out impossibly. How a relationship that started 5 minutes ago, can last a lifetime, or how you can get punched shot and cut like 50 times, and still be up fighting haha. It's a fun thing, but I definitely agree with your observation.

Mary Sue - 10-05-2012 02:38 AM
It's a balance honestly, and it always has to do with what both players want.

I, like you, prefer slowly developing a relationship. And I'm sure some people get annoyed with me for. If it hasn't been established BEFORE the RP that they know each other, then I like it to feel as natural as possible. For the sake of time and not turning into a whole RP derailment, I may speed it up though. Just a tad.

TheDoctor - 10-05-2012 05:33 AM
I am guilty as charged for this kind of thing, I admit it ALTHOUGH IT ONLY HAPPENED ONCE

From my experience, I have noticed that there are two types of RPers:

The first type is the one that enjoys their own fantasies. They write about what they WISH they can do, say, or see. These RPs generally do not go too far, for everyone has a specific thing in mind that they want to do, then they do it within the first 5 pages, and that's it, end of RP. There's nothing wrong with this, but it does usually tend to be shorter.

The second type is the one that is realistic. They participate in RPs to make a good piece of literature, not to enjoy their fantasies. These RPs can go far but ONLY IF most of the other RPers are realists as well.

I have rarely seen these two combined in RPs, but then again, I don't know anything

I personally try to keep romance out of the RP for at least the first week or two IC. For example, in my Zoids RP, we have had tiny romantic subplots, but they have not been a driving force, or really a force at all. No characters have had romantic actions, only romantic thoughts! And we are about to finish our RP! Romance just gets in the way of things (unless it is done right)

[Azazeal849]

Author's note: Luckily after that it's mostly lessons learned on past RPs plus a few one-off writing pieces!

DARKER THAN 40K (13/11/2012)

This description was recently levelled by my good friend PaintSerf at my first attempt at GMing on RPA - Business Is War. Loosely based on the universe of Syndicate (a computer game of which I have fond memories), I envisioned it as a story of mind-controlled cyborg assassins trying to regain their humanity amid a bloody dystopia of mafia-run corporations. As for PaintSerf's description, those of you who are familiar with 40K will know that it's a grim, Lovecraftian far future where everything is out to get you and as often as not succeeds. Stories and RPs set in that universe tend to have high bodycounts and people being killed in creatively gruesome ways. Not a bad fit for a Syndicate RP you might think, given the original's embracement of mind control, assassination and indifference towards civilian casualties. However, I wanted to take my story in a completely different direction. Business Is War certainly had a high body count, but in other ways it was the complete antithesis of a 40K story - whereas 40K accepts "life is cheap" as a justified and necessary premise of the universe, the one theme I wanted to drive home in Business was of life having value. Paradoxically, I think that this is where the darkness comes from.

While 40K stories are full of death, it's usually on the front lines of a war rather than among civilians. Casualties on the human side tend to fall into "a million is a statistic" because life is accepted to be cheap both by characters and writers, and the enemies are even more faceless - not to mention (40K being a decidedly grey and black universe) also tending to be completely unsympathetic monsters. Even if the story is small enough in scale to pay significant attention to individual enemies, it's generally pointless for the GM to waste writing space trying to empathise with a bloodthirsty alien Ork, or to angst over the death of a frothing mad chaos cultist. Working off my chosen theme, I wanted to make sure that the NPCs in Business were far more humanised. This included the random mooks who the PCs were up against, since this was supposed to be a real world with normal people just going about their lives and doing their jobs, with the real evil stemming from the criminal-run corporations that the PCs (at least initially) worked for. Having recently read Roberto Saviano's Gomorrah (an excellent if unsettling book that I will recommend to anyone interested in real-life organised crime) I had a vivid idea of how brutal real mafia organisations could be, and I drew more than a little inspiration from it for certain scenes.

Coupling themes of humanity and the value of life with this brutality, and the high body count seen the original games, forced me to start exploring some very uncomfortable ideas. It wouldn't work if I didn't emphasise that every NPC (even the morally-questionable ones) had a life, a family and a reason for living. I wanted the writers to feel a genuine unease when their protagonists killed in-story, which I hoped would translate to the characters themselves once they started regaining their free will. Also, I wanted the real monsters of the story to stand out even more starkly for still not caring despite this deliberate humanisation and increasingly graphic death.

And my god it was graphic. 40K and many other RPs meriting a "mature" tag have limbs and heads flying and blood spraying from torn arteries, but in Business people were screaming, pleading, pissing themselves and sobbing for their parents. None of these people wanted to die, and at least some of them didn't deserve to. It got to the point that I was genuinely disturbed by some of my own writing. My biggest fear now that the story is finishing off is that I might have gone too far and appeared gratuitous - shocking for the sake of shocking without effectively getting the message across. I'll have to leave it up to other readers to see if the 'life has value' theme stood out by the end and if it remained an interesting story in its own right. If you're interested, here's the link.

After shamelessly plugging my own story, I think it's only right to acknowledge the other writers who contributed just as much to the project as me: PaintSerf for proving once again that he can create any sort of character (whether it's a black-hearted Pariah, a jittery paychic, a gruff but caring soldier or a family-focussed cop) and make them deep and compelling - especially notable to someone like me who often worries if his PCs end up seeming a little too similar to each other; Dakkagor for contributing interesting subplots and consistently high-quality writing; Simulacrum for sticking doggedly with us despite computer troubles; and The Bartender for unflinchingly embracing the villain role despite my blatant attempts to guilt the players, resulting in one of the most disturbing yet compelling antagonists I've seen in a RP. Also worthy of mention are X for inspiring me to turn a vague idea that had been floating around my head into a solid RP, and the other players SandQueen, Mihaw, Hex and Ixajin who contributed even if they couldn't make it through to the end. I look forward to writing with you again guys, perhaps next time on something a little less dark.

