My quest to write one short story per week continues. Story 6 is technically taking 2 weeks, so I blame Christmas. It’s a horror story set in Antarctica at a research station, and I’m trying very hard not to write The Thing, especially since I’ve never seen that movie.
Anyway, this story is tricky. I’m about three long paragraphs in, and all I’ve really done is establish the setting and one of the three characters. No idea yet what the central conflict will be or what the climax or ending should look like. Will the main character go insane and kill/eat the other two? Will there be a shapeshifting alien or other monster after all? Maybe a shoggoth?

I kind of wish this was a story set in China. Then I’d just use a Mongolian Death Worm.
Which are real, by the way.
Turns out, it’s just a regular desert snake. Still, though. Mongolian Death Worm. I can’t make this stuff up.