Young Writers Society

Urgency.
It flew in the air, gliding around the pitter and the patter of random, uncoordinated feet. He couldn’t see anything.
He could barely feel.
The siren continued to moan in its monotone key. He always thought that siren was annoying every time he heard an ambulance or police car zoom past his house, perhaps on a high-speed chase, or to rush to an emergency, or perhaps even an incident involving triage.
His face twitched a little with an attempted smile.
What a thought to be thinking. Here and now, when he should’ve been worried about those uncoordinated feet, going in, out, in, out, and then back into the building.
The building that’s in ruins now.
The emotion swirled back, encompassing the little amount of thought his body allowed him to muster. He took in a short, stifled breath as the sound of the present returned. The siren was moaning and groaning and the feet felt more eager now.
They were hustling. Good. But wait… his ears caught a sound of something new, foreign to the pattern of sound he had built. Voices……voices of concern, voices of sorrow, voices comforting other voices, voices he recognized.

“What happened?”
”We are now live at was once the Jefferson Community Hospital.”
“My husband! Please you must find my husband! “
“No, not a terrorist.”
“Why…. Why would they do this to these people?? “
“The blast blew the whole goddamn third floor off the roof! “
“It was the same guys at Davis High that started the bonfire last week…..“
“There’s only been one severe casualty, sir. Everyone else got away with minor cuts and bruises, most of them are in shock.”

Relief.
It had never felt more at home to him than it did at that moment.
A twitch.
The smile tried to bring itself out yet again, but not, this time, without consequence. He became more aware of the feeling in his body, slightly gasping as the pain stayed rampant in his body as the blood trickled from their various holes, trickling out slowly yet surely.
One severe casualty indeed.
He had won.
The grenades had done nothing more than to deliver his soul where it was supposed to go. The incident had done nothing more than to accelerate a process worth accelerating.
He knew it was coming.
He was happy for it.
A sigh resonated from his body, long and meaningful, as if his lungs decided to let him have this last pleasure before returning to his short breaths. His brother……. As if his brother hadn’t lost enough. But it was known, somewhere deep inside he knew, that his brother would understand. Understand that it was time to see mom and dad and find out how they were doing wherever they were. He missed them.




“Please! I must go to him“
“Sorry sir, you have to wait until we at least clear the area of any lingering hazards.“
“BUT HE’S MY BROTHER! “
“Wait your brother is -? “
“YES, YES HE IS! PLEASE you must let me GO to him!!”
“I’m sorry to tell you this….. but your brother… I don’t think he’s going to make it.”
“Wait….what?
“Your brother is the reason that everyone else will live, sir. He saved us all….. he was the one who threw them into the window 2 stories up while they were trying to throw the grenades down……”
“My brother…….? My brother did that….?”
“I’m sorry, sir……..would you…would you like to see the body?”

There was sobbing. No words could ever compensate for that moment, and as the boy lay there on the ground, he felt the closure. The commencement arrived.

“No, not yet. Right now, I need to go home. I have to tell his sister-in-law and his niece and nephew some news tonight…..16 years of memory is all I got left. It’ll be enough.”
“Yes sir…he was a brave kid…. I uh, I know this may be saying too much, and I don’t want you to take it the wrong way….but your brother is a hero sir, and your tears right now, well….. well if it were my brother, those tears would be of happiness sir. Of course I’d be upset….. but, your brother is a hero, and that will be remembered for a very long time to come.”
“Yeah…Yeah. Thank you. I’ll be by with my family in twenty minutes, do you think you can stay here and wait for me? At least until I get back…..”
“Yes sir…. Yes of course I can, the chief won’t have a problem with that.”
“Thank you.”

Another twitch.
The eclipse of evil had faded. The darkness had gone, fading away from the coming light, the light meant for him. It came to him as if it were made only for this moment, opening its arms and embracing him with the warmth of a thousand suns, giving him the comfort of a thousand clouds.
He finally found himself.

Okay, I might be new to YWS but hoepfully I can give you something to work with, I'll start with the good because that list is longer than the one I feel might need improvements.

First, I like the way you set up the feel for the story, it almost makes me feel like it could be a scene from a television series or a bigger story all together.
Second, how you describe what is going on is fantastic, don't lose that it is a very valueable skill. Not to mention the way you keep some details from us, the describtions you withheld would have only served to boost the word count, thus kudos there as well.

Lastly, and this is the only negative comment I have by the way, this string of dialoge;

"We are now live at was once the Jefferson Community Hospital."

it doesn't quite sound right to me. I think you meant to say, "We are now living at..." instead of "We are now live at...". Just a simple editting error which happens to everyone.

I hope that helps, Stanglish

Ooh. Wow. You have some skill here, to be able to tear my heart out, eat it, then shove it back into my chest. Bravo

So, down to business. I love the suspense, how it was impossible to know what exactly was going on until the very end. That said, sometimes it was hard to tell what was going on. I suggest you use dialogue tags, and a little description about what's going on. Since you got really into the little brother's head, I would like to get into the older brother's too. Physical emotion and description would be great while he's talking to the . . . police person? Nurse? It doesn't say who he's talking to.
Also, I think you should put thoughts - because of the third person - and fragmented sentences in italics. It would look so much cleaner.
Like here:

Urgency.

Hope this helped!
Keep writing
Sierra

I really liked your story.... it kept me on the edge of my seat and i would have never guessed the outcome. i liked the way you made him seem like the bad-guy at first and how you shaped his character to be the hero at the end. you displayed a lot of different emotion that kept me guessing the whole time. I have never read anything quite like this and i am really impressed with your work.
I was a little confused and almost stopped reading at the very beginning because it was unclear but as i kept reading i understood what you were doing and why you were doing it.
All in all this is very excellent writing and i hope to read more of your work