Talk:Beneath the Ruins/@comment-25021327-20150817182617

Sorry it has taken me so long to leave a review on this! Firstly, I'll again, congratulate you on winning the contest.

I liked this story, I think that it flows well, has a nice pace and a sincerely creepy premise. For me what helps this story stand out are the descriptions and the vocabulary. The wordings here were, for the most part, very interesting, and I enjoyed seeing all the different ways that things were described in terms of visuals, sounds and sensations.

A lot of different elements are working in this pasta, and all of them are equally unsettling. There is the amnesia-esque element of waking from an event and having no immediate recollection of it, the claustrophobia of the surroundings, mixed with their structural uncertainty, and of course the "Hungry" fellow x3

Any of these would be effective on their own, and I think that they all worked great here. It didn't feel overstuffed with scares or anything like that. It felt mstly organic to me, even in the latter portion where the narrator is being chased. Though we know little about the narrator, he works as a good surrogate for the reader.

If I had a complaint, it would be the way this story concluded. I like that things are left somewhat open ended, and that there is still a sinister sense of vagueness. I also liked the bit about the workers not finding anyone else, as if all the residents except for the narratr had vanished, it's an unnecessary addition, but I think it does add another implied dimension to the events.

But, I guess the main issue I have is with the content of the photograph at the end. After a somewhat psychological and visceral tale like this, the photo of the bloody, grinning, evil monster-man felt a little out of place to me. Unless it is only the narrator seeing it, which would make things a little more psychological to me. While I was reading this I was wondering how much of any of it was real, as some of what happened could have been induced by brain trauma, lack of oxygen, a gas leak, et cetera. So having the creature in the photograph made this seem a little less real to me somehow. But it doesn;t ruint he story or anything like that at all, its just a personal preference.

In any case, I'm glad I read this again, it's a good and creepy story, and also an example of how a collaborative effort can work to everyone's advantage :)