Worst-Case Scenario
From Carpe Chaos
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Contents |
Comic
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- Read this comic in print as part of the Carpe Chaos Ignition collection
Titles
Worst-Case Scenario (Official Title)
Playing The Part (Working Title)
A Delicious Morsel and Her Parents (Tentative Title)
Caught Unawares (Tentative Title)
Marauders in the Night (Tentative Title)
A Polite Greeting (Tentative Title)
The Monster from the Window (Tentative Title)
Monsters from the Sky (Tentative Title)
Raining Monsters (Tentative Title)
Raining Raiders (Tentative Title)
Monstrous Marauders (Tentative Title)
There Goes the Colony (Tentative Title)
Not Crying Wolf (Tentative Title)
A Real Nightmare (Tentative Title)
Summary
Setting
DATE: Embarnik Era
A Kaean colony, it is fairly well developed and new homes are moved into enough that some dust from the nearby construction of new homes has begun settling on the furniture.
Atmosphere
Dark with sharp lights slicing through windows, doorways, and from ship searchlights.
Characters
- Daughter: A wee little one, perhaps with a blanket or floppy Teddy Katuree, she is ready to go to bed.
- Mother (not pictured): Her hand might be seen switching off a light switch, otherwise she is off camera in the hall and stairwell.
- Father: A successful but tired business man who is happy that the stress of moving to a new planet is slowly receding and his new business venture is stabilizing. He is happy to be free on more and more evenings to kiss his daughter good night and relax in the recliner in the living room until he goes to bed. He loves his wife.
- Hanger: A Turikasuul with a sense of humor. He's done this enough times that he's confident in his abilities and he can have a little fun with it. He should have a good number of fetishes and perhaps be a low ranking shaman.
- Turikasuul Shock Troopers (from a distance): These are some of the most fearsome and daring infantry who are willing to jump out of moving space craft in order to put the defenders off balance while their companions disembark in a more traditional fashion. While not yet war heroes there are no green soldiers in their midst.
Background
Script
I originally envisioned this happening in and outside my house, so I've included images as reference so you have something to work off of. Use what's useful and discard the rest. Some of the framing and angles were just what I could make work with my camera, (I also don't have a crane or a helicopter, so I had to climb a tree), use whatever angles work. These just give you an idea of the layout of the scene.
A door closes behind a child Kaean in her bedroom, a light has recently been switched off and she is standing in darkness with crisp shadows. The light from the hall blasts a narrow beam of light onto the floor. Already Daughter is staring out her window into the blackness of the night.
Mother (from behind the door, speaking Kaean): Good night darling!
A look of horror has appeared on daughters face (she either has that in the first frame as her mother calls out, or it appears in subsequent frames)
Now a shot of where she's looking, outside a Turikasuul is hanging upside down smiling a wicked toothy smile. In this frame or the next daughter calls out.
Daughter: Mommy.... there's a monster outside.
Maybe Hanger's toothy smile doesn't appear until Daughter calls him a monster.
Mother calls back into the still awkward silence of staring into the eyes of a monster: It's just the tree branches darling.
In the immediately next frame Hanger says (in Turikasuul): Boo!
Daughter shrieks a girlish scream, her face looking upward and her mouth wide open. She doesn't move, but Hanger takes this opportunity to drop from his tree branch. While it is dark outside the light from the windows pours yellow into the darkness. Hanger's tree branch was above a second story window, but these are Kaean houses so each floor is only 7ish feet tall and Hanger is 7 feet tall, so the 14 foot drop isn't a big deal.
Hanger crashes into a bush with a noise, but the screams from the second floor window (perhaps now lit with the girl's room light which was switched on by Mother) clearly drown out any noise from the bush. To Hanger's left is a small porch and the front door.
A shot of Hanger's feet carrying him to the front door perhaps.
A shot of the living room (perhaps overlapped with Hanger's feet to show both are happening at the same time), Father is looking up the stairway to see what the shrieking is about, he might be about to climb it, but the shrieking stops. The chair he bounded out of is still rocking back and forth. A tablet PC is laying on it.
Father: Is everything all right?
But he is interrupted by the Ding-Dong of the front door, which is right next to the base of the stairwell. His head turns to it with a bit of a start. His hand unlocks the door in a detail shot.
He swings the door open, revealing Hanger crouching outside. He is too tall to stand properly under the porch's roof, and he must lower his neck to see in the doorway (which is only 5 or so feet tall). His wicked toothy smile remains and he is polite as he speaks.
Hanger(in Rey): Good evening, I am the monster from the window.
We might need to do a transitional shot as the POV zooms out. If so, this shot will probably take the father's line instead of the next, leaving the last shot without dialog.
From far away off the porch we can see Hanger still waiting for an invitation to enter and Father's sight expanding to realize everything standing behind Hanger. In the foreground two small Turikasuul ships are landing. In the background ships are descending over the city and Turikasuul shock troops are seen jumping both from doors and ropes onto roofs and into trees inspiring more situations like what Hanger has just created. In the far distance several ships are still dropping out of the dark evening clouds. A few stars are visible in the gaps between the clouds. The town is full of blues on black and purple, swallowed by darkness. But spots of yellow and red light burn out of peaceful windows which are about to be shattered; little of it bounces into the cold darkness beyond where it lands.
Father, (instinctively responding in Rey): "Oh... no."
Rough Draft
A door closes behind a child Kaean in her bedroom, from behind her a voice calls "Good night darling!" but she is not crawling into bed, as the light switched off and her eyes adjusted she is now peering into the darkness outside her bedroom window. Her eyes are wide with fear. We see outside a Turikasuul is hanging upside down from a tree by his feet. He smiles at her a vicious toothy smile. She calls back "Mommy.... there's a monster outside." Mother replies "It's just the tree branches darling." The Turikasuul says "Boo!" and the girl screams. The Turikasuul lets go of the tree and drops two Kaean stories into a bush with a bit of a crash, but the girl's screen clearly drowns the noise. Father is looking up the stairs from the living room with a look of concern when the doorbell ding-dongs. Father opens the door to a crouching Turikasuul who says "Good evening, I am the monster from the window." with a huge grin on his face. A wide shot over the Turikasuul's shoulder shows Father stepping back and saying "Oh no..." and from this distance we see that the sky is hanging with Turikasuul ships and a two are landing in the foreground. Some Turikasuul shock troops are dropping out of ships onto the nearby houses.
Trivia
- The design for the housing complex in Worst-Case Scenario was based on the author's place of residence at the time.