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Metamorphosis · Original Minific ·
Organised by RogerDodger
Word limit 400–750
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V
‘What did you think of that movie?’ James asked.

Pete kept looking straight ahead as he answered. 'Not much of it.'

'Why?'

'I mean—' This time Pete turned to James and gave him a blasé look. 'The idea of aliens invading the Earth in disguise is so hackneyed I don't even want to talk about it.'

'Well, I thought the plot was fun.'

Pete shrugged. 'Never seen "V"?'

'What's that?'

'An old series. British. Aliens arrive on Earth. They pretend to be friendly, helpful, and they look human. But once you get under the surface, you discover they’re evil carnivorous lizards, they have come to pump out every litre of water from Earth, as well as using humans to fill up their fridges.'

'Uh. Where did you watch that?'

'My dad's pretty into it. He bought the DVDs. Stumbled on to them. Decided to have a go at it.'

'What happens in the show?' asked James.

'Never mind. The story is crap anyway.'

'What d'you mean?'

Pete stopped. 'Suppose you're a member of a hostile alien race wanting to invade the Earth. Do you think you'd do what those aliens do?'

James cast him a puzzled glance. 'And why not?'

'And risk being discovered, fought off and killed? No, no, no. If I was such an alien, I'd take humans out one by one and replace them with dead ringers of my race, so as to go unnoticed. And I'd slowly take control of the planet.'

'Oh god! Please stop!' James said. 'Now I'm gonna have nightmares about Bojo being an alien!'

Pete laughed. 'Come on, you wuss.'

The rain had abated. They walked the wet pavement under the lurid white light pouring from the overhanging streetlights. Their trainers squelched as if they plodded in mud.

Pete turned right at a crossroads. James hesitated a moment, stopped, looked round, then hurried after him.

'Hey, where are you going? We're not—'

'Shortcut', Pete cut in. 'If you want to traipse an extra half mile and get your feet real drenched, I mean, knock yourself out. But I don't.'

'Never knew taking Belvedere street was a shortcut', said James.

'You're not very curious anyway', Pete replied. 'I know you. You never wander far off the main streets.'

James giggled. 'I s'pose you're right.'

They went on for a while without speaking. James kept looking at the old, rundown façades. Shutters were closed, most of the lights inside the houses already turned off. It wasn't even 11 PM, but the whole neighbourhood seemed deeply asleep. No one was in sight, either behind or ahead. The only sound was that of their footsteps.

'Fuck!' Pete exclaimed after a while.

'What?'

'It's raining again. I mean, fuck this country and its shitty weather.'

'That's Britland for you, mate! You should know, you were born here', James said, shrugging.

'No, I wasn't', Pete replied.

James stopped. 'What?'

'I'm a foster child. Came over here when I was one. Never knew from where, or who my true parents are.'

'Bloody hell!' James exclaimed. 'Why didn't you tell me?'

'What if I did? Does it really matter?'

James shook his head. 'I s'pose not.'

They put their hoods on and resumed their walking. The rain pitter-pattered on the concrete. About a hundred yards ahead, Pete turned right into a small street. He was not even ten feet into it when he stopped again.

'Oh fuck', he sighed.

'What's up now?' James asked.

'That shoelace's undone', he said, kneeling. 'Go on, I'll catch up. It's straight ahead, you can't miss it.'

'Alright', James said.

He walked on for about a minute. The street was gloomy, as most of the streetlights had failed. A few steps further, and the street shrunk into a short alley that came to an end at the bottom of a wall.

'What the hell?' James exclaimed.

He turned around, squinting to make out Pete's shape coming towards him.

'Hey!' he cried. 'You moron! That's a dead end!'

Pete laughed. 'Yeah', he answered. 'I know.'

With a shudder, James realised his friend's voice had changed. It had assumed a slight, subdued lisp.

Far away, a church bell struck eleven.

'Eleven PM', Pete hissed. He stopped twenty feet away from James, jerked his hood back and laughed. 'Nice time for an evening snack!'
Pics
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#1 · 1
· · >>Monokeras >>Monokeras
Ehh, not bad, though it broadcasts the ending pretty early on. (I watched "V" as it originally aired, and as I understand it, it's hard to find recordings of it now.)

Yet another one that could be shorter without losing anything. This one's caught in the middle. The kinds of idle things thy talk about could work in a longer story, but when you have to keep it all so succinct to fit within the word limit, it exposes how much of it isn't very on point and could be cut, primarily because the clipped dialogue pretty much everyone has to resort to in minifics always sounds a bit unnatural.

It might help to give these two some more characterization. I know virtually nothing about either one of them, and some of that unnecessary dialogue could be exchanged for some context about who the characters are and what past they share.
#2 ·
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Welp, I'd say that’s the only one of the stories which has an arc, and goes beyond a simple descriptive vignette.

I agree pretty much with >>Pascoite in that the story is ‘boxed’ almost from the start, though I must confess that the prompt acts as an additional giveaway. Without knowing what the prompt is, the story would probably not be as ‘in-your-face’ as it is right now.

That being said, even if the final twist is somewhat predictable, I thought the execution was quite nicely done. I agree it could be squeezed into a yet smaller format, but I think it would then lose a bit of its ‘natural’ flow, though, as Pasco notes, dialogues in minifics can hardly serve any other purpose than conveying extra information you can’t disclose using descriptions, and so feel always a bit contrived. Then, what Pasco says about characterisation maybe, although I agree it’s not that vital to the plot itself.

Finally, kudos for setting this in the UK with British English, lol :)
#3 ·
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Grats to the medalists! :p

>>Pascoite Thanks for your review, Pasco! Yeah, I know it was pretty much in-your-face. Didn't have much time to think about a better plot, and, to be honest, my primary goal here was to pull off 100% genuine British dialogues. I could’ve made it shorter, but I think it would have removed some of its tang. I tried to convey a bit of background in the dialogues, but I suppose it sounded off.

Oh well. Never mind, it was fun.

And yes, ‘V’, especially the mini-series, is nowhere to be found. I'd like to put my hand on it but so far no dice. Maybe it’ll surface later, or I’ll stumble on to it in a jumble sale.

Thanks again for your time! See you next round. Meanwhile, I’ll try to write an expanded version of my very first minific and post it on FIM!!
#4 ·
· · >>Monokeras
From the stories in the Writeoff, this one the most straight-forward, I think to its detriment.

It was immediately obvious where it was going, which meant there wasn't much to hold the attention throughout. The dialog was well crafted and especially in the first half flowed effortlessly. In the second half, there were a tad too many red flags for James to not figure out something was up; him realizing partway through that something bad was about to happen might have made the encounter more personal and intensive.

The writing was technically very competent, I don't think I can give any pointers there.

Than you for writing!
#5 ·
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>>Crafty

Thanks for commenting and for your appreciation of the prose. Yeah, the plot was not as good as I wanted it to be. That happens, sometimes. To be honest, I was tempted to write a story a la GGA but I was told long ago that stories without dialogues are not very engaging, so I decided to take another path…

Anyhow, being congratulated on the dialogues and the writing in general more than makes up for the wobbly plot! Thanks a bunch! :)