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Comments:

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[Azazeal849]

A HORROR SHORT STORY - DON'T LOOK IT IN THE EYES (23/03/2016)

Claire sighed in relief as she finally trudged across the overgrown garden towards the house. Secluded up a set of winding country roads at least a mile from town, the place had been a pain in the neck to find - or rather a pain in the arms, since she had had to lug a carrier full of drinks the whole way. Andy had neglected to mention that little detail, making it sound like a short brisk walk when he described the route. Then again, everything was a short brisk walk to Andy, when he spent his weekends hiking and ran half-marathons for fun.

In the end it had taken Claire over half an hour to traipse up to the house, including a ten minute detour down the wrong road which had ended up leading her into a field. Her friends had been no help either - she had tried calling Andy and Becca and Richard, and none of them had picked up their damn phones. You would think they would be more anxious to find out where she was, considering she was bringing most of the drinks.

She switched the thick carrier back full of alcohol to her other hand, fished her phone out of her pocket and looked down at it once again, checking optimistically for at least a text. Sweet F.A., and the battery meter in the top right corner was showing a single sliver of red. Though to be fair, the latter was her fault because she had forgotten to charge her phone before she left to buy the drinks.

She hoped that one of her friends had a charger on them, because she wanted to be able to phone a taxi at the end of the night. The house would probably be just as hard for the taxi to find as it had been for her - but to hell with walking all the way back in the dark at 3am, and equally to hell with staying overnight in a strange house. Andy had assured them that his grandfather had given them the run of the place while the old man was away at his summer home in Spain, but if Claire was going to wake up with a heavy head and a sour taste in her mouth, she preferred to do it within staggering distance of her own cereal cupboard and coffee maker.

She looked at her dying phone one more time before stuffing it back into her jeans. She was here now, and she was sure that Rich at least would have thought to bring a charger in his rucksack. Rich was practical like that. She hitched up a smile as she imagined an evening of kicking back with jagerbombs and thumping music, and chatting shit like the four of them always did.

She was welcomed by a stab of light as she approached the house, a motion sensor above the porch activating to trigger a pool of white light. The house was built from old, weathered stone with faded whitewash, but the front door atop the small wooden porch gleamed with new paint. Claire put her free hand on the old-style brass handle and found that her friends had left it unlocked. She pushed the front door open, and found herself in a short hallway paved with spongy linoleum, with doors leading off to the left and right. Bare wooden stairs ascended to the second floor, and the only real ornamentation was a hallway mirror. Rich stood in front of it, checking his reflection on his way from the kitchen to the living room.

Claire let out another grateful sigh as she stamped her boots clean on the welcome mat and dumped her heavy bag onto the floor of the entrance hall with a chink of bottles. Someone had plugged their phone into a portable speaker, and The Qemists were thumping energetically from the next room.

"The fun has arrived!" Claire called out cheerfully to Richard. "Do you have a charger with you? My battery's dying."

She finished hanging up her coat and turned back to her friend, who was still looking at the mirror as if he hadn't even heard her walk in over the music.

"Hey! Rich!" she snapped at him. She felt a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You look fine. Now come here and give me a hand with the drinks."

Richard didn't say anything. He didn't even look round.

Frowning now, Claire walked up to her friend and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Hey!"

She expected him to jump comically, but he didn't. Richard continued to stare blankly into the mirror, his hands hanging loosely at his sides. Claire looked at the mirror in confusion, and then back at her friend. She waved her hand in front of his face, and then snapped her fingers.

"Very funny." she said crossly.

Then she noticed that he wasn't blinking.

Claire looked around, hesitated, and then stood on tiptoe to put her mouth to her friend's ear and screamed "Rich!"

She stepped back, but her friend continued to stand, frozen. Worried now that he was having a stroke or something, Claire hauled herself round the living room door, hoping to find Andy and Becca and get them to help.

"Guys?" she called out as she rounded the doorframe, but the only things in the deep-carpeted living room were a few bottles prepped and ready on the table, and Rich's phone plugged into a speaker on the bookshelf, music pounding away. A moment of panic set in when Claire realised that her other friends might not be here yet. Back in the hallway, Rich continued to stand as if in a trance.
A sudden, heavy thud sounded from upstairs, making Claire flinch in shock. The unexpected noise sent a cold jolt down her spine, piercing her heart and setting it hammering against her ribs. Then she realised that if the others were here, she needed them to help.

"Hey!" she shouted, fighting down her panic as she scrambled up the stairs. "Guys! Come quick! There's something wrong with Rich!"

The landing was empty, although the lights were on, and a line of yellow shone under the door on her left. Claire jerked the door open onto a bedroom papered with pastel flowers, with a wooden-framed double bed and a mirrored wardrobe recessed into the wall. She gasped in shock. Her friend Rebecca was at the foot of the bed, standing rigid and motionless, her eyes fixed on the mirrored door of the wardrobe.

"Becks?" Claire stammered, panting. When Becca didn't answer, she ran forward and grabbed her friend by the shoulders and shook her, but Becca remained as unresponsive as Richard. Downstairs she could still hear the music, thumping like a sinister heartbeat.

"Becks this isn't funny!" she shouted into her friend's glazed-over eyes. Fear turning to anger, Claire stepped towards Becca and shoved her, hard, so that she lost her balance and fell back onto the bed.

