Young Writers Society

And here it is, my creepy chase scene re-edited and made even better (hopefully). Care to take a look?
P.S Thanks to everyone who reviewed this, you guys helped immensely
Enjoy!

***

Run. Faster. Faster. Breathe. Faster.
Away. Run away. Faster. Run. Faster.


You’re almost running out of breath, but your legs instinctively carry you forward. Everything becomes blurry, unrecognisable, it’s like this place is one you’ve never seen before. But, in fact, you’ve been here too many times to remember. You know these faint lights and shapeless shadows, these narrow streets and twisted trees. You also know where this road will take you. But your mind has shut down all compartments except only one, that keeps telling you:

Run. Faster.

You turn back, losing sight of the road just for a moment, but that’s enough for you to come tumbling down. But you get up, even faster. You can now feel the blood rushing to your brain, you can hear it in your ears, you feel sweat streaming down your temple. Your shirt is ripped apart, so it moves along with the wind you create by running away. Finally,

Stop.

Get your sense back. Take a deep breath, even if it hurts. Your whole body is sore, your arms are tingling, your legs are shaking. Your eyes get more focused, to try and see anything in the night. Shelter? Help? Don’t lie to yourself, you’re on your own this time. Feels strange, right? To feel your emotions control you, and your brain refusing to obey logic and common sense. But, you know where this road is leading you. You should have run in the other direction, you could have hidden behind the buildings, maybe even take shelter behind the old trees, the ones with their leaves whispering in the wind... But all they whisper is:

Run, run, run, away, away, away, faster, faster, faster...

And you do, what choice do you have? The voice keeps telling you to do so. But maybe you take a second to think of what you’ve done? Did you even expect this all to come to this, or you sensessly thought you were going to get away? All you can do is run. So run. You are running forward, wherever you think is safe. But, of course, you don’t know that you’ve taken the wrong turn, it’s all so confusing in the dark... All you’re running to is open space. Then you’ll realise that there’s no way back, or forward, or anywhere.
Oh, sweet vengeance.
Now you start to cry, start to realise what you’ve got yourself into, and the horrifying thought of being trapped and helpless never leaves your mind. But the tears make everything blurry again, and you trip once more. Don’t cry, that will mean that this will be over sooner.

I want to enjoy this moment, I want to capture it in my mind and keep it forever.
You start to feel exhausted. That type of exhausted when all you want to do is collapse and feel the cold earth support your weak body. But the fear is stronger. You keep going.

...Run...Faster...Run....Fas....

Your chest is stinging in pain, your arms wriggle around helplessly, your legs can no longer support the weight of you, and your sins, and you fall.
You fall.
Down to the ground.
Oh, sweet vengeance.
And all is still. You gasp for air, as if you have just come up from underwater, and I enjoy the silence.

Here comes my favourite part.

You hear my footsteps in the dark, and even if you can just barely see my shadowy figure approach, your whole exsistence plunges into the feeling of helplessness. You have felt power for so long it overpowered your mind, and sense of submissiveness. I shall give you exactly two minutes to enjoy that feeling.

I want your last moments to be memorable.

Breathe in, and out. Lift up your eyes, and see.

You know, that boy had a family. A mother and a father, whose lives will never be the same again. Who now have a hole in their hearts that nothing can replace.
That boy could have grown up and become a successful businessman. Or a musician or an actor. Or, he could have just become a peaceful, caring man. He could have married a lovely woman and have wonderful children. But you, you took all that away from him. As soon as you took his life away, you took away everything that he was, and everything he could have been.

How much is your life worth?

You have money, you have ‘connections’, you have ‘businesses’ and you have ‘women’. And all of it is gone now. Now it’s not important.
Which means that your whole exsistence on this earth is useless. You have nothing to give.

You look into my eyes, but all I see is a man who is worth nothing.
You whisper something I can’t hear.
Mercy? Sorry?

You should have been sorry when you drove a kitchen knife through an innocent, beating heart of a young child. You should have been sorry when you thought you were going to get away.

And now, in the last minutes of your worthless life, maybe you will realise something. Maybe you will accept your fate, like a strong and responsible for actions human being would do. That part is up to you to decide. I have thought out my part very carefully, so there will be no fault, I assure you.

I guess this game is coming to an end.

Breathe again. It seems like it’s just you and me left in the world, isn’t it wonderful?
Savor your breath, the hot blood warming every part of your body, your arms trembling, your voice breaking to say something, see the night fall upon us.

After all, you did know that someday it will be your last....

It makes you feel dumbstruck.. I just felt like I am the protagonist of the story. The run was like hell! It felt so great, the whole story tightly wrapped around itself around me. After finishing the reading I have the hunger of reading it more. It's so awesome.! You just describe the emotions like you, yourself felt it... It's too good, the fear brought chills down my spine..

