"POVEGLIA": A Reading with Immersive Ambient Sounds 📖 | ASMR Soft Spoken Original Story Reading

It wasn't until the late 18th century that the city of Venice had almost released its collective breath as the unseen horror - known by names like 'mors atra' and 'magna mortalitas' – had ostensibly died out. In the past several centuries, multiple lazarettos on Venice's surrounding islands contained those that had, or were suspected to have, the mors atra. As the century edged to a close, there was only one lazaretto left - Poveglia.

Elisabetta, a poor woman with great love for her family and her home, is taken from Venice after her mother dies under suspicion of having the Pestilence and sent to Poveglia. With nothing but her faith to comfort her, her one goal is to endure the quarantine needed to be declared clean from the disease and go back home to her orphaned sisters.

Despite the island being primarily populated by mariners and old paupers, Elisabetta is apprehended by a mysterious woman named Michela who declares Elisa her friend upon their first meeting. With Michela's charisma and sunny disposition, Elisabetta's world opens up and her temporary incarceration starts to taste of the freedom she craves from her strict duties at home. Though she finds solace in her friend and the island, neither are what they seem - and both contain dark secrets that may drive Elisabetta to the brink.

"POVEGLIA" is an original dark historical fiction story that I made specifically for reading aloud for an ASMR video. It is written like a script, so there are no speaker tags (though they can be found in the subtitles). It's not exactly finished - it was on its 3rd draft at the time of making this video, and I only had one beta reader when it was done, but she's my bff and that makes her a little biased, haha. I would have liked to run through one more draft before having it beta'd by a few people, but alas, I ran out of time. Despite that, I am proud of the rough product, and I think one day it could be a great short story. I hope you enjoy nonetheless :)

Introduction ~ 00:00 – 00:20
Reading “POVEGLIA” ~ 00:20 – 1:15:30
Attributions & Outro ~ 1:15:30 - 1:16:35

I'd like to thank Lauren & Hayley for being a big part of this project :) Lauren for helping me bounce off ideas, adding some of her own, and looking over what I wrote (plus coaxing the characters to be a lot more... friendly than I initially thought they'd be LOL), and Hayley for hearing me out when I first started thinking of the story and reading the second draft (which was still bad, haha) and being my cheerleader ❤
Lauren is available for writing and consultation – she's worked with a lot of people in the ASMR community – and her Twitter is @Laurenwritesyt 💕

Glossary:
Lazaretto - 'an institution (such as a hospital) for those with contagious diseases' (from Merriam-Webster).
Mors Atra - Latin for 'Black Death' in reference to the Plagues. Often seen as 'atra mors', but Latin doesn't have specific word order needed and I found it as mors atra several times.
Magna Mortalitas - Latin for 'Great Death' in reference to the Plagues. Also seen as 'Mortalitas Magna', like mors atra, Latin has interchangeable word order.

❥ Attributions:
From Freesound under a Creative Commons 0 License (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode):
'footsteps on firm earth' by TheParappa
'Footsteps on sand and gravel' by fthgurdy
'(Simulated) Underwater boat oar sounds' by jay_mar
'Night Ambience at Wharf – Senn K6 and SD 788T.wav' by lunchmoney
'quiet morning 01' by ruckisko
'2. waves, close recording, beach, portugal.WAV' by Vman533
'Crunching' by junkfood2121
'Wind Gust' by crashoverride6
'Chopping fruit_Short.wav' by Mar.Sounds
'Rustling leaves' by giddster
'Fire crackling' by cyberthilop
'Fire' from YouTube Audio Library

❥ Bibliography (Complete):
Hibbert, Christopher. “Venice in the Eighteenth Century.” Venice: The Biography of a City, Grafton Books, London, 1997, pp. 153–183.
Konstantinidou, Katerina, et al. “Venetian Rule and Control of Plague Epidemics on the Ionian Islands during 17th and 18th Centuries.” Emerging Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Jan. 2009, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2660681/.
MacGowan, Doug. “Poveglia Island: A Frightening and Haunting History.” Historic Mysteries, 19 Sept. 2022, https://www.historicmysteries.com/poveglia-island-venice-italy/.
Olver, Lynne. “Shakespeare's Food.” The Food Timeline: History Notes--Mesopotamia through Shakespeare, 20 Jan. 2015, https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodfaq3.html#venice.
Riggs, Ransom. “The Haunted History of Venice, Italy's Poveglia Island.” Mental Floss, Mental Floss, 14 May 2014, https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/24658/strange-geographies-happy-haunted-island-poveglia.
Ugc, jakes. “Poveglia Plague Island.” Edited by DC1230 et al., Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 21 Feb. 2012, https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/poveglia-plague-island.

#asmr #asmrsoftspoken #asmrhalloween