Claire's hands fell to her sides and she stared at her friend for a moment, panting. For a second Rebecca didn't move, but when she did she just rose silently back to her feet. She stood up like a sleepwalker, her eyes empty and staring, her movements slow and loose. The last thread of hope that this was only a joke frayed away inside Claire's mind.

"Becks?" she pleaded, grabbing one of her friend's slack hands. Becca's skin was cold and clammy to her touch. "Becks please..."

Becca looked right through her. Silently dragging her hand free of Claire's numb grip, she walked around her to stand once again in front of the mirror.

Claire stumbled back, her hands over her mouth. Her heart was in her throat, and cold sweat was beading under her arms and on her forehead. She would have turned around, run downstairs and bolted right out of the house, if she hadn't suddenly noticed the shallow, frantic breathing coming from the next room.

It took all of her courage to turn slowly round and look at the door of the room opposite. The door was ajar, the light within switched off. Holding her breath, Claire tiptoed towards the door. Just as her hand was hovering over the doorknob, she heard a terrified voice whisper: "Help."

Andy. She pushed the door open and slammed her palm against the lightswitch beside the door. As soon as the light came on there was a scream. Andy was curled up in the corner of the room, his fists pressed hard against his face. His half-empty drink stood abandoned on the bedside table.

"No!" he shouted hysterically. "Don't look it in the eyes!"

Claire ran around the bed and dropped to her knees by her friend's side. "Andy. Andy! It's me, it's Claire!"

"Can it see me?" Andy rasped, his hands still jammed against his eye sockets. "No, don't look at it! Can it see me?"

Claire looked over her shoulder. Like the other bedroom, this one had a mirrored wardrobe embedded in the wall, but crouched down as he was behind the bed, Andy wasn't visible in the reflection.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked her friend, grabbing his shoulders. "What's wrong with the mirrors?"

"Don't look it in the eyes!" Andy sobbed.

Claire gasped a few rapid, shallow breaths. A plan of action was finally crystallising in her reeling mind. She fumbled at the pocket of her jeans, forcing her shaking hands to obey her as she pulled out her phone. It might be nearly dead, but she only needed to make one call. She swiped the screen open with a trembling finger, tapped away the insistent low battery message, and punched in the number for the emergency services.

"Get an ambulance!" she told Andy, prising one of her friend's freezing, shaking hands away from his eyes and pushing the phone into it. "I'm going to help Rich and Becca."

To her relief, Andy nodded, opened his eyes, and pressed the ringing mobile to his ear. Claire stood up, trying to control her frantic breathing. Get them away from the mirrors. If I can pull them away, maybe they'll snap out of it.

The ringing of her phone stopped.

"Claire," Andy said suddenly from behind her, "Your phone's..."

He trailed off, mid-sentence. Turning round, Claire saw him sitting unnaturally rigid, and felt her stomach drop. Swearing aloud, she ran to his side. Andy was hunched silently over her phone, staring at the black mirror of her standby screen. The circling shutdown icon spun for a few seconds in the middle of the screen, then went out.

"No." Claire whimpered to her motionless, dead-eyed friend. "No no no no!" She slapped the phone out of Andy's hand, and watched in horror as he went crawling numbly after it. Trying to breathe past the tightness in her chest, she fell hard against the wall instead as he legs gave out underneath her.

She had to get out of here. She had to get help. Claire reeled to her feet, catching herself against the bedframe for balance as she stumbled towards the door. As she did so, she caught her reflection in the wardrobe mirror, and realised that there was something wrong with it. The Claire in the mirror was still shivering against the wall, watching Andy.

As Claire watched, her reflection stood up, reeled drunkenly towards the door, and then stumbled against the bed. No sooner had it done so, it did a double take and stood staring back at her, a look of uncomprehending shock on its face.

Claire could still hear the music downstairs, but it seemed suddenly faded and far away. Swallowing, she padded round the bed until she was standing in front of the mirror. She watched, mesmerised, as her reflection lagged a couple of seconds behind her. She turned her head right, then left, and saw her reflection do the same.

A creeping dread suddenly seized her, overpowering her fascination. She whirled towards the bedside table to grab Andy's half-drunk beer bottle, snatching it up by the neck. She spun back towards the wardrobe, intending to smash the bottle into the mirror and shatter the unnatural reflection.

She found her reflection already staring back at her.

Somehow, the strength went out of her arm and it fell to her side. The bottle slipped from her grasp and landed on the floor, its contents spreading in a dark stain across the carpet.

Claire felt something like cold water trickling down the inside of her skull, and realised that she couldn't move.

Her reflection smiled.

* * * * * *

If you made it this far then thanks for reading! This short story is an update of my submission to last year's Halloween writing competition. It didn't win, but I had fun with it all the same. One thing I've discovered is that it's much harder to write a scary story than to make a scary film (you can't make people "jump", and suspense can be hard to pull off as well). Credit for the new and improved version must go at least partially to Maabe (aka M139) for very kindly taking the time to review my work and offer feedback.

I suppose that there's two types of horror; the realistic, it-could-happen-to-you kind, and the scary-because-it's-unexplainable kind. I didn't write the former because "realistic" horror (murder, rape etc.) tends to make me angry rather than scared, and I'm more comfortable writing that sort of stuff into a story as social commentary rather than for shock and grit. Since the second type of horror is essentially about bad things happening to good people, I'll be happy if I managed to humanise Claire enough to make the reader care a bit when something horrible happens to her.

I don't know about you, but the idea of losing control of your own body is pretty heavy nightmare fuel for me. The story owes a fair bit of inspiration to The Carrion Anthem (which is about a virus-like piece of music that causes anyone who hears it to just stand there and sing until they collapse and die), and a bit more to the film Below (specifically the "lagging reflection"). Haunted mirrors of course are nothing new, and while mirrors are not a personal phobia of mine, I do think it's interesting how often you catch your own reflection (even accidentally) when you're just going about your day. And naturally everyone hates it when their phone runs out at just the wrong moment!

-------------------------------------------

Comments:

TheDoctor - 03-24-2016 04:08 PM
This is really, really good! You really captured the realism of Claire as a character. The description of your setting helped me picture it all, and it was really clever how you continued to reference the phone being almost dead, then having it be used as a reflection. Initially I thought you might have an easier time with first-person perspective, but third-person ended up really good.

But yeah, this story really captured my attention. I've read a lot of Lovecraft, and it's a good modern adaptation of his style (while still capturing your own style!). It's long enough to get you invested, but not so long that it's boring (I'm looking at you, Lovecraft).

Little suggestion:

"Claire," Andy said suddenly from behind her, "You're phone's..."
*Your

Azazeal849 - 03-25-2016 04:41 PM
Haha thank you. I have fixed the typo.

I was very anxious for Claire to be relatable, given that you only get a few thousand words to get to know her. One major change I made to the original on the "realism" front was exactly why she walks over to the mirror - because it's the least logical thing she does in the whole story, I added the fading music to imply that she's already partially spellbound.

I took advantage of the rewrite, which no longer had a word limit, to flesh out the scene descriptions a bit (with whatever ideas came to me as I was writing) so I'm glad that it paints a decent - and hopefully creepy - picture. I also tried to add a few snippets of character to Andy, Becca and Rich and spend a bit more time on Becca's section and how it affected Claire.

Putting extra emphasis on the dying phone was one of M139's suggestions (in the original, what had happened to Andy wasn't as clear as I thought it was) and I'm glad that it paid off.

I've never been that keen on writing in the first person so I never really considered it, but now I think about it, it does lend itself particularly well to horror. I might try that next time.

Would you believe I've never read any Lovecraft? But thanks very much for the praise, and for taking the time to comment.

[Azazeal849]

HUNGER GAMES - THE NIGHT BEFORE (13/06/2017)

While I wait for various RPs to pick up, I had the urge to revisit a story from a couple of years ago. While @Death of Korzan's Hunger Games PvP never finished (or never got off the ground, really) it seeded characters and relationships that I hoped to come back to at some point. And while an actual reboot of the RP remains vanishingly unlikely, I can finally relax now that Reap is no longer treating Thames like a kicked puppy.

Shout outs to DoK for creating the character of Thames, and to Karma for giving my first draft of this post a read-through.

The original IC thread which this post continues from can be read here.

* * * * * *

The clock ticked over past midnight, and Reap gave up on the idea of sleep. His mind wouldn't let him rest, and when it wasn't conjuring up the faces of the other tributes who might try and kill him, it was tormenting him with the looks on his family's faces as they clustered round the viewscreen and helplessly watched him being hacked to bits. He kicked off the duvet and staggered through into the silent common room, feeling sick to his stomach. His hands felt cold, and the fingertips wouldn't stop shaking.

One of the avoxes had laid out their outfits on the living room couch while they had been away. They were simple one-piece overalls made of thin canvas, with the number 11 and their names stencilled on the shoulders. Reap Cortes. Thames Lanceworthy. That surprised him slightly. He had assumed that Thames' name was spelled T-E-M-S. Something about the simple khaki garments set his fingers trembling again, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to piss, or bolt for the door, or upend the fine wooden furniture and smash it into ruined splinters.

In the end, he didn't do any of those things. Instead he found the control for the giant window screen, flicked it through to the image of the sunset wheatfield, and sat down facing it with his back against the couch and his chin resting on his hands.

He started almost violently when the door from across the common room clicked quietly open. He hurriedly rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand, and cleared his throat to make sure his voice wouldn't catch before turning round. Thames was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, backlit by the electric light, wearing thin cotton shorts and a vest top. Reap was struck by the thought that she looked slightly odd without her glasses.

Thames gave a hesitant, guilty flicker of a smile. "You couldn't sleep either, huh?"

Reap turned his head back and stared at the wheatfield. "Nope."

The soft carpet rustled as Thames padded over and sat down on the floor next to him, her back against the couch. She smelled of the strange floral lotion that dispensed from the plunger bottles next to the showers. It reminded Reap of Berkins and the other preening Capitol citizens instead of the more honest scent of District 11s who bathed in cold water and waxy, scentless soap. Still, it wasn't unpleasant, and it was somehow more bearable on Thames than on the gawping technicolor people who had been fussing over them for the last few days.

Of course, Thames was never comfortable with a silence and couldn't resist the urge to fill it.

"Do you think we'll get any sponsors?" she asked, picking nervously at one of her nails.

Reap grimaced, remembering his interview with Flickerman. "You might. Don' hold your breath for me."

"Maybe it'd be best to try and wait out the Careers..." Thames rambled on, and Reap wasn't sure if she was still talking to him or to herself.

She was intelligent but naive, Reap decided - knowing what she had to do, but agonising for too long over how she should do it; trying to reassure herself with plans that wouldn't survive contact with the arena; knowing what questions to ask but not when to keep her mouth shut. It wasn't her fault, given that she had been clever and lucky enough to land a decent-paying job at the clinic and therefore probably lived a slightly less hand-to-mouth existence than most of the District. But she keeps lookin' at me as if I know all the answers. Isn't she older than me?

"What?" Thames asked, smiling nervously, and Reap realised that he was staring at her. He shrugged and decided to be truthful.

