[Stingy Jack]

And this idea of "hopelessness" is an excellent transistion to what I'm about to write.

Horror authors write with the purpose of exploring what makes us afraid (at the least, the good ones do. The others write with the purpose of grossing us out. But, I'm sure by now you know how I feel about that.) Lovecraft, for example, wrote his stories based on fear of the unknown, combined with the idea that man is actually a helpless insect in the grand scheme of things. Stephen King writes about how truly horrible things can happen to your average, everyday Joe (for the most part), and the idea that evil can rear its ugly head in even the most common of places.

Judging from your previous posts in other threads, and the things you have written in Gloom, I take it that you are exploring the idea of hopelessness, combined with Lovecraft's fear of the unknown and King's idea about evil in common places. The hopelessness theme is easily identified. It's right there in the opening! The fear of the unknown is a given since we are thrust into a dark world we know nothing about ... and horrible things happen on a regular basis. The last one, evil in the commonplace, is more subtle. You do this by taking an animal that we normally associate as harmless (a turtle), and turn it into a relentless, hideous beast. The scene where the turtle follows your soldier is truly creepy! And you mention this idea again: "Since that day, all manner of usually harmless animals (and some plants) have attacked or followed me." I like this. It adds to the idea that nothing is safe, thus increasing your main idea of hopelessness. But, you have to be careful with it. Your turtle scene was well done. However, I read a book titled "The Rising" by Brian Keene (I think) which contains a scene where zombified deer attack and kill a hunter. I think he was going for the same effect you did, only he ended up scoring an 8 out of 10 on the unintentional comedy scale. Make sure you don't have any killer bunnies or shit like that! :D

I really can't wait to see how you develop your ideas on hopelessness. I think this would be a difficult thing to do because, as long as your narrator is alive, there is always hope. And we know that he doesn't die, because he lives to tell us his tale. You see? This is another drawback to using first person for this story in particular. We know he survives. Unless, of course, you're going to pull a Sixth Sense on us and have it turn out that he was really dead all along. . . . . . . ?