Now, just to be clear, In this section of “The Journey” I will be looking at real life examples of a true horror story or a real persons opinion of fear. Today while watching the news I saw a story talking about a Siberian Tiger. Here’s the article from the CBS news website.

(AP)  BEIJING - A rare Siberian tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver in northern China while the man’s horrified passengers watched, Chinese media reported. 

The tiger pounced on driver Jin Shijun and dragged him into the forest after he got out to check on his bus, which was stuck in the snow at Hengdao Hezi Tiger Breeding Center, the world’s largest Siberian tiger breeding base in the northern province of Heilongjiang, the official Xinhua News Agency said. 

The bus was full of tourists visiting the breeding center, and Jin broke safety guidelines by leaving the vehicle, the report said. Park employees tried to distract the tiger with firecrackers and tranquilizer darts, but when they managed to get to Jin, the driver was already dead. 

The report on Monday’s attack cited a spokesman at the base, which has about 1,000 Siberian tigers. 

Siberian tigers are one of the world’s rarest species. An estimated 300 are left in the wild, but more than 5,000 are kept on farms and wildlife parks across China. 

Now this is definitely a horror story. It is a short one, but for those involved it must have seemed like it lasted much longer. This story involves two of human kinds greatest threats to our existence. Nature and our own ignorance. Now I decided to look up Siberian tigers to see whether they were naturally this aggressive and this is what I found. 

”   Tigers live alone and aggressively scent-mark large territories to keep their rivals away. They are powerful hunters that travel many miles to find prey, such as elk and wild boar, on nocturnal hunts. Tigers use their distinctive coats as camouflage (no two have exactly the same stripes) and hunt by stealth. They lie in wait and creep close enough to attack their victims with a quick spring and a fatal pounce. A hungry tiger can eat as much as 60 pounds (27 kilograms) in one night, though they usually eat less.

Despite their fearsome reputation, most tigers avoid humans; however, a few do become dangerous maneaters. These animals are often sick and unable to hunt normally, or live in areas where their traditional prey has vanished.”

-http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/siberian-tiger/

This tells me that the tiger must of have been very lost, confused, and scared. Either that or VERY hungry. In any case, this attack wasn’t normal. Just keep in mind that nature is dangerous, because it is unpredictable. Always keep full alert when around wild animals or wild plants and bushes. Because you never know when you could become Cat Nip. Later Tiger. ;)

So just today I was playing the game and walking around the beginning area completely in the dark. It seems my character will pass out randomly. This confused me. Eventually I found myself in what looked like an office of some sort. I found a letter which was addressed to the character I was playing as from himself! It was as if they were two completely different people. I am intrigued as to why this turned out the way it did. Why the darkness? Why the creepy crawlies? I guess I’ll find out. 

Anyways,I picked up an oil lantern on the desk and continued forward. Going down a long hallway and down a set of stairs I ended up in what looks like a wine cellar of sorts. As I took my first step into the room, A shadow walked through the room in front of me to the left. I moved to the side so I could watch it. My vision began to blur and A message appeared on the screen telling me that staring at enemies would decrease my sanity as well as staying in darkness without light.

A sanity bar. I hadn’t seen one of those since i’ve played Eternal Darkness. Which I highly suggest you try out. Though keep this in mind. Be mindful of “bloody bathtubs” and “rocket launchers.”

I look forward to continuing this game. Ill make sure I keep you up to date.

Yesterday I decided to watch this movie because it was suggested to me multiple times. It really isn’t a very scary movie, but it shows you what emotion and passion can do to people, especially teenagers that are just experiencing all those new things in their life.

Some films can easily be described as “x meets y.” These usually aren’t very good films. In this case, the movie is a blend of Lolita and Fatal Attraction. Nick Elliott (Cary Elwes) is an investigative journalist new in town who needs a place to stay and work, so he ends up renting the guest room of a fairly well-off family in the suburbs. He catches the eye of Adrian (Alicia Silverstone), their gifted fourteen year-old daughter. Her “crush” on Nick develops at a breakneck pace. She pesters him constantly, in person and on the phone, tries to seduce him when they’re alone, and becomes insanely jealous of anyone else he spends time with, particularly a female photographer he’s currently working with. 

