15-minute ficlet: Moving In

[aldersprig]

Originally posted here in response to this image promptThe planet had been, to all of their sensors, bare of tool-using life. There was nothing there that showed up using anything more complex than a stone axe. No smelting. No radio waves. No large gatherings of populations

Comments

[eseme]

Eeeek, horror.

<-- Is not good with horror.

[aldersprig]

O_O horror?

[eseme]

The being trapped alone on a planet that eats people seems rather horrific...

It's one of those "no way to leave, the party is killed off one by one" beginnings.

[aldersprig]

Hunh, rather a different read than I intended.

[eseme]

Opps!

The ghostly and overgrown buildings were kinda erie and a reminder that the last group all died...

Maybe it just needs more to be upbeat?

[aldersprig]

I think there's a difference between not-upbeat and horror though. Mm .Maybe we're using the word "horror" differently.

[eseme]

Possibly? I decided to wait to answer, in any event...

It feels solidly horror to me:

They found a bunch of overgrown buildings and odd looking corpses that were not entirely decayed, so they had to have died recently.

And have no way to leave.

It reads like horror, as in "what is out there that will make us corpses?" sort of horror. Not to mention "what is going to make us corpses and then neatly stack our bodies up"? is also pretty horrific...

If this was longer and they well and truly triumphed over whatever it is that kills and stacks the bodies, then that's no longer horror, or at least not horror as I am familiar with it.

[aldersprig]

Brian agreed with your assessment. I think I was just having a callous couple days, or being in a different spot in the story from what i was writing.

/hugs/

[eseme]

*hugs*

Ah. Moving changes your personality - it has definitely done that to me!

Does that mean there is more story? *perks*

[aldersprig]

I've had a pretty exhausting month or so!

Not yet. But it's in here, tucked in my head somewhere.

[eseme]

Oh neat!

Erm, on the more, not on the exhausting month.

I've been on a sci fi kick lately, as my latest post describes.

[aldersprig]

I should, um, catch up with LJ, shouldn't I?

[eseme]

Eh, it will be there later.

*checks email*

Oh, you found it, good! Elizabeth Bear came up.

[aldersprig]

Bear Bear Bear!

[eseme]

I knew you'd like that bit!

*grins*