"I was just wonderin' how old you were."

Thames laughed, embarrassed. "What?" she asked again, with a higher inflection.

For lack of anything better to say, Reap decided to press on, though without elaborating on what had prompted it. "How old are you? If you don' mind me askin', darlin'?"

Thames pushed he wavy hair behind her ear. "Eighteen."

Reap exhaled. "Your last year, huh?"

The Capitol weighted the number of tickets per child by age - because older children gave a better show, Reap supposed - which made a person's final reaping an agonising mix of fear and hope. In your eighteenth year you were more likely to be reaped than ever before, but if you survived you would only have your tithe and the overseers to worry about for whatever time you had left.

"That's as unfair as anythin' else, I'll give you that." he said, doing his best to sound sympathetic. "Bet you were lookin' forward to never standin' up in front of the Escorts ever again."

Thames looked down, as if his words had upset her. Reap chewed his tongue, half awkward and half exasperated, but couldn't think of anything to follow it up and repair whatever damage he had done.

"Every year," Thames said quietly, twisting her hands into knots, "I'd be thinking, not me, not me. Every time, and every time afterwards I'd feel terrible because it was horrible to wish it on anyone else and I'd promise that next year I'd be stronger...but still, every time the Escort turned up and put their hand in the jar I'd be praying the same thing. Not me, not me, please god let it be anyone else but not me."

She ran out of words and lapsed into silence, staring at the soft carpet. Reap chewed his bottom lip, trying to find some words of his own.

"It ain't a sin to be relieved when they don't pick you. No-one wants to be here. Well...maybe those psychos from 1."

"You mean Wonder and Starlight?"

Reap shrugged. He hadn't bothered to learn the Careers' names - their focused, predator eyes had told him everything he had needed to know. Stay the hell away. Tangling with those two would be like sticking your hand into a nest of tracker jackers.

"What are we going to do?" Thames asked, twisting her hands again in her lap.

Reap gave her a sidelong look. "We?"

Thames blinked uncertainly, suddenly embarrassed. "I thought..."

"You can't keep relyin' on me, Thames." Reap snapped irritably. "What if one of them psychos hacks me down in the first minute, huh? Even in the best case only one of us is comin' outta there!"

Thames looked at him in shock. Then her face crumpled, and he knew that she was about to start crying again. As she turned her head away so did he, feeling angry. But the anger swiftly soured into guilt as he realised that her tears were, this time, completely his fault. He bit his lip, his chest burning.

"Sorry, darlin'." he relented quietly. "I shouldn't've said that."

Thames raised her flushed face and scowled at him.

"Stop calling me darling." she choked accusingly through her tears. "I've got a name."

Reap felt his cheeks grow hot. "I'm...sorry, Thames."

"You're such a prick." Thames sniffed. "I was going to offer to help. I used to mix up all the potions in the clinic, I know what's safe and what you need to cure something. We'd at least have a chance. And you know I'm not going to stab you in the back because you know I couldn't ever kill another person..."

Reap bit his tongue to stop his first thought escaping out of his mouth. And you think that I could? He wasn't sure if he was shocked, offended or saddened by her assumption. Did he look anything like one of those Peacekeepers who'd shoot someone in the back of the head, and casually walk away while the victim's family were left sobbing in the bloodstained dirt? In spite of what Chaff had said, it wasn't as easy to put an arrow through a human as it was to put one through a rabbit or a sheep. It couldn't be.

"We don't have to look ahead to the end." Thames carried on, and she sounded half like she was pleading with him again. "We don't know what's going to happen...I mean, what about the cornucopia, we could plan for that at least? What d'you think we should do?"

Reap exhaled, and turned round to look Thames in the eyes. He owed her that much at least. Her eyes were brown, he noticed, flecked with gold.

"Grab a pack and run." he said after a moment's thought. He pictured the cornucopia from previous games - sometimes a tent, sometimes a sculpture, sometimes a stone pyramid. Items that the tributes would need to survive were placed in tiers around it - simple survival packs at the edge, more valuable things such as weapons and food parcels nearer the centre. "Take one from the edge and get out of there, while the others are distracted."

Thames wiped at her puffy eyes. "What about you?"

Reap bit his lip. He would definitely have to run for the centre if he wanted to retrieve a bow, and no doubt everyone else who wanted a weapon would be hard on his heels, including the Careers. "I need to get hold of a bow. I'll watch where you go and join you soon as I can."

Thames sniffled, and cuffed at her nose with the back of her wrist.

"Reap..." she ventured. "Are we going to live?"

Reap felt his cheeks grow hot again, remembering how he had pushed open a door on the Capitol airship and intruded on a sleeping Thames, who had murmured the exact words that she was now unwittingly repeating. He hadn't had an answer for her then. He still didn't. The only piece of real advice he had given her before today was don't look 'em in the eye. Well Thames was looking him in the eye now. Her eyes, brown and gold, were bright and intelligent and trusting. Her cheeks were wet with tears and flushed with blood. The tension in her thin lips told him that she was scared - just as scared as he was, if he had only let himself be vulnerable enough to show it.

Her chest was rising and falling gently as she breathed. Breath; blood; tears; skin. Thinking. Feeling. Alive.

Are we going to live?

Reap swallowed once again, to be sure his voice wouldn't catch. "We're gonna try."

--------------------------------------------------

.Karma. - 06-13-2017 01:43 PM
I know I've said this before, but you are an amazing writer. Truly wonderful. I did nothing but read your glorious writing! <3

Azazeal849 - 06-13-2017 06:06 PM
Thank you so much, Karma.

[Azazeal849]

READING THE RUNES (30/11/2019)

So I’ve been thinking for a while now that Runes has been my most challenging project, and now that it’s finished I wanted to unpack some of the learning points from this. Feel free to leave comments - I love feedback.

Before anything else, I want to thank all the site members who took part in the project: Kris, Scottie, Kiro Akira, Splat, Price, Derpnaster, Minkasha, Underblank and Katrina. Additional thanks go to Minkasha (for plot help and ready-made excuses to have more Leveler scenes) and Scottie (for subplot ideas, character insights and the occasional pointing out of logical progressions that I had missed). And I also want to add that despite Runes being “challenging”, I have very much enjoyed writing it with you all.

So where did it all start? It’s usual for me to have two or three unwritten RP ideas rattling around in my head at any given time - sometimes fully pre-plotted sequels to whatever I’m currently writing, sometimes half-baked concepts that never really get developed. Often, they come from a book, film or game I’ve just experienced that makes me want to write something similar. For example, the basic premise of Eclipsis came to me after watching Event Horizon, and the Replicants were inspired by the CGI remake of Captain Scarlet, which I watched a couple of episodes of because I’m a neeeeeerd.

The foundation for Runes came out of replaying Myth: The Fallen Lords, a dark fantasy game in which the living struggle against the twisted shades of their world’s greatest heroes. The concept didn’t go anywhere for a long time, because I’ve always been more comfortable writing sci fi than fantasy, and I also worried that my typically serious and gritty style was more at risk of seeming cheesy in such a world.

And then Karma roped me into Sojourn, a cookie-cutter fantasy adventure that I normally wouldn’t have touched with a barge pole, but with the twist that it was supposed to be a parody (something that I missed in my initial skim-read). I decided to take one of the characters from my Runes concept and play up his egotistical and snarky attributes to the point of comedy. Sojourn folded disappointingly early, but it was still quite fun to write an overtly comedic character for once.

By chance, Kris contacted me not long after this to ask about co-GMing a story, and armed with my new appreciation for silliness, I pitched Runes to her. Kris was able to fill in a few of the story gaps that I had been struggling with, as well as flesh out the world (the Mer and the anti-magic Risemen were both her idea). The runes themselves, with their ability to instantly grant magic to anyone who touched them, remained central as a metaphor for power - essentially standing in for money, oil, WMDs...any form of power that can be hoarded and used to coerce or dominate others. Power being a force that reveals true motives was very much the message behind the various rulers of the three cities - as well as corrupting in a more literal sense, with extended rune use damaging and degrading people’s bodies.

With my new confidence for light as well as serious writing, I felt that Runes could possibly work as either, and so I put the decision to the players in an interest thread. They seemed to prefer something more light-hearted. Having just finished watching Final Space, I wanted to craft a similar story - one which at its core was rather silly, but had room to delve into emotional or dark territory. Balancing these two was probably the biggest problem I ran into with this RP, although it wasn’t the first one.

The first issue I hit was with the story’s NPC characters. With a theme of power being a blade without a hilt, I wanted to show a range of ways in which people could use it: from the PCs using it for good, to various minor characters using it for evil, to the grey areas in between like the egocentric Immortal who hoards power but isn’t explicitly out to dominate anyone, and the main antagonist Leveler who seeks a theoretically noble goal by extreme means. I also created a squad of lieutenants for the Leveler with the intention of letting their different personalities play off the PCs as well as each other, and to offer some varied perspectives on the major plot developments. In practical terms, they were also there to make sure that the Leveler didn’t have to do everything herself, and wouldn’t diminish her sense of power and threat by putting the players through multiple narrow escapes from her. So far, so good.

One of these “lieutenant” characters, Redmoor, was the creation of Splat to serve as a personal antagonist for her character. I then hit on the idea of doing this for everyone, with all the PCs getting their own personal nemesis secondary to the overarching villain. I hoped that this would give players additional investment in the story, but it turned into a complete disaster because I forgot one of the fundamental constants of GMing on RPA: player attrition. Two players bowed out after a single post, and two more for personal reasons by the end of the second act, leaving many of these 1x1 rivalries unbuilt or hanging. Redmoor probably had the worst luck, being set up against the PC Raven, then Solar, then Red, all of whom eventually dropped from the RP. With the “personal nemesis” plot truncated for a lot of characters, I belatedly started treating the lieutenants as more of a unit instead of pairing them off with individual PCs. This was probably something that I should have done from the beginning, as letting the players fight as a united group (forging their own bonds and picking their own nemeses) would have been better for their own character development too.

At the start of the RP, I PM’d everyone to ask if they wanted a particular subplot or character arc written in. I was doing this to mentally sort the players into the ones who had a particular idea in mind, and those who would just flow along with the plot, reacting to events with no particular character development or relationship building in mind. Of course, I forgot about a third group - those who have no plan at the beginning but still want to develop some kind of arc as they go. I did schedule a few “down time” scenes where the PCs were left to their own devices to do character scenes among themselves, but this wasn’t really enough with the reduced pool of players available by act 3.

Balancing the down time between writing NPC interactions and encouraging the PCs to talk to each other was something that I struggled to get right in this RP. In an attempt to keep the pace of the story moving forward, I also wrote a lot of conversations out in full, between NPCs and inactive PCs - I’m not sure if this gave the remaining PCs enough opportunity to speak. Although it ensured that important plot and character beats were covered, I might have given the players too little room to maneuver, out of fear that they might not ask the right questions to prompt exposition out of the right characters.