You can pretty much see where this is going. It was a good depiction about what impressionable children are capable of, especially when kept away from society by being home-schooled without and social life. So beware gentlemen. If you move in with a family that has a 14 year old daughter that gets a crush on you, leave! 

4/5

This is my “big sister” Charlotte’s view on light and dark. I read it and thought quite well of it.

“Okay, my best on light and darkness

Darkness and light have properties and personalities, like sound waves do. There’s a kind of electricity about both of them.

So what is the personality of darkness? Get out of the physics world, and into the metaphorical world. Consumption, despair, bondage, irrational needs, harsh, imitates light while refusing to imbibe the real thing, violence and shameless sex for gratification, greed, power, complete and utter disrespect for life, cold… You could write a list suited for you.

What is the personality of light? Strong, unwavering, sure, trustworthy, healing, patient, gives life, respectful. Again, you could write a list. 

Notice though that the light will not have as many traits as the darkness. There are many varieties of darkness, but only one kind of light.

So what you need are people who are the epitome of these characteristics. If darkness were to take form, what would it behave like? What would it seek after? 

Here’s the part that gets interesting though, because there are many variations of darkness, and only one light, when writing people, there is really only one kind of dark person, but like a light can be bent into many colors, it can make up many different people.

So you have the innocent:
Kathy Charity
Chelsea Chastity
Irene Innocence
Lovable Lilly
Ian Integrity
Hal Honesty
And they are all living their lives when
Derek Darkness comes along. How do they interact? Why would they interact that way? 

Darkness is very attractive to most people, because it’s emotionally heavier than light. People like darkness. They like to feel powerful, and darkness is full of artificial power. But it’s addictive, and doesn’t ever pay its victims. You can never kill enough people to feel darkness’s version of safe or powerful. You can never violate enough women to feel loved or satisfied. You can never tell enough lies, alienate enough people, or make enough money to be in control of society. There is always one more thing that has to be done. One more person to consume on the quest for the elusive pay off. And thus the dark are destroyed. Not by justice, but by the nature of darkness. Jail or death mean nothing to the dark.

Light is easily destroyed by the dark. It’s not hard. Just convince somebody that they should trade the light.

So the point of your stories if they focus on the literal properties of light and darkness will go nowhere. Focus instead on the consequences. If a person chooses to keep the light, then and only then are they protected. Why? They can be ripped from loved ones, set in financial ruins, jailed or killed, but they will always have their light, and in death, all will be returned to them. The light will always be enough.

Jealousy is not light. If a person with light begins to be jealous of the dark, then they’ve traded their light for jealousy.

So light is internal strength. Light is peace. Light is what happens when a person’s insides are based on truth.

In the physical world, which is the world in which we interact with each other, darkness really does have power over light. See how the nations war one with another, and how man damages man. But on the internal world, the world in which each individual lives, is where light is more powerful than darkness. 

The inside and the outside world only meet in the arena of behavior. The light in a person comes out in behavior. The darkness in a person comes out in behavior. But the light inside a person can be seen in the outside world. 



Last thing. Hard to explain. Which is why I tried the wavelength analogy. People seem to have what I call electricity, or energy, or an aura, or a field or something that they generate from their state of being. In our language, we have labels for that. That person has a cheery temperament. That person is dark. That person gives me the creeps. All of those descriptions talk about something more than a person’s personality, to something that they seem to give off.

This makes me think that darkness is made out of something. I can feel darkness. Can’t you? How can you feel something that is the absence of something else? Darkness is substantial. It’s not like the cold, which is the absence of warmth. That’s a feeling you can feel, but darkness… I’ve been in darkness. I’ve been attacked by darkness. I’ve had darkness inside of me. I’ve spread darkness to others. I’ve swam in darkness. Etc.

Light too. I’ve felt light. I’ve seen the light in others. I’ve healed people with light. I’ve been healed by light. 

