ocean horror – Digital Fantasy Diary

I had the honor of contributing a short story called “The Slithery-Dee Came Out of the Sea” to the first issue of Creaking Floorboards, an art and fiction zine that showcases tales of the supernatural.

“The Slithery-Dee Came Out of the Sea” is a small-town horror story about a woman in the coastal town of Freeport, Maine who assumes that people are slowly disappearing from her life because of the post-pandemic economic recession and rural depopulation. But nope! They’re being eaten by a sea monster.

This story is loosely based on a poem of the same name (this one here) from Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, a collection of American folklore from 1981 that’s infamous for giving emotional scars to children. What’s interesting about this weird little poem is how the narrator watches everyone else get eaten but never runs away. I was interested in exploring the state of mind of someone in this situation. Surely a part of you must know something strange is going on, but it’s difficult to see the supernatural for what it is when everything in your life seems to be going wrong.

I’m honored to have received an illustration from ChassDraws, who shares her bold and colorful art on Instagram (here) and on Bluesky (here). Of the many things I love about Chassie’s illustration, what I especially appreciate is how it preserves the uncertainty of the situation while still providing an undeniable hint regarding what’s actually going on.

You can download a free digital copy of Creaking Floorboards here:
https://creaking-floorboards.itch.io/creakingfloorboards

I’ve also archived a PDF of my story (here) with a page-by-page layout and higher contrast, which should hopefully make the text easier to read for people who are visually sensitive.

Fishy
https://i-choose-paradise.itch.io/fishy

Fishy is a horror-themed “wholesome” visual novel that takes about twenty minutes to finish. You play as a sweet middle school girl who’s spending the night at an aquarium for a friend’s birthday party. The problem is that she’s deathly afraid of the ocean, and it doesn’t help that there’s mild friendship drama afoot. She gets separated from the group and wanders into a restricted area, where she encounters fish that aquarium guests are never meant to see.

The art of Fishy is fantastic and alternates between genuinely gorgeous and genuinely creepy. Putting the spooky fish aside, the environmental illustrations perfectly capture the magical atmosphere of what it might be like to spend the night in an aquarium. The character designs are lovely as well.

The writing is competent, but the game seems to be aimed at the same audience as its preteen characters. In its determination to be wholesome and teach the player a positive life lesson, the story hesitates to create a sense of tension, dread, or even character development.

Fishy’s message is that having a prosthetic limb is cool, actually. And that’s great! Prosthetic limbs are in fact cool as hell. Still, the twenty minutes that most players will spend with the game isn’t quite enough time to tie all the various thematic threads together. There’s the player-character’s anxiety + her relationship with her friends + her fear of the ocean + the potentially haunted aquarium; and then, on top of that, there’s the positive message about disability positivity. It’s a lot!

The lack of any real darkness or specificity makes the experience of the player-character somewhat confusing, at least to my adult sensibilities. Like, what exactly is the source of the friendship drama? Why is the player-character afraid of the ocean? Is there something going on in her life that makes her prone to attacks of social anxiety? Why does she react to this situation in such an extreme way? Is she having a legitimate psychotic break?

I always appreciate stories that reach for big goals, of course, and the writing is quite compelling. If nothing else, the characters all seem like real people, and I was interested in learning more about them.

Also, I have a bit of a crush on the girl in the friend group who knows all sorts of disturbing facts about the ocean and doesn’t mind bringing them up at (in)appropriate moments. I want a whole game about Weird Fish Girl and whatever her damage is. She’s wonderful, and I love her.

All in all, Fishy is a fun story with a few spooky scenes, and it feels like a good visual novel to share with younger children. The hand-drawn art is appealing, and the story goes to some interesting places in a relatively short amount of time. In any case, it’s free to play, so no complaints there. Even if you’re not into preteen friendship drama, it’s always good to spend quality time with the terrors of the deep.