I also feel that I could have paid more attention to the players’ plans beyond the initial subplot offer. I made assumptions about which inactive PCs could be easily retooled or which ones the players still cared about. As an example of the former, I killed Raven early and brought a swift end to his rivalry with Redmoor - something that I could have made more of if I wasn’t being lazy. As an example of the latter, I made the effort to develop Solar but then made him a shock death based on process of elimination (Illusion had a subplot still to play out, and Wraith I was holding in case of Price’s return). Unfortunately by doing this I also robbed my remaining PCs of a budding friend, which I might not have done if paying proper attention to my remaining players.

The biggest problem for me and my players though was one that I mentioned previously: tone. The original rules that I made for myself were something akin to those of Final Space - silly except when emotion or combat was required, and generally turning dead serious when the main villain shows up. This can be seen in the rather dark prologue featuring the Leveler, compared to the grim but humour-dusted opening scene where the PCs arrive in the Enlightened City. Unfortunately, I didn’t explicitly communicate this blueprint to my players, which led to PCs running the gamut from almost totally serious (Wraith) to almost totally loopy (Hole). The latter, incidentally, also made me break my own rule of keeping the Leveler’s presentation non-comedic. Adding to the potential for player confusion was a mostly serious first act being followed by a mostly silly second one (due to the introduction of the crazy Hole and the highly snarky Immortal), and then flipping again to a mostly serious third (featuring sinister and creepy Mer that somewhat clashed with the one the players had been previously introduced to). As my first attempt at juxtaposing tones, I don’t think I succeeded all that well.

Because of trying to fix these mistakes - the evolving tone, the evolving miniboss dynamic, trying to juggle inactive PCs - on the fly, I ended up with a messy plot and many setups without payoffs. If I ever want to do my usual thing and novelise the finished RP, there is definitely going to be some amount of rewriting needed. But a bigger sin than the incoherent story was an RP that was sometimes not particularly fun for players, with them playing catch up even more than I was. I could definitely have done more here to make a better RP and there are some lessons which I will try and take forward to future projects.

(This blog entry is also posted in my character thread.)

---------------------------------------------------------------

Comments:

Kris - 12-07-2019 07:00 PM
I can't wait for more of your RPs project! you are great and talented writer, maybe in the future we will get to see a book from you!

Azazeal849 - 12-27-2019 10:31 AM
Haha maybe not a book, but I do make word docs of all my RPs!

Thank you though.

[Azazeal849]

A HALLOWEEN SEQUEL - KNOCK KNOCK (02/11/2020)

The car scrunched its way up the drive and halted on the cracked concrete beside the porch. Alex pulled the handbrake up with a jerk and peered through the driver side window.

“Lights are on.” he observed, noting the yellowish glow behind one of the front windows. He pulled his phone from his pocket and checked the lock screen. “There’s plenty of signal.”

“I,” his wife deadpanned, “Am going to kill her.”

Alex exhaled as he popped the door. He had been young himself once, hard as it might be for his children to imagine such things. Four university students not coming home after a house party was hardly unusual, and probably wouldn’t have been remarked upon at all if Rebecca was living in a flat like her friends. As it was, she had promised to be home by the end of the night.

Alex and Stacey liked to think that they weren’t overly strict with their youngest daughter, who already chafed at living at home through term time. They had given her until 9:30 before calling, and gotten nothing but the answer machine (“Heeey, you’ve reached Becca’s phone, leave a message!”), but now it was well after lunchtime - plenty of time to sleep off a hangover. Even if her phone was dead and she didn’t have a charger, you’d think she would have thought to borrow Claire’s mobile.

Yes, Alex decided as he swung the door of the old Ford Focus closed - mortifying as it might be to have your parents show up at your house party, this qualified as taking the piss.

The sky was overcast, and the wind had teeth as it tugged at his shirt. Alex felt gooseprickles raising on his arms below the fabric as he climbed the weather-chipped wooden porch. There didn’t seem to be a doorbell, so he rapped the door with his knuckles.

They waited there with arms folded for about a minute, to no response. Stacey jumped down off the decking to peer in through the living room window. Her shrug told Alex that she couldn’t see anyone inside.

“Hello?” he called, knocking on the old wood again. When that too failed to provoke a response, he twisted experimentally on the antique brass doorknob.

The door wasn’t locked, and it swung open with a creak.

Alex and Stacey stepped through.

“Hello?” he called out. “Becks?”

The home was an austere one, with plain wooden stairs and faded white paint on the doors, though there was at least a tall mirror hanging on the wall to break the monotony. The only sound was a dull buzz drifting through the open door to the living room.

“Hello?” Alex hailed for a third time, peering round the door. Felt sofas, a TV, a bookcase. Three half-empty bottles stood on the table, next to a metal tin containing a few hand-rolled cigarettes. The buzz was coming from a speaker balanced on the bookshelf, still connected to a phone that had long since finished its playlist and switched itself off. Stacey crossed the room to turn off the speaker, killing the low drone. Alex turned back into the hallway.

Tap tap tap.

It was a quiet sound, but hard, like a bird pecking at glass.

Alex stopped. “Stace, did you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Alex turned a circle, one hand scratching the back of his head. As he turned, the corner of his eye caught a glint in the hallway mirror - almost as if something had just moved, but he dismissed it as a trick of the light.

“Becks?” he called out as he pulled open the kitchen door. Once again he found nobody; just a microwave light blinking and a pan hanging above the worktop, oscillating ever so slightly back and forth, back and forth. “Claire? Are you guys here?”

Tap tap tap.

The sound came from behind him. Frowning now, he returned to the hall and inspected the mirror, but it remained perfectly still on its hangings. All the silver glass showed him was his own face, the corners of his eyes creased with frustration.

