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Hello. My name is At_Your_Throat. And welcome to my inspiration thread.

For a while I've pondered doing this. Seeing everyone else's grow, it filled me with hope. Hope to dream. Hope to feel. Hope to succeed. And finally, here is my second attempt. 

Welcome, my friends, to "The Cough"-Inspiration Thread.

Here is a short summary of "The Cough":

"In an apocalyptic world, you and your friends are hiding from a deadly virus in what is considered the safest place in the world. But one day, you hear a cough. It is very dark, and you can't tell who did the deed. But the only way to find out is to ask...and kill the person responsible before the virus spreads.

Inspired by the creepypasta of the same name."

So, what do you CYStians think? This short summary does not supply much information--in fact, it is only temporary--but tell me what you think. Should I continue to write this? Should I consider stopping? Tell me in the replies below.

Progress so far:
1/???

Is it the standard thing in this setting to kill anyone who gets a little dust in their throat?

And if the virus is airborne, wouldn't that mean everyone there already had it? Or even if not, killing someone without giving them a chance to put up a struggle or get any saliva or blood around might be easier said than done.

Not knowing any details about the virus or how it's spread, these are just the first things that come to mind that might turn into logic holes...but other than that I like the idea, at least the way I'm picturing it as a sort of mystery thing with an atmosphere of extreme paranoia.

All these questions will be answered in the storygame itself. For now, it is just a secret...and you will find out the day of its release. Stay frosty.

The premise is kind of interesting: Horribly infectious disease has a walking corpse in Sanctuary.

But, people cough for a lot of reasons, not just because they're sick. What's so special about this cough that the people know it's a sign that someone infected is in the town? And wouldn't the town have a procedure for just this incident, if it is indeed the safest place in the world?

A description is written in the storygame itself. For now, it is secret.

Progress so far: 3/???


First page:

It was late August. Warm but not always sunny, the outside world was filled with infected people. You could sometimes hear them pounding against the strong metal door, snarling like animals and throwing stones like cavemen. But you could never leave this place, in fear of infection and death. You definitely did not want to die or become one of THEM. So you cut yourself off from the rest of humanity. You decided to bring your friends because, well, they're your friends. But one day, five becomes too much, when you battled each other for space in the small, claustrophobic vault. But you survived for years on nothing but bread, scraps of fish, and the occasional slip of rainwater under the door. At this, you were filled with hope. Perhaps the infected would die out like unfortunate dinosaurs, and you and the others would repopulate the world. But your friends were pessimists and insisted otherwise.



After years of this, you've decided enough is enough. You would eventually have to leave, right? But one day, you heard a dream-shattering cough. A hack like someone was dying. A spit like someone was disgusted. And then a sniffle like someone was sick. The vault had always been midnight-black, and you could not identify your friends by sight alone. But their voices struck a chord in your heart and encouraged you to sing back.



But that day was the 24 hours that changed your life--and ended many.

I like the writing, and the story idea does intrigue me. But I'm still questioning some of the logic. Perhaps you have answers further on in the story, but in some way, these probably need to be addressed.

Questions that jump out at me from this:
1) If water can get through the vault, why wouldn't this disease find a way in sooner than it had?
2) If the occasional slip of rainwater is the only water they have, how are they not dead of dehydration?
3) Where do these scraps of food come from? Is there a stockpile in the vault?
4) How do they do any necessary survival/life activities if it's too dark to see someone directly in front of you?
5) Where do they go to the bathroom? How do they dispose of the refuse?

@Bucky my guess is that she doesn't know the answer to any of those, because it's based on a creepy pasta that didn't explain any of that either.

Well, 'based on' doesn't have to mean slavishly following the scenario to the letter, just that the spark of the idea came from it. If the whole game is just a copy of it that would be disappointing though.

 

edit: Trying to find the actual source and searching 'the cough creepypasta' just pulls up a bunch of MLP stuff. Ugh. Interneeeet! *shakes fist*

Oh good, I'm glad I didn't have to be the first one to do this. :P

Like Bucky said, the writing is very good, and I still like the whole concept of the story, but the fact that these people are still alive at all after five years in those conditions would require such a suspension of disbelief it would really bug me.

The major one of course is water. Everyone is going to need a lot of water, every day. I'm not sure where 'bread and scraps of fish' would come from. Even the most processed, preservative packed bread is going to last a month, at most. Fish I guess could come in a can...really canned food across the board is the only option that would make any sense without any power or other means of preservation. And the other big issue would of course be hygiene and waste disposal.

Drinking nothing but the occasional bit of contaminated water that trickles in under a crack in the door, and having no sanitation whatsoever means these people are [i]all[/i] going to be sick and dying in far less than five years, and not neessarily even from whatever zombie plague is going on outside. (Though with them tramping around on the ground your water flows in from, I guess I wouldn't rule it out...) 

And that's not even going into the mental toll five years of that would take, even if survival in those conditions was somehow a possibility. Hard to believe at least one person wouldn't have completely cracked, committed suicide, etc.

Is there any particular reason life for them has to be so dire? Seems like they'd be so miserable on a day to day basis the threat of the disease getting in wouldn't have as much impact with so little left to lose. Most bomb shelters have bottled water, canned food, batteries for lights and a radio, a toilet, a generator, maybe even some books or cards or board games. (Most people have some of these things in their houses as well that it would make sense to have brought along...) Not exactly a happy existence for five people crammed in for five years, but it's something.

If the entire point of the darkness is so you don't know who coughed, it would still be dark at night when it happened, or maybe the lights all running out is a more recent thing, or even a deliberate thing.

Weirdly enough, the more I think about it, the more interested I am in the psychology of these five people slowly cracking in a confined space as the last batteries in the last flashlight slowly die, and then turning on the guy who gets bronchitis and murdering him. :D Whether he even had the disease or not would actually be irrelevant at that point.  

Wow, this actually sounds super interesting!! I would definitely read it were I to come across it on this website.  After you kill the person who coughed, is the game over? Or does the game go on? Or would the whole game be you trying to figure out who coughed?  Either way, I think it's a good idea.  I enjoy scary story games so yours sounds very intriguing!

XD Any time anyone asks any kind of question, you tell them it's a secret. 

It's okay to say you hadn't thought of that / planned that out yet.

Or that the answer is essential to the mystery. (But only if it is)

Or - that they should stop focusing on whether this makes any logical sense whatsoever.  Horror often chooses atmosphere/mood over rational plot/setting.

These are all great questions! Most of them have not been answered yet, but will be put in the game later. Thanks for all the questions. They will come in handy. I'm probably going on a temporary hiatus. I'm going to Austin and I'm not sure that the hotel I'm going to has wifi. I'll post later if there's wifi....in four hours. 

People keep asking others if their idea is worth continuing. But that shouldn't be up to us. With such a vague description we shouldn't be the deciding factors of this story's continuation. You know the most about it, so it should be your choice. Also I find that if the writing is good enough, it can turn any same-old plot into a great story. 

Wifi achieved!

Just write for yourself, and stop trying to get our approval. 

Perhaps she just likes an audience.