Lads I need some help.
My story recently won a scary story writing competition, the prize being that my story is published (along with the others) in a collection of horror stories. But now the editors want me to change the ending of the story to something I feel would be a huge simplification.
>Am I just being pretentious? Or are my fears warranted?
Stand by because the piece is just under 2000 words.
Anyone who could read it and give me thoughts, I would appreciate it. I will post the "alternative ending" that they want to change it to after the initial story dump.
>inb4 normie-core
I know, I know but had to work with target market.
>>8002529
The sky is burning in fast forward, the wind is blowing backwards. Formless effervescing plankton expand and dissipate, consuming one another for growth, popping like pixelated fireworks in super-imposed bioluminescence. Their silhouettes scar the conflagrant sky with a silent, salted fear. Eyes roll into darkness, the sound of grinding rocks, cracking hungry bones. The sun splits into fiery jaws, descends onto the shivering earth. Ripped skin is born from flames, shapeless matter whirrs in suspended animation. Hills are formed and defiantly rise. Mountains cough and explode in drowning fire.
Red worms are pulsing in soup. The pan is blackening, the worms ignite. Muted invertebrate screams echo. Worm-broth shudders and splits, piercing sunlight floods.
"Sir, will you please close your blind."
My eyes open slowly and I swivel to look at the speaker with the incredulity of blear, a blank, humming heat in my eyes.
"Sir? Your blind?"
Gradually, lines are forming in the whiteness. A lady in a blazer. A hat rests precariously slanted upon her head, her hair is in a tight bun. She is looking at me strangely.
"No, I can see" I say. She squints at me in bewilderment and gestures past me to a window. Beyond the panes, there is the soft lap of blue sky on cloud coast. The rising flare of a new day blushes the billows from beyond the horizon. My view is cut abruptly to alabaster infinity as the woman's hand slams the blind shut.
She rights herself and looks at me, face of confusion, waggling finger of universal reproach.
"Please keep your blind down for the duration of the flight, Sir"
>>8002535
"Who are you?" I say, kneading my scalp between my fingers and trying to focus my nervous pupils.
She keeps her eyes fixed on me and shifts her weight. She taps a silver rectangle name-badge emblazoned in dark print with 'Karen'.
"Karen" She says.
She turns to leave.
There is a pressure in my head that is building with my disorientation. She begins to walk away and I realise with an anxious twist in my guts that I want her to stay.
"Karen, wait"
She glances back at me, looking tired and bored.
"What?"
"Where are we?"
"Please keep your blind down for the duration of the flight, Sir" She says, emphasising the word 'flight'. "We are on a plane." She makes a frowning face and heads down the aisle.
I look after her, feeling betrayed without knowing why. Passing four rows she turns, quickly looking back at me, meeting my eyes, then passing out of sight.
I feel beads of cold sweat emerging from my forehead as my heart begins to pump previously docile blood. My lucidity is returning in unwelcome high-definition. The snores of my fellow passengers are increasingly transmuted to bitter rasps and the clogged pores of the sleeping woman to my left look like dirty sinkholes.
I fidget in my seat, the anxiety of reality grating on me, filing me to a sharp point, skewering my nerves. I neurotically fiddle with the buttons on my shirt, twisting one off by accident. I decide I should look out the window again. You've done it before, I think, but what if it's different this time? You're getting more and more awake now. The pills are wearing off. Try not to panic. What are the odds you die in an airplane crash? Just look out the window and don't panic, never panic. You might make a scene again. It could make everything worse, much worse and then it would really have been better to have never looked at all. You're already biting your nails. I nip into the quick of my nail by accident and blood blossoms underneath.
>>8002538
I close my eyes and press my forefingers into my temples for a moment.
Peeling the blind up a tiny bit, I glimpse the wing. It jolts up and down under the power of the wind. I recognise the Airplane's turbofan engines from Google images, but they look much bigger in real life. The noise they make seems to emit from inside my own head, the sound of dying machines, robot screams. A wintry palm grips my throat at the thought of mechanical failure. Charred rubble.
I shut the blind quickly and look around. Probing my blazer pockets, I find an amber prescription bottle and shakily unscrew the lid. I summon spittle into my mouth and coax two yellow tablets down my gullet. Leaning over my armrest, I look at the person behind me. Drowsy woman of mid-forties. Her handbag is knitted with bits of fabric and held affectionately to her stomach, her hair is clean but frayed. She looks back at me through pinched, tired eyes.
Weighing on the chair in front of me is a corpulent Colonel Sanders look-alike. His furry maw dances to the rhythms of snore.
The sound of slumbering breaths is constricting the air around me, making it heavy and claustrophobic, the incessant wail of the engines is making my eye twitch. Everyone is asleep. Why can't you be like the others?
I am jittering in my chair, uncomfortably praying for sleep when out of the corner of my eye I see movement, a leg changing positions. I lean over to get a look at the person. They are dressed in a grey suit, with a tie-less white shirt and black brogues. He is looking into the desolation of the closed blind. I cough and he turns his head towards me.
My teeth clamp together, pre-empting the surge of quivering bile up my oesophagus.
The man has no face.
Where his face should be there is a void. Like a perpetual cigarette burn on film, as if reality has not processed his face, it is not there.
