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Yeah, trying to fit foreshadowing in about the vampire just biding it's time without fully giving the game away was a nightmare in this one.

I did make sure to include the lines of it first having one arm kept close to its chest, then referring to it again as attempting to "cover it's heart with it's one free hand" as a few clues that it wasn't as helpless as it seemed, (along with its "predatory eyes" that had been staring at the dwarves the whole time) but had real trouble drawing attention to it in a way that wouldn't make the reveal too obvious. 

Maybe if I did this one again I'd throw more trapdoor spider motifs into the vamp, or specify the hissing as being like the warning of a cornered beast, but that's always the way with the jams. 

You don't always write the best possible version of the story, but sometimes you do write something close enough.

Very valid point on how unbothered he seemed,  I ended up cutting a line about Gabhammar having to pull himself together before clearing out the captain's chair and I think the story really suffered for it. In general this story's definitely suffered from the amount of lines I had to cut (and planned setups I had to leave unresolved) to get the formatting right. Honestly I feel like I rushed this one too much. 
Cheers for the useful feedback!

Thanks! It was a lot of fun tuning in the character voice for the POVamp, and I'm glad to see it resonated well.

Genuinely an excellent little spot of sci-fi horror!

Something like this could easily serve as the intro or reveal for a great piece of longer-form grim work too.

It's a shame the formatting on this one made it a tad odd to read, it's a really nice look at a different perspective on the whole "infection turning people into dangerous creatures" thing.

The unlikely alliance being a touch on the abstract side was a fun , different take on the challenge, too!

Genuinely a lovely little story that provided a great snippet of insight into the culture of the Ratmen. Always love seeing people share their interpretations of fantasy and sci-fi cultures, and the clashes between them. It was done very well here!

Aye, I didn't get as many rewrites in as I would have liked for this one, so I was worried I'd spread the "unlikely allies" a bit thin. Grek & the Foreman were originally meant to be one of three groups that had technically become unlikely allies, but one group only gets revealed in the last few paragraphs, and I'm not sure if the third even comes across in the final product.

Glad you enjoyed it though!

No objection whatsoever! Feel free to send a link to the video if it ends up in a rewatchable form, I'd love to see someone reading it!

As some have said, it's a bit light on the Rock and Hard Place theming, but I utterly loved this! Taking the medical horror of "the reveal" and spinning it in the protagonist's eyes to become an issue of cultural identity was a great way to double down on the tragedy. It was a great choice to have the first signs of things being wrong being so similar to the effects alcohol withdrawal in human alcoholics, it got me pulled into the same assumption as the protagonist, which is an impressive thing to pull off in such a short work!