What The Sound Carried

If Phantom of the Opera and The Creature from the Black Lagoon were trapped in a Whydunit

1869, Washington Territory. A woman defined by isolation and a fear of abandonment hosts the reading of her father’s Will on her island, but when someone begins murdering his guests, she discovers she’s never been alone, nor is she the only one afraid of being left behind.

What happens when a final girl is human? Final girls are often as heroic as their villains are supernatural. But what if every decision she makes risks the lives around her? Maybe she’s not the Final Girl because she’s the best, but because she lacks the skills of taking care of others, to the point where she’s become his unintentional accomplice? She’s a liability, only left alive because she knows only how to protect herself. Not out of selfishness, but lack of opportunity—because it’s all she’s known.

Trying to survive can make us less like villagers and more like plunderers. So, strip away that near-superhuman ability to survive—often bestowed upon the virginal beauty crowned with the title of “Final Girl”—and boil her down to the most human thing of all: self-preservation. As animals, we are hardwired to survive, but what is survival if we are alone? Una’s story explores that.

“She stretched out her legs, let her head fall back to the indifferent stars, and sighed. They no longer needed the Will. Her inheritance was isolation, and no one would try to take that from her.”

  • What The Sound Carried, Paris Soto

TROPES

  • Twist on Guardian Angel

  • Delusional Protector

  • Healer/patient coaching

  • Crumbling estate, sentient nature

  • Closed Circle Mystery

  • Slowburn romance, star-crossed lovers

  • Sympathetic Monster

  • LGBTQIA+ historical rep

COMPS