Look Up

Look Up

I stumbled as a bullet rushed past my ear, throwing me off balance. It didn’t take me long to right myself, and I ran harder, needing to get to the shelter of the bunkers before I was ready to shoot back. If I turned around now and tried to attack, then it would mean almost certain death. Ahead of me, a bomb landed on an innocent man who was running for safety much like I was, except he wouldn’t have to go back into the middle of the conflict as I would. Well, he wouldn’t `be going anywhere now. I swing my gun out behind me and let off a couple of blind shots, hoping to delay my pursuers. I heard someone scream, but I didn’t have to look back and see if it was a civilian or one of my actual targets. I just kept running. A missile flew over my head, landing on a nearby house. Another came, landing about five metres in front of me. The shock waves and flames threw me backwards into a wall and the impact on my head caused black dots to appear in my vision. I tried blinking frantically, but they wouldn’t go away. My eyes wouldn’t focus either, but in the distance I could make out the outlines of two figures holding their guns. I pulled myself up and lifted my gun, fumbling around for the trigger. The plant pot next to me blew up, sending debris and dust all around me. Feeling faint, I started to sway a little, my eyes fluttered and I felt my body, almost as if in slow motion, fall towards the ground. But before I could touch the ground, someone came up, slid an arm under my shoulders and supported me.
“C’mon, let’s get you out of here.”
I stumbled a couple of times, but my vision was a bit better and my balance was returning. As I looked around, though, I couldn’t see the two men I’d seen earlier. My saviour took me into a nearby abandoned house that looked as if the owners had left in a hurry. The man shone a torch in each of my eyes, and then sat me down on a bed. He sat next to me.
“Thanks,” I said, slowly my eyes came right back into focus. “But we need to get back out there.”
“No. Wait till you’re fully recovered. Then we go.”
Silence fell, if you could call it silence. Outside I could hear the sound of more bombs and gunshots. People were screaming for their lives, our troops were shouting out orders. We hadn’t expected an attack. They’d come during the night and raided our bases. Too many to count were dead. Reinforcements had been called in, but I didn’t think we had a chance. Their plan was too well mapped out, and we hadn’t been able to gather our men together properly since last night. Small groups of us had planned out strategies, but we couldn’t coordinate our forces like they had. It was likely most of us would die today or tomorrow, but we would keep on fighting. We would never give up.
On the other side of the wall of the house, I could hear a vehicle moving slowly and didn’t even need to look to know what it was. A tank. My heart sank, if we’d had any chance of surviving before, we didn’t now. We couldn’t get tanks to this part of the area, so it would be one of the enemy’s. I heard some soldiers on foot come after it, and I reached for my gun, but they ran straight past, probably going to shoot from the tank.
I looked down and noticed the guy’s hands next to me were shaking. I just looked back down, pretending I hadn’t seen. It was a tough life and this guy looked young. He hadn’t been in the forces as long as I had.
“I’ve never killed a person before,” he said. Maybe he had seen me looking after all. “Let alone two. They were only doing what they were told to do. They probably hadn’t got the choice. I could have saved you without killing them, I could have just shot near then so they would get distracted for a few seconds. I could have. . . .” He trailed off, and bowed his head.
I patted his shoulder and stood up. “You did what you had to. Let’s go.”
He stood up next to me and nodded. Outside were more shouts, but they were shouts in our language and we ran out. There we found a large group of other soldiers, all heading for the main battle ground. I exchanged glances with the guy who had saved me ,then we went our separate ways. Moving stealthily, the group rounded a corner and were met by fighting everywhere and bodies, hoards of bodies on the ground. There was a small truck off to the side of the central fight. I darted behind it, as did a couple others, and stayed crouched there. I’m not sure how much time passed, but I kept firing, kept going. Until next to me, a man went down. Then the next fell beside him. I stopped shooting and looked over them. Both had a clean shot to the head, and both were dead. Their eyes were staring up, glazed over, unfocused. I followed their line of sight up, to the top of the house behind us. Just as he shot me.

First off, I liked the title. It grabbed me from the homepage, and a good title is probably one of the most important things to a story; otherwise you don't get readers. Am I right?
1. In the begining, you use a lot of 'I' sentences. "I stumbled-I swing-I heard," and such. Perhaps some rephrasing, like "Much like myself."
2. This is just a fluke, but the tenses (past, present) get jumbled up in a sentence, the

I swing my gun out behind me...I heard someone scream.

You probably of course didn't mean to do this, but I'd just thought i'd point that out for editing.
3. Sentence structure borders on run-ons. For this type of story, I personally prefer short sentences that are borderline fragments. Run-ons kind of remind of children's classics, like Skellig or The Giving Tree, ya know?
4. Details! The begining half lacks a little bit of detail. It's got good spacing, like a script, but I want to picture the battlefeild, relish the gory details, and live the life. I have the same problem- and it helps me when I write in slow-motion.( You see the scenes inside your head, and write them out as if they were in slow-mo.)
5. Dialogue is good- realalistic and very tone-appropriate.
6. Adjectives re-occur in places, using the same describing words. Simple fix- I suggest a thesaurus
7. Character personalities get a little funny. At first your main character is saved from collapsing on the battlefeild, and then he's giving out words of wisdom. Perhaps if you just changed around who said what, such as the protagonist say he didn't want to kill those people.
8. Ending was pretty good. Perhaps you didn't need to add "Then he shot me." when the story ends as he looks up, the readers will know what happened. They're pretty good at drawing their own conclusions, when the rest of the soldiers had been so maticulously picked off.

All and all, an intresting idea, that probably could have been edited before posted and turned out just fine. It just needs a little brush up is all. Kind of reminds me of "Sniper" by a one O'Flaherty or something. I can't remember his last name, but I'm sure you can look it up on google. It's a good story, just needs a little work is all, like an investment.

Hello, Lovetowrite.

Well, he wouldn’t `be going anywhere now.

The apostrophe that I put in bold should be taken out.

I heard someone scream, but I didn’t have to look back and see if it was a civilian or one of my actual targets. I just kept running.

Why would there be civilians on the battle field? Perhaps he says he didn't have to look back because he knew it wouldn't be a civilian. Yes, that's probably the case.

A missile flew over my head, landing on a nearby house.

Okay this quote disproves my earlier thoughts. So they are fighting in the middle of a village. Why? Did the enemy attack them while they were patrolling the streets or something? I suppose where and when they were attacked is not really important though, but I do know that they are fighting in the middle of civilization now.

“No. Wait 'till you’re fully recovered. Then we go.”

An apostrophe should be placed in front of "till" since it is a substitute for the actual word "until".

We hadn’t expected an attack. They’d come during the night and raided our bases.

Oh, that explains so much.

I exchanged glances with the guy who had saved me ,then we went our separate ways.

The comma should be moved back a space.

This was amazing, it had me hooked to the end. It also kept me asking questions, I really liked that. You had great pace in this story, I didn't think things were progressing too quickly or too slowly. I can't say I understand the stress of being in the middle of battle, because I don't, but if I had to imagine it would be something like this. You potrayed your character well and, even in the short time of this story, I found myself sad when he died at the end.

"Look Up", I didn't get the title at first but at the ending I understood. Excellent title choice. Well, with that said, I really enjoyed this story. Keep writing and I hope I helped at least a bit.

Cosmic.