He seems to look back at me, measuring, waiting.
>>8002529
just change it, take the prize and run, don't be a drama queen
don't post the story here. if you have already agreed that the story will be published in their book you will likely be breaking some kind of T&Cs
when you are famous you can republish the story with your own original ending in your own anthology. that's what people like neil gaiman do
pic unrelated
>>8002542
Are you losing it? You only just swallowed the pills. I dig my nails into the back of my hand, twisting the skin for clarity, willing myself to wake up, my heart to quiet. I cough again, maintaining my stare and he raises a hand to where his mouth should be, and releases a garbled sound as if imitating my cough.
He drums his hands on the tray in front of him, then rises and slips down the aisle.
I unravel a piece of scrunched napkin from my pocket and wipe my forehead, watching him leave. He heads in the direction of the toilets and cockpit. I try to restore order to my timorous breath and begin to viciously chew my thumbnail. What if he tries to- I hear the turbofan engine splutter- crash the plane. I tear the blind open and look out while starting to intently fold my napkin in half and then in half again and then in hal- he's going to kill us all-f and then unfold it again and -and you'll be too busy- The plane shudders -folding a napkin- The engine is trailing a light stream of smoke. I tear the napkin into shreds, crushing the detritus between my sodden palms and rising from my chair.
With trepidation writhing in my stomach, I stalk down the aisle in pursuit of the man. I can feel it, a rattle in my bones, a sureness, a palpability of his impending depravity. He is standing outside the toilets and turns to watch my approach. The hollow gaze sets my nerves alight, convulses my insides and strengthens my conviction. The black depths are evil, You know it. As I get closer to him, a pungency grasps me, like melted plastic. My lungs are frantically flapping inside my chest. He turns away from my advance, towards the cockpit door and starts trying the handle. An ebon ooze trickles treacle-like out from his facial-rift and onto the door handle. A tired-looking old man emerges from the toilets in time to watch my clenched hand sailing into nothingness.
I am instantly struck by a consistency under my knuckles, like meat in a plastic bag, imitation flesh. The faceless man jerks under the force of my blow, away from the door handle and I take the opportunity to restrain him under the arms of his suit jacket. Instantly the old man from the toilet raises his voice;
"What are you doing, you maniac?!"
He tries to wrestle the faceless one out of my grip but I hold on even tighter.
From the chasm of my captive, a piercing noise begins, like a dial-up modem, like robot screams, like the wail of the engines. The man is shouting;
"Help, help! This passenger is being attacked!"
"Can't you see? He's going to kill us all! Are you blind?" I'm shouting at the man as he tries to pry my hands free.
"He's going to crash the plane!" I scream in his breathless, sagged face. The man stops and looks intently into the suited murk. "Can't you see him?! Can you not see the void?!" I shriek. He stares into the facelessness with scrutiny, then back at me.
>>8002546
He turns his head down the aisle leading to the cabin and roars "Help! This man has gone insane!"
You've gone mad.
The thought washes over me like cold water, sucking the wind from my lungs. The grey suit-jacket and its occupant dodge out of my grip.
I feel myself sinking to my knees.
The rough hands of the aged man grab my shoulders and I hear his voice, husky and sombre
"..Whatever possessed you to do a thing like that.."
I feel like crying. The man with no face is standing nearby and gesticulating at me as static drone pours from him.
I catch a glimpse of the cockpit handle. The ooze has melted through the lock and the door clicks open. The sound draws the attention of the three of us and for a moment we are still.
Then the faceless man lurches towards the door, pulling a pistol from inside his blazer. The man holding me starts shrieking help again as I scramble to my feet. I clatter to the door in time to have it slammed in my face. On the other side, I can hear frenzied machine squeals, interspersed with the shouts of the pilots. I start ramming the door. A tremor in the plane knocks me off my feet. Beyond the door I hear a gunshot, then hissing air.
The sound of shifting weight and the door opens. Karen drags out the limp, prostrate body of the faceless man. The back of his head is composed of stitched meat wrapped in cellophane. She looks at me and I look back.
"What did he want?" I ask
"To turn the plane around" She says "To go back"
She blinks. "There is no going back"
I feel confused. I ask what time we will be landing.
She stares at me. "On what?"
"At our destination"
"Oh. About 20 minutes now. If you would like to make your way back to the seating area. Blinds are allowed to be up for the next 5 minutes"
I pass the older fellow on the way back to my seat. People are beginning to wake up and open their blinds. I sit in my seat and boldly open mine. Below the plane is a sea of churning flame. The gentle blues and whites have been devoured by a pulsing inferno that stretches to each end of the horizon. Ash dances upwards like snowflakes.
The intercom crackles.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, as we prepare for our destination make sure your tray tables are in the upright position. Please ensure your seatbelt is securely fastened as this will help you have a safe and quick departure. Blinds must be kept down to avoid retinal disintegration. We will be arriving at Glory in approximately 12 minutes. Thank you for flying with us today and forever.
The awoken passengers cheer in unison, whooping and applauding.
The sky cracks and splits, and from the Empyrean, a deluge, a drowning fire.
>>8002529
>had to work with the target market
So keep working with the target market and change the ending if the editors are insistent.