Both, like sound waves that fight with each other, like out of tune sine waves. And like something out of tune, there are beats, and wavering between the two. The one that wins is the one that’s strongest. And their strength is not determined by their individual properties, but instead by the intensity of the thing producing it.

Your psycho thrillers will be most enthralling, if you write it with symbolic people, and a moral. Here’s the story of how darkness destroyed a man while he tried to destroy a nation, community, family, person. Here’s the story of how he was successful, unsuccessful. And why.

Then the events in your story are a natural consequence of the traits of your symbolic people. What happens when Derek Darkness meets Ian Integrity? Tada, a plot. What do each want? Who gets what they want? The end.”

Personally i’ve always tried to convince people that it’s just as important to embrace the inner darkness and learn from it as it is to hold on to your light so the darkness does not swallow you whole. Darkness has power, there is no doubt about that, but it can be easily dismissed by the light. However the same works in opposite in some cases. There must be a balance. You must learn to hold each in one of your hands and work with both of them together.

I have only barely started the game and already I am intrigued. The opening scenes don’t even start before they give you an introduction unlike any other I have played. They start off by telling you to NOT focus on beating the game, but rather to focus on the games story and its ongoing world. THIS immediately caught my attention. I then played a slight little bit. I have yet to find anything really scary yet, but just walking around, there is just this…odd air. Almost as if someone is watching you. They have done such nice work on the design of the first area that if you take time to admire what they have done you feel sucked into it and can almost become the character you are controlling. Overall, so far, I can’t wait to continue playing, but for now. Sleep.

The first movie I have decided to watch on my journey to “discover the inner darkness” so to speak is none other than K.C. Bascombe’s Fear of the Dark starring Kevin Zegers, Jesse James, and Rachel Skarsten. Kevin Zeger’s plays the part of young Ryan who is deathly afraid of the dark, but his big brother Dale, played by Jesse James thinks he’s just vying for attention. Dale’s atitude changes however when a storm knocks out the power and reveals good reason for Ryan’s terror. The movie has an interesting concept. It starts off as a general “the darkness is evil” movie, but as it goes you start to realize there is more to it. The darkness itself was not what was plaguing the house, but rather it was a spirit playing the embodiment of fear itself. The spirit plays on the fears of those with the hearts of children in the house. The young boy Ryan was afraid of the dark so the spirit plays off of it creating the “ultimate” darkness around him filled with creatures and monsters. These things came to life of course. His brother Dale was deathly afraid of insects so in the darkness many six-legged creepy crawlies threatened to cover every inch of him and eat him alive. Dale’s girlfriend played by Rachel is afraid of dogs so doberman’s threaten to charge her. No one can see the others fear. In the end the solution to this problem was they just had to believe that this wasn’t real. 

Honestly. The ending was lame. I really don’t suggest this movie unless you have a date or something to watch it with and they don’t really like scary movies. But it had an interesting concept of a spirit creating fear. So it goes back to the original idea of “The greatest fear in existence is fear itself.” Not really an original concept, but it was an original way of showing it.

Overall I give this movie a 3/5

Playing the game Alan Wake had gotten me thinking about a lot. I had never really thought about writing a horror novel. I’ve always loved thrillers and horror games/movies/books when i actually got the chance to spend time on them. The story in Alan Wake really got me thinking about doing it. So I wrote a couple of short stories and posted them on Deviant Art and they got decent marks from people that read them. I will start posting some new stories that I write to get all of your attention to read. Anyways, in Alan Wake, the protagonist is a writer who goes on vacation with his wife hoping that taking a break away from the big city would help is creative mind rest and rejuvenate. This town however, had its own secret. Alan eventually finds himself in a horror story that isn’t as fun as the ones he was known to write. This story focuses specifically on a lake that can bring a writers story to life an a darkness that feeds on it. I won’t speak more because that would be too much of a spoiler for some people. Anyways, I’ve decided to go through as many Psychological Horror/Thriller books/movies/and games as I can in order to continue with this new direction my writing has taken. I hope you all enjoy it. Fair warning, I will be talking about the different things i read/watch/ and play on here. there WILL be spoilers. Anyways, enjoy the fear.

I give Alan Wake a 5/5