“I’m going to check upstairs.” he said, trying not to bite down on the words. He was not in the mood for his daughter and her friends to be hiding on the upper floor and making noises to prank him.

All the same, he couldn’t shake the feeling of eyes on him, like someone breathing down the back of his neck. The feeling was strong enough to compel him to glance back over his shoulder as he ascended the stairs, but all he could see was the hallway: bright and harsh-lit and empty. It just made him angrier.

The sound of Stacey bumping around in the living room was replaced by the thuds of his own footsteps and the creak of the old stairs underfoot as he all but stomped up to the landing. Both bedroom doors were half open, and he slapped the first aside to see the end of a bed; a nightstand; an old-fashioned night lamp with a tasselled shade. But he caught the glint of a girl’s reflection in the window opposite.

“Very-” he began to snarl as he swung round the door

...only to be greeted by another empty room.

There was no-one, nowhere, nothing. Alex’s mind flailed helplessly, because there was nothing there but a phone and a bottle lying discarded on the floor, next to the mirror-fronted wardrobe. There was a stain where the bottle had spilled.

Tap tap tap.

It was less of a bird peck now, more like a hammering fist.

Alex felt a shiver run through him, a cold tingle that dragged down his spine. He turned towards the mirrored wardrobe.

There were two people in it.

The squirt of adrenaline below his stomach was physically painful, setting his guts fizzing and his heart racing. He watched his reflection stumble backwards into the bed as his body reacted before his brain could catch up, recoiling away from the impossible image. The other reflection was a girl - not Rebecca but her friend Claire. She was screaming at him, shouting something he couldn’t hear as she threw her fists against the glass.

Tap tap tap.

Alex’s throat seemed to have clenched tight, throttling his ability to cry out. It wasn’t possible, she couldn’t be there. He couldn’t tear his eyes away as Claire scratched at the glass - desperate, pleading.

Tap tap tap.

At the edges of his throbbing, tunnelled vision, he realised that his own reflection was moving. Slowly it was rising to its feet, spine arched backward, pulling slowly upright like a marionette under a puppeteer’s strings. It looked straight at him. It tilted its head like a curious animal, slowly slowly, never breaking eye contact.

His limbs felt heavy, as if his own muscles were dragging him down into the bed to be smothered. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think.

Claire was still screaming silently, the same words over and over. Alex’s vision was darkening at the edges, closing down to just her mouth, until the repeating motion of her lips might have been all that was left of the world. As he watched, he realised what she was screaming.

She was screaming “Break it!”

Alex lurched upright and barrelled forward with desperate strength. Now it was his own reflection that filled his shrinking world, and for a moment he almost thought he saw surprise in its eyes as he lunged at the mirror with his fist.

Time seemed to blur and stretch. Vision shrank away from him, receding like the lens at the wrong end of a telescope.

His fist hit the glass with a crack.

No, not a crack. A dull thump, like striking something underwater.

A tap.

After the shrinking darkness, the room around him seemed suddenly too bright, rendered in sharp shades of black and blue photo-negative. At first all he could hear was his own heartbeat, a wet thunder in his ears. Then, gradually, he began to become aware of other sounds around him.

Voices. Muffled, as if by a great distance, but as close as a whisper.

“Don’t look it in the eyes.” a young man’s voice was rasping hoarsely, over and over from somewhere behind the bed. “Don’t look it in the eyes…”

He was vaguely aware of Claire somewhere to his left. He could almost feel her fear, radiating off her in cold, ugly tendrils that reached out and clung to him like greasy mist.

“It got too strong.” she whispered.

Behind him he heard a familiar voice calling, screaming. “Dad?”

He wanted to turn and face her. He almost feared to, in case she shattered and blew away like glass as soon as he laid eyes on her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from his reflection.

It smiled at him. It smiled in a way nothing human should have been able to smile. There was something disjointed about it, something horribly insect-like about the way its mouthparts moved.

He saw Stacey step into the room beside it. He tried to call out to her, but the words left his mouth as a puff of ice crystals, silent. Stacey seemed to be sliding away from him, her face blurring as the world beyond the mirror twisted and danced in surreal colours. The only thing that stayed sharp and clear was his reflection.

“Where are they?” he heard Stacey ask it, her voice dopplering away as it filtered through the mirror.

“Not here.” his reflection replied, crystal clear. “Come on, we’ll find them.”

Alex slammed his fists against the glass; pounding, hammering, yelling. The mirror held firm, cold as ice. Stacey turned away, out of his view. Only his reflection glanced back. Its pale eyes were like slivers of cut glass, slivers that drew blood from his helpless screams.

* * * * * *

Once again, thank you if you honoured me by reading this far! In case you haven’t guessed, this is a sequel to the short story I wrote a couple of years ago, Don’t Look It In The Eyes. You may have noticed that the entity in the mirror has changed a bit since then - as Claire puts it, “gotten stronger”. This is the result of some new inspiration, namely Taliesin Jaffe’s Shadow of the Crystal Palace, a Call of Cthulhu livestream that happened to remind me very strongly of my own story. Together with Aaron Dembski Bowden and the Night Lords series, that brings the number of creators who I’m convinced have stolen my ideas up to two.

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Comments:

Alura - 11-02-2020 07:07 AM
The dampening effects of the mirror were a nice touch! Really sold the atmospheric change.

Azazeal849 - 11-03-2020 07:52 PM
Thanks. The inspiration hit me to write this about a month ago and I thought I would wait until Halloween to post it up.

Did you read this one first, or the original?

Alura - 12-05-2020 09:49 PM
Ahem, so a month later let me answer this as I've somehow only just seen it. I read this one first!