And When The Sky Was Opened, reviewed by Malus

This reflects only my individual opinions and should not be taken as fact. I do not ask you to agree or disagree with me, and I definitely encourage you to form your own opinions about the blog.

And When The Sky Was Opened

Author: Alliterator
Status: Finished
Fear(s): The Quiet

Plot:

Though it’s rather short, the story is quite effective in making the reader feel despair and a sense of impending doom. As things go from bad to worse, you can’t help but wonder what you’d do in that type of situation (probably nothing – ahaha, bad joke). One thing I realized later in the story was how terrifying the situation must be – the world around you is disappearing, almost like nothing in human history had never happened, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. And within the next few seconds, you could disappear, as well… Fading into nothing.

I liked the environment the protagonist was in at the end, but I felt the ending itself was kind of cheap. If it had been an abrupt stop instead of a sentence about to say “And maybe I’ll disappear, too”, I think it would have been much more effective. In the alternate reality, I felt it was kind of creepy that the journal had disappeared, implying that the Quiet was coming, but… *shrugs* It might have been better to have it end on a “Hmm, I can’t remember what I was doing” way, a subtle nod to the fact that the Quiet might be there, rather than an “Oh Crap” moment.

Characters:

It’s odd to feel for a character when the blog is this short, but I think it works because the character is kind of an audience surrogate (which is perfect in this case). Sure, we get to know about him and how he cares for his family, coworkers, and friends, his thoughts about the end of the world, but it never goes into too much detail. This encourages the reader to fill in the gaps, and in some cases people will unintentionally put themselves in that kind of situation. These “What if?” situations are what get me, and I know a few friends who are the same way.

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All in all, I liked this blogella. It was a bit short, true, but it only took me a few minutes to read and provided some great takes on the Quiet. If someone wants to read up about the Quiet, this is probably where you should start.