A Dark Reflection by Reinhold Messner - Death isn't always the worst thing that can happen to you. - Short, Horror

I had trouble following your descriptions sometimes, and some parts I found funny. Like when Mae exits the lavatory and when the ghost questions her living self. I really enjoyed the twist ending and surreal story.

I struggled a bit with some of the descriptions. I'm not sure the words you used always meant what you thought they meant.

There was a fun little twist at the end, though it kind of made the script redundant at the same time. The sheer lack of care Mae took over such a dangerous item also made it highly unbelievable.

I'm kind of middle of the road on this one.

Not bad.  Anyway I like the setup, even if it feels familiar. Can't argue with any of what's been said above.  On the plus side, the ending will be one of the more memorable ones.-Andrea

Great premise... confused descriptions.... Interesting twist !!  
Lots of potential... Could have been one of the best script.

This script makes me feel stupid... cause I just don't understand what happened. I'm sure it's in there, I just can't see it.

So, I'll circle back to this one for another read in a day or two. If I still don't get it, hopefully someone will explain it to me here.

I'll be back.

A Dark Reflection

Oh, damn, I don't think to completely get it, which is a shame because I liked a lot of it. As I see it, she may have had the agent in herself because she got in contact with his blood, well, but why then this whole fever dream scenario when she should already been dead for 10 hours, as the doc says. Is she in another realm?? Or have that been the unspoken side effects they talked about? Also the characters' situation wasn't clear in the early parts; how are they truly related...

I liked the mystery vibe on the plane but the execution feels stuck in development yet.

Second time at writing this as I lost it when I submitted the first time.  Got all the criteria check marks, so good there.

The opening and ending are pretty interesting, especially with the twist at the end.  But the twist raised a lot of questions for me.  If she had been dead for 10 hours, how did no one else on the flight notice? Or better yet, how did she even get on the plane?  And because she was dead that entire time, that means none of the stuff on the plane actually happened, right?

So everything between the beginning and ending confused me.  I'm hoping after the challenge that this gets explained.  The writing's not bad, just needs some structure.

Best of luck,
Gary

Count me confused as well.

I'm sure the story is clear in your head but it suffers from  clarity. Don't worry I've been guilty of this in the past where the story doesn't quite translate to the page from the writer's noggin.

Another entry with poison in the sanitizer, right? But the biomedical stuff was too obscure for me.
Plane,  sanitizer - check. Horror, hmm, yep.

Terrific ending. Dead for hours, short flight. Kudos on that.

You tried to tackle some fancy structured story telling. I was confused somewhat.

Your writing kept me engaged .

Dialogue seemed decent.  

What kind of New Image appeared?

The type of story your telling is no easy task. I’m glad you tried. It’s never a fail unless you quit.  A lot of people love movies or shows that make them use their brain. Keeps you on your toes . Kind of like if you miss a certain scene , you won’t get the rest of the movie.

Keep on Truckin’

*Spots all the reviewers stating they are confused - Cracks his fingers and neck in preparation, opens up the script determined not to be confused..."

Hello Writer!

I'm confused.

Quoted Text The 50-passenger plane cruises over a darkened land. Most windows are dark; a few ghosted by yellow light. The ENGINE�S DRONE is a lonely sound in this vast blackness.

How poetic of you.

I was on a plane recently and watched a thunderstorm in the distance - It was fascinating and eerie as the same time - so you have some good visuals there.

Quoted Text BACK TO SCENE IN CABIN

No need to specify "... in cabin" - by the very nature of BACK TO SCENE we go back to the scene we were in before we got pulled out of it by the POV

Quoted Text INT. HILTON LIVING ROOM - DAY - 10 HOURS BEFORE

How do we know it's 10 hours before - in the mirror? are we watching a flashback in the mirror? well, that's different - does that need a new slugline? I don't think so but I have never played out a scene in a mirror before so God knows.

Quoted Text COCKRELL Unfucking believable. The cops will blame the fall for his death. MAE They�ll still run a toxicology screen. COCKRELL ZR23 is undetectable, Mae. MAE Famous last words, James

You gotta explain this to me when this round is over - He is pissed the cops will blame the fall for his death, what does Cockrell want them to blame? the hand sanitizer? - he just said that it is undetectable so, even if he hadn't hit his head, they still wouldn't blame the hand sanitizer... I feel like I am being stupid and need someone to help me lol

Oooooh - shes going a bit crazy because she has been mildly poisoned by the hand sanitizer (it got into his blood stream, then she touched his blood as it is on the bottle) *Fist pumps the air* Fuck yes, i get it!.... I hope lol.

Wait, the ending... dead for much longer than the flight? how is that possible?... Bollocks, I don't get it.... why would you do that to me?

OK - you gotta expand on that in the short because it is intriguing as hell, how can she be dead much longer than the flight? must be the hand sanitizer, what does it do? does it animate people? if so, why!!..... or, maybe the sanitizer is to confuse medical examiners about how long a person has been dead, so you could set up an alibi, go and kill someone with this stuff, and get away with murder.... bloody cunning that is.

Alright - you have tried some brave and complicated things here - I have tried writing in a way that messes with reality and it's not easy - people can and will get confused. I commend your bravery in this.
It's also a clever story, I really like it, it just has a clarity issue - I just need to know what the ending was about lol

This was one of the more intriguing entries I've read

On vacation this week, hungover most days, not helping me follow things. I'm a bit confused by events here. They've designed this killer substance meant for weaponization, but they're deploying it with hand sanitizer? And they don't seem to secure it very well.

So does her flight experience amount to a trippy delusion before death?

I'm not in favor of this type of flashback. She's already apparently some kind of zombie and she looks in a mirror and sees the memory...really, just so we can see it. I think these challenges are a cool place to experiment, so it was worth the attempt, but I don't think that technique worked in this instance.

