Young Writers Society

This just kinda came up. I don't know if i should add to it or not, but i'm considering entering it until a local writing contest. This is my first shot at writing in 2nd person. Enjoy!


You will walk into the room, pressing yourself against the wall. It will be ice cold, but you won’t care. You won’t have the time to care. You will turn back to the steel door you entered through, stare at it longingly. You will wish you could just disappear back through it like a ghost in the night. But you cannot. You have gotten yourself too far into this to leave now. And you are no ghost.
Instead you will go to the third door on the left. It will be locked, but you know how to open it. I taught you myself. You will hurry in, sticking to the wall like a leech. The camera will sweep the room, but you will not be seen. You will reach up and break it, leaving it hanging by only the wires. From there you have exactly six minutes to finish the task and run.
You will run into the middle of the room. A concrete block will be there, with a double-paned box of glass on top of it. You will wrap your fist in the cloth I gave you and punch through the glass. You will have only one chance to shatter it.
Then you will shed the cloth like a snake sheds its skin and pull the vial out of its holder. You will stare at it in wonder, watching the light glint off of its smooth glass. I know how it will entrance you, how you will want to just freeze that moment right there and live in it forever. But from there you will have only five minutes, and you cannot waste precious time staring at pretty things.
You will shake your head, remembering the words I tell you know, and close your fist around the vial. It will amaze you that something so small and fragile can hold the fate of so much.
And then you will run out of that room, crashing through the Emergency Exit door and flying down the fire escape, taking the steps three at a time. You will have only four minutes left. Four minutes in either to live or die.
The rust on the fire escape will stain your clothes, making it much too easy for them to find you. But you will not care. You cannot afford to care, even when the old metal cuts into your skin and you leave splatters of blood behind you.
You will have two minutes and thirty seconds left by the time you get to the bottom. You will run, dodging the bullets flying over your shoulder. Yes, they will have discovered you by then, and all you be able to do is run from them, though you know you will never be able to get far enough away. You will clutch the vial to your chest, shielding it as best you can.
You will burst into the city, shoving people out of your way. You will hear the shouts of ‘Catch him!’ and ‘Kill the boy!’ and it will send your heart pounding against your rib cage at a frightening speed. You have never felt fear such as this in your entire young life and no amount of preparing for it will be enough.
When you have one minute to go, a bullet will pass so close to you that you can feel it’s heat. You will flinch away, closing your eyes for a fraction of a second. That fraction of a second will seal your fate.
At that moment there will be a large metal box in your path, just below your eyes level. You will not see it.
You will hit the ground hard, falling on your chest. Your ankle will be broken, but you will not notice. The vial will shatter in the fall. You will stare at the broken fragments of glass uncomprehendingly. You will feel strangely numb, despite the pain in your ankle. You will know you should pull out the jagged glass pieces embedded in your hand and arm, but you will not be able to move. You will be in shock, because you know you failed me. You have failed all of us.
They will surround you quickly, and you will know you have only minutes left on this earth. They will take no pity on you, the young boy laying in the street, covered in blood. You are nothing to them; merely an inconvenience.
At the exact second your six minutes is up, one of them will point there gun at the spot on your chest where you held the vial. You will be trembling when you meet his eyes. The cruelty and coldness in them will make your blood feel cold. Staring into those eyes, you will realize that thirteen is not too young to die. One is never too young to die.
And then he will pull the trigger.

Please, someone, comment! please!

Hey Sierra, HP here!

This piece was interesting, though it was hard to get into at first, as it seemed sort of emotionless until towards the end. I liked the story you told and how you told it, I have never read something like this where there's a narrator giving instructions, while telling the whole story. By the way, I had never heard of 2nd person until today, so thanks for teaching me something new! That being said, on to the rest of the review:

You will wish you could just disappear back through it like a ghost in the night, but you cannot. But you cannot. You have gotten yourself too far into this to leave now. And you are no ghost.

As a general rule, writers don't use conjunctions to begin sentences. A good way to fix these sentences would be to replace the periods with commas, or to just take out the conjunctions. Try writing something like, "You will wish you could just disappear back through it like a ghost in the night, but you cannot. You have gotten yourself too far into this to leave now, and you are no ghost."

From there you have exactly six minutes to finish the task and run.
You will run into the middle of the room.

You say run two sentences in a row here. It's not necessarily a terrible mistake, but it would sound better if you used another word. You could say something like 'sprint', 'head' or 'proceed quickly to'.

Then you will shed the cloth like a snake sheds its skin and pull the vial out of its holder.

I really like the comparison you made here, it excited me and consequently pulled me deeper into the story.

You will shake your head, remembering the words I tell you know, and close your fist around the vial.

'Know' should be 'now'.

Yes, they will have discovered you by then, and all you (will) be able to do is run from them, though you know you will never be able to get far enough away.

The sentence doesn't make sense here, the 'will' is one way to fix it.

At that moment there will be a large metal box in your path, just below your eyes' level.

Here, 'eyes'' is a possessive noun. Another thing you could do is writing, "just below eye level'.

At the exact second your six minutes is up, one of them will point there gun at the spot on your chest where you held the vial.

'There' should be 'their'.

The cruelty and coldness in them will make your blood feel cold.

You use the word 'cold' twice as a description. Try not to overuse words, it makes the reader wondering why you couldn't think of anything else to say. I recommend Thesaurus.com.

Staring into those eyes, you will realize that thirteen is not too young to die.

This is the line that got me. A thirteen year old dying, with everyone depending on him to steal this secretive vial? Even though I don't know who 'everyone' is, this struck me pretty hard.

I dearly hope that there will be some sort of sequel to this! I want to find out what was in that vial, and what was so important that people would send a thirteen year old to his death!

Hope to hear more!
-HP

That was the first second-person POV I've ever read. Even so, I think you did a good job on it. Wow, and it's in future tense. Kudos to you!

Let's see, not much to comment on. I was too busy reading to notice anything. Haha. But if there were one thing I suggest to change it would probably be the pacing. Things are kinda scattered, when two sentences contain completely different subjects, right after the other, it's easy for the reader to skip them. Not that's it's a major issue or anything here.

The conclusion, I really enjoyed it. I want to know who this person works for and what he was trying to do. Keep writing and hopefully post more of this soon!

~Crazy

I wanna to know the threat/what's at stake. You lost me quiet early.

Amazing, thats the word that popped into my after I read this. Just by the way you told the story was great and the plot was good. I'm glad I read this,

Well, you already know all my thoughts on this but I feel the need to post a review anyways.

I see no problems with any of it and I really love the fact that it's in second person, it really spices up the story. I understand what this is all about and the plot is great
Wonderful job overall - you've earned a Like.

Keep writing,
Alzora/Nixy