Its like you play with words, specially at the end were you talk about shadows. The feelings are also SO natural...

I thought that this story was great. It just brought you in and hooked you, and the feeling of fear and desperation and the imagery in this story was just fantastic. I loved how you wrote the end, it made me feel like I was in the story, and I liked the emotions showed in this story. It was really realistic, and seemed to flow, even as the character was frantic, the story still flowed.

It was interesting to write something from a point-of-view, and I guess it seems to work! So, thank you;)

Wow...I actually felt like I was running and about to have a heart attack. Very nice, and detailed. I liked how you said :

your legs can no longer support the weight of you, and your sins, and you fall.

Makes it even more sinister.

LOVE IT!!

Hai! Apologies for the delay, my dear, but here I am to review

Specifics

1. The beginning looks messy. I think it could be tidied up and still have some form of cool formatting. Maybe you could put the words into a sort or train-track of two parallel lines like:

Run. Faster. Breathe. Away. Faster.
Faster. Faster. Run away. Run. Faster.

It would be sort of up to your reader how they read them and wouldn't actually matter too much either way. But yeah, I think that would be more aesthetically pleasing while still being cool.

2. Some beautiful tension building going on here and there's a nice use of repetition with 'sweet vengeance'; that works really well.

3. Sometimes you're overly wordy. One example is where you have, 'And it becomes quiet again.' This would be far more dramatic as, 'And it is quiet' or 'And all is still'. The line is just much more cutting when you remove the extra weight of 'becomes' from the sequence.

Plot

To be honest, I wanted something more than what you gave us. I expected that there was going to be a build up to something at the end, like more information on who these characters are and what the 'you' has done wrong that the narrator is punishing them for. Or just... a little something more? By itself, this is a beautiful tension building piece, but I won't remember it tomorrow or the next day because there's nothing extra to take away. I'd also like to see more powerful lines like th one zinger quoted, as that one gave an excellent insight into the narrator's craziness. So more of those and more plot please?

Overall

A fun read but it could use a little more character and perhaps more description of blood pumping in the body and trees tearing at hair or mud sliding ino the body's crevices when the runner falls down. Just those few extra details will really help to strengthen the writing.

I hope this is somewhat helpful,

Heather xxx

Hi! Sorry about the delay on this, but I'm finally here to take a look at the revised edition

I'm loving most of the changes! Just a few suggestions...

1. Be Simple

Your writing gets a little hard to follow in places/ loses the flow, such as:

And you do, what choice do you have? The voice keeps telling you to do so. But maybe you take a second to think of what you’ve done? Did you even expect this all to come to this, or you sensessly thought you were going to get away?

Here! That part 'Did you even epect this all to come to this...' is too chunky and really tripped me up. I'd suggest, 'Did you really expect this, or did you think you'd get away? What a senseless fool you are.' That last part isn't needed but does elaborate somwhat so it might be nice to throw it in, but basically, think simple. Sometimes simple is the most beautiful.

2. Be visual

Annnd now I'm going to contradict myself and tell you that sometimes simple doesn't work. We'll take... this part:

Your chest is stinging in pain, your arms wriggle around helplessly, your legs can no longer support the weight of you, and your sins, and you fall.

Pain is a very vague word. On its own it doesn't really bring any feelings to the reader or any worries. It's just a word. Only when you describe it can the reader start to understand what your narrator is going through. So specify. Maybe the chest is burning or being pressed upon like dough under the rolling pin. Think of an interesting simile or a way to really convey the hurt here. What's it feel like? Is it like a fist closing around each lung and pressing until the air rips out? Or is it more like invisible needles in the air, punturing every breath. Be visual.

3. Be dramatic

And more contradictions because we love those! Okay so there's this sentence here:

I shall give you exactly two minutes to enjoy that feeling.

The two minutes brings the reader out of perspective. Two minutes doesn't fit with your narrative style, it's too specific. If you were portraying a calculating, clinical villain then it would work, because he would weigh everything and count everything. But with your current tone, instead your reader is suddenly like, 'Why two minutes?' Instead, be dramatic. Use 'time' to envelope that. These two minutes are so short a time and yet forever because they're his last two minutes, they're the most final and important two minutes of life. So something like, 'I will give you time, time enough to enjoy the feeling. Time enough to cherish it and know what you have lost. A shorter time then it takes to tie a shoe lace, a briefer time then it takes to shake a hand. But time enough to die.' Obviously that's just tumbled out from my head but sit down and think of something dramatic to say, this is your chance to draw your readers in!

I think that's everything for now!

Heather xxx