![screenshot] [red dead redemption 2] The land full of stories. The Heartlands. : r/PS4](https://baanimationlayton.myblog.arts.ac.uk/wp-content/plugins/lazy-load/images/1x1.trans.gif)
Something outside the cabin, if the mess of damp wood could be considered one, made a large squelching noise as it hit the marsh ground. Followed by an incongruous crunch-squelch, that suggested something sickening.
It was such an unmistakable noise, especially in the silence of the wetlands, and the two men sitting at the dinner table looked up from their meagre meal instantly. The one with large ears stopped scraping marrow out of a chicken bone to wring surprisingly silken hands (considering his age) and crane his neck to look over the soft brown down that was his companions head, as if though height would allow him to see through the closed door.
“I think Clement’s killed the bank people.”
“ Of course he did.” the other replied, returning to the potatoes he had been gnawing into strange little shapes. “They want to repossess the house. He did warn them.”
Analysis:
I wanted the snippet to start almost ‘in media res’ as I enjoy stories that seem to start in the middle of a larger arc, with a beginning that you can onlu infer from snippets in the characters conversations. I get this inspiration form naratives such as RDR2, where the player is dropped in the middle of the aftermath of a heist gone terribly, terribly wrong and it is only over the course of the game that the player manages to piece together what happened before they even started playing. I also wanted the narrative to be the start of a large journey- the consequence at the end ( Clement killing the bank people coming to repossess his squalid house) leads onto a large journey along with the two men in the house, as they avoid the inevitable chase that follows the murder. I wanted the narrative to be seen as an element in a larger story, there is history in the past of these characters but the reader has dropped in in a random moment in their lives, and not necessarily the logical beginning. I was also inspired by narratuves such as the Portal franchise, where the player feels like a smaller part of a larger story. The focus is on the two men in the house, who are a small part of the story that is Clement decdiding to rid the bankers of the burden of living. The image inspired me as it made me think of the vastness of their journey ahead.