Also there is the issue of consistency within the rules of the story. Hilton dies immediately on contact, she becomes a zombie that "lives" for 10 hours. Yes, that can be explained by different levels of contact or different body reactions, but in a story consistency is preferable, especially in a story like this that already makes the reader/audience work to figure out what's happening.[[just realized: he only died quickly because he hit his head]]

I'm still not sure how the hand sanitizer got in the purse. Yes, the bloody prints, but he was dead on the floor.
Why did they kill Hilton? Because she was sleeping with Cockerall? Why didn't he travel with her? Or was it him that put the sanitizer in the bag? If it was.

Ok, sorry, I think I figured this out, Jeesh, took me long enough. She was contaminated by touching his blood, not by the sanitizer. Then the agent worked its way into her body, killed her, and she continued on as a zombie. Presumably Hilton would have ended up the same way if he had not hit his head.

Glad I cleared that up. My hangover is worse though, thanks!

Back to the same old problem in too many of these stories. The need to make the object so essential results in stories where things are done that don't make sense. Some company develops a lethal agent to be used as a WMD. They wouldn't use it to kill off a partner they wanted to be rid of by putting it in sanitizer. Especially if the agent does not kill right away, but leads to a zombie state for several hours. I can try to spin what's going on in several ways, but none of them make sense to me. Maybe when the writer chimes in it will be clear. Once again, I fear the object criteria has resulted in a convoluted plot and I spent way too much time having to figure it out.

Posting again because my last post was a ramble. Sorry.

So they killed Hilton so she could steal the WMD agent, which is in a hand sanitizer. But in retrieving it from his pooling blood, she got infected. It turned her into a zombie, and eventually killed her.

Still some loose ends. What is the stuff supposed to do? It's apparently not supposed to kill right away. Did Hilton have a bad reaction to it?

And again the main question is why use hand sanitizer? I still can't figure that out. Every time I think I understand what happened it falls apart like sand in my mind. lol Sorry.

Hi writer,

Straight out the gate the writing is a little awkward. like:

Quoted Text Then MORE LIGHTNING FLASHES are born and quickly die.

Quoted Text 10 HOURS BEFORE

If this information is import, I'd put it in a SUPER.

Quoted Text we SEE the

Generally a better way to write than using "we see", it serves only to pull me out of the read.

Quoted Text a room designed to please an unsophisticated man.

I love a good aside or unfilmable, but this one doesn’t work on any level.

Quoted Text He addresses DR JAMES COCKRELL,

No need to say this, we will know he address him the minute the dialogue starts. If you really feel it needs to be there for clarity use a wrylie (to Cockrell), I don’t think clarity is an issue here.

Quoted Text Mae stands and walks toward us

Any time you address the reader it takes them out of the story. You’re also using a fair bit of space to write in 'fancy' transitions. This is literally just a transition:

Quoted Text MIRROR GOES BLACK for several beats, then the IMAGE OF THE LAVATORY is reflected back in the mirror.

Quoted Text Bloody finger smudges have dried on it. Hers.

How would we know they were hers on screen?

Quoted Text The perplexed Detectives

I'm perplexed as well. I think the writer may need to explain this one after the round ends. I don’t quite get it.

The writing need some work all round.

All the best.

Okay, this confused me and I struggled to follow it - which may be me not you!

But, clear use of sanitiser and in a horror setting.

That was pretty wild. Has the potential to be a trippy and intense story. But I had to really concentrate to follow along and I'm still a bit confused by the ending. We need some more information up front as to what the formula does. Maybe the person they kill could instead be the scientist who created it, he brags about what it's capable of.

I almost feel like it would work better if the formula is causing her to shift around in time. Based on how you wrote the flashback, that might be what you were trying for. So we have her running through the plane, experiencing these little time flashes that explain what happened... but the drug itself is causing her to flashback.

I'm not making any sense at all, am I?

Admirable effort give the time limit. You tried to do something different and I think it has potential.

AH! Reinhold Messner! Is there another climber in the SS tourney? This better live up to the great man's namesake!

Hmmm... he's got nothing to do with the story.

Meets the criteria without question. The characters and dialog were lacking and I was having to go back to re-read many sections. Still not sure if I completely understand it so prose is definitely lacking.

Good effort. With more time it may make a bit more sense.

The early dialogue was a bit cringe-worthy with its exposition, but the conversation at the end worked much better. Of course, it had a lot less information to send.

The shots of the mirror should be INSERTs, as if we were watching a security monitor or something. Not dinging for that because it was clear the way you wrote it.

Nice little twist at the end, though I'm not quite sure how they'd determine time of "death" since that's usually calculated from temperature (person stops generating body heat) and lividity (primarily from blood pooling), neither of which is likely to be reliable in this case. I know... horror and logic are like oil and water, just try to think of what realistic clue there might be for time of "death."

The ending is excellent for an entirely different story. For this one, it's neat but has nothing really to do with it. At least not that I could tell. Too bad, I was really intrigued by that ending.

It's convoluted, too complex for so few pages. The flashback worked for me to help explain things, and I like the callback to the blood, that she accidentally dosed herself from it. Nice touch.

The motives are unclear, why it matters that she's been a walking dead woman is unclear, why they killed Hilton is unclear. The dialogue confuses more than helps. And I don't get the horror elements, though they were pretty darn good.

There's a compelling story buried in there somewhere.

I like the ending.  The one thing I question is the method of the death.  If it was because of a poorly designed HS.  Since Cockrell makes reference to it being a poor seller.  If that's the case.  Then it's not really horrific.  The story feels more supernatural with an unexplained puzzling death.