February Went Awry
But March is on Track #Horror23
Get Fucked February
February was shit. Between a dearth of creativity and being waylaid by Covid in the latter half of the month, my productivity and motivation was roundly fucked. Horror23 didn’t get many entries through the month, but I enjoyed writing my weird little nightmare diving trip and plan to continue slowly catching up over the next howeverlong.
Covid recovery lingered into March. Things were looking dicey for a few days because it is hard to be creative when illness has you mostly interested in zoning out in front of the television. I started to feel creative and motivated yesterday though, so I managed to come up with a concept for March and knock out the entries needed to get current.
The Concept
I’ve had a flash of a story in my head that popped in my head while reading Delta Green ages ago. It is a fleeting scene: an injured person speeds away from a burning house, watching it slowly shrink in the mirror. They are fleeing something, hoping the fire takes care of it, and they are abandoning someone to the flames.
The concept of being introduced to a world of horror through traumatic first experiences is pretty common. If I reach on over to my copy of Liminal Horror, I can flip to a short table of possible encounters. It has come in handy already.
So my goal here is to write the end of that experience, ask some pointed questions to fill in details and shape the narrative of how the character got to that point, and then use that to run a one-on-one session. Will it work? It’s already being kind of a pain point in places, but I’m sticking with it.
Here are the first four entries:
#1 - Running From the Flames
You watch the fire grow as the house shrinks in your rearview mirror.
It took fast.
The gasoline helped.
Your foot jams the gas pedal to the floor. The car shudders. It’s engine screams. Your heart pounds, near panic. The diminishing scene playing out through the dust behind you provides no relief. You’d push the gas pedal through the floor if it was possible.
Adrenaline squashes pain from wounds your racing mind hasn’t registered. Blood soaks through clothes. Soaks into car seats. Pools on the floorboard.
Your attention hasn’t left the mirror.
The fire is a dot now.
You aren’t far enough.
Questions
💬 What are you running from?
💬 Why are you afraid the fire wasn’t enough?
💬 You left a loved one in behind. Who were they? Were they still alive when you abandoned them to the flames?
💬 Is there anyone who can help you?
#2 - Possession
The knife clatters to the floor.
It’s handle is slick with the same blood that covers your shaking hands. You can’t help but gape at them and the knife on the floor beyond them.
Your mind struggles to catch up and comprehend.
It is not your blood. You are sure of that. It is the only thing you are sure of. This isn’t your house. You don’t recognize this room. You’ve never owned a buck knife.
A headache blossoms. Pain and pressure throbs against the inside of your skull. It feels like being filled up.
And then, nothing.
* * *
You take one deep, ragged breath. Then another. Pain erupts in your lungs and spreads from there.
Your brain slowly recognizes your nerves. It feels like fire spreading through your body.
You want to scream. Try to scream. Can’t. Whatever is jammed in your mouth allows only a muffled groan.
The rope binding your wrists behind your back eats into your flesh. Your twisted joints scream with pain. Scream like you wish you could.
The world comes into focus a bit at a time. Candlelight flickers against the deep black of wherever you are. This place is as unrecognizable as the room you found yourself in before.
There’s blood again. This time it is yours. You can feel the spike of pain from the wound in your side. You can see the blood trickling across the floor.
Trickling to join the circle that surrounds you.
For the first time in a long time, you feel empty and alone.
Questions
💬 What possesses you?
💬 Who was your victim?
💬 This was not your first. Which love one did you murder under the influence of your possessor?
💬 Who saved you?
#3 - Cryptid Hunt
👾 L: Holy shit! Someone got it on video again. You got to check this out! fakelink.co/v/aoYtusw
👽 Y: Again! No way anyone can call bullshit now.
💀 D: Woooow we got to get out there and see if we can catch it on vid
The video was a little grainy, sure. They all are. That’s just how these things work. You can still see the thing clearly despite the compression artifacts and insects buzzing into the lens. A big, lanky whatever awkwardly lunging with every step on limbs that are too long and a little too spindly.
People kept calling bullshit, but this is the tenth time this month someone’s got the thing on video. Bullshit? Nah. Just skeptics who need to argue against things that don’t fit their narrative.
That long spindly limb ripped through L’s chest with ease. You see the look on their face whenever you close your eyes. You can feel their blood sticky on your face. You don’t know where your other two friends are. They were there moment and gone the next.
You don’t recognize this part of the woods. You ran until you couldn’t run anymore and didn’t pay any real attention to direction. Your lungs are on fire. Your heart pounds in your ears. Your gorge rises and you struggle not to vomit.
The limb erupting from your friend’s chest comes to mind again. The memory of the heat of their blood and viscera splattering across your face makes it feel fresh again. You can’t hold it back. The vomit chokes you between ragged deep breaths.
Something heavy tramples through the woods in your direction. You can barely hear it over the blood rush, but it has a rhythm that matches the awkward gate you saw on the videos. You are huddled behind a large tree. Large enough, you think, to hide you. It keeps coming though. Does it even see? Can it smell you? The blood? The vomit clings to you and the ground around you?
Then a voice. You recognize it, but it sounds far off. Too far off to come to your aid.
Close enough to distract.
That awkward rhythm stops. You can hear leaves and stick crunch under its shifting weight. You struggle to hold your breath and slow your racing heart, almost sure that the thing can hear it pounding away in your chest. This moment feels like eternity.
It moves again. It moves away. You gasp for breath and breathe deep despite the gagging stink that clings to you. You slink away as the sun begins to rise.
👁️🗨️ You: What a load of bullshit. Someone’s doctored the footage. We went out there and didn’t see shit. Don’t waste your time.
Questions
💬 What does the creature you are looking for actually look like?
💬 How did you and your friends get into this?
💬 Did any survive?
💬 How did the rest perish?
#4 - Somnia
Another nightmare. You wake up drenched in sweat again. Your heart slams against your ribs like a drum. Your lungs struggle to catch up to it. Each breath is quick a short, beating out a staccato rhythm to match the panic that grips you.
You made it three days without sleep this time. Not your longest record. Not long enough. Caffeine only does so much. You are going to have to find something stronger.
Coffee and lights go a long way to calm you down. You are loathe to do it, but you sit down with your dream journal and try to remember whatever fragments of your nightmare you can dredge from your brain. The journal is thick and battered, filled up with pieces of a nightmare you can never fully remember. You are damn near to the last page. You’ll have to get another one soon.
You struggle to remember, but the clearest part of the nightmare is the same one across all of them: an entity lurking in your dreams, waiting for the moment to twist dreamscape and torment you.
Questions
💬 What lurks in your dreams?
💬 Are there any other common elements in your nightmares?
💬 Who do you reach out to for help?
💬 Who are you alienating with your behavior?
And finally, a brief summary of how shit February is: